by Cam Rogers
The axe was about to fall on the only life Paul had known for almost two decades. Gone would be his protection from the unknown. In twenty minutes he would record a statement. When the time was right that statement would be released.
From that moment the world would change forever.
Every day was déjà vu. The closer he got to the end, the more rapidly the unknown gave way to memories of a future he had not yet lived. He expected that, in the days before his death, he would be a man walking through nothing but memory until he found himself enacting the recollection of his own death.
And then there would be nothing.
He glanced behind himself. Sofia, at his desk, the singed remains of William Joyce’s research spread across the black glass, going over each page one at a time, dictating notes into her phone in a low murmur.
Footsteps in the hall. The urgency of their beat told Paul there would be no knock at the door.
The door opened. Martin Hatch entered, one hand resting on the brass knob.
“Jack’s here,” Paul said.
Martin stopped. “He’s been transferred from holding, to this building.”
“Sofia.” Paul took her hand. “I have to go. Would you meet me after? For a toast.”
She smiled, nodded assent.
“I’ll see you then.” He released her hand, swept his uniform from the lacquered arm of thirty-six hundred years of history, and went to meet his future.
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 8:15 P.M. Outside Monarch Tower.
Nick pulled the cab up three blocks from Monarch Tower. Spotlights were on early, panning across the midnight surface. The lights of the forecourt and lobby could be seen from here: limousines and armored town cars, a Monarch Security detail in two-piece formal wear opening doors while scanning sidewalks and streets. Camera flash, camera flash.
“They’re bringing him here tonight?” he asked Beth.
“They’ll want to get Jack inside a dampening field as fast as possible, before he realizes he’s made a mistake and makes a move. This is the best and only location. Okay listen up: Serene will evacuate Dr. Amaral as soon as she makes her presentation. So I’m going to have to get her out of there via helicopter before she takes the stage. What I need you to do is park close and keep your phone handy. If something goes wrong, you’re our backup escape. Got it?”
“I’m going to trust you’ve at least sketched this plan on a napkin.”
“Go Team Outland.”
“What?”
Beth got out, shutting the door behind.
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 8:17 P.M. Floor 35, Monarch Tower.
The elevator carriage lowered toward the thirty-fifth floor.
“The studio is set up for you on forty-nine,” Martin said. “Adjacent to your quarters. They’re ready to go, once we’re done with Joyce.”
“And the Peace Movement teams?”
“In place, as per your visions. They know what to do, once the stutter hits.”
“Good.”
“Paul,” Martin said. “You and I have worked toward this for half our lives. We’re at ten minutes to midnight, and even so I have to ask: is there no alternative to your sacrificing yourself in this way?”
“None,” Paul said. “Everything is at risk. Just promise me Sofia will be cared for, after I’m gone. Helicopter and pilot are on standby. Have her out of here and secured off-site as soon as the formalities have ended.”
“If you feel it’s necessary. We have Joyce.”
“And he may at some point use a time machine. Infinite variables. Secure her off-site.”
“As you say.”
They walked into a plain hallway, glass-walled on one side, strip lighting along floor and ceiling. Armed guards flanked a door on the right at the far end. “I’m doomed, Martin. Always have been. From the moment I stepped into that machine.” Paul stopped, glanced at his compatriot. “The stutter’s close. Have the Peace teams activate their rigs now. I’ll feel better. No mistakes.”
Martin’s face was somber, almost mournful. “That’s it, then.”
Paul clasped Martin’s arm. “Knowing my fate has been a gift. It has allowed me to make decisions that made Monarch the force for salvation that it is. But that will count for nothing if the company does not emerge heroically from the coming chaos. For that to happen, we must have a villain.”
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 8:20 P.M. Outside Monarch Tower.
Red carpet, velvet rope, and camera crews choked the sidewalk outside the Monarch Solutions Visitor Center: the entryway to the Tower’s atrium. Security, plainclothes and otherwise, ringed the block. Locals had turned out hoping to get a look at some of those big West Coast names they’d heard were flying in for the bash. The reporter Beth had seen on TV back at the hall was there, noting that Monarch had chosen to go ahead with the gala despite the all-too-recent tragedy at the university, and that Martin Hatch was expected to make a statement.
Beth crossed the street, headed for the western entrance, away from the crowds. A couple of guys were on duty, all groomed, tuxedoed and bored.
“Hey, Davis. You look pretty.”
“Hey, Wilder. Still in uniform?”
“They got me upstairs. Bradley Cooper showing up? I heard he was in town.”
“Anyone whose manicurist makes more than I do can blow me. You have a good night.”
“Roger that.” Beth marched between the two guards, toward the security entrance, then turned back. “Hey, Davis. I heard they caught Joyce.”
Davis glanced over his shoulder at her. “Gibson’s people took custody about an hour ago. Got him on thirty-five. Doesn’t look like much of a terrorist, but who does?”
Beth waved herself through security and into the atrium.
Beth entered the lobby from the west. The lobby floor was divided into three sections, from left to right: the main event area, the reception, and the displays. The central south-facing doors led to the security corridor. Through that was the Visitor Center, where guests were now being received. Within minutes guards would open the security doors and let everyone in.
The display area was intended to prime the audience for the main event: lots of information on chronon research, projections for its applications, but nothing too specific. Hatch was saving that for the big reveal. The main event platform was an elevated stage with full lighting rig and Marshall stacks. A two-story-tall videoboard was the backdrop. Light and sound techs were scuttling about, squaring away the final bits of unevenness, getting out of sight, running final checks.
In the wings, out of sight of the main floor, she caught sight of a pilot being assisted into his Juggernaut, arms reaching into the oversized chronon-powered exoskeleton. The pilot angled his legs into the frames of the Juggernaut’s legs. Techs consulted with tablets and diagnostics, asked the pilot to run through a few simple routines to confirm the suit was in working order.
The Juggernauts were prototypes, a side project that had been brought under the umbrella of Monarch’s Chronon Research Division. The torso was a simple, blind, geometric half shell. Each facet of the trunk had a couple of hi-res optics nested at the center. From inside the pilot navigated through a standard eyes-and-ears headset.
The prototypes were pretty much for show, which is why the rear of the thing was a naked frame and completely exposed. Beth guessed the techs wanted visibility on the innards, and to be able to get a pilot in and out quickly if needed. Nonetheless, it didn’t stop them being highly functional. The frame had enough hydraulic power to flip a station wagon, and came armed. A multimissile pod hovered above the thing’s headless body on a thin articulated arm, and a light auto-cannon replaced the suit’s left fist.
Looked like Hatch planned to go all out with the display.
Mezzanines ribbed one side of the lobby from the second floor right up to forty-eight. Forty-nine and fifty, she knew, were off-limits.
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 8:20 P.M. Floor 35, Monarch Tower.
A guard tapped an
access plate. The door to the room that held Jack Joyce slid aside. It was a typical meeting room, save for the four pieces of abstract technology in each corner. It was nothing elaborate, but it didn’t need to be. Potted plants and AV cabinets had been moved aside to ensure maximum coverage for the chronon dampeners. The floor-to-ceiling blinds had been lowered.
Paul sensed the room had been nullified before he’d set foot inside; the familiar leadenness palpable even from the hall.
Chronon-1’s new senior operative was here, his fist in his palm. Donny took his eyes from the figure handcuffed to the stainless steel designer chair in front of him, nodding an acknowledgment to his employer.
Jack was slumped in the chair, chin on chest, the fabric of his jeans spattered with fresh blood. He was the only thing at the center of the room.
Noting Donny’s mood, Paul glanced at Hatch. “No word on Gibson’s remains?”
Hatch gave the smallest shake of the head.
Clearly Donny was still processing whatever passed for grief. In Paul’s experience this breed of man had long ago replaced all secondary emotions with primary ones. “Donald, is it?”
“Yep.”
Paul heard his teeth grind at this dismissive familiarity. Hatch cleared his throat.
Chronon-1 was exceptional only in that its elite members were the first and the only group to have fully passed muster in Hatch’s cost-benefit-calibrated viewpoint. Technicians operated in a similarly lightweight fashion, but functioned only as soldiers. C-1 were, to an operative, multifaceted specialists able to adapt, survive, infiltrate, and succeed in almost any environment. Highly trained, highly valuable.
Nonetheless, Paul very much wanted to drive two fingers through the man’s clavicle.
Donny noticed. “I mean … yes, sir, Consultant.”
Martin stepped aside, gesturing with an upturned palm toward the door. “Would you mind stepping outside? We’d like some time with Mr. Joyce.”
Donny took a last, longing glance at Jack and exited the room crisply.
Jack turned his head, spat blood onto the carpet. Groaned.
Paul crouched in front of his friend. “Jack.”
Jack said “Wait,” and slackly spat again. A gobbet of syrupy black adhered a tooth to the fabric of his jeans. “Put that in my pocket?”
Paul sighed, collected the tooth between thumb and forefinger—it might have been a molar—and cleaned it on the arm of his fatigues before zipping it into the pocket of his friend’s leather jacket. “I can’t debate this further.” Paul sat on the carpet in a half lotus. “Martin’s mind is very clear—we should kill you. I don’t want to, but I know Martin is right. What are we going to do? Tell me.”
Jack appeared to be forming a response, and then he blacked out.
“Paul,” Martin said, checking his wristwatch. “I have to go. I’m expected downstairs.”
“Of course. I’ll be watching from my quarters. Let’s return here after we have both done what we need to do … and come to a decision about Jack.” Paul got to his feet, took a last look at his friend, and marched for the door.
Martin did not follow. He remained in the room, bent at the waist now, peering, as if committing Jack’s face to memory. Head tilted, like a curious animal.
“Martin.”
Martin Hatch straightened, adjusted his jacket, and joined Paul in the corridor.
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 8:27 P.M. Parking garage.
Finding a parking spot on a Saturday afternoon was a bitch, even with the city in shock. Nick supposed some people needed escape, and others wanted to give a Massachusetts fuck you to the group they thought had shot up the university by going out unafraid and spending. Maybe that’s why, despite the fear and the anger, there was a block’s worth of star spotters pressed to the front of Monarch Tower.
If only they knew that the people they were ogling were the people who had terrorized them. Monarch had made a big deal out of this gala. The publicity promised that tonight would be an unveiling of the future. The new revelation would reinvent society—just as the printing press and the Internet had done in former times—to change life on planet Earth forever.
Big claims from a corporation with form got a lot of interest from people that mattered.
From the third level of the parking building Nick had a good view of the crowd on the street. Every now and then, as a new foreign-made sedan rolled up, the crowd surged forward a little and phone cameras flashed. Sometimes people exclaimed and whoever had gotten out would turn and smile and wave. Nick couldn’t make out anyone down there. He supposed he could have checked the live coverage on his phone, but he was down to 25 percent. Couldn’t risk a dead phone in case Beth called.
Then someone turned up whom Nick did recognize, though not straightaway. The man didn’t step out of a polished Mercedes. His arrival started as a disturbance in the crowd on the other side of the street. First a few turned heads, then exclamations, and then space opened up as this person moved through the crowd. From above it was like watching a shark glide through a shoal of fish.
The last time Nick had seen this man he had been walking across the Monarch campus—the only gunman with his smiley mask off, like he didn’t care—shooting people. The others were rounding people up, herding them together, but that guy was smiling and shooting anyone who ran.
Randall Gibson looked like hell. If people weren’t looking at the Tower they were looking at Gibson’s ruined clothes, his bleeding arms, his fucked-up face. Randall Gibson looked like every inch a man who had somehow survived an exploding building.
He hurt, that was clear. He was favoring one leg and the set of his jaw said he was gritting his teeth as much out of pain as fury. His eyes were set dead ahead as he moved for the crosswalk. When he reached the traffic lights he tapped the Walk button, and waited.
Under the blood and dirt Nick could tell there’d been some real damage done there.
The light turned green. Gibson crossed the road, shouldered through the crowd, and made for the western entrance to Monarch Tower.
Nick and Beth had talked, back at the pool. She’d told him about Gibson, about how he had been inside Jack’s place when it blew.
She said he had identified her. Knew she worked for Monarch.
Down there, that was a man looking for blood.
He’d come looking for her.
Nick checked his phone. “I should text her. I’ll text her.”
Then he stopped. He didn’t have her number. He didn’t have her goddamned number.
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 8:27 P.M. Ground-Floor Atrium, Monarch Tower.
Jack was on floor thirty-five. Martin Hatch’s office and helipad were on fifty. There were a couple of other pads to choose from, but a bird on fifty could be guaranteed. Beth hadn’t lied to Davis: her unit was meant to be part of the security on the mezzanines, but she was early. That gave her time to roam before anyone wised up to what she was doing.
Door security announced they were opening up the atrium. The attendants in the middle third of the atrium collected their trays from the temporary bar, adjusted their smiles, and got into position.
There were two elevator bays on either side of the bar, which had temporarily replaced the receptionist station. The bays were three-sided glass tubes built into the glossy black wall, door in the middle plane. That’s when she saw seven of the eight remaining members of Chronon-1 hanging out on floor five, leaning on the rail, looking down on all the fuss. Beth could imagine Irene wanting to spit on heads.
C-1’s attention swiveled to their right as Donny stormed out of an elevator. The conversation was animated, heated. There was excitement, and then they all headed for the elevators. Beth jogged to the opposite bay, heading up as they headed down.
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 8:39 P.M. Outside Monarch Tower.
Nick had only ever had two jobs: ushering at a Cineplex and driving a cab. With both these jobs each night ended with wiping down seats and collecting lost property.
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br /> The trunk of the cab looked like it had been stocked by raccoons. Underwear, shoes, wallets, ID, false teeth, burner phones, cheap jewelry, medical results, toys, glasses, handbags, and a laptop. There were also two full suits, still in dry cleaner’s plastic.
The first one floated on him. The second one, while not perfect, was passable.
Two minutes later he’d changed out of his jeans and hoodie and was failing to complete a tie. Fuck it.
He did his hair in the rearview mirror, then rummaged in the driver’s side footwell. He found a red plastic traveler cup. In the glove compartment was a small bottle of bourbon and a discarded pack of cigarettes. Nick poured a couple of fingers into the cup, stuck an unlit smoke between his teeth, locked the cab, grabbed the coat from the roof of the cab, and got down to street level as quickly as he could.
People were still arriving and the crowd was still straining for a look. Guards by the rope were yessing and no-ing to randoms, making sure they had invites. Nick had to go through the main entrance. The guards on the western entrance weren’t distracted enough. He insinuated himself into the crowd, jacket off, cup in hand, keeping it steady as he could within the press of backs and shoulders.
His eyes were on the guards, looking for the one who was busiest. Heavyset dude, shades, and an ear mic, fending off a fifty-something blonde who felt she had a right to be in there.
“No invite, no entry.”
“What’s your name?”
“My security number is…”
A dance as old as time.
Nick used a few bodies to stay on the guard’s blind side, and then, as though this had only just occurred to him, asked, “Oh, hey buddy. Sorry to interrupt.” Nick held up the cup. “I’m on break. Is it cool if I take this outside?”
The guard held a hand up to the woman, silencing her for a second. To Nick: “Say what?”
Nick took the cigarette out of his mouth. “I said I’m on break. Ten minutes. Is it cool if I take this outside?”
“You drinkin’?”