The First Part

Brett flipped his underwear up with his foot and caught it in his hand, throwing it into the hamper with satisfaction at his superb coordination. He stepped into the tub where the hot water was already running.
"Ooh! that's nice." Brett cooed to himself. He started giggling with delight at the wonderful sensation on his skin. It had been a fun day. Brett had spent most of the day at the mall shopping for super chic footware. He had found a great pair of sketchers.
The guys at Brennfäug are gonna be so jealous!
Brett was a shipping and recieving specialist at one of the nations largest chemical suppliers.

Brett was excited for the night. His friend Ben from work had invited him to a party that night with a new group of friends. Brett got out of the shower, humming "It’s Raining Men" as he toweled off his hair. When he got out of the bathroom, he found his roommate Kenneth watching TV on the couch.

”Hey” said Brett.

Kenneth sat staring vacantly at the big screen. Brett paused on his way to the kitchen.

“Dude.”

“Oh, hey.” Kenneth said blankly. “It’s raining men.”

“What?”

“Hallelujah... You always hum that in the shower.”

“You could hear that?”

Kenneth just shrugged. He had been acting odd lately. At least more odd than usual.

“Well at least I am showering.” Brett said quietly to himself.

Kenneth let out clipped bark of a throaty laugh. Kenneth had such a musky stink about him lately.

“I’m off the party, you sure you don’t want to come?”

“No. I like TV.”

Brett noted with a frown that Kenneth was staring at the satellite help screen.

“Alright, later dude.” Said Brett.

Ben was waiting for him in the driveway. Brett wondered why he had insisted on picking him up, when it was ten miles the wrong direction.

“Hey Ben.” Said Brett.

“Hey man! How’s it going?”

“Good. So, how did you meet these guys?”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

Brett was a little confused when they got to the “party.” It was at the Layton community center.
That’s kind of weird.
As they walked into the center, Brett at once was shocked by how bright it was. All of the lights were on. There was a giant banner running the length of the room that said, “International Unifiers United.”
Kind of redundant. Well, this is just swell, what’ll it be, time shares in Bronson Missouri?

"Welcome you two! Hi Brett!” Said “Brad,” as his name tag indicated. Brad had a cheesy smile to match his terrible sweater vest. Brett exchanged pleasantries with the awkward man, regretting immediately his decision to come along. “We’re about to get started, why don’t you guys have a seat.”
"This is gonna be great!" Said Ben with a gleeful smile.
Brett gave Ben an icy sideways glance.

“Oh yeah, it’s the bomb, guy. You’re gonna fit in perfect here Brett.” Said Brad.

How the hell…? How did this fruit know his name? Ben. Ben is trying to recruit me. Great. Just a party with friends. MmHmm.
"Party huh?" Brett asked.
“Come on Brett, you're gonna love this!” Said Ben.

Brett wasn’t so sure. He slowly became aware of a terrible jazz number playing softly over the loud speakers. Brett reluctantly took a seat, bypassing the snack table, which he noted had red punch.
Oh crap, that looks like Kool-aid.
He went on high alert. But his heightened awareness didn't last long. The speaker for the night showed a lame video of some service trip he took down to India. It was cool that the group raised the money to build the kids a school and all but it was just so... sappy. Brett started quietly singing kumbaya under his breath. Brett's attention was wandering, and as he scanned the faces in the meeting, those faces, like glassy eyed sheep, frozen in time with the perma grin on their stupid faces. Brett saw that almost the entire row was holding hands.
Okay. I am about ten seconds from freaking out.

The speaker was pedantic and hypnotic. The audience was listening intently.
He must be using mind control. This is like a group coma. Seriously. When do we start the chanting?
Even as Brett thought that, the audience rose to their feet. Suddenly Ben on the right and the creepy lady on the left that smelled like tuna had their arms around his torso.

“POWER OF HOPE! POWER THROUGH UNITY! POWER IN US!"

Brett gritted his teeth and tried not to punch the tuna lady in her nasty yellow grill.
Ben is going to die for this.

“Wasn’t that video awesome!” Ben more remarked than asked as they left the meeting. “Don’t you just love the feeling of unity? This has totally changed my life. The IUU has given me such a sense of purpose.”

After twenty agonizing minutes of hearing about how energy healing can cure cancer, Brett was getting out of Ben’s car with an armful of printed propaganda.

“See you tomorrow Brett.” Said Ben.

“Yeah. Later.” Said Brett with no emotion in his voice.

Brett fumbled with his keys for a moment until he realized the door was slightly ajar.

“Dammit Kenneth.”

Along with Kenneth’s robust new odor, he’d been increasingly distracted and irresponsible. His classic Galaxie was still parked awkwardly diagonal in the driveway with a tire on the front lawn, Brett knew he was out for another one of his late night walks.
If he broke another sprinkler head, I'm going to make him fix it this time. Man, my friends are messed up. Kenneth with his reek of Alaskan trout fisherman and Ben with his freaky sunshine cult. Ben used to be cool, now I just want to jack him in the nuts to knock that cornball Captain America wholesomeness right off of him... Wow, that’s harsh. Okay Brettford, take it easy. It’s nice that Ben found god. Or his metaphysical pyramid scheme or whatever.
With thoughts of all the soda ash he had to get loaded on the rail car tomorrow, Brett drifted off into fitful dreams.


The annoying buzz of the alarm clock shocked Brett to consciousness. The predawn light was starting to make the lines of his Kevin Federline poster on the wall visible. Brett sat up and reached for his dream journal to record the details of the Davis county school superintendent trying to steal caustic from Brennfäug. Brett sighed. Still no Jessica Alba.
Oh well, maybe tonight’s the night we’ll meet on the astral plane.
•••
Brett took another panting gasp through the tiny hole. He couldn’t get enough fresh, cool, air, fast enough and had to settle for a mixture of more of the stale, humid air. Brett couldn’t concentrate on anything, not even the thought that he must be cooking alive. The sweat was still stinging his eyes. There was no point in opening them; there was no light there anyway. He had lost track of time. How many hours had it been? Two days now? He wasn’t sure. He just wished he could stretch out and lie down flat. He was still curled up in the fetal position. He figured even if they did unlock the box, he’d be too cramped to jump out. He needed water soon; his tongue was swollen in his mouth with thirst. He remembered that survivalists would drink their urine when they were out of water. But Brett hadn’t had to pee for hours.
•••
The old school DOS style cursor blinked on Brett’s computer, expectantly waiting for a command. Ben seemed oblivious to the huge pile of invoices that needed to be gone through, and continued to babble.

Please shut up, please shut up. Brett nodded as if he was listening. My teeth are going to break. Brett’s jaw muscles were burning. SHUT-UP SHUT-UP-SHUT-UP!

“We’re going to have a barbeque this Saturday, you should totally come!” Ben said.

“Ahhh, can’t. Kenneth and I are going to go golfing on Saturday. Sorry man.”

“No, that’s perfect, the BBQ doesn’t start til 7, and that’s pretty much dusk, you’ll be done by then righ-"

“Oh, hey,” Brett interrupted, “I’ve got some HCL on the dock I've got to…” Brett trailed off as he hurried away from Ben.
***
Brett ended up perusing the pamphlets Ben had given him as he sat on the toilet that weekend. There was a lot to read, but that was just fine because Brett had had some bad Mexican food that day. In fact it turned out to be double blessing since he ran out of toilet paper after the first fifteen minutes. The glossy ones were actually pretty soft. The booklets were pretty predictable. Just like the watchtower, there was a lot of circular reasoning and vapid aphorisms. But the most annoying part, was that they didn’t say anything substantive in it. After all that reading, Brett still had no idea what the International Unifiers United was all about. Near as he could tell, it was just another type of Scientology.
Great Gatsby! It is a cult.

“Kenneth!”

“AAAAHHH!!! CLOSE THE DOOR!” Kenneth yelled.

“You’re such a baby. Gosh!" Brett leaned over from the toilet to swing the door shut.

“It’s burning my eyes!” Kenneth wailed from the living room. “Courtesy flush!”

Brett emerged from the bathroom with a scowl on his face. “The toilet’s clogged again.”

“It only clogs when you flush newspaper. Why don’t you just keep an extra roll under the sink? You’re paying for the plumber this time.”

“I paid last time!”

“Because YOU flushed newspaper, you black sphinctered sodomite!”

“What? Look, dude, dude. Dude. Ben is in a cult.”

“ Mormon, eh?”

“Not the funny underpants kind, the bunk bed and Kool-Aid kind.”

“Brett, I told you, Cutco isn’t a cult. They are the best damn knives on the planet. I made some money one summer, and now I'm done. Just drop it!”

“No, no, no. I’m serious. Cutco is a cult, but this is real. Ben took me to the International Unifiers United meeting last week.”

“I thought you went to a party.”

“Yeah, I thought I was going to a party too.”

“I read about those guys. They’re that break off from the scientologists. Rumor has it, the inner circle is building a space ship.”

“No kidding. Huh... Ben's in deep. I've got to help him."
Kenneth sat on the couch, shifting uneasily. "Everybody's got problems."