The security guy hands me my toolbox and takes me to the elevators. He escorts me up to the tenth floor where I get a whiff of the nasty smell wafting from the vents. The guard leaves and I start to pull bolt after bolt off the duct vent. I unclip a sensor panel attached by wires to the metal grate. There is some serious tech here. I’d memorized how to open the grate, white clip first. That is the power. Then the colored clip is next. I type in a code on the control box situated inside the duct, then crawl inside. There is a lot of space, but I still have to wriggle on my belly. Fifty feet into the duct I start to feel claustrophobic. Finally, around the bend is a small bloated corpse. Maybe a mouse, maybe a pigeon. I crawl closer. Nope. It is a fat, greasy rat. I wonder how it got in here. There is a bald spot on its head where a wire sticks out of its skull like an antenna. Robot rat? Who is this Zilla? If he is this sophisticated, why does he need me?
#
A year ago I was at a meeting in an apartment on thirty-sixth. We were the Red Stars. The core organizers. We rallied the crowd, set up the email lists, and the secret chat rooms. The apartment was dark and smoky and the beer flowed heavily. But we weren’t there to party.
Phisto shushed everyone. He brushed his long curly hair from his face and leaned onto the table. “We’re chasing our own tails, yo!” Everyone got silent. “We’ve got this next rally in the bag. What we need to do is spend a minute on our next goal. We can get the numbers out. We pack the houses, man. Now we need to get to a politician. Real power doesn’t come from the bottom, up. We can throw an epic party, but we still don’t have anything to show for it. Real power comes from the top, down. We need to do something for someone in power. A favor.”
“What kind of favor?” I asked.
He thought for a moment. “Maybe organize a campaign rally that rocks the whole city.”
Bennie spoke up, “How about getting funds to build a park or an urban garden? We give the publicity to any senator we choose.”
Phisto nodded, “Yeah. Something like that. Look, it’s not the act we’ll be doing. That can be anything. The end game is how we’ll use the payback for something we need done. It’s called leverage.”
#
I think about what Phisto had said that day even as I gag on the stench of the rotting rat. This is the first time Zilla had used anything as sophisticated as a robot rat. If Zilla has all this spy-tech at his fingertips, then he doesn’t need me. Is he getting me to do all these jobs as a way of taking control of me? Am I just a big rat with a wire sticking out of my head, ready to take all the blame? I’m on multiple cameras now under multiple identities. I can be exposed at anytime if Zilla so desires. I am sitting in his lap. Now he has leverage on me.
I reluctantly put the corpse into a bag, seal it, and scrub the duct with a sharp smelling chemical. I shake off the negative thoughts because I’ve long since committed. Maybe the rat was just an extremely complicated excuse to get me up here. Besides, I know what I’m doing, what I have been doing. This is as much my desire as his. I have power. I am a soldier, and I’ve been making the first moves. I crawl to the first of five hot spots I have marked on my map.
I unclip the measuring tape from my belt and slip off a round device that had been hidden on the side. The round object is the size of a flattened golf ball. There are four other devices that are pressed into the measuring tape. It’s a surveillance-gear Pez dispenser. I stick one to the wall of the vent, right next to the grate, and push the activation button on top. It will pick up secure Wi-Fi signals and audio and send the data to an off-site server that Zilla controls. I crawl to the next vent and do the same. The other vents are more difficult, but I get it done. Just like before, easy peasy.
I leave the DOD building with the same strange high I’ve been feeding off of after every job. I am the spy. I’ve committing treason, and, if caught, I’ll go to prison. Didn’t George Washington commit treason? He was a patriot and so am I. I am a new kind of patriot. A New World Patriot.
I drive the van to a parking garage on 145th, change into a provided black suit and tie and walk home. It is fifteen blocks and a beautiful day for a walk. When I get close to my building a police cruiser flips on its lights. I instinctively push my back against the building’s wall and look for an escape route. The cruiser seems to slow as it passes me. Is that cop looking at me? I feel my skin bead with sweat. The cruiser picks up speed and drives off.
I’m relieved, but jittery. Getting used to breaking the law isn’t easy. I pass Mochias Cafe’s patio, which is next to the front door of my building, and stop. I suddenly have a strange thought. My mother feared prison and took her own life to avoid it. I look at my reflection in the café window. Will I do the same if it comes down to it?
Instead of going straight home I stop at the café. Zilla congratulates me via encrypted email, and tells me my duty is over. They’re collecting data and will be moving into a different phase. And that is it. I stare at my email. What now? What do I do?
I had planted devices in thirty-six offices across New York and twenty-five police precincts just on the island itself. All that work over eight months, done, finished, and I’ve got no new orders.
I order a latte from a dude with crap tattoos and Nikes. Dumb ass zombie. As I’m handed the paper cup a lady runs down the street screaming. It’s unnerving, but only for a moment. The crowds, including myself, are back to our own thing in seconds.
A guy runs by me in a tacky plaid shirt and a flat cap. He yells in his cell phone, “Yeah, right. The military satellites are down. Trust me. I’ve got a source at the Times. The government is peeing in their pants.” I stop and watch him. I can barely hear him say, “Yeah, well if the government satellites are that vulnerable then this virus will start crawling across the Internet . . .Yeah, I’d unplug it.”
The night doorman opens the door for me, “Mornin’, Mr. Gladstone,” tipping his hat.
“It’s Ian. Mr. Gladstone is my father.” I try to return a smile, though I want to punch the guy in the face for reasons I can’t explain. Maybe it’s just the stress. I wasn’t born a criminal. My mind isn’t conditioned to compartmentalize feelings of guilt.
There is a flat screen TV in the lobby. A blond woman spouts off the headlines. “We are getting reports now that there is an attack underway, targeting the satellite infrastructure of the United States.” I hold my breath. She isn’t talking about my little spy game. I do expect that news report any time now. Have been for months, but no one is the wiser. The satellites are something different altogether. I wonder if Zilla knows what’s going on. I speed to the elevator.
The doors open and there’s my neighbor. He shakes his cell phone at me. “I was about to make ten thou on the UK stock exchange,” he complains. “But the satellite dropped my call. Smart ass hacker needs to get a job.”
I nod because my throat is too dry to speak. More violent thoughts pop into my head. I want to kick the guy. We switch places as I get in the elevator.
“I better check my accounts,” I croak sheepishly. That came out wrong. I’m not built for this shit.
“He’s probably some punk living in his mama’s basement, eating animal cookies for lunch. I hope they throw him in jail for the rest of his life.” My neighbor moves on, smacking his gum like a hyperactive cow.
After the doors close and the elevator starts moving I speak out loud. “You are one of the reasons this world is so screwed. I hope you lose your entire fortune with this virus.” Maybe I’ll just piss on his door. I shake my head regretting that thought. Time to check out. I am frazzled.
At my door there is a red package and a bottle of Blue Label Johnny Walker scotch. The scotch has a nice black bow tied around it. I scoop up the package and slip inside my condo. I re-lock the locks and turn my security bar until it clicks. I sit the red box and the scotch on my coffee table and stare at it. Zilla. Who else? Today is my last install, so it fits. I open the red box. Inside is a red tinted syringe filled with something. I’m confused. My brain can’t
process what I am seeing so I open the scotch, take a long swig, then flip on the TV. At two hundred dollars a bottle, this stuff is just what I need to calm my nerves.
The burn in my throat sends icicle shivers throughout my nervous system. My body anticipates the drink before it hits my liver. I immediately take another drink without a breath between. Then comes the heat. I can feel the stress flake off my consciousness like weathered paint peeling in the sunlight. Now that is a well-tamed scotch.
I watch the news about the computer virus until two in the morning, scotch in hand. Then the TV fuzzes out. The cable news gets the bug. I laugh. Blonds in suits should have been expecting that. I take two sleeping pills and pass out.
The next day I wake with a bad hangover. It’s around eleven in the morning, but I feel it’s still too early to get up. I try to turn on the lights, but they don’t work. I shrug and sluggishly lumber to the bathroom. The bathroom lights don’t work either. Power must be out. I piss then flush. The water doesn’t refill. Something is wrong in the building. I close the lid and try the sink. No water. Damn, what I really need is a hot shower. I shuffle to the TV and try to turn it on. No electricity, dummy.
I look at my watch. It’s dead. I can feel my brow tighten as my confusion slips into panic. I leap to the nearest window and peer to the street below. There’s a five-car pileup in front of my building. My adrenaline kicks in. I run to my closet and tear through boxes until I find my binoculars. They were a gift from my dad on my sixteenth birthday. I remember being so pissed off when I got them. What I really wanted was a car. My dad is a multimillion-dollar man but he couldn’t even buy his son a car. The binoculars are six hundred dollar peeps, and I never use them. I rip open the box and run back to the window. The street is a mess. People yell at each other and hover around the car wreck. One car has crashed into the building across the street. I look the opposite way. There are two guys throwing punches in front of the barbershop. No one tries to stop them.
I head down to the lobby, taking the stairs two at a time. It’s empty. No bellman and no annoying rich neighbor. Out on the street is a different story. Thousands are running or walking or stumbling up the street. They’re rats fleeing a sinking ship. The cars are jam-packed and some people are running over the tops. A motorcycle weaves in an out, pushing people out of its way without a word or a gesture. There are sirens and horns and yelling. I pace in the lobby for a minute, then I go outside. Someone has to be able to give me some news.
I duck back inside after almost getting ripped apart by someone vomiting and crying out in pain. I can’t hear anything over the thumping in my ears. My stomach tightens and its contents threaten to hightail it out of my esophagus. I stumble back up the stairwell and slam my condo door behind me.
I wish I had a TV or a radio. Without the TV the house is so quiet. I try to put on my MP3 player, which operated by batteries, but it doesn’t work either. What the hell? Anxiety starts building in my veins. After taking a giant pull from the bottle, I pour a drink of scotch and watch the world from my window. The street continues moving, the mass migration never ending, except for the bodies left behind. I watch people fight, steal shit from each other, and panic.
It’s total chaos and no one is in control. The street has bloomed with fear. It’s a constant flow of survival of the fittest. This is the end reel. The credits are about to rise.
I hear gunshots. Machine guns. A Humvee tears down the road, rams a car wreck and tries to push through it. It’s swarmed by people. I can’t look away. A boom startles me. It came from my hallway. I am afraid, in shock. I don’t utter a single word.
Outside the window I see a body, a woman, fall from above. The sight stops my heart. I drop my drink.
Had she jumped or was she pushed off her balcony? I find her with my binoculars. She’s splattered on the sidewalk like an orange that had been stepped on. My veins fill up with a thickness that I’d never felt before. It dulls my thoughts and anchors me to the bottom of a great and heavy sea. I — I just want to shut down, hit my power button and blink out of existence. I look into my kitchen, at the knives on my countertop. Best knives on the market. Sharp as shark’s teeth with mirco-diamond serrated edges. I make my way to the darkened kitchen, grab the largest knife, then stumbled back to the window. The light bit into my head as though it were the knife. My vision re-adjusted. I know, really know, that I had something to do with what is going on outside my window.
Just then, the clouds part and let a jet plunge through their dark fluff. Its engine burns. It falls fast and lands in the distance. A moment later, the glass in front of me shakes. A cloud of black smoke rises above the skyline. The smoke merges into the other dark towers of smoke and ash rising from the skyline.
I pull out my guitar and try to distract myself, but I’m too drunk to play. I pop a few sleeping pills and a couple of sedatives and wash the pills down with some more blue label scotch. The pills hit me like a kick in the head. I forget about the world outside and have no more inclinations to leave the condo. I dance and make jokes and go utterly mad for the next four or five hours.
I end up face to face with one of my writing awards clinging to my wall. It is trapped in a two hundred dollar frame my father insisted upon purchasing for me. It reads, High Literary Achievement Award from Columbia University. Awarded to Ian Gladstone. The type is printed in shiny metallic foil and has an official looking insignia and fancy borders. I rip it off the wall and stomp on it. I rip my PEN Award off the wall, too, and smash it. Finally, I try to sit on my rocking chair but miss the cushion completely and land on my ass. The room spins and I laugh again. I laugh hard. I laugh so hard that my head tightens like it was in a vice, and my eyes tear. The world is so funny. It has played a joke on me, and I just got the punch line. It’d been so long since I’d laughed like that. For years I’d taken everything so seriously. I’d acted as if the world was so broken that I had to fix it. Maybe I was broken. Who was I trying to fix the world for? I’m utterly alone.
Until I’m not.
The door bursts inward and five big dudes hustle into my living room. They have a police battering ram, bulletproof vests, pistols, and batons, but they aren’t officers. They’re thieves. I sway and gape at their intrusion, still trying to figure out why I’m as frozen as a bronze statue. The bald guy, with the wife beater shirt under his vest and the intricate tribal tattoos covering ninety percent of his body, comes at me. I should be able to raise my hands, to defend myself or my home, but I can’t. I’m too fucked up. He brings up the baton and clocks me across the head. I fall into an abyss of dark swirling nothingness. It feels like I’ve crawled into the dryer and hit tumble-dry. I’m not out yet because I can hear them.
One guys says, “No food.”
Another snaps, “We’re not here for food, fool!”
My closet door bangs open and someone else rifles through my desk.
The pounding in my head increases. Warm blood drips down my forehead. I need to call an ambulance! Shit. The spinning won’t stop. I want to pull out my phone and call the cops. Ha! The cops. I’ve railed against the perceived police state in blogs and articles and never thought I’d need them. Now, here I am wishing I could call someone to help me.
I crack my eyes open and watch the guys move to the door. They’ve got armfuls of expensive clothes, suits, my computer, back-up hard drive, my guitar, and a box of jewelry my mother left me. It’s everything of value I have in the world. Someone should tell them the computer stuff is as valuable as a burnt piece of toast.
Well, it doesn’t take a genius to be an asshole. I kind of feel like one myself.
The bald guy comes back to me, slips off my watch, which is quite expensive, and brings down his baton on my head. I go out this time.
I wake early morning around five or six. The sun rises, squeezing through the gaps in the blinds, but barely pushes back the dark. My once tidy apartment is completely trashed. I have nothing in this world now. I am naked.
My head forc
es me to get up and go to the mirror. I’m a blurry reflection of myself and I feel exactly how I look. I’m too thin, covered in blood, and shaking. I use a water bottle to clean off the blood, and take a handful of ibuprofen.
Not a sound enters my ears — no cars, no screaming, crying, no computer fan or air-conditioning unit — nothing.
My head spins again and I end up on the floor with my head between my knees. When it stops, I move to the windows and roll-up my vinyl shades to let the light in. I want the light to penetrate every nook and cranny of my condo because I don’t want to be in darkness anymore.
The New York skyline is still, cold and silent, like the model architecture on my dad’s development table in his office. It isn’t a model; it’s the beginning of the new day, a dark day. A day I fathered.
The flame of New York sits on the brink of darkness. Its progress: the ideas, inventions, and laws, all grind to a halt like an engine without oil. Without electricity the buildings look dingy and old. However, the stillness is far from tranquil. There’s sensation of sadness in the air, tears on the wind, and screams, silently stuck in the throats of millions.
I look down at the empty streets below, actually missing my six hundred dollar binoculars. The sky is a patchwork of dark grey clouds and bright blue sky. There are no birds flying, no cars honking, no dogs barking.
Even though I don’t quite know how everything went bad, I know instinctively that things are worse than I’d ever thought possible. I’d inadvertently caused this shift in the city, but what’s more important is that it was a mistake.
Having been battered the previous day, my brain feels deeply bruised. It’s not the only message my body is sending my brain. My stomach growls. I force myself to go downstairs. I take the steps slowly. I walk out to the street. The light bites into my brain. It’s a weird cloudy light. The cars piled up still clog the street and there’s that Humvee. The windows are shattered. The soldiers’ bodies are splayed out on the street, beaten, and trampled.
6th Horseman, Extremist Edge Series: Part 1 Page 7
