And Then She Disappears

20 years earlier, Shanika Brown sat alone quietly in an ugly room with pale yellow walls and fluorescent ceiling lighting. She stretched her arms over the round collapsible table supporting her laptop. Both tables in the room looked like anachronisms due to their rough particle board surface, ensnared by a gaggle of futuristic looking chairs. Despite what anyone might have guessed, both the table and chairs had been made the same year. However, the tables were never meant to be used this way and were normally covered in tablecloths and decadent centerpieces. She pushed back on her chair to test the conspicuously springy feature in its back. No convention center furniture is comfortable, but the facade of creating comfort, whether in a waiting room or a ballroom, always seems to produce the opposite sensation.

The propped door allowed dozens of smells from catering carts into her waiting space. It also brought in the welcome sounds of shuffling feet, clinking trays, and muffled stories between various kitchen staff. All of these masked the ugly buzz of the fluorescent lights and made Shanika think she might be better off reviewing for her speech on the floors of that cavernous hallway instead of this sad little space.

As she reviewed the idea of relocating, six gregarious photographers barreled into the room. Each held a styrofoam box with the caterer’s sticker sealing it shut. They quickly enveloped the other table. The loud jeering and swearing initially between one another all became directed at their boxes’ contents as each sticker-seal was broken and the stale food inside was retrieved.

“Chicken salad sandwich! The guests get massaged bovine and I get diced big-bird!”

“At least you got desert!”

“You dumbass, you’ve got a cookie in your hand right hand…right now. The polyethylene wrap on your cookie is stuck to the polyethylene wrap on your sandwich.”

“The poly-what is stuck to the poly-who?”

“The plastic wrap. He’s talking about the plastic wrap.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize I needed a dictionary to work with you.”

“Did anybody get turkey?”

“I think we all got the same thing this time.”

As the young contractors had fun analyzing their meals and critiquing each other’s vocabulary, Shanika wondered if they noticed the platter and cover at her table. Her laptop and brief case might have concealed them just enough. Either way, they didn’t mention it. In fact, they didn’t seem to notice her at all. Surely, they would have seen her name on the itinerary and knew she was somebody they were going to document at this event. But maybe they didn’t know what she looked like. Energy conventions sometimes hired unexpected speakers, and a Silicon Valley computer programmer who moonlighted at human rights organizations wasn’t going to be featured with a picture in the event’s promotional material.

And then, as quickly as they entered, all six of them stood up to leave. Shanika felt sad to be alone again. Once the photographers had started teasing one another, she had slipped her shoes off, content to listen and get her mind off of the speech for a while. A recent widow, her kids were of a similar age, but away for school and wildly busy. She hoped they were also making new friends and romping in and out of onlookers’ lives.

However, this very moment ended up containing one of the most disturbing and traumatic occurrences in Shanika’s entire life. Just as the photographers reached the door, with styrofoam carcasses left at the table, they formed a queue. Then each one of them, dressed in black and seemingly ready to work the event, looked her in the eyes, said one word apiece, and then literally ran into the hallway as fast as they could.

“I”

“Know”

“Who”

“You”

“Really”

“Are”

Shanika could feel a physical change in her body. It was a series of chemicals that her mind was releasing in response to their terrifying statement and odd presentation. At the time though, and given the surprise of what had just happened, she thought it might even be the result of someone drugging her. It never occurred to her that this feeling was the result of some disembodied, volitional influence. The behavior by the six young people, on the other hand, gave her every inclination to believe some singular consciousness, outside of any one of them, was involved. Any six people can orchestrate a creepy prank, but this bizarre, coordinated statement hit a little too close to home. If she was right about this, then it’d also be true that this same power was responsible for her physical changes, if only in the chemical responses that her emotions had triggered.

She ran to the door and saw the six racing away down the broad service hall. They didn’t appear to her as specters. They actually made a lot of noise in the process, panting and clumsily knocking into carts and walls with their equipment. This was curious, as none of the caterers paid them any mind. Some pushed multi-layered carts that were almost barreled over, yet they never flinched. Some joked and complained about work right as the six ran through their conversations. These loud, solid, conspicuous figures, didn’t seem to appear on the radar of anyone except Shanika. After taking in the curious scene, she channeled some courage to resume her pursuit.

However, the cold of the smooth concrete immediately reminded her that her shoes were still back under the table. The hardness of the hallway floor was slippery compared to the matted carpet of the waiting area. She went back, grabbed her shoes, and had completely lost sight of the six. Now working primarily from intuition, she followed the hallway to a loading dock and looked out the back of the building. The area was darker than the rest of the city because the convention center wrapped around two sides of the loading dock, eclipsing the dusk sun. Her future husband Chris would effectively used these types of environment as hiding places from his family whenever he needed to get serious work done. However, Shanika shared with her children the creepy feelings brought on by this type of murky setting.

She didn’t see the six photographers. There was a box truck for the caterer and another for the event band. There were about a dozen personal vehicles and, two loading bays over from her, five members of the catering staff on a smoking break. She immediately jumped to the ground level of the parking lot and made her way to the other bay, trying to flag down the smokers. All of them also jumped to the ground and ran to a nearby conversion van. She started to yell questions about the previous odd crew, but then realized that this new group's behavior already provided an answer more terrifying than what she could have expected talking to them. As they reached the vehicle, they crammed inside, each shouting a single word, as if in a perverse incantation.

“Your”

“Children”

“Won’t”

“Forgive”


“You”

Unlike the first message, Shanika didn’t even know what this one meant. So much had happened in her life that wasn’t known to the public. Among other unknown software development, she had single-handedly programmed and released the first Bitcoin software by that point. It had not yet changed the world in the way that it would in the future , but it had certainly stirred some controversy, and was on the radar of some important government organizations. Shanika had actually developed other controversial projects, some of which she never released to the public. This wasn’t because she didn’t think they would be helpful. She had simply never had the time to think through all of the second and third order consequences of much of this untested code. She had years of similar struggle with Bitcoin, but the global financial crisis of 2008 made the decision to release much easier.

What had always felt like the most significant secret to Shanika was the time as a teenager that she pushed a bully into busy traffic. By this point, the incident had haunted her for over three decades. She was walking home and came upon the scene of a kid she knew from school holding two younger boys at bay with a knife. They were on a long stretch of sidewalk between a high cement retaining wall and a busy street. Branches and vines drooped from trees above to around shoulder and chest level so that, while hundreds of people were passing by, no one really saw the situation. This same bully, Aaron Pikeman, had robbed her sister under the threat of a similar weapon a few months earlier. The moment she thought that she understood what was happening, she shoved Pikeman and ran, hoping the boys would too while the bully was getting up. Instead, they whelped loudly at the gruesome scene, and that’s when she turned and realized that he had landed in the street. Pikeman had already been hit at over fifty miles per hour and cars were stopping both before and beyond the body. Young, in shock, and afraid, she ran in shame, climbing a nearby staircase to a tier of city blocks about 30 feet higher, and a good five minute drive away. She never confessed, always waiting for an investigation to lead back to her. She only ever told two people, decades later.

However, she currently had a great relationship with all of her children. Had it not been for the fear, curiosity may have ran high. Her brain was still swelling though from all of the potential interpretations of the first message and the creepy special knowledge these people, or this entity possessed. The use of the word “I” instead of “we” was also bizarre. She had gone back and forth between various spiritual and naturalistic explanations for the universe, and the idea of single leaders of “good” and “evil” spirits had always fascinated her. Potentially encountering such a force in a less philosophical and more visceral manner was less fascinating and more terrifying.

The van sped off and she ran for the edge of the building to see where it was going. Four new villains stepped out of the shadows in front of her. These ones were all male, they wore designer suits, and were very large. She started to cry and turned to run. The largest of them grabbed her. He clearly had the strength to restrain her gently, but it was harsh and painful. Something more than restraint was expressed in the grip, and what it communicated was unfortunately absorbed both physically and psychologically by Shanika. She bit him as hard as she could and the man didn’t respond at all. Now flailing, she tried to kick out his shins and felt only harder squeezing, at this point worry that he was going to break her arms. Another hand covered her mouth and she received her final message.

“Time”

“For”

“Your”

“Speech”