FICTION
PATRICK JOHNSTON
INTO THE BLUE
The Target’s security team finished their second sweep of the room ten minutes ago. Pretty thorough they were too. Professionals. I respect that. I mean, even though the room is obviously empty, they still took their time and did things by the book.
The problem, for them, is that their version of “the book” doesn’t take into account the notion of some sneaky motherfucker hiding inside the waterbed.
Two days now, I have been inside of this thing. Installed long before the security team arrived, and hiding right under their noses. Breathing through a tube to my nostrils, with its intake incorporated into the headboard. It’s not too uncomfortable, it’s just the endless waiting. Can start to play with your head if you let it. Going to lengths like this to get the job done: now that’s true professionalism.
The Target will arrive in approximately twenty-seven minutes. He has an escort booked for 11pm, so I am going to have to put up with some turbulence. All I have to do is wait for the Target to go to sleep.
After that, a brief pin prick to the back of the neck. Reseal the bed’s surface so as to avoid tell-tale leakage. Forty-eight hours later the Target will start experiencing symptoms. Nobody will ever have any idea of when, where or how the virus was introduced.
Sometime tomorrow the extraction team will arrive. Everything is planned.
Just wish I knew what the guy next to me is here for...
Patrick Johnston is an Anglo-Australian writer and former professor of psychology and neuroscience. His creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry appear in The Louisville Review, Blood + Honey, and Roe River Review, and have received Pushcart Prize nominations. He is the author of the completed novel The Gaps Between the Stories. dr-patrick-johnston.com
