by Melody Clark
He followed several delusive leads that led into blind corners and empty promises. That took an hour each time. He tried to decipher its purpose from its design – its design from various interpretation of the weapon’s purpose – had even combined them for a hybrid approach to a conceptual overview. In programming, form followed function at the same time as function followed form. Sometimes, you couldn’t make head or tails out of either. This was one of those times.
He stared, unmoved, at the text on the screen. Over the hours, the question tweaked his concern in an eerie, ill-defined blueprint. He couldn’t quite grasp what it was, like the end of a splinter that always evaded the tweezers.
“How could they weaponize Brice through SAGE?” Edward asked himself again.
Andrew leaned over from his own laptop to consider what Edward was studying. “You always say, puzzle through the process. Let’s go back to the build question. What is SAGE trying to do?” Andrew asked.
“Digital telepathy.”
Andrew nodded. “Influencing people through the interface.”
“So they’re trying to, what? Spy on people through other people’s perceptions? The whole heart of the system is non-violent. SAGE is the protective measure. How can they –” Edward stopped, covering his face with his hands. He fought to collect his thoughts. “How can it –”
Andrew patted Edward’s shoulder. “Why don’t we take a break, Eddie? We’ve been after this for hours.”
“Andrew, if you need one, take one.”
“You need one, too. Not wanting to sound like Toad, but you’re probably not thinking with any clarity. C’mon and partake of an ancient weekend tradition of the Croftdon Brothers. It’s your first time, and it would mean a lot. We all go down to the Olde Hole Pub and get trashed. We all try to get Toad so drunk, he picks up the tab.”
Edward sunk back in his chair, laughing wearily at the thought. “It’s an ancient tradition, is it?”
“Absolutely. Ancient by about 30 years. Used to be root beer, now it’s the real deal. Wait until you see where the pub is located. It’s very convenient.”
Chapter Six
“Thank you for arriving so quickly, Ken,” Thomas said, as Edward’s assistant appeared at the Croftdon House door.
“No problem at all. You sounded worried.”
“I am. Please come in.”
Thomas showed Ken into the great room where the same amalgam of men he had seen there previously were once again gathered. Sherwood Porch, the man in the gray suit, stood before the same video display where Eddie had stood previously. Displayed on that screen was an image of multiple dead bodies – some on the ground, others draped over theater seats, still others slumped together in piles. The gore was graphic – brains exposed, chest cavities, one was a dead child with half her head blown away.
“Please tell me that’s from a movie,” Ken said, flinching as he turned away from the image on the screen.
“I wish I could,” Thomas said. “Twenty-four hours ago, a gunman entered a theater in Pretorious, South Africa and opened fire on a crowded cinema. The gunman had no history of violence or mental illness. He was a commended police officer with a family. Yet one week before this incident, he collected a submachine gun and ammunition enough to do what you see.” Thomas clicked the image off the screen. “Two days before the event, the shooter met with a representative of Graphic Mode Wears, even though he had no reason to do so. Graphic Mode Wears is a company wholly owned by –”
“Bakunin Industries, I know,” Ken said, exhaling hard.
Porch continued, “He now remembers nothing from a period of 72 hours prior to the event. His memory was cleaned.”
“And you think this was the result of Eddie’s and Andrew’s program?” Ken asked. “Could the Bakunin link be a coincidence?”
Thomas looked at him with sad and certain eyes. “Not according to the opinion of our experts. I have looked over the data to prove them wrong, for both of my sons’ sakes. I can find no errors. I’m very afraid they’re right.”
“Wendell, you son of a bitch. You did it. You finally did it,” Ken said to himself, as he moved back into the chair behind him. He leaned forward as if protecting his gut from a further impact. “You crazy bastard.”
“While the actions themselves are Bakunin handiwork,” Thomas said, while he deferred his attention to John Croftdon’s direction, “we have to recognize our own role in its beginnings.”
“Wendell’s father and I would never have countenanced this horror,” John replied sharply. “This is by the hand of a lone madman.”
“One we have encouraged,” Thomas said.
Ken slammed a fist against the chair’s arm. “This is going to kill Eddie.”
“We’ll have to make certain that it doesn’t,” Thomas replied firmly.
Ken shook his head. “No, you don’t get it. This was Eddie’s dream. His fucking vision. I think it was his way of proving his worth to both his families. He was so proud because Wendell had entrusted him with this whole project. Eddie’s the most idealistic person I’ve ever known and he judges himself very harshly. He will take personal responsibility for everything that happened there. Wendell might as well have killed Eddie along with those people. It’ll end up with the same result.”
“We’ll just have to be there to help him through it,” Thomas said, more firmly than before.
“How?” Ken snapped back. “I hope to hell you have some special genetic insight, because I’ve known the kid full-time for 20 years and I don’t have a clue how to save him from this.”
Ken pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He clicked a couple of buttons and stuck the phone to his ear.
“This bastard better pick up,” he said, through gnashed teeth. After several seconds, Ken blasted the phone with, “Great, I got your voice mail. Call me. Now.”
“Where are my boys?” Ken asked, to the other men in the room.
“I believe I heard Andrew say they were headed to that silly clubhouse nonsense of theirs,” John Croftdon said. “I have no idea where it is.”
“I realize that, Father,” Thomas said, “it was designed that way. But I do know where it is.”
“You can’t get through the original front door from the outside, because of the new wings on the old place,” Andrew explained as he and Edward slipped through the foundation rent that gave them ready access to the next bolt hole. “So you have to go through this big fissure in the basement wall to climb up through a hole that was once a staircase about, oh, 400 years ago, just to go into the original front door to access the Old Hole Pub.”
Andrew hoisted himself up through the former staircase hole and then assisted Edward. When he finally stood amid the very old space, Edward could see the layout of the original manor house. It reminded him of one of those middle ages movies, complete with huge ceremonial hall for kingly banquets.
“We were originally going to build our own clubhouse, but then we saw the writing on the wall.”
“Writing on the wall?” Edward asked.
“The writing on the wall,” Andrew said again, pointing to the wall.
OLDE HOLE, someone had written – probably long, long ago.
“It’s cold in here,” Edward said, hugging himself for warmth.
“Whenever we point that out, Toad always says can you imagine what it was like in the 14th century?” Andrew pointed the way. “Our pub house clubhouse is through there.”
The room had been taken over with overstuffed furniture, clearly picked up on the cheap, and a stereo system of suspect quality. An old punk poster sagged halfway off the wall. Across another wall was emblazoned, DEATH TO THE TOAD!
“That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?” Edward asked, pointing to the printing.
Andrew shrugged. “I was seven.”
They rounded a corner to find James and Wilse, seated beside a cooler filled with ice, bottles and cans.
“You realize, Edward, now that you know about our secret location, you are bound by the Croftdon Brothers oath, correct?” Tad asked, coming from behind them.
“Dad knows all about the hole,” Andrew said. “He and Uncle George discovered it.”
“Still,” Tad said, turning back to Edward. “You may not reveal its location on penalty of painful death. Which puts us in a difficult predicament. You see, we don’t kill what we don’t eat, and we’re not cannibals, and brother James over there is a damn vegan, so we can’t kill you at all, can we?”
“I’m not inclined to tell anyone anyway,” Edward said.
“Good,” Tad said, pushing him back against the huge bean bag chair behind him. “Now sit the fuck down before you collapse.”
Edward managed to pull himself back up into a sitting position. He slapped dust away from his slacks. “Gee, thanks for the assist.”
“Don’t feel badly, Eddie,” James said, eying Tad with a feigned darkness. “He’s a vicious tyrant to all of us in here. He considers the place his.”
Tad leaned over, picking up a half-finished bottle of beer and poured the contents over James’ head. James slowly swung a look of recrimination his older brother’s way.
“Nice going, shithead.”
“Don’t look at me,” Tad said. “I didn’t make the natural order of things, did I? Take up your complaints with the Almighty. It was God’s choice that made me the oldest –”
“Wait!” Andrew said, smiling brightly. “You’re not the oldest one here now!”
“It’s true,” James said, “Edward is the oldest by two years.”
“It’s true, Toad has been dethroned,” called Wilse from his own corner.
James lifted his pint toward the sky. “The Croftdon Boys have been liberated from our evil oppressor!”
“The Toad is dead!” Wilse cried out, opening a pint and handing it to Edward. “Long live King Edward.”
“Wait a moment here, I sense betrayal amid the ranks,” Tad said, turning his outrage toward Edward, who shrugged toward him as Eddie accepted the bottle from Wilse.
“Who am I to question the natural order of things?” Edward asked. “Take up your complaints with the Almighty.”
“Oh, this is entirely unfair,” Tad said. “And yet, strangely comforting. Now you can deal with Dad.”
Andrew said toward the others, “Dad terrifies Eddie, you know.”
Edward swung a chastening look at Andrew. “I told you that in confidence.”
Andrew swatted in Edward’s direction. “Oh, go on, we know no secrets in here.”
“Why does he terrify you?” James asked, squinting at the thought. “He’s such a nice man. An argument’s a doss with him. He’s hardly intimidating.”
“I’m not sure,” Edward said, thoughtfully, sipping from his bottle and glowering at the effect. “This is really bad shit, by the way.”
“Tad’s a grasping old miser,” James said.
“And he’s got awful taste in beverages,” Wilse added.
“Judging by your great love of lemonade, Wilsey,” Tad replied, “I will take that as a high compliment.”
“Perhaps Dad, because he’s your biological father, represents ultimate, ancient truth?” Andrew suggested, considering the earlier question. “Unquestionable, inarguable, unvarnished truth.”
“It’s true. Dad hasn’t been shellacked in years,” Tad added.
“Or maybe he’s just intimidating and I’m a big wuss,” Edward said, laughing while drinking more from the bottle but finally setting it down on the ground. “You know what, I missed you guys, and I didn’t even know it.”
“Oh, what a twee little sentiment that was,” Tad said, picking up Edward’s abandoned pint, “I’ll have to do something to counter that –”
Edward stood up. “Don’t you dare!”
“Baptism is a rite of passage,” Tad said, walking closer. “Don’t worry, we have water-resistant underlayment. It’s in the design of the Croftdon Pub House.”
Edward backed away. “So is going through a hole in the foundation to get to the floor and climb up to the door.”
“Take it like a man. We’ve all been dowsed,” Tad said, inching forward again.
Edward looked over at Andrew, James and Wilse. He pointed at Tad. “Has exorcism been considered?”
Andrew shrugged. “The Church keeps turning us down. They say the’ve never seen a case as bad as his before.”
“Edward!” a voice came up from the outside, bouncing off the walls of the inner sanctum. “Tad! Andrew! Are you boys in there?”
“See,” James said, “I told you Dad knew where it was.”
At the mere sound of Thomas’ voice, Edward moved. He leapt up to walk around the door and clear the first access to the final one. He didn’t know if he had half-suspected the news or if it was merely his inner fear of his natural father.
The moment he saw Thomas’ face, something cramped at Edward’s gut. Something cold and powerful that he couldn’t shake.
“What is it?” he asked, swallowing hard. “What’s happened?”
“Come back to the house with me, all of you,” Thomas said. “There is something serious we have to discuss. It’s best covered at length inside the new house.”
After the video had played – after the images had passed along the information they had to relay – Edward couldn’t sit up in the chair he now inhabited. The set-up to the video that was played had made the implication clear. There had been something in the finessing – in the gunman’s fine muscle movements that the security camera had captured – in the information processing represented in the shooter’s eyes – that told Edward more than anyone else would know, except Andrew.
He looked around to his computer colleague. Andrew was smiling sadly, with a despairing kind of sympathy. He nodded as if to say that he saw it, too.
Edward forced himself to walk to a corner, where he could be alone with his thoughts.
“Eddie, man, you know it’s just possible,” Ken murmured from right behind him, “that Wendell is being used.”
“By who?” Edward growled in reply.
“Somebody. Someone we don’t know about.”
“Who? There isn’t anyone. You know that,” Edward snapped. “This is nothing but his own madness turned up to the worst possible levels.”
“Look, I wish I had something to say to you,” Ken said. “I wish I had an alternate theory I’ve come up with.”
“So do I,” Edward said. “All there is now is the truth. I have to beg him for the truth, and his reasons. If he doesn’t give them to me, well, I’ll have to make the choice from there.”
“You know, I think,” Ken said, “the only side I’m on is yours.”
Edward laughed sadly as he covered his eyes with his hands. “It’s good to know someone is.”
Ken rubbed Edward’s shoulder in sympathy. “How do you want me to handle this?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.”
Edward glanced around wanly in the direction of the others. He could tell they were paying discrete attention. The discretion would give him time and space enough to determine what the hell was going on. He then pulled out his cell phone. He looked at the numbers, striking the right ones, and waited for the line to ring through. It took eight times to answer.
“Wendell Bakunin,” a groggy voice came through.
Edward shut his eyes, in an effort to feel alone, and brave, and confident. “Hi, Dad, it’s me.”
“Eddie?” the voice barked back, all full of sleep. “Do you know what time it is here –”
“I know, and I’m sorry, but I had to call through on your personal line.” Edward shut his eyes more firmly, speaking each word like a separate entreaty to his father. “I have to ask you a question. It’s a very important question. I’d much rather hear the truth from you than a lie. I need you to be totally honest.
No matter the answer, okay?”
“Of course, I always am,” Wendell barked back at him. “What have those people been telling you now?”
“I just need to know this one thing,” Edward said, forcing a firmness through his voice so it wouldn’t seem to break even as it was about to. “Did you militarize any portion of my program, for whatever reason? Did you bring in the Pentagon or –”
“Of course not!” Wendell snapped in reply. “Why would I do such a thing?”
“And if I tell you I’ve seen evidence –”
“Then I’ll tell you that they falsified it!” Wendell said, anxiously.
Edward had to cough to speak again. “Dad,” he whispered, “you know I love you, right?”
