by Micah Thomas
He saw a bum beneath the approaching streetlight and thought about crossing. Typically, nonviolent transients could get weird in the wee hours when they were no longer fettered by the light of day and moderated sobriety. Daytime had a social contract, obeyed even by the lowest caste within a range. Jacob decided, on a whim, to walk by and not change his course. It could have been that latent violent streak sleeping inside most men that darkly fantasizes that one day someone will start shit and they can approach justifiable homicide with a clear conscience.
As Jacob got closer, he saw that the man was not a bum, or at least, showed some signs of being recently housed. Dressed in loose khakis and a button down, the man looked like a kindly black grandfather. He neither wobbled in the drunk dance, nor fidgeted in the crack dance. The light threw shadows across his face, but there was something undeniably familiar about him. He made eye contact with Jacob as he approached.
"Hey," Jacob said.
The man smiled and said, "Hello, Jacob.".
Jacob initially nodded as if the greeting was super fucking normal, but it wasn't. He stopped and spun around.
"Do I know you? How do you know my name?"
"I'm Wiseman," he replied.
It took a moment for this to sink in, but when it did Jacob was ecstatic.
"Holy shit. What are you doing in Chico? Do you need anything? I'm a fan, believe, I'm a fan. I can't even believe this right now."
"I don't need anything right now, but thank you. There is something we could do together though," Wiseman said.
"Anything. Just don't make me think I'm a chicken, ok?" Jacob joked.
"No. Nothing like that. Do you have a phone available? Something we could make a video on?"
"Sure."
"I want you to post it when you get home. You'll feel good about it. Your association with me will bring you and your business opportunities that you could not imagine were possible. I hope you accept this as payment for your services."
"Absolutely. I mean, whatever you need man," Jacob said as he checked his phone's battery life and was relieved to see it was full.
Wiseman straightened his posture, looked directly at the camera aperture, and started his speech.
"People of the world, don't lose sight of the things that make you human. The drama of your lives, your essential each distinct otherness, bickering on Facebook. It may seem like an awful day, but it's wonderful. I'm too late. I know that now. I say this to prepare you. You will be given a choice, and it's the devil's bargain. When you are closed, you are safe. You each have a gap, an accident of biology, and you need to keep it closed at least for another few hundred generations. While it's open, you are vulnerable. My only purpose has been to help you keep it closed. When you go seeking, you will often find, but you are utterly unprepared for what is lying in wait. Mother, Maker, Shaper, Fire, and the strange others on the edge of unknowability. Remember instead how good it was to watch an episode of Friends or Seinfeld, to live in some immortal moment of the Ellen Show when things are wit and light and love. The joy when you play a mobile game. The small things are actually quite large and wonderful."
When Wiseman paused, Jacob asked, "What will happen to us? What is coming? What will become of me?"
"It's the end of your world, if you let it."
Wiseman turned away and Jacob stopped recording.
"Fuck, man. Really?" Jacob asked.
Wiseman nodded with a gentle sad expression.
"Where are you going? Do you need a place to stay?"
"No. I have miles to go, and someone to meet. Go back home, make peace if you can with your lady friend. Thank you for listening."
Jacob walked back down the street the way he came. He glanced back once, and saw Wiseman still standing beneath the light. He'd post the video online, for sure. As to the rest of it, he'd just wait and see. There'd been more than one end of the world scare since he'd been aware of such things; 1999, 2012, the election of 2016. If we let it, Wiseman had said. Enigmatic as fuck, Jacob thought. What do you do with that?
***
Back in the outskirts of Seattle, Erik laid in bed with a fever. The thought circled like a song on repeat, I'll burn them. Every happy dolt, getting laid, laughing and cucking around. Those sappy idiots think they own the world. The gobble up freebies and shit cruelty. I'll show them what strength looks like. I know things now. I can see through walls. Those dumb jocks won't know what hit them. When I'm done, they'll lay virgins at my feet, anything I want. I can melt steel beams. Not yet, but once I get the fire back from that fucking thief.
His alarm went off, an obnoxious klaxon sound. It was midnight. Devil's hour.
In the apartment off from the main office, Sandy didn't ask many questions of her employer. She was the property manager, having worked in special needs housing before, she knew the drill. When Black Star hired her to manage the Shoreline complex five years earlier, she took the job and paycheck without question. The residents were part of some sorta outpatient program, and never unruly. Normal things, petitions for more AC units, a luxury never really seen in the North West. Stopped up sinks, sure. Just call the handyman. She didn't have to collect rent, so that wasn't an issue. Erik was the only resident that had complaints. Not that she was afraid of him. She'd managed facilities with real behavioral issues, and she'd done it all with compassionate professionalism.
That night, she couldn't sleep and was binge-watching Netflix. True crimes, monsters next door, who the fuck did I marry, plastic surgery disasters. The parade of horribles was her guilty pleasure. The knock at her door jolted her in a bad way. Maybe the junk TV was getting to her. Sometimes the Institute's director did make late night visits. Probably nothing, she thought.
She opened the door without even checking the peek hole. She blinked in confusion for a moment.
"Hi, Erik. What are you doing up?"
He giggled at her, his hands twisting together, his eyes dark and wild, red as if he'd been crying. And the smell, kerosene and body odor? It nearly knocked her over with its pungency.
When he spoke, it was in a reedy staccato and for the world it was like watching a ventriloquist act.
"You're gonna help me," Erik said.
"Ok, Erik," she practically moaned.
She made a move to slightly close the door, when a sick dread hit her mind, images of rotting meat, bugs de-fleshing corpses, decay, rat kings twisting in cannibal knots. She stumbled back into her apartment and the lights drained from the room, a hazy veil of horror covered her vision.
Erik stepping in after her.
"There's a lock mechanism. Lock all the doors from here. Lock them all inside."
"Why? No. Only when I get a call from Director Cynthia."
Another wave of nauseating visions and fear and dread. She fell to her knees and vomited up her frozen dinner. Salisbury steak and artificial mashed potatoes. This is bad, her rational mind repeated in alarm.
Erik put his clammy hand on her shoulder and she flinched at the touch. It was a dead hand, her mind screamed. Slimly snail trails, and that stink. Do what he wants and get away, she thought in panic. Then call the director. Get away.
The pain lessened and the visions receded.
"We can do this all night, Sandy. It's better if you just do what I say. Lock the doors then go start your car. We'll be taking a little trip. You, me, and my friend makes three."
Sandy did as she was told. Sitting in her car, she thought she could run away, but she couldn't. Flight was blocked out by a wall of terrible thoughts. Even as she saw smoke rising apartment building. She was losing her mind, unable to tell if the screams were coming from the building or from inside her own mind.
Erik opened the driver's side door and had her slide over. He was giggling that monstrous wet laugh.
"Buckle up. We're going for a ride."
***
Henry drove that car to Reno. On the farm, he'd gotten more familiar with his demon than he even thought he could, but he should have neve
r kidded himself that he had control. There's no trips out to that astral plane, the familiar forest and path, because this shit was on him in real time. But he couldn't even communicate with it at all. At least in guided meditation, there was a ritual for contact, and a sense of communion. Now what? Just wait around for surprise death to descend to everyone around him? The body count bothered him in an abstract way. Suicide seemed like a good option. What's the point? Go to another place, still the same person. He didn't have a plan for anything at any point in his stupid life. Now he's stolen a car. Great. Now, he's burned up god knows how many people. He felt his mind tearing itself apart. Two distinct people in one body. One not even a person but a presence of a driving force, an alien, a bringer of destruction. Henry didn't feel like anything inside. Shouldn't he be racked with guilt? Shouldn't he feel confused about what comes next? Escape felt natural. Escape was what he did again and again, but the pointlessness of his existence was offset by that other in him, what's over here, what's over there, go someplace else.
Those fucking crazy dreams were part of it. In some way, they were forcing him to deal with some of this shit. Reviewing emotional scenes of his past, being there almost as an outsider, he could relive it and also change the way he felt about it. Hell of a way to reach catharsis, he thought. But he definitely felt better about the Chloe situation. The burning dreams had something to do with that. He was shifting inside. He hadn't had a seizure. The alarm bells, some Pavlovian training, seemed to have been turned off. But wasn't he losing part of himself, too? The chips on his shoulders were part of him. Without them, who would he even be?
Henry drove on, with only a vague sense of direction. Reno. Why Reno? The family home before Seattle. His grandmother's house, some place to lay low until he either ended it or they came for him again. He'd loved that house, and its bizarre construction. Rooms had been added as his grandparents made additions to the family. With each kid, another addition, until after ten kids, the former exterior of the house was now an internal wall, complete with windows. The labyrinth motion of the rooms made for excellent hide and seek.
When he arrived, he stared at the house, someone had been here, freshly painted exterior, a maintained rose garden. Maybe it had been repossessed or sold to a nice family. He waited until sure he saw no motion behind the open windows. He checked beneath the doormat for a key and there it was. New paint, but same old habits.
He hadn't got the key in the lock when the door opened.
"Hi, Henry."
Henry's mother stood on the threshold, wearing gardening gear and a wide brimmed hat. Henry had last seen her in the back of a cop car, strung out and crazy-eyed after she'd called the police herself. What was it? Oh yeah, she had recognized that the impulse to kill her teen son was maybe something she needed help with at the time. The intervening five years had been kind to her, perhaps more kind to her than to Henry.
"Come in and have some coffee. I was just getting ready to trim the flowers, but that can wait."
They sat at the long dining room table. There were nicks and tiny teeth imprints around the legs where Henry had been teething as a child.
"You know it's your cousin's wedding tonight. It's good you showed up. Family is important and she doesn't have too many around anymore."
"I didn't know."
"Well, you're going. I bet you can fit in one of your grampa's suits in there in the closet. It's been gathering dust for god knows how long."
"Mom. I'm in trouble."
"Well, I don't see anyone chasing you. Do you need money, is that why you came back to your momma?"
"No. No. I didn't know you were living here, or anywhere."
She humphed and drank her coffee.
"I'm not going to sit here and get dragged through the mud. You're welcome to stay for the wedding, but I've done a lot of growing up."
"I'm not here for that either, Mom."
"You might as well get cleaned up, Henry. You smell like something crawled upside you and died. I'd burn those clothes if I was you."
They sat like that, an unspoken truce, years of hurt between them, and no way to unpack it. Henry was glad to be spared a born-again Christian speech, if that is what had happened to his mother. The absence had cleaned her up, but not warmed her. She'd never been the mommy type, not even close. Henry was actually happy for her, but would have rather had his grandmother for company. Then at least they could play dominos and talk it out.
Henry took the furthest back room, the oldest in the house, his grandfather's room. It still smelled like old-fashioned cologne and cigarette smoke. Henry choked back emotion as the flood of memories hit him. Before the fires, before the homelessness, he had been a child here, but that was long gone. No one can ever really go back home, but for some, the distance is even further. Lines crossed with no forgiveness. The ordinariness of prodigal returns seemed farcical in light of Henry's own transgression. What if he'd come back instead of going to Black Star, all of this could have been different? He could have gotten a job, gotten clean, sorted out any legal questions with an actual lawyer and live a relatively normal life. It wasn't in the cards.
Henry showered in the cold water that never warmed, but he didn't mind. Dirt and soot flowing down the drain as he scrubbed himself with a multicolored bar of soap made up of the slivers of at least 5 previous soaps. He felt the thing inside shift and speak to him, without words, as if responding only to this emotional reflection. The calm, tentative, almost questioning tone of its internal caress soothed Henry's anxiety. No alarming panic or insane dreams. Maybe that had burned out of him. Maybe there could be a truce after all. Henry reached out with his mind, and felt the double perception slip gently over his awareness. A small release. Steam rose in the shower as the temperature climbed in a controlled small gesture before dissipating. This was a new and interesting development for them both.
He felt a dizziness hit him, gut punch, and then he saw her, his Circle K savior, as clear in his mind as if he was watching a movie. He didn't know where she was, or even what she was doing, but the image of her face was there in his mind. He rubbed his eyes, wondering, not for the first time, if he was finally losing it. The vision persisted a moment further, filling him with a familiar longing and sweetness. That was unexpected, he thought. Was his inner guest trying to tell him something? Cassie. He'd only met her once, and yet, he kept thinking about her. It was more than the fact that she'd been nice to him. It was more than just his limited imagination latching onto the last pretty girl he'd seen. He felt something he couldn't explain. He doubted he'd ever see her again, and that was probably for the best. But then again... naw, soul mates were kiddy stuff.
***
Cynthia called the project status meeting to order. The tone had changed, from dutiful professionalism to a grim shit show. The signs of stress were on everyone's faces. In less than a month, things had gone from high risk but with a plan, to fully out of control.
Cynthia started, her voice more stern than usual, "I want to begin with a reminder. A reminder of your contracts, of your duty, of what you owe to your projects, your subjects, and to Black Star."
"Cynthia, we all know and remember," Thomas said. Perhaps the only one in the room that looked relaxed.
"I'm glad to hear it, but then, what has changed? Let's be honest. India has gone FUBAR, irretrievable loss. Zero containment. Zero intel," Cynthia said, laying out the litany of sideways trending issues.
"There was always risk," Thomas said, smug and self righteous.
"Where was the management of the risks? If the project had been compromised, were there alerts?" she said.
She was returned silence and downcast eyes from everyone except Thomas, who merely met her gaze.
"Even with Wiseman, they always had the potential to..." said Matthew.
"To what? Don't you dare say escape. We aren't a god damn prison!" Cynthia raged.
She sighed heavily and slumped in her chair.
"Any other updates?" she asked.
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Matthew cleared his throat and said, "Wiseman has taken the bait. He's going to Vegas. This presents an opportunity for reinsertion. My team has ramped up, over the month, a presence beyond anything we've ever done."
"I know. I sign the checks," Cynthia said.
Taking the tone of the project manager in charge, Matthew said, "We feel very confident in our chances for containment. It will be decidedly anticlimactic. We will swap out Wiseman with our double, and the American people will have a verified fraud on their hands. End of story."
"Does the president know that this is just a show?" another project lead asked, clearly not in the know of the plan.
"Does it matter? He's taken the bait just as well. Turn down an opportunity to vindicate himself against the ultimate truth teller? He couldn't resist," Matthew said.
Because everyone has an opinion, the lead didn't stop, "But what about the Intelligence Community? Do they suspect we've breached our contract of nonintervention in national affairs?"
Cynthia cut in, "It was a risk, a known risk, but we proceeded without notification. Our touch in this event is not detectible."
She looked around the table, sensing out any additional challenges or questions. There were none.
"Right. Well. What about other projects? Tell me. Has there been progress on Henry?" She didn't bother to use project code names at this point.
Thomas, skipping over the actual PM assigned to Henry, said, "No. There was an art festival."
"Are you going to look me in the face and say that was a useful search?" Cynthia asked.
"It's not been a priority," he said.
"No. Not that it would matter," Cynthia said with venom.