The Fifth Descent of Lexi Montaigne

by R. S. Darling

Lovely brick mansions dotted the city but out here were cute split levels and little cape cods, the occasional stately townhouse. Mostly they sat out here in lonely acres filled with rusted out hulks of tractors and appliances. Lexi wondered if the town would appear as dreary under the light of the sun. It always seemed to be raining or at least glooming these days.

  Everything Fits was a sprawling place set amid dent cornfields and empty tracts. Northgate Free Methodist, a recently constructed church, was the closest structure, sitting about three hundred feet east of the storage facility. Lexi noticed the church did not boast a cross.

  The Dakota passed the lone employee and drove down a narrow aisle to number 111. Lexi hadn’t noticed anyone following, but she was still looking in the mirror anyway when she slowed down near the end. The truck stalled. “Fine, this is where I wanted to park anyway.”

  Muggy rain soaked through her thin blouse and seeped into her skin. Lexi shivered. After sliding the key into the slot she strained to raise the door, creating a series of squeaks and moans. Everything Fits boasted three sizes of units; Gramps had rented the mid-size—ten feet by fifteen. “Enough for all my crap,” Lexi mused. The unit was empty save for four black chests sitting in a tidy row, faint dots of light glinting off their brass hardware.

  There was a slip of paper taped to the top of one chest. Under the concentric rays of a penlight she picked it up and read . . . “My dearest Lexi. Do not trust anyone. Dorl’s reach is even more extensive than I thought. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to run.”

  “He was mad.”

  The darkness neither argued nor agreed. She crumpled the letter and stuffed it into her pocket, tried to open the chest. “Blast,” she muttered, realizing it was metal, like the safe in Gramps’ house. An embossed manufacturer’s mark was the same: Staout Safe Inc.

  Leave the chests; out of sight out of mind. But curiosity overcame rational thought.

  For the most part proud of her body—she even praised herself with the belief that it was due to her jump roping and homemade turkey sandwiches—Lexi knew that it likely had more to do with good genes. But when she bent down to move the chest she discovered just how paltry were her muscles.

  The other chests proved lighter. After backing up the Dakota, she managed to hump them up onto the tailgate and slide them back. She expended her store of expletives trying to lift the fourth chest. Lexi took a break to allow her mind to work it out like Gramps had taught.

  A few minutes in the cab with Beethoven’s edification, the answer came. She dropped the lightest chest to the ground near the tailgate and used it as a step onto which she wedged the heavy one. It was still a struggle but using this step technique (and a few well placed f-bombs) she managed to load up the final chest. With the wheel wells scraping the tires she pulled out of Everything Fits.

  Twenty minutes later, the turn onto Lewiston.

  The smoke plume rising and blending into the night sky was barely discernible, but the fire shone all too clearly. Panic set in. Cold, pure fear. The fire raged in a kaleidoscope of colors.

  Dregs of hope evaporated once she saw that, indeed, the house currently burning down was hers, number 8301. The place she had called home since leaving Gramps after college.

  A police guide dressed in luminescent orange guided her to a stop two-hundred yards from the inferno. “This isn’t real,” she said, as though words could counteract reality. As she slowly exited the Dakota and looked up at the house, a single terrible thought decimated all others: Gramps was right. Dorl is back.

  And then, climbing out of the dungeon of her mind, she remembered Satan. “Has anyone seen a black and white cat?”

  She wandered over to a few of the neighbors and repeated the question. Old Mrs. Smith across the street called Lexi over. Mrs. Smith (whose name Lexi knew without actually knowing the woman behind it) handed her Satan. Lexi pressed the cat to her face. “How’s my little kitty-boy?” Satan squirmed but she refused to him go.

  “When I heard the fire and ran outside, I found the little guy here on my porch,” Mrs. Smith said. “I’m sorry about your place. Do you have somewhere to stay?”

  It took a few minutes for the words to mean something, but eventually Lexi said, “No, that is, I think, yes, I might. Thank you.” She walked away with Satan in her arms, the cat now resigned to being carried like an infant. For a few ticks she watched the conflagration.

  The harried sound of yelling brought her out of her dream-like fugue. By then it had begun raining again, aiding the firemen but disrupting sight.

  She trudged through the rain, splashing puddles into her shoes. The man the police officers were yelling at disappeared into the backyard, probably headed for the cornfield that would take him to the thruway. Two officers gave chase but the man ran like an Olympic sprinter. Before he disappeared Lexi noticed he was crowned in a white trilby.

  “What was that all about?” she had to scream to be heard over the storm and the fire.

  “We caught him trying to steal your truck! He was using the fire as a distraction. Awful, but it happens. You should go home now, miss.”

  “I wish I could,” Lexi grumbled, tossing Satan into the cab. Now, of course, he wanted nothing more than to cling to her. It cost a few rips in her blouse but eventually she tore him loose and climbed in after. She glanced around and noticed the trunks still in the bed. A minute or two to consider her options, Lexi dialed Linnux. She was not in the habit of phoning a hormone-overloaded genius for help, but desperate times and all that jazz.

  “Lexi!” he yelped. She put the phone away in a knee-jerk reaction. “What’s going on?”

  “I need your help. Think you could meet me at seventeen Vernon Ave?”

  “Absolutely! Hey, but, I thought you lived on Lewiston. Okay bye!”

  To Satan she groaned, “I must really be scared if I just called him,” and did a three-sixty. As staccato trumpets greeted the dancing strings of Allegro ma non troppo, Lexi wondered if she might be in shock; her eyes were still not leaking tears.

  Linnux was waiting in his white Caprice outside 17 when she arrived. Lexi offered a little smile, having him here felt good, a comfort born not of safety (he was just a little squirrel of a guy) but because he was trustworthy.

  The Dakota backed up to the single car garage, burped out its passenger and waited for Linnux to run and open the door. Snuggled inside seconds later, the Dakota shut down.

  Lexi unlocked the house door and entered. Inspected the entrance. Waited for spooks to come out to spook her. All was silent and still. Serenity and fatigue washed through her.

  “This is your gramps’ house, isn’t it?” Linnux surmised. “Where is he?”

  “He passed.” Lexi dropped Satan and he scurried off, presumably to find Plato 5’s food.

  “My god, Lexi,” Linnux said, and dared to set a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. Um, is this like, saying goodbye then?”

  In the kitchen she poured two fingers worth each of Gramps’ vodka into two glasses. “No. We are here because my house is burning down as we speak.”

  “Jeez alouise! What did you do to piss off the gods?” A commiserative stare, then, “What can I do to help?”

  She led him to the living room and sat down. Linnux moved to settle into Gramps’ ancient wingback chair. “No!” Lexi screeched. “Sorry, it’s just—”

  “This is where he sat, huh?”

  She smiled for his quick deduction. He sipped at the vodka in a way that suggested he was unaccustomed to booze. “So, do you want to know what I found out about you-know-who?”

  Lexi quaffed the last of the liquor, drowning her gagging reflex in the process. “Sure.”

  “Well, it turns out—and I’ll ask you not to tell any of your cop friends about my late night activities—that the government has not only an extensive profile on Dorl, but is also actively researching him.”

  “What do you mean?” Plato 5 scurried through the living room, hissing at Satan.

  Linnux
removed his laptop while Lexi watched his tall spikes sway. They were the shade of curdled milk. He caught her staring at him when he set up the laptop. “Try not to get too wasted until I explain. Okay, see these numbers and letters here?” He pointed to the screen where lines of code were streaming. Lines of code and vodka do not mix. At all.

  “Okay,” feeling like she was on the UFO at Six Flags.

  “This here tells me that the undersecretary of the Special Cyberspace Investigative Agency is leading the team that follows Dorl. What’s really bizarre is the length of time they’ve been watching him. Only when they started watching him they weren’t even called the SCIA—obviously. Another disturbing thing is how he’s out of focus in the few photographs ever taken of him, almost like he possesses too many pixels to be captured on film.”

  “What is this Special Cyberspace thingy?” she had begun to slur words.

  “The SCIA is a very small—and very covert—division deep within the CIA. It’s to cyberspace what the CIA is to American national security. They employ the best hackers, and I mean the best, to search the entire web for any suspicious activity. They use filters and detecting algorithms and other security protocols which, sadly, would be lost on you. Another bizarre thing—”

  “How many bizarre things are there?”

  “—is that the SCIA, though a subdivision, doesn’t have any record of reporting to the CIA, or to anyone for that matter. Which is just weird. Every subdivision reports to someone. Anyway,” Linnux was in full geek mode now, speaking almost as quickly as an auctioneer, “the first true hacker, Silas Godspeed, convinced the government to form it.”

  “How come I’ve never heard of them?”

  “Scientcia es portencia,” Linnux quoted. “Of course I know all about them. I’m like the Zero Cool of my generation. What concerns me is that if they are researching Dorl, then it means they are interested in all things connected to the man that they sometimes refer to as the Tower. Which means they must’ve known all about your Gramps’ obsession. You don’t have to be Sherlock to realize what comes next.”

  Lexi sat up quick. “Help me find a crowbar.”

  Chapter 7

  She woke with a migraine and a sour gut. Drinking, what a dumb addiction. Her real vice would have left her cut and bloody but feeling quite well. She staggered out of the bedroom, long hair mussed and dry but for the attendant sweat dampening the side on which she’d lain. Linnux was already up, cooking something that smelled like disposable death.

  “Good morning beauti—” he stopped when he saw the ragged woman. “Here, I found some Tylenol.”

  She downed three pills and two glasses of tap, stared at him while trying to overcome the nausea and recall the night. “We didn’t . . . you know?”

  “I think you would remember,” Linnux smirked. He prepared himself a plate, not even offering any to her. They moved into the living room where sunlight was weaving its way through Gramps’ ancient crappy blinds.

  “Look at that, the meteoroid has broken up,” Linnux said as they watched Alison Van Heusen of IROC News. According to miss tight clothes the meteoroid was still on course to pass earth, but NASA had miscalculated and was now saying that it would actually pass within two-hundred and fifty miles, just above the thermosphere. They’d named it Wormwood.

  “You were saying something about a crowbar?” Linnux said after the segment ended. “That’s right!” Lexi rose too quickly. As her heart balanced the blood flow, the previous night’s events surged up in a sickening rush. She ran for the sink but nothing came up. They’d headed for the garage last night, but Lexi had stumbled and collapsed. “That’s why I asked you over. I need your help bringing them inside and going through . . . whatever we find.” They walked over to the garage and Lexi sighed with relief.

  The truck and the chests were still there, sleeping safe and soundless in the bed.

  “Whoa,” said Linnux as Lexi grabbed Gramps’ crowbar. “Where did those chests from?”

  “Gramps.”

  She did her best to offer as a smile. “Something bizarre, I hope.”

  Using a homemade fulcrum and leverage Linnux broke the lock with little effort and together they lifted the lid. The garage was cool and bright, which perhaps aided in their glee in finding crusty old— “Reels,” Lexi sang. “You ever seen so many?”

  “Dude, they look older than my physics teacher. Like, a half century at least. Old. Ancient. Primeval. Come on, I’ll help you lug some inside until the chest is light enough to tote.”

  An hour later, as Lexi was finally starting to feel a semblance of health, they had half the pea-green reels inside and Linnux had just figured out how to work the archaic Magnetophone they’d found in Gramps’ spare bedroom. “Okay, ready?” He flipped the switch and flinched at the clanking sound of the old contraption.

  “Silas Godspeed, Agent in command of the FBI’s Suspicious Person’s Division, badge number 311187, on December 28, 1948. Speaking with Clyde Smythe. Tell us about the man known as Mr. Rold.”

  There was a shuffling sound in the background and some whispers too low to hear, taken up by a shaky tenor.

  “It’s like I told you, I last saw him six years ago, during the war.”

  “Tell me what he looked like.” Silas said.

  “I was out having a cig in the back. No one else ever went back there, so . . . anyway, I saw him speaking to a man with a white trilby. After the man left, Mr. Rold also turned to leave. I followed him. Even though he walked slowly it was hard to focus on him. I thought my glasses were smeared so I took them off to clean them. By the time I got them back on he was gone. Maybe it wasn’t even him or maybe my peepers was messed up. Are we done, Mr. Godspeed?”

  The reel was silent for another minute before flapping off to the end.

  “That’s unbelievable.” Linnux said. “Even in real life the man was blurry. I wonder why they called him Mr. Rold.”

  Lexi was stroking Satan as she pondered these things; the tuxedo cat in turn glared down at Plato 5. “So, he’s real then.”

  “Seems so.”

  “Okay then, hear me out on this,” said Lexi, holding up her hand as though to ward off an argument. “If Mr. Dorl disappeared in 1941, reappeared a year later as Mr. Rold, and if he is the same man as the entrepreneur in Buffalo, then this would suggest that—”

  “That he is immortal!” Linnux interjected. “I see where you’re going. Logic suggests that a man such as that must have a long history of usurpations and possibly even dynasties.” Plato 5 ran off as Linnux increased the volume and pace of his voice. “That’s why your gramps was never able to track him down; he was looking to follow Mr. Dorl in present time when he should have been looking into the Highlander’s past. That’s what I’m going to do. Don’t worry, your gramps wasn’t mad, and I’m going to prove it.”

  “Hold on there, speedy,” Lexi stood and grabbed his shoulders. “I don’t want you running into this half-cocked. I think someone is already following me because of this. I don’t want them on your trail too. And don’t say immortal. It makes you sound like a Comic-Con geek.”

  Linnux flashed a grin. “Man, it’s just like those Bourne books, only I have kick-ass hacking skills.” He puffed out his chest. “I’ll unravel the mystery of Dorl as Uncle Sam plays catch-up.”

  “This is serious, Linnux. Someone burned down my house!” she felt like adding her suspicion that Mr. Boetie had intimated her father’s death was no accident. “I want you to watch your back.”

  He finally agreed to be careful, though the tone of his voice and the forced language suggested he was merely placating. After helping her lug the chests into the house he took off in his Caprice. Silence descended. She tried to fill the void with the rattling Magnetophone and the voices within the fragile reels.

  A few featured Latin and what she thought might be Greek speakers, which she didn’t speak, while others were too muffled to follow.

  One the couch, sucking on one of Gramps’ sugar-free c
andies, Lexi exhaled.

  “Well,” she muttered to Satan. “We’re not getting anywhere here.” She made sure the doors were all locked before driving out to Lewiston Road. There was a single fire truck and a lone black and white; number 443, Simon Colson’s car. As Lexi parked and walked across the water slogged street (there’s no drainage on Lewiston), she looked at the charred wreckage of her house. The roof had caved in and there were no walls to speak of, merely chain-link wreckage of timbers and studs.

  Everything that was not black was a mottled grey, either wet or smoking. It was savagely silent, and the stench of a barbecue gone awry pervaded the air. Simon broke her out of her reverie with a hug. “Thank God you’re okay. Why didn’t you answer your cell last night?”

  “Sorry, I left it in the truck.” She gazed up at him, squinting against the sun. “Why are you here, I thought you had another two weeks in Buffalo?”

  “The Captain told me about your house and was good enough to give me a twenty-four hour reprieve from duty. I came as soon as I could, to make sure you were all right.”

  When he spoke, something in Lexi’s inner self, her dungeon, rankled. Still, he’d gazed into her eyes when speaking, nether blinking nor altering his tone. When he embraced her tightly again, Lexi looked down at his blue jeans. Black smears mucked the knees.

  She shook her head. I’m becoming gramps.

  They walked together through the remnants of the house.

  “I suppose you went to your grandfather’s place last night. That must have been difficult. I’m sorry.”

  “Gramps’ estate lawyer gave me his will. The house is mine.” She thought about why this was so: everyone else was already dead.

  They were both startled by a sudden clanging of metal in what was once the garage. By the time they made their way there the fireman was standing the garbage can back up. The sight of it—even despite the fact that the once silver can was now black—reminded her of something. She made to approach it but Simon’s hand noosed her wrist, forcing her to stop.

  “What are doing?”