Big Egos

by S. G. Browne

  “Evening,” says William Blake.

  I hand him my official EGOS identification card, which should be valid since I’m still an employee. I’m just on a paid sabbatical. With any luck my ID hasn’t been flagged or doesn’t require authorization for admittance; otherwise I’m going to have to go to Plan B, which is a problem since I don’t have a Plan B.

  William Blake takes the ID card from me and studies it, then gives me a good, long look. I give him a smile and hope he doesn’t notice that I’m wearing a wig. And that he doesn’t want to check the trunk of my car.

  I can sense one of the dozens of Egos I’ve injected over the years wanting to slip to the surface but I can’t let that happen. Not now. So I clench my fists and take deep, measured breaths and focus all of my energy on holding tight to my own identity.

  “So what brings you out tonight?” asks the security guard. “I thought I was the only one working here Christmas Eve.”

  “The VP of marketing wants additional testing done before product hits the shelves, so I have to pick up some of the prototypes for the new line we’re supposed to launch,” I say, trying to sound cool and calm, which isn’t easy when Jim Morrison is howling at the door like the Big Bad Wolf.

  Little pig, little pig, let me in . . .

  The security guard gives a knowing nod. “I guess even with everything that’s happened lately, the show must go on.”

  “I hear the CFO is trying to keep things together,” I say, even though I’ve heard no such thing, but it sounds good. “And even without a president, a CEO, or a chairman, there’s still a Board of Directors, so someone has to try to keep the stockholders happy.”

  My father always said that if you act like you’re supposed to be somewhere and exude an aura of confidence, most people accept that you’re who you say you are and that you have the authority to be doing what you’re doing. The trick is to make people believe you are who they think you are. Or at least who they think you’re supposed to be. Play your role and everything will fall into place.

  “So how’s the protest going?” I ask.

  William Blake looks out at the protesters. “They’re a pain in the ass. Been out here all day long. I wish they’d go home. Although they do provide some entertainment value.”

  Behind us, the protesters are shouting out insults and singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

  “You have to deal with them all night?” I ask.

  “Just for another hour,” he says.

  “At least you don’t have the graveyard shift.”

  “You’re telling me,” he says, then steps back into his booth to write something down.

  I glance inside, where a single video monitor shows my car sitting at the security gate. I have an impulse to lean out my window and smile and wave but common sense prevails. Then William Blake steps out of the booth and hands my ID card back to me.

  “Have a Merry Christmas,” he says.

  “Thanks. You do the same.”

  He presses a button and the gate starts to slide open. I give William Blake a final wave, then drive through the gate and turn left and head around the back of the building. Once I reach the rear corner of the parking lot, where I’m out of the line of sight of the security gate, I park the car and take several deep breaths to try to keep Morrison and the rest of my Egos in check, but I know it won’t last much longer. Eventually they’ll break through and I won’t be able to stop them, so I pop the trunk and get busy.

  From inside the trunk I pull out a nylon backpack and set it on the ground next to the car, then I remove a duffel bag, a rolled-up nylon emergency escape ladder, and a compact, telescoping extension ladder that extends to fifteen feet. Once I have everything I need, I close the trunk, slip the backpack over my shoulders, pick up the ladders and the duffel bag, then walk toward the back of the fence, which is made of twelve-foot-high, heavy gauge metal privacy storm fencing with coiled razor wire running along the length of the top. It has all the charm of a prison. Or a concentration camp.

  When I reach the fence, I set down the extension ladder, lean it against the storm fencing, and extend it above the razor wire to its full height. Then I climb to the top with the rolled-up nylon ladder, which I hang from the top rung of the extension later and drop down the other side of the fence. Once I’m finished with what I came here to do, I’ll be able to climb over the fence without getting caught up in the razor wire. I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to get the extension ladder from this side of the fence over to the other side so I can take the ladder with me, but at the moment it’s taking all of my concentration just to focus on what I’m doing now.

  As I descend the ladder, I notice the back of a metal sign attached to the fence. If I were on the outside the sign would say NO TRESPASSING and tell me this is private property and that violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The protesters out by the security gate aren’t trespassing. They’re obeying the law while trying to get their message across.

  Me? I’m choosing a different course of action.

  Except suddenly I’m not me. I’m Ethan Hunt from Mission: Impossible, the movie not the television series, and I’m channeling Tom Cruise, the theme song running through my head.

  Bum bum bum-bum, bum bum bum-bum . . .

  On the other side of the storm fencing, the Santa Monica Mountains rise up into the night, bordering the back edge of the factory. A little less than a mile away, in the parking lot next to the Roosevelt Municipal Golf Course in Griffith Park, sits a Ford Taurus that I bought with cash for three grand from some guy on Craigslist. I used the fake identification I got from the gorilla in Brentwood, so I’m hoping no one will be able to trace the transaction back to the real me.

  Whoever that is.

  This pretending to be someone else has become a lifestyle.

  By the time I’ve finished setting up the ladder and I’m walking toward the back entrance of the factory, Ethan Hunt is gone and I’m James Bond, channeling a young Sean Connery, scanning the grounds for snipers, expecting to see General Orlov or Dr. Kananga, but apparently they had other plans.

  I glance at my watch. I should be in and out of here in less than thirty minutes, which gives me plenty of time to get to my car before Griffith Park closes. After that, it’s a four-hour drive to Mexico. Then another two day’s drive to Cancún. I can already see myself at a beachside bar, enjoying the sun and ordering up a nice, cool tropical drink. Then Bond is gone and I’m Elvis and I have a hankering for an ice-cream soda.

  Out by the security gate, the protesters are singing “Winter Wonderland” as I reach the rear entrance. I use my ID badge to activate the electronic entry, channel The King, and sing along with them.

  CHAPTER 64

  Elvis sings “Winter Wonderland” on the stereo as a fire crackles in the fireplace and I sit next to the Christmas tree in my pajamas, my glass of eggnog untouched, wondering if other kids are having as much fun as me.

  Where I am is home on Christmas Eve with my mother and my father. I’m seven years old. This is after my father dropped the bomb about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Only my father isn’t my father. He’s Christopher Walken.

  “I know you’re disappointed,” says Walken. “But this is a lesson in what you need to understand in order to survive in the world. This is a lesson in truth.”

  I want to tell my father that this is more like a lesson in dream-crushing, except I don’t have the courage to talk back to my father. It’s bad enough when he’s him, but Christopher Walken scares the hell out of me. So instead I’m sitting here playing Santa Claus, wrapping my own Christmas presents and stuffing my own stocking, while Walken explains how other parents foster the misconceptions of their children and cause them to grow up delusional.

  “Children should know what’s real and what’s make-believe,” he says. “No one succeeds in life by believing in supernatural beings that don’t exist.”

  And I’m wondering about
all of the people who believe in God.

  My mother, who looks like Marge Simpson, complete with the tower of blue hair, finishes wrapping one of my presents and puts it under the Christmas tree, then stands up.

  “Would anyone like some more eggnog?” she says.

  Walken hands her his glass. “A little more rum this time.”

  “How about you, honey?” she asks, as if nothing is wrong. As if the death of her son’s naïveté happens every day.

  I look at my untouched glass of eggnog. “No, thank you.”

  She gives me a kiss on the top of my head and then walks away into the kitchen.

  “You know, son, you’re lucky,” says Walken as he continues to rationalize the raping of my childhood innocence. “You’re getting to experience a reality that most children in this country at your age don’t know exists. You’re living the truth while the rest of them are living a lie. And in the long run, you’ll be better prepared because of it.”

  Yes, that’s what I want to be. Better prepared for life by being denied the joy of waking up on Christmas morning and racing out of my room to see what Santa left for me beneath the tree. Staying up with my parents and wrapping my own presents is so much more rewarding.

  “And I’d advise you to wipe that expression off your face.”

  Expression? What expression? The one that looks like someone has taken a jackhammer to my favorite night of the year?

  “I know this isn’t what you were hoping for, son, but sometimes you have to make the best of what you have.” Walken pulls out a .38 Special and holds it up for emphasis. “So I suggest you stop with the pouting before I give you something to pout about.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say. And he puts the gun away.

  I’d wish for Santa to come down and rescue me, take me away with him on his sleigh to live with him at the North Pole, but apparently that’s not an option anymore. So instead I wish that I were Santa Claus. At least that way I could enjoy my Christmas.

  Marge Simpson returns with my father’s eggnog and sits down near the fireplace. I look to her for help, but she’s too busy wrapping another one of my presents to notice my suffering.

  Buddha said that desire is the root of all suffering. That if you stop seeking pleasure, then happiness will be yours. So that means if I don’t have any desire for an enjoyable holiday experience, if I accept this as my truth and embrace the concept that everything I want is already mine, then I should have a merry Christmas.

  I bet Buddha never had to stuff his own Christmas stocking.

  “Here,” says Walken as he hands me my Christmas stocking along with a comic book, a small rubber monkey, a box of crayons, and a candy cane. “Make yourself useful.”

  CHAPTER 65

  I pull off my wig and run my hand across my shaved head, then I shove the wig into my backpack. From inside the duffel bag I remove the rest of the forty pounds of C4 I bought from the gorilla in Brentwood and place it at strategic points around the lab, channeling Sean Connery from Thunderball and You Only Live Twice as I insert the wireless detonators. I’ve always been partial to Connery’s Bond. He had a certain sophisticated, womanizing charm about him that I admire.

  It’s been more than a week since I injected James Bond, but I’m still feeling the effects as if I’d injected him just hours ago. Of course, there’s no telling how long I’ll be Bond before I shift to someone else. My alternate personas have taken to sticking around like lingering houseguests, refusing to leave. It’s as though they’re all staying in my system, blending together, becoming part of me.

  Truth is, I’m not completely sure who I am anymore.

  I realize I might be like this for the rest of my life. That wouldn’t be so bad if I could stick with one Ego, if I could be James Bond or Indiana Jones or JFK forever. But this constant shifting from one Ego to another makes it difficult to focus on clipping my fingernails, let alone wiring detonators into plastic explosives. And it’s not like I’ve ever done this before. But with James Bond channeling through me, I have the confidence that I know what I’m doing.

  For a moment I become Indiana Jones and I’m suddenly losing my focus on the plastic explosives and looking around for stolen artifacts and wondering what the hell happened to my hat. And my whip. Where the hell’s my whip? Then in a flash Bond returns, only this time I’m getting a Roger Moore vibe from Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me and I’m hoping Richard Kiel isn’t anywhere around with his mouth full of metal teeth.

  The security cameras in the corners watch me, the lights on top blinking red, though the can of black spray paint I brought with me has rendered the cameras useless. The fact that no security guards or a SWAT unit has burst in to arrest me is a good sign. But it calms my nerves to know that Big Brother isn’t watching. Or at least if he is, all he’s seeing is a lot of black. Fortunately the videos in here aren’t on a live feed. They’re just set up to catch an employee ignoring proper protocol or trying to get away with something that’s against company policy.

  Like trying to blow everything up.

  Once I finish wiring the last of the C4, I set the timers on the detonators for ten minutes each, then I reach into my backpack and remove the specimen container filled with a pint of my blood, which has now warmed up to room temperature. I don’t know if it’s starting to clot or if that will even make a difference, but at this point it’s too late for me to be worried about whether I should have used an anticoagulant.

  I open the container and toss most of the blood around the lab in a splattering spray, then I dump the last of it on the floor. After screwing the lid back on and shoving the empty container inside my backpack, I pull out the one-gallon Ziploc plastic bag filled with my freshly shaved hair and scatter it around the room, making sure to get some stuck in the blood pooled on the floor.

  Once I’m done, I put the empty bag in my backpack, then pick up the remote control for the timers and look around at my handiwork and nod. Sure, it looks like Charles Manson stopped by for a visit and then gave himself a haircut, but with any luck they’ll find enough traces of my DNA that they’ll think I died in the explosion. The fact that I paid cash for my flight probably won’t matter, considering the feds can run my name through an airline database search and find out that I booked a flight to Vietnam. But I’m hoping the fact that my car and my blood and my hair are all still here will buy me enough time to get out of the country. And that if they figure out I didn’t die in the explosion, they’ll be looking for me in Southeast Asia rather than in the Caribbean.

  Is it a perfect plan? No. But it’s the best I could come up with on short notice. I’m just hoping the crime scene investigators won’t be able to tell that my blood and my hair were removed from my body twenty-four hours before any of it ended up in the lab and that they’ll believe I was still in the building when it blew up.

  I’m thinking I might have overdone it a bit with the hair and the blood, but my father always taught me that if I’m going to do something, never do it half-assed.

  Part of me wishes I’d done more research on criminal forensics, but I didn’t really have the time. So I just watched a bunch of CSI episodes and purchased a black market Ego of The Dana Scully. That was kind of erotic, in an X-Files kind of way.

  I’m suddenly getting a Fox Mulder vibe, which is weird because I only injected his Ego once during testing and that was nearly a year ago. The last thing I need right now is paranoid neurosis and borderline psychological obsession about aliens dancing around in my head, but I can’t help wondering if any of this laboratory equipment is being used to test for the existence of extraterrestrials.

  Before I have a chance to investigate, Mulder is gone and I’m back. Not just my consciousness hovering beneath all the other Egos, but me. No James Bond or Captain Kirk or Jim Morrison in sight.

  Even though I have occasional moments of clarity, it feels like it’s been years since I’ve been myself, since I’ve glimpsed the person I used to be before I became all of these other people
, so I grab hold and I try to hang on to me, to keep me present in the hopes that I can stick around and push all of these other identities out. Then my grip falters and my hand slips and I’m gone and Ethan Hunt from Mission: Impossible is back, the Tom Cruise version, filling me with the confidence that I need to finish the job.

  I don’t know if blowing up the lab and the factory and the records is going to change anything. All of the important backup files and formulas and documents are most likely stored on a secure off-site server somewhere. But with the CEO, chairman of the board, and the president of EGOS gone, and with all the recent negative publicity I’ve helped to create, I’m hoping this will be the end of Big Egos and allow people to stop spending so much time trying to be someone else and get back to playing the roles they’re supposed to play.

  After all, it’s never too late to be the person you were meant to be.

  I take one final look around to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything, then I slip my arms through the straps of my backpack and walk out of the lab, the door closing shut behind me. Once I reach the hallway, I go over my exit strategy.

  According to the gorilla, the remote detonator has a limited range of one hundred feet and requires line of sight. Since I wired C4 in the main storage room as well as in the lab and the computer server room, I have to factor in multiple walls and doors and more than two hundred feet from here to the back of the parking lot. That’s why I set the timers on the wireless detonators for ten minutes, so I would have plenty of time to go from room to room activating the timers and get out of the factory and safely away from here before the C4 explodes.

  By the time the detonators go off, I’ll be over the fence with the ladder and my backpack and any proof that I made it out of here alive. After getting rid of the ladder and any incriminating evidence, I should be across the border and into Mexico before Santa Claus has finished visiting all of the good little boys and girls.