Apocalypse's Prelude

by Carl Damen

  Amanda's mobil suddenly broke in. She poked at it for a minute, then looked at her dad. "Hey, Ware just texted. He's gonna be here in about ten minutes."

  Grant scraped at his plate with his fork for a few moments. "No."

  "Aw, c'mon. I'm going to L.A. in like, three weeks. This is my last real time to see him."

  "No." Grant dropped his fork. "This is a family dinner. You're staying."

  Amanda frowned and glanced at Jack from under her eyebrows. "You don't want me here, right? You need to catch up with your brother. What do I contribute? Teen angst?"

  Jack swallowed and tried not to look at Grant. He... didn't really seem like his brother anymore. He seemed like an old man. Intellectually, Jack knew he was almost forty, but emotionally, he felt a decade younger. If anything, Amanda felt more like a peer than anyone. Teen angst was what he was used to...

  "C'mon, Grant," he found himself saying, "let her enjoy herself. We'll have a guy's night, yeah?"

  Grant leaned back, his chair squeaking on the wood floor. "Whatever. Have him drop you off at our house, okay?"

  Amanda's face lit up as she nodded. "Yes. Sure thing."

  Grant retrieved his fork and resumed eating.

  "So," Jack prompted, in a bid to restart conversation, "I'm guessing Ware's your boyfriend?"

  "I guess so, yeah. We hang out."

  "I'm guessing your dad doesn't approve."

  Grant made a visible effort to not comment.

  Amanda shrugged. "Thinks he's too old. He's twenty-one; not that old. And no," she faced Grant, "he doesn't get me alcohol."

  Grant still said nothing.

  "See what I deal with?"

  Jack shook his head. "Not my place to get involved."

  The conversation lapsed again, and they continued on in silence until Amanda announced that Ware had arrived. "See you tomorrow, dad. Next fall, I guess, Jack."

  "Don't stay out past two!" Grant called after her as she disappeared into the hall. He sighed and looked sidelong at Jack. "I can't believe you talked me into this."

  This sentiment, by someone of his own generation, made Jack momentarily hyper-aware of his missing decade. "You sound like mom."

  "Yeah, well..." Grant stood and walked quickly to the living room. "She was right about my marriage." He flopped onto the couch. "You and Lauren, too."

  Jack froze in the act of standing and following. "Who?"

  "Who, who? Mom?"

  "No, you- you said-" Jack moved to stand in front of the couch. "You just mentioned someone. Who was it?"

  Comprehension bloomed on Grant's face, only to be immediately chocked out by confusion. "Lauren."

  Jack shook his head.

  "Lauren. Your fiance."

  Jack blinked.

  "Holy shit." Grant dropped his head into his hands. "They said there wasn't any brain damage..."

  "I had a fiance?" Jack felt momentarily numb. He was suddenly standing in a pastel room overflowing with medical equipment, a doctor standing before him, explaining to him the wreck, the mix-up, the missing time, a whole life he had never known he was missing- "I had a fucking fiance and you didn't tell me?"

  "Hey!" Grant jerked his head up, his voice defensive. "You were supposed to know! I didn't think I was something I needed to spoon-feed you!"

  Jack flung out his arms and snorted. "No, I've just been conscious for three months and never mentioned something this goddamned important. Of course I knew this vital bit of information! What else is no one telling me?"

  Grant pushed himself to his feet. "There's nothing to tell! I just thought you were stressed, I don't know! It was a rough three months."

  "I-I-" Jack clapped his arms to his sides then raised them again. "I have no idea what's going on here! I don't even know her name!"

  Back to the couch; Grant lolled his head back and rubbed at his eyes. "So you have no memory of her?"

  "I have nothing! No girlfriends, no fiances, no Laurens!"

  "Her name was Lucille Dawkins-"

  "And three months of silence didn't raise any red flags?"

  "You were dead for ten years! That raised way for fucking flags!"

  Jack moved his mouth for a moment, but couldn't form any words. This felt too much like this afternoon with Cohen & Associates, to much like people maneuvering behind his back. Secrets being kept. "You didn't tell me..." he finally whispered.

  The couch groaned as Grant shot upright. "I didn't know! I couldn't tell you if I didn't know you didn't know!"

  "Just... just go."

  "Jack, seriously, I didn't think anything was wrong-"

  "Get out!" Jack yelled, lunging forward. "Get the fuck out of here! Leave me the hell alone!" He took another step forward, but by then he was alone.

  Pictures floated by on the screen, a thousand personal moments shared with the whole world over the internet. In every picture was a young woman: pale, dark haired, her face dominated by a curving, elegant nose. In most pictures, kissing the woman, hugging her, generally being happy with her… was Jack.

  He sat in front of the screen, lazily swirling his fingers to advance to the next image. Lauren and Jack: they looked so happy together. He didn't remember any of it.

  He flicked his fingers at the screen and the photos were sucked back into the screen, revealing the photostream's root page. No updates for a decade.

  A void opened up in Jack, a deep well of confusion at this woman who was part of him. Guilt crept in over the edges of the void; he should feel something about her, but she was just a stranger now.

  Another gesture, and the screen shifted to a public profile. There was a more recent photo, an older woman, still recognizably Lauren, still a stranger. Below her image, a phone number.

  Jack didn't know Lauren, couldn't possibly miss her. Yet now that he knew about her, he felt connected to her, like she had a hold on him. He felt a strange commitment to her, and wondered if she still felt the same towards him.

  He had to call her.

  Doubts arose just before Jack connected the call. Should he really try to dredge up the past like this? As far as Lauren knew, Jack was dead. As far as Jack knew, Lauren didn't even exist.

  Except…

  Except now he knew. He didn't remember, but he knew. It was like a nervous habit someone had pointed out: he wasn't aware that he did it, but he would now be constantly self-conscious of it. If he didn't call, the thought of Lauren would gnaw at the back of his mind, and he would always wonder what they might have had together, did have together.

  Before he could consider it further, he connected the call.

  Four rings and then: "Hello?"

  Something—a nervous twitch, a conscious movement—was registered by the screen, and the call disconnected. Jack slumped back on the couch and took a heavy breath. Leave the past where it was; don't go back to the old life.

  Move on, find a hobby, work. That was what he needed to do now.

  He carefully avoided the thought that the job he was going to next week shared the same portion of his life as Lauren did...

  4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 5

  First thing Monday morning, Jack stood in front of the Cohen & Associates building, watching his cab drive away. He was suddenly back thirteen years, coming off of a string of internships and contract positions, ready to hitch his horse to the biggest wagon on the East Coast. Had Lauren been there with him, ready to follow him on this trail?

  He stared up at the impressive façade of the Cohen & Associates office. It was predominately flat, of course, in line with the older buildings that propped it up on either side. There were definite visual cues harkening back to Sky Crest: the polished mirror of the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sloping roof-line. But at each floor level was a small ledge studded with modern art, all wrought in what appeared to be glass. Cetacean forms leapt and writhed out of the glass, warping the light that passed through them into an infinite array of hues that lit up the sidewalk. Jack smiled at the display,
stepping back and forth to see the colors shift. He was vaguely aware of the few passersby staring at him in apprehension, but he ignored them. This was too much fun.

  "Just as easily distracted as I remember."

  Jack abruptly stopped and turned to see a woman with an auburn bob-cut staring at him. She looked familiar, but Jack couldn't place her. Then she twisted her mouth into a crooked smile, and it clicked.

  "Alice!" Jack rushed forward and embraced her. "I haven't seen you since college! Wow, I guess you work, here, huh?"

  She disengaged from his embrace and straightened her jacket. "Yeah, I sorta got your job after you left everyone hanging."

  "Yeahh…"

  She chewed her lower lip for a moment, then nodded. "So! I heard word you were coming back, so I asked for the job of babysitting you."

  "You shouldn't have."

  "You're probably right." She turned and headed into the building. "Let's get to work then, yeah?"

  Jack followed. "This way I guess you can pay me back for all those study sessions I did for you."

  "I seem to remember it being the other way around."

  Through the lobby, into an elevator. Jack glanced around and instantly lost interest; it wasn't nearly as interesting as the building's facade.

  Then there was Alice.

  They had been friends in college, in the same graduating class at the School of Architecture. They had even tried dating once, right before—before Jack remembered taking a break from dating and never picking up the habit again. That was were Lauren dwelt.

  Thinking about Lauren quickly made Jack uncomfortable. "This's a hell of a building so far," he said, trying for smalltalk

  "You like it? My best work, I think."

  "You—?"

  She turned to smile madly at him. "Yeah, internal contest; Old man Cohen liked mine best."

  "Good for you..." Jack wasn't ready for this job.

  The elevator stopped and they stepped out into an open commercial loft, with light streaming in from the huge windows on the long sides of the rectangular space. All around was the sound of restless scribbling, fevered typing, light music and hushed whispers.

  "Welcome to the working floor." Alice led him around the space, pointing out the break room, restrooms, supply closets, the like. Then they were walking down a line of cubicles huddled against one set of windows, stopping to speak briefly with the architect ensconced in each tiny room. Jack didn't recognize any of them, but a few reacted as if they knew him, or at least knew of him.

  They eventually stopped at a cubicle devoid of everything save for computer, chair, and view of the city. "Here we are," Alice said, "your home for the next… well, forever, as far as we know. Maybe some day you'll be good enough to live on Mount Olympus."

  Jack looked up at an office-studded platform that extended over part of the room.

  "Let me guess; that's where you work?"

  "Damn straight. Only the best make it to the Mountain."

  "So..." Jack looked around at cubicle and flopped his arms against his sides. "What now?"

  Alice folded her arms and looked back up at Mount Olympus. "It's what, nine? Cohen wants to meet with you, but he's in meetings till eleven so... homework? Get up to industry?"

  Sounded dull, but with enough promise of fun that Jack felt he could accept it. "Sure."

  "Cool. Tell you what; I've got a meeting with a client in half an hour. You just stay here and play around through the project archive, maybe get something running in one of the programs and mess around, okay? You see Cohen at maybe eleven thirty, I'll meet you for lunch at one, and we can catch up on your lost years, try to make you some new friends around here. Deal?"

  "Sure thing."

  Alice smiled and then hurried off to the upper floor.

  Ten minutes later, Jack was looking through the company's extensive archive of past projects. Everything they had done for the past forty years—since the firm was founded—was in here. Some early houses that Julius Cohen himself had designed for college professors and friends; several buildings for the smaller townships orbiting Philadelphia; civil buildings for cities around the county; mansions and museums and arenas and everything imaginable for those who could afford it all over the world.

  Most of it was familiar to Jack. Going into the computer and seeing these buildings felt like coming home, driving through his childhood neighborhood, seeing memories come up and disappear behind him. And there in the distance, a destination he had already reached, was Sky Crest. Jack saved a copy of the file to a new folder, then continued through the archives.

  Most of the files were in chronological order, oldest to newest, with a few projects for repeat customers sectioned off on their own. But there was another cluster of files—projects that hadn't been there in Jack's first foray with Cohen—that had their own ordering: military contracts. And there was his job, a simple bribe to keep him quiet about the Army's mistake.

  He clicked through to the military structures. Nearly all of them were utilitarian structures, only interesting for the occasional engineering trick incorporated to beat rough weather or explosives. But every once in a while, something caught his eye.

  Like this one. Jack was quickly scrolling through the thumbnails when he caught a glimpse of it. He quickly gestured for the stream of data to reverse and… There. He poked at the file, and it came up in the editing software.

  This structure—Now this structure was interesting. It was a bunker of some sort, a low, heavily built surface structure over about fifty feet of elevator shaft and piping, followed by a ten-story deep substructure.

  A few minutes of intense rotation and zoom gestures revealed high, vaulted ceilings, thick, bomb-and radiation-proof walls, living quarters for a small army, an Olympic sized swimming pool, gas and water hook-ups for a kitchen and even what appeared to be a medical facility on the lowest level.

  Jack whistled. This was very impressive. He switched to the project's information page and whistled again. Presidential Emergency Catastrophe Shelter-Tulsa. Someone pretty high up was pretty paranoid. Of course, it could just be a plan—no, there was the build date. This thing was out there in the real world.

  The bunker went into Jack's folder, along with Sky Crest. Just after he returned to the root menu, Jack realized the ramifications of the file. Someone had thought there was enough of a threat to the president that they had built an underground castle to protect him. If people that high up were that paranoid, perhaps he should be, too.

  He closed the file and went to his desktop. He opened the file of Sky Crest he had saved earlier and began to play with it. Though the program that C&A used was proprietary, it was a later version of what Jack had used in the past, so it wasn't long before he was fully immersed in the tower, looking through its superstructure, finding little changes he wanted to make. First, he cleared out the other apartments on his floor, just as a little joke for himself, then he set to work trying to make the tower taller. It was easy enough to separate the top few floors and duplicate the basic apartment structure under them, raising the tower another three hundred feet into the air.

  But when he brought the program into its physics simulation mode, the tower swayed far too much, and at one point even collapsed. Back to the drawing board.

  He took the larger section at the bottom of the tower and extended it out and up, giving the tower a much wider base. From there, he dug duplicates of the mall out of the virtual terrain and placed them at ninety-degree increments around the tower, mostly for the look of the thing.

  Now, to extend the tower itself…

  This time, Jack was able to get it to more than twice its original height. Any more and it collapsed.

  Eventually, he pushed back from his desk and looked at his mobile: 11:15. Good enough.

  He closed his tower and walked away.

  After lunch with Alice, Jack returned to his cubicle and continued to work on his own personal Sky Crest. His goal now was to get the tower to over a mile high,
but that was impossible with the current design.

  He expanded the base again, then completely removed the central tower. He switched to the materials section of the physics simulator, and played around with different metals and plastics, trying to find something both light-weight and flexible.

  By three o'clock, he still hadn't found anything. With a resigned sigh, Jack saved his changes on the file, ready to come back to it tomorrow with renewed vigor. The rest of today would be spent looking through the software's documentation to find certain hidden features that had to be there somewhere.