Miss Brandymoon's Device: a novel of sex, nanotech, and a sentient lava lamp (Divided Man Book 1)

by Skelley, Rune

  A dove.

  It struggled, but Kyle gripped it tenaciously. They spun downward together and as they met the churning surface of the lava the dove found its strength for a moment. It gave a twisting spasm and seemed to unroll. It vanished in a burst of white flame that left a circular mark on the lava’s surface, through which Kyle plunged.

  ***

  Kyle heard faint church music. He hesitantly surveyed his surroundings. No lava. Bright blue sky, rolling green hills, a quaint little country church perched on a nearby rise, but mainly no lava. No searing, no choking, no blinding. A pleasant spot.

  The diametrically different settings and their conformance to Christian doctrine were not lost, even on Kyle, and he spent some time musing on the possibility he had died and gone to heaven, with a stopover in hell.

  The music came from the church. Kyle approached the small building warily. Something about the idyllic scenery didn’t look right. A moment of reorientation showed Kyle that was because it wasn’t real. It was painted on a screen. The bottom edge mated imperfectly to the ground, and he could trace that edge in a complete circle about one hundred feet in diameter. Now he lifted the edge a bit and looked behind it.

  Foreboding and dark, a gray world filled with tombstones. He could see the side of the church, a soaring stone wall with severe narrow windows, and buttresses like a spider’s legs. Its entrance jutted up against the barrier.

  Kyle lowered the scrim back into place and went to the door of the cutesy little church. The door was real — weathered gray wood. He opened it.

  The music was immediately louder. Inside, the church was far larger than the clapboard structure on the little hill. It was the mammoth cathedral hidden by the scrim. Kyle felt some uneasiness about entering.

  He’d crossed from Fin’s mind into Shaw’s. Pausing now in the doorway to this imposing place, his thoughts raced. The cold stone was ominously reminiscent of the core structure in Fin’s mind.

  Emboldened by the notion of Shaw stranded in that hellish wasteland, Kyle entered the building. Moving deeper into the stillness of the cold church, he wondered if he would find anything worth stealing.

  A central aisle the length of a football field led down to the altar, and the illuminated ceiling soared about the same distance overhead. Paintings of gleaming cloudscapes inhabited by sternly bearded men in robes covered the whole ceiling. Gold leaf and hidden candles gave the vaulted structure a lavish glow.

  The pews were an orderly sea with motionless wooden waves. They made Kyle feel like an intruder. It wasn’t hard to imagine acres of deathly pale disapproving faces tracking his movements. He kept his attention fixed ahead.

  Beyond the pulpit and the altar rose a loft twice the area of any church Kyle had ever been in. The choir, had there been one, would have been up there, with the organ.

  The pipes defied numbers, the largest big enough for a couple to dance inside of, the smallest as fine as a hair. The music playing now was soft and soothing, but the console displayed more than a hint of menace.

  He passed the pulpit. Upon it rested a bible, in outlandish proportions suitable for this place. Kyle began flipping pages at random. Whatever inconsistencies might exist between this bible and the version Gideon put in all the hotels would be telling, but he would have no idea if there were any differences. He wasn’t even sure he’d notice modified commandments, basic stuff. Ten of those, right? Are they even listed out in the bible itself?

  After glancing at pages in various parts of the good book, Kyle noticed where he stood. The view over the pulpit woke some part of him. He’d been keeping off to the side, but now boldly assumed the position on the riser and surveyed the ranks of vacant pews. From here they didn’t look so scary. From here, some of the stuff in the big book made sense. Arrayed down either side of the chamber he now noticed the windows. They were set slantwise to the sweep of the outer wall, so only from the front of the sanctuary could they all be seen. They were sumptuously colorful, a tapestry of light spread across the whole church. Certain characters recurred in nearly all of the twenty-four windows. They told the Divided Man’s story. Kyle could almost decipher it.

  He flipped to the inside front cover of the bible. He didn’t know what one would traditionally find there, but probably not an organizational chart. That’s what was here, with names and titles handwritten into pre-printed spaces, connected like a family tree.

  Now that was holy scripture for which Kyle could see some practical value. There at the top sat Brian Shaw, with the core of his empire explained in relation to him. The chart illustrated also how Shaw held control, in part by keeping the right hand from knowing what the left was doing. A unique and powerful document.

  Kyle peeled the chart from the backing of the cover and tucked it away for safekeeping.

  Kyle surveyed the gaudy immensity of the place, getting better at reading it. It all meant something, like the organizational chart in the bible. All of it related to Shaw’s life in one way or another.

  An elaborate candle rack off to the left — locations of other hidden facilities in five states. The baptismal font on the opposite side — financial resources of the television ministry. Hanging on a peg inside the pulpit, a real find — a string of beads with a cross. The beads were talismans to illuminate the powers of the mind, powers Shaw spent many years learning.

  Upon the cross Kyle discovered something disturbing.

  There, where even a heathen like Kyle knew to expect Christ in his agonies, he saw a small effigy of himself.

  The impact it had was unaccountable, but overwhelming. Revulsion over the blasphemy, or heresy, or whatever, competed with a profound sense of elevation. Toward the part of himself that lay there helpless he felt only ambivalence. It was weak, like a quivering organ, something unfit to touch in its vulnerability. It allowed Shaw to control and bind him. Kyle knew, had he not found it, he could never have left this place.

  Kyle was unable to act, unable to find purchase in the quicksand of his mind. Suddenly, the hideous little doll rolled its eyes up to stare right at him, pleading, and he had a moment of clarity. He might not need this aspect of himself, so long as no one else held it either. It was repugnant, all the things he’d worked hardest to eradicate anyway.

  Using the effigy as a mallet, he pounded savagely against the pulpit. Smashing, scraping, grinding, until the cross was vacant. The agony of the process brought a twisted comfort, like scratching open an infected sore.

  Handling the beads filled Kyle with shadowy hints about his own latent mental abilities and made him impatient to experiment with them. He moved purposefully toward the exit of the church.

  The wall switch looked glaringly mundane in this place, but its symbolism was clear to Kyle now. On and Off, Life and Death. On his way out, he flipped the switch, snuffing all the candles and plunging the cathedral into blackness.

  *** *** ***

  At least this time she hadn’t been drugged or undressed. So far.

  This would be a hell of a story if she lived to write it. First the weirdoes with the sweaters and the foil, now this nut-case TV preacher.

  Rook’s prison crate was stuffy, and Fin’s jeans were a suffocating reminder of why she’d sworn off pants years ago. She refused to take her leather jacket off and risk losing it in the dark, which meant she was stuck being uncomfortable in addition to being a prisoner.

  This predicament had something to do with the spaceship dream. That’s what she’d been talking about with Fin at the Shamrock Diner, right before her first kidnapping. Someone must have been listening. She couldn’t remember anyone with a cellphone, or leaving suddenly, or paying any attention to them. How could she call herself an investigative reporter? For all she knew, Fin had been grabbed as well. Maybe he was in the crate beside hers.

  Why couldn’t things be simple? Her first inclination had been to use Fin simply to escape Marcus, and it surprised her to find there was more to it now. They were the only people who could hear Vesuvius. That
had to count for something, right? They had a lot of fun together, kidnappings aside. If only they could get away from the world, they could go on having fun and talking to light fixtures, see how long it lasted.

  For that to happen, Rook knew, she needed to understand what was going on. The knowledge would give them power over their enemies.

  Fuck, I sound like Marcus.

  When exactly should she have caught on that Kyle was full of shit? He’d told her Fin called. Believable. He’d told her Fin was at the hospital. That’s why she hadn’t been very alert, worrying about Fin. She now chose not to believe that part of Kyle’s story. Fin was fine, somewhere safe, worrying about her. Or possibly in the other crate, worrying about her.

  In the Jeep, Kyle laid his arm casually across the back of her seat when he wasn’t shifting gears. Rook had been relaxing a bit until a cop directed them onto a detour. Catching a glimpse of the rubble and fire engines where the Sycamore building should have been started her worrying again, close to tears. She didn’t know why Fin might have gone to work after witnessing her kidnapping, but, well, what else could he do?

  The Jeep’s top and doors were off, the wind biting. Kyle acted jittery, glancing around a lot and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

  “Hope I’m not making you nervous,” she said.

  “It’s not you. I’m wondering what’s up with Fin.”

  “I’m surprised. I didn’t get the impression you liked each other.”

  “We don’t. But we are brothers, after all.”

  That threw her. She sat in silence and studied him in the flickering illumination of the streetlights. “I can see the resemblance now,” she said finally. “You have the same eyes. The same color,” she added hastily.

  “Fin didn’t tell you. I’m not surprised. He’s always resented me.” Kyle shifted gears roughly. “We’re half-brothers.”

  They were entering a part of town unfamiliar to Rook, since she’d never had reason to go to the hospital in Webster.

  The traffic eased somewhat and Kyle continued his tale.

  “We were born the same day and we have the same dad. Fin likes to say we’re half-twins. Anyway, Dad chose to marry my mom, not his. Fin never got over it.”

  Rook didn’t know what to say.

  Kyle glanced over. “When we were thirteen, Willow — that’s Fin’s mom — Willow disappeared and Fin moved in with my family.”

  “What do you mean, she disappeared?”

  “Well, Fin doesn’t talk about it, and I wasn’t told much at the time. Just, Willow went away. Left him with some hippie friends of hers. Never came back. After something like two or three weeks these friends finally reported her missing. Nobody ever found anything out.”

  “Oh, how horrible!” Rook told herself her tears were from the freezing wind. Fin was at the hospital, but he was fine.

  “So, he moved in with us and was a major disrupting influence. My folks separated for a while. I hated him for that. My mom came back though.”

  Rook thought hateful things about Kyle, staring at him. He kept his eyes on the road, only occasionally glancing at her.

  Eventually Kyle continued, “Fin refuses to believe Willow ran off. He also refuses to think she died. He’s in denial. I feel sorry for him.”

  Rook was about to tell him what she thought of his pity when Kyle slowed and signaled a turn. She looked out the window, expecting the hospital, but saw a factory.

  “What the fuck?”

  She had her seat belt unbuckled before Kyle grabbed her by the hair. He got a solid fistful close to the scalp and yanked her back into her seat.

  “You’ve been so cooperative so far. Don’t make it hard on yourself now.”

  A chain link gate rolled closed behind them. As they approached the factory, a garage door rumbled up and Kyle drove in.

  Kyle relaxed his grip on her hair, produced a handgun, and ordered her out of the Jeep as the door clanked shut behind them. Looking out, Rook saw six or seven men, a few of whom wielded automatic weapons.

  Mechanically Rook stepped out. This wasn’t happening. Kidnapped twice in one day. Kyle walked around the Jeep and took her by the arm. He leaned in close and spoke quietly, but firmly, into her ear.

  “Everything I told you is true. I want you to know what a loser my brother is. And I want you to know I can make it easier for you here.”

  Then he’d kissed her. She bit his tongue, her stomach fluttering with fear even as her nipples and crotch tingled. Ignoring the nip, he let the kiss linger. When he finally stopped, she spat on the floor and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. Kyle, then his friends, laughed. She couldn’t muster any resistance as they tossed her into the green metal cargo crate.

  She’d been taken to meet Shaw. He was full of righteous bullshit, but did seem to mean it. Rook found it almost impossible to believe he would actually hurt her. She was not naive. She knew all sorts of horrible things were done in the name of religion, and that all sorts of perverts used the church as a cover. Shaw didn’t strike her as that sort of zealot.

  Maybe she was an experiment in the outreach program all the late night comedians were joking about. Shaw had made statements about his message reaching the unreachable flotsam of society: biker gangs, drug addicts, college students. He alluded to a breakthrough that would bring them the word of god. Nobody knew what the hell he was talking about, but it made great joke fodder. That coupled with the lump-sum payment to the IRS kept everyone laughing for weeks.

  Rook had a hard time remembering specifics from her conversation with the reverend. That felt very odd, and got her trying to dig things up. The harder she strained, the farther out of reach it all seemed, dim and waterlogged.

  Rook’s speculation was interrupted when the crate suddenly started throbbing and vibrating. Horrendous subsonics made thought impossible. Her eyes thrummed. She stood and lurched away from the wall, into the center of the crate, but it didn’t help. Shouting, and a few gunshots, terrified her. Who was shooting? At whom? What the fuck was the throbbing hum making her joints feel loose, like her period was coming early?

  She thought about yelling, or pounding on the walls, but what good would it do? Would anyone hear her? Would she want them to? She didn’t want to be remembered with the factory under attack, but she also didn’t want to be forgotten.

  Rook curled up in the fetal position as the subsonic pulsing consumed her.

  Chapter Eleven

  FACTORY

  Technical Memorandum - Perceptual Disruption Field (PDF)

  Field tests have been completed on the prototype PDF Generator. Subject responses are summarized:

  Confusion: Subjects were unable to interact rationally with each other or their surroundings, due to the PDF’s amplification of pattern-seeking filters rooted in the limbic system.

  Disorientation: The PDF makes it impossible for inner-ear data to be integrated with visual impulses, and it severs the connection between the right and left sense organs (eyes, ears).

  Shielding: The specially calibrated transceiver successfully protected subject #4, who reported it was possible to tell something was going on, but there was no impairment. The transceiver’s field extends several feet, and more tests could determine the tactical value of this.

  Kyle gingerly reclaimed the thing he’d called ‘self’ and found it no longer entirely suited him. The realization that his mind contained layers and portents, that the part he was familiar with was merely a thin overlay, frightened him.

  The external moment quickly engulfed all such introspection. He sat in the office of a powerful man he’d just murdered, with a catatonic miscreant brother for companionship, a skull full of stolen knowledge, and dozens of schemes to exploit it.

  Reaching over to Fin, he confirmed the presence of a pulse. Good. Shaw had seen Fin as an important figure, and Kyle intended to go back inside and find out why. It would also be handy to have a familiar, if bizarre, mind to practice on.

  He stepped up to
the desk, where the reverend lay slumped with his eyes open. The body was obviously lifeless, as Kyle knew without checking. He’d assured that as he’d departed the cathedral.

  The eyes were unnerving.

  Could Shaw be trapped inside Fin’s head? No. The plundered understanding, Shaw’s own extensive research, indicated it didn’t work that way.

  Trying to sneak away from the corpse would be foolhardy, especially if he was going to drag Fin along. If he escaped, there would be awkward questions when he tried to make a claim as successor. Perhaps the best use for Fin was to frame him for Shaw’s demise, although it seemed a waste.

  The lights went out.

  Brusque what the fucks from the mercs in the hallway switched, sans segue, to howling and screaming. The emergency lights flickered on and pulsed weakly as the building began to vibrate. Kyle knew instantly this was an attack, and by whom, because Shaw dreaded this very possibility. The TEF. These were Gregory’s people. Gregory, a spy planted in Shaw’s office, a man whose disappearance did less to discourage his organization than the reverend had hoped.

  With darkened chaos reigning, Kyle felt sure he could in fact sneak out, and what’s more when he resurfaced he could easily hold power. Shaw’s death would be as much of a mystery to Kyle as to everyone else. Fin could come along, and they’d do some more brotherly bonding. For that matter, the girl could come too, and they’d all ride off in style in Shaw’s big car. Executive privilege.

  He picked Fin up by the armpits and dragged him to the door. Isolated gunfire punctuated the sonic goulash. Kyle set Fin down to check on conditions outside Shaw’s office, opening the door. Nobody in evidence.

  Kyle debated flinging Fin down the stairs, but decided not to risk catastrophic injury. No point dragging him out of the office just to toss him down a flight of stairs. Right? He kept the debate going for a minute and persuaded himself he wanted Fin intact, for now.

  Kyle had to back down the steps to keep from tripping over his limp burden. This made him nervous, but he only encountered one person before he reached the bottom. One of the mercs, a career soldier of fortune named Hawkins, busted up and trying to stand. The twitching limbs and facial contusions were alarming, but Kyle fought panic and forced himself to study the man. The cause of the injuries was not a beating, but repeated falls down the metal steps. The panic backed off, but a nagging anxiety took its place. The knowledge he’d stolen from Shaw included little about how the psychotropic effects of the jewelry worked, what it was all these technicians were up to. Was this not an attack after all, but a meltdown?