by Max Barry
“Is one of those people Frost?” The poet responsible for building security. Yeats had spoken to him from the chopper, in between phone notifications, and asked him to execute certain important, long-planned orders. Specifically, Frost was to fill the lobby with Environmentally Isolated Personnel, men and women with black suits and guns who saw the world through a computer-filtered display and heard nothing but white-listed words. These had proved insufficient to retrieve the word from Broken Hill—the teams sent in had rather spectacularly killed each other—but that meant nothing, because he had deliberately engineered it. He was fairly confident that they could stop Woolf.
“No, I haven’t heard from Frost.”
“I’ll speak to Frost,” Yeats said. “No one else.” He closed the speaker. Red boxes continued to slide down his monitors. He saw the word LOBBY. He leaned back in his chair.
So she’d entered the building. If all was proceeding as he’d instructed, Woolf would currently be on the floor, her hands bound in plastic, electrical tape being spread across her mouth. She would be lifted up and borne to a windowless cell. Then Frost would call.
He folded his hands and waited. A new red box slid up his screen. POI POSSIBLE SIGHTING: WOOLF, VIRGINIA. SECOND FLOOR. He looked at this awhile, trying to imagine circumstances in which Security might have decided to take Woolf up rather than down. He reached for the speaker. By the time he got the handset to his ear, a new notification had arrived. THIRD FLOOR. Was there a delay on these? A few seconds? It had never mattered before.
“Frances, would you mind putting the floor into lockdown?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And please attempt to reach Frost.”
“Right away.”
His screen blanked. The lights went out. Part of the lockdown. Nothing to be concerned about. He waited. His breathing was steady. He felt no emotion. Minutes passed. The lights came on.
He pressed for the speaker. “Frances, why has the lockdown lifted?”
“I don’t know. I’m finding out.”
Noise in the background. Quite loud; he could almost feel its low echoes through the door. “Who else is there?”
“It’s . . . how can I help you?”
A female voice spoke. Indistinct; he couldn’t identify it. The phone clicked off. He slowly put it down.
He had recognized Woolf’s natural aptitude for attack very early on. It would have been disappointing if she’d fallen to Frost and the soldiers. He would have missed his chance to test himself. Of course, there was the real possibility that she was about to walk in here and destroy him. That was a concern.
These were feelings. He didn’t need them. He would prevail or he would not.
He steadied his breathing and began to pray. O God, be with me and guide my hand. Let me transcend this petty flesh and become Your holy force. Warmth spread through his body. His relationship with God was his greatest resource. It had allowed him to become who he was. So many promising colleagues had fallen to temptation. They managed their physiological needs, eating and breathing and fucking deliberately and on schedule, taking care to remain in control at all times, but their social needs—their basic human desire to love, to belong, and be loved—these were simply suppressed, because there was no safe way to indulge them. And yet they were named needs for a reason. The human animal craved intimacy at a biological level, relentlessly, insistent. Yeats had seen many promising careers derailed by surrenders to intimacy: men who whispered confessions to whores, women whose eyes lingered on children. On such small betrayals were psyches unraveled. He had unraveled several himself.
He had struggled in his early years. It seemed vaguely amusing now. Infantile. But he remembered the loneliness. The way his body reacted when a woman smiled at him, the surge of desire it evoked to join with her, not merely in a physical sense but beyond that, to confide and be understood. It had been almost overwhelming. Then he discovered God.
It had been terribly alarming. The very idea, a poet succumbing to religion! He was shocked at himself. But the feeling was undeniable and grew week by week. He could no longer believe he was alone. He began to see the divine in everything, from the circumvoluted fall of a leaf to the fortuitous arrival of an elevator. Occasionally, when the sterility of his job pressed close, he felt the presence of God like a figure in the room. God was with him. God loved him. It was ridiculous, but there it was.
It was a tumor, of course. Oligodendroglioma, a cancerous growth in an area associated with feelings of enlightenment. The feelings it aroused could be reproduced through electrical stimulation. It wasn’t fatal, but it would need to be removed, his surgeon told him, as Yeats looked over the black-and-white scans, because it would continue to grow. Over time, there would be less and less of him and more of the tumor. His brain was being eaten by God.
He left the clinic in fine spirits. He had no intention of removing the tumor. It was the perfect solution to his dilemma: how to feed his body’s desire for intimacy. He was delusional, of course. There was no higher presence filling him with love, connecting him to all things. It only felt that way. But that was fine. That was ideal. He would not have trusted a God outside his head.
• • •
The door opened and a woman stepped through. She was wearing a long white coat that reached the floor. The hem was spattered black with liquid that might have been mud or dirt or might have been Frost. She had white gloves. A necklace, something on it that twisted and hurt to look at. He closed his eyes. He reached into his diaphragm for his strongest voice. “Vartix velkor mannik wissick! Do not move!”
There was silence. “Ow,” said Woolf. “That kind of hurt.”
He groped for his desk drawer.
“Credit to you, Yeats. I spent a long time preparing for you to say those words. And I still felt them.”
He got the drawer open. His fingers closed on a gun. He raised it and squeezed the trigger. He kept firing until the clip was empty. Then he dropped it to the carpet and listened.
“Still here.”
There was a sword on the wall behind him. Three hundred years old, but it could cut. He had no training. But that might not matter, if she came close enough. She might think it was decorative, until too late.
“So I’m here to kill you,” she said, “just in case there was any doubt.”
He breathed. He required a few moments to calm himself. “Emily.”
“Woolf,” she said. “Woolf, now.”
Interesting. Had she changed segments? It was possible. She might not have merely improved her defense but managed to alter her base personality in certain important ways. It could be done, with practice. In which case, she would be vulnerable to a different set of words. Yes. She would have rejected her previous self in order to distance herself from what she had done in Broken Hill. He needed to figure out what she had become. “How did you get here?”
“Walked, mostly.”
“The lobby was supposed to contain a fairly overwhelming number of security personnel.”
“The goggle guys? Yeah. They’re screened somehow, right? Filtered against compromise.”
“They’re supposed to be.”
“They are. But Frost isn’t.”
“Ah,” he said. “So there were no goggle guys.”
“Nope.”
Difficult to read a person you couldn’t see. The visual cues were so important. But it could be done. He could do it. The important thing was that she was still talking. “I gather you feel wronged by me?”
“You could say that.”
“Well,” he said. “I won’t demean us both by pretending to apologize. But may I point out that killing me won’t serve your interests?”
“Actually, I disagree with you there. I mean, I thought about it. Come here with the word, make you run the organization for me; that would be interesting. And I can’t deny there is a real appeal in turning you into my slave for life. But that’s not an option. I have a little problem, you see. I picked it up in Brok
en Hill, when you sent me to deploy that kill order. I kind of looked at it. I caught a reflection. It wasn’t enough to compromise me. Not completely. It was backward, you know. And not very clear. But I think a piece of it got in there. I call it my star. That’s what it feels like. A star in my eye. It’s not very nice, Yeats. It wants me to do bad things. But I figured out a way to control it. I just need to concentrate on killing you. When I do that, the star isn’t so bad. I don’t feel like I need to hurt anyone else. So you see, you dying is kind of a nonnegotiable at this point.”
He was fascinated. This part he had not known. “Then what?”
“Excuse me?”
“After you murder me. What then?”
“That’s not really any of your concern.”
“I suppose not,” he said. “Very well. We will save that for later.”
“But there’s not going to be a later, Yeats. Not for you.”
“Mmm,” he said. He had narrowed her down to a dozen or so segments. He was mildly tempted to run through words for them all, which he could do in about fifteen seconds. That was a last-resort kind of move, though. It would spark an immediate response from her, of whatever kind. He would keep that in his back pocket while he attempted to learn more. “Before we proceed, I feel I must confess something.”
“Oh?” He heard her coat scuff the carpet.
“You are here because of me. There is no part of these events I have not engineered. The most difficult part of the exercise, in fact, was finding excuses as to why I left the bareword in Broken Hill for so long. To be honest, I expected you to move faster. It was becoming untenable. But here you are. Bringing the word back to me, filled with vengeance, according to plan.”
“Really?” she said. “I have to tell you, from where I’m standing, that looks like a really shitty plan.”
“When I came to Broken Hill in the midst of its immolation, I found myself moved. I felt desire. I realized then the danger of the bareword. It would have corrupted me. It would have been my undoing, as unearned power always is, sooner or later. And I have no intention of wasting this life on temporary greatness. What I will do with the word once I’ve taken it from you is leave a mark on this world that will never be erased.”
“You’re not making a hell of a lot of sense, Yeats.”
He shrugged slightly. “Perhaps my motives are beyond your comprehension. But I wish you to know that I don’t require words to make you perform my will. You are my puppet regardless. You stand here not because you willed it but because I did. Because defeating the bareword in your hands is the challenge I set myself to prove that I am ready to wield it.”
“Dude, I’m going to kill you,” she said. “I’ve walked through every defense you have. There’s no doubt about that.”
He rose from his chair and spread his arms. He began to increase his breathing, although she shouldn’t notice that. Segment seventy-seven. He was sure of it. It was 220 with more fear and self-doubt. Often paired in families, interestingly: a 220 elder child and a seventy-seven younger sibling. It was plausible that Woolf might slide from one to the other. “Here I am,” he said. “Kill me.”
He heard her approach. There were two wide chairs opposite his desk, reducing the possible space she was occupying to a relatively small cuboid. Close enough to slice a sword through, if he was quick.
“You have no idea how much I want this, Yeats. I know it’s bad form to say that. That I want. But I do. I want it so much.”
He could hear her breathing. Very close now. He could probably reach across the desk and touch her. He pulled air into lungs, preparing to speak the words that would make her his.
“Hey,” she said. “What’s that word? When the Japanese guys did something bad they’d atone by gutting themselves? You know? Disembowel themselves? What’s that called?”
He didn’t answer.
“Seppuku,” she said. “I think that’s it.”
Doubt entered his mind. She was a seventy-seven, yes?
“I’ve been planning this awhile, Yeats. Consider that.”
He considered. “Kinnal forset hallassin aidel!” He turned. His hands closed on wood. He drew the blade from the scabbard. “Scream!” This was to locate her. To provide a signal that he had analyzed her correctly. He lunged across the desk and swept the blade horizontally. It cut nothing but air, and he overbalanced.
“Not even close,” she said, from somewhere near the doorway.
He steadied himself, bringing up the blade. How foolish. He was disappointed in himself. It was that garbage about her name: Woolf, now. The purest bullshit, and he’d bought it. She was Emily, of course. She always would be.
He moved around the desk toward the sound of her voice, holding the blade flat, prepared for a stroke. He thought he heard something and jabbed speculatively. He turned in a slow half circle.
“This way,” she said from the corridor.
He felt his way to the doorway. In the corridor were strange whisperings. The vents? He felt surrounded. She had plans for him, apparently.
“There are people here.” Her voice floated ahead of him. “Just so you know.”
He took two steps and stumbled over a chair. He felt the toe of his right shoe bend in a way that suggested a permanent crease and felt grief.
“So I have a proposition for you, Yeats. You can open your eyes, look at this thing I’ve got around my neck, and follow my instructions to disembowel yourself. This way, nobody gets killed but you. Or you can stand there swinging that oversized butter knife while I send your own people against you. What do you say?”
He ran at her. Someone grabbed his arms. He slashed the blade at his aggressor and there was a gasp and the hands fell back. He thrust the sword out again and felt it puncture something. Weight pulled at the blade and he retreated before he could lose it. Something thumped against the carpet.
“Congratulations,” Woolf said. “You killed your secretary.”
He swiveled toward her voice, panting. The corridor was full of people. He could sense them. They were standing silently, waiting for his approach. To reach her he would need to kill them all.
“So, no surprise,” she said. “I don’t know what I was expecting.”
She was still a 220. She had practiced her defense. But he could find a way in. There was always something. A hidden desire or secret shame. With that, he could unravel her.
He explored air with the sword tip. “You were never going to be one of us. Eliot thought you could learn to discipline yourself. But the idea was laughable. You could never learn to discipline your excesses.”
“I don’t know, Yeats. You may not be giving me enough credit there.”
He swiveled toward her voice. “Do you really think you can hide your mind from me?” He swung the blade. The tip glanced against something and he scrambled forward, slipping and sliding, got the blade into something, and pushed.
“Yecck,” said Emily. “That was Frost.”
Perhaps she was unsettled by violence. “Vartix velkor mannik wissick! Scream!”
There was a pause. No screaming. “So you figured out I haven’t really changed. Congratulations. Not going to help you.”
“I can practically feel your emotions,” he said. “You radiate them. Tell me something, Emily. Why do you want me dead so much?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“I think it’s because you need to blame me. You need to believe that what you did in Broken Hill was my fault.”
“It was.”
“But a part of you knows the truth. That if you had tried harder, you could have stopped it.”
“Goddamn it, Yeats. You’re persistent. I’ll give you that. But I didn’t come here to listen to this. I was going to make you apologize of your own free will, but you know what, screw it. Open your fucking eyes.”
“You tell yourself you had no choice but you don’t believe it. That is why you desire me dead. You hope to kill a part of yourself.”
“Grab him,” she
said, to whom, he didn’t know. “Hold him down. Force open his eyes.”
He raised the sword. “Who killed that boy at the Academy? Was that me? He was the first to pay for the mistake of loving you with his life. But not the last.” Hands plucked at him. He flailed with the sword. “Did I make you a killer, or were you already?”
“Shut up!”
“Vartix velkor mannik wissick! You killed your lover! Scream!” Hands gripped him. “Vartix velkor mannik wissick, you deserve to be punished, you deserve to die for what you did! Vartix velkor mannik wissick, scream, you evil bitch!”
A weight of bodies bore him to the ground. Fingers groped at his face. Above this, a thin sound: a keening wail, like escaping steam.
“Vartix velkor mannik wissick,” he said. “Emily, lie down and sleep!”
His eyelids were dragged up. He saw faces he recognized, their expressions intent and focused. He knew their segments but nothing he could say would dissuade them from holding him down. He could work around that. He could convince them to release him once their duty was done. Because between the seething bodies, he saw a prone figure, sprawled on the carpet, her white coat gently rising and falling. His heart sang, because it was over, and he had won.
4 QUESTIONS TO QUICKLY KNOW SOMEONE WELL
From: http://whuffy.com/relationships/articles/8we4y93457wer.html
1. What do you do in your spare time?
2. What would you do if you had a year to live?
3. What are you most proud of?
4. What do you want?
[THREE]
Eliot went to the eighth floor, where burly men in gray uniforms were pulling up the carpet. “What the fuck?”
“Ah, Eliot,” said Yeats. He had a white cloth and was mopping sweat from the back of his neck. His shirt was wet beneath the armpits. Eliot had never seen Yeats so much as breathing quickly, so this was disconcerting. “We had a little disturbance.”
“The delegates have scattered. They thought you were about to bomb the place.”