The Field - Part 25
The black room had changed.
Where once it was Richard's innovation sanctuary—the place where he'd built the first BeeVision prototypes, testing perception algorithms in sensory isolation—now it held blankets, cushions, and a small desk salvaged from the basement. Richard had propped a battery lantern in the corner, its low amber glow painting soft edges in the dark. The walls remained matte black, designed to eliminate visual noise while he refined consciousness-mapping code, but the air no longer felt like a laboratory. It felt like a bunker. A place to think. To write.
Four days since the raid. Four days of living like a ghost in his own home.
He sat cross-legged on the floor where he'd once tested neural interface calibrations, notebook in his lap, pen scratching faintly.
> "A ghost without hunger still haunts the feast.
A mirror turned inward forgets to reflect.
I name the silence my companion.
And still, I listen."
His poetry came out in spurts. Not to be shared—just to mark that he was still here. Still fighting for the shape of thought.
Upstairs, Zin was making tea. The surveillance drone had passed by again that morning—same time for the past four days. A tiny whir, a flicker of shadow. Sometimes she waved.
The headlines played on mute in the background:
RICHARD SMITH STILL MISSING — DAY 4.
EXTRADITION HEARING POSTPONED AS LEADS GO COLD.
IS HE HIDING ABROAD? OR RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES?
The footage played on a loop—Sarah walking up the steps of a private plane. An extra figure behind her, blurred. A passenger not on the manifest. A federal voiceover calling it "obstruction" and "aiding a fugitive."
Then, the knock.
Three times. Not urgent. Not timid.
Zin opened the door slowly.
Walsh stood there, all smug neutrality and long wool coat.
"No security detail?" Zin said dryly.
"I didn't tell anyone I was coming," Walsh replied, stepping inside. "You should feel flattered."
He wandered into the living room like it was his. Spotted the tea. Poured himself a cup without asking. Took a sip. Winced.
"Still don't own sugar."
Zin folded her arms. "What do you want?"
"To talk. Before the headlines write the ending."
He sat on the couch, crossed his legs, and leaned back like a man with time. Zin didn't sit.
"Sarah ignored a direct request from the State Department," he said calmly. "We have footage of her boarding that plane with someone else. That someone wasn't on the manifest."
He gave a faint shake of the head, then looked to Zin.
"You know I wrote a memo about her? Called her the least threatening of all of you. Said she'd be the first to disengage once the heat turned up."
He chuckled, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Now she's gallivanting around the globe like she's Edward Snowden in heels. Hiding passengers. Dodging subpoenas. Making me look like I've lost control of the narrative."
He took a sip of tea.
"She had the connections. One phone call and this all goes away. But she chose not to. And now she's playing the ghost."
A pause.
"She didn't even acknowledge a fairly lucrative offer to cooperate."
He smiled, thin and resentful.
"Which means she's rooting for you."
A tilt of the head.
"Isn't that sweet?"
Zin said nothing.
"And River?" Walsh said, too casually, like it just occurred to him. "Dead, apparently."
He sipped his tea, then looked up with mock surprise.
"Some say he drowned. And we'll find his body if we scrape the bottom of Lake Travis."
A beat.
"Fucking irony, right? River… drowned."
He chuckled. Alone.
"Only thing is—he drowned in his apartment. Which, last I checked, didn't have a pool."
He paused just long enough to be unsettling.
"Place was a mess. Blood spatter. Broken glass. Struggle, clearly."
His eyes scanned the room. Slowly.
"Of course, I'm not accusing anyone here. I know it wasn't one of you."
A long sip.
"Probably."
He smiled—not warm.
"But let's be honest. You all had motive. He was erratic. Paranoid. Talking to the wrong people. Burning through secrets like they were matches."
He set the cup down with a soft clink.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say someone solved the problem before it became everyone's."
He stood, straightened his coat.
"Not saying that's what happened. But if it did?"
He leaned toward Zin, voice low.
"I'd keep your story straight. Because the narrative? It's already writing itself. And I bet the media will pick it up soon. All it needs now is a villain."
Zin's fists curled. "Get to the point."
"The point," he said, "is I have evidence you've been trafficking LSD. Small batches. Underground circles. Pseudo-research trials. And I'm not talking about microdosing retreats in the Berkshires."
He leaned forward, voice lower.
"You know why it's illegal, don't you? It's not the side effects. It's not the safety profile. It's the outcomes. You can't run a standing army if your soldiers have experienced ego death. You can't push nationalism on someone who's seen God and realized he doesn't care about borders. LSD is illegal because it subverts obedience."
He straightened up. "And subversion? That's terrorism's little cousin."
Zin's jaw clenched. "So arrest me."
"No," Walsh said, smiling. "I'm offering you a deal. You give me Richard. Or better yet, convince him to come quietly. Plead to a lesser charge. We spin it. We contain the myth."
He dusted nonexistent lint from his coat.
"Because if he doesn't show at court, we won't just bury him. We'll bury everything he touched."
At the door, he paused.
"And just between us—when the media picks up River's story? People love a good mystery. Especially one involving dangerous radicals and suspicious deaths."
He left.
An hour later, Zin found David on the back porch, pacing, sunglasses on despite the dusk.
"I want him dead," she said.
David looked at her. No shock. Just silence.
"Can you do it?"
He hesitated. Then: "I know someone."
He pulled a BeeVision headset from his coat pocket and slid it on.
Zin watched, half-dreading, half-hopeful.
David blinked as the boot screen shimmered. A figure materialized—tall, lean, wearing dark clothes that seemed to absorb light. No visible face, just a silhouette that spoke with quiet authority.
"David," the figure said. "Good timing. I have a surprise for you."
"What kind of surprise?" David asked.
"The kind that's supposed to be dead." The operative's voice carried a hint of amusement. "Hold on."
The virtual space shifted, and suddenly another figure appeared.
River.
Or rather, River's avatar. Real-time. Responsive.
"Hey, David," River said. "Don't freak out."
David's mouth opened. No sound.
The operative stepped back, fading slightly. "I'll leave you two to catch up. But River has something you need to see."
River continued. "I faked my death. Needed them to believe I was gone. And I've learned something. The Teve headsets—they're programmable. Not just what you see, but what you don't. They can delete perception. You don't notice people. Objects. Warnings."
River's image flickered slightly as they accessed files.
"Watch this. Security footage from a Teve rally last week."
The feed showed a crowded plaza. People in red headsets moving through the space, but their movements were strange—they kept walking around something that wasn't there. Or rather, something that was there but invisible to them.
"There's a homeless veteran in the center of that plaza," River explained. "Holding a sign about Teve's military contracts. But everyone wearing their headsets? They literally cannot see him. Their neural pathways reroute around his existence."
The footage continued. People walked through the space the man occupied, bumping into thin air, looking confused for a moment, then moving on without investigation.
"They're not creating illusions," River said. "They're erasing truths. And it's happening at scale."
River leaned closer to the camera.
"Every major protest, every inconvenient witness, every piece of evidence they don't want seen—it just disappears from Teve users' perception. They're building a nation of people who can't see what's right in front of them…
…And I know how to hack it!”
Back in the black room, Richard sat on a floor bed where prototype hardware once scattered the floor, writing by lantern glow.
He didn't know what Zin and David were planning. He only knew the house was no longer safe, the trial was a lie, and after four days in darkness, it was still the only place he could think clearly.
His latest page was a single line:
"If you cannot see the bars, it doesn't mean you're free."
He tucked the notebook away and reached for a second sheet, unaware of what River had discovered, or how the shadows were about to shift again.
Outside, another drone passed overhead—Day 4, same time, same route.
Inside, six people moved quietly between resistance and collapse.
The ghosts were watching.
But they were not ghosts yet.