by Mike McCrary
The purity of the sound echoes through his mind.
He can’t help but smile while driving the candy apple red Porsche.
“What?” Mother asks.
“Nothing.”
She turns back and forth between him and the open road. They’ve been driving for a while. Not too long, but long enough for a moment of peace between them. Up ahead is a small town. One of many they’ve torn through during the great search for the best slice of pie.
“Never knew you to just randomly burst out into laughter.” She scrunches her nose. “Damn creepy, man.”
“Sorry.”
Murphy had no idea that he was laughing. He was so lost in his own head he didn’t realize he’d even made a sound. He’s felt something was off the last few days. Not at first, but it has become noticeable. His denial is as strong as anyone else’s, but these mental slips are becoming hard to ignore.
Am I slipping?
Are the seams of my mental stitching coming undone?
Would make sense. His mind is a mix of so many things now.
He closes his eyes, leaning his head against the window’s cool glass while he loosens his grip on the steering wheel. Relaxing his thoughts, he lets the girls’ laughter roll out, filling the empty corridors of this mind. A rebuilding of a space that is badly in need of repair.
He’s not sorry.
Not at all.
Chapter 17
Agent Irving’s trembling hand holds his ribs.
The pain is sharp.
Each breath reflects the beating he’s been dealt.
With his free hand, his fingers fumble at a set of keys while trying to open a rusted gate. A pack of dogs bark their nuts off nearby. Mr. Madness follows Irving with one hand on his gun at all times. Hiro is down the street in the car just in case they need to take off in a hurry. Tinker stands at the end of the driveway. A perfect spot where Hiro can see him, and Tinker can see Mr. Madness.
Irving agreed rather quickly to take them to see Ernesto.
Mr. Madness knows there’s some element of truth to what Irving has told them, but he also knows there’s a far greater chance of there being lies deep within his words. More like there are large pieces of information Irving has conveniently left out.
No matter.
Mr. Madness and his friends will discover the truth. All of it. One way or another.
They pass through a yard littered with discarded bottles, fast-food wrappers, and random holes dug by some kind of animal. Feral cats scatter as they move through the center of the filth. Irving kicks a headless baby doll out of the way.
Tinker watches on, then looks back to Hiro, letting him know things are cool.
Mr. Madness thought it was foolish he was forced to more or less make one big circle to get here. Wasting time is not something he or the other two embrace. This run-down shack, this disaster of a domicile nestled amongst the trash and cats, is only a few miles from the run-down farm with the barn that posed as a safe house.
Ernesto was never far away.
But not too close either. The doctor put enough distance between himself and the safe barn to avoid getting his hands dirty or putting himself in real danger. Mr. Madness takes note of this. Tucks it away. Ernesto is the brains, and probably thinks his intelligence puts him above the nastiness of this situation he helped create. The good doctor assumes his intellectual status is understood and others will handle the unpleasant side of things. People will take care of the mess. Ernesto’s arrogance has blinded him to one undeniable fact.
Mr. Madness is the unpleasant side of things.
Mr. Madness chose to walk with Irving to the door. He wanted to be the first inside. Wanted to be in control, set the stage for Tinker and Hiro that Mr. Madness will be running this leg of the operation until Brubaker is back.
There’s a pinhole sensor light in a tree to the left of Mr. Madness, and also one to the right. Not a trip wire for something that might remove their legs. No, looks more like a security measure. An untrained eye would have missed the tiny abnormality entirely.
Thank you, Murphy mind.
Mr. Madness imagines Ernesto is seated somewhere in this run-down shack of a house watching them move through the yard. They didn’t see anything when Tinker and Hiro did a sweep of the area, but they knew they would only be able to see so much. Always a possibility that Ernesto saw them coming a mile away.
Maybe he’s armed himself by now.
Maybe he hasn’t. Part of Mr. Madness hopes he has as he nudges Irving with the barrel of his gun to move faster. There’s an itch of anger at the back of his mind. The man behind this door did this to him. To all of them. The anger fades fast, however. Replaced by gratitude. They were all given shiny new lives because of this man.
Maybe Mr. Madness won’t kill him right away.
“Just hold on, man,” Irving says, sucking in a fresh batch of pain.
Mr. Madness pushes harder.
Irving takes a deep breath and knocks on the door.
A hard, single knock. Mr. Madness nods in recognition. Not something a person does. Nobody in normal society knocks on a door only once. Mr. Madness enjoys the simplicity of this final layer of security given the high-tech nature of the world today. He makes note of this as well.
Irving takes a step back, motioning for Mr. Madness to do the same.
They stare at the door for a full ten count. Then there’s a series of clicks and thumps from inside the house. The thick, steel door opens. As it opens, Mr. Madness can see this is not the original door. This is a new security entrance put in to replace whatever was there before.
A small, older man steps into the doorway.
Mr. Madness has him pegged at sixty, sixty-plus years old. Thin, silver hair barely covers the top of his scalp. His back is slightly hunched over, but not too bad, with a stomach that hangs just over his belt. His black, thick glasses complete the look.
Mr. Madness does a quick scan, checking his hands and body for weapons. There’s a memory of a small, frail-looking man pulling a gun on him in Chicago one sunny afternoon. The harmless-looking old man almost put a bullet in his chest that day. Murphy has some really choice experiences to mine from. It is quite something to experience. Mr. Madness fights to keep his focus on the small, older man in the doorway. He grips his gun tighter.
“Who the hell is it?” asks a woman in the background.
“Tell her to come out.” Mr. Madness raises his gun, trying to see behind him.
“Okay.” Ernesto raises his hands in front of his chest. Fast eyes shared between him and Irving. “It’s okay.”
A much younger, attractive woman appears behind Ernesto.
She’s dressed in a T-shirt two sizes too small and jeans that fit like skin. Her wild eyes dance as she offers a disarming smile that’s wide and warm. Her dark hair partially covers a bright-green lizard tat on her neck. The small, neon-green face peeks out when she turns her head between Mr. Madness and Ernesto. She puts one of her sculped arms around Ernesto’s shoulders, giving them a hard squeeze. Mr. Madness looks to Agent Irving, looking for some form of recognition. A hint showing if he knew about this woman. The look on Irving’s face bends into annoyance more than recognition.
“Having fun?” Irving asks.
Ernesto waves his hand, disregarding the question.
“Darling, please,” Ernesto says to her. “May I have a moment with these gentlemen?”
“Darling?” Rolling her eyes, she slinks back into the small house.
“Where the hell did you find her?” Irving asks. “When did you have time to—”
“Stop.” Mr. Madness places his gun to Irving’s head. “Inside.”
“Hello, Cody.” Ernesto’s smile is friendly, as if seeing a long-lost friend.
Mr. Madness presses his gun into Ernesto’s forehead. Ernesto steps back.
“Yeah, he doesn’t go by that anymore,” Irving says.
“Oh?”
Mr. Madness grabs the back of Irving�
��s neck, push-pulling him inside while steering Ernesto back with his gun. He waves his arm to Tinker, letting him know they are clear. Tinker nods, then turns to Hiro in the parked car, giving him the clear as well. Hiro starts the car. As agreed upon, he will now circle the block checking for abnormalities.
Tinker moves across the yard, cutting through the cats, taking a new position near the front door of the house. He can hear the muffled conversation inside.
Mr. Madness stands in the living room of the run-down home that looks to be doubling as a makeshift lab of sorts. Various screens line a long folding table. They flicker numbers, updating and running constant analysis. Graphs made of lines and bars light up boxes that cut up the wide-screen monitors. Several tablets with glass screens are scattered on the couch and coffee table. Stacks upon stacks of papers are piled in random locations around the room.
Mr. Madness recalls a setup similar to this.
This resembles a lab he knows.
Unlike the pang he’s felt from the unfamiliar Murphy memories, this one is his. He can feel the difference. He remembers a flash of a memory. One of the lab. The one they escaped from in a whirlwind of violence.
He was strapped down to a steel table.
Men and women in white coats were injecting things into him. His temperature was taken. His heartbeat jumped, accelerated, then evened out. The sterile room was in order. Everything in its right place save for the piles of stacked papers scattered randomly on the floor. Someone made a joke about Ernesto being beyond old-school with all his printed research.
“You boys knock yourself out. I’m hungry.” The young woman with the lizard neck tat flips them off as she storms out the back door of the house.
Irving holds his arms out. Really?
“She’s fine,” Ernesto calms him. “She’ll come back with some booze and hamburgers.” He turns to Mr. Madness with a shrug. “She’s a party girl. This is what she does in the afternoon.”
“Does she? Is this your day now?” Irving winces as he turns faster than his ribs would like him to. “Cocktails and burgers while I’m out in the world getting the shit kicked out of me?”
Mr. Madness thinks of going after her. Something is off. He watches Tinker turn his attention to the woman as she rounds the front of the house.
“Would you like to talk about Brubaker?” Ernesto says. “That’s why you’re here, right?’
Mr. Madness zeros in on him. He motions to Tinker to let her go. Ernesto has had his fun with her, fulfilled his weakness, now it’s time to get what Mr. Madness came for.
Tinker stands down.
“So, what should I call you now?” Ernesto asks. “If Cody is no longer correct.”
“He talked about finding her.” Mr. Madness pushes his chin toward Irving, who lowers himself nice and slow onto a broken-down couch. He moves a cat out of the way.
“Brubaker? That is part of the broader conversation.” Ernest grins. “Yes?”
“Also said we needed to remove Murphy.”
“That’s also being discussed.” Ernesto looks out the window. “Oh, there’s Tinker. Nice guy. Is Hiro out there as well? Really nice guy—”
“Less so now.” Mr. Madness lowers his gun, keeping it by his side.
Ernesto nods, understanding.
“That seems to be the case with all of you.” Ernesto motions to the couch, offering him a seat next to Irving. Mr. Madness only stares back. Ernesto nods again. “It seems each day you become more and more of a rare species.”
“Explain that.”
“Best I can tell, there’s only a handful of people who share your mindset. For lack of a better term. Now, it might be only you three, Brubaker, and yes, Markus Murphy.”
“But we’re not all the same.”
“No, no you are not. You gentlemen and Murphy share some commonality, obviously, but there’s half of you that is yours and yours alone.” Ernesto offers a candy bar. Mr. Madness waves it off. “But Brubaker is different than both of you. There is no overlap in the minds. However—” Ernesto tears open the wrapper, taking a bite of the candy bar. “There’s some emotional history between her and Murphy.”
Mr. Madness feels his shoulders tighten. His pulse quickens as his stomach twists. A sudden, arresting feeling he was not expecting.
Mr. Madness clears his throat. “Explain that.”
“Well, there’s no way you would have known this, and I know all of you have an attachment to Brubaker. You were especially—”
“Stop speaking in circles, old man.” Mr. Madness’s face is now red. Sweat beads along his forehead.
“Brubaker was married to Murphy.”
Irving shifts on the couch, as if bracing himself.
Ernesto holds Mr. Madness’s stare. Locks onto the eyes of his experiment. He watches the mind of Mr. Madness flip and turn. Studies his response to the emotional swing Ernesto just took at him. Mr. Madness’s eyes are hard as his body shakes. Veins plump up along his neck.
“That’s not possible,” he finally says. “That doesn’t make—”
“You’re right. As with anything in this mess, their relationship is not that simple.” Ernesto again offers him a candy bar. Mr. Madness raises his gun again. Ernesto puts his hands up, backing off. “They weren’t married in the classical sense. But, the other sides of them were married. The normal—again, for lack of a better term—sides of them were a couple. The nice side of Brubaker and the nice side of Murphy. They were married.”
Mr. Madness wants to scream.
Wants to burn everything.
The idea that someone else was with her. That someone else knows her in that way, on that level, is too much from him to even consider. Mr. Madness has given everything to her. She is in his every thought. Contained in every breath he has. His mind shifts to his own wife. To her calling out to their neighbor while he mounted her. Her voice begging for more. He thinks of Brubaker doing the same with Murphy.
“I will kill him,” Mr. Madness says.
Ernesto smiles as if he gave the correct answer to a question he hasn’t asked yet.
“Good.” Ernesto folds the wrapper over the uneaten half of the candy bar and places it in the refrigerator. “There’s a lot to talk about, but I’d like to take a look at Irving’s wounds. I’m not strictly a physician, but I was a medic in the Army years ago.”
Irving pushes himself up off the couch.
Mr. Madness remembers candy bars in a bowl on a table in the lab.
“We’ll get Agent Irving here put back together and get him back into the office. He needs to scour the CIA. Find out some details for us.”
“Oh?” Irving moves toward them. Teeth grinding through the pain. “Do tell.”
“You need to find out how to find Murphy, for one. And, check in on Brubaker.” Ernesto turns to Mr. Madness. “We need to find out the best way to set her free. Right?”
Irving looks to Ernesto.
Ernesto glances his way but nothing more.
Mr. Madness nods, but can tell there’s something they’re not sharing with him.
Confusion is clouding everything for him. The smoky wreckage inside his mind is difficult to think through. Her relationship to Murphy is crushing every thought he has.
That was in the past, he tells himself, and that’s where we will leave it.
His recently deceased boss used to tell him that life was through the windshield, not the rearview mirror. He hated that simplistic, bullshit expression, but in this moment, he finds odd comfort in those words. Mr. Madness knows he and Brubaker can work past this unfortunate news about her past.
He will be patient with her.
After all, she’s been extremely patient with him.
Things are rarely easy between couples.
Stop!
Ernesto and Irving watch Mr. Madness rub the sweat from his forehead.
He didn’t realize he said it out loud for them to hear. Or did he? Did he say anything at all, or did he actually call out like a frightened
child? His mind screams out for this tumbling, spiraling thinking to end.
This is weak.
You’re so fucking pathetic.
Mr. Madness looks around the room to make sure they didn’t hear the pleas rambling inside his head. But looking at them, the dead silence of the room, their blank stares, he knows he allowed the inside of his mind to seep out.
He needs to stop this way of thinking.
He wants to say more. To release his searing emotions. Find a release valve to relieve the stress. Curb it, if nothing else. Must stop himself from stumbling down any long, dark hallways of thoughts. Mr. Madness bites down, digging his teeth into the flesh of his tongue. He wants the pain to stop him from thinking. To keep him from imagining a life with her. To end the longing. Snuff out the hope. To protect himself from painful ideas.
“You okay, friend?” Ernesto asks him.
Mr. Madness nods, blood tears forming, begging to fall.
“Okay.” Ernesto places a hand on his shoulder with an understanding look in his eyes. “What do I call you again?”
Chapter 18
Irving grits his teeth as he slides down, taking a seat at his desk.
He wasn’t out of the office long, but it was longer than he intended. He was also gone longer than he’d told anyone he’d be out. Of course, he can cover up the lost time with the things happen in the field narrative but sometimes antennas go up within the halls of the CIA when stories don’t seem to line up just right.
The screen scans his face.
Studies the distance between his eyes and ears. From the tip of his nose to the corner of his right eye. Then the left. The retina scan is the final step before he’s in. Allowed into the layers and layers of data the CIA captures and keeps. At least the layers to which Irving has been granted access. Very surface and vanilla forms of data compared to some, but he’s not janitorial services either. The keyboard lights up along a soft, black leather mat designed specifically for LED 3D keyboards. The synthetic leather is crafted so the keys pop visually as well as are comfortable to type upon. This process all happens in less than a blink, but Irving runs through each step in his mind every time.