The Company Man

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “Where are we going?” she asked quietly.

  “You’re going to Los Angeles,” he said. “From there, who knows? It’s up to you. Your purse has more than five thousand dollars in it, so you can go where you’d like.”

  “Five thousand?”

  “Yes. That should support you. It should get you where you need. Do me a favor and go someplace warm. Somewhere with sun.”

  “You’re not coming?”

  He shook his head. “No, Sam. I’m not.”

  “Why not?”

  “I think I have a lot to do now.”

  Samantha turned to look at the airship. The docking arm eased out and snatched it to hold it still and men in overalls moved forward to secure its many trusses. Then a steel-and-rubber staircase unfolded and rose to meet the side of the passenger cell. People began trickling out to greet their loved ones or hurry downstairs or just stare at the city laid out around them.

  “And… and you’re just going to send me away?” she asked. “While you stay here?”

  “Yes. I want you to go and leave this behind, Sam. Someone needs to. Someone needs to go on.”

  Samantha looked at the airship for a moment longer and then turned and walked to the corner of the cradle where children and tourists gathered to look out at the city. She stared out at the rooftops and the streets and the cars, then looked back at him, eyes glinting. “What did you find out there, Mr. Hayes? What’s happened to you?”

  “I just… I’ve just seen something. Or had something shown to me.”

  “What was it? Who showed it to you?”

  Hayes tried to articulate what had happened but could not. He simply shook his head.

  Her face softened. She sighed and sniffed and said, “Well. I can see you haven’t changed that much. You’re still a remarkably silly man.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  Samantha turned back to the city. “Do you honestly think you can just send me away? Just shove me on a ship and have done with it?”

  “Sam, it’s dangerous, and I-”

  “I know it’s dangerous. It’s always been dangerous. And once I would have said yes, that we should go, and forget all this. But I can’t now, don’t you see? I can’t. We can’t just leave it, just leave all this to die.” She sniffed again and turned to look him over. “What did you see, Mr. Hayes? Did you find something? Did you find out what happened to Skiller, or the boy?”

  “I did. I found the boy.”

  Her breath fluttered. “What… what happened to him?”

  He considered telling her, wondering whether she could be burdened with yet another awful truth. But his strength failed, and he found he could not tell her what he had done. He could barely accept it himself. And besides, the boy had died, in a way, when he touched the thing in the basement, and what he became after was not Jack at all. And so Hayes simply shook his head, and said nothing.

  Samantha shut her eyes. “Then it’s as we feared. I should have guessed.”

  “I don’t think he died in pain, if that’s of… of any help.”

  “It isn’t. I had hoped we could take just one thing away from this. That we could save one thing innocent, or good.”

  “If you leave, we can,” he said. “You really won’t consider it?”

  “No, Mr. Hayes. No, I won’t.” She looked at him. “Can’t you tell me anything? Anything about what you found?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know how to tell you what I saw.”

  “Then tell me what you plan to do, at least.”

  He hesitated, then told her. As he did the waiting passengers boarded the airship. Then finally it broke truss and began to drift away. People gathered on the cradle to wave goodbye and all the people in the passenger cell of the ship gathered at the blue-green windows to wave back. Once it had drifted far enough out the engines whirled and spun until the ship found the right angle of ascension, and then it began to rise straight up, its skin shining gold in the morning light.

  When he was done talking Samantha thought it over. “What will you do with it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s a start, at least. It’s got to be a start.”

  “And what do you need from me?”

  “From you?” he asked.

  “Yes. You’ve always needed someone sensible around. What can I do? What can I give you?”

  He frowned, thinking, and then he said, “Lamps.”

  “Lamps?”

  “Yes. Lamps,” he said. “I need lamps.”

  “But what do you need lamps for?” she asked.

  “To light the way, of course,” he said.

  “Is that all you need? Can’t you get those yourself?”

  “Sam, are you coming or not?” he asked irritably.

  She turned to watch the airship float away until it disappeared into the clouds above. Then she nodded. “All right,” she said.

  They took the lift back down to the ground. People gave them a wide berth, thinking Hayes some maddened transient. Then they walked out into the street, heading southeast. Hayes followed Samantha, not thinking, just watching the city around him.

  Down at the cabbie stand old men in worn knit caps and thick coats leaned up against the wooden posts. They smoked filthy cigarettes and watched the world go by with hangdog eyes and mournful shakes of the head, forever disapproving of the modern way and speaking of the past. Of forgotten wars, of legendary baseball players, of the city as it had been and never would be again. One man described the fire in great detail, his double-jointed fingers forming crooked flames that he spread out along an imaginary horizon. Then he shook his head and put his finger on his chin and they all mimicked the pose, staring into the sidewalk and trying to set the world to rights.

  Down on the corner four new mothers sat on the front steps of their houses in white cotton dresses, peering up at the sky. Their eyes were troubled but they balanced their babes on their knees with thoughtless skill, fat chubby legs clutched around their thighs, perfect little booties bobbing up and down. As the mothers discussed the fire and the city and the future their children laughed and reached out to one another and shared some delight, as if they could see invisible wonders in the morning air. Which perhaps they could, after all.

  Further down a newspaper stand clerk leaned up on his counter, chin in one hand, a mound of soaking cigarette butts beside his elbow like defeated challengers. His arms and his fingers were black with ink and he wore wandering lines of it on his face like some clownish war paint. Sometimes a pedestrian would catch his eye and he would squint at them and maneuver his toothpick about, flashing row upon row of gray teeth as though showing what he’d like to do to them. Hayes waved to him as he passed and the old man blinked in surprise and stared after him.

  They found a supply store, and Samantha went in while Hayes stayed on the corner, absently watching the passersby. She came back out with three oil lamps and a pocketful of matches. Hayes took two of the lamps from her and then they continued walking east. Through parks and markets and floundering games of street baseball, through fights and purring traffic and the waking day. It all felt so fresh and new to Hayes. So alive with so much promise.

  They came to a rickety old wooden fence with many KEEP OUT signs, but they ignored them and found a gap and walked through to where the street opened up and a staircase of sandbags led down into the dark.

  Hayes gazed down into the tunnels. For a moment he quavered and wondered what would happen if he simply turned away, but then Samantha took his hand. He turned to her and she looked back at him, uncertain. He was not sure if she had taken his hand to offer support or to reassure herself, but either way it was welcome. He nodded to her, grateful, and then they began their way down the sandbags.

  Once they reached the bottom they lit the lamps and started forward into the tunnels. Now Hayes led Samantha, sensing the way ahead, taking turns through maintenance shafts and over trolley tracks. A familiar world of darkness and dank and the s
oft hums of distant machinery, and sleeping secrets.

  They wound deep into the labyrinth, Hayes walking with his head cocked as he tried to listen. Then as they passed by one tunnel’s opening Hayes looked to the side and saw Skiller standing there, whole and unwounded, ankle-deep in water and watching him with burning, pained eyes. He stood with his arms close to his body as though powerfully cold. He shook his head. “It’s not what we thought it was,” he said. “We’ve been betrayed. This isn’t the way.”

  I know, thought Hayes. I know. Don’t worry. I know.

  They continued on, leaving Skiller in the dark.

  They bent low as the tunnel slightly began to shrink. The floor underneath them turned to iron grating, and sometimes in between bundles of piping they could see even deeper pathways below. As they walked over one gap Hayes looked down and saw Evans sitting there, crosslegged and staring up, his face concealed by shadow but his glasses glinting. “We’re making a new age,” he whispered up to him. “A new age. And we are but a part.”

  Yes, thought Hayes. I see that now. I know.

  They crossed over tracks and began up the maintenance tunnels, picking their way over old boots and shovels and ancient equipment. Up ahead he saw Jack sitting in the doorway of one of the maintenance sheds, not yet pale and ravaged. He watched Hayes pass with terrified, sunken eyes and pleadingly said, “I was scared. They left me there. I wanted to tell them not to leave.” As though this could somehow explain everything. Explain all the atrocities left behind in their wake.

  “I know, Jack,” whispered Hayes. “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” said Samantha, looking up.

  “Nothing,” he muttered, and quickly wiped tears from his eyes.

  He was not sure if they were his imagination or if they were memories he’d stolen, laid out here before him. To him they were simply more voices. Fragments and seconds from time past that came to life down here in the dark.

  They found a maintenance hallway and followed the dim sodium lights along its winding path. As they walked they came to a darkened intersection, and Hayes looked to his right and saw Tazz or Crimley or whichever standing far down the crossing hallway in the darkness. “You have seen it out in the veins of the city,” he said. “You have seen the dead and the dying.”

  Yes, whispered Hayes silently to himself. Yes, I have. I know.

  They walked on through the cement hallway, and as they passed a small closet Hayes saw Spinsie sitting inside, lounging up against a set of empty metal shelves, smoke snailing up from a cigarette in his hand and his glance dismissive and contemptuous. “You don’t know everything, you know that, little brother?” he said, his words pluming smoke. “Just ’cause you’ve been around. Just ’cause you managed to get out before I could.”

  Yes, Hayes thought. Yes, I know.

  And somehow in the next room was Teddy Montrose, still wearing his overcoat and his hat and his prim tie, briefcase in hand. Face pale and pearled with the kiss of steam. He watched Hayes pass and begged, “Will He forgive me? God. Do you think He will forgive me?”

  But Hayes shook his head and shut his eyes and kept walking.

  Then as they passed the next room Hayes glanced in and saw it was crowded with the victims of the Bridgedale trolley, Evie and Naylor and poor Mrs. Sanna, and many more. They sat along two wooden benches running along the walls, or stood holding on to a support beam as they would a handrail. They casually read the paper with their legs crossed, or knitted or smoked or grinned at some small joke. They did not seem to know they would never arrive anywhere. That they had died down here, and were forever trapped in that little room.

  In some way they would never leave here. They and all the others. They were claimed by the city and what it was built upon. Casualties caught in its many gears.

  I’m sorry, Hayes said to them. I’m so sorry. But they did not hear, or if they did they did not show it.

  Then finally they came to a huge, dark room with a thin passageway running along one side. Hayes looked to the end of the passageway, thinking. Then he raised the lantern and as the light reached further out it found Garvey standing there, the knot in his cheap tie loose and his hands in his pockets. His small smile was wry and sad, as though he was pained by the things he’d seen and yet at peace with the absurd knowledge that he’d willfully see more of them. Hayes swallowed as he stared at him. Then Garvey’s small smile deepened and he said, “Someone has to look, for things like that.”

  The hand holding the lantern began shaking. Then Hayes took a breath and said, “Yes. Let’s take a look.” And he turned the lamp away until his friend was swallowed by shadows, and he and Samantha walked to the edge of the passageway.

  They lifted the lamps and found Tazz’s machine waiting for them. It was huge and dead and silent still, its turbines quiet, its pistons frozen. Hayes nodded and walked to the ladder rungs and began to climb down, lamp hanging from the crook of an elbow. Samantha did the same, leaving one lamp burning at the top of the ladder.

  When they were at the feet of the machine it seemed larger than ever. From this perspective they saw it was easily taller than most buildings. But Hayes took no notice and instead found the small hutch in the machine’s side and the many tools that had been left there. He knelt and peered into the hutch and sniffed. Then he nodded again and grabbed the second lantern and got down on his hands and knees.

  “How will this be any different?” asked Samantha.

  “Different?” said Hayes.

  “Using this machine…” she said. “How will this be any different from what McNaughton was doing? How will this help, and not hurt further?”

  Hayes thought for a moment. “It will be different,” he said, “because now I know the limits. We know how fragile all this is. And I am not looking to build, and grow, and keep pushing the boundaries. I am looking to make sure that the heart of the world keeps beating.”

  He crawled in on his hands and knees and dragged the second lamp in after. Samantha stooped and called into the hutch, “But will that be enough?” Yet Hayes did not answer.

  On the inside the machine was a world of gears and pipes and bundles of wires, of blown glass and steel and frail copper plates. Hayes crawled or walked or sidled his way among them, looking them over and somehow recognizing them. He knew them and saw how primitive and vulgar and simple the device was, how it was a feeble work that attempted to ape something far beyond the conception of its creators. But he could sense the potential there as well. It could be fixed. Brought back or even made better.

  He began adjusting it as he saw fit. Moving the parts until they matched the design in his head. It took hours, but he hardly noticed. So many foreign memories were coming to life inside him, memories and patterns and designs that had waited eons to be used.

  Finally he slid one copper plate into its slot and the machine filled with a deep, resonant hum. Hayes looked up above at the roof of wiring and piping and crawled back out as the hum grew. He pulled himself out of the hutch and saw Samantha seated at the lip of the wall, staring up at the machine with wide, frightened eyes. Then she saw him and helped him up and they both stood and looked.

  “Sometimes I think this city has a voice,” said Hayes.

  “A what?” said Samantha, surprised.

  “A voice.”

  She looked away, and then shut her eyes and tried not to weep. “What does it say?” she asked.

  The hum kept deepening until they could feel it in their bones. It seemed as though there were some great pressure shifting down in the earth, something pushing up and rising through the rock and charging toward the surface.

  “That things are going to get better,” said Hayes.

  The hum reached its apex and another hum joined it, this one of a higher pitch, and then another and another as boiling air coursed through the many metal throats in the machine. A groan rolled throughout the room as gears that had long been silent began to move. Then the air took on a slight charge as electricity found i
ts way through the device and signals began echoing through its recesses, whispering to long-forgotten components and rousing them from sleep. Soon the little crystal in the Sibling above began flickering, perhaps calling to others like it and straining to attract their attention. Distant islands of machines floating in the dark, chained together by links of light, all of them aware of this little rogue pocket in the center of the city that had suddenly come back into existence. Wondering what this could be, if they could wonder at all.

  Let them watch, thought Hayes. Let them listen. Let them see what we’re making here. Something extraordinary. Something genuinely for the future. Maybe they’ll listen.

  “Open your eyes, Samantha,” said Hayes. “Open them.”

  She did so, and gasped softly. The many hums gathered like a chord on a church organ until finally there was a great squalling and the dozens of pistons began to move. At first it was slow and painfully arthritic and the machine strained until it seemed it could not bear the force, but then the pistons began to find some lost rhythm, a slow, pumping beat that pulled more life and power into the machine with each stroke. And somehow both of them recognized that beat, that soft, powerful churning they’d heard before, echoing up storm drains and air vents. It spoke of great strength and magnificent power, enough to move the Earth and the stars themselves, should it be set to it, and both of them thought it new and terrifying and wonderful. Then the beat faded as the pistons gathered speed until they were churning at a blinding rate, smoothly and beautifully, and the hundreds of gears spun cleanly and the wiring sang and the batteries sparked and every inch of the massive construction was moving and humming and alive.

  “Yes,” said Hayes. “Things are going to get better.”

  And they sat and watched as the machine awoke.

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: fbd-bc5a2c-2a08-8c4c-c29c-e011-119e-20e874

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 07.10.2011