Charlie pauses. “What is there to talk about? You gonna offer me a plea?”
“No.”
“Then what is there to talk about then?”
“Work with us.”
“Work with you.” He’s not impressed.
“Bring X to us. The real X.”
“And if I’m not free, how do you propose—”
“I never said you wouldn’t be freed.”
Charlie considers it, after forty-eight hours in the hole, from fighting with another inmate.
“What’s in it for me?”
“A job.”
“No, thank you.”
“Not interested in a job?”
“Not interested in working with you. I already have a job.”
“Who you working for?” Charlie doesn’t answer, so the warden asks again. “Who . . . are you working for?”
“I think I’d like to go back to the hole now.”
“Tell me about Samantha McFee.”
“I don’t know Samantha McFee.”
“Tell me about Daniel Baxter.” His eyes shift, for just a second or two, but the warden catches the look. “Bingo,” he says.
“Bingo, your ass,” Charlie responds.
ROSEWOOD APARTMENTS, FIFTH FLOOR
CENTRAL PARK WEST, NEW YORK CITY
A montage of banned and “dangerous art” leads to a reveal that we are in an editing bay. Pause. Rewind. Play. An unidentified man takes notes as images flash of Huckleberry Finn, The Satanic Verses, the works of Robert Mapplethorpe, Tipper Gore and album ratings, Eminem, record albums being burned in bonfires, Jim Morrison, Marilyn Manson in court on charges of selling “devil music” to kids, Grand Theft Auto and other violent video games. Pause. Fast-forward. Play. Harry Potter and occultist charges, The Fault in Our Stars, children reading EC Comics including Tales from the Crypt, the Bible, the Koran, ISIS destroying ancient works of art, Piss Christ, Sony’s The Interview, Charlie Hebdo and “Je Suis Charlie” signs, graffiti, tattoos . . . works of Salvador Dali, The Exorcist and subsequent protests by priests, A Clockwork Orange banned in Britain, Midnight Cowboy, The Last Temptation of Christ and The Passion of the Christ, the word “banned” pulsing repeatedly in various fonts and forms . . . a comprehensive montage of taboo creation. A hand scribbles notes in a notebook then types a few words on a laptop.
A cell phone rings. “Thank you,” a male voice responds before disconnecting the call. He saves the material into a file: Project Ara. He closes his laptop. “And thank you,” he says. “That’ll make some points.” He stands to go.
“Danny?” Daniel turns. Daniel Baxter, husband of the former Samantha McFee. “Same time tomorrow?” asks The Editor.
“Same.” Daniel checks his text with his free hand, then turns back from the door. “I’ll Skype you.”
“Roger.” The Editor watches Daniel pause to consider . . . something. “Aren’t you going to be late?”
“Carry on only.” He holds up the computer. “Going home to London, remember.”
“I turn forty and there goes the memory . . . something wrong?”
He shakes his head. “You know it’s 2015.”
“Last I checked.”
“On my phone. A text . . .” Daniel extends his arm and squints his eyes to get a better look. “A text sent just over an hour ago. Sam . . . Of Mice and Men . . .” He pauses, silently reading the rest.
“Well are you going to read it, or are you going to stand there?”
“Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, released in 1937—says here over seventy-five years ago, which is a punch to the gut—just saved from the proposed classroom ban in Idaho . . .” He looks up. “Just now, for Christ’s sake. Why did we allow it to go this far? Of Mice and Men, nearly a century old . . . can you answer that for me?”
“Is Steinbeck supposed to be immune because he’s Steinbeck, or . . . ?”
“No.”
“No. Well then I can’t answer your question, because I may have to kill you.”
“But?”
“Peaches, I hope you find what you’re looking for. Cheers.”
~~~
Daniel rushes to hail a cab. As he enters the taxi—
“Meter me for JFK and drop me off before you hit the bridge.”
The driver adjusts the meter. He notices a man stepping out of the building, hands in pockets, casually watching the action in the cab. The driver looks into his rearview mirror. Daniel sees The Editor as well; he feigns preoccupation by massaging his neck and avoiding the driver’s gaze.
“Can I add a tip?” the driver asks.
“Five percent.”
“But it’s Christmas.”
“It’s summer.”
“C’mon. No questions. Whoever you’re trying to fool, at least add a decent tip.” He cocks his head to The Editor. “And I’ll make sure your tracks are cover—”
“Ten. Nothing more.”
“Ten it is.”
There is no further delay. The driver speeds away.
~~~
As promised, Daniel is dropped off at the base of the bridge not ten minutes later.
“No worries about me,” the driver says. “I’ll go the extra mile. What airline?”
“I won’t ask.” Through the driver’s side open window, Daniel hands the driver his cash, including the tip. “TWA.”
“British Airways it is.” Daniel smirks. “She paid me well. You can trust me.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“C’mon, I’m from New York.” The driver counts and waves the bills. “You got it, pal. I’ll circle once, take a break. Hell, I may even hit a strip club for lunch if the rain’s too heavy to come back.” He shifts from park to drive. “Careful out there, pal.”
Daniel nods and walks on despite the weather. His phone vibrates in his pocket, and he takes cover under the nearest awning to answer it.
The call has been missed, but the face and name of the caller is displayed onscreen: Sam. A notification appears, and he checks his voicemail.
“It’s me,” Samantha says. “I—”
From her office in London, she tries him again.
This time, he picks up.
“Is everything okay?” he asks.
“Can you talk?”
“A minute.”
Daniel clicks off and approaches the ringing payphone just a few steps away. He lifts the receiver.
“Cab okay?”
“Would I have picked up?”
“Glad to hear it.”
“What time are you expected back home?”
Samantha glances at her computer. Her screen is blank. “Not yet.” A brief but notable pause. “So why didn’t you call me earlier?”
“The storm is playing havoc with connections.”
“I figured. They’re still grounding flights.”
“I know.”
“Did—”
“Not a thing. He questioned nothing. I don’t know if I should be surprised.”
Samantha’s computer monitor receives an Alert notification. “Gotta run,” she says. “Love you.”
Daniel hangs up without responding. “ENIGMA happens . . .”
So damn tired of the charade . . .
~~~
Daniel stands under the awning, protecting himself from the elements as Thomas did earlier when inside the Scarp Building. He is unaware of the coincidental presence of Samantha’s father in New York at the same time as he, though he shouldn’t be surprised; when he married her the last thing he expected was to be drawn into her ongoing dog and pony show and unrelenting family drama.
Including well too many secrets. Daniel doesn’t trust Thomas either, for reason having more to do with the siring of his shadowy daughter than anything else, but he stays en circumstance because he is convinced there is more to know.
Daniel’s remaining with Samantha has less to do with love and everything to do with his order, which he recalls and justifies whenever he drowns in self-pity.
The job was not yet over and that caused the real issue. Should’ve left when I had the chance . . .
Yet. The operative word as they say.
~~~
A month prior to the death of his commanding officer in Iraq, Daniel was warned by his superior that a woman by the name of Samantha McFee had been exposed based on a computer leak. Motive was unclear; the initial suspicion was that she had been hacked. His commander had taken a keen interest in Daniel and wanted to help him following the dedicated fighter’s final tour of duty. The commander cashed in a favor and offered Daniel a civilian assignment that, conveniently for a caffeine and adrenaline junkie, began in a coffee shop in Brooklyn. It would be Daniel’s job to keep an eye on Samantha and then to possibly find her a job in London at the Embassy based on subsequent events, which did come to pass. Both the commander and he quickly realized that the respected soldier had become trapped in something far greater than either could have realistically anticipated. Daniel was under strict orders to remain silent until further notice.
Not only a likely threat against national security, but global, his commander explained, and their U.S. government could not, yet, do anything about it. When his commander was shot and killed in warfare, a grieving Daniel continued the assignment anyway, because that’s what his superior officer would have wanted.
To Daniel, the extent of Thomas’ participation in this equation remained an unknown. Today, Daniel cares more than less, and so he continues his latest game. Samantha insists that her dad knows nothing.
Maybe Thomas really is clueless, he ponders, still standing under the awning until the rain lightens. He hates games, or so he says to anyone who would listen.
When they met, Samantha was in a good space for love. Daniel’s psychological issues since returning from Iraq were so far medically controlled and, though he privately considered himself damaged goods, he too was open to possibilities. When they did finally move to London upon accepting her job, she became inexorably duty-bound, which remains her priority.
As former military, Daniel accepted the attitude. At first. When Samantha slipped and he noticed something unusual in an email—an unpublished letter from X—he questioned her for the first time, but she would not immediately answer. She bluffed that the letter was spam, though she refused to erase it.
For his part, he didn’t pursue the matter further, but he knew. He knew something was up as he and X had been personally acquainted from their time in Brooklyn together. Daniel didn’t trust X then, and so his awareness that his wife was involved in something secretive was, he believed, a logical conclusion and not his normal state of paranoia. Complicating the matter was her surprise when he admitted that they were familiar.
~~~
To date, she denies any knowledge of X’s past prior to his letters, and he remains convinced that she is still hiding from him despite proclamations that spouses should hold no secrets. Regardless, Samantha knows that her husband could now go nowhere. They will remain married, implicated as he is in his wife’s sordid state of affairs.
Trapped.
He’s with her, and he takes her lead. He’s gotten himself into this mess. Maybe one day he’ll figure it all out. He’ll figure a way, and maybe at that time he’ll finally take some control over his own pathetic life and meet a woman he could truly fall for.
Until then, he may as well call himself James Bond.
He walks the streets of downtown New York City, splashing along the way, when he sees the rail-thin, soaked girl wandering the Bowery. The rain has let up. Freak returns his glance for the briefest of moments, before he turns his head and walks on.
He heads to the staircase of the nearest subway and begins to step down into the station. His attention is diverted, however, by a group of four. They are all dressed appropriately for the weather, mostly in darker colors and each holding an umbrella, but they would be otherwise ignored if not for a singular distinction: Other than Daniel, and the girl, they appear to be downtown’s only remaining pedestrians.
Daniel grasps the banister and glimpses the surrounding area. Maybe because the rain has finally lightened? He quickly dismisses the thought as the flooding must be nearly two feet high and, no, there is no one else traversing the vicinity on foot. He turns back to the group. Daniel figures, judging by their gaits, that the quartet is comprised of three men and one woman.
The taller of the group stops and checks his cell. The others stop with him. He lifts his chin, as if guiding. He walks on. They follow.
They turn, and Daniel follows their gaze. They are tracking the girl, and heading in her direction.
As they close in, he wants to warn her, but he understands calling attention to himself could be more problematic.
Freak wanders aimlessly. She may as well be blind, as the woman sees her before the others and points in her direction. They cross the street as one and follow closely behind.
Daniel’s grip tightens on the bannister . . . and the group disperses. They pass her and walk onward in opposite directions.
They’ve seen me.
He looks at his watch. It’s stopped.
~~~
Again, the cell. Lit up. A text. The message is simple: Chambers and W. 4th, followed by a cryptic signature: X. He powers down. As he exits, he turns sharp left and half-jogs to the end of the block. He again identifies the woman and follows her.
He looks up in response to an astounding thunder clap. The skies are becoming red, quickly and perhaps dangerously so.
Freak looks up only in response to a second clap of thunder and a roar that sounds like nothing less than that of an incoming dragon.
She falls.
SOHO ARTS DISTRICT, NEW YORK CITY
Daniel, holding the woman in his arms, enters the gated elevator of 20 Muir Street and heads up to the fourth floor.
He opens the door to Apartment 4E. As he walks inside and places her on a couch, he notices that the letter “X” is scrawled all over the walls, in blood. He doesn’t appear at all unnerved, however.
Daniel Baxter knows the boy, X, all too well. He enters.
“Brother!” he hears. “It’s been too long.”
Daniel takes his time. He removes his outer garments as X watches, then walks calmly to a bridge chair. He does not sit; he holds onto its top. “What are you doing here?”
“Why don’t you close the door,” X says. “We need to talk.”
“What do you have in mind?” Daniel asks.
X grins broadly. “Brother . . .” He doesn’t get the desired response, so he drops the stupidity and glares instead. “You know I’ve never been afraid of the dark. Never been afraid of the light either, brother.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Do you want your wife to live?” Daniel is about to pounce, but he stands his ground. “Or do you need me to do you a favor?”
Upon consideration, Daniel reaches behind him and shoves the door shut.
VARIANCE
MIRKWOOD
The dragon awakens. He had been sleeping, lying on his belly; at the pop of fire and wood he jumps to his feet and, disoriented, looks around.
His parents are nowhere to be seen. He adjusts his eyes and his thoughts . . . and he sneers. He remembers.
Taebal remembers where Ara has led him since his master Eron’s death, to where it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate reality from reverie. He recalls standing with her atop a mountain, over a raging sea, when the colors of the sky had transformed from darkening gray to threatening shades of scarlet and crimson—the color of her hair. Each stared quietly at the other, and he was convinced she was going to allow him to drown in the raging waters beneath the flaming sky, when his vision closed to black.
And now he, again, finds himself in a familiar cave. The muse is not in his sights . . . but a mystic is.
S’n Te turns from the warming fire. Taebal notices that he has covered himself in his robe, hiding the X scarification on his back. Tho
ugh the fire is confined to a single area, light smoke fills the inside.
“I did not need the fire. I built this to keep you warm.”
The dragon drools in response. He growls to scare the mystic but S’n Te stands his ground.
“And so you permit the laughter of the gods. Is this what you seek?”
Taebal understands the words, but he is unsure as to the interloper’s intent. This is my cave, he reminds himself. The dragon, though defiant, is not yet compelled to physically defend his turf. He is unsure as to the necessity.
“You are safe,” S’n Te assures. “She is nearby and mourning her loss.”
As the dragon and the mystic engage, Ara sits against a tree as would a human child—her short legs unbent at rest, toes up, her stubby hands downturned and faced forward—on a scorched patch of earth just outside the cave. The back of her head rests against the trunk and she blankly observes the dark above. The drizzle has ended, and the night sky has cleared; as if to further remind Ara of Eron’s tragic fate, a shooting star disappears somewhere beyond the remains of Mirkwood’s beleaguered kingdom.
Eron’s father is sending a message? she considers.
But she does not further the thought. She is calm though not at peace, and she understands the distinction. Her calm allows her the infrequent sense of clarity. Peace would represent her acceptance of all things, and she is accepting of nothing. She marvels at the expanse of the universe and all of its hypocrisy, and yet she is, still, a goddess and one of its primary architects. She should have a say. However, to her immortal brethren, she is bereft of worth or meaning. Ara ponders for a moment her gift of immortality, though that gift has long since been taken away, and one day she will experience the storms of life as do the humans.
When that happens the gods and goddesses will take precautions, she figures. They would be fools not to. And she quickly reconsiders. But fools they are and have always been.
Ara again looks in the direction of the kingdom. She then looks down, in sudden realization. She looks first at her legs. And then to her arms . . . her fingers and her hands.
I’m a . . . freak. Yes, so be it. The mortals shall one day adapt this root in science and story to describe people like me. Mine is not the form Eron would have wanted. This must change in my transition. The other gods are able to shift their human-shape at their whim, when I never could. My curse will become my favor.
Chronicles of Ara: Perdition Page 14