The Dead Slam: A Tale of Benevolent Assasination

by Bright,R. F.

  The Driver tapped his mirror, and sang in his low-brow brogue, “All cacks are cacks, but not all cacks are birthday cacks.”

  “Well put,” said Boyne. “But I still don’t get it. Dumb it down for me, Mr. Tessyier.”

  “You mentioned golf. Golf is a perfect example. What is golf? What’s the goal? Put the little white ball in the little white cup. That’s it. Don’t over-think it. What could be simpler?” An accusing wrinkle arched over the bridge of his nose. “So, why not just walk over and drop it in? That’s the obvious solution, isn’t it? But where’s the fun in that? Remember fun? It's important. So, we handicap ourselves, gladly, freely, forcing ourselves to overcome obstacles we put in our own way. The more frustrating, the better. Yet another fascinating dichotomy?”

  “Fascinatin’,” echoed the Driver.

  Tessyier’s opinion of the Driver was rising. “So for the sake of fun, we frustrate ourselves with obstacles and rules. In golf, the rules themselves are obstacles: players can only use clubs to move the little white ball. The little white cup is placed around the bend so it can’t be seen from the starting point. We put sand-traps and water hazards between us and the little white cup. Contour the playing surface in multiple planes, on a slope, and surround it with shrubs. The more obstacles, the greater the challenge, the greater the triumph, the greater the fun.”

  “Can’t beat fun,” laughed the Driver. “That’s true.”

  “That’s why we play,” said Tessyier, laughing along with his new friends. “Fun makes us happy. Releases endorphins. Fun is a drug; a chemical reaction in the brain. And that’s Tuke’s genius. I don’t know what business you think he’s in, but I’ll tell you right now, he’s in the happiness racket. That’s his game. And he’s been practicing for forty years. He has but one goal.”

  Only the rumble of the road could be heard as all heads turned.

  “Heaven! Heaven on Earth. For Tuke, the Earth was given to us to create heaven. Right here. On this planet. It’s up to us. There’s no heaven, until we build it. Life has no meaning for Tuke, but it does have a purpose. And building heaven is that one and only purpose.”

  “Is that possible?” asked Boyne.

  “We’ve created hell on earth, so why not heaven? He’s working on it, faithfully. And he’s a pretty smart guy. Heaven on Earth is what the Tuke denomination is all about. They’ve been working on a heaven, here in Pennsylvania, since they came over on the boat. Hundreds of years ago. Quakers are patient and we love epic scale. There’s that hymn: We Shall Revel in Proportion to His Boundless Love. Creating heaven on earth isn’t new for Levi. It’s the family business. They’ve kept it secret all this time. But autonomy is hard to maintain today, especially in his position. Levi’s TED Talks, the Nobel Prize, the vast popularity of the Massive, it got out. And! What a thing it is.”

  “Hats off,” chided Boyne. Tessyier had said things he also believed, but had never put into words. “Who’s to control all this?”

  “He has no intention of controlling ‘all this’. The players control ‘all this.’ Just like they would in any game. Embrace the chaos, my brother. Your life’s in play, like it or not.”

  “Let’s play, then.”

  “The Massive isn’t a game, it’s a platform for collaboration on an epic scale, a play-space for millions of games. Social games. A hive mind. Like a chessboard. Lots of different games can be played on a chessboard, because it’s exquisitely simple. And what is a chessboard? It’s a feedback loop. A perfect feedback loop.”

  “Feedback loop?” asked Boyne, who fancied himself quite a chess player. “Truly now? So my chessboard is a game-space feedback loop?”

  “When you’re sitting there looking at a chessboard, you can see absolutely everything. Every piece. Every position. Every relationship. Every threat. Everything is feeding back to the players.”

  “Except the next move,” said Boyne. “That’s in your opponent’s head.”

  “That’s what makes chess so appealing. The hidden menace that reveals itself with every move. Everything changes in one turn. He moves and you have to reevaluate everything that board is telling you. That’s feedback.”

  An uneasy quiet filled the transporter. Tessyier’s dogmatic tone was aggravating, but he was right. “The Massive is the biggest game-space ever created. The biggest feedback loop in history. A virtually unlimited social game-space upon which he intends to build — Heaven on Earth."

  Boyne didn’t care for Tessyier, but he was impressed with the boy’s passion. “A noble enterprise, indeed,” he said. “But I see where you’d run into a few snags. Why’d you quit?”

  “He didn’t need me. The Massive is producing the desired result.”

  “Is he happy with the result?”

  “Yes, but result might not be the word for it. Look! Life is already a game. I know that. You know that. He doesn’t have to make a game out of it, he just has to make new rules. Whoever makes the rules, controls the game.”

  Boyne smiled ear to ear. That was the takeaway. “Yes, indeedy do, my boy. Whoever makes the rules, controls the game.”

  19

  Camille tossed and turned, then gave up and got out of bed in the dark. She had slept a few fitful hours, but every time she tried to relax, the love letters called her to the piles of documents she should be reading. She dragged herself into the kitchen and stood for several minutes staring at the cupboard, but a jolt of coffee didn’t appeal to her. She drifted into her office. It was entirely hers now.

  The Aaron Tuke letter sat atop the pile on the big leather blotter, a colorful Venetian glass paperweight pressing it into the stack. Camille stretched as tall as she could, then gave in to her curiosity and picked up the lovely letter and studied its penmanship. She set it aside and shuffled through the remaining letters, hoping to find another one in Aaron Tuke’s hand. A cluster of indiscernible letters in decorated scripts flipped by. She could make out salutations, dates, signatures and some addresses, but they might as well have been addressed to Jupiter.

  She shoved that pile to the side then riffled through the next pile, a catchall of miscellaneous documents. She lifted them to take a better look and a page folded in three fell from the stack.

  Camille unfolded it:

  November 14, 1671

  Beloved Husband,

  I live and breathe the memory of your touch. The knowledge certain of our reunion in Pennsylvania, of which your description paints the picture of paradise, green and free, sustains me. I had a dream of our future last night, but all I can remember of it was my mother’s spring onion soup. We were eating her magnificent soup! So silly, but I prayed you would delight in the memory of that soup.

  My mother fussed over her beds of spring onions the whole year round. That is what we called them, spring onions, although some say ‘green onions’. They are savory and tender and sweetest in spring, long before summer’s heat. It was the flavor of those new shoots we craved. A craving not unlike that which torments me in your absence.

  Camille felt a familiar knot rising in her throat . . . ‘love’s gift.’

  Mother dwelled upon each speck of dirt and seed she planted. And she knew well how to stagger her planting so as to have ripe ones as early as possible, and a more important stand late in the season that she would nurture until perfect.

  As a churlish young girl of grim temperament, I scorned her scratching in the dirt, and hated her fanciful justifications for doing so. ‘The onions are sending me a message from the future,’ she would say.

  But what wisdom is wasted upon youth and vanity, for the true object of her labor was to teach me to listen for the voice. Especially the voice of the future. That is the voice of God. Truth wasted, certainly, on a girl newly awakened to the full constellation of man’s treachery — the bane of all women. Mother’s naiveté grated my bones. Why had she not spent her time correcting these iniquities, but rather squandering it on onions?

  My revelation came in late Autumn when only a few yellowe
d leaves remained. This is when she would pull up the last of her onions. Those destined for our annual fête supreme. A caldron of onion soup, redolent with the gentle breath of herbs and petals from the woodland, thick with savory little — messages from the future.

  One taste and all argument, no matter how sensible, vanished. The test of my mother’s wisdom proved her wise indeed. And we would find ourselves in the presence of that voice from the future, who speaks not with words but with gifts we can take into ourselves with the senses he gave us for the very job.

  In the presence of the truth, there is nothing to say. How silly indeed. Oh, that I could only dwell in those memories. For I hesitate to speak of present events, as I know not what news reaches you. Owing to the fact that there is no effect you can have upon them, I endeavor to lighten your burden and offer that there is further promise for our prosperity, although it comes with caution.

  All my prayers are pinned to the younger Mr. Penn as his troubles have multiplied tenfold. In order to keep Pennsylvania from his low and carnal enemies at court, he has chosen rather what some fear a death sentence in Debtor’s Prison. Never a better man has stood before a tyrant and caused them such pain as our gallant Mr. Penn. They have no shield to fend off his reason and principle. I pray for him daily.

  With Queen Anne upon the throne, our grant from Mr. Penn of those lands along the western reaches of the fortieth parallel is now recognized, and I am loath to spend one more night away from it and you, my love.

  I agree it is a great expanse for a single grant, even if much of it is awash in streams and marshlands, and crowned with a great but impractical mountain. I have heard you, dear husband, rave of the merits of what most would consider an impediment of rock. In days past you would not have thought twice of so inhospitable a place for us to prosper. But the dogma of the past is inadequate to our tempestuous present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with it. As our circumstance is new, so we must think anew, act anew.

  Fare thee well . . . my life, my love. As I concur in our salutation, saying with my lips your words — I will see you soon, my beloved — upon the Twin Spires.

  Until Love’s Last Breath,

  Camillia Tuke

  De Rotte

  Camille leapt to her feet, half-blinded by tears, stumbled to the computer, pulled up a map of Pennsylvania and began zooming and scanning until she found the fortieth parallel. She traced it until her finger fell directly upon the mountain where her father had been found.

  “Oh, my God!”

  20

  Boyne was glad they’d made it to the Monongahela Wharf without incident. Soon he could drop the tiresome pretense of being interested in Tessyier’s nonsense.

  Tessyier was still going on about something, but no one was listening and he hadn’t noticed. “Does that make sense? A transcapitalist . . . with his money?” He realized they’d arrived at the wharf. Excellent! He could drop the tiresome pretense of respecting these ignorant dolts.

  “I agree, lad,” said Boyne. “Your logic is unassailable. But it’s better to spend like there's no tomorrow, than to spend tonight like there's no money!”

  The troop howled.

  “Don’t be obtuse,” scowled Tessyier. The laughter died abruptly.

  Boyne bristled. “Obtuse am I now? Well, I’ll tell you straight, humans are locusts not honey bees. We feast upon the work of others. We win because others lose.”

  Tessyier gathered his belongings, and said scornfully, “The bees will prevail. In the end. And you know it.”

  The transporter lurched to a stop, and there sat his small tugboat awaiting him. He smiled cynically at the name painted on her bow.

  Deliverance.

  21

  Max, Otis and MacIan sat in three dilapidated recliners, long tubes pinned to their veins. The needles didn’t bother Max as much as the smell. He kept wrinkling his nose. “I hate that smell,” he said.

  Otis snorted in a sample. “What smell? Which smell?”

  “Alcohol,” said Max. “The smell of alcohol. It’s all over this place.”

  “Only antiseptic they got, I guess.” Otis panned his nose around the room, sniff sniff, until their nurse walked in. He gave Max a wink, aimed his nose at her, and spoke out of the side of his mouth. “Look around you, young man. A few old men, some boys, and lots and lots of women. Same as Bedford. But here it sticks out like a broken pecker at a fuck-fest.”

  Max was taken aback, but had to laugh. People didn’t talk like that in Lily. He looked at MacIan, whose eyes were slammed shut. He was amazed to discover that rhino-tough MacIan was squeamish about needles. And! It was obvious that honorable Otis didn’t see anything wrong with a fuck-fest.

  “You know that injured lady?” asked Otis.

  “All my life. She’s the Pastor’s wife. A teacher in my village.”

  “Good teacher?”

  “Really good. History, geography, reading, you name it. She told the best stories.”

  Otis noted that each time the nurse Cromwell came around, she tended to Max first. She smiled at Max, but treated him and MacIan like lepers.

  “You take the pledge?” Otis asked.

  “You kiddin’? My dad would kill me.”

  “That’s good. Why a young man pledge to pray seven times a day, when there’s six women for every man? That’s foolish. If I was still frisky, I’d take that pledge of seven. Oh yeah! In my time I could do seven per day, every day. Eight or nine on Sunday. Praise the Lord.”

  Nurse Cromwell cast a rueful eye at Otis, which only seemed to encourage him. He started snapping his fingers, singing, “No more work for me. Women and religion is all I neeeee . . . Um humm, hum hum hum.” He laughed until a coughing spell stopped him. Otis carried a party with him everywhere he went and was, as a result, always in a good mood.

  The nurse circled their chairs. “Couple minutes,” she said. A plastic name-tag dangled from her lapel: Elz Cromwell, RN.

  “Glad to hear that,” said Otis. “Elz?”

  She lifted Max’s blood-bag. “It’s modern for Elizabeth.” She glowered at the chauvinistic Otis, then put her hand on young Max’s shoulder. “You selling this?”

  Max turned to Otis, who answered for him, “This a trade. Payment for a friend.”

  “Oh,” she said, hopefully. “Is this the only thing you have to trade?” Otis checked his blood-bag and thought he was done, too. But Nurse Elz only had eyes for Max. “Over here,” she said. “I have some liquids for you. You have to rehydrate.” She led Max away, to Otis’ consternation. MacIan hadn’t opened his eyes and wasn’t about to.

  Nurse Elz ushered Max to a collection of paper cups filled with various liquids and handed him one the color of burnt sweet potatoes. He downed it and shuddered. “Our homemade version of orange juice. Ever seen an orange?” she said, as though she might have one in her pocket.

  Max shook his head. “I’ve heard of them.”

  “They say they’re growing oranges somewhere around here.” She handed him a different drink, but it tasted just as bad. “Come.” She nudged him toward a scale. “Step up.” Max got on. She slid the balance weight. “Two hundred twenty pounds. You haven’t gone without. Have you?”

  “My father’s the principal provider for our village. No one goes without. We’ve achieved sufficient abundance.”

  “I’ll bet he is, and I’ll bet you have,” said Nurse Elz as she lifted a flat metal arm and sat it on Max’s head. “Six feet two and one half inches. Blond hair, blue eyes. You’re in good health, I assume?”

  “Perfect.”

  “I can see that,” said Nurse Elz. “Ya know, I want to introduce you to someone. You’ll want to meet her.” She took Max’s arm and steered him out the door.

  Otis slapped MacIan’s shoulder. He unclenched one eye and saw Otis pointing to Max just as the doors swung closed. They did a worried double take, but were both pinned to their blood-bags, and Max was gone.

  Efryn Boyne and his specia
l guest, Brian Tessyier, climbed out of the transporter and gazed at the moonlit Monongahela. A wintry haze drifted over it and crept up the old wharf in wispy tendrils. A brief warming trend had set adrift a surge of ice floes that passed at a jogger’s pace. It was enchanting, but the damp chill cut like broken glass.

  “And here we are,” said Boyne, slapping Tessyier on the back with everyone chiming their fare-thee-wells.

  “Some peculiar notions you’re up to,” said the Driver. “But worth a mull. Worth a mull!”

  Tessyier clambered over the steel gangplank clutching his metallic briefcase, wheeled suitcase clacking in tow, and onto the small river tug. Boyne and his troop assembled on the wharf, where one of them aimed a camera at Tessyier. The tugboat’s pilot cast off the mooring line and they drifted into the current. Tessyier came to the rail and smiled, but his remorse was evident. A cloud of diesel smoke belched from the smokestack and water boiled up between the tug and the wharf.

  Boyne cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled, “My name is Efryn Boyne!”

  Tessyier stared ponderously across the widening stretch of frothing black water.

  Boyne held up something that looked like a garage door opener. “Efryn Boyne. Ya bloviating clot.”

  The troop taunted, “Bloviator! Hey Bloviator!”

  Tessyier suddenly recognized the name and started pawing his chest for the handcuff key necklace. The briefcase slipped and yanked his wrist toward the deck. He recovered, found the necklace and tried to rip it from his neck, but it sliced his throat wide open as the piano wire noose slid tighter, blood pumping through his collar.

  Boyne pointed the remote at Tessyier and smiled. “Oh! We’re all tellin’ the truth now! Aye?”

  “One second, Captain!” shouted the Driver. “Number Three, let’s go!”