“Everyone?”
“No, where’s the fun in that? Just him and me. We have a sacred duty, you know.”
“Yes.” How could Marcus hit upon the truth about Rook’s importance, yet be so wrong about his own?
“Anything else I can help you with?” The fear had gone out of her voice.
He kissed her hair. He’d told her he loved her, and right now that didn’t seem so far-fetched. The tingle in his head suggested a deep connection, but so far it hadn’t touched his heart. Hopefully he would figure out what he needed from her before that happened. It might complicate things.
“No, that’s all. Go to sleep.”
Maybe that was the key, not the skeletons. Maybe they had to love each other. Kyle decided if the skeleton zombie thing didn’t work, maybe he’d give love a try.
Kyle tucked Rook in and gave her a goodnight kiss. He pulled on some pants, gathered up his folders and left, too excited by this new lead to sleep. He commandeered the desk in Shaw’s den.
Chapter Twenty-Two
VAN
Repairs to the workshop area will begin tomorrow, now that a final determination has been made not to report the incident. Loss of nearly all of the devices has been confirmed. Those few specimens still under our control must be kept secret. For the foreseeable future, we will not pursue any of the initiatives related to them, in order to keep the lowest possible profile and forestall further incursions.
TEF internal memorandum 10-30-2000
Fin sat gracelessly on the cold cement and leaned against a dumpster. He lit a smoke and made a face. Not his brand.
He’d probably stolen the pack from someone.
In the week since meeting his sister-in-law, Fin had tried to balance his time between searching for Rook and corrupting his brain chemistry. Searching occupied ever fewer of his waking moments, as his waking moments diminished. He knew vaguely that he’d been fired from the job he stopped going to, which only made sense.
This was the alley behind Nero’s.
Was he really so low he’d get tossed out of a bar for stealing a pack of menthols? Even clove cigarettes would be better than this. He took another drag.
“It’s not like I have anything better to do.”
His head lolled around until his eyes came to rest on a staccato flash of lightning-green neon.
IS TOO!
Fin groaned and banged his head against the dumpster three times.
“She’s not there.”
IS TOO!
“If she is, then Marcus —”
IS TOO!
“There’s nothing I can do.”
IS TOO!
Fin sighed.
“Okay. But I’m going to finish my smoke first.”
TA TA
MAN
!
The Talisman Tattoo! sign made a crackling buzz and went black. Fin concentrated on his cigarette.
No activity in the alley. Must be late. All the bars had closed up and the revelers staggered home. Fin stood and pulled Rook’s keychain out of his pocket. He studied the key to Talisman for several minutes, crossed the alley, and descended the stairs.
The door wasn’t latched. There were no lights inside. Fin nudged the door with his toe and it inched silently inward. The feeble alley streetlight did little to illuminate the depths of Marcus’s lair.
Fin’s will to live was in remission. He shoved the door open, stepped inside and flipped the light switch.
The smell hit him before his semi-pickled brain decoded the images.
Vomit.
A rather large puddle soaked the rug. Footprints led to a heap of clothes by the bathroom. The clothes were saturated with the stuff. Fin could tell from where he stood that they were Marcus’s, not Rook’s, so he felt no compulsion to examine them more closely.
Treading with care, Fin moved further into the room. He might not care if he died, but he sure as hell didn’t want to do it while wallowing in someone else’s puke. The speakers played one of those nature sounds CDs, only instead of whale songs this one had wolves howling against a backdrop of tribal drumming.
Moving on, Fin checked the bathroom, finding nothing except more puke. Rook’s piercing room was free of bodily waste, but a small wooden doll with black feathers tied to it hung over the door. Fin pulled it down. Where Rook had tattoos the doll had reddish marks that looked like blood.
Well, that was creepy.
Fin strode boldly into the last room — the tattoo room — hoping to provoke a reaction.
Empty. Fin spat on the floor. What good was Marcus if you couldn’t even count on him to put you out of your misery?
A notebook lay on the counter in here. Fin flipped through it. Sketch after sketch of ravens and coyotes. The design for the wedding bands. The words ‘RAVEN’ and ‘SHAMAN,’ sometimes misspelled ‘SHAWMIN.’ Lastly, several bile-fingerprinted pages of abstract and unsettling images and the phrase ‘claim her from an equal.’
*** *** ***
Kyle hated all the thinking. In school it was never required of him. He was the star quarterback in high school, which earned him a great amount of slack. The football scholarship to Buckminster ensured continued neglect of his studies. Even the accident that blew his knee didn’t really change anything, at first. The university’s attorney got his breathalyzer results tossed, and he’d ridden the wave of goodwill all through surgery, rehab and several semesters of reinjury and bench warming. Once it became clear his knee wouldn’t stand up to a sack, he was cut from the team and dropped out of school. Soon after, the Samaritan Security Agency recruited him. They didn’t care about his academic career and were satisfied with his physical shape. He advanced through the ranks at SSA on the charisma and attitude he had always possessed. There were no written tests. Now Kyle found his brain rusty after a lifetime of disuse.
Rook’s skeletons were important, obviously, but Kyle still wasn’t clear on what they symbolized or how he should use them. He spent a great deal of time working with them lately, and they didn’t tell him anything, even with all the inside information he’d gotten from her. Sometimes while working with the skulls, Kyle felt a flicker of understanding, always instantly gone. Like having a word on the tip of your tongue and losing it. That in itself was proof he wasn’t Complete yet, no matter how far he had come.
While it was clear the sultry throb in his head came from Rook, that it was evidence of her connection to him, it was not a symptom of Completion. Probably just a pleasant side effect of her skeletons being in him. Possibly a tantalizing taste of what true Completion would feel like. If that was the case, Kyle wanted to be Complete more than ever. To have the full-grown version of that tingle would be worth all this trouble.
*** *** ***
Fin prowled the streets, looking for more drugs, but daylight made such endeavors fruitless. The freelance pharmacists didn’t keep bankers’ hours. The only controlled substance he could find was Shamrock coffee.
He sat in a booth, staring at the inky fluid in his mug, tuning out the world, until he heard his name.
Fin looked up, but there didn’t seem to be anybody paying him any attention. He looked over his shoulder, swept the whole place with his eyes, and sat glowering. Nobody made eye contact but a few people were kind of clumsy about avoiding his gaze. He took a sip of his lukewarm coffee.
Fin, we must speak to you.
“Oh, fuck!” Fin muttered not entirely under his breath, “Will you just go away? Please?”
Our thoughts have become much more ordered.
“Whoopty shit.”
We are now operating as a few large groups, and there are no more stragglers. You have shown us humans are not a lost cause. The largest group has continued the research. The web chamber is nearly full. Their experiments are breaking many minds, but they hope to have the answer soon.
“Super. Fuck off.”
In the booths around him, a few people called for checks, or simply gave Fin uneasy looks.
“Do you
mind?” Fin said loudly, “I’m trying to talk to the aliens.”
We, in particular, wish to apologize to you. We are the ones who tried to mislead you about the examination room. We regret the deception. We see how wrong it was.
Fin kept silent. He was in no mood to accept an apology and he doubted he could believe them when they told him they had learned their lesson.
You’re quite right to remain suspicious. We are truly sorry, and we urgently need help with freedom, individuality, accountability, purpose, and mortality. All of this has been thrust upon us.
“Sucks to be you.”
You have lived with knowledge of all these things. You can hear us.
“No, you’re a residual side effect.”
Should we follow the example you provide?
“No, no. Pick anybody else.” Fin reflected a moment. “I think that’s all you need to know.”
But no one else could have shown us what you have. We have felt your strength. No one else is worthy.
Fin drank his coffee in unpleasant gulps. He stood and muttered, “Go to hell,” as he tossed a few quarters onto the table and made for the exit.
The voices accompanied him down the street. They pleaded. They bargained, offering technology to make him rich and mighty. They threatened.
Fin knew that as an isolated population this group of aliens could barely sustain the basic functions of their base. The kind of advanced stuff they tried to bribe him with didn’t exist without the Floating Wisdom, so there was no way they could deliver.
As for the threats, he knew they were terrified of having him among them against his will again. They didn’t care to know what else he might break. They didn’t have the balls to try anything on him.
That left begging. They were genuinely afraid, of themselves and of the whole universe. Why shouldn’t they be? Stranded in the asteroid belt, cut off for the first time from the warm ocean of their Wisdom. Each one treading a line between consciousness and monstrousness, under constant threat of becoming a mindless predator—and prey for other mindless predators. Doze off for a second, you’re a cannibal.
Sprawled in heroin-induced catatonia that evening he could still hear them. He’d returned to the house to be alone, to avoid the crush of remembrances in the bomb shelter. Even Vesuvius. Through the night Fin lay awake, ignoring the aliens’ pleas.
*** *** ***
Now that Kyle spent time in Shaw’s den during the day, Rook took pains not to leave any trace of her nighttime activities. Both alarm pads were armed as usual, so she settled down on the floor and opened the last desk drawer. Maybe she would go through the boxes tonight too, since she lost two nights of search time to Kyle’s unpredictability.
First in the drawer was a sheaf of foreign bank statements. Large sums of money were involved, but with no name attached to the accounts. Moving on Rook found folders dealing with secret divisions of Shaw Ministries. There were several, but the one that interested Rook was Samaritan Security Agency, with a payroll listing for Squad Leader Kyle Tanner.
Kyle went from covert division mercenary squad leader to CEO of the parent company overnight, following the death of the head honcho. Pretty non-standard career trajectory.
Along with the payroll information was a wealth of other useful facts. ‘Reverend Wash’ received a letter eight months ago:
We have recently acquired some intriguing merchandise that we are offering for sale to the highest bidder. You have demonstrated an interest in similar items in the past. If you are interested, please respond through the usual channels and we will provide details.
Shaw’s vaguely-worded reply came next, followed by the more descriptive response.
The merchandise we are dealing with was developed under a secret contract with the United States Army. It takes the form of listening devices hidden inside body jewelry, nipple rings, etc., for use in assorted wetworks.
We are offering one semi-trailer of these devices, as well as the equipment needed to receive their signals. This is a one time only offer. The bidding starts at $10 million.
We will schedule demonstrations for interested parties.
Your Associates at IOTA.
Shaw won the bidding war and distributed several cases into supply channels under the PierceX name in order to run field tests and develop protocols. The rest of the jewelry he stored at a safe location while planning modifications. There were sketches of little angels with nipple-ring halos, and crosses made from piercing barbells.
Rook felt sick to her stomach. She had been used. Had, in the course of her job, spread these malicious little things among all her friends and acquaintances, Marcus, Fin, even herself.
Everyone Rook knew had a piercing of one sort or another. She had done most of the work herself. The jewelry was bugged, and furthermore interfered with people’s dreams. That’s why everyone dreamed about the same stupid spaceship.
Horrified, Rook now knew how Kyle ended up with a tape of her in bed with Marcus, as well as why he removed her nipple ring.
It might even explain why the sweaterguys pulled her off the street. Her jewelry was switched around when she woke up. Foolishly she’d been concerned about rape. Awful as that would have been, this was far worse, a pervasive and insidious invasion of privacy. It led to everything, even Fin’s death. She should have replaced the jewelry after noticing it had been tampered with, but that wouldn’t have done any good. She would have replaced it with more bugged stuff.
Then why was it messed with? Obviously she didn’t have the whole story.
The next document concerned the handling of the devices. Metal could shield the signals. That must be why she’d been wrapped in foil, why she’d found it in her bra. Maybe the sweaterguys tried to help her by blocking her signal.
The last file contained profiles of the other bidders. One group in particular warranted a lot of ink. The TEF. What her mother told Rook about the Threshold Elsewhere Following didn’t match up with them bidding on these devices. For one thing, they were a nature cult. For another, they were dirt poor. The bidder’s name was finally spelled out on the third page — the Technological Evolution Front, not Mom’s old hippie collective at all. An equal and opposite acronym?
TEF members had stolen information and samples. That’s when Shaw hired Kyle and the other mercenaries. The TEF continued to be a pain in Shaw’s ass, necessitating further security measures and counter maneuvers of nearly Spy Vs Spy proportion. After a TEF member named Gregory infiltrated Shaw’s organization, Shaw “neutralized the threat,” replaced his entire technical staff, and moved operations to a new site: the factory outside Webster.
Rook pieced the next part of the story together herself. Fin stumbled onto the sweaterguys’ little secret office and talked to her about it, and she’d gotten excited about her article. The TEF must have been listening in on the jewelry, too. They knew she and Fin would be taken to Shaw, so they kidnapped her and tampered with her jewelry. Some kind of homing beacon? They used her to find Shaw’s new headquarters.
The files contained nothing else. Kyle, it seemed, was too busy to keep his paperwork up to date. Rook wished she had her Mac. She always found it easier to think while typing.
If the TEF were the ones who attacked the factory, they were also the ones Kyle raided the other night. He had recovered the tainted jewelry. What could he be planning to do with it? Shaw’s Prophecy seemed to be the only thing that mattered to Kyle, but how did these government-issue bugging devices factor into it?
Rook had assumed Shaw’s interest in modifying the jewelry had something to do with boosting his ratings, but maybe Kyle spotted something in the New Revelations that she missed. Some role the technology was to play. Whatever it might be, Rook didn’t like to think about Kyle finishing the job. But she couldn’t believe he understood Shaw’s writings any better than she did.
She reopened the second drawer and walked her fingers along the tops of the folders, lingering whenever she got to something that sparked a m
emory. Some of the sermons relied on precious metals for symbolism, others made reference to “wearing faith like a badge.” Shaw definitely wanted to pave the way for mass consumption when he started marketing his trinkets, but none of these pages contained an explicit reference to what they were supposed to accomplish.
Rook stretched and looked over the TEF pages again. What to make of those guys? Their interest couldn’t have anything to do with the Prophecy. Could it? What kind of evolution did they have in mind? That probably didn’t matter anymore, judging by the boastful remarks of Kyle’s goon squad. She swallowed to suppress her nausea. Had she been used to perpetrate that violence, too?
The night was nearly gone. Rook tidied up, not letting herself rush the job. She crept back to the bedroom before Kyle woke up.
Maybe it was better that the bugs were in his hands than in the hands of the government, a religious zealot, or a technology cult.
Were those the only choices?
Rook’s mind and stomach churned. She lay in bed, with Kyle’s body pressed against her, his arm around her, his hand cupping her breast.
Assuming she managed to escape, who would believe her story? CTP would publish it, but that didn’t mean shit. No reputable news source would take her word for it, and she had no proof.
If she could convince Kyle she wanted to Complete him, maybe she could earn more freedom. She could gather evidence, be a real journalist.
Kyle stirred and kissed her neck. He pulled her firmly against him, his mental vibration revving.
It should be easy to convince him. Brook and Bramble were ready to play. Rook rocked her pelvis.
Was this story worth prostituting herself?
It would be if she could get the evidence.
Kyle rolled Rook over so they were facing each other, his signal now an angry wasp inside her thoughts, thrilling Bramble and Brook. She kissed him.
Rook felt more divided than ever. The princesses pulled one way, the easy way. She had to pull the other. And hope she didn’t tear herself apart.
Miss Brandymoon's Device: a novel of sex, nanotech, and a sentient lava lamp (Divided Man Book 1) Page 29