The Unseen

by Hines

  Hondo, sensing he was on the verge of something big, continued. “This isn’t the Elks Club. You don’t get voted in. You were either there in the beginning, or you weren’t. Never should have taken in Donavan, and good riddance to him anyway.” Hondo sat back down, a satisfied look on his face.

  Snake walked back and forth in front of the room. “So the proposal is, we have Clarice take him out and shoot him now,” he said.

  “Anyone opposed?”

  Lucas watched as they all stared, saying nothing. Looking, but not seeing, he thought. Just watching. After several seconds, another woman raised her hand.

  Finally, Lucas thought. Someone’s going to talk, start making sense.

  Snake looked at the woman, nodded. “Yeah, go ahead, Mya.”

  Mya spoke. “When Clarice shoots him, someone’s gonna tape it, aren’t they?”

  Nods and murmurs. Another man chimed in: “Yeah, I think I could use something like that in the project I’m finishing up.”

  Lucas stared in disbelief. He’d convinced himself, deep inside, that these people were like him—family, in a way. They did all this because they were driven by a compulsion, but they were human, and decent, underneath it all. He had been sure he could appeal to that human part of them, get them to realize that they were under attack, show them the evidence he’d collected against Saul, enroll them in a fight—a revolution—to save themselves.

  But he’d been wrong. These people weren’t human, and he didn’t share anything in common with them. He was, after all was said and done, a true orphan.

  “Sure, I think we could arrange that. Kennedy, you want to do the honors?” A man sitting in one of the chairs rose and walked toward the door, nodded at Lucas. As if they’d just been picked for the same dodgeball team or something.

  “Don’t you want to see the tapes, the files? Hear what I have to say?”

  Snake smiled. “I’m a bit curious, speaking personally. But this is a democracy.” He swept his arm, indicating the others in the room. “Majority rule.”

  Lucas turned to make a move, trying to drop his shoulder and bowl Clarice out of the way. But even before could do that, he felt his legs come out from under him and her body move away. Somehow she’d avoided his lunge while doing a foot sweep on him.

  Unable to protect his fall by putting his arms down in front of him, he came down hard on his stomach, the cold tile floor knocking his breath away and immobilizing him.

  She was on him now, the gun pressed tightly into the back of his head and her breath hot and sticky at his ear. “Don’t make me shoot you right here,” she hissed. “We don’t even have a camera set up yet.”

  Someone else, Kennedy maybe, slipped a dark hood over his head. He tried to struggle again, tried to fight for his life, but then he felt an arm around his throat, constricting his air, stealing his breath until stars danced in front of his eyes (lights from the city, they look like lights from the city) and the world faded to black.

  LUCAS AWOKE, HIS BODY A TANGLE OF ACHES AND PAINS. HE KEPT HIS eyes closed, tried not to move, until he got his bearings. He was in a moving car, obviously. Front seat? Back? Hard to say, and even harder to figure out, because the bag was still over his head, and his feet were now bound as well.

  He concentrated, putting his body into a deep state, and heightened his senses, listening as carefully as he could.

  Two people in the car; he could hear two distinct breathing patterns, even though neither one spoke. And both of them were in front of him, which meant he was in the back.

  The car was moving slowly, and the lack of a high whine from the tires meant they were probably on a street rather than a highway—judging by the lack of other traffic sounds, he was guessing a suburban street.

  He felt his body shift to the left as the car made a right turn and slowed to a stop. Ahead of him, both doors opened, activating a ding ding ding for a few seconds before both closed again. The door next to him opened, but he waited.

  “You’re awake. I can tell by the way you’re sitting.”

  Clarice’s voice. At the thought of her name, images of the Creep Club meeting came flooding back to him.

  Yes, this was Clarice. She had brought him here to shoot him and dump him. End of story.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. A few seconds later, he felt a tugging at the binding on his legs, and then his legs were free. Hands pulled away the bag on his head, revealing Kennedy standing at the door, knife in hand. Just behind him, Clarice watched, gun pointed at him. It was dark now, but the parking lot where they had stopped was well lit by sodium lights. Everything looked flat and dusty in their harsh orange glow.

  Kennedy clicked the knife closed and put it back in his pocket.

  “Follow us,” he said, and turned to walk away from the car.

  Clarice kept the gun trained on him until Kennedy was in the clear, then slipped it into the back of her pants and waited for him to get out of the car.

  He refused to move. “You’re gonna have to shoot me here,” he said.

  She looked at him, rolled her eyes. “I’m not gonna shoot you anywhere,” she said.

  “You wanna take me in that building over there, set up a camera, and pump a couple slugs into me. And you’re gonna tape it all so you can get your jollies.” He stared hard at her. “But you’re gonna have to shoot me here,” he repeated.

  She leaned down. “And I already told you, I’m not going to shoot you anywhere. You don’t have any idea what’s going on here, so maybe you should just shut up and pay attention before you try to go all martyr.” She produced her own knife, clicked it open, and cut away the binding on his hands, leaving him completely free. That done, she turned and began following Kennedy.

  After a few steps, she turned around. “Come on,” she said. “I think you’ll want to see this.”

  He looked around. They were in an older neighborhood, in the gray zone between commercial and residential: a few crumbling buildings stood down the street, next to a Quonset hut and two small homes, but all of them were dark. They were parked in a small lot adjoining an ancient brick church of some kind; Lucas saw a large backlit cross above the front doors. He caught a glimpse of someone entering the church through these doors, just ahead of Kennedy. So they were meeting someone.

  Lucas sat in the backseat of the car a few more moments, then turned his body and put his feet on the ground. At least his backpack was still with him, he noted. Small wonder, since he’d just replaced it. He didn’t trust Clarice for a second, but he now knew he needed to see what she wanted to show him. Whatever it might be. Besides, he could run away right now and get killed by Guoanbu agents; if he had to die, he supposed, he might as well do it sooner rather than later.

  He walked across the concrete lot toward Clarice, who stood at the church holding the door open for him. She nodded as he walked by her, then followed him inside.

  The church itself had long ago been abandoned, obviously; the only current residents were pigeons and rats, judging by the scattered waste on the hardwood floors.

  Clarice stepped in front of him again and led him to a dark wall at the front of the church. Some of the orange light of the streetlights spilled through broken windows high above, but the front of the church remained shrouded in darkness.

  Ahead, in that blackness, a soft click startled Lucas, causing him to stumble. Clarice caught his arm as the front of the church was illuminated in a soft glow.

  Snake stood in front of them, that impish smile on his face.

  “Dilbert does some pretty amazing things with generators, don’t you think?” he said. “Come on up. Have a seat.” He indicated a couple of chairs in front of him.

  Lucas stepped up the two stairs to the raised dais and took one of the chairs, and Clarice sat next to him. Kennedy stood off to the side of Snake. But already, Lucas had lost interest in all of them, his gaze transfixed by the front wall of the church.

  It was covered with hundreds of pushpins and nails holding photogra
phs, notes, scraps of clothing, and other items.

  Totems.

  Lucas stared in wide-eyed wonder; compared to his clumsy attempts at a shrine of sorts, this was a masterpiece. And the pattern, the pieces, fit together exquisitely. He wanted to approach the wall and touch the items nailed there, pick them up in his hands and admire them.

  Snake turned to look at the wall with him for a moment. “Our Blackboard,” he said. “Been part of Creep Club since the beginning.”

  Lucas, unable to take his eyes off the wall, spoke softly. “When?”

  Snake shrugged. “Don’t know, exactly.”

  “But I thought Creep Club was your idea.”

  Snake nodded. “Donavan told you that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, it was just easier for Donavan to think that.”

  Lucas stared at the Blackboard a few more moments, then finally managed to overcome its magnetic pull by turning his head to look at Snake. Obviously, this was the Blackboard that had been referenced on the Creep Club site. “What is it?” he asked.

  “It’s . . . well, it’s like our switchboard, isn’t it?” Snake looked at Clarice, who gave him a nod. He looked back to Lucas again.

  “Yeah, a switchboard. Where we post information and updates about projects, keep track of everyone in the Creep Club. Had to do it this way, you know—Creep Club started long before the Internet was around. Even before a lot of the recording technology we have today. And really, isn’t this a better way to do it anyway? Old school.”

  Snake moved to the board, removed a hat nailed into the wall. He brought it to his face and breathed in, smelling. “You get to touch the projects, feel them this way. Can’t do that online. Also, no need to worry about hackers.” He turned to face Lucas again. “You know: unauthorized users who get into Web sites they’re not supposed to.”

  Lucas remained silent.

  Snake turned to face the wall once more, admiring items that hung on it as he replaced the hat. “Even the inactive ones. They all get boxed, archived. Every Creep Club project is in this building.”

  “So why’d you bring me here?”

  Snake swiveled to look at him. “What, you’d rather have Clarice and Kennedy shoot you?” He laughed.

  Lucas felt his eye twitch.

  “See, I brought you to my safe place. The place that’s more sacred to me than anywhere else. As a gesture of trust. I don’t like you, but I’ve helped you. I could have killed you, but I didn’t. I expect the same in return.”

  “But why did you pretend . . .” Lucas began, but cut himself off in midsentence. He stared at Snake. “You think there’s a traitor in the Creep Club.”

  “Ah, I knew you were smart. You’re partly right. Let’s just say I don’t think everyone in the Creep Club is a hundred percent trustworthy.”

  “Then why did you bring them into the club?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “But I thought—”

  “Donavan again?” Snake said.

  Lucas bit his lip. “Yeah.”

  “The only new person to join the club, since I’ve been in it, is Donavan. We let him in as an . . . I don’t know. Call it an experiment.”

  “Evidently Hondo wasn’t much in favor of the experiment.”

  “Not much. And he’s not the only one. Just the loudest.” Snake sighed. “Truth be told, all’s not well in Creep Club land; bit of a power struggle going on. I’m kind of the old school guy, the one who started it all. But Hondo is all viva la revolución, stirring up the pot. He’s harder, more brutal, more interested in the . . . unsavory side of this. He doesn’t see it as art; he sees it as something to spike the adrenaline, and he needs more and more to keep that adrenaline flowing. He’s getting dangerous.”

  Lucas looked at the wall of totems for a few more moments. “So I’m guessing you want to hear what I have to say. What I recorded.”

  “Like I said, I don’t have a good handle on everyone in the club. Not anymore. Maybe once, but after a while, this changes you.” He looked at Lucas grimly, his eyes suddenly looking tired.

  Lucas thought of Mya, raising her hand at the meeting and asking if someone was going to record his death. He thought of Saul, talking about Donavan: He’s a junkie. “I know what you mean.”

  “Anyway, this place—we just call it the Blackboard because that’s always been what we primarily use it for. It’s always been . . . holy ground for us. You know what I mean? Always off-limits for anything, really. You ever see A Clockwork Orange?”

  “I read it.”

  “Oh, we got a literary boy here, Clarice. Anyway, you know how they program the main character to get physically sick at the thought of violence?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s how I feel when I think of anything happening to this place. That’s how all of us feel. Hard to explain, but to even think about stealing something from here, or defacing something . . .” Snake’s face took on a pained expression, proving his point.

  Lucas spoke. “But someone has.”

  Snake wiped at his forehead, looked at him. “Yes. Someone has. Over the past several months, I’ve found a few things missing. Nothing major—a few files and such—and nothing that seems to be connected. But still. Someone’s crossed the line.” Snake stared hard at him. “And I think you might have something that tells me who that is.”

  Lucas nodded. “I just might.” He shrugged off his pack, pulled out the tapes, and held them up. “Let me tell you about a guy named Saul.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, AFTER THEY HAD TRANSFERRED THE TAPES TO a laptop computer and watched them on a screen, after Lucas had told them about his clandestine meetings with Saul, Snake sat silently for a few moments.

  “So what you’re saying is, you think this guy—this Saul—is working for the Chinese government.”

  “For Guoanbu, the Chinese version of the CIA.”

  “Okay. And you think he’s trying to infiltrate Creep Club.”

  “I think so. I think he’s a double agent; he works for U.S. intelligence in some capacity, but I found these folders in his house. I think he’s turning over information on Creep Club to Guoanbu. And I think he knows I’ve figured it out—he sent someone after me last night.”

  Lucas thought it best to leave out the small detail about the someone in question looking just like him.

  “And so who were the two people with you tonight? Neither one was Donavan?”

  “Neither was Donavan. Neither was with me. In fact, I think they were there specifically to call me out—to let you know I was in the building.”

  Snake considered for a few moments, nodded. “I see,” he said. “I think I’m putting some things together here.”

  “What things would those be?”

  “Later. Let’s get back to the Guoanbu thing. What do you think they’re after?”

  “Who knows? Maybe you have some information on a Chinese official they want. You said it yourself: every project is archived in this place.”

  Snake stared at the floor, thinking. “We’ve never done much for security here. Mostly because anyone in the Creep Club would get physically sick just thinking about stealing or destroying anything.”

  “What about people outside of Creep Club?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t make much sense to anyone outside Creep Club. All the digital files are encrypted, and the filing—everything’s in code.”

  Lucas stood, went over to the wall. “Like a puzzle, then. You have to break the code to figure out what’s archived in this building.”

  “Yes . . .”

  Lucas looked at Clarice, then back at Snake. “That’s it, then.

  Saul—and Guoanbu—want to decode what’s in all your files. They need someone to help them crack the code. Saul was most interested in you, after all. Looking for leverage, I’ll bet.”

  Snake was quiet.

  Lucas paused a few moments before speaking again. “You don’t agree?”

  Snake
let out a sigh. “I’m not sure. In some ways, it feels right. In others, not so much. For starters, none of us know the code, the encryptions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, none of us does the coding or encrypting. None of us could go through the physical files, or the digital ones, and unlock it. That’s the point. It’s all random, so it never gets unlocked. Which doesn’t matter so much to any of us. It’s a big puzzle, yes, but we don’t need to see the big puzzle to go back. To remember.”

  He went to the wall, pulled off what looked like a severed hand. “We just need these puzzle pieces. This one, for instance, instantly makes me think of the Halden family. Joseph Halden was a little late with some payments to a . . . certain lending institution. This was his interest.” He put the hand back on the board.

  “So you cut off his hand?”

  “Not at all. I just . . . borrowed it when all was said and done.” He studied Lucas’s face for a few moments. “I’m not a monster.”

  Lucas decided it best not to comment.

  “So you keep all this stuff, you encode it, but no one knows how to decode it?”

  Snake looked at him. “I didn’t say no one knows how to decode it. I only said no one in the Creep Club knows how.”

  “So you’re actually collecting all this data, all this information, for what reason? It seems too random.”

  “Things aren’t always what they seem.”

  Clarice, evidently bored with the detour the conversation had taken, steered them back to the subject of Saul. “We’re gonna have to creep this guy.”

  Snake looked at her. “That’s what I’ve been thinking.”

  Lucas spoke. “I’m going too.”

  Snake looked at Clarice, who shrugged. Snake began to pace.

  “You say you have an address for the building where he works?”

  “I do.”

  “Where is it?”

  Lucas gave him an address, recalling it from memory, and Snake nodded immediately.

  “Never been in that building specifically, but I know the neighborhood. I have some contacts who could help us get in, I think. Find more information.”