“Conspiracy Theory”

“Did you hear about this new trend going around with kids online? It’s called “I Know a Game.” Have you heard this? Apparently, these kids are messaging each other to play a game, and then the next thing you know they just up and disappear. Just go missing. Parents, I’m telling you, watch what your kids are doing on the Internet.”

Nina shook her head and turned the radio station off. These conspiracy theory-peddlers masquerading as pundits did nothing but drive her blood pressure up, yet she constantly found herself tuning in when she had to go on long drives. She wasn’t one for the socio-political commentary, but she had a soft spot for alien encounter stories. As much of a skeptic as she was in life, part of her wished that, just once in her life, she could experience something otherworldly. Something that couldn’t easily be explained away. Something to break up the routine.

She glanced at her GPS, she still had another four hours left in her travels. When she first took this job at the new startup, Nina was hoping that it would give her the kick in the pants she needed to change her lifestyle. Unlike her last dead-end job, which kept her going into a call center every day from 9:00 - 5:00, then spending all of her free time miserable and dreading going back to work, this one actually offered her the opportunity to travel. Excited by this prospect (and the help of a bump in salary), Nina jumped at the chance. And so she took a position in the research department of a new soft drink company, Koola Kola.

What Nina didn’t realize, however, was that “travel” wasn’t nearly as luxurious as it sounded. It wasn’t first-class flights to exotic locales on all-expenses-paid business trips. It wasn’t long, scenic drives on the company dime with stopovers in five-star hotels. It was just a lot of driving in her sedan, burning her own pockets for gas money that she would have to wait until the end of the month to get reimbursed for, to some of the most boring and sometimes downright seedy destinations. It was a lot of hours by herself in her car, sometimes springing for a quick stay at whatever motel was nearby, or sometimes driving all the way there and back in one night just to get it over with.

And, moreover, Nina didn’t exactly know why she was taking these trips. Her job was at a research company and seemed innocuous enough; all of her travel was dropping off materials to labs and potential business partners. It usually was just a few file folders or a banker’s box worth of items—something that a company with as much startup capital as hers should be able to just ship with insurance. But she didn’t ask too many questions or protest too much—getting that time on the road was still a diversion. On her best days, she’d spend the night at a bed and breakfast and find a cozy coffee shop or breakfast nook to fuel up in the morning. It was in those moments she could engage in some good people watching, writing down bits of conversations she’d hear, gathering material for the book of essays she swore she’d write someday.

So aside from audiobooks and podcasts, conspiracy theory radio shows became a source of entertainment for her time alone. It allowed her to escape, if even for only an hour or two here and there, into the unknown. It allowed her to play with the idea that there could be other people out there, watching us from afar. She could get lost in worlds where people had nefarious motives and industries were using people as guinea pigs, all extreme scenarios she didn’t buy for a second—but it added the appropriate dosage of fiction into an otherwise boring reality.

As Nina scanned through her phone, trying to find a good true crime or paranormal podcast to start, she looked up just in time to notice a massive antlered animal jump in front of her car and sprint into the woods, causing her to abruptly swerve to the side of the road. Once she caught her breath and allowed her heart rate to slow back down to normal, she got out of the car to observe the damage, if any, that was done. Staring down the front of her car, it looked as though there were a few scuff marks and some dents to her fender, nothing too tragic. She took some pictures, hoping she could write it off or get some cosmetic repairs done courtesy of Koola Kola.

Whatever it was that hit her car, though, couldn’t have escaped completely unscathed. It moved so fast, though, it was like it wasn’t hit at all. She looked deeper into the woods and noticed that it was still standing there, staring back at her. She only caught a quick glimpse and noticed it didn’t seem to be hurt or bleeding before quickly jumping back into her car—she didn’t know what it was or why it was staring, and she wasn’t willing to find out. The weirdest part that it didn’t look like any moose or deer she had ever seen before. She could have sworn it had the face of a rabbit.

Nina tried to calm her nerves as she started her car again. She didn’t want to lose too much more time, this was a trip she was hoping she could do in one night. That’s when she realized something—unlike her usual trips, this one had her transporting more precious cargo than the usual file folders.

“Shoot! The box,” Nina got out of her car again and popped open her trunk. Unfortunately, she was right. The box she was transporting, a medium-sized, square, briefcase-style box with a number of intricate locks, had been knocked over on its side. It didn’t appear to be damaged but had definitely been shaken up in the turmoil. Nina closed her eyes and hoped this wasn’t one of the only batches of a new soft drink that her company was concocting. She hovered her thumb over her manager’s number on her phone, bracing herself to reveal the bad news to him. But something inside her told her to say nothing, and instead break the cardinal rule she had been given on each and every one of these trips:

Whatever you do, don’t open the cargo. It’s completely confidential and can only be opened by its intended recipients.

Surely, in this situation, they’d understand. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She grabbed a pair of rubber gloves and placed them on, then pulled a bobby pin out of an emergency makeup bag she kept in her car, and got to cracking open the locks. Immediately she gasped as the smell hit her. Whatever this drink was, she could tell it was already going to fail on a mass-market level with a scent like this. She cracked open the last lock and held her breath.

Inside the box sat what appeared to be a human brain.

Nina slammed the box shut and dry-heaved. She carefully locked it and examined it to make sure there were no visible signs of tampering. She got back in the driver’s seat and steadied her hands on the wheel. Carefully, she pulled back onto the road, noticing the piercing red, laser-like eyes of the animal still staring at her from the distance. She couldn’t understand why a soft drink company would have her transporting a human brain to an unspecific location at night. She didn’t know just what else she had transported in her travels, either.

She just knew that she had to say nothing about what she saw. This never happened, and she wouldn’t ask any questions. She would drop the box off at its intended location, and turn around and head home. There would be no stopovers tonight.

Then, first thing tomorrow morning, she was going to find a new job. A desk job somewhere. Something delightfully boring.