by Kage Baker
When he was well again, when he was getting used to the foster parents they’d settled him with and understood about the viral outbreak, Kouandete concluded that they had only been a doctor and a soldier after all. He thought this until the big man in white came to visit him, in the summer he graduated from college (by which time he no longer believed in the orishas), and offered him a job.
When he became a member of Suleyman’s staff, he learned the truth. Kouandete was exhilarated at first, thrilled by the concept of a benign Company that rescued people and things from destruction. It was reassuring to discover that immortals of a sort really did guide and watch over the human race, and wonderful, too, to be one of the few mortals in on the secret.
Since then, Kouandete’s life had become infinitely more complex. Because he was good at his job, which involved secrets, he was privy to the sordid politics within Dr. Zeus Incorporated. He knew about the renegade immortals who spread the plague that wiped out his own village; he knew about the fearful stockholders and scientists who were attempting to get rid of the immortals, all of them, even loyal ones like Suleyman.
So, by his fortieth year, Kouandete found himself in a world every bit as terrifying and chaotic as the hospital ward of his earliest memory. To be sure, he was well to do, had a nice car and flat, took his holidays in the south of France; he also had ulcers and maintained a silent desperate hope that the orishas might turn out to exist after all. Perhaps they might reach down from wherever they lived, to avert the coming apocalypse.
Though he had to admit that Suleyman and Latif were doing their best, as he leaned back now and accepted a glass of tea from one of the servants. He drank gratefully and set the glass aside, watching as Latif spread out the old-fashioned flat photographs he had brought from London.
“Unbelievably awkward piece of equipment,” Kouandete said in apology. “But it was the only thing I could think of that their surveillance wouldn’t have detected. Too low-tech.”
“No, no, you’re thinking like one of us,” Suleyman assured him. He walked slowly around the table, hands in his pockets, staring down at the images of a place called Alpha-Omega. Getting them had involved considerable effort. Kouandete had had to position his subordinates in the local glaziers’firm, and secure a flat on the opposite side of Gray’s Inn Road. Latif designed the missile dummy for him, but Kouandete himself had fired it at the fifth floor window, with the result that the persons within were startled to see what looked like a raven fly straight into the glass, making an oddly-shaped hole before glancing away and vanishing.
When the glazier had been summoned to replace the broken pane, he succeeded in getting multiple exposures of the hidden floor, on a tiny concealed camera so ancient it had once been the property of the KGB. The film was then couriered to the local chapter house of the Compassionates of Allah, where Kouandete had it developed. Two hours later, with the chill of London drizzle still in his bones, he had handed the packet of photographs to Latif.
“So this is the amazing invisible fifth floor,” mused Sarai. “Not much here for them to be so secretive, eh? Half of it’s empty.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Latif said, scowling down at the pictures. “Two consoles over here, crowded into this one area. Empty console out here, no chair. And what’s this yellow thing on the carpet?”
“It looks like a path,” observed Suleyman. “All around the area where the workstations are, notice. Remember when the first office robots came out, the ones that moved on magnetic trails? The trails used to weave around office floors like that, in and out of cubicles and around filing cabinets.”
“Nobody’s used technology that primitive in centuries,” insisted Latif. Suleyman just picked up one of the photographs and waved it at him ironically.
“Do you think it might outline some kind of perimeter defense?” suggested Kouandete. “Like a force field around the two desks?”
“Possibly,” Suleyman said, replacing the photograph. He stroked his beard, considering the layout. “There don’t seem to be any refrigeration units in evidence, even though we know they have to be there somewhere, so I’m at something of a loss …”
Abruptly, Latif shouted something profane, and then: “Primitive technology,” he exclaimed. “Remember the first virtual reality mazes? Remember how those arcades looked when you took off your helmet inside one?”
“I never played the game, son,” Suleyman reminded him.
“They looked like this!” Latif said. “Big empty rooms with trackways laid out on the floor. That was all that was really there. Everything else—the walls, the alleys, the bad guys—only existed inside the helmets.”
“You think the two people in this office are in the middle of some kind of virtual maze?” Sarai looked skeptical.
“But what’s the point of a virtual office?” said Kouandete, knitting his brows. “Why take such trouble to conceal something on a hidden floor that’s only an illusion?”
“Unless it isn’t an illusion,” cried Latif. “Virtual, but a projection of something real somewhere else!”
“They’re seeing something being broadcast real time?” guessed Suleyman. “Coordinating their office with one that exists in some other place?”
“So what we’re after might not be actually, physically, there,” said Kouandete in disappointment.
“Not in that place, no … “Suleyman began to pace slowly, putting his hands back in his pockets. “In some other place … or—”
“Some other time!” said Sarai. Suleyman turned on his heel to stare at her. There was a moment of silence before they both said: “Alpha-Omega.”
“What?” said Kouandete, watching as Latif did a somewhat alarming dance of triumph. Suleyman pointed at the photographs.
“Those,” he said, “are images of Omega. Omega is the place that exists at the end of time. Here, or rather in London on Gray’s Inn Road. In reality. But in cyberspace it exists alongside of Alpha, which occupies what appears in these pictures as empty air.
“In reality, Alpha is the place that exists at the beginning of time. It’s the other half of the office in those pictures, but it’s hidden away in the past.”
“That’s where the damn refrigeration units are,” stated Latif. “Some fortified location in the deep past, what do you want to bet? And probably with a couple of mortal personnel there for maintenance.”
“So … the people in both offices are seeing each other’s halves of the office in cyberspace?” said Kouandete.
“And the tracks on the floor are there to help them navigate,” decided Sarai.
“That’s got to be it,” said Suleyman.
“Damn, that’s clever,” Sarai said, pacing around the table. “Hide the genetic bank in the past, just like Options Research was hidden.”
“No Joseph to send us the temporal coordinates this time, though,” said Latif.
“Easy enough to get them, son,” reflected Suleyman. “The two people in Omega are picking up Alpha’s signal; all we have to do is tap into it and trace its source.”
“You’ll need to get a mortal inside for that.” Kouandete sighed, rising to his feet. His overcoat hadn’t even had time to dry out. “Book me another flight.”
London, 12 April 2352
The London chapter house of the Compassionates of Allah was located in Beechcroft Road, in a stately twenty-second-century house of yellow stone in a vaguely Egyptian architectural style, windowless and enigmatic. Within, at the front of the building, was the clinic with its administrative offices and various public rooms for the community it served; to the rear of the building were other, smaller rooms. Most of them housed the black brothers who ministered to the poor. Some were reserved for another purpose, however.
For example, one cell was a listening post where Kouandete waited patiently at a vast communications console.
A light flashed on the console, alerting Kouandete that the office in Gray’s Inn Road was placing an outgoing inquiry. He switched off th
e London Times and leaned close to his console’s screen to see. Echoing back to his office from the corridor outside came the sound of the Fatiha; twelve hundred hours. Someone was using the lunch hour to make a private call, perhaps.
He keyed in a hasty command and got the text of the inquiry. The inquirer was scrolling through listings: catering services? The cursor settled beside one commcode: BLACKFRIARS MUNCHIES. After a long moment the commcode was entered.
Suppressing an urge to giggle wildly, Kouandete intercepted the call.
BLACKFRIARS MUNCHIES! HOW MAY WE BE OF SERVICE TODAY?, he sent.
Hi id like to know if you can cater a party?
CERTAINLY! THAT IS OUR BUSINESS. WHAT MAY WE DO FOR YOU?
Well can you do a special one? Were having a baby shower. Do you know what that is?
CERTAINLY.
We were thinking maybe some sanwidges and crisps and punch only everything has to be blue. Can you do that?
Kouandete blinked at the screen. OF COURSE, he sent in reply, making a mental note to buttonhole the first London-born brother he could find and ask why on earth anyone would want blue food.
And we need a cake too and can you bring cups and plates and things?
CERTAINLY! Kouandete sent, and was inspired to add LET US BE THE ONE-STOP SOLUTION TO ALL YOUR CATERING NEEDS!
There was a long pause before the reply came:
Can we come round and see some of your cakes?
Kouandete drummed his fingers a moment in desperation.
NO NEED, he sent. ONE OF OUR SALESPERSONS WILL COME TO YOU WITH CAKE BROCHURE IN FULL COLOUR! MANY DESIGNS TO CHOOSE FROM!
Another long pause, and then:
Can you just come to the lobby please?
Kouandete grimaced, but sent in reply: OF COURSE. WE WILL BE HAPPY TO DO SO. WHAT ADDRESS PLEASE?
First tell us how much for the lot?
Kouandete thought hard.
IT IS OUR POLICY ALWAYS TO UNDERCUT OUR COMPETITION. WHAT OTHER PRICES HAVE BEEN QUOTED TO YOU FOR THIS SERVICE?
Another pause.
Well we have about 80 pounds to play around with.
FOR YOU, CAKE AND ALL, BLACKFRIARS’PRICE IS 70 POUNDS! Kouandete sent grandly. WHAT ADDRESS PLEASE?
The address he expected was given. A time was agreed upon. Both parties signed off and for the next three hours Kouandete was very busy looking up online catering brochures, cutting and pasting images of fancily decorated cakes.
He had a very good faked brochure in his briefcase when he stepped into the lobby of the building in Gray’s Inn Road at sixteen hundred hours precisely. He waited, looking around, noting the surveillance cameras high up in the walls. They were obvious and easy to spot. Harder to see were the subtler devices that scanned the threshold, set to raise a silent alarm should an immortal enter the building.
Recently the Facilitator Sarai had gone up to see the legal firm of Cantwell and Cantwell on the sixth floor, and in doing so she had unknowingly created havoc. Even at his listening post over in Tooting, Kouandete had been astounded by the flashing lights on his console as frantic messages had gone out warning the Company Board of Directors that one of them had entered the building!
Had Sarai pressed the lift button for the third floor, a siren would have sounded; the lift would have frozen in place as the building’s security officers appeared en masse, and they’d have escorted her out, explaining courteously that a fire drill was going on. There would have been an actual drill staged then, too, and several other diversionary tactics as needed should she have persisted in her attempts to get to the third floor.
She probably could have got up there, if she’d really wanted to. In twenty years of concealment in plain sight, no other immortal had ever walked into the building in Gray’s Inn Road, and Sarai’s chance appearance had terrified the mortals on the third floor into dithering frenzies. Fortunately for them, Sarai had had no idea the Company had a secret facility in the building, so their emergency measures hadn’t been put to the test.
Of course, it had never occurred to the Board of Directors that they might need to conceal Alpha-Omega from other mortals.
At least, Kouandete hoped it hadn’t.
He smiled now and approached the young lady who had stepped from the elevator and was peering around the lobby. “Are you Brandi Pelham?” he inquired.
“You’re Mr. Jones, yeah?” she responded. “From Blackfriars?”
“The very same. I have the brochure you asked to see—” Kouandete opened his case with a flourish and drew out the text plaquette containing the faked brochure. “As well as a list of menus for a luncheon party for twelve persons, each menu at the fixed price of seventy pounds.”
“With the cake, yeah?” Brandi took the plaquette and scrolled down through the graphics. “Ooo! Nice. This looks nice, the carrot-bran-blueberry surprise. This one, I think. And this is the food and stuff here?” She frowned at it, moving her lips as she read. “But this is fancy, isn’t it? ‘Watercress and tofu pate with minced … er … truffles’? What are truffles?”
“All-organic fat-free mushrooms,” Kouandete assured her.
“Oh! Well, that’s not too fancy then. All the same … it’s for a baby shower and that’s such an old-fashioned thing, you know. I was thinking something maybe more … er … old time sort of—”
“Traditional?” Kouandete suggested.
“Yeah! That,” said Brandi.
Kouandete wondered in exasperation why so few English bothered to become proficient in their own language, but he smiled and said: “May I recommend Vegemite?”
“Oh yeah.” Brandi’s eyes lit up.
“Menu number three, Vegemite on wholemeal with an assortment of fresh carrot and celery sticks and dipping sauce, mushroom caps stuffed with spicy tofu paste—”
“But not too spicy!”
“No, no, of course not. With maize crisps—we’ll make those blue maize crisps, of course, and blueberry punch.” Kouandete tapped in a memo on the plaquette. “I think? And of course all serving materials to be blue as well.”
“Yeah! Super,” said Brandi. “And blue decorations on the cake, yeah?”
“Certainly,” Kouandete told her.
“Brilliant. And, er, I suppose you want a deposit or something—”
“No, no.” Kouandete waved his hand. “Payment on delivery. And that’s to be Monday, 2nd May at eleven AM precisely, is that correct? And what suite number?”
“Er—” Brandi looked uneasy. “Well, it was to be the third floor, but—there’s a problem, see, so … well, you just come up to the third floor, and we’ll show you when you’re there, yeah? And you won’t have too many people with you?”
“Myself and two assistants for setup,” Kouandete said, rejoicing silently.
“Right then, that’s not much.” Brandi seemed relieved. “Very nice. So, we’ll see you a week tomorrow then?”
“Without fail,” said Kouandete, bowing slightly.
“Then I’ll just get back upstairs before my break’s over. This’ll be fun,” said Brandi, smiling and waving as she retreated to the elevator. “I can’t wait to see blue carrots!”
Kouandete’s smile froze on his face, but he waved good-bye cordially.
Mayday in Tooting
“My lord, this is the third time we’ve tried,” said Brother Youssou. He was nearly in tears, holding out the tray of bread. “The closest I can come is this purple color.”
“Close enough,” decided Latif, and took the tray. He carried it out to the long table in the refectory, where assembled brothers were busily slicing up vegetables and trying not to look at Sarai, who was wearing a very low-cut sweater, or listen to her either for that matter, as she was attempting to sculpt cake decorations out of almond paste and indulging in blistering profanity because the work wasn’t going well.
Kouandete, with his sleeves rolled up, waited with a spatula and a gallon bucket of Vegemite. He eyed the bread doubtfully. “But that’s purple,” he said,
and withheld any other objections after seeing the look on Latif’s face.
“We’re going with purple, okay?” said Latif. “It’s almost blue. Marinate the damn carrots in grape juice.” He thumped the tray down and they got to work slapping together enough Vegemite sandwiches for a party of twelve.
“Idiot Brits used to paint even their arses blue,” growled Sarai. “Now they’re too delicate for a little artificial food coloring. Oh nooo, we won’t have that in our country! Bloody shracking hell.” She threw her spatula and a misshapen marzipan baby bootie across the room with such velocity that the marzipan stuck to the wall.
“I must say,” observed Brother Kicham, gloomily spooning tofu into a mushroom cap, “that this was not what I anticipated when deciding to devote my life to serene contemplation of God and service to His paupers.”
“Life is full of surprises,” snapped Latif, cutting off crusts. “As long as we get a man inside, this will have been worth it.”
“You’re quite sure that simply opening the box will be enough?” Kouandete inquired, handing him another sandwich. Latif nodded.
“It’s brute force, like the camera shutter. You open it—the crystal gets exposed to the incoming signal—you close it and get out of there. There’s no mechanism for their surveillance to detect.”
“But how will I know where to open the box?” asked Kouandete. “Where will the incoming signal manifest?”
“That’s for you to find out, isn’t it?” Latif replied, carefully arranging little triangles of sandwich in a pyramid. “That’s why you get paid the big salary.”
“Look what we found at Harrods,” sang Brother Ibou, bursting in with Brother Mahjoub. “Baby blue serviettes!”
Fifteen Hours Later
Latif sat at the console, monitoring communications from Gray’s Inn Road, scowling at the screen in fixed concentration. He was muttering something under his breath, too rapidly for any mortal to make out. He might have been praying, but wasn’t. He was reciting the words of a lullabye his mortal mother had used to sing to him. Even with all the terror and misery attached to his last memories of mortal life, down in the foul darkness of the slave ship’s hold, he still found the lullabye obscurely comforting.