by Jake Aaron
*****
Lying in bed that night, Keala wondered out loud, "The Benefactor ... how did we get here, Zeke? I don't mean the obvious. I'm thinking about the big events of history, and this is no doubt one. I'm serious!"
"Keala, I tend to think our history, like the human body, tends to keep an equilibrium of sorts. Think of some big events of history: the Great Flood, Christ, the fall of the Roman Empire, the atomic bomb, sputnik, and the silicon chip, to name a few. I see each as an adjustment to excesses in the economic, political, or social fabric."
"Zeke, a little jargony for me."
"I apologize. I'm using fillers, stalling while I struggle to answer your profound question. This is where I would kill time reaching for a glass of water, if there were one. Let's see ... okay, I'd say you can look at the excess being a bubble that pops. Then the system does a reset."
"Zeke, still too airy-fairy for me. Give me some examples."
"Well, there you go again, Keala!" Zeke said in his best breathy Ronald Reagan voice.
"Knock it off! We're being serious here; at least I am. And you're stalling."
"Pass the Jelly Belly bowl, would you, Keala?" Zeke referred to Reagan's favorite candy, again mimicking him.
Keala shook her head in playful disgust.
Back to his normal voice, Zeke said, ”Okay, Keala, I've regrouped. At the time of the Great Flood, mankind had become grossly immoral. That covers the excess example …"
"Sondra might question whether there was a Great Flood."
"All right, Keala, the Roman Empire. Many historians say the major cause of its collapse was unchecked immigration. An excess.
"I'll have to add technology as another cause of major events. The atomic bomb was such a case, a technical breakthrough.
"So, the silicon wafer ushered in the Information Age. What we're experiencing seems to flow from that technology ... and perhaps an excess there."
"Zeke, that was brilliant!"
"I'm surprised you didn't fall asleep, Keala." Zeke exhaled, pleased with his patchwork summary of over three millenia on the fly.
"So, Zeke, the extreme of the computer revolution gave us ..."
Zeke finished her words: "The Benefactor." He winced at the prospect of the Bastard being overheard.
The Bastard
January 15
Breakfast at the Denton Ranch was different today. It was the first time they had trout for breakfast.
Susan said, “I’m so proud of John and Cody for bringing back the big fish.”
“How big were they, again?” Joan played straight man. “It’s hard to tell after the filets have been sliced.”
Cody began to stretch out his long arms like a scarecrow. “70!” he shouted with a big grin.
Sondra would have none of it. “That’s a lie!” she fumed.
Joan laughed, “It’s a joke! We learned it from Andy, one of the two bright sons of the bison rancher in Lolo. She went on to explain the woodchuck riddle and Andy’s answer.
John got it immediately. He cut off Sondra’s second attempt to speak. “70, that is absolutely brilliant. Without giving any units, it’s always right. It answers the unanswerable. It ends looping discussions. I wish I’d thought of it! 70! 70, indeed.”
Everyone nodded in the admiration of Cody’s answer, except Sondra, who was exasperated.
Capping the moment, Zeke held his coffee mug high and belted out, “70! A toast to 70!”
“I have to agree, 70 is brilliant,” Brock added.”
lEveryone else’s mug except Sondra’s saluted Zeke’s toast. Sondra’s eyes cut Brock to ribbons. Traitor, they said.
Cody added his knowledge, “There’s a mystical recurrence of 70 in the Bible. So much so that Saint Augustine noted it was a meaningful number in many evolutionary cycles.”
Under her breath, Sondra whispered, “Another day in paradise.” Clenching her fists, Sondra finally got to spew her venom, “The rainbow was only 18 inches, and the brown was 16. Stop exaggerating!” She appeared about to meltdown.
“Sondra,” Zeke jumped in, “those are big fish, especially in the winter. I’ve never been able to catch anything but a cold in the winter on the Bitterroot. My hat’s off to those two. I will concede they failed on bringing back a buck.” His polite smile showed he expected Sondra to realize her outrageousness. Inside, he wondered how he could have ever been engaged to that.
“Zeke, you have to admit the fish weren’t as big as Cody implied,” Sondra spit out. “They lied! And I don’t have to take it!”
Joan smirked, “Sondra, it was meant as a joke.” Like others, she saw Sondra’s increasingly toxic anger spiraling on itself. Joan shook her head at Sondra’s inability to understand.
Sondra loudly scooted her oak chair backward on the kitchen’s tiled floor. Her chair grated on the floor with an ear-splitting screech. She shot up and huffed out of the room.
Zeke and Susan exchanged knowing glances about Sondra’s behavior. Susan nodded at Zeke and followed Sondra upstairs. Zeke stayed with the group, knowing Susan would check on Sondra’s psychological state.
*****
Midmorning five members were inside doing chores; the rest were gathering wood outside.
For the third time in as many days, Zeke saw Lee and Sondra adjourn to the Faraday cage. He made a mental note to talk to Lee about it. He waited until just before lunch. He touched his ear twice while he spoke openly of other things to Lee.
Inside the silo playhouse, Zeke began, “Lee, anything I should know about?”
Lee minced his words, “You know Sondra isn’t happy about our circumstances. She is pretty outspoken. She’s been pressing me about our being monitored. She’s put two and two together. You and I have talked about it before. The Benefactor, or Bastard as she calls him, looms big in her mind. She says she’s sick of living like this and being watched twenty-four hours a day.
“I think what set her off today was finding RFID tags sewn into her thermal gloves,” Lee went on. “And she found them in Brock’s gloves, she said. The restitching was a giveaway.”
“Radio-frequency identification devices are, or were, present in a lot of high-theft retail items. They alert security when they are 'walking' out the door. Or it used to, when we had stores,” Zeke lamented.
“I know that, but it’s the overall pattern — and the after-market stitching on the gloves. She went on to rant about biochips, 666, and the Antichrist, not that she believes in God. You and I have talked about the surveillance. She could be right about the tags helping monitor us, Zeke.”
“We have discussed being watched. That very monitoring, or potential monitoring, is why I wanted to talk to you now. Your three meetings with Sondra were pretty obvious to any conscious observer. I was also afraid you two might be having an affair, especially given her hostility to Brock. Under other circumstances …”
“No, no, nothing like that Zeke. I’m faithful to Anne. I do think Sondra is unhappy with Brock. I think everyone else knows that, including Brock. The next time Sondra insists on a meeting, I’ll tell her we need to …”
“For your own sake, Lee, just be careful! As Cody says, ‘The Benefactor has more ears than a field of corn.’”
“Facial recognition?”
“Lee, I’d count on it. A small slant angle from a drone … well, there you are!”
*****
After their two hours of afternoon electricity, Jed and Lee went hunting for deer. They tried to minimize their tracks going away from the ranch house by initially carrying their cross country skis. After they were half mile away from the ranch, they began dragging branches another quarter of a mile into the woods to cover their tracks. Then they put on the skis.
As they headed out to the east, Jed said, “Looks like an inversion.”
Lee: “How can you tell with no pollution hanging over us?”
“Lee, look at the snow line on the Sapphire Mountains. Snow below the line, none above. The opposite of what you’d expect
on a normal day, without an inversion.”
“I’ll be! Never noticed that before, Jed. What a wonder! So I guess tracking deer higher up is a nonstarter. I sure want to bring back a deer or two. I don’t look forward to the kidding if we fail.”
“You’ve heard me say it before: It’s hunting, Lee. That’s why it’s not called finding. If nothing else, we’ll kill time. Don’t worry about it!”
“For sure, I’m not advertising how fun it is to get out here gliding on snow. I forget all my worries. It’s a kind of meditation.”
“Lee, I like it, too. We need to act as if it’s hard work when we get back. Kind of a reverse Tom Sawyer whitewash gambit."
*****
Everyone else except Sondra worked on making blackout curtains. Sondra said she wanted to work alone straightening up the barn and looking for useful items others had overlooked, or so she said.
During a break from working on the curtains, Keala went to check on Sondra. Zeke had asked her to keep Sondra from feeling isolated. When Keala approached her, a startled Sondra insisted that she needed to be away from all people for a bit. Keala took her at her word.
In the late afternoon, Jed and Lee returned, puffed up about taking three grouse in a grove of aspens. The rest of the group was gathered around the living room fireplace.
“Way to go, guys!” Zeke spoke. “That will be some fine eating.”
For some reason, everyone looked at Sondra. Zeke immediately wondered whether Sondra was now pidgeonholed in an ever-narrowing role. Is she forever typecast as the raving outsider? How free is she to be 'normal' — outside the rut she has created? How can we help her find a saner path?
The expectant stares prompted Sondra to speak. “You guys go hunting for deer. Where are the deer?” It would have been funny, except that her tone was belligerent and she looked deranged. It seemed strange to rigidly reject better fortune.
Some turned to laugh at Sondra, then thought better of it. Nothing like gasoline on a fire. A few felt deep pity. Brock shrugged.
Keala tried to talk to Sondra, who rose abruptly and went up to her room. Her walk pounded out the tune of seething anger as she clopped on the ceramic tile floor leading to the staircase. The pitch of the clop changed as she went up the polished oak stair steps.
Susan quietly followed Sondra. Outside the bedrooms and out of earshot of the others, Susan offered, “If you ever want to talk, I’m available …”
“Listen, Dr. Phil-less, I’m fine. The rest of you are in denial. We’re just bit players in the last miserable days of a cosmic tragedy. You all are so pathetic!”
“Sondra, I can help with whatever is troubling you …”
“Don’t you listen? Get the hell out of my life with your superior attitude!” With that Sondra turned her back to Susan. She opened her bedroom door, went in, and slammed it so that it could be heard throughout the house.
Downstairs, Brock tried to gloss over his wife’s sudden exit and her slamming the door. “Cody, I’ve been wanting to ask you about the license plates on the wall over there. Family history?”
“No, Brock, but interesting gifts to the house. The top Montana license plate with the rough texture was made with soy — soybean fiberboard. Steel was very scarce in America during World War II.” Cody chuckled, “There were stories of hoofed animals and rodents eating them. Personally, I’d need a little Tobasco sauce to do that.”
Lee said, “1944? Left my eyeglasses upstairs.”
Cody: “That was the year! The plate below it is the 1960 one, when the state started using aluminum instead of steel. You’ve probably noticed a lot of other miscellaneous artifacts around the house. Most are also gifts from houseguests. Makes the inside look like a Cracker Barrel restaurant. I love it!”
Keala complimented the decor, “I love it, too, Cody. Thank you again for sharing your house with us. We’ll have to be on the lookout for our own gifts to you.”
Cody was nearly speechless. “Not necessary, folks. My treasure is this group. I’m honored to live with you — even if you’ve bumped me down to stearage.” He laughed.
Looking at Cody with a furrowed brow, Keala did a two-handed, open-palms gesture, indicating he could have his master suite back.
Cody looked her in the eye with a smile and both hands waving off her offering. “Keala, you know me: I’ll take a good joke over truth every time. Showmanship … and damned poor manners on my part!”
*****
Lying in bed, Zeke and Keala compared notes.
“Maybe I should talk to Sondra,” Zeke began. “Every day she seems more venomous and deranged. Maybe if we show her we expect better behavior from her, we'll get it ...”
Keala laugh laugh cut Zeke's words short. “I liked your previous twenty-five ideas more than that! Seriously, I don’t think you’re the right one to talk her down. She’s upset, and she resents you in particular for spurning her affection. You never struck me as a pyromaniac …”
“Very funny. She may have a point or two, Keala.”
Sensing where this discussion was going, Keala did all sorts of charades to indicate an attempt to communicate. “Zeke, you could do all that, and you wouldn’t get through to her.”
Zeke acted obtuse, which led Keala to more extreme gestures and mouthing of words. He could not contain himself. He started tickling Keala, who returned the favor.
When they stopped to catch their breath, Zeke held up his hands. “I get it. I get it! I’m going to speak about something else now. Have you thought about the similarities between our group and the Bed and Breakfast bunch? No one had family ties that pulled them out of the group. There are diverse skills in each group with little overlap, Lee and Anne being an exception. And pilot Cap replaced the missing pilot at the B & B. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone in the group hadn’t taken a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test sometime in the past that factored into to their placement.”
“So, you are arguing ‘divine creation,’ so to speak, Zeke?”
“So-so,” he kidded her. “The way both groups received invitations — I checked with the Bed and Breakfast group. It’s too much for a coincidence, coupled with the ‘magic’ we’ve seen. Not to mention, similar hurricane fences at both places. Remember, Cody said he didn’t put one in here at the Denton Ranch. I think someone knew what was going to happen on New Year’s Eve and has done some masterful orchestration. The Benefactor!”
“Or, as Sondra says, the Bastard,” Keala scoffed. She shook her head in pity of Sondra.
Zeke winced at the blooper the Benefactor might hear. “You know, we started with the idea that Sondra is looney tunes. Now we decide she’s right on her facts. Are we crazy, too”
“No, isn’t that how it works? We all can share the same reality. It’s how we react to it that determines our sanity.”
“Very perceptive, Dr. Jung." Zeke smiled.
“You are very funny, fearless leader. You normally have such a serious look in public. How is that?”
“I was pretty expressive, I think, until my freshman year of high school. I decided I needed military school, so off I went to the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. I internalized a lot of lessons about military bearing that others there just blew off. That, my dear, is all she wrote. Deadpan and monotone became my norm, Keala.”
“That explains your perfect posture! Did your parents send you away? You don’t seem like you were the hardcore, out-of-control type that parents give up on training at home.”
“No, it was my idea. I wanted to follow in my granddad’s footsteps. He was an alumnus.”
"Zeke, what possessed you to do that? You don’t seem like the masochist type either.”
He laughed, “I considered modern life in America life to be too soft. I thought we had it too easy compared to what I read about in the pioneer days, even up to the end of World War II. I had also seen poor countries abroad as my dad was posted around the world. I knew I wanted to toughen up. I got what I wanted. However, I learned a bitter
truth in the process: Be careful what you wish for!”
“And after that?”
“I finished college at Arizona State, major in industrial engineering. I always had a knack for numbers and a desire to make processes efficient.” Keala would have recognized his I’m-about-to-tell-a-joke look. “And now I see all of that was to prepare me to work for the Benefactor.” Zeke turned to find his audience asleep and deadpan delivery wasted. He thought about the moment. If he told a joke in the woods, where no one could hear, was it funny? Then a grim reality hit him: He was in the woods in a new time when nothing really was funny.
January 16
It was a rude awakening, before anyone arose. Zeke’s smartphone binged at the arrival of a text:
URGENT! Stop Sondra! Below see a map of her location. URGENT! The Benefactor
Zeke didn’t have to tell Keala to get up. She grabbed his phone and read the message herself, as if she didn’t believe what he had read aloud. She dressed as fast as he did.
As Zeke pulled on his coat, he asked, “You’re coming?”
She smiled, “Of course, it’s not the first time I’ve had to cancel a shopping trip.”
“You’re funny, too — only maybe too expressive!”
They armed themselves and left. The map on the smartphone was easy to follow, backed up by a path of telltale footprints in the snow. They tried to run but started to lose sight of Sondra’s path in the dim predawn light, so they trotted.
After about a mile, Zeke spotted a silhouette near a cell phone tower 200 feet away. Nearly breathless, he yelled, “What the hell are you doing, Sondra?”
“I’m going to stop the Bastard from controlling us!” Sondra approached the tower with some sort of a container.
“Don’t do it, Sondra! Keala will have to shoot.” Keala stopped at 150 feet from the tower to take aim with a deer rifle.
As Sondra started to place a package at the foot of the tower, Keala could see a makeshift fuse extending from the box Sondra laid down. A shot rang out and echoed through the valley. A bullet penetrated Sondra’s right hand that held a lit match. The match fell harmlessly to the cold ground. Seconds later there was an overhead buzz. Sondra’a body dissolved on the spot. Atomized fluid formed a dim pink cloud in the gray of dawn. Death from above.
