Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 49

This week's picture was created by artist Erlend MØrk, from Norway. He has some interesting dark art and his website is worth checking out.  

I had planned to go a bit darker - although some might feel my tale is dark enough - but instead I veered toward the storyline from a partially written novel from more than 15 year ago. 

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Infilteration 

“Surely someone will notice them.”

“Why should they? They’re just jars.”

“You and I both know that’s not true.”

“No, but no one else does.” 

“They’ll be spotted at some point, I’m sure of it.” 

“You credit them with too much intelligence.” 

And you credit them with too little. They can be smart you know.” Adrienne wasn’t prepared to accept Johnny’s under estimation of the local inhabitants. She’d been here longer than he had; she knew how they worked; what they saw and what they didn’t see. He liked to think he and Adrienne were superior.

“We are the same species, Johnny, you seem to forget that. Their brains work the same as ours.”

Johnny scoffed. “But they’re blind where we are not. They have no clue what is really going on around them.”

“Not all of them, you’d be surprised.”

Johnny stood up in the dark basement, his head almost touching the ceiling. “We have to keep them here, there’s no other option if you are going to bring the hosts here for the procedure.”

This time it was Adrienne’s turn to scoff.  “Hosts? You mean surrogates. I have some lined up already.”

“Top echelon? We have to get them into high positions otherwise there’s no hope of pulling this off. If we don’t provide evidence of visible change, the government will remove them under the contamination laws. There’ll be no salvaging them then.”

“I know, I know. Don’t worry. I have three from families whose influence covers half the globe. And I’m talking to seven more. Trust me. We can turn this around. But I need the jars to remain hidden. I can’t have anyone asking questions. My reputation depends on it.”

“Do you think someone will?”

“With this being the basement of a shared building there’s no telling. We need to get some tarp to cover them.”

“Won’t that make them more suspicious? Like this they just look like pickle jars.”

Adrienne laughed. “Gosh they’d get a shock if they open up one of these expecting a pickle.”

Johnny smiled. “They would indeed. I’ll get a tarp.”

Adrienne looked at her watch. “Look, one of the surrogates is due here in a minute, so I need to get back upstairs. You go do what you need to do to make these look inconspicuous, and I’ll meet up with you later.”

“You hoping to implant today?”

“I’m not sure, but I’ve put a jar upstairs in my cupboard just in case.”

Adrienne prepared the apartment for the planned session with her client. The art of fortune telling had brought her into the higher circles of society. She had managed to target a few key people and word of mouth had done the rest. It was amazing what being adept at reading minds and bodies could achieve. It meant nothing where she came from, everyone could do it, but here they existed in the lower brain levels, so it was unique.

A few had mastered elements of it but without full understand, so it had been shunned by the controlling religious factions who preferred to live in ignorance and pretend that things they didn’t see or understand were the work of some strange, unreachable being – a far less rational notion, but one that allowed people to shirk responsibility for any of their words or actions.

Adrienne and Johnny hoped to change that with the souls they had brought. They were pure and once implanted would bring about words and actions that would alter the course of society here. It was just a matter of bringing about the opportunity to install the implant, which Adrienne hoped to achieve today.

The client arrived and Adrienne got to work putting them at ease by instinctively knowing their likes and dislikes, while lulling them into a sense of trust and security. Then she talked them into a trance state, which went easier than expected because really Johnny was right.

She retrieved the jar from her cupboard. When she opened the lid the new soul climbed out, moving straight to the client’s face. Adrienne spoke a few words and the client’s jaw went slack, so the soul could squeeze into the mouth. The client convulsed a couple of times, but then sat up, bright eyed and ready for more. Adrienne could see the glint of the new soul inside. It was done, a new era was about to begin on Earth – one of true enlightenment that would restore the planet back to health for her people to harvest.