by Sean Platt
Could she see him right now? Was it a real thing, not just an ad?
ANSWER THE QUESTION.
Ephraim studied the dark window, trying to see if the girl was there. But he saw only darkness. There could be anyone on the other end, in that nearly-pitch room. Or there could be a group of people, watching him over a hacked connection. Waiting.
Answer it. It’ll stop if you answer it.
But Ephraim, wondering who he was trying to convince, was slowly shaking his head.
A new message blipped onto the screen:
114 BURKHOUSER. SAY YOU WANT TO BORROW AN EGG. COME OR DON’T COME. YOU WILL NOT BE INVITED AGAIN.
A tri-tone. REPEAT IT TO YOURSELF. 114 BURKHOUSER. BORROW AN EGG.
REPEAT IT.
REPEAT IT.
Feeling stupid, Ephraim mumbled, “114 Burkhouser. Borrow an egg.”
The popup vanished, all trace of the conversation erased forever.
CHAPTER 14
BORROW AN EGG
Ephraim tried to forget — an interesting bit of personal sabotage.
He brushed crumbs off his shirt and pants (last night’s dinner had been potato chips), tried to stretch, and eventually settled for walking laps around the room. When the room struck Ephraim as too dark and too quiet, he took a shower. The hot water felt good, so he stood beneath its spray for a half hour. He got out, realized he’d been so preoccupied with trying to ignore yesterday that he’d forgotten to wash, and got back in. He stayed an extra fifteen minutes just because.
When he was finished, dried, and dressed, the memory of what the chat window had told him hadn’t faded at all.
It wasn’t fair. Over the past few weeks, he’d developed a pattern of witnessing something, questioning its reality, then trying to prove that it had happened. Now that his MyLife was more or less working again, he’d been obsessively reviewing even the most mundane occurrences just to make sure they’d occurred and that he wasn’t just crazy.
Did I brush my teeth? I feel like I brushed my teeth. I seem to remember it. Then he’d go to the video replay and find out.
So, too, for eating breakfast, going to the store, reading magazines, stepping on cockroaches and turning on the fan for a few minutes when it seemed too warm, but then seemed too cool. Half of Ephraim’s life — especially during the last 24 hours — had been lived in replay. There was doing or seeing something, then verifying that he’d done or seen it. That was his new anchor; no matter what, nothing would ever be forgotten again.
But this one time, he needed to forget what he’d seen. Because he wanted to go to wherever that webcam chat was sending him, seeing as it was a clue and clues were all he had. He was so compelled to go, in fact, that the only way he wouldn’t go was if he forgot how to get there.
In Ephraim’s saner moments, he set about assiduously trying not to remember. But the damn thing was stuck in his cortex like the hook of a horrible song.
114 Burkhouser. Borrow an egg.
Ephraim opened the blinds. The light hurt his eyes.
114 Burkhouser.
He made himself a proper breakfast. He seemed to have bought eggs and then verified their purchase via MyLife, so he scrambled them. Ate them. Wiped his chin with a napkin.
Borrow an egg.
He needed to talk to someone about this. He needed someone to slap him around a little — either to talk him into or out of his compulsion.
But who? He didn’t have friends these days. Jonathan was probably dead; Fiona may have had him killed. That ruled out Fiona, and Sophie had made it clear they were done chatting. He for damn sure wasn’t going to call Wood. Hershel might be playing him the way Fiona was probably playing him.
Fiona wanted Ephraim to get something from Wood.
Wood wanted Ephraim to get something from Fiona.
Interestingly, Eden — who was supposed to be the enemy — was the only party in this mess who’d remained quiet.
You should go, Ephraim. Go to the address. What will it hurt? At least then maybe you’ll have some answers.
He searched the address. It came up empty. The street was somewhere in Jersey, but nothing seemed to be at number 114. There was a 112 Burkhouser (Chez Luis, a fancy French restaurant) and a 116 Burkhouser (a flower shop called Blumen), but there was no 114. Google Maps showed the two buildings from above with nothing in between but a shared alley for their dumpsters.
Fuck it. This was stupid.
He wouldn’t go.
He wouldn’t go.
CHAPTER 15
114 BURKHOUSER
Ephraim was wearing his best suit. It was new. He didn’t exactly remember buying this suit any more than the one he’d worn to Fiona’s, but he did have a floating memory of a store and a salesman. And on-the-spot alterations, a pretty penny paid to make the suit fit like a glove without waiting.
How does a man forget being fitted for a suit just a handful of hours earlier?
But that was the question, wasn’t it? He was untethered. His mind had nowhere to call home. He needed an anchor. He needed answers. Which was why he was here; he wanted to get those answers and recover his sanity.
Ephraim took a few extra-long breaths, closed his eyes, then opened them again.
He looked at Chez Luis. He looked at Blumen. The flower shop was closed, but the restaurant was open. There was even a cluster of people waiting outside the door, dressed to the nines.
He needed to get to the bottom of whatever was happening. So what if the invitation was strange? Ephraim was a man grasping at every last straw.
He looked at the two buildings, and at the space between them.
114 Burkhouser.
Which just so happened to be an alley between a French restaurant and a flower shop. He’d bought the suit to stay invisible. This was a posh part of town, and even Blumen (according to the Chttr reviews) was absurdly expensive.
Ephraim peeked through the window of the flower shop, then quietly knocked. Nobody answered. Nobody moved inside. So he went to Chez Luis, glad he’d dressed the part while pushing through a knot of fashionable diners waiting outside. The hostess told him the dining room was fully booked and that maybe Ephraim should have made a reservation at least a week in advance. She also looked Ephraim up and down, seeming to cast aspersions on his new suit.
“I was hoping to get in tonight,” Ephraim tried.
“I’m sorry, sir. We have absolutely nothing open.”
“I’d …” He lowered his voice. “I’d like to borrow an egg.”
“Excuse me?”
Ephraim went back outside. Then he rattled the flower shop door to make sure it was locked, which it still was.
Finally, he stared into the alleyway. There was nothing down it except for trashcans and dumpsters.
Except there was also a door behind a pile of bags.
Ephraim looked both ways, up and down the street. Then, deciding he was alone enough to slip away, he ducked into the mouth of the alley.
It was small and smelled awful. He kept looking back, sure that someone from the street would see him and declare him a well-dressed bum. But nobody saw, cared, or said a thing.
The alley was narrower at the back, dead-ending into a brick wall. It was a claustrophobic sort of space. Already Ephraim wondered if he wanted to be here. What if someone was hiding in those bags, using them for warmth? What if that someone had a knife? Or a gun?
But there was nobody when Ephraim, wincing at the smell, plucked the bags away from a slim metal door.
Feeling stranger than ever, Ephraim knocked.
Nothing happened.
He looked around. Knocked harder.
He gave the thing a once-over, figuring he could at least try the knob. Why not? He’d bought new duds and everything, and now he was polluted with trash.
But there was no knob.
Ephraim walked back a few steps, sighing. What had been the point of this? What had he thought would happen?
He looked at the door. It was silent an
d still. Half-hidden, until a moment ago, behind a pile of rubbish. There was no number or any marking at all. It was just an anonymous nothing at the end of a dead alley.
Ephraim stepped forward.
Feeling like an absolute idiot, he scoffed at his idiocy, saying those words as if they were wet with sarcasm, “I want to borrow an egg. Fucking hell.”
Behind him, with a light clang, the door opened.
CHAPTER 16
BEHIND THE DOOR
“Welcome, sir.”
A massively built bald man dressed in all black stood waiting in the posh foyer. He held out his hand, not to shake or because he expected a tip for opening the back-alley door behind the pile of garbage. This hand was on the end of a slightly bent arm, held down a bit rather than straight out.
“Your coat, sir?”
“Why do you want my coat?”
“Would you prefer to keep it with you while you dine, sir? We don’t allow coats over chairs. I was going to place it in the coat-check room for you, but I can see about special arrangements if you’re concerned that—”
“While I dine?”
“Of course, sir.”
Ephraim could hear light chatter and the clink of silver and glassware. He looked past the black-clad giant, through a drawn velvet curtain to see an extravagant room with broad cut-glass chandeliers that gave the space a soft amber glow. The floor was strewn with tables of various sizes, all draped with maroon tablecloths, hooded candles clustered in the center of each table. Every one of the people at every one of the tables was wearing a suit that made Ephraim’s look like rags.
“This is Chez Luis?”
“Yes, sir.”
Ephraim looked back at the entrance. The unmarked metal door on the outside was padded with ornate leather and pressed with fabric buttons on the inside, all in the same rich maroon as the tablecloths. He was in the fancy restaurant’s secret lobby, like the back entrance to a Depression-era speakeasy.
“What is this?” Ephraim asked.
“It’s Chez Luis, sir,” the bald man said, infinitely patient.
“I mean this entrance. Why are you here?”
“To receive you, sir.”
“Me specifically?”
“Sir?”
“Did you open the door for me? When I said the thing about the egg?”
“Perhaps you’d like to take your seat,” the man suggested, his manner polite but uncomprehending.
Ephraim wasn’t comprehending any better. They were in this strange thing together. He said the most and least logical thing. “I don’t have a reservation.”
Or money. Or the connections to be in this exclusive club in the first place.
“I believe you’re mistaken, sir. Your reservation is quite in order.”
“You don’t even know who I am.”
“Are you not Mr. Ephraim Todd?”
“Yes, but—”
“This way, sir.”
The man led him without further comment. After a long second, Ephraim followed.
They reached a booth in the corner, elevated two steps above the lower floor, far too large for one person. It was upholstered in matte leather that, on closer inspection, turned out to be intentionally distressed. In a place like this, the leather probably came from sacred cows.
Ephraim looked at the booth. “I think there’s been some kind of mistake.”
“Have you decided to keep your coat, sir?”
Ephraim looked at the booth, then at his escort. He glanced around the room, expecting every eye to be watching him. The booth was a place of honor, and everyone should be staring, wondering what this imposter thought he was doing by soiling it with his presence.
But nobody was looking. Everyone was dining and drinking as if it made sense for someone without a reservation to waltz in from the filthy back alley right to one of the restaurant’s most prominent tables.
“Sir?”
Dazed, Ephraim took off his coat. Among other things, it dawned on him that he couldn’t afford this place even if he had planned to eat. Which he hadn’t.
“Your server will be with you shortly,” the bald man said.
And then he was gone.
CHAPTER 17
MERCER FOX
The server’s name was Montreal, which struck Ephraim as tragic. He offered the day’s wine selections without so much as mentioning the menu. In a place like this, eating was apparently a many-hour experience. No rush. Wine came. Food would come too, in time.
Ephraim didn’t know wine, but he needed something more than water. He asked for a recommendation, and without actually giving one, Montreal walked away. He returned minutes later carrying a bottle and a beautiful glass. He uncorked the bottle, then splashed a chintzy amount of crimson liquid into it. Ephraim sipped. The wine struck Ephraim’s unrefined palate as both aromatic and bitter.
The server hadn’t left the table. He was waiting, his arm cocked, a white towel draped over his forearm, holding the uncorked bottle in his other hand. His expression expectant, as if awaiting Ephraim’s reply.
Ephraim eyed the cork, sitting in front of him like an appetizer. Figuring this was his cue, he picked the cork up and sniffed it. Montreal’s eyebrows furrowed.
“Am I not supposed to sniff the cork?”
“Most patrons merely inspect it, sir.”
Ephraim inspected it. “It’s a cork.”
A moment settled. Ephraim wasn’t sure what he was opining about the cork, so he waited for Montreal to make the next move.
“Is the Shiraz to your liking?” the server asked, breaking their stalemate.
Oh. That’s why the waiter had given him such a shallow pour. Ephraim was supposed to sample it before committing to a glass.
“I guess?”
“Would you prefer to try a different varietal?”
“No.”
But he seemed unconvinced. “So, more of this, sir?”
“I’m not great with wine.”
“I can bring you another glass.”
“Look. I don’t want to pay for another—”
“You misunderstand. This is on the house, sir.”
Ephraim inspected the server, whose expression was placid.
“Wine is on the house?”
“For your table; yes, sir.”
Ephraim looked across “his table,” which the server had indicated as if he were with a large party of VIPs. But he was just a questionably dressed man alone at his booth, without a reservation.
“What’s going on here?”
“Sir?”
“Why is there a side door to this place, leading into a side foyer? Why did I have to pick through the garbage to get in?”
“Were the conditions outside unsatisfactory? I can alert the management if the front requires our attention.”
“Conditions outside were …” But this poor dumb waiter was staring at him, with the fat bottle of wine, poised to pour. And Ephraim thought, Give it up. Montreal doesn’t know. Poor bastard has to live every day named after a Canadian province, so what chance is there that he’ll have your shit together?
“Never mind.”
“Would you like the Tesco Hermitage then, sir?”
“Why the hell not?”
The server raised an eyebrow slightly, then filled Ephraim’s glass. He left looking confused, no mention of menus.
Ephraim spent the next minutes staring out across the dining room, over which his seat implied dominion. The men at those lesser tables were in perfectly tailored suits, and the women were in long, formal gowns, covered with jewels. Some were old, and several were younger, but almost all of Chez Luis’s diners were slim and more or less in shape.
It was a strange thing to notice, but once the idea dawned on Ephraim, he couldn’t let it go. Why were none of them fat? Was it their haute cuisine did the trick — a diet absent empty snacks and hydrogenated oils? Or was it something else?
Most of the world paid at least tacit attention to the free network
s’ lifestyle game shows, like Eat From Your Life and First One to Lung Cancer. Here, amid all this upper-echelon wealth, Ephraim couldn’t help but spin sinister theories. Maybe those working-class game shows were ways of thinning the herd so the rich could play. Modern day Marie Antoinettes, tossing cake to the masses and watching them fight for their amusement.
“Get the steak,” someone said.
Ephraim looked to his left to see a man beside him who didn’t belong — not at the booth, and not at Chez Luis. He wore a green blazer that looked more used car salesman than ironically stylish, and he’d tossed it over a T-shirt for one of the big Japanese tentacle porn game franchises the teenagers were so into. His short brown hair looked like he’d slept on it wrong and he had a week’s worth of unshaven growth. Instead of bespoke slacks, Ephraim’s new boothmate wore ripped jeans. He could even see the man’s shoes. Instead of imported leather loafers, his sneakers were garish and orange.
“It’s farm to table,” the man said. “Grass fed, humanely raised, from this little ranch like ten minutes outside the city. They serve it with an amazing shallot butter, on top of a bed of fresh greens and the in-house garlic mash. And that’s all great. But mainly I’m suggesting you get the steak because the other special is pasta shaped like little green footballs. Pussies eat that one. A man eats meat. It makes you feel like your dick’s the size of a javelin.”
Ephraim blinked at his boothmate. “Okay.”
The man in the green blazer picked up Ephraim’s wine and swigged it like beer. He looked around the room, inspecting diners with a neutral expression. Ephraim noticed a mole on his cheek and a violent cowlick. His facial hair was unruly. His eyes were curious — not crazy, but like someone who draws inappropriate amusement from everything.
“You know what I do when I’m up here?” the man asked.
“Can I help you with something?”
“It’s like you’re a king on the throne,” the man continued as if he hadn’t heard Ephraim speak. “I watch them all down there, like a king would. Not one person in this place, I’d bet, has an income less than a half-million credits a year, and many of them would think that was chump change. Good crowd, right? Rich crowd, I mean. But I’d bet half these women like it in the ass. Do you know what I’m saying?”