Finally, Perdue liberated the gorilla’s head from its torso with the hatchet, jumped off it. After a delay, the torso finally keeled over, as if it were being filmed by a slow motion camera.
He flung the ax back at Chew Toy as if aiming to take his head off with it, evidently not appreciating being rescued. For Robin, this was just a bonus. A reaction of frustration from Perdue she didn’t have to orchestrate herself.
She whispered in Perdue’s ear. “What does the frustration tell you about yourself?”
Apparently, her timing was right on.
Busy catching his breath, Perdue could entertain higher thoughts for a few seconds before engaging his standard programming. “Let’s hope the bastard got away.”
“Come again?” Purnell sheathed his weapon, eying the decommissioned robo-gorilla on the floor.
“He lived long enough to teach me, it’s not killing I enjoy, so much as a worthy opponent. For that, he deserves a second chance at life.”
“So, now you feel less antisocial and more sociopathic,” Purnell said. “All of us exist for no better reason than your entertainment. Bully for you and your get-over-yourself program.”
Perdue smiled, noting Purnell was still out of breath. “You could use some more cardio. Why don’t you take point next time out?”
“Because, unlike you, I’m really not about getting over myself. I’m just here in the hopeless enterprise of rubbing off on you, relative saint that I am.”
Perdue affectionately squeezed Purnell’s neck. “What would I do without your cheekiness to get me to lighten up, Purnell?”
“I shudder to think.” Purnell’s voice conveyed the natural squeakiness of someone getting the life strangled out of him.
The other team members chuckled at the two of them, amused by their routine.
Robin reflected on Perdue’s remark, wondering if that’s what his dynamic with Purnell was meant to teach her: how to lighten up. God knew she struggled in that area.
Suddenly, the efforts of the Harding estate staff to intervene in her fate came into bold relief. Funny they should pick getting her to lighten up as a chief focus just when her safaris in time were starting to bring back the same revelation as trophies. She made a commitment to resist their efforts less, while remaining hopeful that they might figure out how to get past her redoubled unconscious defenses.
***
“Quick, mam,” Minerva said. “I hate to press you into action, but if we’re going to score a victory, now’s the time to make our move.”
Robin struggled to focus her eyes on more than just Minerva’s lips. Orienting herself to time and place was no small feat following one of her catatonic fugues. It was nighttime, she could tell that much, possibly providing the reason for Minerva’s sense of urgency. She was standing in her bedroom by the window overlooking the garden. All she could see right now were the fireflies that made the estate look as if it were strung with Christmas tree lights as they blinked on and off.
***
It was dawning when they reached the spot on the Harding estate that Minerva wanted to show Robin. “It’s a leap of faith, mam.” Minerva straightened her dress in what seemed like no more than an excuse to lower her eyes for fear of being found out.
Robin smelled a rat. “Forgive me, but you don’t sound entirely trustworthy.”
“Well, if I did, that would defeat the purpose of the exercise, wouldn’t it?”
Rather than argue the point, Robin did as requested. She leaped into the clearing between the trees, fully expecting to land face down on the dirt. Instead, she found herself levitating off the ground and laughing madly. “What is it?”
“The vortex, mam. Leastways, this is where we find it today. Tomorrow it might be some other place on the property. Does tend to wander a bit.”
“Why can’t I stop laughing?”
“That’s what we’re like when we’re stripped bare of all our b.s., mam. The vortex cleanses the energy body which gets gunked up with psychic sludge.”
Robin got thrown off the rising tuft of air, and landed hard on the ground. That did nothing to deter her wild spirits. She jumped back in the ring, and rose off the ground once again. “It’s like one of those air tunnels parachutists use to practice free fall, only better.”
Minerva sighed. “Do try and not ruin the experience with understanding, miss.”
Robin cackled louder the longer she stayed on, as if being tickled all over.
When she got thrown free of the vortex this time, she gasped. “You’ve given me what I needed to press on with my mission, Minerva. God bless you.”
And with that, Robin sunk into catatonia. She used the energy influx from having the blockages in her energy body removed by the vortex as a jumping off point to her Renaissance men. In a flash she had returned to her work of coaching larger-than-life souls how not to be consumed in the flames of their own emerging abilities.
***
Minerva watched Robin turn to stone just beyond the reach of the vortex’s anti-gravity effects. “What will it take to rescue that woman from purposefulness?” She stood and hiked back toward the castle. “Thank God for my shallow existence.”
TWENTY
“Do you believe this guy?”
Pontius thought Rufus’s tone carried more than the usual measure of indignation. Perhaps their subject merited the consternation. He stirred the rocking chair on which he sat on his patio, facing his Kansas wheat fields that seemed to go on forever.
The Tesla device, disguised as an oil derrick, shook the earth beneath their feet. It was, in truth, vibrating the world like a hollow bell. Left to go on much longer, it would split the planet in two.
Rufus wiped his brow, prickling with sweat like a freshly sprayed honeydew melon in the grocery section, with his handkerchief. “Come on. Let’s see what this clown has to say for himself.”
Pontius matched Rufus’s gait as they marched towards the farm house, requiring he take much smaller steps than felt comfortable.
Struggling not to sprain an ankle over the giant clumps of sod, Rufus kept his eyes aimed down as much as out in front of him. “Honestly, I can’t tell who the bad guys are, anymore. Are we the heroes of this story, or the villains? I mean, he looks harmless enough. As to cobbling together some invention in his basement, hell, it’s the American way.”
“Splitting the planet in two is a bit of a deal breaker, boss.”
“You have me there. Still, there are a lot of people saying it’s time for a do over. If word got out about this guy, they might just elect him President.”
Pontius carried the potted orchid as gingerly as he could. The rough terrain of the plowed field didn’t exactly make his job any easier.
They arrived at the foot of the old codger’s patio, all wooden slats raised off the earth courtesy of a riser board less than a foot high. The second story jutted overhead for shade. Pontius looked heavenward to see the same loosely-fitted strips of pine-wood customary of subflooring, which the old man apparently couldn’t afford to cover over with hardwood.
“Howdy,” Rufus said. “Mr. Barclay, is it? Quiet life you got here.”
“Yes, sir,” Barclay said, his voice tremulous, owing to aging muscles which could no longer efficiently perform their task.
“Not much to complain about, I imagine,” Rufus said. “Hell, even the breeze blows boisterously, giving pleasant respite from the summer heat.”
“We’re known for our winds, sir. Blow you clear across Kansas and back on a good day.”
“So, tell me, Mr. Barclay, what prompts you to build a device that splits the world in two? Hell, I can’t imagine you even pay taxes. Pontius, when was the last time this man paid taxes?”
Pontius checked his PDA. “April of eighty-four.”
Rufus exclaimed, “My, sir, you do live a charmed life! So, once again, explain to me why the hell, for no apparent reason, you get up one fine morning, and decide to blow the world apart?”
“It seemed like the
thing to do,” Barclay replied.
“Watching too much TV, I bet. Far too many people watch far too much TV. That shit’ll rot your brains. I know it’d make me want to blow up the world. Of course, I’m the exception that proves the rule. You know nothing you see on TV is real, right? It’s all made up. To keep people like you in check. Fear is the mind killer, Mr. Barclay. Don’t you realize that? That’s why the news is full of frightening headlines. Incapacitates the mind, makes you stupid, unthinking, willing to do whatever the hell people in power want you to do. Only, not in your case. Why is that, Mr. Barclay? I’d hate to think we’re slipping.”
“God told me to do it,” Mr. Barclay said.
“God told you to do it!” Rufus laughed sarcastically. “I surely do miss the days when I was the only one running around with a cause. These days, you can hardly find anyone who doesn’t inhabit a cause more than their own bodies.”
“For the missus,” Pontius said, setting the orchid down on the patio.
“She passed away,” Mr. Barclay said.
“No, sir,” Pontius said, consulting his PDA. “Says, right here, she’s alive and kicking and collecting social security checks.”
“I buried her in the backyard, and didn’t tell anybody so I could keep collecting the checks,” Mr. Barclay said.
Rufus shook his head. “I hate it when people can be stark raving mad and practical at the same time. Really screws with my sense of the world.” He took out his gun. “Any last words, Mr. Barclay? From God, perhaps? I’m certainly not against anyone opening a channel.”
“Drop dead,” Mr. Barclay said.
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” Rufus planted a bullet in his forehead. Mr. Barclay kept rocking back and forth on the chair in a spooky fashion, riding the force of the .45 caliber bullet to the brain.
“You want me to check for the wife in the backyard, boss?” Pontius said.
“It’s forty thousand acres, Pontius. Let’s take it on faith. Besides, how many evil masterminds can one family harbor? I mean, fair is fair, after all.”
They hiked to the “oil derrick” to plant the explosives. The latest reverberation beneath their feet caused the house behind them to fold like a house of cards.
After seating the explosives on one of the non-moving parts of the derrick, Rufus asked, “Who’s next on the list?”
Pontius consulted his PDA. “Well, there’s this obelisk in the desert.”
“No, no, no. My day is way too full to chase after obelisks in the desert. They’ve been there for thousands of years. I say we leave well enough alone.”
“There are reports of a flying saucer over Tokyo,” Pontius said, scrolling up his PDA.
“I’m one guy with a Magnum, Pontius. Manageable end-of-world scenarios, please. Leave some glory for someone else to steal.”
“Here’s one I think you’ll like. Some old woman stopped eating in France. Hasn’t even drunk water for three months. They’re getting ready to declare her a saint.”
“We had better get over there. That’s some pretty scary shit. You have the power of mind to do that, God knows what else you could do.”
They walked back to the car, hopped in the vehicle as much to get out of the sun as avoid the shrapnel from the blast. They finished rolling up the bulletproof widows in time for them to absorb the shock of debris flying their way.
Turning the engine over and setting the car in gear, Rufus said, “I tell you, the next time those bastards crash the world economy, I plan to be retired. Just leads to too much of this upstart nonsense. You want to keep people fat, dumb, and lazy? Keep them employed. Give them enough money they can buy a house and put their kids through college. Then the world doesn’t get quite so complicated.”
“There’s no talking sense to an addict, boss. They’re addicted to money and greed. Maybe they’re the ones we should go after.”
“Someone with a sensible approach to life. You clearly don’t get it.” Rufus hammered the accelerator, peeled them off the dirt embankment, kicking dust and gravel into the air, and sent them sailing down the two lane highway.
TWENTY-ONE
By now, Alexandra would have worn a groove in the floor if it had been the least bit amenable to her feet. Instead, it was their ears she was wearing out; she squeaked, scraped, and skirred against the wood with the soles of her shoes like a frustrated carpenter with her awl. “Are we any closer to zeroing in on that Tesla device?” she said.
“No, but maybe someone’s better at tracking than we are.” Boyd sucked up his cocaine snivels. His perennially draining nose was nearly as grating as Alexandra’s feet, Adrienne thought. She used to be more understanding. She used to be more respectful. Working around the clock wasn’t good for emotional stability, even if they could keep their brains going on caffeine, drive, and compunction. “Because the vibrations have stopped,” he said. “The earthquakes are no longer spreading and reinforcing one another.”
“Praise God,” Alexandra exclaimed. “No thanks to you. You used to be useful.”
The latest thing: they were hurtling digs at once another for no good reason.
“When was that? Before we outlawed sleep,” Boyd said, unfazed. But then his skin had grown thick from taking all the barbs. And lack of showering had left him with several layers of sweat and grime and sloughed skin towards that armadillo shell he was building around himself.
“I had to change my contact prescription three times just to be able to keep staring at the screen,” Brandon said.
“I became a serial killer in my head,” Adrienne confessed, “killing you all over and over again, when once just wasn’t satisfying enough.”
“Fine,” Alexandra said. She pulled her hair back from her neck to give it a chance to breathe, the turtleneck jersey woven with sweat strangling her. “Go home, do whatever it is you people do to relax.”
Alexandra glanced around the room, and added, “I’m not entertaining arguments at this time.” But they were already gone. She was talking to herself. In the batting of an eye, a section of the brightest bulbs that had been strung together to illuminate the European underground movement in defense of the Renaissance types just plain blinked out.
***
“This park used to be a place you could bring kids to,” Alexandra overheard as she jogged by. Who was she kidding? The old witch would probably scare them to death.
Three minutes and twenty seconds later, she passed the old witch and her sidekick for the last sixty-plus years for a second time. This time, her husband said, “Maybe she’s just back from the war. I hear it takes them a while to adjust.” That was Alexandra’s cue to take her jog downtown. She could probably relax better by dodging cars and pedestrians.
Instead of clearing her head, the New York summer heat and humidity caused her brain to swell. The more she panted, the more the hot steamy air settled in her lungs like a stagnant pond. Her eyes felt like poached eggs; the oven timer, set to alert her they were ready, refusing to shut off. So when she saw it, she wasn’t sure she wasn’t just hallucinating.
A hand-off. A straight out of the spy book hand-off.
The briefcase set down on the curb, the mark pretended to read his newspaper waiting for the light to turn. The pickup man set his satchel down beside Reader, then picked up Reader’s attaché and rushed across the street on the “walk” signal. Neither noticed they were now making off with the other man’s tote. Alexandra followed the leather grip in the pickup man’s hand.
Sensing his tail, the switcheroo artist picked up the pace. Feinting right, as he ducked left, he made quick use of any blind to switch direction. A school of pedestrians. The side wall of a bus-stop emblazoned with an underwear model. A bus screaming by as he crossed the street. A line of taxis with men climbing inside looking just like him. Alexandra couldn’t be sure it wasn’t the delirium convincing her she was still locked on target.
She followed Smooth Operator up a fire escape three flights and into an office building.
Th
e sea of cubicles before her stretched maddeningly in all directions, an Escher painting that defied any attempts to anchor depth perception and perspective. Up and down stairs, wherever she looked, there were more of the little boxed in areas. The windows were open and fans were blowing, and people were popping in and out of the windows from their lunches and siestas and romantic rendezvous on the fire escapes as freely as they were coming and going through doors, up and down stairwells, and in and out elevators. So no one batted an eye at Alexandra’s entry. Her “friend” had taken a seat, presumably, blending nicely with all the other workers. There hadn’t been enough time to reach an elevator, a window, a stairwell, or a door. But if he was one of the ones walking the maze of cubicles, he might get to one of those entry and exit points soon enough.
Using her eye for detail, she recalled her mark. His way of walking, though largely indistinguishable from the rest, was not entirely indistinct. He leaned slightly to the left. The heels of his shoes were worn unevenly, favoring the instep. His shoulders, though fairly even, tilted down slightly to the right, like a clothes hanger supporting a shirt with keys in the right-hand pocket. And his leather satchel was soft, light brown, and curved at the top. She could remember other things: his trench coat collar hadn’t been pulled down, and insufficiently starched, tended to flap more on the right side than the left. But she didn’t need any more details. She found him walking the maze toward the nearest stairwell, keeping his options open, so if she spotted him, he could still make it to a cubicle in time, lose himself in the maze one floor below.
She bounded after him with the stealth of a panther. He didn’t dare turn around to see who was following him or how close. There weren’t enough mirrored surfaces to give her away. The floor was carpeted, making it that much easier to execute her ninja pas de deux on the floor. Although her panting was largely masked by the sounds of the overhead fans and the din of workers shuffling in their chairs, she controlled her breathing—as it still had a rhythm to it, which would also indicate how fast she was moving.
Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5) Page 139
