by Melody Clark
Edward spun around to look fully in Thomas’ direction. The movement had been in anger, but he took a moment to center himself before saying calmly, “I didn’t leave anything, sir. I was left.”
“The real story is very different from the one you’ve been told,” Thomas replied.
“Maybe we should save that discussion for another time? I just wanted to see the house. Andrew gave me the opportunity to introduce myself. I’m happy to meet all of you.”
The older man closed the distance between them. He looked at him steadily, unblinking. Edward could only stare at him from the side, almost afraid to meet his penetrating gaze. Edward crossed his arm to steady his tremor at the fear this man induced.
“Good God, you don’t really mean that,” Thomas snapped back. “To hell with your polite and civilized responses, for god’s sakes. Talk to me. You look dreadful. Exhausted. How are you? Where have you been?”
Edward felt forced to look away. “Mr. Croftdon, I’ve met you twice in thirty years. I don’t mean to be rude, but I barely know you. And yes, I am trying to be polite and cordial.” Edward looked toward Ken. “I think it’s time to go.”
“Is that how everything is done where you’re from? Shrug it all off? Avoid discord? As you are parting, why don’t you tell me to have a nice day, too?”
Andrew walked forward to stand between the two men. “Dad, please.”
“It’s all right, Andrew,” Edward said to his friend. “We can get a fresh start in the morning. I’m looking forward to our collaboration on the joint project, which will help Croftdon Computers again reach its full potential.” He glanced one last time back at Thomas. “Which, I know, is the one and only reason I was invited here, after thirty years. Oh, and have a nice day. I’ll see myself out.”
Ken had to match Edward’s stride to catch up with him as the younger man moved steadily down the pathway they had just walked up. Edward was headed nowhere but their car.
Ken reached for the door handle and only then saw the tear that streaked down the other man’s face as he whisked it away. It was quickly followed by another.
“Jesus, man, are you okay?”
“Get me the fucking hell away from here,” Edward choked out, climbing with eagerness into the car.
Ken moved around to the driver’s side and climbed in, casting a look back at the house to see Thomas watching their retreat.
Arvo leaned forward from the back, placing a hand on Edward’s shoulder. “Don’t let them get to you, man.”
Edward shook his head. “Too late.”
Chapter Two
It was the next morning, after showering and fumbling through dressing and making a jet-lag stab at morning rituals, that he finally made it over to Ken’s room to check for his second bag. He squinted around the room, turning around to do so. Nothing matched what he sought.
“Where is my medication case?” Edward asked. “Is it in here? It’s not in my room.”
Ken nodded to the chair where Arvo was shouting into his cell phone. “That’s what Mr. Personality is resolving. British Skies lost a couple of pieces of luggage. I’m afraid that was one of them.”
“Wonderful,” Edward said, shaking his head. “So not only do I have to return to my personal purgatory today, I’m without my allergy meds. I haven’t taken them since we left home whenever that was. I’ll be sneezing while I’m biting my tongue the whole time, which sounds downright dangerous. Maybe I’ll be lucky and Thomas will be elsewhere today.”
Ken looked with some trepidation over at his friend. “You know, Eddie, not to take his side or anything –”
“But to take his side,” Eddie replied.
“There are no sides in this,” Ken said. “I like Wendell, but he did shelter you from the world much more than he should have. The Croftdons know a lot more about you than you do about them.”
“I seriously doubt that. They may think they know some things about me,” Edward said.
Ken nodded. “Not everything they know is correct, that’s true. But I think they do know more about you than you do about them.”
“Maybe.” Edward darted a glowering glance at Arvo. “I’ll need an inhaler. Actually, two of them. Can you handle that for me?”
“Sure, there’s a chemist we passed up the road.” Arvo looked from one man to the other. “You’re going to stay here until I get back, right?”
Edward settled down on the first available arm of an easy chair. He tried to appear at ease. “I haven’t even had breakfast yet, where would I go?”
“Okay, as long as you wait for me,” Arvo said, before once again checking from one man to the other, then grabbing the car keys and leaving with a swift energy known only to Arvo.
After Arvo’s hired car clambered up the road, Ken grinned toward Edward and stood up to walk over to him. He flicked a corn flake off his shirt. “You’re a really bad liar, Eddie.”
“I know,” he said, reaching for his laptop.
“You’re calling a taxi?”
“One is already waiting for me around the corner.”
This time, it took the better part of twenty minutes for Edward to summon the courage to walk up to the Croftdon home. He was happy at the weight of the laptop under his arm, like some anchor to himself, to his own life, his own world. He felt even happier to see that some of the cars that had been gathered near the entrance had been stripped away. Fewer cars might make for fewer Croftdons.
Andrew opened the door. “Good morning, right on time. Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes, thanks. I’d like to get to work if I can.”
“I have us set-up in the library. I’ve seen to it we have the run of the place.”
Edward tried not to exhale his relief too loudly.
The library itself was like every English home library he had ever seen on TV, and akin to most of the ones back in Boston, too. From the floor to the ceiling rose a wall of books with a fine dust web of neglect from row to row.
“Forgive the dustiness,” Andrew said. “We don’t use the library very often, what with laptops and handhelds and ebook readers and whatnot.”
“I’m accustomed to dust. I live in Boston,” Edward said, setting up his laptop on the open table. “Was there something you wanted to accomplish first up?”
“No, it’s entirely your move from here, Eddie,” Andrew said. “I’m just here to watch the master.”
Edward coughed out a laugh. “If there was a master to watch, you could do that. I just work very hard. That’s the only secret. I’ve uploaded the code to a cloud encryption. I asked Bakunin’s programmer pool to cobble together the new additions.” As Edward loaded the page to access the code, he tossed a grin up at Andrew. “Shall we load the sequence of nightmares that lay ahead of us?”
“I suppose we must. I also have that confusing app code that we found embedded in our common files. I would like you to take a look at it and see if you can fathom what it’s for. I’ve sent it over to you.”
“I see,” Edward said, clicking on the link to open the document in text. He leaned forward, squinting at the screen.
“The title at the top is Op TinTin. It looks like some kind of laborator software. Where did this come from?”
Eddie squinted harder at it, like that might make it less confusing. “This was documented from my files?”
“Supposedly. We wanted to be totally upfront about it. No one is sure what it’s for. I thought certain you would know.”
Edward’s confused stare continued. “I’ve never seen it before in my life. It would have no useful application to Brice. SAGE is the only already existing planchet system with a central console for the Brice system. This looks like one-way grasping wetware or something.”
“That was my feeling, too.”
“It even looks, I don’t know, black world or something.”
“I agree.”
Edward shoo
k his head forcefully. “I don’t understand. This code would create a distinct and separate interface to an external nervous system. It would be redundant to the existing console. Why do this?”
“Some kind of secondary utilization?” Andrew asked.
“I’m not sure. I’d need to look at all of it.”
“It has a pretty tough nut encryption on it, too, on large wings of the code. Can you crack it?”
“I can try. It’s going to take me some time. You have any energy drinks?”
“Yes, I was forewarned about your twin energy drink and coffee addictions. I’m amazed you can guide a mouse without a tremor.”
“It’s not always easy.”
From out of the rest of the house, Arvo Nurmi’s voice repelled off of walls. “– unacceptable!” Arvo’s voice powered across the many rooms. “This utterly goes against our entire contractual agreement–”
“As I’ve already told you, I was not here, Mr. Nurmi,” Thomas’ voice ratcheted up a notch to reply.
Just the sound of Thomas’ voice made Edward nervous, but Arvo’s outrage overwhelmed the first reaction.
“Sounds like I’d better rescue Thomas,” Edward said, as he bolted out of the chair and rushed through the hallway to the outer great room.
“You must immediately –” Arvo continued to bark.
“I’m here, Arvo,” Edward called out. “You may stop bellowing now.”
Arvo turned on him like the guard dog schnauzer he resembled, but lowered his voice so it would travel only one way. “Why did you sneak out this morning while I was gone?”
“Obviously because I didn’t want you with me.”
“Your father gave me strict orders –”
“All I was doing was the work I came here to do. That my father asked me to do. Which is the reason I am here, remember?”
Arvo walked up on him, staring directly into his eyes. He lowered his voice to utter, “Have you forgotten where you are?”
“Do you really think you need to remind me, of all people, of where I am?” Edward snapped.
“Apparently so.” Arvo handed him the small sack clutched in his hand. “Here are your damned inhalers.”
“Thank you. Any word on my medications?”
“Nothing yet. Are you certain you brought them? They can find no sign of them anywhere in our baggage handling data.”
“Yes, I’m certain I brought them,” Edward said, his words slowed down into a calmer pace with obvious effort. “Find them. They’re essential. I must have them to work.”
“I’ll do my best,” Arvo said, holding up his hands. “That’s all I can do.”
“Do what you have to do, damn it,” Edward snapped, ripping open the bag in his hand and deboxing an inhaler. He uncapped the inhaler and breathed in from it. After a moment, it calmed his expression. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. Just get it done or I can’t do what I have to do.”
“Yeah, I get that, believe me.” He yanked the cell phone from his pocket again. “I’ll do what I have to do to solve the problem.”
With that, Arvo reversed course and walked off into the distance to make his call. Ken had been seated beside him, waiting, with his arms folded.
“Are you sure you brought the medicine case I brought out?” Edward asked, gazing steadily at his assistant.
“I brought everything I found there,” Ken said. “If need be, I’ll drive into town myself and purchase your allergy medications. Your allergy medications.”
“I need my medicine case,” Edward said firmly. “And I need it soon.”
“Arvo’s working on that,” Ken replied. “I’ll deal with your allergy medications, since that’s apparently what’s so important to you.”
“You know, Tad is a doctor,” James, the youngest of Thomas’ sons said, having listened to pieces of the conversation from afar, “he could recommend anything you need, Eddie.”
“Thank you, James, I appreciate the offer,” Edward said politely, “but we’ll handle it. Ken?”
“I’m on it,” Ken replied, meeting Edward’s stare until he stood up to walk away for his own phone call.
From his left, Edward heard the sound of Andrew coming into the hallway entrance and down into the office. He had apparently just come from the kitchen, as he toted energy drinks and a coffee carafe in his arms. Edward stole the moment to again uncap his inhaler and draw another hit off it. He shut his eyes to wallow in the aftereffects. When he opened his eyes again, Thomas, unseen until now, was standing near him, starting straight at him.
“Hello, son,” Thomas said simply.
Edward stepped back at the greeting. “Hi,” he said quickly, turning back to the hallway so he could escape to the library where Andrew waited with energy drinks and the laptop open to a puzzling file.
“Now where were we with the great mystery?” Edward asked, slipping into the chair again. “Ah, yes, trying to find out what the hell this thing is.”
Thomas had followed and now stood, leaning against the door frame. He focused on Edward. “How many hours does Wendell make you work?”
Edward paused to center himself. He looked over at Thomas. “Only the hours that are needed to finish the project.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes, of course. I work hard, but we all do,” Edward said firmly, finally looking away. “Don’t you work hard for Croftdon?”
“We have this odd notion about not killing people for profit,” Thomas said. “Andrew, Wilse, James and I share the work. We also have employees. I work normal days most of the time, largely from home.”
“It’s good there are four of you then,” Edward replied. “There is only me. My father isn’t a programmer.”
Thomas’ gaze probed on, undeterred. “You have a pool programming subcontractor.”
Edward flipped him a cautious glance in response. “Yes.”
“Then why is it you seem to perform most of the coding? Everything I see has your name attached.”
He looked away to his work again. “Security is important to my father. He doesn’t trust many people. So I do the bulk of the important work.”
“You do the bulk of the work, period, and he nets the benefits.”
Edward slowly gnashed his teeth to reply, “I’m paid well. I have a considerable personal level of wealth.”
“Not considerable enough from what I’m told.”
“You are misinformed,” Edward said firmly.
“Dad, please?” Andrew asked, passing Edward his cold can of energy drink.
“That’s another thing,” Thomas said, “one serving contains the same caffeine as found in five cups of coffee. And that’s aside from the rest of the stimulants in them. How many of these do you drink in a day?”
“I’m an adult,” Edward said, the anger soaking fully through his voice now, “and that is none of your business.”
“Like hell it’s not,” Thomas said. “As long as you’re here, you will listen to my opinions on this and any other topic I feel entitled to hold forth on. You’re standing in my house, young man.”
“That can be easily remedied,” Edward said, shutting his laptop.
“Eddie, Dad, stop it, both of you,” Andrew said. “We’re trying to work. And the idea was to make Eddie feel welcome in our house, remember?”
“Very well,” Thomas said, looking from Andrew to Edward. He pointed straight at the second man. “But this is not over.”
Thomas turned around and stormed down the hallway, his footsteps punctuating the words he had spoken. Edward didn’t let himself hope for deliverance until he heard the harsh echo of a slammed door up the hallway.
“You look worse than you did before,” Andrew said. “What’s wrong?”
Edward crossed his arms against an inner cold. He pushed up the laptop lid and tapped until the screen resumed. “He terrifies me. I’m not accustomed to that level of confrontation. Those
topics are largely avoided with my father. We don’t discuss this kind of thing. When Thomas yells at me, it’s worse.”
Andrew laughed a little. “He’s just worried about you, Eddie.”
“I would have thought he’d have recovered from that a long time ago.”
“Of course not. Anyway, why would Dad terrify you?”
“I don’t know,” Edward said, speaking mainly to himself, but saying it aloud, “maybe for the same reason the house gives me chills.”
“The house gave you chills?” Andrew asked, more than a little surprised now.
Edward realized he had spoken that aloud, too. He brushed it off and decided to top it off with a joke. “Probably just anticipating this godawful code. Shall we get back to business and plumb its frightful depths?”
