The Book of Joshua

Chapter 1 : Look Both Ways

Joshua looked both ways and hurriedly crossed the street. He wasn't concerned about being hit by a car, but they had been following him closely as of late. The men in suits on the subway who would keep an eye on him and follow him out at random stops. The women who seemed to hit on him at the coffee shop and feigned interest. The oft asked question, "Don't I know you from somewhere? You look familiar." The askance looks he received from soccer moms while buying fruit at the grocery store, as if they were judging him by the quality or the type of apple he chose to purchase. Anyone could be a spy.

Perhaps he had one of those faces, he thought. No, they were after him. He knew it. It had only happened in the last few months, and only several days after he had stumbled upon it.

Joshua had been browsing the Deep Web, going through cypher-punky anarchist forums and reading up on the latest conversations, the latest hacks and data dumps of corporations and the politicians that had been bought and paid for.

He came across a link to information that had had been up for only a few minutes, before it was to be deleted, presumably by the agents that didn't want that information to be brought to the light. But it had. Joshua had seen it.

It wasn't terribly shocking, your run of the mill backroom deals that plagues any institution. But the names and the wealth of data was so damning that those at the top would do nothing to stop that flow of information.

Joshua had downloaded it prior to it being gone forever. He read the download once, and, as he was plagued with perfect memory, purged it immediately. There was no unreading what he had read. Too late. Some things are better off left unknown.

Chapter 2 : Road to Nowhere

For the past several years, Joshua didn't know where he was going. After attending the University of Kansas for a sociology degree on a merit-based scholarship, he flunked out of college in the first semester. Despite his perfect memory, Joshua had never been able to sort the database of his brain. Imagine all of the raw data of your life, every little bit of your experience recorded into a file that you couldn't search.

Time had no meaning with respect to his memories. Events from 5 days ago, 10 months, or 6 years all seemed as if they happened in the last minute.

What was going on? Where was he going?

Joshua skated across the sidewalk, weaving in between pedestrians, glancing back over his shoulders. The two lovers, hand in hand, were still behind him. They had followed him at every turn for the past 35 minutes. Joshua glanced at the app on his phone. Just another minute, he thought. He could see his goal come into view.

Joshua crossed the road and immediately jumped on the bus, before it started to take off again, noticing that the lovers had followed his path, but had barely missed catching the same ride.

Where was this bus going? Somewhere, far from here, he thought. Maybe the bus was a Delorean in disguise, flux capacitor in the back.

Damnit, no flux capacitor.

What next, he thought?

All he knew was that he had to get where-ever it was he needed to be, three days ago.

Chapter 3 : Help On The Way

Joshua took a lone seat in the middle of the bus. After he had come across that seemingly innocuous data dump, he reached out to some of his hacker "friends," that he knew from various Deep Web forums, letting it be known that he needed a place to lay low for awhile. That was 3 days ago. Or was it 3 minutes? The muddled perception of time cast shadows of doubt in his mind. Could he ever be certain of anything?

One thing was certain. Joshua had been in contact with somebody who said they would help. He just had to find that person. It may have even been more than one individual or a group speaking with one voice. Who knows? Joshua certainly didn't.

For whatever reason, he thought he had been told to come here, on a certain date, at a particular time, to meet somebody who would help.

But he was the only person on the bus. Save the driver.

The driver looked at him in the mirror.

"This is your stop," she said. "Best watch your six and make sure you weren't followed. Help is coming." She nodded towards the horizon where a single vehicle was approaching.

Startled, Joshua grabbed his pack and glided onto the road. The bus whirled and swung out of view leaving dust in its wake.

Joshua looked around the stop. It was a small, dusty town, that resembled a Western Frontier town, with a solo bus stop in the middle of it. Two-story buildings of a bank, a general store, the jail, and the post office lined one side of the street. The other side loomed with saloons. But the town was deathly quiet.

Joshua had no plans to sit around and wait. At the least, he should hide from the supposed help. Probably safer. He could see them in the distance. How much help, if any, can he get from some random stranger on the internet?

Chapter 4 : Hide and Seek

Joshua walked over to one of the saloons and peered inside. It was empty, save for chairs and tables and a spotless chandelier that hung from the ceiling causing streams of rainbows to illuminate the wall.

A stairwell on either side led to a second story and Joshua surmised, based on the location of the stairs, that they led to rooms that looked out over main street. He climbed them and hesitantly opened the unlocked door, not knowing what he would find.

Joshua's intuitions about the rooms were correct. He walked into a corner room near the east stairwell and looked out the window that did not face the main street. A storage room jutted out of the main building below him, making for an easy escape, if he needed. The other window looked directly at the General Store. The room was decorated with plush pillows and a goose-down mattress.

"Ritzy," he thought. "Probably a whore's room. Easy to call out to the miners and townspeople walking along the main drag." Joshua searched the room and found a Bowie knife and a pair of throwing knives in the dresser drawer. "Better than nothing," he surmised. Although, not proficient with the knives, he somehow felt safer.

From the window, he could hear a vehicle approaching. Joshua positioned himself from a vantage point where he could see out the window, hiding himself behind the curtains. He could barely make out a black Sedan with tinted windows.

Now, all there was to do was wait to see who this supposed help was.

Chapter 5 : Waiting

Joshua waited apprehensively. Whatever was going to happen to happen in the next 30 minutes would determine the course of his future. Who was this mysterious person? How much did he or she know? Or didn't know for that matter.

Joshua thought back to the documents he had read. Out of all his memories, these were at least clear. These records. He could access them like a computer file and could relive the event when he first read them. These were the only memories that made any sense; all the others seemed as if they were a tangled web of other people's thoughts, not his own.

Why? What was so special about these documents?

These secrets were nothing more than high-level decisions that important players in the world had made that effected everyone else. This happened all the time, he thought. Those with power affect others. But, the accumulation of power, and the manner in which it is done, whether through malice or benevolence, is a strict matter of interpretation. If the true history were exposed and brought to the forefront, would it even matter?

Some would behave, as they normally would, in a manner befitting survival and ignorance of 'leaders'. Why listen to self-appointed leaders anyway? Others would naturally follow self-appointed leaders. There are always those few individuals who choose not to lead, yet people manage to follow. These 'natural-born leaders' are men of great renown.

Joshua knew that he wasn't such a person. His awareness of his own social ineptitude and the awkwardness that accompanies this knowledge couldn't even begin to describe how Joshua felt to an outsider as an outsider himself. Even for all his strangeness, Joshua could at least perceive that he was different than others. But was he someone to follow? To ask for help in a time of crisis? In his mind, Joshua thought no.

Just like everyone else, Joshua was only trying to survive.

Finally, Joshua saw the car as it rolled into view. Joshua breathed in sharply as the person he was least expecting stepped out from behind the driver's seat.

Chapter 6 : Old friends

Joshua barely recognized the woman who stepped out of the car. Yes, he thought, she looked familiar, but was it really her?

"Joshua, darling. You can come out now," the lady called out to him. "No need to hide. I can come and find you. It'll be just like when we were kids!"

Yes, Joshua thought, Charlotte. An old childhood friend. She looked like Charlotte. Was it her?

"Joshua, don't you remember? It's me, Charlotte!"

It was her!

Joshua was relieved. But wait, how did she find him? Or know that he had accessed those records?

Wild thoughts raced across his mind.

No, it wasn't her. It couldn't be. He wouldn't believe it for one moment.

Puzzled, Joshua recollected his thoughts.

Yes, yes. It was her. She had told him to come the pre-destined place long ago, before he had even accessed that data.

How could this be, Joshua thought.

"Joshua," Charlotte called from below. "Let me bring you home. You've been gone for awhile, and everyone's really concerned about you. I'm concerned. You know you're not yourself. Let me take care of you."