The Music of the Machine (The Book of Terwilliger 2)

by Michael Stiles

  “You did what you had to,” said Sarah. “But now that they’re here, you should at least talk to them.”

  “I don’t want to talk to them. Who’s that on the TV?”

  Sarah turned up the volume. “That’s Gloria Steinem. You’ve heard of her, haven’t you? The Equal Rights Amendment and all that―”

  Ed hung up his coat and eased himself down onto one of the folding chairs that made up their living room set. The chair creaked under his weight. He wasn’t that heavy, although he might have put on a few pounds since settling down. “I remember.”

  “Do you think I should get a job too?”

  “It’s up to you,” he said tiredly. This wasn’t the first time they’d talked about it, but so far she hadn’t gone out and tried to find one. His own search wasn’t going well—he had skills in his field, but he couldn’t exactly use his former employer as a reference.

  “I think I might. Did that casserole look done to you?”

  Ed shrugged. “It smelled done.” It smelled a little past done, to tell the truth, but he wasn’t about to say that.

  Someone was shouting on the street below. Ed sighed, managed to get up out of his chair without folding himself inside it, and looked out the window. One of the people in his entourage was calling up to him.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, putting on his jacket again.

  “It won’t do any good.”

  Ed trudged back down the stairs and went outside. It was a cool day—not uncomfortably cold, but cool enough for intelligent people to know enough not to camp out on the sidewalk in sleeping bags. The people all stood up when he came out, all except one man who was asleep on the ground. Someone nudged him awake and he stood up with the rest. They all watched him expectantly.

  “What’s the matter?” said Ed.

  They all looked at each other nervously until one girl, a pretty but unwashed young lady of about eighteen years, said, “It’s getting chilly. Can you… would you please let us come inside for the night?”

  Ed looked at each of them in turn. There was no room for them to stay in his apartment. It was a studio. There wasn’t even a bedroom; the bed was in the corner of the living room. “You can stay in the entryway,” he sighed. “But if anybody complains, you have to get out.”

  They reacted with excitement and gratitude. One of them started rolling up his sleeping bag.

  “Look,” Ed said, “I know you all expect me to say something important to you.” Their faces lit up at the mere suggestion that he might have something to say. “The truth is, I’m no different from you. I don’t have the answer. I don’t have any answers.”

  “But… but you knew the Wheelchair Man!” said a red-haired man with freckles. He looked old enough to know better. “I saw it in a dream. He was speaking to you, like, telling you secrets.”

  Ed scratched his beard. It itched terribly, but it changed his appearance enough to make him feel a little safer. “The Guru—the Wheelchair Man didn’t know anything either. And it wasn’t a―”

  “I had a dream that you were flying!” said another one, a young man in a bright red knit cap who was in desperate need of a box of tissues. “You and your gnome were flying over a forest, and the sky was this groovy shade of purple!”

  “It’s not my gnome,” said Ed. “And I wasn’t actually flying. I was…” How could he explain without confusing them even more? “It wasn’t real. It was a dream I had, that’s all. There’s nothing magical about it.”

  The runny-nosed one wasn’t having any of it. “Teach us how to fly!” he said.

  “You can’t tell Blake what to do!” the red-haired one snapped.

  “He owes us something,” said runny-nose.

  “Blake!” called another. “Who are the Bald Men?”

  “Blake, tell us what you want from us!” said the girl who had spoken at the beginning.

  Ed’s hands closed into fists, which he waved in the air menacingly. “Go home!” he shouted at them. “That’s what I want you to do. You can’t come inside. Get off my sidewalk! Forget you ever saw me!” He spun around and stomped back up the steps to his building. The door wouldn’t open; it had locked automatically, and he didn’t have his key. He bellowed with anger.

  “He’s only testing our loyalty,” Ed heard one of them whisper. “He doesn’t mean it.”

  * * *

  The buzzer sounded, the red light lit up, and the last of the four students failed the test.

  Big John ran a hand across his freshly-shaved scalp. These four were among the best of the new recruits; they would eventually get it. He knew they would. But every man had to have a breakthrough on his own.

  John and his four recruits were sitting cross-legged on the floor in the upper basement of Society House, the spacious residence Arthur had acquired in Bel Air. This had been the original basement of the house when it was built. There was another basement below this one, dug by some of Arthur’s trusted men, but only a few were permitted to go down there.

  Marvin Taylor, a lanky young man whose scalp was still red from his last shave, punched the wall in frustration. “This test is idiotic,” he grumbled. The others muttered their agreement.

  John held up one finger, and they all fell silent. “Every man in this house, every single one, began with this test. Lord Orc himself used it on me when I first joined him. He didn’t think it was idiotic.”

  Taylor was about to speak, but he thought better of it and closed his mouth. They had all learned never to talk back to Big John.

  “Again,” John commanded. “Fleming first.”

  Seymour Fleming took the tweezers from Taylor and took a moment to steady himself.

  “This time,” said John, “I want you to go for the Bread Basket.”

  The other three tried to hide their smirks. This was the hardest of the pieces, but Fleming was the best among them. John was sure he could do it.

  After wiping sweat from his forehead, Fleming leaned over the board and examined the piece he was after. It was a plastic piece of bread, with no surface to grasp except for a tiny notch on the top. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then he lowered the metal tweezers very slowly into the opening. The others leaned in to watch, their bald heads almost touching his.

  John waited until Fleming had almost reached the plastic piece. At the moment when the tweezers were only a hair’s breadth away from the metal edge of the opening, John reached out with his mind in the way Arthur had taught him. He was able to enter Fleming’s mind with no resistance at all; he would have to remind the man to keep his defenses up at all times. The electrochemical signals bouncing around inside Fleming’s brain made John’s own body want to twitch, an urge that he had learned to resist with long practice. You had to be careful not to let your brain confuse the subject’s neural signals with your own, or the subject could turn the tables on you if they were experienced enough.

  Past the sensory areas John probed, until he reached the region that controlled motion. Then he pushed on Fleming’s mind, just enough to move his hand about an inch to the right.

  But Fleming’s hand stayed steady. Very slowly, he grasped the piece of plastic with the tweezers and began to pull it up and out of the opening.

  John pushed harder, and still Fleming’s hand remained steady. One more push—and a sudden shock struck him like he’d touched a live electrical wire. John grunted and pulled back. Fleming’s tweezers touched the metal edge at the same moment, and the patient’s red nose lit up bright red as the buzzer sounded. The other three students jumped at the sound. Fleming had failed the test again, technically, but John was impressed at his attempt at a defense.

  “Good one, Flem,” Roy Thackery said derisively. He was the least promising of the four, and wouldn’t miss an opportunity to take one of the others down a notch.

  John laughed. “It was a good one. Flem zapped me pretty good.” Fleming smiled uncertainly at the praise. “He didn’t move at all when I pushed on him,” John went on. “He on
ly slipped when he dropped his concentration to zap me. He did better than you other three.” He had been thinking that Flem might be a good one to add to his group, when the time came.

  John heard the stairs creak, and a girl peeked around the edge of the doorway. Cindy was new to Society House; nineteen and busty, she had been chosen by Arthur to serve him as one of his personal girls. “Big John,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I mean, Mr. John. Arthur wants you upstairs.”

  “Practice,” John told the soldiers. “Flem is in charge.” He followed Cindy up the stairs to the main level, which was mostly empty during the day when the men of the Society were working at their regular jobs. Cindy waited at the bottom of the stairs while John went alone up to Arthur’s room.

  The door to Arthur’s room was open just a crack. Arthur was sitting at his big wooden desk, writing a note on a fine piece of stationery that had come with the house. He flipped the paper over when John knocked on the door. “Come in, John,” he said.

  Things were different in Society House since Big John had returned from his mission. For a while they had all avoided him and watched him with suspicion. That had been hard to take, but John had assumed that they would come to understand eventually. He had carried out Arthur’s orders flawlessly—almost flawlessly—and had returned to the Society feeling triumphant. But the rest of the men hated him for what they’d seen as a betrayal, and hated him more for being Arthur’s favorite.

  Even now, more than a year later, some of the men clearly didn’t trust him. Even after Arthur had embraced him in front of the full assembly, a few had refused to believe that he was still faithful to their cause. Kevin Larson was the worst of them. He had maneuvered into Arthur’s inner circle during John’s absence, and had been working quietly to set other men against Big John whenever he could. Some of the men were as loyal to Larson as they were to Arthur.

  Larson was first on John’s list.

  “Urizen is getting bolder,” said Arthur, picking up another paper from the desk, a handwritten note. He held the note up to the light of the window and pursed his lips as he read it. “My sources tell me the CIA has been up to something in Chile. That Chilean general I told you about, Schneider—I had suspected the CIA had something to do with his murder. Now I know for sure. Urizen is planning to overthrow the government there.”

  “Chile?” John frowned. “Why would Urizen care about Chile?”

  Arthur set the note aside. “His plan is being put into motion around the world. We know he is becoming more active in Asia as well. He’s starting small: toppling tin-pot dictators and instigating regional conflicts. It will get worse.”

  “Chile is a long way from here, Lord Orc,” John replied. “I’m sure you have reasons to suspect Urizen is involved, but―”

  “We have to oppose Urizen wherever he acts.”

  “We only have thirty men. How many does Urizen have in his power? We can’t be everywhere at once the way he can.”

  Arthur gazed at John impassively. “If he is everywhere, we have to be as well. Even with thirty men.” He folded his meaty arms and sat up straighter, emphasizing that he did not intend to re-argue that point. “We are close to a tipping point. Soon he will set the whole world on fire, with only the Society to oppose him. This is not like the Cycles of the past, John. Urizen has never had nuclear bombs and fighter jets before. This time, he’s more powerful than he’s ever been. And Urizen can’t be trusted with power.”

  “We’re not ready to go to war yet, Arthur.” Arthur raised one eyebrow at being addressed by his name. John sometimes took that liberty when they were alone, and so far Arthur had not forbidden it. But it clearly did not please him. “We need more men.”

  “You’re thinking of the old-fashioned kind of revolution,” said Arthur. “Our revolution is going to be neater. Smaller. Twenty or thirty will be enough.”

  John shook his head in frustration. “The best of our men could take on ten well-armed soldiers at most. What do you plan to do when the whole U.S. Army shows up with tanks and grenades?”

  “They won’t.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because my plan is foolproof. We don’t cut off the arms, we seize the head. Urizen is gradually taking over the American government from the inside. All I have to do is take control of Urizen. Remember, Urizen is acting through a human host, as I do. Banish the demon and take over the host, and no one will know that I am in control. I will leave this body behind.”

  And the new boss will be just the same as the old, John thought. It was a thought he guarded carefully from Arthur’s prying mind, using one of the many tricks Arthur himself had taught him. Orc becomes the new Urizen; the Cycle continues. Unless someone puts a stop to it. “But how will you find Urizen?” he said. “We don’t know who he is.”

  Arthur smiled. “That’s the easy part. I don’t have to. Sooner or later, Urizen will find me.”

  * * *

  In a big house in New Rochelle, New York, Alice Chan and her mother were having another argument.

  “You’re not making any sense,” Alice said in Chinese for the twentieth time.

  “This is why I should never let you do the shopping,” her mother replied. “You spend too much.”

  “Ma, it’s cheaper this way.”

  “How is it cheaper when you spend ten cents more per box? How is that cheaper?”

  Alice glared at her boyfriend, who was sitting on a chair in the corner, clenching his jaw to keep from laughing. “Explain it to her, Ching,” she said.

  Ching glanced from Alice to her mother, then back again. Both women were looking at him with eyes as intense as laser beams. “I have to go,” he muttered, and fled to the bathroom.

  Mr. Fu chuckled. He sat on the sofa reading a newspaper, trying his best to ignore the ladies’ argument. He knew that they were both looking at him now, but he could stay out of their argument as long as he didn’t look up from the paper.

  The doorbell rang. Fu folded his paper carefully, placed it on the coffee table, and made his way to the front door. It was a long walk for a man of his considerable bulk. He looked through the peephole and saw a familiar face, magnified by the peephole lens to look like a cartoon character.

  “Ed!” said Mr. Fu as he opened the door. “And Sarah!” He had hugs for both of them. “Mrs. Chan is getting dinner ready. You haven’t eaten, have you?”

  Sarah’s face turned a little sour at his question. Ed said, “We started to, but…” He glanced at Sarah. “No, not yet.”

  “I messed up my casserole,” Sarah muttered.

  Mr. Fu returned to his well-worn spot on the couch. Mrs. Chan came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. Alice told her they would be having company for dinner. Mrs. Chan nodded at Sarah and said, “Okay.” Then she looked at Ed and her smile faded. “Okay,” she said again. Seeing Ed reminded her that he was the one who had sent her son away.

  “She’s learned ten words of English so far,” Alice said to Sarah as they sat down. “But you’ll have to make her mad to hear some of them.”

  Mr. Fu chuckled again. His laugh was contagious. Fu was staying with the Chans now; after the events of the previous year, he had offered to stay around to protect the family. The old gangster Wang Liu Jiang had promised to leave them alone, but Fu knew you couldn’t trust men like Wang. So he had been living with the Chans ever since they’d bought this house with their Kingfisher windfall and moved out of the city. He took the train to Manhattan with Alice every day, attended classes at NYU, and helped Mrs. Chan around the house in the evening. And he always looked through the peephole before opening the door.

  Ed stayed off to the side, looking guilty. Fu wished Ed didn’t feel so guilty. But Ed had sent Danny away on a dangerous mission, and it made sense that he would feel bad about that, even if he hadn’t wanted to do it.

  “Come, come!” said Mrs. Chan, leading them to the dining room. “Sit, sit!” She was quite proud of her growing English vocabulary.
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  Mrs. Chan had already brought out a plate of food, and Alice helped her carry out two more. Ching, who had deemed it safe to venture out of the bathroom, scooped out a helping of rice for each person. They sat around the table and ate.

  “It’s cheaper,” Alice said to her mother in Chinese, “if you are getting more tissues per box. The boxes I bought were two-hundred count. And I saved more by getting two at once.”

  Mrs. Chan waved her chopsticks in Alice’s direction. “Four hundred tissues! You buy more, then you use more because you have more. So you’re not saving anything!”

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” said Alice.

  Fu was watching Ed and Sarah try to follow the argument. Alice and her mother had been arguing about the price of tissues, off and on, for the last four hours. Wang’s payoff had made them millionaires, and still they fought over the price of groceries. “Ed,” Fu said quietly when he was able to get a word in, “what’s the word from Danny?”

  They all knew Ed had a way of communicating with Danny that didn’t involve letters or telephones, but only Ed and Sarah seemed to understand how it worked. Those two could have a whole conversation without saying a word. Fu had sometimes seen them share a smile over some private thing, even though neither one had said anything out loud. Ed had dreams, too; he had once told Fu about them. They were the kind of dreams that revealed secrets about the future. Danny had those same kinds of dreams too, and you had to listen to what they said.

  “He’s doing okay,” Ed replied between mouthfuls of food. Ed was eating like a man who hasn’t had a good meal in weeks. “I think he’s getting adjusted, but it hasn’t been easy for him.” He paused and gazed down at his food while Alice translated for her mother and aunt.

  “Has he found the thing you sent him to find?” asked Mrs. Chan.