Crisscross

by F. Paul Wilson

  He went to remove the CD from the drive and then thought, Better check the disk, just to be sure.

  He opened a file from the CD and stopped breathing when he saw:

  Hope You Remembered To Back Up!

  “No! No-no-no-no-no!”

  He switched back to the hard drive and checked a random file.

  Hope You Remembered To Back Up!

  One after the other, the same message. That fucking virus had got back into his system and cleaned him out! Everything was gone!

  He started kicking at the computer tower on the floor, but stopped himself after two strikes.

  Wait. All was not lost. His files were gone, but the cows didn’t know that. They’d already seen what he had…he could still string them along, keep squeezing them till they ran out of juice.

  But still, this was a fucking catastrophe.

  Feeling sicker than before, he flopped back into his seat. The phone started ringing but he couldn’t bring himself to answer it. All that work, all that risk…gone. He still couldn’t believe it.

  Eddy popped back in then with the coffee and picked up the phone. A few seconds later she stuck her head through the doorway.

  “It’s the guy from Computer Doctor. Want to speak to him?”

  “Do I? Do I?” He snatched up the receiver. “Yeah?”

  “Oh, Mr. Cordova,” said a prissy male voice he didn’t recognize. “This is Ned from Computer Doctor. We just wanted to call and check on how satisfied you are with our service.”

  Richie wanted to kill him. In fact, he might just go down there now and tear his whole staff into little pieces.

  “Satisfied? I’m NOT satisfied! Listen, asshole! The virus you were supposed to kill off is still there! And it wiped out all my files again!”

  “Well, sir, if you want to I’ll be glad to come up and recheck the hard drive. I’ll even restore all the files from your backup.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Really, sir, it will be no trouble at all. And while I’m there—”

  Richie knew if he got within ten feet of this geek he’d rearrange his face. Things were bad enough at the moment; he didn’t need an assault and battery charge added to the pile of shit his life had become.

  “Just forget about it, okay? You’ve fucked things up enough already.”

  “Really, sir, I hate the thought of a dissatisfied customer. Just get out your backup disk and I’ll—”

  This asshole just wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  “I don’t have a backup, you little shit! It was stolen last night! Now what are you going to do?”

  “No backup?” the voice said. “Oh, well, then. Never mind.”

  And then the fucker hung up. He…just…hung…up!

  2

  Jack stood amid the surging pedestrians on Lexington Avenue and pocketed his cell phone. He smiled as he imagined Fat Richie Cordova pounding his receiver against his desktop, maybe even smashing it through his monitor screen.

  Game. Set. Match.

  He’d arrange a meet with Sister Maggie later. Now it was time to awaken his xelton.

  Jack had dressed in his blue blazer and a tieless, button-down white oxford shirt. He entered the temple, used his swipe card for a free pass through security, then went to the information desk. It looked like an old hotel registration desk.

  “I have an appointment for a Reveille Session,” he told the uniformed young woman behind the counter, then added, “With Luther Brady.”

  Her hand darted to her mouth, covering a smile. Jack detected the hint of a giggle in her voice as she said, “Mr. Brady is going to Reveille you?”

  “Yes.” Jack glanced at his watch. “At nine sharp. I don’t want to keep him waiting.”

  “No, of course not.” Her lips did an undulating dance. She really, really wanted to laugh. “I’ll call upstairs.”

  She pressed a button then turned away as she spoke into the receiver. It was a short conversation, and when she turned back, she was no longer smiling. Her face was pale, her expression awed.

  She swallowed. “G-GP Jensen will be right down.”

  Jack figured it wouldn’t take long for word to spread that he had Luther Brady as his RT—one, maybe two nanoseconds after he and Jensen stepped into the elevator it would be all over the building. A few more nanos after that it would be spread throughout Dormentaldom.

  He’d had a reason for mentioning it. He planned to use his new cachet to allow him access to places that would be verboten to a regular newbie.

  Jensen showed up in his black uniform, looking like the megalith from 2001. On the trip to the top floor the two of them started off with an earnest discussion about the weather, but Jensen soon steered the talk toward Jack.

  “How was your day, yesterday?”

  “Great.”

  “Do anything interesting?”

  Jack thought, You mean after I ditched your tail?

  “Oh, tons. I don’t get to New York that often, so I did some shopping, had an excellent steak at Peter Luger’s.”

  “Really? What cut?”

  “Porterhouse.” Jack knew from a number of meals at Luger’s that porterhouse was the only cut they served. “It was delicious.”

  “And then what? Called it a night?”

  Jensen wasn’t being the least bit circumspect about third-degreeing him.

  “Oh, no. I went to an Off-Broadway play someone had recommended. It’s called Syzygy. Ever hear of it?”

  “Can’t say as I have. Any good?”

  Gia had dragged him to Syzygy last month and he’d wound up liking it…

  “Very strange. Lots of twists and turns in the plot.” Jack feigned a yawn. “But it didn’t start till ten and I was late getting to bed.”

  That would jibe with the report from whomever Jensen had put on the Ritz Carlton last night.

  Jensen delivered Jack to the twenty-second floor where he found Brady standing near the receptionist’s desk. His suit hung perfectly on his trim frame, and not a single strand of his too-brown hair was out of place.

  “Mr. Amurri,” he said, stepping forward and extending his hand. “So glad you could make it.”

  “Call me Jason, please. And I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  “Very well, Jason. Come in, come in.” He led Jack into the office area. “We’ll conduct the session in my private quarters and—”

  “Really?” Jack said in his best gosh-wow voice.

  “Yes, I thought it would offer more privacy and a much more personal atmosphere. But I have one matter to attend to before we get underway, so why don’t you make yourself comfortable until I get back.”

  Jack swept an arm toward the enormous windows. “The view alone could keep me occupied for hours.”

  Brady laughed. “Oh, I assure you it will be no more than a few minutes at most.”

  As Brady breezed out, Jack looked around, searching for the ubiquitous video pickups. He couldn’t spot a single eye, and then realized why: Luther Brady would not want anyone monitoring his meetings, recording his every word and gesture.

  Jack turned away from the windows and faced the opposite wall. The mysterious globe sat behind those sliding steel panels. Jack wanted a look at it. Jamie Grant had mentioned something about a button on Brady’s desk.

  Jack walked over and examined the vast mahogany expanse. No button in sight. He stepped behind the desk and seated himself in Brady’s high-backed red-leather swivel chair. Maybe he had a remote somewhere.

  Two rows of drawers formed the flanks of the desk. Jack went through them quickly and found mostly papers and pens and notepads with From the Minds of Luther Brady emblazoned across the top of each page in some fancy heraldic font.

  Sheesh.

  The only thing out of the ordinary was a stainless-steel semiautomatic pistol. At first glance it looked like his own PT 92 Taurus, then he noticed the different safety, making this a Beretta 92. A box of 9mm Hydra-Shok Federal Classics sat next to it. What made
Brady think he needed a weapon?

  Coming up empty in the drawers, Jack felt around under the edge of the desktop. There—a smooth nub near the right corner. He pressed it and then heard a motor whine to life, a soft scrape as the panels began to recede.

  He rose and approached the expanding opening. Grant’s DD informant had been right. A globe of Earth, studded with a scattering of tiny lightbulbs in no discernible pattern. As he watched, the globe began to rotate. The bulbs flickered to life—not all of them, but most. The clear bulbs held the majority, but here and there a red one glowed.

  A swirl of odd-looking symbols had been painted on the wall behind the globe. They looked like a cross between Arabic script and hieroglyphics.

  Jack stepped closer to the globe and saw a crisscrossing network of fine red lines. They seemed to radiate from the red bulbs, circumnavigating the globe as they passed through each of the other red bulbs and returned home. At first glance he thought the same was going on with the white bulbs, but a closer look showed that they were positioned at red-line intersections. Not every intersection—only where three or more crossed. Most of the white bulbs were lit, but a few here and there about the globe were dark. Bad bulbs? Or, for some reason, not yet powered up?

  Jack stared, baffled. The red bulbs seemed to be calling the shots, the white were secondary players. He focused on the U.S. and noticed a red bulb in the northeast, near New York City. Did the reds represent major Dormentalist temples? Was that the key? He noticed another in South Florida. Was there a big temple in Miami? Could be. He’d have to check.

  No, wait. Here was a red bulb in the middle of the ocean off Southeast Asia. No Dormentalist temple there. At least he assumed not.

  He backed up for a more encompassing look. Something about the display reached into his gut and scraped the lining with an icy claw…something deeply disturbing here, but he couldn’t say what. The reason dangled somewhere in his subconscious, skittering away every time he reached for it.

  Jack wrenched his thoughts away from the display and refocused on his immediate circumstances. Right now he should be ducking back to Brady’s desk to hit that button again, but he held off. He was here to find Johnny Roselli and give him a message. He’d completed the first half of that task, and was sure he could finish up without setting foot inside this temple again. All he had to do was wait outside for Johnny to leave and follow him home.

  But that could take forever. Jack didn’t have the time or temperament to stand around and scope the temple door from morning to night, so it would have to be on a catch-as-catch-can basis. Sure, getting a peek at the membership lists would accelerate the process, but that skittish some-thing inside him screamed from the dark that this globe was much more important.

  So he stayed where he was, deciding to push his sudden elevated status to the limit.

  Jack was still staring at the globe when Brady returned. He froze at the threshold, eyes wide, jaw hanging open.

  “What…how…?”

  Jack turned. “Hmmm? Oh, I was just looking at this globe here. It’s fascinating.”

  Brady’s eyes narrowed as his lips drew into a tight line. “How did you open that?” he said as he stepped toward his desk.

  “Oh, it was the funniest thing. I was leaning on your desk there, looking out at the city, when my fingers hit a button under the edge. Suddenly these doors opened and there it was.”

  Brady said nothing. He reached his desk and hit the hidden button. He was clearly upset but trying to hide it.

  Jack said, “Did I do something wrong?”

  “My desk is for my personal use.”

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. But it was an accident.” Jack tried an offended look. “You cannot believe that I would rummage through your desk.”

  “No. No, of course not.”

  “I do apologize. I have an impulsive nature and it has created difficulties for me from time to time. I’m hoping that Dormentalism will show me how to control it.”

  Brady seemed to have calmed himself. “No need to apologize, Jason. It’s just that I was…surprised to find the doors open. We don’t put that globe on display.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Jack said as the leading edges of the panels clicked together. “It’s so unique. What do all those lights represent?”

  “I’m afraid you’re not qualified to know that just yet.”

  “Really? When will I be?”

  “When you have achieved Full Fusion. Only someone in the FF state can comprehend the meaning that globe holds for the Church.”

  “Tell me something about it,” Jack said. “I’m dying to know. How about just a hint? What’s that globe about?”

  “It is the future, Jason Amurri. The future.”

  3

  Except for two paintings—both of big-eyed waifs—the living room of Brady’s personal quarters was as spare as his office. One painting was a little boy holding a wilted flower, and the other a skinny little kid in rags.

  “Keane kids?” Jack said.

  Brady nodded with vigorous enthusiasm. “Yes. They’re originals.”

  Jack had always found them kitschy, and those big sad eyes monotonously repetitious. But he supposed some of the old originals might be valuable to someone.

  “I know they’re not considered real art, but something about them appeals to me. I think they remind me of all the sadness in the world, all caused by fractured xeltons. I look at them and they keep me going, reminding me of the Church’s mission.”

  Jack sighed. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  They finally settled down for the Reveille Session—sans mouse. Brady sat on a straight-backed, cushionless chair. Jack leaned forward on the comfy sofa. A coffee table of glossy blond wood sat between them.

  “What in your life do you feel guiltiest about?”

  Jack had an answer ready but he leaned back and pretended to think about it. After an appropriate pause…

  “I suppose it would be having so much more than others.”

  “‘So much more’?”

  “Yes. You don’t know this, but I’m rather wealthy.”

  Brady’s expression remained bland, barely interested. “Yes, I believe you mentioned something yesterday about having money. But we have many wealthy members.”

  “Yes, but I’m quite wealthy.”

  “You are?” Brady scratched his temple, as if this was all news to him, and uninteresting news at that.

  “Filthy rich, you might say.”

  “You don’t strike me as the ‘filthy rich’ type. And do I detect a note of dissatisfaction with having a lot of money?”

  Jack shrugged. “Perhaps. Not that it’s dirty money or anything like that. It’s clean as can be, honestly earned. It’s just that…well, I didn’t earn it.”

  “Oh? And who did?”

  “My father. And not that I don’t get along with him, I do. It’s just, well…‘from him to whom much is given, much will be expected’…if you know what I mean.”

  Brady smiled and nodded. “Ah, he quotes scripture. Luke 12:48, if I remember correctly.”

  If so, it was news to Jack. He’d remembered hearing the phrase, or something like it, now and again, and it seemed an apropos cliché. Had to admit, though, he was impressed that Brady could quote book, chapter, and verse.

  Jack clasped his hands before him. “I know that a lot will be required of me when I take over the family business, and I want to be up to it. But I’m not interested in simply amassing more wealth. I mean, I’ll never spend what I already have. So I’d like to find a way to put the wealth that will be flowing my way to better use than investing in stocks and bonds. I want to invest in people.”

  He wondered if he might be laying it on too thick, but Brady seemed to be lapping it up.

  “Well then, Jason, you’ve come to the right place. International Dormentalism is always reaching out to needy people in the poorest Third World countries. We go in, buy a parcel of land, then establish a temple and a school
. The school teaches the Dormentalist way, but more importantly, it also teaches the locals self-sufficiency. ‘Give a man a fish and you’ve fed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you’ve fed him for a lifetime.’ That’s our philosophy.”

  Jack widened his eyes. “What a wonderful concept!”

  One good cliché deserves another, he thought, and suppressed a smile as he remembered Abe’s variation: Teach a man to fish and you can sell him rods and reels and hooks and sinkers.

  “Yes. That is the Dormentalist way. You can rest assured that any contributions you wish to make to the Church will go directly toward helping the less fortunate.”

  “That sounds like a fine idea. You know, I don’t think I’ll wait till I take my father’s place. I’d like to start right now. As soon as we’re through here I’m going to contact my accountant.”

  Brady’s smile was beatific. “How kind of you.”

  4

  Luther Brady tapped his fingertips on his desktop as Jensen stood at attention on the far side. He’d known the Grand Paladin’s first name once, but had long forgotten it. He wondered if even Jensen remembered.

  Not that it mattered. What did matter was Jason Amurri and how he seemed just a little too good to be true.

  He wanted Jensen’s opinion but decided to have a little fun while he was at it.

  “What does your xelton tell you about Jason Amurri?”

  Jensen frowned. His answer was delayed, and drawn out when it came.

  “It’s suspicious. It finds inconsistencies about him.”

  Watching Jensen’s shifting gaze, Brady wanted to laugh at his obvious discomfort talking about the perceptions of his Fully Fused xelton. He should be uncomfortable: Jensen’s xelton wasn’t FF. In fact, he didn’t even have a xelton. No one did!

  But no one—not Jensen nor any members of the HC—would admit it. Because each of them thought of himself as the sole Null among the elite FFs. Each hid their Sham Fusion because admitting to Nullhood would mean they’d have to leave their posts in disgrace.