Uroboros Saga Book 1

by Arthur Walker

Silverstein looked at the number pad at the gate for a few moments before quickly entering in a code and gazing into a lens that scanned his retina. The huge arched gate slowly, quietly, swung open allowing us inside the hallowed place that housed people with too much money. The houses were all dark, with only a few decorative lights in the too-big lawns shedding any light to the street.

  The walk was soothing, just Ezra, Silverstein and I walking through this place. It was like we were on another planet compared to downtown. There was no crowd to dodge, no puke to avoid getting on my shoes, and seemingly no threat of being mugged, raped, or murdered. Totally unsettling.

  “Silverstein, how will we know which house is yours?” I asked grabbing his hand.

  “It’s the big one at the end.” He nodded toward a suburban fortress looming in the distance.

  The place was a palace to be sure. The front was completely obscured by a rock wall built of natural stone. It glittered slightly in the evening lights, and was rimmed with sharp looking iron-works at the top. I was glad Silverstein just happened to know the gate code, as much fun as getting hauled around by Ezra could be.

  The courtyard inside was surrounded by lush flower gardens, fountains, and paved walkways wide enough for a cart or a vehicle. Silverstein crouched down in the bushes and broke out a deck of cards. Ezra and I sat down next to him, somewhat befuddled. Silverstein shuffled the cards and handed them to me to deal out.

  “Pick a game, I don’t remember any,” Silverstein said, looking over at the estate somewhat vacantly. There wasn’t a glimmer of remembrance in his eyes, which probably explained the mood he would be in the remainder of the evening.

  “We aren’t going inside?” I whined as I gazed at my hand.

  “No. The crazed lunatic that had been gutting people downtown was a clone of me. For all I know there’s a clone living here, with my wife, and all thirteen of my kids,” Silverstein said carefully looking at his hand before discarding.

  “Not sure he was a clone, didn’t smell like you at all, in fact… wait, you have thirteen kids?” Ezra whispered quietly considering the hand he’d just been dealt.

  “Why else would I have such a big place?” he quipped, winking at me.

  “So we’re just going to wait until morning? See who comes out to head for work, or school, or um... cricket lessons?” I asked carefully exchanging a king from my sleeve with a three in my hand.

  “Yes, Taylor, and quit cheating.”

  “Sure, right after you quit counting cards.”

  “Gah, I can’t help it.”

  The night passed slowly, with many hands of Drunk-the-Drone played, and restless discontent. The sun rose painfully slow, its light casually spreading out over the expansive manse and the gardens surrounding it. No one came or went. Just as my patience was about to expire, Silverstein stood and began walking up the path, leading around the left side of the house.

  Ezra and I followed along behind after exchanging a glance and a shrug each. We reached a side door, which was locked. Silverstein rolled up a tattered handkerchief around his fist and shattered a small pocket window beside. He lifted me through so that I could run around and open the door.

  Once inside, Silverstein walked over to a panel on the wall and entered in a numeric code, presumably halting a silent alarm. The house was tastefully rendered and furnished, if you were a full of yourself rich guy. Nothing I couldn’t fix with some paint, a few yards of fabric, and a pile of free time.

  “Already figuring out how you’ll fix up the place?” Silverstein chuckled, pulling me away from some truly awful curtains. I smiled.

  We walked into the kitchen and looked about. The food in the fridge was old, the milk being dated by almost a month. Then, Ezra did what he does best and made the whole situation spooky.

  “Check it out,” Ezra said pointing to a knife holder with one large knife being conspicuously missing.

  “Looks about right for the one my aberrant double was wielding downtown, doesn’t it?” Silverstein said grimly.

  “Yep,” he remarked, eyeing the vacancy in the knife organizer.

  “Yuck.”

  I didn’t even want to think about what else we’d find in the house. Most of the rooms were empty, not even a moving box tucked into the corner. When we got to the master bedroom, the weirdness in there took the cake, and then some.

  Someone had shoved every bit of furniture out onto the considerably large balcony and set about writing on the walls, ceiling, and freshly revealed sub-floor in what was possibly their own blood. It was a nearly complete chronicle of the Silverstein clone’s descent into madness. He’d been created to dwell in the house, for some reason, and the only way he could escape was by causing himself great physical harm, specifically to the brain.

  “Maybe he was the one who attacked me?” Silverstein asked. “It’s clear he thought that some sort of self-inflicted head trauma would set him free. Whatever I was doing before I lost my memory could have included coming here and finding him missing. I might have gone downtown to find him, but he found me first.” He ran his hand over the dried blood on the wall.

  “Well, that’s one theory,” I said retreating to the adjoining den. Silverstein followed.

  “True. I really don’t remember what happened, but it seems plausible,” Silverstein said following me.

  I could tell by Ezra’s face that he had other ideas about how everything went down, but was maybe too shy to say anything. I resolved to harass his opinion out of him later, hopefully when Silverstein wasn’t around. He had enough to think about and having a single working theory seemed to give him some peace.

  The den was orderly, except for a fine layer of dust. Silverstein wandered around the large oaken desk and gazed at the computer sitting dormant on top. Then, fishing around in the drawers, he found a mobile. He flipped it on, nodded approvingly, and placed it in his pocket.

  “Found your mobile, did you?”

  “It doesn’t appear to belong to anyone. It’s encrypted and unlisted. It might come in handy.”

  We pulled the mattress from his large four-poster bed into a bedroom across the hall with a window overlooking the front courtyard. We all plopped down on it and attempted to get some much needed sleep. Ezra laid down next to me and broke out with a smile larger than I’d ever seen.

  “What?”

  “It’s so soft,” Ezra remarked falling almost instantly to sleep. “So much nicer than my pipe.”

  I did the same, closing my eyes and letting sweet slumber take me. When I woke up, Ezra was still sleeping peacefully. Rubbing my eyes I wandered back into the creepy bedroom as Silverstein went past me in a towel fresh from the shower.

  “Good morning.”

  I mumbled a startled, vaguely intelligible reply.

  After a quick look in the closet, Silverstein pulled out a set of black slacks, a white shirt, and a pair of custom leather Silverstein shoes. I stood in the hallway while he dressed, peeking in once I was reasonably sure he was decent. He looked great, and I desperately wanted to tell him so, but chose to watch instead while he shaved in a mostly broken out mirror.

  I scowled at first, but he put the jacket I made him back on, smiling slightly to himself. He chose my jacket over one of the very expensive ones in the closet. I blushed a little when he smiled. I wouldn’t admit it at the time, but I had my own list of reasons for wanting him to wear that jacket.

  “Your turn if you want a shower,” Silverstein said with a wink, turning the collar of his jacket up.

  “Ooh!”

  The shower had jets that hit you from every direction, and while there wasn’t anything but bar soap, it was better than nothing. As nice as Silverstein’s place was, I longed for my own shower, and my two dozen almost empty bottles of scented bath lotions, soaps, and potions. It was all worth it a little lat
er when I heard Ezra’s cries of panic when he switched the shower on. They must not have such modern marvels where he comes from.

  We sat in the kitchen and quietly ate dry cereal, raisins, and granola bars from the pantry, the only food that hadn’t gone bad. Silverstein spent most of the time thumbing the touch screen on his mobile. I packed us a lunch with what I could find and turned to gaze out the kitchen window while Ezra pilfered the remainder of the kitchen knives.

  “Silverstein?”

  “Taylor.”

  “Collectors, at the gate, with guns.”

  Silverstein bolted up from the dining room table and slid in next to me to gaze out across the courtyard. We watched as the rubber-coat-clad goons peered through the bars of the gate at the courtyard. They had a brief conversation, then turned and got back into their large black transport.

  We breathed a collective sigh of relief as they slowly headed off down the road.

  “We should go,” Silverstein said grabbing up the mobile from the table and sticking it into his pocket.

  “Where?” I said plodding along behind with Ezra.

  “The garage first of all, see if I’ve got anything to drive.”

  The garage was large, easily capable of storing a dozen vehicles. At the far end there was a single transport of some kind, covered in a tarp. With one fluid yank from Ezra, the RV was unveiled in all its emerald greenness.

  “Nice!” he said, pressing a small hand to the smoothly painted side of the vehicle.

  We climbed inside, and after a quick check to make sure it was hover capable, Silverstein powered it on. The internal computer booted up displaying a menu of options. Silverstein checked its previous flight plans cycling through them slowly until stopping on one in particular.

  “The RV has been to the alley where I woke up with a head wound.” Silverstein whispered, half to himself. “The return trip was unmanned.”

  “Shotgun!” I yelled, giving Ezra a shove, and leaping for the passenger seat beside Silverstein. Ezra blinked looking around, presumably for a firearm, and finding none, settled into the seat behind us.

  “Are we going to fly over the city again?” he asked, shifting closer to the window.

  “Definitely.”

  Ezra smiled.

  Silverstein brought the RV around in the garage waiting for the garage door to open automatically. We ambled out into the driveway clumsily at first, then shot across the grounds just barely clearing the wall. I buckled my seatbelt.

  “You can pilot this thing, yes?” Ezra said nervously.

  “Got away from me there for a moment. I get the sense that this thing isn’t fitted with factory navigation or propulsion systems. Someone’s modified it for speed, among other things,” Silverstein replied, pressing several buttons on a panel above him.

  He brought the RV about and headed for the heart of uptown. A gasp escaped Ezra’s lips as we soured over the glittering city, framed on one side by the ocean, standing in stark contrast to the shadow it cast down below. It was as easy to see uptown as it was downtown from this vantage, and everything in between.

  Looking down at the monitor, I could see we were on a route the vehicle had followed many times before. We were heading toward the tallest and brightest buildings in uptown Port Montaigne. What business this RV could have had in such a place? I hoped I wouldn’t regret finding out.

  At length, the RV approached a large banking building and came to rest on a private landing platform that overlooked the financial district. The winds were fierce as we stepped out on the platform. Dodging the landing lights, we made our way to the stairs. My windswept reflection looked back at me in the glass that covered all but a few portions of the massive tower.

  From the walkway a hallway led to what appeared to be a lobby of some kind. Everything was white or cream colored in here, including the standing desk within. Our steps clicked on the lavishly tiled floor as we walked past the empty desk to a set of double doors.

  Silverstein pushed them open and stepped into a maze of cubicles, all of which were festooned with sticky notes, photos, and calendars with puppies, kittens, or other cuteness. The massive room which encompassed most of the floor was noisy with chatter as bank representatives talked to customers. None of the fifty people on this floor gave us a glance. Ezra and I were blessedly too short for most to see unless they stood up.

  We navigated the maze to an elevator where Silverstein pressed the up button. After a short wait, we slid into the elevator and watched the doors close, silencing the phone bank beyond. Silverstein opened a panel and entered in a numeric code.

  “How do you know what the code is?”

  “The code is hidden within the geometry of this place, like the mansion. There are hidden mathematical truths that, if you know what to look for, reveal the codes for these doors. Now, they vary depending on the day and month, I assumed. That’s how I would have set it up, and it’s worked so far.”

  “Just in case you, for instance, lost your memory?” Ezra whispered.

  “It’s possible.”

  As excruciating as the music playing in the elevator was, the anticipation of where we were going was worse. Were we on the verge of finding some answers regarding the enigma that was Silverstein? Or maybe just more questions?

  The doors slid open allowing us to step into another lobby, one with a desk, a secretary, and a set of large wooden sliding doors.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Uroboros. May I get you and your guests anything?” the secretary said with a practiced smile.

  “Uh, no. Think we’ll just go in there and take care of some stuff,” Silverstein stammered.

  Smooth, Silverstein. We walked up to the double doors which parted automatically at his approach, allowing us to step into a large executive office. It smelled of lavender, wood polish, and decades old scotch. Even more puzzling, the place had as many bookshelves as a library, a pool table, several desks with shiny new computers, and two old guys dressed in suits. They looked up from their work startled, then exchanged worried glances.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d seen those old suits somewhere before.

  “Vance, this is most unexpected,” one of the old codgers blurted, standing up from his chair.

  “I’ll bet.”

  “We thought that you were--”

  “Dead?”

  “No, that you had gone to the central AI to submit our new corporate code and been caught,” the old man muttered while pacing back and forth. “We were expecting regulators to flood the office with subpoenas and investigation notices by now.”

  Silverstein squinted around the room at the empty desks for a moment before turning back to the old man.

  “Yeah, well not yet. Let me see your progress,” Silverstein said walking around one of the old guy’s desks.

  Ezra poked around in the books while I filed my nails and nearly died of boredom. At last, Silverstein grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out into the foyer. Why he was acting like a jerk all of a sudden was beyond me. Ezra plodded gleefully along behind us, a borrowed book tucked under his arm.

  “I think I know what they, or rather, what I was up to,” Silverstein said pulling me into the elevator.

  “This warranted dragging me around? Were you figuring out a way to bore the world to death?”

  “No, something far worse. And, far more cunning I’m afraid,” Silverstein whispered, lines of worry creasing his usually placid face.

  The elevator doors closed with barely a whisper. Silverstein poked a button and we shot quickly down to the ground floor. Stepping out into the lobby I dug my heels in and gave Silverstein’s arm a sharp tug.

  “Are we just leaving the RV? I like the RV. We should ride in the RV,” I protested, not particularly keen on walking through uptown.

  “Yes
, we’re leaving it,” he replied sadly, tossing his newly procured mobile into a trashcan.

  Rounding a corner, we walked quickly through the bank lobby being careful to keep our faces turned away from the cameras. Once we set foot out into the street, it was as though I could feel the eyes of every well-to-do person looking at me, sensing my moneylessness. I wanted to go home so badly.

  We followed Silverstein into a park where children played under the watchful eye of overpaid nannies beneath well-kept trees, and playground equipment covered in glossy bright paint. We walked briskly to the restrooms and piled into the men’s room, turning the deadbolt behind us.

  “Notice anything about the buildings in uptown?” Silverstein asked breathlessly.

  “Um, they are all full of people with money?” I ventured, totally not understanding Silverstein’s panic.

  “They’re safe. Reinforced like bunkers in case of terrorist attack, controlled and monitored by a network of computers,” Silverstein began.

  Ezra and I both nodded numbly in response.

  “If the companies that owned them went bankrupt, they’d shut down, everyone inside being compelled to leave. Effectively evicted. Most people will wander out thinking it’s a drill or exercise of some kind,” Silverstein said running his fingers through his hair.

  “So, a few companies are going bankrupt?”

  “No, all of them will. The bank we walked out of has been using an investment strategy I must have concocted. It’s been quietly investing funds into an array of investments, each designed to mature and payout to each unique primary investor.”

  “Who’s the primary investor?”

  “The bank, and everyone that has put money into it, borrowed money from it, knowingly or otherwise.”

  “When do the funds and investments mature?”

  “In like a million years.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Silverstein nodded holding up his hand, trying to conjure a way to explain what must have been pretty complicated financial stuff to Ezra and me.