Numenon

EXCERPT

Continued...

       Rick Bromberg took off his headset and handed it to the guy on the next shift, still shocked by what he’d seen. He resisted the desire to tell his replacement about it. Pretty good for my first night at the freak house, he thought.
      He had been thrilled to get the job, even it if was the night shift; it paid better than any job he’d ever had and offered perks you couldn’t get anywhere else. Passing the test to get into the place took everything he’d learned getting his MA in Computer Science and what the Marines taught him about surveillance. But he passed.
      And he signed the inch-thick contract that granted him the privilege of coming to work. He knew all about the non-competitive agreements that were standard in Silicon Valley employment contracts. But this one, shit—if he breathed one word about what he saw in this house, they’d have his first-born child.
      He hadn’t meant to do it; it was just so boring, sitting in that cubicle alone. There were five of them on duty. He didn’t realize they’d be manning separate stations. True, it was better professional practice to have five people in separate rooms monitoring the screens than all of them together. The urge to talk came up when guys were together—it was a natural thing. Rick had even given in to the urge to drink beer once in a while on other jobs. He never brought the stuff, but if it was there, hey . . . Yeah, guys in the same room could miss things.
      Before showing him to his security booth that night, his supervisor had told him that they meant it here. His name was Dunkirk. He was a fucking stiff—a Brit who acted like the Empire hadn’t fallen. He was one of the commandos Duane had all over. “We are here to facilitate Mr. Duane’s security. We do that, and nothing else. Have you read your contract?”
      Yeah, he had.
      “Any breach of contract will be taken very seriously. Mr. Duane gives the orders. If he tells you to do something, or not to do something, you will do whatever he wants. If you don’t, you’re fired, that’s it. No appeal.” Dunkirk had looked at him with those frost-blue, British eyes. “Or, if you must appeal, you will appeal to Hannah Hehrmann. You will never forget that experience, and you will lose. Now, it’s time to begin the shift.”
      Everybody was scared stiff of Hannah Hehrmann. He hadn’t seen her. Hadn’t seen Will Duane, either, until the monitor showed him walking out of his bedroom in the middle of the night. Looked just like all the magazine covers: white hair, tall even on a screen. Good looking for an old guy. Duane was in his mid-sixties. Rick couldn’t imagine being that old.
      He heard him say, “No surveillance while I’m running.” Yeah, Rick heard it. But as the time went by, he began to get worried. Duane’s old, he thought. How could he run that long? What if he had heart attack and they didn’t find him until the next day? So, he flipped a couple of switches and fired up one of the screens.
      Rick knew that Will Duane couldn’t tell he was watching. He knew his stuff; he had an advanced degree in stealth. Besides, Dunkirk gave him his introductory walk around that afternoon. They stood in the gym, and he said, “Mr. Duane does not like to be aware that he is being observed. The house’s surveillance system is designed so that none of the monitors or sensors can be seen or detected in any way. For instance, do you see any cameras in this room?”
      He looked around and shook his head. “No. Nothing.” Yet when Dunkirk took him to his cubicle and replayed the videos, Rick could see himself on five cameras and hear every word they said. The gym was loaded. That’s what he called smooth.
      He wasn’t worried that his boss would know he was taking a peek. When he first saw the old man on the screen, he couldn’t believe how hard he ran. He must have been an Olympic runner when he was young. Now, for Pete’s sake. Mr. Duane was tearing up the track, and he’d been out there a long time.
      He almost punched a button for help when his boss suddenly stopped and bounced into the gym wall. A heart attack, Rick was sure. That’s what he gets for being so built at his age. He couldn’t help but compare his paunch to Will Duane’s non-existent belly. But then, Duane put his hands out straight and started moaning and arching his back like he was humping the wall. He turned his head to the right like a corkscrew.
      Rick’s eyes widened. Jesus, was he possessed, or something?
      He’d heard a lot of stories about Will Duane being a warlock or the fucking devil, even. Lots of stories about his new boss were out there. When he started doing that shit, Rick stared into the monitor, mouth open. His new boss started dancing around, waving his arms and screaming, “I love you.” This was certifiable, Rick thought. Real nutcase stuff. Which he’d also heard—that Will Duane was crazy.
      But then his shift was over and he came back to earth. What Duane did was his own business—if you’re the richest man on earth, you can do what you want. If he wanted to hump the wall or dance around his gym all night, who cared?
      Rick went to the checkout point where they patted them down before letting them go home. As he was being searched, he thought, Why all the need for security? What else does Duane do in here? It was only his first night and the place was starting to get to him.
      Dunkirk burst in, looking at Rick like he’d run over his dog. “Bromberg, in my office.”
      His office was a cement-walled cell with monitors ringing every wall. They hadn’t been watching him, had they?
      “I need your identification badge, your code book, and your keys.” Dunkirk looked as scary as a skinny Brit could. He handed them over.
      “I need you to sign here, showing that you understand the reason you are being terminated and you will . . .”
      “What? I’m being fired? For what?”
      “You were spying on Mr. Duane as he ran, Bromberg, against his orders.”
      The expression on Dunkirk’s face and the cement walls, plus all the monitors and steel doors got to him. He told the truth. “Okay. I did watch him for a while, but I won’t tell anyone what I saw.”
      “Definitely not, Bromberg. You’ll never mention it again, nor will you mention your reason for relocating.”
      “Relocating? I’m not . . .”
      “Yes, you are. And you’ll be no more trouble to us. You are banned from employment at Numenon or any Numenon partner . . .”
      “That’s practically the whole world!”
      “Yes, it is, Bromberg. So you’ll be happy that we secured employment for you at your new location.”
      “Where is it?”
      “I’m not at liberty to say. A car is waiting for you . . .”
      “But how did you know?” Rick sputtered.
      “Mr. Duane told me.”
      “How did he know?” Rick’s voice rose in a wail.
      “Mr. Duane knows, Bromberg. He knows without all this,” he waved his hand at the banks of monitors. “I don’t know why he keeps us on, really.”

       Will stood swaying in his bedroom. Traces of light seeped from behind the metal clad windows. The silk draperies didn’t hide the fact that the new day had arrived. Should he get dressed for work? Will wore a robe embroidered with the Numenon logo that he’d put on after showering. His face felt like a leaden mask; his eyes kept blinking as though they were filled with grit.
      He couldn’t think of his schedule for the day, didn’t notice the lovely furnishings of his vast room. Not the Turner over the bureau or the little Monet he loved. The bed beckoned. A minute won’t hurt, he thought.
      Will laid down and pulled the quilt over his head.

       He ran through the grey-green world, the thing he feared behind him, roaring for his blood. He turned his head, and something overran him. He was tossed without mercy, slammed into the ground. He rolled and tumbled, landing on his feet, battered but alive. He watched the juggernaut’s howling progress.
      It destroyed everything. He watched everyone die, smashed and bent, torn to pieces. The maelstrom killed those he loved first, then the rest. Everyone died; all humanity. Billions of bloody, ruined bodies piled up around him. He was the only one left.
      He stood in the void, surrounded by nothing.
      He had to live when everyone he loved was dead. Everyone he hated, too. Nothing was left, not even hatred. He had to go on living and living and living. Realizing that caused his jaw to drop, and pulled his hands to his mouth. Made him curl into a ball.
      He lay, dazed. His chest rose and fell. The movement of his ribs was the only thing he could grab onto to tell him he was alive.
      Was it a prophecy? Was that going to happen? Nothing could tell him; everything was gone. He felt a rumbling below the earth and heard the sound of rocks grinding together. His stomach roiled at the noise.
      He realized what it meant: The stalker was coming for him.
His Beloved appeared from nowhere, speaking softly. “Yes, my darling, it is true. The fate you have fought for so long will come to be very soon—in days. You have one chance to save yourself and all you love.”
      Whispering, she told him the way out.

       Will did as she directed. It was already shaping up: He had a call in to the Indian shaman. He’d made it in hopes that what Marina said was true. He’d heard from her once since she threw him out. She wrote: “He’s a great holy man who has helped many people. If Grandfather tells me I should see you again, I will. But only then, Will. You and I are done.”
      She did include a phone number where he could reach the shaman. He originally called the old man hoping he could get her back, but then he had that dream. He had to go now; the world of light required it.
      The sucker didn’t return his call . . . He kept him waiting.

       When the shaman finally called him back, Will was ready to detonate. He forced himself to be civil; he agreed to everything. “I’ll go wherever you want; I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll go on your retreat, just tell me how to get there.”
      The old man didn’t sound surprised. It was as though he knew what Will would say.
      “Bring you best warriors,” the shaman said. “As many as you want, as long as they’re your best.” And then he laughed.
      Will’s stomach clenched. The joy in the old man’s laughter hit him like a fist.

       And then he gave orders that would make it come to pass. “I want you to go, too, Betty, and a few others from the Headquarters.” They looked at him in disbelief. He convinced them: “We have to go. This is the most important thing we’ll ever do.”
      But he would never tell anyone the real reason for their pilgrimage.

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