by Lars Teeney
His driver had announced that they had reached their destination, his former home, Minister Kate Schrubb’s mansion. The cargo van opened its bay doors and his D.A.D. floated out onto the winding drive. Immediately, Simon scanned the mansion for bio-signs. He detected none. He tried to patch into the security systems of the mansion, but they were deactivated. Simon remembered back to when his mother had forced him into the submersible to escape some attack. He clearly saw signs that the mansion had been attacked, as the front door was busted open. Signs that the house had served as a squat and that it had been looted were clear. Graffiti covered the interior of the foyer.
Simon became overwhelmed with a feeling of depression when it became apparent that his mother was not here. He scoured the nearly reestablished neural network across America for any sign of her presence, there was nothing. Simon willed his D.A.D. to carry him up the marble staircase to his old room on the second level. There he found that besides being rummaged through, most of his old book collection was still intact. He summoned the driver and instructed him to load the books into the cargo van. Simon returned to the foyer and exited the mansion. He decided that he would visit his mom’s old orchard, that from a distance, did not look to have been kept up. His D.A.D. carried him toward the orchard, which had been invaded by masses of weeds. As he hovered closer, he noticed the old apple tree, that stood apart from the orchard. He could barely make out cross-shaped objects sheltered beneath its arching branches. Simon’s D.A.D. hovered closer. He could see that the crosses were set at the head of two dirt mounds. As he drew closer the letters came into view,
“Inquisitor Rodrigo: Martyr of New Megiddo,” one cross read.
“Minister Kate Scrubb: Martyr of New Megiddo,” the other read.
Somewhere, deep within him, a swelling of fury and pain bubbled up to overtake him. He shook violently but did not scream. Instead, he released a wave of fury that spread out across the newly laid global neural network. Somewhere, in another city on the other side of the World, a downtown power grid failed, leaving the residents in a blackout. In another town on the Central Asian steppes, the townspeople complained of a harsh shrieking voice in their head’s leaving them with migraine headaches.
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EPILOGUE
He sat in the lobby of the technologygiant.Hewas waiting patiently for his job interview with the technical recruiter. He had scanned the magazines, but all he could see were covers that featured some stuffy looking “suit”, worshipping him for his wealth and success. He looked around the walls, which were painted in bright primary colors. He nearly fell out of the bean bag that had been provided in the lobby instead of the usual lobby furniture. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had entered a child’s playroom instead of a technology firm’s office. “Booogie!” was blazoned on the wall in large, brightly-colored, bubble letters. And, he thought it odd that the name of the company was spelled with three ‘O’s. He had been waiting for over an hour, so he caved and picked up one of the business magazines from a table.
“Everybody! It‘s time for the midday, team-building dogpile!” One button-up, plaid shirt-clad engineer yelled, with his hands in the air.
“Yay!” another woman screamed. Employees from all over the “open plan” office jumped up from their stations and raced to the center of the cavernous warehouse space, to a massive, red beanbag. The man who initiated the pile-up jumped on first, with a manic grin plastered on his face. A chubby female employee came barreling down upon the beanbag and belly flopped directly on top of the man, sending shock waves cascading through the beanbag. Hordes of overly-caffeinated, tech workers threw themselves upon the altar of “team building”. With each sacrifice being added to the pile, the biomass grew. Birdie could not believe what he was seeing. This ritual was completely alien to him.
“Birdie Anderson? Mister Jacobs will see you now. Please follow me,” the receptionist informed him. Birdie felt nervousness overtake him. This was it, the event he had been training for, for the last two years. Ever since he had quit his job as a long-haul trucker, and had enrolled in the online school, the University of Wainwright, for their fast-track computer programming certificate. Birdie was sure that he would nail this interview and he would soon be working for the hottest technology firm to survive the ‘Dot Com’ crash of the early 2000s. ‘Booogie!’ was indeed the place to work. Euphoria replaced the nervousness with these thoughts.
“Please enter here. Mister Jacobs is waiting for you in the conference room,” the receptionist gestured to the door. Birdie walked right in. He witnessed a sleek, modern conference room, with a long glass table in the center, lined with mesh back chairs on either side. A massive whiteboard was mounted on the wall, with dry-erase scribbles of wireframing and flowcharts, occupied nearly all its area. A man in a plaid shirt and sage-like beard, sat with his feet up on the glass table, screaming at a voice that emanated from the speaker box in the center of the table.
“Hey! Shut up bro! My fantasy football team picks are airtight! Oh, hey—my interview is here—I gotta go—yeah fuck you too!” Mister Jacobs yelled, then disconnected. Birdie saw that “Mister Jacobs” was probably over a decade younger than he.
“Birdie Anderson? Hey, how ya doin’? Sit down! Any water?” Mister Jacobs bellowed from across the table.
“Oh, no thank you, sir!” Birdie answered.
“Please call me, Avi!” he insisted.
“Hello Avi, thanks for meeting with me. I am excited to be here,” Birdie exclaimed.
“Yeah—I’ve been reviewing your resume for the first time, just got it from H.R. Interesting,” Avi said without emotion.
“Thank you, Avi. I hope it fits the bill,” Birdie said.
“Philly, huh? No kiddin’. I’m from Philly too! But, I’m from Society Hill. This is actually my first job right out of M.I.T. Moved out here with all relocation expenses covered—lemme guess you’re from Walnut Hill?” Avi asked with some degree of condescension.
“Oh—yeah. How’d you know?” Birdie asked with hesitation.
“No reason, you just look the type. Anyway, I see you have a certificate in programming from, whoa—easy! University of Wainwright! Stop the presses!” Avi snorted, laughing at himself.
“Yes, sir. I was at the top of my class when I achieved my certificate,” Birdie confessed.
“I see. You look familiar Birdie—oh shit! I remember you from television in the Eighties! You were part of the cult or something—that kid—you were all over the news! Damn man, that was a tough break what happened. The whole fuckin’ neighborhood just went up! Poof!” Avi made a gesture with his hands to emulate an inferno.
“Yeah, hey, what about my skills?” Birdie tried to turn his attention back to his qualifications. Birdie struggled to contain his rage.
“Oh—right! Tell me, Birdie, what employment experience do you have? Any tech?” Avi asked.
“Well, mostly just sanitary and trucking, but I am told I learned programming quickly!” he stated with confidence.
“How old are you?” Avi inquired.
“I’m thirty-two, sir,” Birdie stated.
“Okay, look I’ll be honest. Most of our employees are in their early twenties, top of their classes from Ivy League schools. Would you have a problem reporting to someone younger than you?” Avi asked with doubt in his voice.
“No sir! I’d be okay with that!” Birdie exclaimed.
“Alright, Birdie—tell ya what, I’ll float your resume around to my team leads, and see if anyone has a use for your skill set. Feel free to reach back out to us in a couple of weeks if you haven’t heard anything. I got a one P.M. meeting. Gotta go! The receptionist will show you out—Ciao!” Avi jumped up abruptly and jogged out the door. Birdie felt abandoned in that moment. The reception entered the conference room to collect him, and he was escorted out of the Booogie! building.
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Like What You R
ead?
The story of New Megiddo begins in the prequel novella ‘New Megiddo Rising: An Apostates Novella’, and continues in ‘The Apostates’ novel, both by Lars Teeney. Available now where ebooks are sold!
Acknowledgements:
Debra Payne, L.N. Denison, Professor Magnet, Jon Toler, Beta readers, Reviewers, and Critiquers! Also anyone who purchased the novella!
Inquires should be emailed to:
Lars Teeney
[email protected]
http://larsteeney.tumblr.com
http://www.facebook.com/larsteeney
About the author:
Lars Teeney was born in Montana. After going to an art school in San Francisco, racking up insane student loans and working for years as a freelance designer for the start-up culture, he became burnt
out. He abandoned the Bay Area for the Pacific North-west, where he could hike and bike to my heart’s content. Although the idea for the book had been swimming around in my head and on random
notebooks for 10 years, it wasn’t until my mother got sick that I received a memento mori that put I fire under my sack to write The Apostates.