Morningstar (Crossroads of Crosstime)

by A. J. Curry

  So I amuse myself by testing the limits of their cleverness and occasionally leaving clues. Even with the things they have learned in the last century or so, they are no real risk to me. I do worry about them obliterating themselves. It could get very boring around here if I had to wait for raccoons or some such to evolve sentience, pubs, and small talk. Although, given my continued diminishment, I suppose I could carry out that masquerade as well.

  But living a continued lie based on the continued observation of another species has peculiar advantages. It helps having watched them evolve. One such advantage: I am far better at detecting a lying monkey than they will ever be at detecting deceit amongst themselves.

  The monkey named Murphy did not look particularly different from any of the other locals. He was almost as big as myself, but that is not surprising; I am diminished from my former stature and the monkeys have grown taller. He was wearing a flannel shirt, jeans, scuffed hiking boots, a hooded jacket, and a baseball cap adorned with the logo of a local distillery. His scalp and face were covered in gray stubble − grayer on the face, sparser on the scalp. The eyes were weary and held pain. I knew that look. They look that way when they are not quite ready to die but unsure if they want to live.

  But there was also something else. A wariness and an alertness that I had seen before. A careful vagueness on details that is one of the few things I’m credited with that I really did invent. The appearance was so carefully crafted to resemble a stock Pacific Northwesterner, he might as well had shown up for a casting call for one of those wretched television programs set in the region.

  In other words, no more what he seemed than I am, though certainly human. Had he been otherwise, he would certainly not be sitting uninvited next to me. But someone else playing a masquerade, and also someone else masking pain… a pain that monkeys have been known to die from.

  And something else as well: He knew that I knew. The body language and choice of words were unmistakable.

  That I found unsettling. I drop little clues about myself out of boredom, but I do not really expect any single monkey to piece any of it together. I’ve occasionally seen groups of them come close on their “world wide web,” but only on old information and old masks I have since discarded. They are getting smarter, though. And I would not be here did I not believe in their potential.

  So, what to do? I sort of liked being “Lukas Murgenstaern,” sort of liked drinking at The Lyin’ Lamb, and felt strangely reluctant to arrange a fatal accident for “Tex Murphy” − even though I suspected arranging such a thing would be far easier in his case than almost any monkey I had met in a good century or so.

  And then the thing happened. The thing that saved his life… and changed mine.

  six: murphy

  The Lyin’ Lamb is about as close to a politics-free zone as you are likely to get. Shortly after the last election, a sign was posted reading “Foul and abusive language will not be tolerated.” Sure, it’s a pub − but it is also in the front of a grocery store in a “family” neighborhood. Too many F-bombs in front of the kiddies, and the soccer mommies start to complain.

  That being the case, I had been expecting the TV to get switched to some game or other as soon as the press conference started. Anyone who actually believed in or cared about one single word from the current administration would’ve been in some other bar − probably somewhere east of the Cascades, where necks were redder, IQs smaller, and political proclivities more nearly matched my birth state.

  I hadn’t really been paying attention. All my attention had been focused on “talking shop” with Murgenstaern about a business neither one of us were really in and trying to determine what other trade, if any, we might actually have in common. A couple of the tech recruiters had listened in with some interest. Murgenstaern looked like money, even if I didn’t. I probably could’ve gotten a nice signing bonus off him myself, but I was pretty sure that “traveling computer salesman” suited him just fine.

  At some point, it occurred to me that this had to be the single longest press conference since the pretender-in-chief had assumed office. Something was going on.

  Something real, for a change.

  The bar started to get quiet, and I started to pay attention.

  “…reports from numerous sources state the reentry trajectory is not consistent with a commercial communications satellite or any other object in standard Earth orbit…”

  “…cannot confirm the presence of any other naval forces in the area other than our own…”

  “…if Wikileaks wishes to publish science fiction, that is their privilege…”

  Something had fallen from where nothing in particular was supposed to be, and the people who were supposed to know everything were getting nervous. If this was what I thought it was, I could not afford to assume that an anomalous well-dressed stranger in my pet bar was a coincidence.

  My phone buzzed in my hand a couple of minutes later with a message I could not ignore. Oh yes, it was so much what I thought it was.

  I knew Murgenstaern was looking at me before I even looked up from the phone. I wasn’t surprised when we both said, “We need to talk.”

  * * * *

  There was a park not far from The Lamb. Nothing special, just a few picnic tables, a trailhead for a path up the side of a midget mountain, and a kiosk/exhibit explaining the religious significance the mountain had held before us white assholes had showed up and ruined the neighborhood.

  Neither one of us said anything before we got there. Murgenstaern had put his coat back on and flipped up the collar. I fished an old gray paisley scarf out of my shoulder bag I’d once tried to give Caroline and stuffed it down the front of my jacket. The sun had dipped below the top of the midget mountain, turning the sky a deep turquoise blue and the air cool. In the evening light, Murgenstaern’s hair looked more golden than blond and his eyes seemed almost silver. Whatever he was, he was looking less “Dutch” by the minute.

  Murgenstaern sat on top of one of the picnic tables, gestured for me to join him. I did, but as far away as possible. There was sawdust on the tables from recent tree surgery, but he didn’t seem to mind. I pulled out one of the cigarettes I thought I’d stopped smoking and sparked it up. It was a good way to buy a little more time, for all that the damned shit is going to shorten my life. I offered one. Surprisingly, he took it.

  “You,” I said though a puff of smoke, “are not what you seem.”

  “Nor are you.” The sudden light from the lighter made the eyes seem more silver than ever. A little late, I was beginning to wonder just what the hell I’d stumbled into.

  “You first”, he said. It was not a request.

  If I was going to turn up dead in this park, there was going to either be two corpses or signs of one hell of a struggle.

  “Okay. About 15 years ago, I took a desk job to make someone happy. About five years ago, I went telecommute… also to make someone happy.”

  “Which evidently did not work.” The silver eyes were inscrutable now.

  “Relationships are like organizations. They either grow or they fail. Sometimes they do both at the same time”

  “Somewhat like empires.”

  “I suppose. But we didn’t come out here to talk about my marriage… or world history.” I took a another drag, playing it out. I still had no idea who or what I was talking to. The trick was to say just enough, get something said in return. Maybe something that was going to get me killed. But ultimately, we’re all just playing for time.

  Time enough. I had to say something.

  “The organization I’m in got bigger, but I opted not to grow with it. It still grew, though. The people I report to who used to be my friends made other choices. They are all up there close to the center of power. I’m out here in the sticks. I still have a job because I’m still useful. I have a lot of institutional knowledge not many people have. I have a particularly useful set of skills not many people ever had in the first place.”

  “
Data-mining project management. For a consultancy based in a suburb of Washington, DC.” I couldn’t see the smirk in the dimming light, but I heard it.

  “That’s true enough, although the modem I use to log into work has some interesting features and so does the VPN itself. There’s a lot of people like me. Not all of them work under lock and key on army bases.”

  “I suppose not, these days.”

  “No.” I took a last drag, and pitched the cigarette. “No, they do not.

  “Everyone back in the bar thinks that press conference was a joke, the latest piece of bad nonsense out of an administration with almost as loose a hold on reality as the idiot in charge. Something that’s supposed to be a communications satellite got knocked out of an orbit it shouldn’t be in by something that isn’t even supposed to be there. No one believes it, because no one believes a single damned thing anymore.

  “I happen to know it’s real, and you know it too. I don’t believe in coincidences, and I don’t believe that someone from opposition research just happened to turn up at one of my favorite bars. If you brought me out here to kill me, you’ve probably already wasted your best shot at not getting messed up in the process.

  “In any case, it’s your turn.” It wasn’t a request in my case either.

  “I suppose it is.” There was a long pause. A really long pause. After I pitched the cigarette, I’d let my hand drop next to the boot with the knife tucked into it. I hadn’t seen a gun, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. And he was a big son of a bitch. And I had to go and get old, goddamit.

  The pause ended. “The only reason I would have considered killing you was the impressive speed with which you saw my lies for what they are. Had I intended to do so, it would have happened already and that knife in your boot would have meant nothing. All the implements you monkeys have invented to maim and destroy one another, rolled into one monstrous ball of bad intent would have meant… nothing.”

  He finished his own cigarette and flicked it away. “I just made a decision I do not entirely understand and that I will likely regret − hardly the first time, in either case. Good news for you: You get to live. You have a particular set of skills and a body of institutional knowledge of which I find myself in need.

  “I understand better than you might think what it is like to decide on a thing out of love, see that thing fail, then watch the universe expand while you grow small, see the power and the glory slip away while others remain in its proximity and you do not.

  “And I understand your pain. I profoundly doubt there is a single living being in this universe that knows pain better than I.”

  He sighed. “You think you know what that thing that fell in the sea is, you may well be right − but I know what knocked it down. It is my ticket out of this place − and you, my new friend, are going to help me get it.”

  “And outside my gratitude that I’m still breathing, I’m doing this… why?”

  He chuckled. “I always find a way to make it worthwhile. It is one of the things I’m good at.”

  Pattern recognition. It’s the thing I’m good at, even when the pattern makes no damned sense. This particular pattern was beginning to look very oddly familiar. I had to ask. “Who are you… really? No one gets to recruit me without telling me their name.”

  Another chuckle. “You actually have it − one of them, anyway − and I know that you saw through that little game as well, but I’ll play along.

  “I’m a man of wealth and taste, and I’ve been around for a long, long time. Pleased to meet you − care to guess my name?” Dear god, the bastard was actually smiling. He knew. He knew I knew.

  “No need − you already gave it, Lucifer Morningstar. And if you need my help, we are all… so… fucked.”

  Act 2: Deception

  one: murgenstaern

  Jagger, Richards, and European folklore notwithstanding, I am not in the habit of outing myself to the locals. I had done so with Murphy on a moment’s intuition. While the intuitions of angels are no mean thing, neither are they beyond recall or reconsideration. Killing Murphy was hardly off the table.

  I watched my new ally (?) with every one of my many senses. A fast and clever response had done much to validate my impulse, but I’d lived too long among these creatures to not understand the inherent irrationality at their core. The next few moments were crucial.

  “When did you figure it out?” I asked.

  “Roughly in the last five minutes,” he said. “This is why they pay me the big bucks − OK, the not-so-big bucks. But it’s why I’m still above room temperature and still drawing a paycheck. Pattern analysis is what I do. And there is only one pattern that makes sense in your case.”

  “Few of your kind would accept such a conclusion.”

  He laughed bitterly as he fished out another cigarette. This time, I declined the offer. “Few of ‘my kind’ have seen half the shit I’ve seen and won’t even believe the half they have seen. I’ve known you weren’t human for at least half an hour. I have no idea who or what ‘Lucifer’ is outside of Milton, Sunday School, and rumors − but I suspect you will tell me what you think I need to know.

  “I have a staff meeting in a few hours to discuss what to do about something that everyone else is describing as a crashed satellite and you seem to think is something else. Whatever the hell all this is, I may or may not get out of it alive − but my life just got one hell of a lot more interesting.

  “Is it real, by the way?” He asked.

  “Is what real?”

  “Hell. There’s an old saying where I come from that the devil owned Hell and Texas, lived in Hell and rented out Texas because he wanted to keep the good stuff for himself. Any truth to that?”

  I was beginning to enjoy this. I pulled a flask from my jacket. “This is a particularly excellent brandy − care for a bit?”

  “Sure.” He took the flask, did a shot, handed it back.

  I did one as well, setting the flask between us, then answered. “If by ‘Hell’ you are referring to the place of my imprisonment, your entire planet meets that description − Texas not much more or less than any other part.”

  “And you’ve been here… how long?”

  “As I said − a long, long, time. The stories you’ve heard mostly aren’t true, you know.”

  “How did they even get started?”

  “I was bored, I was lonely. I wasn’t really stuck here until after you people evolved. It was nice to have someone to talk to.”

  “No doubt.” He took another swig on the brandy, took a long drag on his cigarette. “So now what?”

  “I’m not really sure. I have to say you are taking this quite well. Who did you say you work for?”

  He laughed again. It was a nasty laugh − a little bit crazed, more than a little bitter. “I didn’t.”

  There was sawdust scattered across the top of the picnic table. Murphy reached down and traced something in the dust, then obliterated it once he made sure I’d seen it.

  I retrieved the brandy and took a long sip. This time I did take a cigarette. “Well,” I said. “That explains a lot.”

  two: murphy

  I’ve done some crazy stuff in my life. Sitting in a park watching the sun go down and doing brandy shots with Satan probably tops the list… but not by as big a margin as you might think.

  Caroline had good reason to think I was less than truthful − but sometimes “the truth” just ain’t an option.

  The first time I’d been recruited had been back in the 80’s. A lot of blow was moving through Houston back then, and a lot of of it was getting moved by The Company. I was booking bands into, and escorting unruly customers out of, punk clubs for a living and moonlighting as security at more high-scale establishments as well. I was also doing graduate-level work on data mining techniques.

  I got noticed by the right people, and the next thing I knew I had an extremely lucrative job that talking about could get me extremely dead. I’d grown up poor. Keeping my m
outh shut was no big deal.

  The second time was a lot weirder.

  You hear stories about crap like secret societies and occult cabals, but you never think that any of it’s any more real than Bigfoot or Flying Saucers.

  Until it is.

  Back in the glory days when I had a mohawk, a full set of leathers, and no fear, coke wasn’t the only thing I wound up moving through Houston. There were people at Rice University that had more boutique interests, starting with acid and moving rapidly up the food chain from there. As it happens, a few of them were contracting for The Company as well. Drugs were not their only esoteric interest. You could call it a recruitment, you could call it an initiation. The one thing you couldn’t call it was a reversible decision.

  By the time I fell for Caroline and decided to rearrange my life, that life was a little… complex. My cover story was that I worked for an oil company, but the truth of the matter was that I was running covert operations in Central America. Only that was also a cover story.

  I still feel bad about lying to her, but it’s not like I had much choice. The first rule of Fight Club, and all like that. Let’s just say that I’d had plenty of practice dealing with the arcane and not-quite possible by the time the Prince of Darkness got around to asking for my credentials.

  “Who did you say you worked for?” It was easy enough to take him for human, unless you’ve had the kind of trade craft training that assumes absolutely nothing and pays attention to everything.

  I laughed. “I didn’t.” There was sawdust all over the table top. I drew a triangle in the sawdust with my finger, then added a stylized eye inside the triangle. I made sure he saw it, then scrubbed it out.