The Dead Slam: A Tale of Benevolent Assasination

by Bright,R. F.

  It was chilly up on the roof, but a mild wind was trying its best to push up from the south. Max had found some rags and was polishing the Peregrine while old Mendelssohn sat sunning himself in an improvised hammock, smoking a chubby cigar.

  MacIan nodded approvingly and waved off a proffered cigar.

  “Just met what’s her name . . . Lily.”

  Max froze, smiling ear to ear.

  “Stunning.”

  “Gorgeous!” added Mendelssohn.

  “Did you meet her, too?” asked Max.

  “No, but I’ll take his word for it. He’s a Trooper.”

  MacIan put his hands on the parapet and aimed his face at the warming sun. A break was exactly what he needed. A long break. Time to think. Time to live. Just live.

  Mendelssohn blew a few smoke rings, which the wind whisked away. “They’re just going to keep killing ’em.”

  MacIan pretended not to hear.

  “Klevens didn’t even work for Tuke. He was a bicycle guy. They blew him by mistake. It was his wife they were after. But they don’t care. There’ll be some grumbling — nothin’ll happen.”

  MacIan was trying not to respond.

  “I talked to Otis this morning,” said Max. “Gina is out of danger. Otis says the hospital is almost out of supplies. They might have to shut down.”

  All three men stopped and looked toward the river as the faint sound of sirens began to wail far off in the distance.

  “Wonder what’s up,” said Mendelssohn. An eerie stillness ranged over them. “You should go over and talk to the Quakers. The Friends Meeting House. Know where that is?”

  “No, but I can find it.”

  “They get together around sundown. But you should go now. There’s no service or anything. Talk to the guy who keeps the Meeting House. I know him well. Nick Jaquay. He’s one of Tuke’s oldest friends.”

  MacIan exhaled grudgingly and pushed himself off the parapet. “OK, Max. You’re drivin’.”

  Fifteen minutes was up. Camille was sitting on her couch drinking a cup of coffee, her father’s blend, and asking why she’d ever liked that flavored swill he railed against. “There’s only one flavor for coffee,” she could hear him braying. “Coffee flavored coffee! God damn it.” She watched a few neon lights blinking on over in the city, but just as she’d gotten comfortable — an alarm rang out from her computer. She flipped it open. Her dashboard was on, but dead quiet. Frozen?

  MISH popped up. “Camille.”

  “Hey.”

  “We have suspended all activity on The Massive due to a Level Five emergency.”

  “Oh?”

  “Since you’ve become an integral part of this event, we are going to keep you in the loop, a loop you opened.”

  “Me?”

  “You and Cassandra. We’re just waiting for her to log on.”

  Camille detected something disquieting in MISH. She wasn’t her cheerful self, and her speech patterns were more direct. Maybe MISH was several different people. Identity wasn’t what it used to be.

  “I’m going to switch you over to an alternate channel, a limited access area of The Massive.”

  “OK.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find this interesting.”

  Her screen displayed the Massive’s regular video player, but it was blank, and MISH was gone. Then the player blinked and there was Cassandra’s face moving in and out of focus. She was balancing a mobile in her arms while shouting orders and dodging a stream of men wearing the same uniform as MacIan. MacIan? Not now, not now.

  “Camille? Is that you?”

  “It’s me.”

  Cassandra pursed her lips. “Ya know, you’re even cuter than MacIan said.”

  Camille convulsed. “He’s talked about me?”

  “He’s crazy about you, but not now, honey. It’s a fuckin’ madhouse here.”

  Camille didn’t care what Cassandra said after that.

  Cassandra aimed her mobile at the Barracks’ parking lot. Men were shuttling back and forth unloading pallets of computers. “These just showed up, right after we talked. Guess your connections with Tuke are pretty tight.”

  “I’ve never met him.”

  “Well, you’re about to.”

  Camille was thunderstruck. She felt a connection to his great-great-grandma, Camillia. Cassandra’s swishing camera work made her queasy. She stared at her screen, imagining MacIan’s face. That silly, dopey, rugged, noble face.

  Cassandra set her computer on the conference table, where a number of men were yammering away. They wore highly embellished versions of the Peregrine Fleet uniform and the table was cluttered with mobiles, outnumbering the men three to one.

  “This is insane,” said Cassandra. “I don’t have any idea how this is going to work. I’m putting you in the conference call. OK?”

  “Sure.”

  “MISH showed me how to do it. You know MISH.”

  “My new best friend.”

  “I love her glasses.”

  “Me too.”

  All screens went black, then filled with the ever-smiling face of Levi Tuke. “All right then, let’s get down to it,” he said. “Please frame yourselves properly and we’ll begin.”

  Camille watched as each face came into sharp focus, wondering if she, too, were being seen what by what she knew to be millions of fellow citizens of the Tuke Massive. A reflex caused her to stop twiddling her hair, which she pushed out of her face, and smiled neutrally. “Here we go.”

  Max stood scuffing the gravel on the roof. His awkward reluctance to drive the Peregrine puzzled Trooper MacIan, until Mendelssohn gave him a how-dumb-can-you-be squint. “All right,” groaned MacIan. “Go get her. I’ll wait.”

  Mendelssohn took a puff of his cigar. “That’s what it’s all about. At the end of it all, that’s all there is.” He blew a smoke ring that vanished in the wind.

  Max bolted from the roof, down the stairs and burst into the atrium. Lily looked up from a plate of baby back rib bones, pleasantly startled. She met his overflowing smile with a matching one, except for the BBQ sauce, which Max dabbed away with his thumb. “Come on, let’s go, let’s go.”

  MacIan was not happy, and a bit nauseated, riding in the backseat of the Peregrine. Max, on the other hand, was feeling about as good as he could. Lily had pulled a pair of heavy work boots over her striped tights, and her hair was stuffed into a matching knit cap with the braid down her back.

  She had never been out of Blanox until last week, and on her best day was lucky to eat. Her father had kept a very tight rein on her. But now, every minute was a tasty revelation. A constantly new and mysterious adventure. And at the center of it all — Max. Her heart, and stomach, were overflowing.

  They found the Quaker Meeting House and circled for a place to land. The parking lot was under an umbrella of huge oak trees, the back yard too tight, but there was a spot in the alley behind the garden. Max landed and looked over his shoulder for approval. MacIan rolled his eyes, tapped both index fingers together in mock applause, and they all got out.

  Nick Jaquay, a bulbous man with thick black eyebrows that rippled like caterpillars when he talked, greeted them in the vestibule. He led them to his spacious office, which opened onto the garden. It was late afternoon, but the news of Tessyier and Klevens’ deaths had brought many Friends to the Meeting House earlier than usual.

  The congregation met here every Friday to sit in quiet anticipation of the Voice. They simply listened. To what? They were open to anything. There was absolutely nothing else to their denomination.

  Nick Jaquay ushered them into his office, offered Lily a seat at a small conference table. Nick was a good listener, but today he was not himself. “I guess this is about Tuke,” he said. “We’re down to it. Aren’t we?”

  MacIan looked worried. “You tell us.”

  Nick Jaquay turned pale gray.

  45

  Sirens wailed.

  Amongst the hushed throng in Gatekeeper’s Square, certain ch
erry-haired men drifted toward The Hibernian Gate. The spot where New Hibernia was born. The siren called and they drew nigh.

  The Hibernian Gate towered over Gatekeeper’s Square. Seven progressively larger gothic arches gave the square a protective charm and a sense of something barbaric beyond. On which side of the Wall the barbarians lived was a strictly personal calculation. The shortest arch was shorter than the average man, the tallest about the same height as Notre Dame, but the asymmetric layout felt unlucky. All the materials had been stolen from the great churches of Pittsburgh as they were put out of business by The Church. Frugality and winner-take-all religion was nothing new to the Irish.

  On the day the Wall was finished, the sirens called all those Boyne had brought to America to this spot. Once gathered, he was lifted to the top of the tallest arch, where he placed the seventh keystone. A simple keystone, about a foot across, of pure white alabaster. It stood out against the gray limestone, but was far too high above the street for the uninitiated to notice, although once pointed out it seemed a beacon. Only those of the sept, of the blood, knew that it bore their most sacred icon — the Black Heart, the original. Ground from the largest black ruby ever known — identical in every dimension to the ones they wore over their hearts.

  From high above the crowd Boyne delivered the speech that established New Hibernia. He raised both hands to the Gate. “I declare this wall and all that which lies beneath it, to be ours! And I compel you with the burning tongue of the banshee . . . you who have suffered every indignity for a thousand years, to defend it. This wall is ours! It’s ours!”

  The crowd exploded, screaming over and over, “It is ours, it’s ours,” and with those words a fierce nationalism was born. They wailed until the streets were puddled in tears, crying, “The banshees! The banshees! The banshees!”

  And lo and behold the sirens were wailing once again — the banshees were calling.

  Efryn Boyne is dead. He is dead.

  46

  Camille studied the officials from the National Police Force, the Peregrine Fleet, sitting at the conference table with a team of assistants shuttled in and out. She didn’t have to wait long for the argument to start.

  Levi Tuke occupied her central screen, framed by the thumbnails of the others. “We must not attack New York. That is imperative. A colossal error. The undoing of everything. We will prevail . . . unless you attack. We’re dealing with a five-thousand-year-old system that’s evolved to assimilate direct attacks.”

  “We are not attacking New York,” said a salty Vice Admiral. “We are cleaning the lizards’ cage. Those fools ruined the whole goddamned world.”

  Levi’s frustration was evident, but he kept his reserve. “And how did they ‘ruin the world’? They put fear ahead of reason, just as you are doing right now. You are about to repeat the eternal mistake, make the move that simply starts another round of the same old game. Same heads, different hats. We know this game. If we play, if we take the bait . . . who are the real fools?”

  An even saltier Admiral said, “We cannot sit by, Mr. Tuke, while they loot what little is left that’s needed to restart the world. It is not your interpretation of events we question, sir, but your sense of emergency. It is inappropriate to the threat at hand. Failing to respond now —that’s naïve.”

  Everyone started talking all at once, and someone shouted, “These are ruthless bastards. Their grasp will have to be torn from our nation’s throat finger by finger.”

  “Or we can cut off the hand,” said Tuke.

  A reasonable man sitting next to Cassandra said, “It’s a matter of timing. We must attack while we still hold the element of surprise!”

  “Timing is absolutely everything,” said Tuke. “We have been working on this for centuries. Waiting for this moment. The moment when a system built on an outdated notion of nobility and arrogance lost its currency. But this moment will be lost like tears in the rain, if you attack. Destruction is the foundation of their strategy. They invite it. If you accept, what you assume to be a victory will in fact be merely the end of another round of the same old game. The next game will begin again, minutes later, with the same heads wearing different hats.”

  Tuke tapped on Admiral Carson’s thumbnail. “I have heard that you, Admiral Carson, are a man of substance. Do not attack. That, I assure you, is a programmed response put in your head by the very system you intend to destroy. A socially engineered reaction inculcated from birth.”

  Admiral Carson was slow to respond. “It’s true. We are spoiling for a fight. We can no longer watch the same people who ruined the world lavish what little’s left upon themselves, while our veterans suffer. While progress languishes. It is too absurd to endure. We cannot wait any longer. Sometimes you’ve got to start a fight, if you want to win a fight.”

  “You cannot win this fight,” said Tuke, “no matter what time you think it is. This game began seven thousand years ago. It’s hosted emperors and kingdoms, sovereign markets and global alliances. This is but one game. One vicious game that divides the players against themselves, until there are only two camps left to fight. It’s always the same two, regular people who simply want to raise their children, against those whose arrogance cannot be satisfied without the economic enslavement of others.”

  Levi could feel them moving his way. “Well! They’ve overplayed their hand this time, and you — you want to attack? To throw all the cards in the air. And you expect a brand spankin’ new result? Who’s being naïve?”

  There was an eerie silence.

  “I’m asking you to wait forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours. And we will deliver a blow far more devastating than anything you’re capable of.”

  “What’s the plan?” asked the sour-faced General Joe Scaletta.

  “We cannot reveal our plan,” said Levi Tuke.

  The entire room erupted in an ugly groan.

  “The only way to insure its absolute security is not to share it with anyone. There is nothing you can do to help this plan. There’s nothing you can add without unraveling the whole thing. It’s far too simple for that. Simplicity is its shield.”

  The room shook with grumblings.

  “No one is under more pressure than me,” said Levi. “They could kill more of my people at any moment. Believe me. I have a sense of emergency.”

  After a minute’s deliberation, the grumbling settled into compromise. Admiral Carson spoke: “Forty-eight hours.”

  Levi smiled with great relief. “Sunday morning. Just in time for that horrible Church show.”

  Petey Hendrix sat before a bank of monitors watching Tuke’s image fade. Forty-eight hours ricocheted around his head. He’d hired his own hacker, ThreeThumbs, who was decked out in the same high-tech outfit as Boyne’s nephew. ThreeThumbs had hacked them into the Tuke feed and was now chuckling to himself.

  Petey’s voice was pocked with alarm. “Who would have thought it would come to this?” he said.

  “Just about everyone,” said ThreeThumbs, as disrespectfully as he could.

  It didn’t bother Petey. “Everyone knows our whole setup is a scam. Everything we’ve legislated was rigged to our advantage. It has to end, no surprise — but like this? They’re going to game me out of all this?”

  “The game is afoot,” said ThreeThumbs, rubbing his palms together.

  Petey pulled a small bar of gold from his shirt pocket and dangled it in front of him. “So what do I do now?”

  “What’s your goal?” said ThreeThumbs, snatching the bar of gold.

  “To avoid them for a while. I need to stall. I just need some time. A little time.”

  “Time and tide, my friend. Time and tide, they get ya every time.” ThreeThumbs laughed and headed for the door.

  Petey trailed after him, shouting, “How do I figure this out?”

  “If giving your team what it wants is good, then giving your opponent’s team what it does not want must also be good. Right? Read that somewhere in the WikiTuke.”

 
Petey’s eyes blinked uncontrollably. He hated all this game theory pretzel logic bullshit.

  “It’s obvious,” said ThreeThumbs. “Tuke has picked your game apart and he’s about to throw his trump card. If you don’t have the strongest hand, you’d better be the most deceptive player.”

  Petey smiled. “That’s where you’re wrong. Believe me. All I need is some time. How can I stall them?”

  “You should hire a game designer. A really good one. One who’s already organized. Someone with the big brass. Someone who can move the masses. A true social agent. Someone who knows and loves The Massive.”

  “Do you know someone like that?”

  “None that would work for you.”

  “So that’s a no?” said Petey, rubbing his thumb against his fingertip.

  “Look, man,” said ThreeThumbs, turning to leave. “I know you know a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy?” He danced off, dragging his outsized coat toward the door, laughing madly.

  “Fuck you very much.”

  “You’re welcome!”

  Petey raised his phone and punched a number. With each ring his anxiety spiked. Finally, someone answered, “Hello.”

  “Are you in town yet?”

  He listened grudgingly before interrupting. “Look! I need a game designer — you know one? A good one.”

  He listened for a second, anger simmering. “How long would it take her to make me one of those social games?” He took an anxious breath, and exploded. “Depends!? On what!?”

  His face crinkled as he shouted, “I don’t know. Maybe a first person shooter, wherein the goddamned NPF attacks New York City! That’d be some kinda fuckin’ distraction. That’d give me time to make my move.”

  Smiling ever so demurely on the other end of the line, smug and determined, the lovely Priyanka listened intently, then put her hand over the mouthpiece. “You’re on,” she said.

  A young woman in a very well-tailored, high-tech outfit with closely cropped, chestnut hair grinned nervously, then walked out the door.