Skillful Death

by Ike Hamill

  Now it seems rude not to eat.

  The sandwich is perfect. I expect that the bread will taste funky, or the cheese will be some variety that I’ve never heard of, but it’s all exactly as I like—American cheese on white bread, grilled with salty butter.

  “It’s great,” I say, with a smile.

  The tall man waves, seemingly to nobody, and when I look back to the table, it’s filled with food. In front of each person is a plate, silverware, and a napkin. Around me, men and women are flipping their glasses and various liquids fill them.

  “Can we do something about the…” a woman across from me asks the tall man. She waves towards the walls of the tent.

  “Vienna?” the tall man asks.

  “Please,” she says.

  Without another word or gesture, the walls and ceiling of the tent disappear. The floor becomes an elaborate pattern of wood, the chairs are upholstered with red velvet, a chandelier hangs above us, and a big mural appears on the wall.

  “It’s a palace dining room we decorated in Vienna,” the tall man says. “One of our favorites.”

  “Elegant,” I say.

  “Isn’t it?”

  Part of me believes that all of this expensive trickery must be meant to manipulate me, but these people seem incapable of being devious. I wonder if they have the power to live like this every day.

  “From my own curiosity as an outsider, what do you hope to gain by defeating the others?” I ask.

  Everyone is busy filling their plates from the food in the center of the table. I’m not sure I’m going to get an answer. I pick up my sandwich and take another bite. It seems rude to avail myself of the other dishes until I’ve finished the food they clearly fabricated specially for me.

  “Gain?” the tall man asks, eventually.

  “Yes, what’s your objective?”

  “Simple victory, I suppose. They started this quarrel. We told them that if they engaged us, we would fight back, and we have. We won’t rest until they’re defeated.”

  “In a way, it seems you’ve won already,” I say.

  “How’s that?”

  “You’re free out here. You have the forest at your disposal, and with your inventions, you’re living as royalty. You even have a palace in which to enjoy your meals,” I say.

  “We live in exile. There is no way to regard exile as victory.”

  “I suppose.”

  “You’ve eaten, and met us in person. Now you will tell us the exact time of the meeting?”

  “I can’t yet,” I say. “I’m still waiting on a signal. Based on that signal, I’ll know the meeting time.”

  “You won’t get any signals here,” the tall man says. “I’m assured that there is no technology which can breach these walls.”

  “I’m not expecting the signal until tonight, and the method of the signal doesn’t require technology,” I say. I’m actually not expecting a signal at all. I just need to delay their departure as long as I can. I’m pretty well convinced that as soon as I give them a time for the meeting, they’ll want to get to the site to get a jump on the logicals. Actually, they might already have sent a party to do just that. Nonetheless, I would prefer if they hold their main force until late tomorrow.

  “We’ll be curious to witness this signal method. We’ve developed many secure communication channels over the years. Only our most advanced have withstood the reverse-engineering of our rivals.”

  “This war must have taken quite a toll through the years,” I say.

  “Certainly,” he says. “Our side alone has committed hundreds of man-years to the project.”

  “And lives?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says. “Lifetimes of effort.”

  “Do you have a sense of the death toll?” I ask. I wouldn’t be so persistent if he was not so evasive.

  “People who have died during the conflict?”

  “As a direct result?” I ask.

  The tall man glances to the woman across the table. She’s chewing delicately when she locks eyes with the tall man. They seem to exchange a thought through the glance and then the tall man finally answers.

  “I can’t speak for the others, but our side hasn’t lost anyone directly to the conflict. Several of our advisors have passed away since we began, but because of non-conflict related causes—old age, mostly.”

  “Well…” the woman across from the tall man says.

  “True,” the tall man says. “But we don’t know if his stress was directly related to the crisis.”

  “A war with no casualties,” I say. “That’s a rarity.”

  “Don’t mock us, Malcolm,” the tall man says.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  They set me up in another of their magic tents. Given the choices, I decide I want my room to be modeled after the Four Seasons in New York. The illusion is perfect, except for the floor. What looks like fancy hotel carpet below my feet still feels like nylon stretched over rocks and roots. But the bed feels like a bed and the couch feels like a couch. The toilet flushes. The windows look out on a spectacular city afternoon. Even the TV works. And yet every time I step on the floor, I’m reminded that I’m actually in a tent somewhere in the woods. I wonder what powers all this technology.

  I went through that whole lunch and I never got anyone’s name. I only got my two sandwiches and the soda. Nobody offered any of the other food, and it was all just out of reach. Perhaps it’s an interesting new type of torture, where everything is placed just beyond the comfort of social convention. Give in to presumption and you’ll eat your fill.

  If these two groups have been battling for decades and they’ve seen no casualties, it kinda ruins Bud’s plans. He’s hoping to bring them together so they’ll kill each other and he can be at peace. But if they haven’t managed to kill anyone yet, what are the odds that they’ll start now?

  I believe the people around the table at lunch were all Providentials. They all had that same timeless, ageless quality that Bud has. As long as I’m guessing, the people who initially captured me and the guy who took me from the interrogation tent to the lunch tent were just regular people. I don’t know about the projection with the cigar who asked me questions. I haven’t seen him again. Perhaps he was an animation or something.

  It’s a shame that Bud didn’t come with me to meet these people. He would have really enjoyed trying to figure out how they manage all this magic. I spend a little time poking around my tent hotel room, but I can’t figure out a thing. The furniture wasn’t here when I walked in. My guide asked me where I would like to stay and when I say “Four Seasons” the room just configured itself. So, from nothing, I have a fluffy pillow and a firm mattress. Is it a projection, like the cigar smoking interrogator? Was it created just for me, like the sandwich? Bud would have it figured out by now.

  I met with four logicals, and now six creatives. Including Bud, that might mean there are only eleven total Providentials. For some reason, I thought there would be more. I guess I might not have met everyone yet, but my intuition tells me I have.

  Now I’m left to ponder alone. Should I try to come up with a way to inspire these people to fight to the death, or should I work out a new plan?

  62 CONFLUENCE

  THEY WAKE ME EARLY. At least it feels early. I spent awhile looking out the window before I went to sleep. The view is amazing. Even though the view is fake, I couldn’t stop watching the lights of the cars winding through the park. I think I prefer to experience nature through a window, from about five-hundred feet in the air.

  It’s the tall man who addresses me.

  I sit up in bed, throw back the covers and stretch. I’m wearing the Four Seasons pajamas I found in the fake closet after I took my fake shower.

  “We detected no signal,” the tall man says.

  “It’s difficult to have a conversation when I don’t know your name,” I say.

  He thinks for a second. “You may call me Peter.”

  “Excellent. Thanks, Pete. Well, d
etect it or not, I did get my signal.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Constantine said we shall receive the exact time this afternoon.”

  “So we’ll meet today?”

  “No,” I say. “Later today we’ll have the exact time for the meeting. We don’t have a commitment yet on which day it will be.”

  “This is disappointing,” Peter says.

  I shrug.

  “This,” I say, gesturing to my surroundings, “is amazing. I’ve never stayed at a hotel this nice, but I believe you’ve reproduced every detail to the limits of my imagination. I don’t suppose the phone works? Can I call for room service?”

  “You may avail yourself of our hospitality for the moment. We’ll have more questions about your alleged signal from Constantine, I’m sure.”

  “Sure thing. Thanks, Pete,” I say. He turns to leave, so I pick up the fake phone to see about breakfast.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  I’m guessing it’s about lunch time when an armed contingent arrives at my fake room. They enter without knocking and I hit mute on CNN. I’ve been watching a story about the thunderstorms about to hit the east coast. The coverage corresponds nicely to the storm clouds building outside of my window. I wonder if this whole illusion is somehow a live feed from New York.

  “You’re to come with us,” the man in front says. I don’t recognize any of these guys. There are four of them. Although they’re dressed like farmers, with jeans and boots and button-down shirts, they hold pretty fancy-looking guns. I wonder if they shoot ray beams, or if they shoot anything at all. Ever since I’ve learned that this is a bloodless war, I’ve been a tad less concerned about my own safety.

  “I’ll be ready in a bit. I’m just about to order some lunch. Do you guys want anything?” I ask.

  The man in front frowns.

  One moment, I’m sitting at my fake Four Seasons table next to my fake window. The next moment, I’m on the floor. Everything is gone and I’m back in the tent in the woods. I’m glad I changed back into my clothes, or else I would probably be sitting here naked.

  “You’re to come with us.”

  “Well, okay then,” I say. “Why didn’t you say that the first time?”

  These guys are humorless. They wait for me to stand up and lead them towards the edge of the tent. There’s no door here, but I’ve seen how this works. When I approach, the side of the tent becomes transparent and I just walk through. I don’t have to ask them which way to go. One of the men from the back passes and leads me through the forest. I wonder if they’ve managed some sort of climate control even out here. There are no bugs to speak of—none of the mosquitoes or black flies that plague the rest of this country—and it’s always a perfect temperature. I’ve only been here a couple of days though. Perhaps I’ve just seen the best of it.

  The tent we approach manifests itself at the last second and the wall disappears so I can walk in. The armed men stay outside and I’m alone with the creative Providentials again. This time they’re all seated in a basic white room at a thick wood table. Peter waves me towards the head of the table where one chair sits empty.

  “Hello,” I say, as I sit down. “Good to see you again, Pete, and the rest of you.” I smile, sweeping my gaze around to each person.

  “When is the meeting?” Peter asks.

  “I told you—I’m waiting on a signal that I shall receive this afternoon.”

  “You claimed to have received a signal last night. What was the nature of this signal?”

  “It was a psychic transmission from my partner,” I say. “It’s a trick we learned in India.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “You’ll stay here with us until you receive your next signal,” he says.

  “Fine,” I say. I was hoping to get another chance to start a conversation with these people. I still haven’t figured out what to do when we get them together with the logicals. I let them sit for a while with nobody talking. I’m hoping to give the impression that my next question comes from boredom.

  “So you talked about a palace in Amsterdam? What other places have you designed?” I ask the woman sitting closest to me. It’s not the same woman who spoke, albeit sparingly, last night.

  She looks at me and then looks away quickly. Told not to speak, I gather.

  “Vienna,” another woman says.

  Peter takes over, “We designed and furnished part of a formal imperial summer residence in Vienna. Last night, we dined in a reproduction of the central dining room.”

  “It was beautiful,” I say to the woman. “I’ve never seen its equal.”

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “Peter,” I say, “you’ve been so kind as to give me something to call you. Could I beg monikers for the rest of your group?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” he says. “Our opportunities for conversation will be limited.”

  “As you wish,” I say. “So you work as a team out in the world? I was under the impression that the Providentials leave one at a time to go out on missions and then return to this homeland.”

  “We often overlap,” Peter says.

  “Oh, fascinating,” I say. “So you two overlapped?”

  “Yes.”

  “And designed a palace, how wonderful. And Vienna is so far from here. That must be a thousand miles.”

  “Not quite.”

  “Have you ever been to the United States?”

  “No,” Peter says.

  “Really? None of you?”

  His eyes go to the squat man who brought me my sandwiches yesterday, but that man doesn’t return the glance.

  “Yes. Some of us have,” Peter says.

  “Oh? Where have you visited?” I ask, in the direction of the squat man. He doesn’t look at me either.

  Above us, outside the tent, a gust of wind must be whipping through the trees. The sound makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It must be some revived instinct to flee bad weather. The squat man still looks down at the table, but the woman next to him looks up at the ceiling of the tent. I follow her eyes.

  Another gust shrieks and the roof flaps from the wind. As a ripple runs down the length of the roof, it’s no longer entirely white. At the place where the fabric rises, I see the tent as camouflage green and brown—its real color. It seems that their illusion is not perfect.

  “Underground,” Peter says.

  The six Providentials, three men and three women, rise as one and move towards what I think of as a the back of the tent. I fall in behind them as the wind cries out even louder overhead. This time, I hear leaves and small branches swatting the side of the tent. Somewhere, a tree groans and creaks. If they’re headed underground to flee the storm, I intend to come with them.

  Peter bends and touches the nondescript white floor. His fingers somehow find a latch and he tugs on it. In the shape of a square, a hatch opens, revealing a tunnel. On the sides, the earth is held back by rough planks joined with uneven cross bracing. A ladder is attached to one wall. If I had to guess, I would say the rungs of this ladder is where all the splinters in the world originate.

  The squat man goes down the ladder first, followed by the three women. The other man goes next and Peter waves me down in front of him. On the third rung, I get a splinter in the meaty part below my left thumb. No surprise. It’s actually not that big, but I’m angry because I saw it coming and was still helpless to avoid it. I have to get moving again quickly because Peter is descending fast.

  He closes the hatch above us. The only light is coming from flickering old bulbs mounted to the plank walls. I can barely see the rungs. Peter almost steps on my hand.

  I can’t move fast enough so I place my hands wide on the rungs. His feet are in the middle. Soon, he’s nearly kicking me in the face.

  “Hey, slow down,” I call up.

  “Move faster!” he shouts.

  Below me, I hear one of the other Providentials drop to the ground. I lo
ok down and I can see the bottom. As soon as the other guy is out of the way, I jump. I figure It’s better than getting kicked in face by Peter. I’m just barely correct. It was a little far to jump and my ankles flare with pain. I move back as Peter comes down and joins.

  We’re standing in a little chamber with a dirt floor, plank walls, and a plank ceiling. A couple of bare lightbulbs hang down, giving us our only illumination. Every few seconds, the bulbs flicker and dirt sifts down through the planks. I hear a distant rumbling that coincides with the flickers.

  “What’s happening up there?” I ask.

  “An inconvenience,” Peter says. “That’s all.”

  I hear a crash from the direction of the ladder. A square of light appears on the floor. The hatch must have blown open. Water falls down the shaft.

  “Let’s move,” Peter says.

  One of the other Providentials leads the way. There’s a small passage that leads from the corner of the room. Before Peter pushes me into the hole, I look back and see a tree limb, heavy with wet leaves, plunge down through the ladder’s shaft. Torn and busted rungs from the ladder cascade down behind it.

  “How are we going to get out?” I ask.

  Peter just keeps pushing me.

  You have to hunch to make it through this passage. It moves slightly uphill for a while and then takes a bend before it levels off. A wider hall branches off to the right and descends, but we climb a short ladder, cross a horizontal span, and then climb down a ladder into another room.

  “What is this place?” We’re all standing in the next room now.

  “It’s where we live when those damn village-dwellers decide to ravage the forest,” Peter says.

  “Who? The other Providentials?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Peter says. “They think they can drive us from the forest with this weak display of power, but we could survive down here forever.”