The Music of the Machine (The Book of Terwilliger 2)

by Michael Stiles

  Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds began playing in her ears, rich with deep bass that tickled her ears with its vibrations. She giggled.

  Carlton held up a finger—“Watch this,” she saw his mouth say—and turned another switch.

  “Watch what?” Sarah said after a moment. The music hadn’t changed at all. “Nothing’s happening.”

  He pulled one of the earphones away from her ear and said, “You’re shouting. Just listen a minute.” Then he let go of the earphone, letting it smack her on the side of the head as it popped back into place.

  She listened. And after another minute, she started to sense that something was different. The music had taken on a new dimension, somehow, becoming prettier and more interesting than she remembered the song to be. She felt warm and relaxed, and a little sleepy. And then, quite suddenly, she realized she was hungry. That woke her right up. She took off the headphones and stood.

  “What is it?” Carlton asked with a hint of a smile on his face.

  “Is there a burger place near here? We have a place in L.A., where I grew up. Fatburger. I miss it. They don’t have Fatburger in Seattle, do they?”

  “No, we don’t have that around here. Chinese food wasn’t enough for you?”

  Sarah frowned. She’d forgotten that they had eaten less than an hour before. And… she hated hamburgers. She had always hated hamburgers.

  Carlton was smiling openly now. He took a box from the top of the tape machine and showed it to her. The box was labeled in messy, handwritten block letters. The first line said ELVIS MIX. On the line beneath that it said HAMBURGERS.

  “Hamburgers?” she asked.

  “Hamburgers. That right there is the Starlight secret.”

  “The Starlight secret is… hamburgers?”

  He rewound the tape and put the reel carefully in its box. “You weren’t thinking about them until the recording made you think of them. That’s the magic part of Starlight Audio Magic.”

  “You put ideas about food into people’s heads?”

  “Not just food. That tape is just for demonstration.” Carlton was already walking away from her. He went over to the room with dark windows and tried the door. “My key doesn’t work on this one. In there is where they record the subliminal messages.”

  Sarah walked up to one of the windows and tried to peer inside, but all she could see what her reflection. “What kind of messages?”

  “Whatever messages Mr. Allen wants.”

  “Do your customers know? Is this a trick to make people buy things?”

  “Nobody knows except a few people at Starlight.” He didn’t answer her other question.

  She cupped her hands around her eyes to see inside the room. There was a microphone and a stool, and at one side she thought there was something like a mixing desk. It looked like a recording studio. “I didn’t hear anything about hamburgers in the music.”

  “That’s what’s so amazing about it. They record someone saying words—‘You want a burger. Hamburgers are delicious.’ Then they use sound engineering to hide the words inside the music, so it’s always just barely drowned out. The voice gets louder during the loud parts of the song, and it fades out during the quiet parts, so you can’t tell it’s there.” He tapped her on the top of her head. “But your brain hears it.”

  Sarah’s breath was fogging up the window. She stepped away and rubbed her temples. The alcohol was wearing off a bit, but she was still desperately craving ground beef. “What about…” She hesitated in asking the question. “Does Lester Myles know?”

  Only then did she realize that Carlton had been staring at her for an unusually long time. She didn’t know how she felt about that. He finally blinked and lowered his eyes. “There’s another set of documents that you and I don’t get to see. Only Myles and Mr. Allen see them. I think those documents are about the messages to be encoded into the music.”

  She thought about that for a minute. It had become increasingly clear that there was more to Myles than he had let on. But this seemed wrong. What kinds of ideas would a man like Myles want to put into people’s heads? And was Ron Nightfinger in on it as well?

  Her train of thought went no further than that, because at that moment Carlton leaned in and kissed her. This took her quite by surprise, and she began to pull away from him. But her resistance didn’t last long, and soon she was kissing him back.

  “Cmmm mmmm,” he said into her mouth.

  “Hmm?”

  He stopped kissing her for a moment. “Come back to my place.” He looked deeply into her eyes with a puppy-dog look on his face. “Please.” Then he kissed her again, and she felt his hand sliding up her waist and up toward—

  “Stop.” He didn’t stop until she seized his left ear between her finger and thumb and pulled him away. “No.”

  Seldom had she seen such disappointment on any man’s face. “No?”

  When he had touched her, her only thought had been of Ed. And if she was still thinking of Ed, then going home with Carlton was a bad idea. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Thanks for showing me all… all this.” She ran up the metal stairway and out of the room.

  24

  Walter Bismuth

  Ed woke up when his head bumped the train window. It was dark outside—which wasn’t right, because it was mid-morning. He rubbed his eyes, blinked a few times, and then realized that he was in a tunnel. The train emerged from the tunnel and the sun reappeared suddenly, making him shut his eyes again.

  Outside the window he saw city streets and houses zipping past at high speed. This was a poor neighborhood in Northeast DC, miles away from the beautiful monuments and hideous government office buildings near the center of the city. The train slowed, and a few minutes later it entered another tunnel and stopped at its platform in Union Station.

  Ed emerged into the sunlight with his duffel bag and stood under one of the high arches of the station entrance. Mason had said there would be a ride waiting for him, but had not provided any details. He plopped his bag down and leaned against the base of one of the wide marble pillars, then spent a few minutes fussing with his suit and re-tying his tie, feeling disheveled after the train ride from New York.

  A young man was walking around the entrance to the station, speaking quietly with each person he met. He wore a trench coat over a three-piece suit, and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that were too big for him. As soon as Ed noticed him, he looked away. Ed watched him out of the corner of his eye and saw him watching again. After a few minutes of this, the man in the trench coat came over.

  “Are you Terwood?” he said. “Twigger? Are you Ed?”

  Ed sighed. “That’s me.”

  “Oh, thank God. I didn’t have a good description of you, so I’ve been walking up to strangers for the last half hour. You’re late.”

  Ed shrugged.

  “Wayne Monroe.” He shook Ed’s hand vigorously. “Jonathan sent me. No, let me take your bag. We need to haul ass. Our meeting starts in twenty minutes.”

  Monroe carried Ed’s duffel bag and led the way to a large black sedan parked illegally on the street. A driver sat behind the wheel reading a copy of the Washington Post. As Monroe threw the duffel bag into the trunk, Ed reached for the handle to open the passenger door. “What are you doing?” said Monroe with a laugh. “You’re in the back.” Wayne took the front seat on the passenger’s side, and the driver cut into traffic and hit the gas.

  Ed was surprised to find another man in the back seat—a middle-aged gentleman who smiled pleasantly and said hello. He didn’t introduce himself—he seemed to expect that Ed would already know who he was. After a few minutes he was able to gather that this man was Mason’s boss, the Ambassador to the UN.

  “My oldest son is about your age,” the Ambassador said amiably. His voice was kind and gentle. “He’s George, like me. George Junior. He’s a pilot. What do you do for a living?”

  Ed was only partially listening. He had glanced at a discarded page of the newspaper that the d
river had left on the back seat. DOORS SINGER JIM MORRISON DEAD AT 27, the headline read. Ed’s stomach suddenly felt like it was full of lead. After everything he had done to save Morrison’s life…

  “Are you all right?” said the Ambassador, bringing Ed back out of his reverie.

  “Yeah,” Ed replied. He blinked a few times and cleared his throat. “What do I do? I’m a chemist,” he said, hoping there would be no further questions.

  “Ever done any work in the petroleum industry? We’re always in need of chemists at Zapata.”

  “Zapata? Like the Marlon Brando movie?”

  The Ambassador laughed. “My oil company, down in Houston. And yes, we named it after the movie. If you ever get tired of this town, give me a call. I’ll take care of you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The car stopped at a guard shack in front of the White House, where a man in a dark suit approached to ask the driver a few questions. In another minute they had pulled around to a covered entrance at the west side of the building. Wayne Monroe opened the door to let them both out, and Ed followed the Ambassador into the building.

  * * *

  The smell hit him as soon as he stepped into the West Wing reception room, like a combination of burning oil and sulfur. He stopped suddenly in the doorway. Monroe bumped into him from behind. “Keep moving,” he muttered. “Don’t make a spectacle of yourself.”

  Ed was immensely relieved to see a familiar face in the waiting room. Ken Driscoll, looking as dapper as ever, got up to shake hands. “Nice haircut, Ed,” he said. Ed, unaccustomed to having his hair cut so short, faked the best smile he could manage. Mason had insisted on it.

  Their little group consisted of six men. Ambassador Bush had come to meet with the Secretary of State, a man named William Rogers whom Ed had never even heard of until a week earlier. Two of Bush’s staffers had come along, gray-haired men named Carlisle and Fitzgerald who spoke little to anyone but each other. They shot unpleasant glances at Ed and Driscoll much of the time, making it clear what they thought of having two hangers-on in their group. They already knew Monroe, and seemed to respect him.

  Jonathan Mason was supposed to be there too, but he had had to cancel at the last minute. Monroe was there to represent him. Wayne seemed perpetually confused, and his big glasses always seemed to be in danger of sliding off the end of his nose. As goofy as he appeared, Mason had mentioned that Wayne Monroe conducted a great deal of Bush’s informal business at the White House and was well known to the staff here.

  Mason had extended the invitation to Ed during their last meeting at the beginning of July. “The Ambassador will be meeting Secretary Rogers at the end of the month, and I want you to go along. Kissinger will most likely be leading the meeting. Rogers is Secretary of State, but Kissinger runs our foreign policy.”

  “What do you want me to do at this meeting?” Ed asked.

  “Nothing. You won’t be going to the meeting.”

  Jonathan’s instructions to Ed had been simple: look around, make a list of all the people who appeared to be most affected by Urizen’s influence, and leave before the infection could have a chance to set in.

  Ed was the last to sign the guest register. He looked up at the big painting that hung over the reception desk—George Washington crossing the Delaware—and at that moment the enormity of his task truly hit him.

  “Not a good idea to stand up in a rowboat, eh?” Monroe whispered to Ed. “Good thing he didn’t fall in the river.”

  “Is that the original?” Driscoll asked. “I had no idea it was so big.” He sounded nervous, but at least he looked comfortable wearing a suit. Ed hadn’t worn a tie in at least ten years, and he thought he might already be sweating through his jacket.

  “It’s a copy,” said the receptionist, a pleasant, middle-aged woman who sounded like she had answered that question a thousand times before. “The original was lost during the Second World War. Now, if you’ll all follow me…”

  Ambassador Bush smiled politely and followed her through the doorway into a short corridor. His two aides went after him, and Wayne followed at a distance. Ed and Driscoll stayed close to him, as Jonathan had told them to do. “The meeting is in the Cabinet Room,” Monroe told them quietly. “But here, take a look at this.” When Bush and his two men went straight into a large meeting room, Wayne turned right and walked confidently to a door farther down the hallway. “Look in there, don’t go in.”

  Ed poked his head into the open doorway and looked into a round room, dominated by a massive and ornate wooden desk. Behind the desk were three large windows with gold curtains, with a bust in the middle windowsill that appeared to be Abraham Lincoln. The carpet was a deep blue, decorated with a gold seal in the shape of an eagle surrounded by a circle of stars.

  “Nixon’s office,” Wayne said behind him.

  As Ed watched, a woman entered the office from a doorway on the other side. Her hair was short and dark, and she wore a navy blue dress with a string of pearls at her neck. At first she didn’t notice Ed looking in; she carried a folio which she set down on top of the big desk. As she was turning to leave, she turned and looked at Ed in surprise.

  “Young man, are you lost?” she said. Her tone made it clear that he was most certainly not welcome.

  “S-sorry, ma’am,” Ed stammered. He looked at Driscoll, who looked at Monroe.

  Wayne took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with his tie. “Why, hello, Mrs. Woods. I was just giving the Ambassador’s friends a quick tour.” His voice was deep and confident, which contrasted strongly with his general oafishness. He put his glasses back on, adjusted them until they were sitting slightly askew, and smiled at the woman. “You’re looking very lovely today.”

  Mrs. Woods frowned at all three of them. The glare made Ed so nervous that he felt like he needed very badly to go to the bathroom. But the next moment his nervousness was forgotten as he noticed a single black tendril of smoke rising up from the side of the woman’s head, just above her ear.

  “Smoke,” he whispered.

  “Not in here,” Mrs. Woods said firmly. “If you want to have a smoke, go back to the reception area.”

  Wayne adjusted his glasses again, making them even more lopsided. If Ed hadn’t known better, he would have thought the crooked glasses were an intentional affectation. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. Have a good day.”

  Mrs. Woods almost smiled in spite of herself, then turned and walked back toward the far door through which she had entered. As she walked, her head left a faint trail of thick, acrid smoke.

  “The President’s secretary,” Wayne told them as they continued on down the corridor. “She knows everything that goes on around here.”

  “Did either of you see it?” Ed asked. “The smoke?”

  Monroe frowned. “I didn’t see anything. Well, what’s this all about?”

  A man came hurrying down the hall, pushing past them without saying a word. His light-brown hair was parted neatly on one side, and he wore a pair of round glasses that made him look a little like an owl. A cloud of dark smoke trailed from his head, making Ed cough.

  “John Dean,” Ed said after the owlish man had gone out of sight around the corner. At Mason’s urging, he had spent a good deal of time studying the names, photographs, and biographies of everyone in Nixon’s inner circle.

  Wayne was nodding thoughtfully. “Dean. White House Counsel. I wonder what’s got him in a tizzy.”

  Ed took out a notepad and hastily wrote two names: Dean and Woods. “Let’s find out,” he said as he put the notebook back in his pocket. “Follow the smoke.” The others looked at each other in confusion. They couldn’t see or smell it. “Just come on.” He hurried down the hall the way the lawyer had gone. The smoke dissipated quickly, but the smell lingered. They wound through the corridors and down a dark stairwell until they found themselves outside the side entrance they had used earlier. The lawyer had gone out this way, and they soon spotted him walking up the steps of the
building next door.

  “The Executive Office Building,” said Wayne. “Ugliest building in America, that’s what Mark Twain called it. Can’t say I disagree.”

  “Twain didn’t live to see the Federal Triangle,” Driscoll said.

  They followed the man up the steps and into the building, which had more non-functional stone pillars than Ed had ever seen in one place. The interior was all polished marble and ornately-carved wood cornices. Surprisingly, they saw no other people besides themselves. Ed looked up at a spiral staircase that wound upward to the top floor six levels above. The smoky trail led up that stairway. He ran up the steps, taking notice of the beautifully detailed wrought-iron railings. Somebody had put a lot of work into those. Following the burning smell, he turned right and hurried down a corridor past several wooden office doors. Driscoll and Monroe trailed some distance after him. The stinking trail ended at a door that looked exactly like all the others. Next to it was a mounted nameplate:

  H. R. HALDEMAN

  WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF

  “He went in here,” Ed whispered. He could hear several muffled voices on the other side of the door, talking over each other in an excited fashion, but he couldn’t make out any words.

  Wayne, out of breath from the stairs, bent over and rested his hands on his knees. Driscoll, who was in better shape and not winded at all, shook his head in general disapproval. “Ed, we could do without all this running. It’s not dignified.”

  Ed shushed him and pressed his ear to the door. Someone inside was shouting. He could make out few words, and the ones he was able to discern were not the sort of words he would have expected to hear coming from the office of the Chief of Staff. He pressed his ear tightly against the wood and was quite surprised when the door opened suddenly. With nothing there to support him, he tumbled into the office, knocking his head hard against the carpeted floor of the office.