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.Youshould aim for better. Better than someone totally dedicated to me? Better thansomeone who I know will never leave me or hurt me? Life is all about being hurt, Ben said, as he rinsed out hismilk glass. You have to get through the bad stuff to find the goodstuff. Do you love Trish? I asked.96 SUBJECT 13He looked at me for a moment. No. Does she love you? I don t think so. So you re just using each other as what? Placeholders for theperson you re meant to be with? What if the right person comesalong, but you re with her and you don t see what s right in frontof your eyes. What fucking business is it of yours? Ben was up in my face,but I didn t back away. You re the one who started in on me and my relationship withKyle.He backed off and the anger eased from his face. Fair enough.We ll leave that as a subject we shouldn t discuss.97 SUBJECT 13CHAPTER 10File #74262, continuedIt has come to my attention that security measures onthe site have become extremely lax.I don t know howthis has managed to escape my attention for so long.Ihave been too busy focusing on the subjects and forgotthat the site could just as easily destroy me.The siteshould have been obliterated years ago.Leaving it iscomparable to a murderer leaving the murder weaponin plain sight at a crime scene.DG98 SUBJECT 13* * *I slept through Kyle leaving, but woke to the sound of Ben inthe shower with Trish.Not wanting to hear anymore of her shrillnoises, I got in the Vega and went for a drive.I ended up at the Churchill County Library looking forinformation on Oasis.There was surprisingly little informationavailable.The first article was about a billionaire by the name ofLynwood Cohen announcing the discovery of the natural gas.Atfirst, Cohen was cagey about his plans for the natural gas.The nextarticle detailed Cohen s plans to construct a new city, which he hadnamed Oasis.Other than a few shots of the pod structures, Cohenhad refused to allow any pictures to be taken.Oasis was to be acity free of outside influences and somehow he d managed to keepit that way.Years later, the deaths in Oasis were again major news.Just asBen had said, the deaths were attributed to a natural gas leak.According to government press releases, there were nine survivors,all children.The government refused to give out the names of thesurvivors so they could move on with their lives and not beharassed by the press.I recognized the name on the byline on mostof the articles: Gwendolyn Bough.She had owned the LovelockReview-Miner for years until her recent death from multiplesclerosis.At one point, one survivor had exposed herself.Her name wasCordelia Merrill.She went on a local talk show Reno Talk withTyson Johns and had talked about her life in Oasis, which she haddescribed as peaceful and serene.Cordelia had bright red hair anda face full of freckles.The picture in the paper was grainy andblurred, but I would ve sworn I knew her.99 SUBJECT 13 Checking out Oasis, huh? asked an older lady, whom Iassumed to be a librarian. Yes, I answered. Do you have anything else I might finduseful? Actually, yes, she answered. A local man was a producer onTyson John s talk show And, when he retired a few years ago, hegave us some old memorabilia.One item was a videotape of theepisode with Cordelia Merrill, including footage which hadn taired. Why is that noteworthy?The librarian her nametag said Gena pulled up a chair andsat close to me. Well, the episode itself was rather boring.Nothing really interesting at all.But the unaired footage& veryjuicy.You see she stopped to look around as if someone mightbe eavesdropping she talked about all sorts of weird things. Like what? I asked. She talked about the town being taken over by aliens.Bluealiens!I immediately asked if there was a way to view the tape, andGena lead me to a back room with an old TV and a VCR.Shescrounged through a couple bankers boxes, pulled out a tape andhanded it to me.I waited until she was gone before I started the show.First onthe tape was the aired portion of the show.Gena had been correct.It was boring with nothing scandalous at all.Almost like awhitewashed version of the truth.It was the behind the scenes portion that was truly interesting.Iwas riveted to my seat when Cordelia spoke without a directquestion.She fidgeted constantly and was always pulling at herhair.The dj vu I had felt when I saw her picture increased100 SUBJECT 13tenfold every minute I watched her. The blue people just appeared one day, Cordelia said. Atfirst, they were nice.And then they weren t. She never sat still formore than a minute at a time.There was always a body part inmovement.A producer behind the camera asked her to expand on thesubject of the blue people, but Cordelia added nothing substantial. I don t know why they were there
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