Domination of the SPOOKS

by Chad V. Holtkamp

  4

  The man in black clicked his key fob and opened the door to his black German sedan. He removed his coat and sat down in the driver’s seat, immediately closing and locking the door.

  He looked back towards Commander Weisman’s office. He could see him shuffling a batch of papers around his desk, hunting for as much info as he could get his hands on about Dom Wagner. “Good move, Commander,” he thought to himself. Anything to keep Weisman busy.

  The man in black already had every bit of info on Dom that he needed. He just wanted to see how thorough the Commander would be at following orders. If he could trust him to provide every last bit of info he expected, maybe he could prove useful down the line. He had some ideas on possible promotions for the Commander, but this would be a useful first test.

  He pulled out his iPhone and checked his latest messages. Nothing urgent had come through from his boss, so all was good at the moment. He opened his Twitter feed to mindlessly scroll through stupid human tricks. It was mostly drivel, mindless blather about cats and pigs and politics. He only scanned it for the odd bit of intel that occasionally seeped through. That time, he noticed a tweet from Fox News about some former military officer chattering about an alien colony on the outer rim of Saturn. He clicked the link and forwarded the tweet to his email account to review later.

  He looked up from his feed and saw Dom entering Weisman’s office and flirting with the secretary. She lit up when he entered the room. “Dom could definitely prove useful,” he thought.

  He swiped up to close Twitter and checked the weather. A storm was approaching from the west bringing hail and high winds. He dropped his phone in the passenger seat and started the car. No sense getting his new shoes wet since the morning forecast had been sunny and dry. “Someday they’ll learn to get the forecasts right,” he thought.

  He dropped the car into reverse, taking care not to hit any cadets in his blind spot. The sensors didn’t beep so he kept going until he’d swung completely around. His phone chimed an alert, but he ignored it while he dropped the car into drive and took off for the highway.

  * * *

  Dom always admired older women, especially when they took care of themselves like Darcy. She was around 30, just slightly out of range for him but she didn't mind. She melted every time he stepped into the office and smiled before he’d even say hello. “Why couldn’t guys my age be that charming?” she thought, dropping her pencil to the floor without thinking.

  Dom immediately lunged for it in one smooth motion as she swiveled around in her chair to face him. As she bent over, Dom caught a whiff of her perfume. “Is that new, Darcy? I don’t think I’ve smelled that on you before.”

  “Yes, I picked it up over the weekend,” she said. “Do you like it?”

  “It smells wonderful, as pretty as you are,” he replied. He really did like it, but anything she wore would be an improvement over most of what was worn around the Academy. “Here’s your pencil. Looks like the tip broke off, though. Let me sharpen it for you.”

  He stepped to the side desk and inserted the pencil. The whirring motor chewed down the broken stub and replaced it with a nice, sharp point. “It’s cute that you still use a pencil in this day and age of computers and iPads.”

  “It’s a nostalgia thing,” she said. “Plus, I can easily erase whatever I need to fix.”

  She wasn’t the only one into nostalgia. Weisman kept a fountain pen and inkwell on his desk, ready to file and flair.

  “Here you go, all sharp and ready to go.” He handed her the pencil, and she smiled back up at him. “I see Commander Weisman is busy so I’ll just stop by later.”

  “Yes, he just finished a meeting but asked not to be interrupted the rest of the afternoon. I’m sure he saw you out here so I’ll touch base before I leave at 5:00.”

  Dom headed back out the door, making a left turn to head to the coffee shop down the hall. He thought it might be a late night so he’d definitely need some caffeine to stay awake.

  5

  The man in black pulled into the motel parking lot. He preferred hotels, but this motel was just far enough out of the way that he wouldn’t attract a lot of attention. It also provided better reception being a bit further away from the center of town. He could see the sky growing darker from the west, and the trees were swaying in the stiffening breeze. They were right this time, a storm was definitely on its way. He popped the trunk and grabbed his bags, taking a quick glance around the parking lot before closing the trunk again. No one was around.

  “This town sure is quiet,” he thought, heading toward his room.

  * * *

  Commander Weisman pulled all the files he could find on Dom. He knew this was a perfect chance for him to do something special. He didn’t know what the man in black had in mind, but with the way he was acting, he seemed part of some top-secret government agency. Dom was a fantastic cadet and deserved to be part of something bigger. His talents were top-notch and getting better by the day.

  Dom also had the intangibles that couldn’t be taught. He could schmooze with the best of them but make it charming enough that it wasn’t repellent. Not everyone could do that. Weisman had seen enough suck ups in his day, even in that very year, but Dom wasn’t like that. He knew Dom was going places and this would be his ticket.

  Weisman wasn’t entirely altruistic. He had his motives. Ever since being cleared of the hacking charges a few years earlier, he’d done his best to stay on the right side of the government. Those spooks spooked him enough that he didn’t dare cross them again. He hadn’t done it maliciously, though he knew he was bending the rules, stretching them as he used to tell the other forum dwellers and that it would catch up with him at some point.

  It did, but they liked him enough and followed the “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer” kinda thing with him. They didn’t want Weisman falling into the hands of the enemy. They installed him at the Academy to watch over, nurture, and guide the best and the brightest for the next generation.

  Dom was that. He came prepared and made it look easy. Pulled off the rough and tumble streets of Chicago’s North Side, he graduated at the top of his class from Lane Tech, winning honors as Homecoming King, Prom King, and Class President. All around people liked him, damn it. They really did. It was almost comical how much he could get away with; the teachers let him explore every whim and fancy he had.

  Weisman thought it was time his investment in Dom was going to pay off, but some higher-ups noticed and now they were going to take him away.

  6

  The man in black stepped into his motel room for the night. The place was serviceable, nothing too fancy, but he’d only be here for another day or two. Outside was a heavily wooded area on the edge of town with not much traffic. He managed to get cell coverage, pulling out his laptop to get the latest messages from headquarters. He booted into the secure enclave VPN, and the email kept coming. This Dom guy was a piece of work. Off-the-charts brain power, successful with the ladies, and rarely pissed anyone off. Except that Jock Saunders guy.

  The man in black pulled up a separate file on Jock. It wasn’t quite as in-depth or impressive but still tickled the interests of some of the higher-ups. After meeting with Commander Weisman, the man in black knew Jock wasn’t going to be a fit for his group. He figured another agency would snatch him up down the line. For now, his focus was on Dom.

  But how to get him out of there? And would he come willingly? That was always the key. It required pulling candidates out of their comfort zone, and explaining just what getting involved with them all entailed. It was a leap of faith. Most washed out, but the best of the best got through it. He looked back to his selection history. Things were much simpler back then. They’d met at a cafe, filled out some paperwork and away they went, few questions asked.

  Now things were different. Going off with strangers wasn’t as easy, leaving behind the legacy was tougher. Back then the only thing you left behind was maybe a notebook
or a pen pal. Now when you disappeared you left behind Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, not to mention a thousand different forum groups. Everything online went blank in an instant. Everyone noticed even if they’d never met a person in reality. In the virtual world, there were always a ton of footprints.

  It was his job to erase those, to scrub the machine of a person’s existence. Dom would be missed, but he’d be a tremendous asset to their cause, especially with the new areas of exploration coming into broader acceptance. Significant changes were coming, and his agency was the tip of the spear.

  Where they took it from there was undecided. The rules were still being made, the new modes being dreamed up as they met with new agencies.

  His group was the elite of the elite, and he was to select those who would lead them to the next stage. It was destined to be a strange new world. They needed to be physically fit and well rounded, open-minded and welcoming of others with a high degree of cultural sophistication.

  He’d visited a prospect a few years back in a small town in Iowa. Her neighbors didn’t take kindly to a strange man in black asking questions about one of their own. They were a tight-knit group and spoiled any chance this young woman had of making a different choice in her life. Who her friends were mattered to him, and they weren’t accommodating.

  He showed up in Iowa and left a few hours later, not even having time to unpack his suitcase. He felt bad she missed out on the opportunity though he felt she would have washed out anyway. Bombing out there led him to the trail of Dom Wagner, and he knew this trip would play out much differently.

  He called Weisman. “I need you to get in touch with Mr. Wagner and have him there first thing in the morning. No, just get him in your office, and I’ll take things from there. Just don’t let him know I’m coming.”

  “Oh, and I left a small envelope on the side of your desk. Follow the instructions carefully in the morning, and I’ll see you then.”

  7

  Commander Weisman sat at his desk with a mug of coffee, reading the morning reports. He expected to have a busy day and arrived early at 0630 to get a jump on things. By 0800 he was on his third mug of coffee and raring to go.

  He’d finished putting together the files the stranger wanted on Dom shortly after he got in. It was the least he could do considering the man knew quite a bit more about Weisman than anyone in any agency he’d met. He’d hoped to keep those secrets classified, lest anyone find out and challenge his current authority. It wasn’t like he was trading secrets with the Russians in days gone by. Besides, those guys were playing nice now, and things were looking up.

  A new guy was in the White House and promised to get rid of all the corruption and dirty deals. It was wishful thinking, and a lot of people had given up hope by then. But they bought his schtick hook, line, and sinker.

  Weisman saw Dom flirting with his admin in the outer office, right on schedule. He put the papers away in a file and closed it in the drawer behind him. I better get out there before she takes him too seriously, he thought. You’d think she’d recognize this pattern and get smart about it, but that wasn’t going to be the case, not today at least.

  He opened the door to his office and poked his head out. “Dom, good to see you’re on time, as usual,” Weisman said. “Leave Darcy alone and get your butt in here. Darcy, hold my calls for the next hour. I’m not expecting any visitors until after lunch.”

  He held the door open the rest of the way and motioned for Dom to take a seat. Dom promptly sat down in the Commander’s chair, taking in the view from that side of the desk. Weisman stood there and stared, not saying a word. Dom liked to play this game, and Weisman humored him for a moment.

  “You didn’t say which seat,” Dom said. He knew that it would get a rise out of Weisman. If he were just any cadet, he’d have shown him the door ages ago. But Dom held a unique charm, a reality distortion field that led people to let him get away with things they probably shouldn’t.

  As Dom got comfy, he glanced over the desk making mental notes of the files he saw. He processed information pretty quickly and could see that most of what Weisman worked on that morning was routine paperwork. He caught a glimpse of one file with his name on it, though, but he didn’t stop to gaze on it.

  He continued to scan the rest of the papers but took a side view from the corner of his eye on the one file. It looked like much of the others on the desk, save for the small checkmark next to his name. He wondered what it could be. He leaned back in the chair and propped his shiny black boots on the corner of the desk like he owned the place.

  Weisman didn’t notice. What he did see was the one file he’d forgotten to add to the papers he put away. “OK, Dom, time’s up,” Weisman said. “Out of my chair. Go. Yours is the one on the other side of the desk.”

  Dom took his feet off the desk pushing the chair back to stand up. He smiled at Weisman and moved around to the other side, stealing another quick glance at the file. He wondered if maybe it had something to do with the strange man in black that people had mentioned seeing around the academy yesterday

  There were whispers that he was from some black ops group, but that was more likely from the fact that he was wearing black. Some people took clothing way too seriously. But with the fact that there was a particular file on Weisman’s desk with his name on it, and that he could tell Weisman was on his third mug of coffee from the shape of the rings on his desktop, something important was happening.

  “So what are we working on this morning?” Dom asked. “Darcy said you were already here when she came in at 0700. Pretty early to get to work for just some routine paperwork.”

  “I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately,” Weisman said. It was a lie, and he hoped that it wouldn’t cause him insomnia later. The powers of suggestion worked in strange ways. “Rather than stare at the black ceiling and count backward, I got up and took a shower. I was ready to go and came in early to get a jump on things.”

  “Well, then, anything I can help with?” Dom asked.

  Weisman leaned back in his chair, debating on whether to bring Dom up to speed on the strange man in black. He liked Dom and felt he was one of the brightest people he’d met in a long time. He trusted that he could keep a secret and not go blabbing to everyone.

  “Dom, how much do you know about the ISS?” Weisman asked.

  “You mean the space station? Not much, just that we’ve had trouble getting supplies to it lately with the shuttle program falling by the wayside. Things look promising with SpaceX and the Falcon Heavy, but so far there’s just been a Tesla floating around out there cranking Bowie tunes.”

  “Yeah, that was a cute little stunt they pulled,” Weisman said. “That was pretty much what I expected. We haven’t had much news from there lately. Most of what’s been happening has been provided by the Russians and the Chinese. We’re lagging behind due to those asinine budget cuts. We’re wasting so much time and money on Earth that we’ve forgotten the original missions to explore the rest the galaxy.”

  Dom was confused. Did Weisman really wake up early and come into his office to discuss space stations? Is that what was keeping him up at night?

  It all seemed like an odd choice for that. Dom looked down at the file again and then back up to Weisman. A sudden commotion in the parking lot snagged their attention, and they both turned to look at the side window. Weisman stood up from the desk and walked over to raise the blinds.

  The man in black was chatting with a cadet and waving his arms like a bird. Maybe someone else also had too much coffee this morning, he thought.

  8

  The man in black woke up just before dawn at 0630. He quickly showered and dressed putting on a fresh white shirt with the same black suit as the day before, and the day before that. He loved being able to wear the same suit when he traveled, though it would need a serious steaming once he got back home.

  Golden hour shone through the trees as he stepped out the door, as he turned back to pull it securely shut and
lock it. The motel was outdated by not having auto locks or keycards but still actual keys, frozen in time as a reminder that the old ways weren’t always so good.

  His black sedan took on a warm glow from the sun. He opened the door and put his hand on the roof, facing the sun with his eyes closed. If it were mid-day, he’d step out of the office as often as he could to get a few rays on his face. He didn’t have much chance for that when he was back at the office. He also didn’t have much need for his car, either, again soon to be a relic of the past, especially the gasoline version. The new electric models were starting to come out, but he still liked the feel of internal combustion under him during the drive.

  He beeped his fob and unlocked the door. He eased his 6’5” frame into the driver’s seat and pushed the button on the dash. The twin-turbo V12 sprang to life through the roar of the dual exhausts. He didn’t need this much power, but he was happy to have it on the rare occasion he did. There wasn’t much out there that he couldn’t keep up with on the road, or above it for that matter. All he needed to do was push a button above the nav screen, and he’d be in good hands.

  He turned out of the lot, the tires squishing through piles of wet leaves strewn about the road. He gunned the engine after a few minutes of driving, one to feel the power but also to feel that same power course through him. Driving made him feel alive, and lately, he seemed to need that more and more. That’s why he had volunteered to check out Dom. He needed to get out of the office, to get back on the ground and feel the connection with the road, the connection with the Earth.