Worse Angels

by Laird Barron

  Advanced military hardware was more Lionel’s bag. As far as I knew, the damned thing was submersible, self-repairing, and would recover to initiate hot pursuit. A worse scenario by exponential degrees: other killbots could be en route. I’d need a hell of a lot more pipe. Fear helped me forget my aches and pains and incipient exhaustion. I scooped up the light, had several nervous moments until I located the revolver, and hauled ass for Shaft 41.

  * * *

  ■■■

  A popular Internet video made the rounds of a robot designed in a lab at MIT. The device resembled a dog and behaved in rudimentary doggy fashion, obeying simple commands. The researcher had even programmed the third- or fourth-generation model to play fetch. The Internet lost its collective mind when a scientist, seeking to demonstrate the folly of anthropomorphism, kicked Fido robot over. The robot struggled to right itself and the researcher kept knocking it down. Iteration six saw the robot become sleeker, faster, less clumsy. Model Six righted itself immediately and exhibited defensive postures and behaviors. Model Six varied its locomotion from stealthy crawling to sudden bursts of speed. Model Six successfully manipulated handles and doorknobs. Viewer sympathy melted into distinct unease. Cute, inept robots engender sympathy; the uncanny valley isn’t a trip people are willing to take.

  I dwelled on that video while escaping the Jeffers Project underground.

  Lionel didn’t comment when I dragged myself into the daylight, covered in blood and grime, clothes tattered. I had bruises, contusions, and a shallow laceration across my shoulders. He rang Bellow and told him that we were fine and headed home. I’d slumped in the back, indulging in a bit of self-pity. Continuing my resentful thoughts about the MIT robot program, I recalled several of the corporations involved with the Jeffers Project were defense contractors. I contemplated that and the plethora of occult graffiti. I contemplated generators chugging in the depths of the earth even though public documents asserted the joint was shuttered until further notice. The supercollider blueprints might not even be fully updated. Access tunnels stitched the underground, possibly to a heart or central hub, hidden below and clandestinely powering sectors of the structure. Who? Why? Those girls at the Black Powder Tavern weren’t lying when they said it was common knowledge that strange things were done by night at ye old Jeffers Project.

  “So.” Lionel stared at the road. “What did we learn about listening to Uncle Lionel?”

  “Nothing that’ll stick. I feel poorly.” My teeth chattered as I struggled into dry clothing.

  “But it was totally worth it. Right?”

  “Totally,” I said, stifling a moan. The moan was less in response to my considerable physical discomfort and more in regard to how much the physical discomfort was going to cost me. More than I assumed, was how much.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I jolted from a doze. Instead of Whiro or Dad or flaming wildlife as was usually the case, Meg alighted from a golden cloud and drifted toward me upon voluminous wings of white and black. She was gloriously, radiantly naked except for strategic strands of hair and artful shadows. We embraced. Her sweet lips were warm upon mine—

  The SUV frame shifted again. Gravity pressed me into my seat as the vehicle skated around a curve in excess of posted advisories.

  “That streak of returning pristine cars to the rental agency?” Lionel glanced back. He wore his shooting glasses.

  Dregs of light bled into the black bulk of woodland. Another vehicle trailed ours. Tough to discern the make or model at this twilit distance, only that it had to be moving fast because so were we. It hung there, a glimmering smear of headlights haunting the opposite end of a straight stretch, then gone as we swung behind a hill and climbed around a battered station wagon that seemed to be sitting still in comparison.

  “When did you pick them up?” I said.

  “They were pulling onto the Jeffers access road as I turned out. Late 1950s Mercury Monterey.”

  “Are you fucking kidding?”

  “Dark red and bronze. Four-door. Fins and everything. I got a decent look at the driver. A buddy riding shotgun. More in the back. Everybody dressed for the sock-hop after the Friday night game.”

  I got the picture.

  “Allow me to repeat: Are you fucking kidding?”

  “Assholes were in a hurry too. Pulled a U-turn and came after us like a bat outta hell. Somebody with a stake in that property finally noticed us meddling kids.”

  Elevation rose and fell and rose with a vengeance. At seventy miles per hour the highway grade was slippery. I didn’t recognize any of the winding, bumpy road. The monotone GPS patiently recalculated no matter how many turns Lionel blew past. Obviously, he intended to keep this encounter off the radar and in the boonies.

  “Isaiah, you once told me a rule,” he said. “We were drunk as hell, talking about our old lives. The high points, the pitfalls. Shit that civilians don’t know, couldn’t know. You asked, ‘What trips a man up in this business?’ It stuck with me, what you said next.”

  “A grizzled killer showed me the light in the darkness.”

  The grizzled killer in this case was the late, great, and greatly lamented Gene Kavanaugh. Gene K, the Ace of Spades. The Old Man on the Mountain. A world-class hitter and my mentor. His ghost lingered in the gallery of my conscience. Daily, he had more company.

  “‘Not knowing the big picture is a leading cause of on-the-job death.’ Your words. You were referencing mobsters, but it’s got universal appeal. Being kept in the dark is practically a soldier’s creed. To similar detriment.”

  Another straightaway and I made the pursuing vehicle. A classic Mercury, as Lionel had said; probably souped-up. I unbuckled, leaned over the seat, rummaged in the storage compartment, and got ahold of the Mossberg. By then, we’d whipped around a couple more curves and were rumbling atop a saddleback ridge.

  I loaded the shotgun.

  “‘Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die.’”

  “Do and die. Ain’t no ‘or’ about it,” he said. “Tennyson’s heroic logic proves mighty convenient for the pricks running the show.”

  “A man who doesn’t know the big picture finds it hard to stay alive.”

  “Impossible to duck the ax-swing you don’t see coming. Amigo, I feel like we’re not getting the big picture.”

  I didn’t think he was wrong.

  The engine made a throaty growl you won’t ever hear unless you push the speedometer beyond ninety. We sailed over dips and tortured the suspension upon each momentary impact with the asphalt. I braced my free arm against the roof to avoid cracking my skull.

  The Mercury closed steadily. It careened over a rise and vanished. The road descended into a hollow and ran across several miles of level farmland that spread like a pastoral painting. Smoke coiled above a farmhouse and that was it; even the cows were in for the winter.

  Lionel eased off the gas. He feathered the brakes until we’d decelerated to somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty miles per hour, then slammed them, and after continuing to slide forward a few car lengths despite the antilock safeguard, he punched the gas pedal and executed a skidding left turn across the centerline onto a private dirt lane. Clouds of blue smoke billowed around us, accompanying the eardrum-rupturing shriek of abused tires. Cloaked in its own bank of smoke, the Mercury screeched by on the main road, yawing in a controlled slalom as its driver reacted to Lionel’s maneuver. The driver jerked to a halt, reversed, and turned onto the farm road; a shark cruising through the spray of pebbles and mud in our wake.

  Going by Lionel’s description, this had to be a carload of the Mares of Thrace trying to chase us down. What were they to Mandibole and Redlick? Enforcers? Protection details of religious fundamentalists often scribbled outside the lines. The freaky animism-tinged hoodoo I’d encountered in Horseheads was indicative of fanatics. Fanatics are, by definition, dangerous. The notion of sq
uaring off with cultists in the woods was an unpleasant prospect. Considering my wealth of personal experience with getting shot at, I’d assume another team of the bastards was en route. I understood why Lionel had detoured off-road. The SUV was sturdier, more powerful, and a four-wheel drive. Its weight would serve it well in the slop. I worried about the tactic anyhow. Shotgun notwithstanding, if our pursuers ran us to ground and shooting started, we might lose. This assessment altered my personal rules of engagement somewhat, and not in their favor.

  One moment a faint, magical crest of golden-red sunset shone from the rim of the world. Then down came the curtain. The Mercury engaged high beams. Blinding glare filled our mirrors.

  Lionel had the SUV flying down the private road. Both hands on the wheel, expertly managing its violent wrenches that threatened to catapult us into the ditch with each rock or pothole. He acclimated to the handling and pushed the vehicle. The speedometer needle crept higher. Barbed fence was strung parallel to the road on the passenger side. On the driver’s side, a steep bank dropped into darkness. The panorama shook like a stop-motion film. I smiled as the euphoria drugs flooded my bloodstream.

  “When I run out of road, I’m gonna have to make a decision.” Lionel slipped his glasses into his breast pocket, like taking his hand from the wheel for a couple of seconds was no big thing.

  “You won’t run out of road.” I watched the Mercury. We maintained the gap. The driver had skills, but he or she could only work with the tools at hand. The car wasn’t an all-terrain vehicle. “You’ll engage four-by-four and make a road.”

  He laughed. We passed a sward of flattened earth and a clutch of hay wagons and tractor blades. Ahead, the road bent toward the flank of a forest. Cottonwood and willow trees promised boggy terrain. The road degraded into a rutted trail. Good news for our team. The worse it got, the better.

  It got worse for everybody. The ruts vanished and we plowed into the heart of a thicket. Brush whapped against the windows and tore off the side mirrors. We collided with a tree and the rear passenger door crunched inward. I dropped the shotgun amidst getting flung around. Glass shattered, but I couldn’t see where.

  Lionel cursed. The SUV launched into a starless void, its engine screaming. We glided for a semi-eternity before crash-landing. Dead stop. The airbags exploded up front. It felt surreal to sit there in the dark with the vehicle idling and the hazards ticktacking, yellow strobes illuminating nearby tree trunks. I’d covered my head; my arms had absorbed the punishment. In the morning, my body would hurt like I’d crawled into a barrel of rocks and gotten pushed down a ski slope. I wiggled my fingers and sat up, grateful that everything was in working order. Lionel swore again as he roused and deflated the airbag and shoved it flat against the steering column.

  The Mercury’s headlights bounced way back there in the woods. Might as well have been on another continent.

  Lionel shifted into 4-LO, or what old-timers referred to as granny, and drove up out of a ditch onto a paved road. The SUV’s undercarriage squealed in protest and the whole rig wobbled as it reached cruising speed. But it rolled. He whooped in victory. Frigid wind whistled through a missing side window. Giant ugly cracks starred the windshield. The dome light stuttered, revealing Lionel’s face in the mirror caked in gore. Blood poured from his swollen nose. I handed him a loose sock hat and he wadded it into a ball and pressed it tight.

  “Some fun, even without a firefight!” he said. And not sarcastically.

  I turned in my seat and scanned the darkness. Any second and I’d see the Mercury’s lights pop onto the road. That didn’t happen. Any second and the laboring engine would conk out, or the axle would snap. Neither of those things happened either. He navigated to the main highway and we headed east, weary, wounded, but alive and grinning like a pair of idiots. Made sense. We were idiots having a perfectly rational response to self-induced terror and trauma.

  * * *

  ■■■

  We eventually departed the tertiary roads and traveled the highway until we pulled into a service area. The other calamity I expected to happen, but it didn’t, was to get stopped by a state trooper. Lionel pumped fuel. I bought candy bars and bottles of soda. The spike of sugar and caffeine would see us across the finish line. My hands shook as I gulped the soda. The SUV was a surreal hulk bathed in the sodium light. Scraped, battered, and stove in on the rear passenger side, it resembled a surviving prop from the set of a Mad Max demolition derby. People glanced at it, then Lionel, masked in blood, and me, leaning against a register in obvious pain. As we prepared to mosey on, he winced and mentioned that he couldn’t raise his left arm. Broken collarbone would be the diagnosis at the doc’s office a day or two later.

  I took control of the tiller and piloted us the rest of the way home.

  The visible consequences of the expedition unspooled in predictable fashion. It was several days before my body didn’t feel as wrecked as the SUV looked. My favorite rental agency banned me, and yes indeed, those premiums boarded a rocket and zoomed into the stratosphere. These were transient inconveniences. The astonished look on the sales clerk’s face when I handed him the keys was priceless. For a moment he looked as if he’d drop to his knees and tear his hair in anguish. I told him, yeah, he was crying now, but he’d laugh about it someday.

  PART III

  DEATH OF THE STARRY-EYED KID

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Minerva and I spent the holidays camped out at Meg’s house. I glanced over my shoulder, dreading repercussions that lurked but didn’t manifest. All terrible things in their own due course, Gene K used to say with a murderous twinkle in his eye. The hammer always drops.

  Ulster County enjoyed a white Christmas and a white New Year. One of those big daddy mid-Atlantic storms that come along once or twice a decade made landfall and dropped a foot of snow from Upstate New York to the northern hinterlands of New England. Then it got cold. Toboggan rides, plush hats, and scarves for everyone. And miles-long traffic jams and cancelled flights. Hot-chocolate-by-a-roaring-fireplace weather. For me, Tom and Jerrys by a fake fireplace with a dog at my feet. No less cozy.

  I happily self-medicated with aspirin, extra rations, and sleep. Sleep is the closest thing to a panacea. The swelling in my knee went down within a week, thus I assured myself that an emergency hospital visit was unnecessary. Gimping around was absolutely fine. Meg didn’t comment. I avoided taking my shirt off in front of her for a few days, but she finally caught me stepping from the shower. She wordlessly regarded my poor battered torso and the bloody, inflamed slash on my back. Her expression of shock did the talking. This meant she’d come to accept my lifestyle with the cool nonchalance of a gangster’s moll or, and more likely, she was saving her remarks for later.

  Between lounging with a drink in hand and entertaining young master Devlin, who pounced upon my extended availability as a playmate, I chiseled at the Pruitt case, attempting, and failing, to reach Linda, the widow. I also made a second round of calls to Sean’s former friends and associates. The first person I contacted was Sean P’s colleague Robert Thorpe, in Pittsburgh. He took my call with an affable demeanor.

  I initially met Sean through my roommate, Danny. The night Sean died? I pulled a double shift. We were understaffed. Everybody in my department was working OT. I hadn’t seen him in two or three days. He had a key, though. Came and went as he pleased. Thorpe wasn’t aware of any enemies or debts. Sean was on the outs with his wife by then. I mean, that’s why he had a key. For those times he needed a place to crash. Dunno what their friction was. Except, well . . .

  Hate to speak ill of the dead, but gotta admit, Sean changed over the three years or so I knew him. Not saying he was doing anything wrong. Just that he was different. Sometimes was kind of dopey and forgetful. Wore his shirts inside out, flaked on meetings. Nothing serious. Odd. The flip side of the coin was his rougher personality. He acted secretive. His ideas were different. Flower power.
Pagan! Yeah, pagan. Hippie-dippie with a black metal edge. A laborer got smooshed in a trench collapse and Sean laughed. He said, Finally! Somebody’s giving back! And then he high-fived Danny, who was straight-up fucking morbid. Maybe Danny helped Sean come outta his shell. Except for Danny’s love of hunting and excessive boozing, they wound up having a lot in common.

  What could he tell me about Buckhalter? My information on the man indicated he was a carpenter by trade, although he’d hired on with Diogenes as a security technician. Similar to Sean Pruitt, he’d spent the vast majority of his shift monitoring cameras and, for a real dose of excitement, cruising the perimeter of the Jeffers site in a jeep, shining a flashlight into the adjacent woods.