Abyss (Songs of Megiddo)

by Klieve, Daniel

  My shoulders shrugged into a hunch as I pressed my palms onto the cool counter – tensing my arms and letting the rest of my body slump – and stared at the kettle: willing it to boil.

  So...here’s the thing. Yes: everything up until that point had seemed like a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside of some other totally incomprehensible bullshit. But in this particular situation...there was something entirely different going on. I was trying not to consider it; trying to dismiss it...because the possibility that any given thing I might uncover could actually lead to something was – for me...at that precise moment in time – exponentially more frightening than the familiar certainty that whatever was in front of me would lead to nothing.

  How frightened was I? Well...I was standing there...futilely trying to convince myself that I had no idea what that little .txt file was there for, or what it meant, or that it was some sort of cache file, or something else that had been automatically generated by the system. And yet...the file name was ten digits. All numbers.

  It isn’t rocket science.

  No. It wasn’t. It was a fucking phone number.

  While the kettle started to whistle, I stomped back to the computer with a beleaguered, melodramatic sigh: I grabbed my mobile...opened the ‘phone’ app...and stabbed the numbers into the glass panel with my index finger. I took the phone back to the kitchen – wedged between my ear and shoulder – to finish making my coffee. It rung once. Twice. Three times.

  Don’t keep me waiting, or I swear to Christ...

  “Hello. Mrs Arden, I presume?”

  “Donohue. And it’s ‘Ms’.” I countered reflexively: his formal tone throwing me off slightly. When you expect to hear a familiar voice, and the voice you heard isn’t familiar, your brain’s first reaction isn’t to recognise your unfamiliarity but to be surprised that a familiar voice sounds different than it should. The impulse is quickly shaken off – it usually takes less than a second – but in such situations, you can’t help but feel an ever so slight...twinge, of subconscious familiarity, however unjustified, based on that split second of mistaken belief that the unfamiliar is familiar. Formal and detached tones, in those situations – though perfectly reasonable and normal tones for complete strangers to use with one another – seemed dismissive, somehow: cold, as if you’re being snubbed by an acquaintance. All it takes is a millisecond of mistaken identity to become vulnerable; to let someone far enough in to your emotional world to damage you.

  “Of course.” He pleasantly conceded.

  “You have an APIAD login?” It wasn’t a question. The kettle finished boiling; the burbling and whistle of it terminated by a sharp click as it shut itself off.

  “Naturally.”

  “Is it mine?” He laughed pleasantly.

  “Please, Kayla. Credit us with a little more nuance than that.” Pouring boiling water into my mug, I watched the brown gravel of my instant coffee turn to paste...then sludge...then brown, opaque water. I set the kettle down, learning back against the counter; pursing my lips and blowing steam from the top of the mug.

  “And the email? Did Darren actually email me, or was that just some bullshit to get me to log on?”

  “You’ll have to take that up with ‘Darren’, I’m afraid.” He seemed bored by that. It reassured me, in a way. It reassured me because it was a mannerism that I was familiar with. One that I could, potentially, work with. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: boys are easy.

  “So...Ambrose. Just out of interest: who’s John Galt?” The words were sweet...with an edge of mockery. I don’t even really know why I asked. Just to see if it got a reaction, I suppose. Just to ‘test the waters’.

  “In order to do the work that we’re preparing to do, one cannot be so...narrow in ones’ thinking.” his non-answer told me a whole hell of a lot of what I needed to know.

  “But that’s part of it, right? This is an Objectivist thing?” There was a sharp intake of breath. I was expecting an affirmation of some sort. Something to acknowledge that my guess was right. I didn’t get it. Instead, Ambrose chuckled.

  “I’ve been watching you, ‘Ms’ Donohue.” He said it casually, like it was the most normal thing in the world. Like I hadn’t asked him a question. Like he wasn’t bludgeoning me with this to get out of responding to that. It was a control thing. I knew that. I kind of even – honestly – got that. But still...I played into his hands. I forgot all about my question. His statement forced my mind elsewhere, sending icy sparks sniggering down the inside of my spine. But it wasn’t just fear, though there was, definitely, that.

  Who the fuck do you think you are?

  “Excuse me?” I hissed.

  “Not in the way you’re thinking.” I realised I was holding my breath. Every muscle in me was tense. I forced myself to breath evenly. To stay calm. Or, at least, as calm as I could, given the circumstances.

  “Really? And in what way am I thinking?”

  “I don’t wish you harm. I’m not delusional, or impulsive, or prone to emotional instability. I watch you because I appreciate your curiosity. Though, I must say, such curiosity does attract attention.”

  “Well clearly, if it’s got you watching me.” I sneered. “I bet you think miniskirts get girls raped, too, don’t you?” He paused for a moment.

  “Please, Kayla.” He sounded – what – disappointed? Too crass, I guess. “I’m not the only one out there watching. While I find it endearing, others may view your curiosity as...troubling.”

  “Well, like my mother always said,” I responded warily, after several moments “‘Curiosity never hurt anyone important. Just some cats’. She was a dog person.” His laugh was light and pleasant. Somehow that made it worse. More unnerving.

  “Your mother never said any such thing.”

  “She could have. How would you know?”

  “How would you?” He snapped. I raised an eyebrow.

  “Touché.”

  “I apologise.” He sighed. Without meaning to – and without knowing why the fuck I did – I felt myself pulling closer to him emotionally. The thing is...when you know too much about a stranger, the burden of knowing? Sometimes it comes to mimic the weight of intimacy. It can be a very disconcerting sensation.

  “No, it’s fine.” I paused. “Why did you make contact, Ambrose? Why now?”

  “I know you think I’m going to make threats. You know enough, now, that it would seem natural if I did so. But I would never threaten you, Kayla.” there was a kind of pained tenderness, there...edging around his words. “No, I admire you. Perhaps I even...love you, insofar as I’m capable of such things.”

  “You don’t know me...” I responded quietly.

  “Watching a person is basically knowing them...if you watch them the right way.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “No. I’m not. And you know I’m not. You just don’t know how you know. But it’ll come to you in a moment.” I inhaled sharply...with a muted, involuntarily squeak.

  “Fuck,” I whispered, a shaky hand rising to cover my mouth, my eyes widening.

  Fuck...no.

  Those words were mine. For a second I just stood there... cemented in place, feeling violated in a way that only a person who works with words for a living can feel, finding one’s own words repurposed as weapons and used again them.

  “That was private.” I growled. He’d been in my bedroom – mine and Naithe’s – or there was a recording device hidden there, or any one of about six other possibilities – each worse than the last – that could have led to someone hearing those specific words. I had – I was almost positive – only used them once.

  “It’s not tawdry, Kayla. Nothing perverse.”

  Oh. Well that’s all right then...you fucking son-of-a –

  “ – You see, I’m not interested in that side of you. The dirty, base, animal side.”

  “Because you’re so fucking pure, I’m sure,” I spat.

  “Does it matter? The truth of each of us sits in pe
rfect symmetry. The rest – our respective expendable remainders – are divergent, but there is something between us that is perfectly equivalent. And I mean you no harm. Not you, specifically. Or your husband.” I was in shock, I realised. I couldn’t move. I knew what was happening – that I should hang up and call the police – but I couldn’t. I just stood there.

  “What do you want from me, Ambrose?” I asked. I heard my voice: cold and distant, bleeding into the chill freshness of the air-conditioned negative space around me.

  “I want you to live, Kayla. More accurately...I want you to choose to be saved.”

  “If the next words out of your mouth are ‘Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ’, I’m gonna have to disappoint you, there...”

  “Genuinely amusing, Kayla. Really. But I meant what I said literally.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “And you won’t. Not entirely. But I will help you to grasp the tiny fragment that currently applies to you. The rest will come later, when we are together.”

  “Together? Ambrose, what the fuck are you – ”

  “ – I mean this, again, only in the most literal of ways. As I explained, I’m not interested in ‘that’ side of you. What I mean to say, is that it will come when we are physically proximous to one another; nothing more.” He paused.

  “Ambrose – ” I began. He cut me off.

  “ – You’re very clever, Kayla. I always believed that, and I’m glad to have been validated in my belief. I had the highest of hopes for you, and you’ve impressed me utterly.” He informed me. I paused for a long moment...unable to work out how to react. “Here is the truth for which you’ve been searching: I have made myself scarce, as have others. ‘The Disappeared’, as you call us, are preparing.”

  “Preparing for what?”

  “For a new era. A new age. A new world order.”

  “Designed by fucking Objectivists?”

  “I never confirmed that.”

  “You never denied it, either. I’m a fucking journalist, Ambrose...” There was a long pause. Ambrose almost stuttered as he began, seemingly nervous:

  “Would it be...so very bad, Kayla?”

  “Yes, Ambrose. Yes, it would absolutely, definitely be ‘so very bad’.”

  “Well,” His voice hardened. “There will be choices, of course. There are always choices.”

  “More riddles?”

  “There have never been riddles. Only pieces of a puzzle too large to be properly cognised from within.”

  “Ambrose.” I stated firmly, trying to stop the conversation from veering off into the realm of the pointlessly esoteric. “Are you telling me...to stop looking? To stop investigating you? Is that what this is about?”

  “‘Ms’ Donohue...” Ambrose said, almost mockingly. “If we wanted you to stop, you’d have been stopped. No, I have ‘established contact’ with you because – now that it doesn’t matter anymore; now that our work is close enough to completion that what we’ve worked towards cannot be stopped...I do, I believe, have it within my capabilities to salvage a single life which, otherwise, would be needlessly extinguished.”

  “So when you said that you wanted me to live...”

  “Yes.” He confirmed.

  “You’ve been so lonely. For so long.” I didn’t even know exactly where the words came from. A place of pity; a place of sadness. ‘Sadness’, that this was a place he could come to inhabit. ‘Pity’, for the pitiful attempt the locate something genuine by way of coercion and blackmail.

  “Really, we watched each other.” He responded quietly. “You watched me, albeit after the event and from a much greater distance...but you certainly saw enough to know why my life as it was...wasn’t a thing of any great value to me.”

  “Growing up the way you did...”

  “Yes.”

  “I felt for you, when I read about it. “

  “And you understood that I didn’t want my story told. You told them it was laziness: you told yourself that. I watched you. I could see you making the decision, over and over again, to spare my memory. Your selflessness moved me. I was genuinely touched. I had forgotten that I had the capacity to, on occasion, feel.”

  “You seemed so quiet. I couldn’t imagine that you’d want the world to know what had happened.” He paused. I heard his voice catch on the other end of the line.

  “Is it why you lie?” My eyes narrowed.

  “I left your story alone. Show mine the same respect, please.” I was surprised at my own words. Rationally, I knew that he couldn’t possibly have known. I’d been ten at the time. But still...I felt it. I felt as if, maybe...maybe, somehow, he knew.

  “Tomorrow, Kayla...when your Editor calls you? Terminate the call. Hang up; make your excuses to your husband; get in your car; and drive to the airport. Purchase a plane ticket. Somewhere – anywhere – outside the continental United States. Once you have successfully cleared customs, you will be contacted. If you want to live...this is what you will do. Consider this an offer of ‘safe passage’. If you contact the authorities, the offer will be rescinded. If you try to take any other person with you, the offer will be rescinded. If you go too late, the offer will be rescinded. And, most importantly, there is nothing that you...or anyone else...can do to change what will happen. Nothing will change if you do not do as I have instructed, regardless of what other action you take. This is your one...chance.”

  “What about Naithe?” I reflexively stuttered out.

  I still wish that I hadn’t asked that. I’ve never forgiven myself for it, and it’s possible that I never will. I knew, the second I asked the question, that if they let me save him – just him and myself – then the rest of them could die...no matter how many people ‘the rest of them’ entailed...and I would let it go. I was certain that, if Naithe and I could survive, together...then I would learn to live with that. I also knew...instinctively, behind the manic babbling of my inner monologue...that if I hadn’t had Naithe in my life, I wouldn’t have even asked the question. I would have chosen me; regardless of the consequences for others.

  Ever since that moment; that question and those thoughts...I’ve had to know that about myself. That, when it came down to it, that was the person I’d become. Maybe it isn’t who I am anymore, but here’s the thing: if I am, the only way I’ll know is if I’m presented with a similar choice. What if it happens? What if I am still the same? What if people’s lives depend on me having changed, and I haven’t?

  Ambrose sighed.

  “I’m sorry, Kayla. Important matters await my attention. I do – genuinely – hope to see you at the airport.”

  “Ambrose, whatever this is, don’t – ” A click signalled the end of the call. For a full minute, I couldn’t move. I was shaking all over. It was that wistful calm that did it...that sense I got from him that whatever it was, the trigger had already been pulled; that, whether or not he’d had reservations, at any point, the internal battles he’d had to fight had been over and done with for some time. And – the implication was – whatever it was that was going to happen couldn’t be escaped without getting off the continent. I believed it. I don’t know why I did – even now – but I believed it to the very centre of me.

  And, as it turned out, I was right to.

  XIV – Wright and Wrong

  ~ Dio and Yvonne ~

  30/11/2023

  Dio, hearing voices, had – however reluctantly – extricated himself from Yvonne’s sleeping form to go and investigate.

  He recognised Wright’s voice immediately. Despite it being, very clearly, Wright’s voice...it didn’t – to Dio at least – sound a thing like him. There was a distinct difference from what he’d come to expect from that voice; both in the sound of it, and in the way that it carried. A touch more manic, he thought. Less measured. Less in control.

  “You slimy, arrogant little whore.” Dio raised a mildly shocked eyebrow. It was like hearing a straight-laced uncle saying...well...that, essentially. Vertigo. Vertigo in waves.
“I always hated you. If it were up to me, we never would have brought you in.”

  “And yet...” The second voice – again, not what Dio was expecting – belonged to Smoke. “Here I am.”

  “Yes. Yes, here you are. Though...for exactly how long...remains to be seen.”

  “Oh, the balls on you...” She snarled. “Listen up, you fucking has-been prick – ”

  “ – Has-been? I am this goddamned three-ring-circus, you stupid little cunt.”

  “Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph,” Smoke scoffed: “What is it about this uppity fucking bit – ”

  “ – Finish that sentence, Aviary...and I’ll have your head on a skewer...regardless of what ‘The Seven’ have to say about it.” Wright growled. Dio flinched. Wright had just used an actual name. ‘Aviary’. Aviary was Smoke. Smoke was Aviary. This was definitely a conversation that he wasn’t meant to be overhearing. Creeping forward, he hazarded a glance around the corner. The two stood; squared off against one another by the shadows at the edge of the small kitchen. They were far too distracted to notice him. At least, he very much hoped that was the case.

  “Why are you protecting her?” Came Smoke’s exasperated response. “All actives covering a major project need to be vetted. It’s fucking policy.”

  “Policy? Policy?” Wright spat, enunciating the word as though it were deeply, irreconcilably foreign. “So this comes straight from the horse’s mouth, does it?”

  “Where else?” Aviary held up her hands, as if she were challenging him. ‘Bring it’, her body language seemed to scream.

  “Well then: you can tell Galt to go ahead and cross her off of his list. That sociopathic miscreant would bathe in blood if we put the option on the table.”

  “Like you’re a fucking boy-scout...”