GFP 035: Dad's Old Apartment

Jesse,

If you’re reading this note, then you know I’m already dead. I wish I could’ve sent this to you before they found my body. But there’s no reception here in dad’s old B-sector apartment.

I’m hoping the UXA spooks don’t find this first. I’ve encrypted the message and only you should have the key. I’m praying they release my personal effects to you without wiping the hard drive. A lot of hoping and praying I guess.

As I write this, I won’t know how long it will take for UXA to find or retrieve my corpse, or even if they can. So… I don’t know when you’ll be reading this. Has it been a day? A week? A year? Ten?

I’m sorry Jesse.

I’m sorry I went looking even after you told me not to. I’m sorry I never let it go. I knew the moment UXA told us about dad, they were lying to us. I knew it was more than an accident. And I knew dad was involved.

You moved on. I didn’t. Sometimes I think it’s because you’re older than me. More mature maybe. But 23 minutes isn’t much of an age difference, is it?

Or maybe it is.

We’re just different people, you and I, even though we look exactly alike. I’m glad you found Julia. She’s a good girl. I hope you ended up marrying her. Do I have any nephews or nieces yet?

God. I wish I wasn’t bleeding out and dying in dad’s empty den. I’m staring at the rug where we used to play Risk and chess. I know I made a mistake coming here. But if you’re reading this, maybe this can be salvaged.

I went through dad’s stuff. They took almost everything. But what they missed was the hidden safe under the floorboards.

Inside, I found seven Air-Tite capsules filled with Silver American Eagles and dad’s old Browning pistol. His “End-of-the-World” plan. Heh.

And I almost didn’t bother looking further. But do you remember how dad used to do coin tricks when we were younger?

One afternoon, when you were at baseball practice with mom, I pestered dad until he showed me how to do some of them. He finally relented.

And holy schmoely, his collection gimmick coins. He had flippers, hooked coins, shells, double heads, fake stacks. I wish you could’ve seen it. But he made ten-year-old me promise to not tell anyone about it. And surprisingly I kept that promise. Until now, that is.

Anyway, I knew if dad was going to hide anything, he would do it in plain sight. So I went through all the Silver Eagles. Sure enough, one of them felt funny. I don’t know how to describe it. Just magician’s intuition I guess.

I bent it backwards and a micro-SD card pops out. Dad, I tell you.

Jesse, if you found this message, then you’ll know where I’ve hidden the contents of that micro-SD card. Just remember not to look for it if Julia or kids are around. You have to go through my porn stash to assemble the passphrase.

And don’t forget to use the stupid code we made up to replace certain letters. You know what I’m talking about.

The short of it is this: It wasn’t an accident. Dad’s company wasn’t even a real business. The head honchos were working with the NSA. They created this shell corporation and hired dad to give it legitimacy. It was their plan to blow up the entire sector the whole time.

You know the rest of the story. Blame the terrorists, start another fucking war. I’m so sick of our government. Pearl Harbor. 9/11. And now this. Half our friends died over there. And for what?

I guess what they didn’t anticipate was the fall out. They didn’t count on dad fooling around with side experiments while working for them.

Shit. It hurts. Everything they say about dying via septic shock is true. It’s slow and painful. I thought I could get up and get out at first. But I know that won’t happen now.

Did the UXA agent tell you how they found me? I bet they left out how there was another body in the room. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Jesse, I need to confess something to you. I shot dad. Or at least what was left of him. And as you can probably figure out now, he’s the one that slashed my guts out.

He was still wearing that grey herringbone suit mom got him for their twentieth anniversary. And if hadn’t been dad’s face on that monster, maybe I would’ve reacted faster and I’d be alive now.

But I hesitated.

I wanted him to be alive against all odds. Maybe he was hiding out here and continuing his research or something, you know? Maybe he was working on a cure in secret. Maybe he was plotting to take them down.

But it wasn’t him. He’d already turned. And there was nothing I could do to save him.

Fuck. I’m bleeding out here, I’m crying my eyeballs out, and my palm sweat is all over the keyboard.

I don’t think have long now.

I’m sorry, Jesse. I’m so fucking sorry.

Please take down these fuckers for me. Promise me. Send it to all the media outlets that aren’t bought off.

America needs to know what happened here.

I love you, Jordan