by Nina Post
“Commerce brokers? What, like bankers?”
“And traders, yes.”
“Yikes. Crappy gig.”
Murray ran his tongue over his teeth. “That crappy gig happens to be mine.”
“You’re an angel?” She leaned against the planter.
“Yes.”
Tubiel raised his hand for a high-five from Murray, who paused, bemused, then returned it with a tap.
“It’s not as impressive as it sounds,” Murray added. “Take my word for it: as much of a spaz as I am, I’m one of the few socially functional single-purpose angels―SPs for short. Most of us just, you know, do our jobs, and that’s all we do. The fallens are like famous actors desperate for their next big role. That’s partly why the fugitive you’ll be finding for Don―”
“Don?”
“My employer, the Destroying Angel of the Apocalypse. That’s partly why this fugitive is so dangerous. The fallens have an endemic sense of entitlement. This particular one is probably a raging diva. Look for grotesque displays of material wealth. They love that.”
Tubiel pulled at Kelly’s old rope bracelet.
“Why does Don want me for this job?” Her previous two jobs before finding the Jackal’s painting were capturing over-breeding zombie bunnies on a college campus and tracking down a mysterious sulfurous scent. She hadn’t exactly been a world-beater in the past few months.
“He’s called some references. And they raved about your resourcefulness and your skill with disguises.”
She was dubious, but wasn’t about to argue. It was good money. “I’ll get started this morning,” she said, walking away.
“Wait!” Murray called out. “Where are you staying?”
“A hostel a few blocks away,” she said over her shoulder. “They have free bananas and I tend to run low in potassium.”
He patted his pockets and pulled out a set of keys. “I have a better place for you.”
urray showed Kelly the top two floors of a 1920s-era art deco building, the former headquarters of Special Situations International, a corporation of unknown provenance and purpose.
Murray, Kelly, and Tubiel went through a revolving door set between intricately carved stone panels. The gold-etched elevators inside weren’t working, so they walked up the curving staircase of pink limestone to the top floor of the fourteen-story building.
“You can also use the fire escape at the back.”
Murray opened the door with a large silver key in need of polishing, and Tubiel darted around and ran inside. Murray turned the lights on, revealing a long expanse of marble floors and high ceilings.
They continued into a long office area, where rows of desk extended inside an open perimeter like a corporate race track. Kelly dropped her painting, duffle bag, and doctor’s satchel on the first desk she reached.
“I trust that a whole floor of 4,500 square feet is sufficient for your short-term stay.” Murray signaled with his arms like a runway marshaller to indicate locations as he spoke. “Executive offices to your right. Conference room and kitchen at the far end. Bedroom and bathroom on the left.”
He showed her to the first office on the right, at the fire escape end. The stenciling on the door read Mr. Black. A massive metal desk, the kind that could only be moved by a crane, hulked in the back of the room like a beast. She glanced at the walls, decorated with framed photos, evidently from Mr. Black’s days as a orienteer.
She sat in Mr. Black’s brass-riveted swivel chair, tilted back and surveyed the landscape of monogrammed memo pads, ballpoint pen holder, brass nameplate, and black push-button phone. A small part of her wished she could stay in this building longer than two days, take a break from the road, have some space. She could be completely alone, with no one around to bother her.
“Two of the offices are set up as bedrooms,” Murray said. “The maid service took care of the sheets, so the rooms are good to go. You’ll probably want to order some food and whatever else you need. There’s a printer over there.” He gestured to the south end of the general office. “For now, just order whatever you need to complete the job, and give me your expense reports. Don will quibble but he usually pays.”
Tubiel padded through the door and went over to the huge desk where Kelly sat. He picked up the telephone receiver and put it up to his ear as though he could hear something on the other end. He nodded thoughtfully, hung up the phone, and gave her a curious look.
“OK.” Murray headed toward the door. “I have to run. An orange juice futures trader invoked me to get him theater tickets, and I need to dissuade him from doing similar invocations in the future. Although―” He looked off to the left and chewed his lip. “He is more accurate than the city’s meteorologists for anticipating the weather. So I won’t be too hard on him. Tubiel?” Murray waited for Tubiel, who shook his head and crawled onto the desk and sat next to her.
Murray looked at Tubiel, then to Kelly as if to say, ‘This all right with you?’
She shrugged.
“When are you going to start?” Murray asked.
“As soon as you leave.”
“Oh.” He waved his hand. “Good. Is there anything you need from me right now?”
“I have two days to find my high-value target in a condo building with 500 apartments. He could be a person, an animal, or a piece of furniture. You can just leave those expense reports. All of them.”
Murray put a stack of them on the desk. “Follow me. I’ll show you where to send them. And here’s a corporate card.” He paused to hand her a credit card with an absinthe-green glow, then went to a tiny room on the east wall next to the telephone closet. He reached into a shoebox-sized cubby in the wall, removed a capsule made of wood, and slid open a tiny window.
“This is the pneumatic tube system,” Murray said. “Anything you put in this capsule and send will reach Don. But I have access to it, also.” Murray placed the capsule in the wall, pressed a button, and the capsule whooshed away.
“When do I meet him?”
“I don’t know if you will,” Murray said. “He’s agoraphobic.”
“The Destroying Angel of the Apocalypse is agoraphobic?”
“Very much so. But I’ll warn you: he tends to inconsistently micromanage. He’ll want frequent updates, and then when you provide those updates, he’ll ask why you’re bothering him.”
After they left the little room, she passed what looked like an old radio on the west wall. It was some kind of intercom system, with two rows of paper-labeled push buttons for each executive, and rows for the telephone room, conference room, tube room, and restroom. A spoon-shaped lever stuck out on the upper left side.
Next they went to the conference room at the front of the building, facing south. In the kitchen to the right, she spotted an electric kettle and a coffeemaker. Murray indicated for her to follow him back to the other end of the floor.
“I hope this is acceptable.” He put on his coat. “Don used this place for out-of-town visitors, but doesn’t anymore. Let me know if there’s anything you’re missing.” He headed toward the exit. “You have my number, and you can always use the pneumatic tube.”
After Murray closed the door behind him, she unpacked her bag on one of the general office desks, starting with transmitters, a pinhole video camera, a scrambled-band walkie, and some cheap baby monitors. On the next desk, she put her tracking supplies, paracord, duct tape, superglue, spotting scope, a few occupational uniforms, infrared goggles, and some snacks.
Finally, while Tubiel looked through the scope, she arranged her theatrical makeup kit, an extensive collection of dental apparatuses, and colored contact lenses, often necessary with her easily-identifiable eye color, not dissimilar from Max Headroom’s. The lenses were non-prescription; her vision was 20/15.
From Mr. Black’s office, she used her laptop and cell modem to access topographical, geographical, and seismic activity for Amenity Tower before pulling documents from Amenity Tower’s website: elevator reports, operations
logs, board meeting agendas, and management and engineering reports.
Tubiel wandered out of the office.
She ordered a high-resolution day/night camera. Finally, after some research into Pothole City, she ordered more uniforms and accessories.
Tubiel came back and handed her a stuffed albino peacock.
“Thanks. Who knows, I may need this.” She glanced over Tubiel’s outfit. “Are you staying?”
He smiled and shrugged.
“Can I buy you some pajamas?” After pulling up a few options, she angled the laptop toward him and he pointed to a set with a bird pattern. She bought two versions.
Back in the general office, she and rifled through the uniforms in her duffle bag, selecting a polo shirt and some things to go with it.
“Make yourself at home,” she told Tubiel, who followed when she hurried into the kitchen. “I’ll be back later. If you get hungry, grab one of those oatmeal packets.” She waved a packet of a common brand of oatmeal in front of Tubiel.
He shook his head.
“Don’t like oatmeal? Okay, what do you eat?”
Tubiel left the kitchen and went all the way back to Mr. Black’s office, where he climbed up on the chair and typed something on her laptop.
She peered over his shoulder at the product page for a brand called Cluck Snack. “Knock yourself out. We’ll get reimbursed later.”
Before she left, she hung the cowboy painting on the south wall of Mr. Black’s office.
f worked alone in the Amenity Tower’s club room. The only sources of light were from his laptop screen and a table lamp. Outside beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminated snow fell onto the patio from a darkening sky, and a crab-like creature swooped into the beam of light cast by the tall lamp.
Now that he inhabited a mortal vessel, thankfully a serviceable and even attractive one, Af’s conception of time had radically changed. Even if he lived a full life in the vessel, aged to its late thirties, he had a tiny speck of time to complete his current project, The Fallen Angel’s Survival Guide: Your Ultimate Handbook for a Bound Lifestyle, and anything else he wanted to get done.
Sometimes, he woke in a panicked state over what a relatively short time he would have in a human vessel and his worry over why he was bound to Amenity Tower―had he done something wrong?
A flash, Fat Man bright, blew out to all corners of the room.
Af closed his eyes, then opened them in a squint. The light shrunk to a wavering corona that surrounded four figures standing on the long table in the conference room to his right. He sipped his tea and turned his focus back to the document as the newcomers spoke:
“Where am I?”
“What is this place? Sheol? Perdition? The Gates of Death? The Gates of the Shadow of Death? Silence? The Bilge? The lowest pit? Where are we?!”
“Will someone please set a nearby human on fire so we can see where we are?”
“Hold on, I have light burn-in. Ahh, crap, I’m in a mortal form factor. I can tell by the shoddy components.”
One of the newcomers, who hadn’t spoken, jumped off the table and left the room like a Fortune 100 CEO striding away from his private jet. The other figures stumbled off the table, blinked in confusion, then lurched in the general direction of the main club room.
“Well, look who it is!” The CEO-like newcomer stood at the head of the group and smiled at Af, his cosmetically straight and white teeth glinting in the dark. “Been too long, buddy.”
“Not long enough, Raum.” Af glanced over while typing. “But you look sharp.”
Raum, in the vessel of a vigorously attractive man in his late fifties, looked down at his suit and clapped his hands on his chest. “I look good―and I feel good.”
One of the new arrivals came closer. “You two know each other?”
“Get your head out of your ass, Forcas.” Raum’s tone sharpened, and he gestured to Af. “This is the Angel of Destruction and Anger.” Raum raised his arms at Af as though to embrace him. “A Prince of Wrath!”
Forcas glowered. “Good for him. Can he tell us where we are?”
Raum chuckled. “Does it matter? Let’s put some coffee on and figure it out later.” He snapped his fingers a few times. “All of you, sit down at that table by the window.” He smoothed the front of his jacket and went to the kitchen in the back room.
Af left his laptop on the next chair and joined him in the kitchen. Raum filled a drip machine with a full pot of water and scooped ground coffee from a plastic canister into the filter. As it brewed, Raum hung his head and exhaled in a shudder.
The other newcomers didn’t fully realize what happened to them, but Af did, and he could see that Raum knew all too well.
“Tell me,” Raum said, not looking at Af.
“You’ve been bound to Amenity Tower, a luxury condominium building in Pothole City. You have neglected your heavenly duties, have cast away your grace, and perhaps worst of all, now have to attend board and committee meetings. With that said, I have no idea why we’re all bound to the same place. This is highly unusual.”
Raum nodded and swallowed hard, taking it all in. “I was cast down, then. Is that different? Worse?”
“You’re bound here, like the rest of us. And don’t worry: you still have access to all the building amenities.” Af’s tone brightened. “We have an indoor lap pool, an automat, a fitness center. This club room.”
“I was so angry.” Raum pressed between his eyebrows. “You know? Resentful. Stubborn.” He smiled, rueful, then snorted a quiet laugh. “I can’t believe it worked out like this, but I suppose I’ll have to make the best of it. In fact, I’ve written out a short bucket list.”
Raum took a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. He cleared his throat. “(1) Mate with beautiful women and beget giants that will wreak ruin upon the human race, (2) Destroy whatever city we’re in, and (3) Inflict bloodshed and destruction upon humanity and subjugate what remains. Not necessarily in that order.” He winked at Af.
“What was that last one again?”
“Don’t get your wings in a bunch, Af. That’s what I do. I destroy cities. Which city is this?”
“Pothole City.”
Raum grimaced. “That sounds terrible. Let’s work on getting bound to a better-sounding city. Like… Sexy Mortal Lady City.”
“Why don’t you just enjoy our indoor lap pool for now.” Af tilted his head in the direction of the pool. “It’s soothing. Maybe you won’t feel like destroying the city anymore.”
In Af’s opinion, destroying a city was small time, a mere warm-up, but he didn’t want to be like that anymore. He considered his time bound to Amenity Tower as an opportunity to live his life in a different way. He didn’t want to go back, not for a while. He didn’t want Pothole City, let alone Amenity Tower, destroyed. And he realized that Raum and his followers were going to be a problem.
orcas, Vassago, and Imamiah waited at a table by the window and stared, despondent, at a piece of paper in front of each of them. They greeted Raum’s return with fretting hands and compulsive lip-chewing.
“Raum,” Vassago said in a pleading tone. “Is this somewhere within the second Heaven where we’re imprisoned awaiting final judgment in complete darkness?”
“No, it’s happy sparkle balloon land, where dreams come true,” Imamiah said, snarling at Vassago. “Get real.”
“It seems to be somewhere between the two.” Raum flicked his eyes down at the large table and picked up one of the copies of the paper. “What’s this? Condominium Association Board Meeting.” Then, still reading, “Agenda.”
“Action Items,” Forcas read, running a finger down the page. “Do we have to take action on all of these?”
“I don’t care about the action items!” Imamiah pounded his fist on the table. “I’m confused, I’m depressed, I’m tired. I feel awful. The only action item I’m interested in is to sleep for a month so I don’t have to think about what just happened.”
“I think we’r
e in a hotel.” Vassago looked around.
The three-part club room was sleekly outfitted in dark wood and a color palette taken from a tapestry of The Unicorn is in Captivity and No Longer Dead. Overall, it looked like the lobby of a long-term, corporate-stay hotel.
Af kept working in the corner.
Forcas cleared his throat. “We’ve got to figure out where we are and what we’re doing here. I think this agenda is a good start, so we should go over what it says, okay? Maybe they’re instructions of some kind. Um, ‘Homeowner Comments.’“ Forcas looked up.
“Ah, call to order,” Forcas continued. “Roll call/Establish quorum.”
“We are definitely a quorum,” Imamiah said. “Aren’t we?”
Everyone at the table turned to look at Af, who raised his eyes from his laptop without moving his head. “What?”
“I pronounce us the new quorum of―” Raum started to say.
“Board,” Af said.
Ram clutched his lapels. “I pronounce us the new quorum of board.”
Af shook his head. “I pronounce us the new board of―”
Nothing.
Af leaned forward. “The new Board of Directors of Amenity Tower.”
“What he said,” Raum grinned. “I’ll be the treasurer, because I’m humble and don’t need to be in charge. Forcas, you know rhetoric and logic, so you can be president. Vassago, you find lost possessions, so you’ll be vice-president. Imamiah, you supervise and control voyages, so you’ll be secretary.”
None of those assignments made sense, but he doubted it mattered. At the moment, the board was just him and a green darner creature. They didn’t have specific roles, and left everything to Roger, who typed up the board agenda each month.
Af didn’t want to have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the interests of the unit owners; he had a strong feeling it would be like standing in quicksand.