by Richard Long
All eyes turned to her. Martin moved in, thrusting his gun out at Paul.
Paul tilted Rose’s chair forward a fraction of an inch. “Stalemate.”
Not necessarily, I thought about saying, but I decided to let Paul get in the last word. Then I shot him right in his lying face.
I let out a gasp of relief as Paul let go of the chair and fell over…backwards. The huge thud from his fall didn’t set off the trap either. I wanted to scream, to jump up and down, pop open some champagne, grab Martin and Rose by the hands and do a victory dance. I did it! Me! I shot Paul! In the face! Yes, it turned out to be just another gel cap, but still, I did it!
Then I saw the clock, the laughably ornate Louis XIV monstrosity on the table. The time was 3:13. Rose stared at Martin like Maria stared at Tony in West Side Story when she knew everything had gone terribly, unstoppably wrong. Martin stared back at her with the same panicked look, then pulled the remote from his pocket and stared at the keypad just as desperately. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Remember The Amityville Horror? The new homeowner would wake up every night and the time on his digital alarm clock would always be 3:15. After I finished reading it, I used to wake up at the same time, night after night. I didn’t see any ghosts, but I thought there must be something strange about that number. But as I heard that big clock ticking and the faint echo of a parallel rhythm emanating from the impaler, as I watched Rose sob with fear and saw beads of sweat accumulate on Martin’s brow for the first time in his life, I knew that number was more than just spooky. It was the number of death.
“The code is three-fifteen!” I shouted, as the final seconds ticked away. Martin looked at me suspiciously for one of those precious moments and by the time he typed in those three sinister digits, the clock started chiming. Chiming? Who has a clock that chimes at 3:15? Only one person I know. And even though the numbers Martin punched in were indeed the correct ones, he was one second late. One single doubting second. All our hearts stopped at once as a brand-new sound drowned out the clock.
The sound of that final…ca-ching!
The steel pole shot up from beneath Rose’s chair with the force of a Titan rocket. She let out a scream to end all screams. Martin ran over as fast as he could. When he saw her head fall limply to her chest, he turned on me.
“Hold it! Look at her!”
Martin looked back at Rose’s hanging head. He was about to charge me again, when he saw it move. She had fainted. The two metal cocktail trays I rigged under her seat while she was still unconscious had served their hoped-for purpose. Whew.
“Rose!” he yelled, rushing over. She was coming around. When her vision cleared and she saw Martin’s ravaged face again, she cried and cried. He leaned forward to kiss her, then looked under the chair and saw the metal trays. He turned to me with an astonished look that went far beyond simple gratitude or admiration.
“Here,” I said, tossing him the handcuff keys I’d pulled from Paul’s coat pocket. Martin unlocked the cuffs and was about to pick her up when she pushed out her hand to stop him.
“Wait…” she said, gasping. “Be very careful. Lift me straight up.”
Martin looked at her in bafflement, so she repeated herself. “Slowly. Very slowly.”
I came over to see if I could help, but Martin gave me a baleful stare that discouraged my further involvement. He put his hands under her armpits, his legs straddling both sides of the chair. He lifted her straight up, exactly like she wanted. Slowly. He was so strong it looked like he was helping her levitate. When he raised her about four inches, a look of relief came over her face that bordered on rapture. When we saw the seat of the chair below her, it was easy to see why. No wonder she fainted. The metal trays did their job, for the most part. They stopped the pole—but not before it shot up three inches through the seat. The pointed tip was poking up like a periscope. Yet there wasn’t a drop of blood. Where had it gone?
Rose gave us a clue. “Put me down,” she told Martin with a delirious smile. “Then make sure my asshole’s okay.”
Clean as a whistle. When Martin finished his proctology exam, he picked up the Beretta and shoved it in his pocket. Then he leaned over Paul’s stiff body, staring into Paul’s unblinking eyes, knowing he was looking right back at him, knowing he’d heard everything, even seen Rose escape from his limited vantage point on the floor. He gave him the finger, grabbed Rose by the waist and made a big deal out of kissing her right over his face.
Rose looked at me for the first time that day with something resembling gratitude. I didn’t have time to savor her fleeting appreciation. Martin picked her up and carried her into the adjoining bedroom so she could collect her breath. She hugged him with extraordinary love as he gently placed her down on the satin bedspread.
She promptly hopped off again, running into the bathroom to pee. While Martin waited outside the bathroom he did a quick mental calculation of Paul’s body weight, the proximity of the blast and the absorption rate through his unclothed skin. He calculated that he would remain in his coma for another three minutes and twenty-six seconds. Good. He couldn’t wait to go back in there and take full advantage of his vulnerable condition, with every bit as much gusto as Paul had shown.
This was why he brought that ammo in the first place. This was going to be great. But he didn’t want Rose to watch. She might get the wrong idea about him. So he waited, getting more impatient with each passing second. When she came out, he’d tell her she needed to stay in the bedroom a while, watching the TV or something, until he finished the job. He didn’t want to rush things. Didn’t want any distractions. And after Paul was dead, he’d usher her back to their own room for a quick change and…
Boy she sure was taking her time in there.
“You okay?” he shouted nervously.
“Yeah, I’ll be out in a minute,” she answered happily.
Martin counted it down outside the bathroom, and when she didn’t emerge in exactly sixty seconds he felt too nervous about leaving someone as dangerous as Paul unguarded any longer, so he came back into the sitting room to give him another booster shot.
Martin walked through the door and his eyes, excuse me…his eye…bugged out. Paul was gone. And so was I.
Rose came out of the bathroom only a few seconds later. When she entered the sitting room, she looked at Martin and let out a horrified gasp, “Where the fuck are they?”
Ca-ching!!!
Three eyes turned, fearing the worst. But it wasn’t Paul’s sickle opening. The impaler’s steel spear had shot up two more feet through the cocktail trays. Ouch. Those were some really strong springs in there.
Lucky me, she thought, sighing with relief. But when she turned around, she sucked it back up again. Now Martin was gone too.
I had to go in there alone. Well, not completely alone. I dragged Paul with me. I found the door key in the same pocket as the handcuff key. It was bigger and brighter and surprisingly heavy. It turned easily in the lock, but when I opened the door, I had a hard time concentrating on my most important task: dragging Paul in there. Ooof.
I dropped Paul’s legs on the floor inside, locked the door behind me and wiped the red goop off his bullet-bruised face so he could have a good view of my imminent triumph. The Book was on the altar. I knew it would be. I walked over and pressed my hands on the stiff cover, my eyes drifting back to the thin chain around Paul’s thick neck and the dangling key. I fished under my shirt and pulled out the other key, the key I had won (not stolen!) from Rose.
I felt quite proud of my coup, the way my mind pushed against hers, against her fingers, pressing the key into her chest until the blood flowed out. My mind was still pushing when she ran to the bathroom, guiding her hand as she hung the chain around the doorknob. Yes, it was quite a feat. Paul thought so too. You should have seen his face as we passed each other in the hallway. He winked at me right before he knocked on the door. Bop-ba-ba-da-da!
“The key can only be seized upon her death, or if she removes it
voluntarily,” he explained when we were making our plans. “If you get her to take it off, then you’ll have earned that trinket same as Loren did, fair and square…though, I’m sure he would disagree. Of course, Johnny will want it back, and my guess is he’ll find a way, same as he did with The Striker. He will try to stop you, maybe even kill you, but that’s your risk. Yet I’m guessing he’ll be watching me instead, trying to get his bitch to make a run for it.”
Johnny the Saint’s key. Loren’s key. My key. I had beaten all of them. Paul too. My chest puffed out as I stared at him, helpless on the floor. But I didn’t feel a twinge of remorse. Look how he kept pushing for it. The way he lied about me to Martin and Rose!
I gazed into his open eyes, savoring my victory. I placed my hands on the Book. I felt its power surge through me as soon as I touched it. I grasped the key hanging from my neck.
It didn’t work. There could only be one explanation. A second book. Was I in possession of the one and only key to the one and only book of the druids? Was it hiding in plain sight here in the library? Not even knowing for certain the book existed, I went crazy looking for it, knowing I had a very small window of opportunity before Martin broke the door down or Paul woke up and ripped my head off. I skittered like a crab in front of the shelves, scanning the spines of the hundreds of volumes stacked inside the fourteen-foot-tall bookcases. Almost all of them had no identifying markings, so I tried to see which one it might be. That didn’t work either. As each second ticked away I became more frightened. My breaths were coming in gasps. I looked down at Paul. He was still gazing at the ceiling with lifeless eyes. Was he dead? Overdosed? I thought about going over to feel for a pulse, but I didn’t know whether a pulse even registered with the tetrodoxin-curare cocktail. What was I thinking when I dragged him inside with me? Did I think I was going to kill him in a more private setting? Was I subconsciously protecting him from Martin? Or hoping the Book could protect me from his wrath at my betrayals once I had it in my grasp? Did I even have a fucking clue?
I stifled my rising terror and made one last attempt to find the other book. Then I heard him.
“It’s not here.”
I breathed a tentative sigh of relief when I saw it was The Striker and not Paul. He wasn’t holding a gun, which provided even greater relief. “Hello, Loren.”
“Put that gun down, you fool,” he hissed at me. Literally. Even without any sibilant “ess” sounds he still managed to hiss at me. He was standing between the altar and the angel. How did he get in here? Why was he still wearing that loincloth? Did he hail a cab in that?
“We need to get him up on the altar. Now,” he said, with a very convincing urgency.
He pulled the white sheet from the altar with a crisp snap. My eyes drifted across the surface. Dark, unblemished teak. A pattern of carvings covered the entire surface. They seemed to move when I looked directly at them. I couldn’t look very long, though. The other objects on the altar were too compelling. Three massive spikes. To the left of the spikes a large, strange looking hammer. The mallet seemed to be made of iron. The handle was thick and wooden. Then, I saw the knife. A very long, very old, very sharp knife.
“Do you understand what must be done?”
“Yes.”
“No, you don’t,” said The Striker, peering at me through those droopy lids, his eyes darting down to my dangling key. “You’re still asleep.”
“If I’m so woozy, how come I’m holding the gun…and your key?” I pointed out, pulling the pistol from my waistband.
“The key won’t help you,” said The Striker, pulling his ball-peen hammer out from the side of his tribal leatherwear. “The other book is not here and your gun is useless.”
“Tell that to him,” I said, pointing to the crumpled body on the floor, acting a lot more confident than I felt, hoping he couldn’t tell.
“Put the gun down. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I’m going to kill him and take the Book. I’m going to end this.”
“You can’t kill him. But I can. Leave Paul with me. Go kill the girl.”
“I don’t think so. I can kill Paul…and you too.”
“No, you can’t,” he said, completely unperturbed.
“And why is that?” I asked, still tingling from the power of the Book.
“Something will happen. It always does. You don’t have my kind of luck.”
“Oh, really?” Blam! Blam! Blam! I fired three gel caps at The Striker’s pale white chest. Excuse me, his bright red chest. Plop.
“Ha! It looks like I found my four-leaf clover,” I laughed, shouting at his fallen body, squeezing the key in my clenched fist. “Score one for Clan Kelly, you fuck!”
I bent over, staring into Loren’s open, droopy eyes. Then something happened to my head. I felt a wave of dizziness gripping my skull, pulling me to the ground. It felt like I was in the middle of a giant black hole, being sucked down by an unimaginable source of gravity. I closed my eyes, willing myself to stay upright, but as soon as my eyelids shut, I was greeted by a vision…Loren moving his fingers…Paul standing up again. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any scarier…as my head hit the floor…as I opened my eyes…as I saw Paul hovering over me…
He winked.
I’ve been pacing around my tiny, shitty apartment all day, banging my head into the plaster walls, wondering whether to write this all down, whether any of it could possibly matter, now that I’ve taken a good, long look into the crystal ball and can see the tide that’s rising, inevitably, irresistibly, crushingly towards us. Us, not me. I won’t be alone when the tsunami comes crashing down. No one will be spared from the onslaught. Even if some stragglers manage to hide in caves, it will all be waiting to greet them when they emerge. It is coming. It cannot be stopped. And afterward, nothing will be the same.
I’m not talking about the Becoming, though Paul insists its inevitability is bound to the same timeline of the thing I fear even more than the prospect of the God O’Paulo. Maybe he can still be defeated. Johnny and Rose and Martin could succeed, with or without my help or opposition. Paul, or at least his body, could be killed, unlikely as that seems, particularly if I have to be the triggerman.
Science is what I fear.
When I woke up today, it was the farthest thing from my mind. All I could think about was Paul, his wealth, and my new identity. I went back on the web, now that I had a filter to sift through all those Paul Kellys. Tetron. Paul’s cutesy contraction of the Tetragrammaton. A perfect name if you’re in the God-building business. My search paid off quickly: “Tetron CEO raises millions for Policemen’s Benevolent Association at Metropolitan Museum gala.”
There was a picture of him in a tuxedo. Paul Kelly. My father. The saint.
Digging up more on Tetron was difficult. As a private company, it had few disclosure obligations. I kept clicking around and found a few more links associated with fundraising events for the police and fire departments. Next, I tried searching for Tetron subsidiaries. Bingo! I found a company called Intragon, a pioneer in stem cell research.
Stem cells are strange. Normal cells—that is to say, specialized cells—divide about fifty times and then pfffft, they’re done. So in a very real sense, your body is always dying, and always being born. But stem cells keep dividing endlessly. In science jargon this is called “pluripotency.” Very plural, very potent. Immortal.
As I was reading about stem cells, I came across a very interesting piece of information. When a group of scientists isolated the protein that controls the self-renewal process of undifferentiated stem cells, they called it “Nanog,” after the mythological Celtic island of everlasting life: Tir nan Og. Land of the Ever Young.
Intragon. Tir nan Og. Nice anagram. But why would Paul care about stem cells as a path to life-extension or rejuvenation? He’s clearly perfected his own beat-the-reaper system. Was he trying to build organs from scratch? Spare parts? I knew it was theoretically possible, but that kind of technology was p
robably decades away. Then again, time was another asset Paul possessed in abundance. Maybe he’s building a better mousetrap. Or an entirely new mousetrap. That gave me an idea and I searched for bio-engineering. Bingo, another hit…a company called Ogamete. I did a patent search and found several awarded to Ogamete for gene-sequencing and splicing. Then I hit the jackpot with another Tetron holding called Quadcom. It has four divisions (natch): computer technology, nanotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence. The computer sector is pursuing highly experimental research into biological and quantum computing. Bio-computing utilizes molecules like DNA and proteins to store, retrieve and process data. Quantum computing makes the miniscule molecular scale look colossal in comparison, using atoms to make all those little 1s and 0s. I’m quite sure the nano-technology sector contributes significantly to both less-is-more approaches.
Moving on to the robotics and AI divisions, I ran across an article by the former Quadcom head of AI R&D. Former? He quit working for Paul and he’s still alive? That in itself was amazing, but the article had my brain doing flip-flops. It was all about the Singularity. I heard Paul throw the term out along with a handful of other hokey sounding initial-cap spectacularisms, like the Becoming and the Turning, so I didn’t pay much attention, but after reading this and everything else preceding it, I was scared shitless. The article talked about an explosion in super-intelligence that would occur after computers became smarter than humans. He called this tipping point the Singularity—after which computers would design more and more intelligent iterations of themselves at an exponentially rapid pace, resulting in…
Nobody knows.
Not nobody knows in the sense you can never tell what the future will bring. Nobody knows because after the Singularity it will be impossible to predict any foreseeable future. In a post-Singularity world, humans will be unable to even imagine the intentions or capabilities of the emerging super-intelligence. Terminators? Maybe. Extinction of the human race? Very possible. Entirely new cyber-bio life forms? Why not?