End of the Century

by Chris Roberson

  “Miss Bonaventure,” Blank said, tightening his grip on his cane, “I believe you may be right.”

  “Excuse me,” Blank said, calling out to the strange figure as if he were hailing an acquaintance across a crowded street. “Might we have a word?”

  The strange hairless figure, his expression immobile and unreadable, stood motionless, his eyes hidden behind lenses of smoked glass.

  Blank took a step towards the silent figure, upon which the man immediately took a step backwards.

  “There's no reason to be frightened,” Blank called out, soothingly. “We only want to ask you a few questions.”

  Blank took another step forward and waited. It seemed for a moment that the strange figure would remain still, but instead of taking a step backwards, the man turned and took to his heels, running in the opposite direction.

  “Oi!” Miss Bonaventure shouted, chin up and head back, uncharacteristically vulgar. “We're talking to you!” Miss Bonaventure glanced over at Blank. “Well, glad I wore my bicycle suit today. It'd be hell running in a full skirt.”

  With that, Miss Bonaventure sprinted after the fleeing figure. Blank chuckled and propelled himself after her.

  The strange, hairless man moved alarmingly fast, his chalk white skin a blur beneath the gaslamps, and it was all that Blank and Miss Bonaventure could do to keep him in sight. Crossing from Gloucester Road into Palace Gate, he crossed Kensington Road and into the park not far from the bright-lit Albert Memorial. Blank and Miss Bonaventure dodged horses and carriages, hansom cabs and growlers, narrowly escaping collision and reaching the far side of the road relatively intact. They raced through the Queen's Gate and around the gilt majesty of the memorial, flanked by marble representations of the four corners of the world—Africa astride her camel, Asia atop her elephant, Europe before her bull, and America riding her buffalo.

  Beyond the memorial, the wide footpaths of Kensington Garden were scarcely discernible in the thin light of the distant gaslamps, only the faintest sliver of the moon visible overhead. They almost lost the man in the gloom, but Blank's sharp eyes caught a flicker of white moving between a stand of nearby trees, and they were once more on the scent.

  On they raced, to the north and east, through the widely spaced copses of trees. It seemed for a moment that they'd lost their quarry again, only to find him standing by the banks of the Serpentine.

  As they approached, the figure seemed transfixed for a moment, staring into dark waters, slightly rippled by the gentle evening breeze. The air smelled of water and algae, and was noticeably cooler than the rest of the city where the stones of buildings and the pavement underfoot held the heat of the day long into the night. The figure seemed frozen, and Blank and Miss Bonaventure checked their speed as they drew near. When they were but a few dozen feet away, the figure turned to face them.

  It was only now that they realized that the man hadn't been transfixed by the water. He'd been waiting. And not for his pursuers, but for the pair of animals which now padded along the banks of the Serpentine, appearing from out of the night's gloom.

  They appeared to be dogs, though there was something of a cat about their heads, with long ears, short legs, and long bodies. Their fur was completely white but for the tips of their ears, which were bloodred. As the hounds drew nearer, Blank saw that their teeth and claws, too, had been dyed or painted a deep scarlet hue. Something tickled his memory, seeing the barred incarnadine teeth of the dogs.

  The man's face remained immobile and inexpressive, but he opened his mouth as if to speak, for the first time. Instead of words, though, the man simply uttered a click and whistle, a strange trilling noise, and in response the dogs came to a halt right before him, facing Blank and Miss Bonaventure and snarling.

  It was clear that the dogs meant them no good, and the man with the smoked-glass spectacles had managed to check their pursuit.

  “Red in tooth and claw,” Miss Bonaventure said in a low voice, crouched in a ready stance.

  Blank recalled the phrase, from Tennyson's In Memoriam, an elegy to his friend Arthur Hallum. Another, Blank mused, to add to the embarrassment of Arthurs they'd already stumbled over.

  Blank replied only with a grim grin. He wished, and not for the first time, that his mesmerism could be employed in such circumstances, but experience had taught that someone truly intent on doing him harm could not be so easily persuaded. More corporeal means of influence were needed. He wrapped one hand around the silver-chased handle of his cane, the other on the wood midway down, and with a whisper of steel on steel he drew out the long thin blade of sword-stick. Then, with blade in one hand and cane-sheath as club in the other, he stood ready to meet the hounds.

  The dogs ceased their growling and opened their maws to bay, but their baying sounded more like geese in flight than the barking of dogs.

  “I don't suppose we could talk about this?” Blank said, with a slight smile.

  The hairless man trilled again, and the dogs attacked.

  “It appears not,” Miss Bonaventure said, and lashed out with a kick.

  ALICE AND STILLMAN SLEPT LATE THE NEXT MORNING. They needed the rest. That night, Tuesday the 27th of June, if all went to plan, they'd be carrying off a daring jewel heist, penetrating the most secure levels of Glasshouse and walking off with the Vanishing Gem.

  With any luck, the final puzzle piece in place, Alice would finally be able to work out the riddle of the visions, would finally know what the messages were trying to tell her and what all of this was for. It just wasn't possible that she was simply crazy, right? How else could she have known Stillman Waters, or about the gem, or the London Eye and all of that?

  Of course, Alice realized with a cold chill, she could be even crazier than she thought. What if none of this were really happening? What if she'd been sitting alone in a derelict Victorian men's room since Friday night, having completely lost her mind? Stillman Waters, occult secret agent, a mix of James Bond and Harry Potter? How likely was that?

  No. Even if all of this was just a crazy delusion, the last mad ramblings of a deranged mind shutting down, she had to follow it through to the conclusion. Even if she was completely batshit and imagining all of it, the talking ravens and the creepy white and red dogs and the cat burglars and the jewel heists and all, there was nothing to do but see it through. Maybe there'd still be some answer at the end, either way.

  Alice wrapped the blanket around her tighter, there on the sofa in the living room at the heart of the spy's home hundreds of feet below ground. And she tried to sleep, hoping that it would be dreamless.

  The simplest methods were the best. That's what Stillman had said, and it seemed to be working.

  Three days before, on Saturday, he'd explained to Alice about how most thieves operated. About how they'd paid their tickets at the door of the museum, walk in with everyone else, and then hide out in a bathroom or behind a curtain while everyone else filed out at closing time. Then they'd smash and grab, and make a run for it, so that when the guards went looking for someone breaking in, they'd already have broken out.

  They used the same basic principle in the Glasshouse, though perhaps with a little more technological sophistication. Still, it beat sliding on your belly past infrared beams or rappelling from the ceiling on wires. That stuff looked dangerous…

  Getting into the building had been a matter of relative ease. While most of Glasshouse was occupied by Temple Enterprises, a few floors had been leased out to other companies, most of whom did business with Temple. One was a solicitors’ firm specializing in immigration law. Using a couple of off-the-shelf identities drawn from Stillman's wide assortment still on file from his days of espionage, they posed as a young woman from America—big stretch—and her British uncle, who was sponsoring her for British citizenship. The appointment had been made over the phone for late in the afternoon. At shortly after four o'clock p.m., Stillman and Alice, or “Reginald Cleaves” and “Elizabeth Cleaves,” checked in with security in the front lob
by. Their identities were confirmed, their signatures recorded, and they were given temporary visitor badges and escorted to the elevators. They rode up to the twenty-eighth floor, the highest the visitor badges would allow them to go, and made their appointment with the solicitors.

  The interview was brief, and the solicitor's representative took down their particulars and scheduled a follow-up appointment for later in the week. Then Reginald and his niece Elizabeth left the offices.

  But they didn't leave the building.

  There was a supply closet on the twenty-seventh floor. From a careful study of the architectural drawings and the security systems, Stillman had been able to determine that the closet door was not in the direct line-of-sight of any security cameras. And a review of the security logs showed that it was not opened during operating hours but unlocked by the night shift cleaning crew, sometime between nine o'clock and ten. And even better, the hot water supply for the upper floors passed just behind the wall of the closet, which would help mask their body heat from the thermal heat detectors on the floor.

  The door was secured by a standard pin-and-tumbler lock. It was the work of less than ten seconds with a rake pick and a tension wrench to pop the door, and then Stillman hustled Alice inside.

  Then they waited in the dark for the day to end and the building to slowly empty.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  It had grown stuffy and stifling in the closet, in the dark, and Alice had come to find the silence unbearable. She kept her voice to a whisper, like Stillman had insisted, but just couldn't keep silent any more.

  “I'm not doing anything, love, just sitting here.”

  “No. I mean…this. Why are you breaking the law for someone you don't know? Why are you risking your neck? If your old employers find out, won't you get in trouble?”

  “I expect so.” Pause. “But it's as much because of boredom as anything else, I suppose. Even trouble, if that's what I end up with, is better than nothing. And I've made do with nothing for a good long while. So boredom, and curiosity as well. About just who you're hearing, and just what they're trying to tell you. I thought it might be Omega, but then…” He trailed off.

  “You mentioned that before. When you asked me if the name meant anything to me. How could I be hearing Omega, anyway?” She laughed, quietly but ruefully. “They in the habit of going around and sticking crazy visions in girls’ heads?”

  Alice expected a chuckle, at least, but didn't get one. “It's been known to happen, a time or two. There was a girl named Joan, once upon a time, who was called to be an agent, but her mind couldn't quite work out what it was hearing, and I think it drove her a little mad in the end. She knew she was getting a message but never could understand what it was telling her. But no, what you've got, it seemed different to that. I've not seen anything quite like it before.” Pause. “So tell me, love. When did these ‘visions’ of yours first start? It's been a good long while, I take it, from reading your diary.”

  A silence stretched out between them.

  “Remember how I told you I'd killed two people? Well, it was after the first time.”

  She thought Stillman might say something, might ask her to explain, but he let the silence do the asking for him.

  “See, when I was seven and a half, I was upstairs in our house with my dad. Mom was out back, working in the garden. I was reading and Dad was working on one of his little home improvement projects. The banging of his hammer stopped, and after a while I went in to check on him.” Pause. “He'd had a heart attack, but I didn't know that at the time. All I knew was that he was on the ground, his face all screwed up. He was awake, though, still conscious. He told me to go get help, and quick. I went. I ran. As fast as I could. But the stairs in our house, they were carpeted, and I was barefoot, and my foot always slipped on the third step down, anyway, so Mom always told me to be careful. But I wasn't, and I…I fell.”

  She paused, remembering.

  “I fell, and I watched the stairs tumbling all around me, and I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, it was a week later. I'd been in a coma the whole time. I'd laid at the bottom of the stairs for an hour or more before Mom came in and found me. Dad…By that time, my dad had been dead for a while.”

  Silence again for a moment.

  “After my dad died, my mother's mother moved into the house with us to help raise me, since Mom was busy running the contract postal unit.”

  “And that was when your visions started?”

  Alice nodded, then realized the gesture was wasted in the dark. “Yeah. Just a little while later.”

  “Alice, love. I've killed people. More than I care to remember. And what you did was nothing like it.”

  Alice shook her head. Another wasted gesture. “I didn't shoot him, if that's what you mean. But if I'd been more careful, if I hadn't slipped and fallen, then Mom could have called the ambulance, and they could have come and taken him to the hospital, and he'd have been all right and still alive and I wouldn't be here now trying to make up for it!” She bit off her last words, shaking with suppressed emotion.

  “You said two people. That you'd killed two people. Who was the other, then?”

  “Just a girl. Just Nancy. Just my only friend. She didn't care that I was younger, or wasn't a cheerleader, or didn't listen to the right music.” She scoffed. “Mom thought she was a lesbian. I don't know. Maybe she was. Maybe I was. I'm not really interested in sex, so does it really matter who I'm not interested in having sex with? All I knew was that Nancy was there for me, and cared about me, and was my friend.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I was fifteen, almost sixteen, and a freshman in high school. Nancy and I skipped school. We skipped school a lot. We drove around in Nancy's car until she was too stoned to drive, and then I took the wheel. I didn't have a license, but if it didn't bother Nancy, it didn't bother me. I'd had a couple of drinks, and a toke or two, but I was fine to drive. I'd been off my meds for almost two years but hadn't had an episode in all that time. I guess it was just overdue. I smelled something burning and thought that Nancy had dropped the roach.” She paused, swallowing hard, struggling to remember to keep her voice low. “I had a vision. I saw the same thing I did all those times when I was seven, after the accident. The eye over the city. The birds. The gem. The lake, its surface as motionless as glass. The man with the ice-chip blue eyes. And the gem.” She closed her eyes as if she could forget. “Then, when I came out of it, the car was wrapped around a light post, I was cut and bleeding all over my face and hands, unable to breathe right from the bruises I'd got from the seat belt, and Nancy…Nancy? She hadn't worn a seatbelt, never did. She'd gone through the windshield, face first.”

  “And she was…?” Stillman began, then trailed off.

  Alice nodded, uselessly. “They told me that she died instantly, but I think they were just trying to make me feel better.”

  This looked like the scene where the two characters who have been growing closer to each other, all along, finally bond, trapped together in a confined space for a long amount of time. This looked like that scene, but it wasn't. Alice and Stillman were in the closet, in the dark, for long hours, but they weren't Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in a closet in How to Steal a Million, or Loni Anderson and Frank Bonner in an elevator on WKRP in Cincinnati, or John Ritter and Don Knotts in a meat locker on Three's Company. They were a teenage runaway epileptic and a self-professed former spy who lived in a hole in the ground.

  Alice realized that they might just have discovered all of the common ground they were going to find. There might not be any more possible avenues for connection. The gulfs that separated them—in age, in experience, in temperament—might be insurmountable, after all. There was no way of telling.

  “I'm not going to tell you that you've got nothing to feel guilty about,” Stillman had said. “I expect you've already been told that more times than you can count. You don't need anyone else's permission to forgive yourself
, love. You can do that all on your own. And until you're ready to do that, there's nothing anyone else'll be able to do for you, more's the pity.” He paused, and Alice could hear him breathing. “For what it's worth, though, that guilt you're shouldering, the crimes you think you've committed? They aren't a patch on what I've got on my own back, love. Not a patch.”

  Then he fell silent and didn't speak again. Alice realized he was probably waiting for her to say something. He would be waiting for a long time.

  By nine o'clock, the building would have mostly emptied out, if this was a typical workday. It was time for Stillman and Alice to go to work.

  Stillman had set a routine running in the security servers. At nine o'clock, on the dot, the system would respond as though it had experienced a significant spike in voltage coming in from the utility mains. The electrics in the building would flicker, while surge impedance systems handled the transient voltage. Of course, there would have been no spike, but only a careful cross check of the building's records with those of the utility provider would prove it. And no one would think to check, since at that precise moment the security servers would switch from the live CCTV feeds from the cameras throughout the building to cached hard-disk recordings from the same cameras, twenty-four hours before. The date codes in the timestamp wouldn't match, of course, but the hour and minute would, and with any luck no one would notice the discrepancy until Stillman and Alice had finished their business and were gone.

  The fire doors on the central stairwells were alarmed, of course, but were a matter of relative ease to baffle. Then it only remained for Alice and Stillman to mount the stairs, climb from the twenty-seventh floor to the thirty-fifth, get around the motion detectors in the gallery, and they were home free.