33 Degrees of Separation (Legacy)

by Rain Carrington

  Inside were stacks of papers, a stack of cash and a few small boxes, most likely jewelry.

  In the back of the safe, Ian Junior pulled out a box smaller than the others and closed the safe, setting the goblet back on the shelf. He sat back in his chair, holding the small box in his fist and staring at Ian. “It’s time you start to learn your lessons. There are many, and the faster you learn, the more you retain and the more you put those lessons into action, the higher you will ascend. I know…I know, Ian, that you aren’t anxious to do that, but it’s better. The higher you are in the order, the more…protections and privileges you attain.”

  Again, Ian had a hundred things going through his head that he’d like to spit out at his father, but what he was hearing hit him before anything could come out. “Protections? We’re not all protected the same?”

  “No, Ian, we’re not. I know you’re angry, I know you know that your…boyfriend’s friends were warned. It was for the best, though. I’m telling you, if they’d have kept up trying to fight the Grail, they’d be killed.”

  The shutting of the windows and doors with the metal plates, it made more sense to him after Ian Juniors statement. “Father, what are you trying to tell me? Can you tell me? Did you…did you know it wasn’t going to be me?”

  Instead of answering, Ian Junior opened his fist and gazed down at the box. “For centuries, the new members would be summoned to our places of study and gatherings. In the old tomes, we were to read and learn our rules, our ways.

  “The tomes were never allowed outside of where they were kept. No copying of any kind was allowed, no notes could be taken. The new members and all the way up to the thirty-third-degree members were supervised while studying. This was to assure complete secrecy.”

  Watching his father open the tiny box, he caught that his hands were shaking. The signals he was giving out, unknowingly, were making Ian more nervous than he thought he’d be, and he’d thought he’d be a wreck. “Father…”

  “Let me get through this so I don’t miss anything.”

  Ian watched his face then and saw how pale he looked. Ian’s father spent a lot of time in sunny locations, supposedly for business. He never looked pale. “Sorry, please, continue.”

  “With technology, we’ve come a long way in being able to allow the members to learn our ways and our rules without being stuck in one place.” He handed the drive over to Ian. “While this is in any computer, it automatically connects to a server that has constant surveillance. You’ll be watched the entire time you’re reading and studying. If it’s seen you’re writing down anything, if any cameras are detected in the room, if your phone is on, they’ll know it. It’s not simply that the camera on your tablet or computer is on, the audio, there’s more, Ian. I don’t understand all of it myself.”

  Ian thought he did. “Sensing technology in the room isn’t new, Father, but I’m sure whatever the Grail has, it’s far more advanced than what’s been out there for the last few years.”

  “You’d be right, Ian. Anything a company or country has that we don’t, we’ll obtain it using any means necessary.”

  After looking around the room, hoping he wasn’t far off the mark with what he was feeling with his father, he asked in a whisper, “Why can’t we do good with it?”

  Ian Junior’s lips parted for a moment, the same moment his eyes were cast down at the surface of the desk. Ian waited, wondering if his father was thinking about it, or if he even cared.

  “We are, Ian. We’re doing right by our families and those of the other members. To see anything else is dangerous and won’t be tolerated.”

  The words could have been spoken with much more conviction than they were. There was hesitation there, but more than that, behind those words was a subtle and barely hidden sorrow.

  “I…understand.”

  “The drive, take it home and start going through the pages. Learn them, start to get comfortable with the ideals.”

  “Ideals? You mean get comfortable with the vileness.”

  Standing from his chair, he didn’t face Ian, turning to the portrait that hung in front of the safe. “All humanity is vile, Ian. I understand your youthful hope for the human race. I understand your need to believe there are good people in the world and it’s worth saving.”

  Ian couldn’t believe that his father had hopes like he did, or had ever had those, but his words, his eyes, his body language, everything told Ian that his father was not all that different than he was.

  “Father, there are. I won’t stop thinking that, no matter my loyalty to you, the Grail or anyone. If that makes me undesirable for the Grail, then kill me now.”

  When his father moved around the desk, he gripped Ian’s arm, helping him to his feet. “Learn these things on here quickly. Advance as much as you can in the Grail, as fast as you can. Be careful where you go, who you’re with. I can’t stress these things enough.”

  Without another word, Ian Junior went back around the desk and pressed the button to retract the metal plates from the doors and windows and he sat down, pulling a folder from the drawer in his desk, reading through it, effectively dismissing Ian.

  With the flash drive in his own fist, Ian left the room and soon left the house, not bothering to find his mother to tell her goodbye. When he was back in the apartment, he sat with it in his room after closing the door on Pat and his incessant questions. He didn’t want to see the information on the drive. He didn’t want to open himself to have people watching him.

  If he could, he’d take off again and hide for another week. All alone, out in the woods in that cabin, he’d felt like he was himself. There was no one expecting anything, looking to him for answers or making him do what he didn’t want to do.

  He sat with the flash drive on the desk, his head was in his hands as he stared at it. It was the thing that would dash his hopes, killing his dreams of a future. Forget having a future with Pat, unless it was secretive trysts in cheap motels or hurried couplings in bathrooms once his future wife was having her nails done.

  Knowing his father had once felt like him, or possibly still did didn’t help him like he thought it would. He’d caved to the Grail, and Ian knew he would too. He’d do it to keep those he loved safe from them.

  “Ian,” Pat called as he knocked. “Talk to me.”

  Ian’s frustration grew. There was something sure, and he’d never be with Pat. Waiting, keeping things on a level that kept them focused was useless. Nothing would ever happen. No matter how long they waited, or how focused he was, nothing could happen between them. The Grail would win, no matter what.

  He knew what he had to do. As much as he’d tried to be everything his father wasn’t, he had to set his mind to be exactly like him.

  Like a mindless drone, he opened the computer, assuring the camera was on, not that he’d probably had to. He was sure software was built in that forced the camera to come alive.

  Inserting the flash drive into the USB port, he saw a flash, then another. Suddenly, the screen showed a picture of a V that slowly morphed into bejeweled goblets lined in a V formation. Each unique and elaborate, each with precious gems adorning them.

  When that picture faded, a warning was in its place. The same warning his father had given him about no one being in the room while the contents of the drive was on the screen, no cameras or other recording devices were allowed to be operating while the contents of the drive was on the screen.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see his phone on the nightstand. It was off, no power, no camera in operation, but still, the presence of it made him nervous. Anything that could go wrong went through his mind, including his phone spontaneously powering on and the camera activating. They’d see it, and a squadron of soldiers sporting tactical jackets emblazoned with the Grail symbol coming to the room. They’d whip out their solid gold guns, mowing him down with bullets tipped in diamonds.

  It was ridiculous, as was he. The thoughts of what they could do, though, didn’t compete wit
h what they’d already done.

  Seemingly appeased there was nothing or no one in the room unsanctioned, the pages appeared on the screen, and Ian read the first sentence, tensing with it.

  The good of the few over the good of the many.

  That was the first thing the Grail members heard, and it continued throughout their ascent. Each level they achieved supposedly would bring them further to that cause, forgetting about the many, fighting for the few.

  His heart hurt thinking of the implications of that. The thought was so alive in the world as it was, that it didn’t seem a Grail concept at all. The difference was, the Grail was proud of that philosophy. Others that thought the same were good enough to lie and try to pretend they cared about the many.

  The gap between the rich and the poor was already so large in most countries that a handful of people held more wealth than millions of others. It was obscene, but the poor couldn’t fight it, as they had to work long hours to afford food for their families. To take on the rich, with their lawyers and courts on their side already, but untenable.

  Still, the Grail went farther. Everyone not a Grail was subject to it. Even the wealthy were seen as expendable if they weren’t a Grail member.

  It said it plainly as Ian read, how, through the centuries, there would be those that would rise to the levels of the Grail but hold no loyalty to them. They were targeted first. The Grail believed that anything was good enough to use to defeat who they viewed as enemies, including using their children and families for leverage.

  Blackmail, there was an entire chapter on that. There was no man without sins the world would spit at, so those sins were to be collected, and if not used immediately, be stored for future use. These items would never be discarded, as their descendants may want to keep things about their ancestor under wraps.

  It was sick, but Ian tried to keep his face as smooth and disinterested as he could, knowing he was directly being watched.

  After two hours of reading, he got up and stretched, shutting down his computer and placing the flash drive back into the box, hiding it in the back of a desk drawer. When he emerged from the bedroom, Pat was there on the couch with Denny, and they were watching a movie.

  The movie got paused and they both were on their feet, heading for him. He wasn’t in the mood for an interrogation. “Not now, guys. Nothing much happened, okay?”

  They knew not to throw out questions in the apartment, so he was mostly safe from the worst of it. Pat did draw him aside, swiping the hair from his forehead as he examined Ian’s face like he was looking for internal wounds. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay, Pat. I promise.”

  “You don’t look okay.”

  “I’m just tired. I need to study for my last finals, and I have that meeting tomorrow. I’m just…tired.”

  Denny didn’t say a word but pulled a chef salad from the fridge and handed it over to him once he was sitting at the kitchen table where Pat led him. Pat got him a glass of lemonade and he ate quietly while they watched him.

  “Guys, I’m not exploding. Stop staring.”

  Denny laughed a little and commented, “I guess we look like worried parents.”

  “Act like that too,” he said between bites.

  What he didn’t know was how he was going to get rid of them. Push them from his life. He couldn’t risk them another minute. The hope was seeping from him like a slowly deflating car tire, and he wanted to die, thinking of life without these men.

  Still, his life would be without them anyway, if the Grail suspected one bit that they were trying to help him take them down. If he couldn’t do it on his own, he couldn’t do it at all. He’d decided he could no longer keep men he loved in danger.

  Chapter Twenty

  He was dressed nicely, black silk suit with a black tie, sapphire tie clip and cufflinks. Pat again told him he looked nice, and he smiled weakly at him, then grabbed his keys from the hook by the door.

  “I could go with you, at least to the location. I’m supposed to be your bodyguard, Ian.”

  “You’re not Grail approved, Pat. You’re not supposed to know where the location is.”

  Pat stopped him in the hall outside the apartment, holding both his arms. “Ian, I’m worried about you. The last few days, it’s like…like you’re giving up.”

  Pat’s concern shone in his narrowed eyes, how bloodshot they were from lack of sleep. “Pat, I don’t want to worry you, but maybe I have. It’s not like taking down a business, boycotts and picket signs. This is really bad stuff that has been going on for centuries. They know every in and out of what people who might want to stop them could possibly do. We’re pissing in the wind, here.”

  “I’ll do anything, Ian. I’ll try anything you want. Don’t give up, baby.”

  That was the first time Pat had called him that, and it wasn’t a way to placate him or emasculate him. It was said with love and promises of what they’d be to one another when it was all said and done. Ian wanted that, more than anything, but it was fruitless to hope for that. Or anything.

  The car was waiting for him once he got to the street, and he climbed in as the door was opened for him by one of the faceless, nameless servants that were Grail members of the lesser order.

  After getting on I70, Ian watched the city fly by from the window. The homes they passed neat rows, the shops, mini-malls and industrial areas. All the way to the airport where the jet was waiting to take those from Denver to whatever location they’d chosen for the funeral.

  Ian’s father met him on the tarmac, and they walked up the stairs together, boarding the plane with two other men. Ian’s father stared at him as the others boarded, nodding to each of them on their way through. No one sat and spoke like old friends, there was no clinking of glasses. Sure, it was a somber occasion, but Ian noticed that right off whenever he’d seen the men together. No one acted as if they were friends, or more than passing acquaintances. These men ruled the world together, or at least most of it, and yet they barely had relationships.

  “The other members,” Ian whispered to his father. “Are you…I don’t know, close with any of them?”

  There was a definite hesitation before his father dismissed, “Of course.”

  “I mean…I mean more than just members of the same order. Those men back there, I’ve seen them at your parties, but I’ve never seen them come to the house for dinner alone, or with their families. The people you have over, they are Mother’s friends.”

  “Relationships are discouraged, Ian. How hard would it be for you to watch your friend’s son die from his own hand?”

  Ian figured that was right, but it didn’t feel right. Not having anyone in his life to care for, to have camaraderie with, share anything like thoughts and dreams. His wife, co-workers, everything was there as window dressing. There was nothing inside the home. It was empty, no rugs, furniture, nothing but pretty windows that looked out into the warm world.

  For the first time in his life, he felt pity for his father. The same pity he wondered if his own son would have for him someday.

  Once the plane landed, they were whisked in a classic Rolls Royce to a building in the center of Detroit. It was a building he’d never been to, and again wondered how many places they had in the U.S. alone.

  It resembled an old church without a steeple or bell tower. The windows were darkened stained glass, meant to let in fractured light, but not allow for people to see inside.

  The double doors were flat and unadorned, the foyer plain, a simple white tiled floor and oak paneling on the walls. Through another set of flat doors came the main meeting area. Cornices with carved angels smiled sweetly down on them, painted ceiling showing depictions of palaces and piles of gold coins. The walls were white, a brilliant, clean white, and the floors mirrored that, thick Spanish tiles that had barely visible etchings of Grails.

  There were several long tables in the center of the room with lilies of the valley as centerpieces. The chairs were high-backed and
reminded him of thrones. Fitting, since the men gathered considered themselves kings.

  The back wall, that was what caught his eye and drew him there. From floor to ceiling it held portraits, paintings of men, all young, and from the clothing the men wore in them, he could tell these spanned the centuries. Ruffled collars and wigs worn, all the way to thin ties and expensive suits for the more recent.

  The wall wasn’t filled, though there had to be hundreds of tiny portraits. There was plenty of room for more. That sickened Ian as he looked over the faces of those who’d been forced to kill themselves. Their lives so new, only to lose them for the good of an order that only cared about money and power. There were much better reasons to sacrifice yourself.

  Ian’s father was next to him, explaining, “This wall has those lost in the initiation ceremony. There are others, in other places, for those who pass from us in other ways.”

  “In other ways? Are there more ceremonies?”

  A ghost of a smile came to Ian’s father’s lips as he reassured him, “No. Natural causes, old age, sickness and the like.”

  “Oh. How many buildings to they…we, do we have?

  “Many. I know of them, but even I haven’t been to them all. They all serve a purpose and they all have great meaning to the order.”

  Buildings had meaning, but normal people didn’t. That sat in his stomach, making him sicker than he was.

  “Ian,” a voice from behind him said, and he turned to face Cameron Kent’s father, James. He wasn’t speaking to him, though, he was speaking to Ian’s father.

  Like Ian and his father, Cameron and James resembled one another greatly. They both had the same short, curly brown hair, rather soft facial features, but were both tall and broad. Their noses were small with flared nostrils, and straight down from between their brows where they began.

  “James, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  While Ian watched, the hair on the back of his neck stood up and he felt a tug in his chest. They shook hands, but it wasn’t a perfunctory shake. It was longer, and Ian’s father used both his hands. The way they looked at one another, their eyes connected longer than he’d ever seen his father face another man.