Pruitt

The D’nal’s Briefing

Pruitt and H’seven stand together in silence at the wide transparency of the outer wall. The Miles reach out from their viewpoint, just beneath the mesa rim, to a distant, uniform haze.

Pruitt’s features exhibit a mosaic of competing emotions, nostalgia, apprehension, a vague, translucent hope. H’seven is impassive. Behind them, the doorway fissures open with a hush.

Remert enters. The look on the D’kin’s face, apparent only to one who’s known him for a lifetime, is murderous.

Kudlac’s loose form and oddly spider-like strides are a chilling thing to witness as the creature enters and crosses the floor toward the two men.

Behind the D’nal, a lone man dodges inside before the door breathes closed. Tall, pencil-thin, and deliberate, the D’nal’s retainer chooses not to approach, settling instead into a wide seat against the wall. A rigid container shaped like some kind of instrument case lands on an adjoining cushion.

The Minister of the Change steps close to Pruitt and the outgoing Chief Executive Officer allows himself a fresh look at the bizarre thing towering over him.

It kneels, bends, or folds somehow beneath its raiment in a manner Pruitt would rather not consider further. The Minister’s weird head is above Pruitt’s own by a mere half-meter, far too close for comfort.

With only a whuffing exhalation as preamble, Kudlac says, “I have a working familiarity with the history of the Mission from its inception through what has been communicated to me as ‘an unavoidable alteration of the timeline’. One in which Lord Shiric has been unable, at his vast remove, to determine the extent of its impact upon the Mission.”

The bellows refills.

“Further communication with Lord Shiric has been hampered, due in part to a local disruption. Mister Hergenrather will assist me later in understanding more about that circumstance. There are, perforce, disparities in the data I have gleaned and I expect each of you to assist me in correcting them.

“Since my arrival, I have heard little else but how this t’sunguc, Eric Gerzier, has developed technologies that threaten your carefully chosen and patiently nurtured markets and associations. It is suggested his operations, of which you admittedly know little to nothing, may threaten the Mission in some incomprehensible fashion.

“While the prosaic aspects of your enterprises are ancillary at best to our ultimate goal, I would understand this encroachment, the individual responsible, and the scope of his technologies as you have assessed them.

“I require from you, Mister Pruitt, an accounting of these matters so I may reconstruct, from a mosaic of poorly framed observations and historical recollections of questionable veracity, a cohesive perspective. My course of action will pivot, in part, upon the reliable, verifiable intelligence you and D’kin Remert provide me here. Be as specific as you are… humanly able.”

Kudlac makes no move toward any of the available seating. Maybe it already is sitting, or something.

Pruitt leans into his cane and withdraws the fold-out from his vest pocket, opening it to an easily managed quarter of its size. With fingers far more agile than when he had last held the matte sheet in them, he moves frames with practiced fluency.

H’seven glides a recliner closer to the show and slouches into it. Remert has seated himself in a straight-backed chair at a small table and busies himself, spreading his own foldie, linking it to Pruitt’s, and Pruitt, with all the confidence his station and preparation will allow, begins.

“Eric Gerzier came literally out of nowhere nine years ago. His is the proverbial Cinderella story. A complete unknown with an indistinct origin, a disadvantaged childhood, lackluster performance on a pedestrian educational path, and no credentials. And yet, without fanfare, he has achieved global recognition.

“I think it is safe to say he has single-handedly altered the course of our civilization. He’s done so, in fact, well beyond the scope of our own not-insignificant investment in global economics. He has been called by some ‘the New DaVinci’.”

A wheeze from the creature gathers strength and recognizable arrangement.

“I do not recognize your colloquial reference, ‘Cinderella’, and what he is ‘called by some’ is equally irrelevant. You will refrain from further idiomatic citations and provide only details pertinent to the topic I have instructed you to address.”

Pruitt blinks away the rebuke. “As far as we can determine from efforts to delve and reconstruct from fragmented records, Gerzier was born in northeastern Africa, probably Ethiopia, in the latter nineteen hundreds. The exact date is uncertain as his birth was either unrecorded, or the records destroyed. At that time, the region had been ravaged by civil conflict for nearly three decades.

“Orphaned at an early age and subsequently institutionalized—those records were also destroyed, an unfortunate side effect of survival in a strife-torn environment—his youth was otherwise unremarkable.”

Pruitt pauses and, as an aside, enunciates into the air, “Sonder, please display Eric Gerzier image one and sequence.”

In response, the high desert vista beyond the transparency darkens to a uniform opacity. The room’s lighting takes on a subdued ambiance, and a full-size three-D image of a slender, nappy-headed, pre-pubescent male youth smiles out at them.

“This is an extrapolated composite, D’nal, as there were no extant records from that period.”

The boy’s likeness is replaced by a grainy, blemished photograph, ostensibly of Gerzier. The quality is poor; it could arguably be anyone. Other images riffle slowly past as Pruitt continues his narrative.

“He was adopted by a Canadian couple, Rene and Daphne Gerzier in nineteen ninety-two. He lived with them on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where he received a conventional education. Efforts to locate his adoptive parents revealed that his father had died on assignment at the US/Canada border when Gerzier was in his early teens. His mother died later when a significant portion of Vancouver Island was devastated by natural disaster shortly after Gerzier himself relocated from it.

“He inherited a modest estate, but managed to leave a surprisingly negligible financial footprint, or any other for that matter, until his introduction into the mainstream and period of ascension in the year twenty-fifteen.”

The progression concludes with a representation of the man as he appears in contemporary media.

His mocha features are shown in characteristic repose, unaffected by the struggles and dramatic episodes that daily seem to dog the common man. His smile beatific, his eyes bright, but kindly; taken as a whole it is a snapshot of a powerful permutation—innocence melded to intellect and purpose.

The sound of air escaping through a restriction becomes, “This representation of Gerzier displayed is one of current obtainment?”

Pruitt nods, realizes the gesture may not convey meaning to the creature. “Yes, D’nal. It is, in fact, stock imagery from his own Community public profile. We estimate his current age to be forty-two years.”

“Clarify.”

Remert interjects, “Your forbearance, D’nal. Almost seventeen yarnn.”

“A child.”

“For many years prior to the development of Community,” Pruitt says, “extravagant measures were in place to observe, track, predict, and direct individuals’ market preferences and all public transactions were recorded and shared across multiple platforms as were most ostensibly ‘private’ transactions.

“Every person with a bank account, a credit card… any person transacting any kind of business almost anywhere in the world has acquired a digital dossier. Most are extensive, but until Gerzier stepped into the spotlight that year, he was a cipher, inconspicuous to the point he simply did not register in the database.”

The D’nal huffs. “As if he did not exist before that date.”

“Uh… no. No, D’nal. I mean his patterns of activity did not warrant notice by those employed to discriminate and inform. His patterns exhibited no anomalies beyond, or even close to, an established reference level.

“We salvaged transcripts of his school records. His grades were unexceptional. His cumulative scores were median. He apparently stood out at nothing. No sports, no clubs… no friends among those that might remember him, and there is no indication of further scholastic endeavor on his part.

“He remained in that general vicinity, engaged in menial employment. Some payroll records and the like were all that survived. We uncovered a minor juvenile offense; nothing beyond youthful pre-teen exuberance and expunged from public record upon his eighteenth birthday. There is no indication of further unlawful behavior on his part either, D’nal.

“We’ve attempted to interview those of his teachers or classmates we could locate from that time, as well as coworkers, with unsatisfying results.”

“Explain.”

“All local, county, and regional municipality records were lost in the circumstances I mentioned previously that took his adoptive mother’s life, along with many others, including individuals we would have interviewed, D’nal.

“We were able to track down and question three surviving alumni from his schools, and one coworker, they having left that locale prior to the catastrophic events I’ve described. None had any clear memories of Gerzier.”

“That seems an accurate answer, Mr. Pruitt, and yet, it is incomplete. There is something you are withholding.”

There is no time to contemplate how this thing knows. Pruitt swallows a wad that wasn’t there a moment ago.

“Our corporate twin entity, Advanced Concepts Methodic, was complicit in that destruction, D’nal.”

“Explain.”

“An outbreak of a virulent contagion was discovered there, the second known instance of the disease anywhere in the world since the period you may have studied known generically as the End Times. The ability of the infection to propagate rapidly among groups of humans was, and remains, unprecedented.”

The D’nal says, “The term ‘gonji rot’ was conspicuous during my review of the period.”

“The name is apt, D’nal. The term was coined by the sensational media and later adopted by those who had seen the final stages of the infection.”

The D’nal’s metallic-looking, triangular melon of a head swivels back to regard Pruitt. “I would understand more detail regarding this contagion,” it breathes. “You will upload all relevant information for my personal access at the conclusion of your presentation. Also, you will provide references to ‘the sensational media’ of which you spoke. Continue your elaboration regarding the destruction to which Advanced Concepts Methodic was a party.”

Pruitt shifts his weight to relieve a familiar creeping discomfort in his low back and the back of his legs. He reframes this as a respectful, if awkward, turn toward the D’nal, cane in hand, and it helps.

“There is no antidote for gonji, D’nal,” he says. “No vaccine, no narrow percentage of survivors from which some practical countermeasures might be gleaned. Wherever gonji is concerned, airtight quarantine is the only practical defense.

“Military containment of the locale in question was swift and uncompromising. Given the geography of the region, however, its broad areas of wilderness and the concomitant difficulty of insuring an impenetrable perimeter, there was a very realistic fear of another broad-scale, potentially global pandemic should any infected penetrate the dead-lines in any of several directions.

“We were approached in covert fashion by representatives of the United States and Canadian governments to assist with a containment solution.

“After arriving at a reasonable methodology and compensatory fee, we redeployed one of our Helio satellites and drove a focused beam into the tectonic plate subducted beneath that vicinity. The resultant volcanic upthrust was particularly spectacular, accompanied by seismic activity of moderate magnitude.”

The D’nal says, “I had opportunity to review data specific to the Helio power generation satellites. It is my understanding these were set in orbit as one of your contributions to ‘End Times’ survival and restoration. There was no indication they possessed this capability.”

“We did not advertise the satellite’s full capability, D’nal. Nor, during the course of this transaction, was its full capability revealed.”

“Continue.”

“The pyroclastic cloud from the eruption served to sterilize the general area. It also provided adequate cover for us to sweep the containment area with an experimental device somewhat beyond the established quarantine perimeter.”

This prompts a scrutiny from the D’nal. “Elaborate upon this ‘experimental device’.”

Remert speaks up. “Your forbearance, D’nal. Because of the excellent cover provided by the eruption, this site was also used for a test firing of an advanced molecular disruptor weapon.”

“I have heard nothing of this device. Make all data relevant to its inception, development, and current operational parameters available to my Inquiry, D’kin. Summarize the results of the test.”

“The beam’s current minimum focal width was determined to be within ten meters in diameter, short of our objective, but promising. We further determined the maximum effective dispersal pattern is capable of erasing every living organism in a sub-tessellate.”

Kudlak observes, “The obvious efficacy of that episode notwithstanding, there would appear to be a consistency relative to the coincidental destruction of records in Gerzier’s wake. Resume your recital, Mister Pruitt.”

“Prior to his entry into the public arena, before the End Times, he began providing small-scale environmental clean-up services, contracting out to various private and local concerns at first. He began by lending himself to community projects, removal of rubble and scrap from municipal greenways and watersheds, parks and scenic areas, that kind of thing.

“The reputation of his front company, Clean Sweep, developed, although his contributions, while significant in retrospect, went almost unnoticed by most while his capabilities multiplied.

“State and federal agencies began to take advantage of his services. These he offered at such absurdly affordable rates no competitor could outbid him and, to be fair, because of the incredible versatility of his people and equipment, he had and still has no real competitors to speak of anyway.

“At the time, no one could figure out how he managed some of the results he obtained, but they were extraordinary. Today, Clean Sweep has become the go-to for specialized tasks in any environment, any terrain, no job too large or complex.

“He has other business interests and investments, to be sure, D’nal. Significant among them is a power generation methodology we remain unable to duplicate. He has created a small island in the Pacific Ocean. It represents a second base of operations and a vivid demonstration of his capabilities. He also leases a vertical launch site at Spaceport America where something is very much going on under an opaque canopy, one I will characterize as ‘impenetrable’.”

“You have prepared examples,” the D’nal says. “Proceed, Mister Pruitt.”

Pruitt feels a bit of his old self-assurance returning as he’s able to circle back once again to his prepared material.

 

 

Crisp imagery of an inhospitable badland fills the blank window-wall. The locale is a maze of spires, breaks, and chasms spread over many hundreds of square kilometers.

Twisting, rough-hewn walls of near-vertical stone crowd together or split apart in odd tangents defining a labyrinthine topography. Obstinate shrubbery and sparse, stunted trees cling to any toe-hold on the flanks of these fissures and cleft valleys fractured by merciless time and weather.

Pruitt narrates. “A mid-air collision brought two commercial airliners down in an area of very rugged canyonlands so deep and narrow it would seem dangerous to navigate any kind of craft through them at all.”

Drone footage displays the wreckage strewn across a couple square kilometers of razorback ridges and constricted gorges, ornamenting the landscape and choking the stream at the base of a plunging ravine. The length and breadth of the site is littered with twisted metal and burnt shapes.

The scene changes, shot from a significant distance at night. Regardless, the detail is crisp. An enormous flying craft glides in above the wreckage.

It has the general appearance of a mated pair of broad, swept-back flying wings, one atop and embracing a broad central fuselage. The second set is slung below and slightly rearward of the first and each pair of wings sport, at their conjoined tips, some sort of empty, boxy construct, an unrecognizable propulsion system, possibly.

The entirety is anything but aerodynamic in appearance, yet despite its improbable size, it hovers on station without the slightest deviation, a shadow mass above the rim of a dozen craggy, steep-walled chasms.

What appears to be daylight pours from the belly of the craft and, from its tapered aft extension, bays open to release a variety of working vehicles. They busy themselves through the inhospitable landscape and wreckage, darting, hovering, operating without the least apparent familiarity with aerodynamics or gravity.

The D’nal is intent on the image. “Indicate for me the scale of this craft, Mr. Pruitt.”

Pruitt’s fingers shuttle data and image segments and five silhouettes appear as an overlay. The first shadowed shapes represent the two downed airliners, the next, Gerzier’s air-ship. It appears three times the size of the first two together. Beside it, a representation of one of the darting, hovering vehicles. All are presented alongside a minute human figure to provide additional scale.

“Does this help clarify, D’nal?”

“Ha’ch.”

Pruitt assumes this syllable represents an affirmation and continues. “When the craft moved on,” he says, “with the exception of the inevitable initial scarring and vegetation burn, there was no trace of the wreckage, no debris anywhere in the crash site, and without the slightest observable incidental damage to the natural environment.”

 

 

Pruitt shifts images on his foldie and the 3-D display remaps. “Perhaps two of his most notable later efforts, undertaken on his own initiative and without compensation, were these.”

A long, green valley lies cradled between rugged, jutting mountains, their slopes swathed in lush tropical vegetation. Two mothership platforms hang suspended, one at either end of the valley. Beneath them, bare meters from the ground, smaller utility vehicles move and hover.

Beneath them, individuals in close-fitting, monochromatic garb range purposefully across the terrain. None appear to wear any obvious form of protective equipment and the line moves with neither haste nor careful precision in a ragged scrimmage line.

Each individual on foot, operating a hand-held, tubular apparatus, will stop at random, press one end of their implement into the ground, withdraw it ,and move on to the next, and the next.

“The first is the clearing of thousands of hectares of third-world minefields without compensation or apparent mishap. Until Gerzier involved himself, removal was expensive, time consuming, and perilous. The toll on innocent civilian life and limb was extensive.”

The D’nal is studying the enhanced images with intent. “His people do not seem concerned about the potential danger,” it observes.

“You will note, D’nal, there is no effort to expose or extract the devices. After their departure, an investigation of the area indicated not only were there no devices remaining either active or inactive, but each location where you see one of his workers penetrate the soil revealed a cavity roughly matching the size and shape of devices known to have been utilized at that time. Analysis of residues therein were inconclusive.”

A prolonged silence is perturbed by the exchange of air through the Director’s nostril filters. Pruitt notices, for the first time, a faint, colorless fume expresses with each exhalation, dispersing in an instant.

“Inconclusive,” it says. “Move on to your next example.”

Pruitt shifts elements on his fold-out. The holo display echoes and magnifies the arrangement.

 

 

“Our subject is also responsible for the removal of thousands of square kilometers of floating rubbish in the Pacific Ocean—again without contract or compensation. The first views we acquired of this effort were from satellite imagery. You can see, however, there are now three of the platforms engaged in this endeavor.”

A trio of what might otherwise seem ponderously large vehicles, if not posed against the massive scale of the ocean itself, have joined in an improbable formation. Seen from orbit, each of the three obtuse triangular shapes have joined at their apexes to form a single, massive compound vehicle, all moving as one in slow procession across the face of the ocean and the continent of buoyant scum accreted on its surface.

“While the platform craft themselves obscure the bulk of activity taking place beneath them, D’nal, we sent surface and low altitude craft into the area to observe.”

Images from steady-cams aboard what appear to be a pair of SEAL attack craft, show the consolidated motherships and, beneath them, smaller ancillary craft can be seen ranging beyond the periphery of that impromptu canopy, laying down some form of barrier to contain and consolidate an undulating mass. Some of these craft can be seen submerging.

As the boats begin to close on the activity, the scene blanks out, video and audio commentary abruptly cancelled.

“As with other encounters, our teams met an apparent dead zone almost three kilometers from the location upon approach. All electronic and mechanical devices simply ceased to function.

“A pair of drone aircraft dispatched to provide reconnaissance strayed within that perimeter as well. Both would have been lost had not one of Gerzier’s darting craft caught and held them somehow, depositing them with adequate floatation beyond the effect envelope where recovery could later be staged as the hovering array moved away from them.”

Kudlac says, “I would ask you to explain how all this has been accomplished, but I know from your delivery you cannot.”

“Nothing remotely like it has ever been encountered before.”

“This field of energy negation is the reason all still and moving images have apparently been taken from a significant distance. While there is sufficient detail to make educated assumptions, there are no intimate close-proximity views of personnel or equipment that would be useful to our areas of inquiry.”

“I agree, D’nal. The best optics available provide, as you say, reasonable definition, but we would hope for more.”

“What of augmented-beam imaging? I understand such was pioneered by your technology arm, ACMe. Surely that medium would provide finer resolution.”

“It absolutely would, D’nal… if Gerzier’s field effect didn’t nullify it.”

The D’nal releases a pensive sound very much like a hum and says, “There were personnel on-board the small surface vehicles. The physiology of these living beings is maintained by electro-chemical reactions. Energy is converted and expended in the act of simply sustaining life. And yet, Gerzier’s energy-damping effect does not appear to influence those who strayed within its range.”

“Apparently, D’nal, beyond a paper-thin boundary at the periphery of the field, living organisms are not adversely affected by it. I am told, however, by those that have done so, that passing through that margin is… disturbing.”

“Move on, Mister Pruitt.”

 

 

The final image before the D’nal becomes a sweeping circuit of Spaceport America’s almost seventy-three square kilometer imprint in the desert of southwestern New Mexico.

Set apart at a significant remove from the central facilities and the amateur, professional, and commercial lessees, a pavilion of sorts is shown at close range from several angles both aerial and at ground level.

Each tiled sequence shows the flimsy, fabric-looking construct in proximity to and dwarfed by one of Gerzier’s platform ships. Two of the frames show a forward area of the craft and pavilion making physical contact. No activity is visible from either perspective.

A fast-forward shows the pavilion expanding outward and upward, still maintaining the single point of contact with the ship, but overshadowing it now, enveloping the remainder of the site in what appears a dull cocoon eighty meters high and more than twice as wide.

The ship separates from the cocoon and drifts upward. Once clear, it reorients and heads northward.

“As you have seen already, D’nal, Gerzier’s constructs have the capability to neutralize any energized or energy producing device within an as yet unspecified range. And it would seem, D’nal, Gerzier’s constructs have acquired the ability to switch off, or draw in, their field of negation, apparently a recent development. For reasons of security, Gerzier has set a field perimeter at the spaceport. It extends no further than the exact boundary of the site he’s leased to the top of the canopy.”

Kudlac pivots to Remert. “Mark this subject for further review. He has the ability to achieve the removal of many gorams of debris. His vehicles are able to maneuver in spatially restricted environments, craft capable of flight, albeit unconventional flight as I understand it to have developed on this world. Has this Gerzier somehow acquired our agile repellor technology for his own use?”

Pruitt shakes his head. “We assumed so at first.”

“With your forbearance, D’nal,” Remert says. “Examination of the imaging and four-D we’ve acquired reveal no characteristic quarrmalyne field effect or consequent proximity distortion. Extrapolation of available data suggests a causation beyond our previous experience.”

Remert gestures to Pruitt, a cue to resume his exposition.

“Early on, D’nal, no one was paying particular attention to his methodology, only his results. We understood, however, the threat Gerzier’s operations could impose on our own initiatives and have been able to hamper them only marginally. Clean Sweep continues to operate throughout the world with neither aggression nor regard for geopolitical boundaries or threats of retaliation.”

Pruitt says into the air, “Sonder, Lithia community from vantage three.”

The holo remaps. Sharp three-D images depict the rugged contours of a single mountain pushed up and split in half by forces unknown. An enclave is fastened onto and delved into the inner face of each half to their crests.

“As Gerzier was achieving wider recognition, D’nal, he was developing a model community in the Siskiyou mountains at the border of northern California and southern Oregon.”

Something about the nature of the structures and the seeming unfettered hive of activity throughout gives the impression of ‘business-as-usual’, whatever that might imply in such a precarious setting.  

“Ostensibly, the site was developed to provide housing and essential services for his many employees, serving additionally as both a base of operations for his branching enterprises, and perhaps more importantly, a showcase for a number of innovations, to which he invited a strategically select group of influential individuals.”

Provided for the D’nal’s Inquiry later, a listing of these influential individuals scrolls in a narrow aperture to one side of Eric Gerzier’s beatific features. He is saying, “Many of the constructs, vehicles, and environments you will experience can be explained by the fact that, before this, the materials and the means to develop these capabilities were unknown or unavailable, lost in the ages, perhaps, or simply too far-fetched to receive serious consideration.”

Pruitt’s monologue resumes. “At Gerzier’s suggestion, those approached responded via his self-managed portal on NoASR’s homogenous Community platform.

“Our current virtual galaxy of offerings was a mere solar system then, so to speak, but we had achieved vast popular acceptance during the End Times as a safe place to conduct business, transact, and interact without fear of the numerous contagions or random pathogens that may be lurking in the next breath.

“Our growth during that period was exponential, as was Gerzier’s. His portal was then and remains a registered, bona fide Community node, an unusually fluid, well-crafted, and superbly managed one.

“His virtualizing model has been studied and replicated with widely varying results since those early ventures into the NoASR. Linkage through portals to and from his environment is described as ‘transitionally uneventful’, high praise in virtua, D’nal. High pr…”

The D’nal’s bellows has refilled before Pruitt can finished speaking. “Show me details of the tour Gerzier gave of his mountaintop colony.”

“I… I cannot, D’nal. We did not receive invitation.”

“Your next statement,” the thing says, “will reveal to me that you have been unable to penetrate Gerzier’s shield around his own portal within your own virtual nexus, just as you have been unable to pierce the physical barrier around any of his facilities in this world.”

Kudlac’s head revolves to fix upon Remert. It draws air. “My next report to Lord Shiric will include reference to these failures.”

Remert meets the D’nal’s gaze, manipulating data on his open foldie by braille.

“The lens chamber door has been repaired, D’nal. The lens surface and function appear to be unaffected, awaiting only your activation to restore contact with Lord Shiric.

“Also, D’nal, regarding our inability to breach Gerzier’s unnatural perimeter defense systems in Real, you should know we have achieved a notable breakthrough at one of his facilities. Detailed information on that encounter and outcome is included with all relevant data collected to date on his so-called ‘null field’. The whole is now available to your Inquiry, D’nal.”

Kudlac’s bulbous lidded eyes close. The triangle of glowing red ‘eyes‘ above them seems somehow less intense. The D’nal remains motionless, breathing in slow rhythm, less than a minute passes.

“That is an adequate summary, D’kin,” it says. It’s head swivels back to regard Pruitt.

“My current understanding of this phenomenon, the ‘Nexis of All Subjective Realities’, suggests it is a non-physical frontier accessible to any with the proper credentials and accessories. One may move and interact at will within and through pre-established portals, thresholds to a potentially endless variety of environments; all completely subjective, yet appearing real to the individual in the moment.”

“Very concisely phrased, D’nal, except the experience is real.”

“Perhaps I do not understand the word ‘real’ as you do.”

“As you said, D’nal, the interaction is objectively non-physical, yet the experience is subjectively physical in almost every aspect. It conveys vivid sensation, giving rise to experiential and emotional content both immediate and intimate, and the memories generated by the experience.

“It doesn’t matter whether the setting is commercial, recreational, a virtualization of a real-world locale, or an entirely imaginary scenario. Given the degree of immersion, the human mind interprets it as a ‘real’ experience, and so it is. We have redefined the concept and boundaries of what is Real, D’nal.”

“And the…” Kudlac’s breath pauses as the D’nal searches its memory. “The corporate entity you and D’kin Remert founded, LocUS, has become the central clearing house for these numerous portals as well as the repository of—what is the word?—validations.”

“That is correct, D’nal. We did not develop the foundational technology, nor the specific apparatuses necessary to access the virtual stage. Instead, we accurately read the need to consolidate and manage the myriad applications and venues that would erupt from it.

“From a plethora of competing entries into that arena, thanks in large part to the unparalleled efforts of Mr. Hergenrather,” he gestures toward H’seven, “only we remain. Today we are ‘The Nexus of All Subjective Realities’.

“We have since redesigned neuro-connective implantables for our own use based on the Ampellov model’s conceptual framework. Modified versions of these devices have been employed throughout our organizations.

“Additionally, Advanced Concepts Methodic has derived significant advantage by offering these devices at deep discount to this nation’s military establishment. An unintended, but positive by-product of this has been a sharp increase in voluntary enlistments.”

Kudlac shifts his attention toward Remert once more. A spindly arm reaches to tap the top of his own broad cranium. “This intimate interconnectivity to your subjects in the virtual plane was the motivation that prompted your unsanctioned self-mutilation, D’kin?”

Remert nods once, slowly, signifying agreement with the D’nal’s basic assumption, if not his choice of words.

“My assessment of your augmentation may have been preemptory, D’kin. I will re-evaluate your apparent disregard for the Claven’s directives in light of that understanding.”

Remert’s acknowledgement appears both reverent and sincere.

“And what of the constraints,” the D’nal says, “imposed upon such processes and practices by your own numerous, arbitrary, and intrusive governmental agencies?”

H’seven, silent to this point, says, “We have discovered that most imposed constraints become non-existent when proper leverage is applied.”

The D’nal fixes him with a brief and indecipherable scrutiny. “And you, if my understanding is correct, are the fulcrum.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

“Here in the United States,” Pruitt says, “the Department of Homeland Security and the Domestic Security Alliance Council maintain continuing oversight of our public records, those pertaining to US citizens, that is, while the Combined National Security Authority monitors all foreign ‘guests’.

“We currently maintain seventy-two satellite nodes in other countries, all with similar oversight by their host governments, but all of them, nodes, agencies, and their representatives, all are linked through our core at the Center.”

“You do not have representation from every nation and culture on this world in the virtual nexus.”

“Not yet, D’nal. There are still societies lacking the requisite level of technology, many still recovering from the so-called “End Times”. There are also a number of nations undergoing internal strife of sufficient intensity and frequency to preclude them from participation at this time.

“Within those cultures there are always a privileged few with the means to utilize Community’s personal applications at their discretion, or its distractions at their leisure. Additionally, certain religious cultures and sects have strong objections to interaction in the virtual world, while other faiths have found vee to be fertile ground for their proselytism.” 

“I extrapolate, then,” Kudlac breathes, “since these validations and the connections to personal data they represent flow through your core, and since various government agencies throughout this world have links to these validations of their respective citizenry,” the bellows refills, “that you have, in turn, access to all individual records to which each are related.”

“If such an intricate series of accesses and permissions existed, D’nal, it would be illegal in every realm.

“Even if it were possible to navigate the complex pathways and protections around the systems containing such privileged levels of information, if such practices could be determined by any agency with authority to act, we would all be subject to criminal prosecution and imprisoned for life, if not summarily executed in the streets.”

Once more, the D’nal’s reaction is a disturbing parody of a human one. Even without the familiar architecture of eyebrows or facial musculature, Kudlac’s expression conveys astonishment.

H’seven’s laughter is an explosion of raucous, unconstrained amusement pulsating against the walls of the room. It is impossible to interpret the expression on Kudlac’s inhuman face as the Minister unfolds to its full height, head pivoting toward the resonant sound, bulbous eyes wide.

“Of course we do,” H’seven’s mirth remains apparent in his voice. “Not only are we the hub about which the subjective universe, Community, and its outlying frontiers revolve, but those deep and intricate clandestine interconnections were ultimately the point of all our efforts after all, don’t you suppose?”

“I clarified this for you at the outset, Mister Hergenrather. The prosaic details of this enterprise are irrelevant. Those ‘deep and intricate clandestine interconnections’ have no meaning in the context of Mister Black’s mandate for this world.”

Pruitt’s inner turmoil at the result of his little jest has settled in the pit of his stomach well before Kudlac’s attention returns to him.

The D’nal’s sheer size, its distressing alien presence, its aura of singular authority, and its seeming dismissiveness of Pruitt’s station in these interactions, have tightened a knot of dread in Pruitt’s throat. He does not remember having a sensation like this in over a hundred years.

“That must have been the articulation known as ‘humor’.” Kudlac vents the words. “It was referenced briefly in my preparations as an aberrant behavior having gained common acceptance in this culture.

“Hear this, Mister Pruitt. There will be no ‘humor’ in my presence until you are ordered to provide it. Affirm that you understand me with utmost clarity.”

 Pruitt’s self-consciousness at being reproached so aggressively in front of Hergenrather and Remert is a close match to a fresh and plausible fear reaching into his gut right now. He feels the need to swallow an unexpected and prodigious lump in his throat, but cannot. Nor can he answer the D’nal around it, and answer the D’nal he must.

He manages a nod, hoping devoutly it will suffice. The thing continues to stare at him with its awful face and too many eyes.

“Speak, sloke!” it says.

Pruitt cranes his neck to address the D’nal and chokes out, “I under… stand, D’nal,” his sense of authority having fled.

“I recognize you and the outgoing Deputy Director have adopted a manner of conduct suggesting an intolerable lack of piety. This is likely to prove unhealthy if allowed to continue. Your attitudes are undisciplined, your concentration and communication so distressingly chaotic, it is unlikely you could have accomplished any of this,” he gestures with a spindly arm toward Remert, “without the sustained intervention of one versed in the Method.”

Something about the vent from the D’nal’s filters has teased Pruitt’s notice of it, colorless still, but lingering.

“I warn you,” it continues, “any subsequent diversion from the subject at hand, or attempt to offer commentary that does not pertain directly to the topics I have specified, will result in punishment. Do not make the mistake of imagining yourselves, because of your station, above such consequences.”

The D’nal’s inhuman stare sweeps across the room.

Remert’s bare axe-face meets its gaze for a long moment and some wordless exchange occurs between them. The D’nal’s examination turns to H’seven.

H’seven glances up from a scrutiny of his fingernails and says, “A moment ago, you mentioned my position with the organization as ‘outgoing’, and before that, suggested I could help you understand something about a communications interruption with your boss. You’re not much of a motivator, are you?

“Tell you what. After you’ve finished with this meaningless investment of your time into people and events completely irrelevant to your mandate, we’ll talk, you and me.”

Kudlac stares as if dumbfounded.

“Go ahead,” H’seven says. “I’ll wait.”

The fume from the D’nal’s nostril filters has taken on a conspicuous substance. It coils in the air like oil on water. The D’nal completes a slow turn back toward Pruitt.

“Organize your thoughts, Mister Pruitt,” it says, “and then move your presentation ffforward with… “

The D’nal’s breathing stutters.

“…out fff–urther… “

The D’nal’s attendant is on his feet, rushing toward the Minister with the instrument case.

“… deviation,” Kudlac says, slumping to the floor.

 

       ~       ~

The D’nal’s Briefing Read More »

Mr. Gray

More than twice the height of the Space Needle, the LocUS Tower is the tallest structure in the elongated Seattle/Sound ganglia.

The office of the LocUS Chief Executive, Pruitt’s office, is perched at the Tower’s apex. Its window to the outer world is centered in the arcane rune seen upon approach.

The sigil’s nacreous glow is not apparent from within. Instead, a panoramic view northward and west presents terrain bulwarked against the encroachment of Puget Sound and smothered beneath layers of clustered civilization.

At the center of the curved inner wall, a flush double doorway parts to admit Pruitt and H’seven. Pruitt, scanning the space for the man assuming Remert’s position, observes instead, an unfamiliar addition to his office decor.

An angular pillar has been placed near a corner of the window-glyph, totem-like. It presents a slender, towering silhouette of unfamiliar design.

It turns without haste to regard them.

Bruce Newton Pruitt is a practical individual with many years of exposure to circumstances that would be considered by most, unconventional, possibly even bizarre, and by them he’s been hardened.

He would characterize himself, if pressed to do so, as a man not easily surprised or frightened. There is, however, a particular sensation one encounters when confronted with a reality so dramatically beyond one’s previous experience, so strange and startling in its aspect, size, and proximity that reason gives way to primal response.

Mr. Gray is shockingly inhuman. This is all the more obvious as it moves forward to stand over them, nearly twice Pruitt’s height.

A clenching thrill begins in the muscles of Pruitt’s perineum and races up his spine like an electric shock into his skull. His scalp prickles and the sensation elicits an unconscious shudder he wishes he could rescind.

A quick glance to H’seven for some sign of how to react offers no purchase in this encounter. He appears unfazed, his tone uncharacteristically formal.

“Bruce, this is the D’nal Kudlac. The D’nal will be taking over Directorship of all LocUS and ACMe operations, although D’kin Remert will continue in his current capacity at the desert facility for the time being.”

If intended to lessen the gut-level impact of this initial introduction, it falls short.

Maybe three meters tall, at a guess, Kudlac’s spindle-thin physique is clad in what appears a close-fitting black body suit, and draped in intricate black and tan vestments. Their symbolism is unrecognizable.

Long, oddly-jointed limbs loosely attached to a sinewy, bi-pedal frame give it a hominid appearance. There is, in that at least, some degree of familiarity, but there all similarity ends.

Its flesh is slate gray. It looks hard, perhaps metallic or chitinous.

At first Pruitt imagines its face might be some kind of mask, but that prospect flees as its real nature becomes obvious. Its face has an inverted triangular shape with an enlarged cranium and a pointed chin—a face like a splitting maul—Pruitt’s racing mind makes a connection.

Kudlac’s broad, hairless dome, flattened on top and elongated toward the rear, sports a high, wide forehead. A conspicuous lack of external ears reinforces the thing’s freakish symmetry.

A triangular arrangement of tiny, lidless eyes, alight with a faint reddish glow like embers, reside above what might be a nose, a low, thin spline bisecting that long face. Set wide apart to either side of this ridge, bulbous lidded eyes appear to be fixed upon him with a penetrating urgency.

At the inverted base of this alien visage, a trio of slit nostrils, each fitted with what might be a filtering medium, crowd together just above a small, lipless mouth. Lips part, producing a sound like a brass instrument with an open spit-valve, shaping itself at the last into syllables.

“I am Mr. Black’s designated Minister of the Change,” the thing says. Its voice is as distressing as its appearance.

“I am honored to be in your presence, D’nal Ku…”

“You were not invited to speak. Be silent.”

A hot flush threatens to further perturb Pruitt’s already precarious composure.

Kudlac breathes. “I have already spoken remotely with D’kin Remert. He has provided specific points of current reference, preliminary to your own formal, detailed narrative.”

The bellows works beneath the D’nal’s raiment.

“Our presence is required at the facility you refer to as ‘The Reservation’. There I will confer further with D’kin Remert, after which I will hear your summary.”

Another inhalation, less strenuous.

“Our transportation is arriving momentarily.”

“Your gracious consideration, D’nal?” Pruitt is unwilling to remain dismissed.

Kudlac’s silent deliberation is long and inscrutable.

“Speak, then,” it says.

“At our best speed, D’nal, the facility is almost two hours away. With your permission, I will provide what information you require dur…”

A visceral turbulence seems to center itself in Pruitt’s lower intestine. He winces.

“… during our…”

Darkness flows from every direction, from beneath furnishings and every shadowed corner, drawn into a nebulous blackness only a few meters away from where Pruitt’s shoes now seem bolted to the floor.

A wave of pressure bears outward from a blunted pyramidal shape maybe four meters high and wide, a daunting triangular mass shrouded in pebbly, iridescent flesh. A few sheared-away scraps of furniture, arranged too near the thing’s point of emergence, fall away from its flanks in pieces.

The long curve of the room that seemed capacious moments before appears considerably less so now.

Pruitt’s face is a snapshot of naked astonishment, taking in the arrival’s enormity and the simple, unarguable fact of its existence.

Another sigh from Mr. Gray ends in enunciation. “Our transit will be a matter of moments, Mr. Pruitt. Prepare yourself.”

The weird, but essentially humanoid Kudlac presents one barely supportable mental gymnastic to overcome, but this… thing; he can almost feel the ponderous gravity of its presence.

And something else. Beyond the inexplicable nature of its entrance, there is a truth Pruitt knows with absolute certainty and without the least cognizance of how that knowledge has revealed itself to him.

This thing is alive. A being of unfathomable capability and purpose.

Kudlac’s voice from somewhere above him speaks directly to the Chief Executive’s incredulity. “Mr. Black has allowed us the employment of his emissary’s unique means until our mandate has been realized.”

Kudlac utters something unintelligible and the pyramid alters, a change so improbable that Pruitt fears he has begun, or perhaps continues, to hallucinate.

Where the thing had claimed a broad footprint within the chamber just a moment before, in its stead resides an impossibility. A two-dimensional triangular shape dominates the space before them.

Blackness fills its intangible envelope. Kudlac’s odd, swaying gait carries him past the two humans to stand at the verge of that ambiguous depth and he turns to summon them forward with an altogether familiar gesture.

“It is a doorway,” he pronounces, “bridging the interval between this space and the remote facility. Step forward and into it as I do.”

With another lurching motion, the D’nal disappears into the portal. Pruitt turns his face to H’seven, but that one is unmoved, glaring into the equilateral emptiness.

Pruitt’s feet carry him with their own shuffling volition to the aperture. Nothingness beckons. His rational mind cringing in apprehension, he steps through. The membrane engulfs him and he is gone.

H’seven’s approach to the portal stalls at its threshold.

From out the blackness, Pruitt’s voice calls to him. It has a breathless, bewildered quality. “Jacob, it’s… this is astounding! We are here. Just like… it’s just like a doorway; just as the D’nal said. Perfectly safe. Come ahead.”

H’seven steps back away from the gateway. “I think not. I’ll see you there in two hours.”

“Are you serious? Why don’t you…”

A huffing sound emanates from the opaque distance. A curt string of unrecognizable syllables ensues and the portal dissolves into empty air.

H’seven aims a vicious scowl at the space vacated by Mr. Black’s monstrous emissary. His glower sweeps the room seeking a focal point for his enmity, finding none.

 

He opens a comm channel. “Mrs. Stafford!” Almost a shout.

The response is prompt. “I’m here, sir.”

“A jump-craft should already be prepped for travel in the east bay. Verify its readiness and obtain clearance for departure with best speed to the Reservation. I will meet you there.”

Her crisp acknowledgement is curtailed as he refreshes the call-out mode and barks, “Desk!”

“Desk. Yes, Mr. Hergenrather.” A matter-of-fact female voice. “How may I…?”

“Shut up and send a maintenance person to the loft. The new Director had a god-awful bout of explosive diarrhea in the washroom and there’s drizzling shit floor to ceiling.”

The operator’s professional equanimity requires but a moment to reconcile itself to the Deputy Director’s colorful description. “Yes, sir. I’ll send a crew up right away.”

“Just one will do.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“What’re you, fucking deaf, Betty? I said just one. Send the big, leggy brunette with the lazy eye. What’s her name? Margret. I like her. Send Margret up.”

There is a brief hesitation from the Desk.

“You got a problem, Betty?”

“It’s Jane, Mr. Hergenrather. No, sir. I’m alerting her now.”

“Well, chop chop, Betty! Tempus fugits like a motherfucker! Can’t you feel it?”

“Yes, sir. I… I believe I can.”

 

 

     ~    

Mr. Gray Read More »

Pruitt’s Enlightenment

The limousine whispers in low and slow over the terrace garden treetops and hovers in defiance of its streamlined mass. Landing pins extrude and, with a lazy pirouette, it settles onto the pad without recoil.

Inside the penthouse suite, Pruitt observes the driver stepping out of the limo to open the rear passenger door. The new uniform looks good on her. Nice butt, too, for an older girl.

An imposing figure in a matte black suit, exits into the crisp morning air and crosses the pad to the entry lock. Pruitt’s sentries make no move to verify identification as he strides past. Visual recognition of the predator at the top of their food chain will suffice this morning.

“He’s early,” Pruitt sighs.

The bleary-eyed woman seated across the table from him says nothing, munching toast with bovine aspect.

A cursory review of the overnights on his fold-out has provided little of value for the meeting to come and Pruitt manipulates a few last pertinent items of data into his presentation pane.

With stiff, uncooperative fingers he doubles the foldie over twice, then twice again until it fits into the small watch-pocket of his vest.

Close by is a mug of coffee prepared for him with the ‘good water’. He washes down an unfamiliar anxiety with it, desiring the brew’s deeper, therapeutic benefit and caffeine’s jolt is the least of it.

A carved teak cane in one twisted hand, knees and hips aching, Pruitt levers himself upright with a grimace.

Two unsteady steps, a cursory peck on the dumpy woman’s forehead, he begins the long walk through his home for possibly the last time. His discomfort diminishes as he walks and by the time he reaches the living room, his gait is almost comfortable.

The new arrival is waiting for him there.

Motionless against the backdrop of Puget Sound and Seattle’s skyline in the distance, all bathed in the argent blaze of a cloudless morning, the man presents a commanding tower of calm self-confidence. Beneath it, Pruitt knows, resides a vortex of volatility. His shaven head and razor-edged Van Dyke lend him a Mephistophelian appearance driven into focus by penetrating ice-blue eyes.

“Jacob,” Pruitt says. “Nice of you to come fetch me yourself. Have you had breakfast?”

“Mr. Gray will be waiting for us at the Center. He wants to hear your summary first-hand. Are you ready?”

Pruitt’s personal assistant enters as if on cue with a small travel bag in hand. He extends it to his employer. Instead, the man named Jacob takes it from him.

“We’re burning daylight, Bruce.”

“Thank you, Markus,” Pruitt says. “I put something extra on your chip. Tell Connie I gave you the rest of the day off. Go do something nice for yourself.”

“Thank you, sir. I hope you have a pleasant trip.”

“See you,” Pruitt lies.

 

Out on the pad, Charli Stafford stands her post beside the limo at an easy parade rest with nothing in particular on her mind.

The morning air is uncommonly clear, the sun a crystalline radiance, a day atypical for the South Sound in recent memory. The air is sweet with a salty aftertaste. Tiny birds busy themselves in the trees at the edge of the roof garden, their lyrical chatter speaks of a joyous disregard for the machinations of mankind.

She is as happy as she can remember being in months and not the least part of it is this new job. She edged out scores of applicants for the position of Mr. Hergenrather’s personal chauffer. Her life is finally turning a long-awaited corner. The future looks bright. She adjusts her sunglasses. Bright indeed.

A gentle vibration behind her left ear is accompanied by a masculine voice with a pleasing timbre.

“It’s Kiry,” the voice informs.

The audio status option with the implant was more old-school than direct optic stimulation, but she is a pilot, after all, and the idea of tampering with her eyesight was unappealing, regardless the fact such modifications have become routine.

She dodges a glance toward the penthouse. The bank of windows facing the courtyard is, of course, opaque from this side. The airlock and guards are almost twenty meters away and she sees no movement there.

“Accept,” she says, acknowledging her caller in the same quiet tone, “Mommy’s working now, honey.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Mom. I just wanted to let you know we got approval for a new launch window. I’m leaving for the ship from Prime in a couple hours.”

“Up and down?”

“No. Up and out. Mars One.”

“Get out of town!”

“And then some. When the foundation learned we could make the run out in just a little over three weeks, instead of the standard six months, they asked Eric if he would step up and take on an emergency re-supply.”

“It sounds like they’re having problems there.”

“Well… it’s Mars, Mom.”

“Have you seen the latest feeds, Ki? This thing they’re calling ‘The Stir’?”

“Yeah. I’m probably safer on the ship than anywhere else. Don’t worry. I’ll keep my shit together.”

“You better. And watch your mouth. Nice boys don’t like pilots with rough language.”

“There are no nice boys above the atmosphere.”

The last syllable is transmuted into a hash of static that persists for several seconds before it recedes, leaving behind a sparking trace behind every word.

“That was pretty tall grass.” Charli says.

Her daughter’s voice crackles, “Solar activity’s still building and nobody’s got a guess when it’s likely to peak, or how. NASA and the brains are talking about another Carrington Event.”

“Well, that ought to bring things to a screeching halt just about everywhere at every level.”

“I know. Sounds apocalyptic, doesn’t it?”

“Long as I’m not airborne at the time. No use worrying about it. Tressa staying home with the baby?”

“She and Lily are riding with me out to the ship so Lily can wave g’bye.”

“I miss the little punkinhead. Call me when you get back. If civilization’s still intact, I’ll come down for a couple days. OK?”

“We’d like that.”

The airlock’s outer door opens into the courtyard.

“I’ve got to go, honey. Call before you jump. I love you.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

Charli settles back into parade rest.

Her boss, with customary briskness, crosses the pad in purposeful strides. Mr. Pruitt trails, but not by much.

She opens the door for them, reaching to take the overnight bag into custody from her employer. He hands it off, stepping up and in without a word. She offers a hand to Mr. Pruitt who accepts the support as he clambers into the craft.

“Thank you, young lady.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

She seals the door behind him, stows the bag, then takes her place in what she likes to call ‘the cockpit’, an anachronistic reference with a rich heritage.

 

It takes no particular skill to get the limo off the ground. The damn thing wants to leap into the air. The artistry is in doing so without leaving everyone’s breakfast behind.

She eases the pressors on-line and floats up like a feather in an updraft, making a lazy half-turn as the pins retract. Then, with sufficient altitude for insertion into the eastbound pattern beam, she accelerates out over the Sound toward the busiest city on the West Coast.

A passenger in the rear cabin with a cup of coffee in hand wouldn’t have spilled a drop.

To be fair, ‘city’ probably isn’t the right word for what Seattle has become. The lines of demarcation between incorporated areas are only visible on maps. In reality, everything from Bellingham to Olympia looks like a circuit board from the air.

On this side of the Sound, the entire east side of the Kitsap Peninsula looks like an extension of the same, albeit broken by the Hood Canal and various inlets, as well as the many verdant greenways, protected against an ever-encroaching urbanization.

The exceptions to the trend, of course, are sleepy Vashon to the south and, northward in the mid-distance, the dispiriting remains of shattered Bainbridge Island.

The rippled surface of the Sound, scintillating in unaccustomed brilliance of morning light, hurls itself beneath the craft. Charli watches the kaleidoscope breaking around her, reforming behind and, despite this minor perturbation, the patient ebb and flow of the tide continues as ever, unaffected.

None would argue that the greatest challenge to the Greater Sound metro-ganglia has been the steady and inexorable advance of the sea. Its mean level has risen a meter and a half over the last ten years and, despite claims of deliberate misinformation and paranoia from both well-meaning and political factions, that encroachment has accelerated. Many adjustments had to be implemented just to maintain the avenues of transportation and commerce, not to mention the dramatic impact it’s had on shoreline real estate.

Such concerns, however, lay beyond the scope of her job description. Charli adjusts a visor against the onrushing dazzle of sun and its myriad reflections in the water.

 

The passenger cabin is a cocoon of plush hush. Hergenrather is manipulating virtual data, his eyes unfocused, hands making mystic passes in the air.

Perhaps unwilling to brood in silence over the consequences of choices made without the luxury of foresight, Pruitt says. “How long have we known each other, Jacob?”

Peering into a private depth, the other’s hands continue to weave intangible details into configurations only he can see.

“Why are you asking me a question you know the answer to as well as I do?”

“Partly because I want to know what you remember, I guess. It seems an age since we’ve talked to each other beyond the immediate necessities of business. We used to be friends. Brothers. Remember?”

Hergenrather’s hands drop as he turns a silent, ice-blue assessment on the man beside him.

“You’re laboring under a dangerous misconception, Bruce.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Are you sure you want that? The truth isn’t going to set you free.”

“Look at me. Look at what I’ve become. Do you know what’s going to happen to me in the next twenty-four hours? No? Does anybody? What do you think you have to tell me that matters in the press of that? My body’s breaking down, not my faculties. It’s a simple request. I think you owe me some consideration.”

“I don’t owe you shit.”

Pruitt’s expression is that of one who has just discovered a new tumor on a favorite organ.

Hergenrather raises a hand, tapping the air twice with an index finger to suspend his application. A compact swiping gesture ends with a dip into an inside pocket of his coat. He extracts two slender cigars in smoke-gray cylinders. The first tube opens with a twist, clipping the cigar end where cap meets wrapper.

He offers the smoke to Pruitt, who declines. Shrugging, Hergenrather replaces the unopened second and holds the first to his lips.

A jet of orange flame with a blue core bursts from the tip of the small finger of his left hand. It moderates to a soft, slow flicker. He holds it just close enough to ignite the tobacco, rolling the cigar in his fingers to achieve an even burn, and puffs it to a coal.

He fixes Pruitt with a gaze through blue smoke and lifts his pinkie with its quivering tongue of fire between them. It goes out. Insubstantial waves of heat waver from the digit’s tip.

Hergenrather vents breath through pursed lips across the aperture, gestures to the node behind his right ear, and points at Pruitt.

Pruitt understands. The new chauffer may be listening to pattern traffic status or music in her earbuds, it doesn’t matter what, but some conversations are best conducted beyond the potential electronic earshot of even the most trustworthy of associates, let alone menial staff.

The transit between the physical and the frontier of the mind is achieved in a blink.

 

Pruitt is disoriented. So very long has it been since he’s stood in the main street of his hometown. Its only street.

And there is the Well, spoken of always with a particular emphasis, as though the word was a proper noun.

The street widens to accommodate the Well and then some, forming a small plaza. Beyond, its sweeping arc of quartz-rich gravel sparkles in shafts of sunlight, following the land drop’s curve.

Here, a row of weathered clapboard apartments stands between the street and the plunging crescent of the mesa rim. One of them in particular with a wooden wind-clacker hanging on the porch achieves distinctive focus.

Close by, a boy is talking to him in a youthful voice Pruitt remembers well despite the intervening years.

“Do you remember the old fellow who lived here?” the lad asks.

“Old Pete.” Pruitt’s voice is hushed, almost lost in the breath of the high desert, as if his words might wake sleeping ghosts. “He went kind of crazy after his boy and wife were killed. That was just before I was born, of course, but I remember him. I remember being afraid of him when I was little.”

“He didn’t go crazy. He was transformed.”

“I’m not sure what that means.”

“I know. Your friend, Jacob, was six years old,” the boy says, “when Old Pete met Malcolm and Constance Hergenrather and their children on their way to Santa Fe. He gave them the ‘good water’ and brought them all here. Not for supper, as it turned out, but to live here instead.”

He points to the clapboard-sided structure’s sturdy simplicity. “He cleaned this place out and gave it to the man you knew as Jacob’s father, and then… Old Pete died. You must have been four or five when that happened and sometime after that, Jacob befriended you. Sound about right?”

  

Everything here is as Pruitt remembers it, down to a pattern in the wood grain of the door on this particular structure, the noticeable slant of the streetside porch railing, seven cords hanging from the top piece of the wind clacker, all but two with a small wooden paddle at the end, each of them painted a different color.

The depth of this experience is astonishing and Pruitt is reminded of his first rule in the virtual realm: Do not get sucked into an environment just because you find yourself there. There are always choices. Look for them.

In almost every other situation, exit is an option too.

 

“Yeah. Sounds right,” he says.

The boy’s form and features have shifted into those of the contemporary alpha male. Hergenrather says, “See, here’s the part you’re not going to like so much. That wasn’t me.”

“What do you mean it wasn’t you?”

“Jacob was transformed too.”

“I know about your… adaptations. What do they have to do with…”

A gust of blue smoke breaks on the cabin’s ceiling and lingers.

“Do you? I doubt you know much of anything that you weren’t told specifically. Your story, on the other hand, Bruce, is a simpler one than mine.

“The ‘good water’ has sustained you since childhood, altering you, allowing you to develop and accomplish well beyond the scope of an average lifetime. Thing is, you are still who you were then, Bruce. I mean, your life experiences, formal education, and an unfortunate, accelerating decrepitude notwithstanding, of course.

“But the combination of Remert’s knowledge and resources and my own nature have given me a different form of longevity. I am the seventh iteration of Jacob Hergenrather’s distinctive genetic code. I am him, and I am not him.

“Incidentally, H’seven is the name I actually prefer.”

“Hhuseven?”

“Try not to slur it next time.” Hergenrather sips his panetela. “While much of the original Jacob’s biology has transferred from one living vessel to the next, each one a distinctive upgrade, there is also much that has not. That pesky ‘bond of friendship’, for instance.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“And yet, here we are at the hub of arguably one of, if not THE most powerful of corporate entities in the world, a platform that serves my interests perfectly. How about you?”

“As you say, here we are. A great deal of your position in this organization rests upon my own efforts and, apparently, upon a relationship that I have misinterpreted for… quite some time.”

 

The familiar structures around the crescent rim of the mesa are slowly leveled all about them in a jerky, stop-motion sequence. The several community buildings comprising the remote village’s core give way to bare ground. The main street is erased as if it had never been and even the stone turret of the Well is reduced to an unobtrusive briar-covered mound.

Knotted clusters of juniper gone rampant stipple a rugged, undulating landscape.

Between low rock outcroppings, gritty soil fans out, strewn with weathered stone fragments and carpeted in patches of lichens and brown moss.

Only the curious lone edifice known to him always and ever as “Remert’s shack” remains, that and the unconventional wind turbine towering over its shoulder like half of a giant’s eggbeater upright.

“No need to go all maudlin over it, Bruce,” Hergenrather says. “I have always been in the background to run interference for you, to exert pressure when and where needed, to open the pathways you would later turn into boulevards. I still am. I don’t believe we could have done it as well without you and, quite honestly, you could never have done it without me.”

Where a small, lone human outpost on a remote corner of a high desert mesa once stood, near-desolation has returned and spans the tableland.

Wild, wide-open spaces give rise to fenced lands with sparse grasses. Obstreperous cattle graze this meager wind-swept fodder.

Remert’s shack is gone too and, in its place stands a turn of the twentieth century two-story farmhouse, one of several dwellings sprung up at odd intervals where the land runs in rolling ripples and mounds toward distant mountains west of the land drop. The wind turbine remains, however, its vertical vanes revolving in silent, purposeful rhythm.

Pruitt watches the herky-jerky passage of this subjective time. It feels like his memory of it.

The wind gusting up the mesa’s stony face from the eastern desert plain buffets him, flagging his hair and clothing.

“You said ‘we’ a minute ago. Something about, ‘we couldn’t have done it… without you’.”

He has to shout above the blustering wall of air whipping through the low evergreen shrubbery and rushing in his ears. It has a sharp, clean smell and scrubs at his face hard enough to make virtual tears. “You and Remert, I must assume. To what end?”

The surging breath of the Miles rocks Pruitt where he stands, but breaks around the figure beside him without apparent effect. Hergenrather draws his cigar tip to an amber glow and stares into an imperceptible distance, his expression as remote as the horizon.

“The end,” he says, releasing words and smoke into the wind that cannot touch him and the wind whips them to nothing.

“Someone else asked me that question once. From my vantage point today, I think my answer is necessarily a different one. The end, when it comes, will be glorious. Stupendous. Cosmic. Of course, that’s still merely a twinkle in the eye at this juncture, you understand.”

“No,” Pruitt assures him. “I really don’t. It sounds ominous.”

“Whatever. As to Remert’s agenda, it’s not mine, although he’s allowed me the benefit of his resources for the time being and, in return, I have agreed to share with him mine. As it turns out, we have certain mutually concurrent items on our to-do lists.”

“Fine. So what happens now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Me, Jacob. What happens to me?”

The wind-swept mesa dissolves into the limousine’s cabin.

“Don’t burst a melodramatic artery, Bruce. First, you’re going to meet Mr. Gray and bring him up to speed on current events. Remert says to remind you to address him only by the honorific, ‘D’nal’.

“Don’t stare, don’t dissemble, don’t contradict him, and never apologize. Afterward, you and I are going to the Reservation where Dr. Ahn will prep you for the transfer. Remert will oversee the actual procedure.”

“Procedure. You make it sound routine.”

“I’ve done it at least six times. I admit, I have a particular innate advantage that pretty much ensures my survival and you, unfortunately, don’t.

“However, Remert and Dr. Ahn trust the data gleaned from my own transfers will give yours a better than eighty-seven percent chance of success. That seems encouraging, but if you have an imaginary friend you pray to, this would be the time to invite so-called divine intervention, I suppose.”

“There are so many deities to choose from, Jacob, and I’m out of practice. Who’s your go-to god these days?”

The mid-Sound urbanscape slips away from him as the limo begins a gentle curve southward, dropping out of one pattern beam and into another.

Hergenrather stares out at the Space Needle, that iconic landmark of Seattle’s skyline, braced within a sheath of scaffolding as long-forestalled renovations proceed apace. It is behind them in a moment.

To the east, mountains hunker beneath a mass of low clouds clinging to their forested shoulders. Unguarded sunlight paints the heaped and billowed mists in vivid, transient brilliance. He tugs down the window shade.

“Flying Spaghetti Monster,” he says. “Disregarding the insincere nature of your question, may It reach out to grace you with the touch of Its noodley appendage. You could do worse. Ra-men.”

 “If memory serves, Jacob, you have pretty much always been a dick. It’s reassuring at least that still hasn’t changed.”

H’seven examines the tenacious cylinder of hot ash still adhering to the business end of his cigar and flicks it onto the carpet, observes it smoldering there for a time, then grinds it out with the toe of his shoe.

“What do you mean, ‘pretty much’?”

   

Ahead at a bare five kilometers, the pitch-black monolith of the LocUS Tower looms. Soaring from the center of a high-walled compound, the convex curvature of the central spire dominates the skyline, so dark it often looks like a hole in the air.

From this approach, Charli can just make out the cryptic sigil gracing the tower’s upper reach. It emits a disquieting phosphorescence, a bilious glow the precise color of nausea.

Embraced within the arc of the structure’s inward curving surface, she can see the trace, a single thread of energy piercing layers of cloud up into the heavens. Or down, she knows not which.

What is certain is that nothing may interrupt that indefinable ray and continue to exist. Thus, in the interest of public safety and facility security, all pattern traffic is directed away from the tower and its surrounds, creating a buffer of unoccupied air over a kilometer in radius.

At the proper interval, Charli burst-transmits her authorization string and disconnects from the public beam, approaching the compound within a strict corridor. She has no doubt some lethal form of armament maintains crosshairs on hers and all approaching vehicles up to and probably within the various docking parkades.

Ahead, the structure’s great height makes the edge of its curving profile seem narrow, yet the bay that opens almost sixty meters up that sheer black sliver to admit the limo is large enough to accommodate five more abreast just like it.  Within, however, is adequate space to park and maintain more than a dozen of them, although only four other similar vehicles are berthed.

She sets the craft down on a mirror-smooth surface without a bump, hands ranging across the control surfaces, powering down. The gull-wing gasps open and Charli swings out onto the deck.

A service team in immaculate black and tan coveralls is converging on the arrival, but her passengers have already disembarked without her assistance.

Mr. Hergenrather is helping Mr. Pruitt into an open two-seater. Moments later they are skimming away into the tower’s innards and Charli is left to either give the uniformed workers unnecessary direction, or seek the generous crew accommodations.

“The Director’s luggage is in the back,” she advises, hooking a thumb.

A stiff-looking woman with a clipboard and vaguely hostile expression, points to one of her technicians, then at the limo’s trunk.

It’s a long walk to the service door at the rear of the dock.

  

     ~      

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