by ST Branton
And maybe, just fleetingly, I let myself get close to wanting normalcy again.
The feeling didn’t stay. I finished rinsing, pulled some clothes on, kicked myself into high gear for the day. My hastily combed hair was still damp as I ran down the steps of my building out into the street. When was the last time I’d felt this kind of excitement over paying a visit to a public institution?
It was almost exhilarating in a super nerdy kind of way. This must have been how Marcus felt all the damn time.
When I was a soldier, there existed a library that was the pinnacle of its kind in Alexandria. His voice took on a wistful timbre. I was there once, in my younger years. Never again did I lay my eyes on such utter grandeur, until I reached Carcerum. The wisdom in that place was palpable.
“I went to the public library on a field trip in middle school,” I told him. “Spent most of the time frenching Tommy Minksi behind the stacks. But I do remember them teaching us how to use computers to do research.”
What is ‘frenching?’ A form of warfare that you did on these ‘computers?’
I barked out a short laugh. “There’s an answer to that question, my friend, but I don’t have time for it.” I shook my head. “I might never have time for that one.” Trying to imagine explaining modern romance or the internet to Marcus made my head spin.
He’d see one of the two in action soon enough.
We went to the branch on Fifth Avenue where I thought the immediate resource pool would be largest. A library card was something I hadn’t even thought of in years, and I had no intention of borrowing anything long term. With my recent luck, it would be lost or torn to shreds within a day.
“Ready?” I scaled the steps leading up to the central doors and laid my hand on the wood.
A champion is always ready, Victoria.
I pushed open the doors. The unmistakable scent of print and paper washed over me. I took a deep breath in. It reminded me of the back office in my parents’ shop, and so did the ambient sounds of patrons checking out books and returning them, pages shuffling gently in that peculiar library stillness. For a split second, I was a kid again, tucked into the cubbyhole in my dad’s desk, listening to him keep the books.
This is not a library, Marcus said.
“Just you wait.” I went past the circulation desk, up some more stairs, and across the threshold into the first book chamber. “How about now?”
My stars. The wonder ran deep in his words, obviously evoking memories of his own. It is not Alexandria, but the feeling. The feeling is the same. Would that I had lived long enough to experience this place in my own body.
“That’s what you’ve got me for.” What I didn’t tell him was that I wasn’t here for the books. I passed the towering stacks, the long study tables, and the glass-walled cubicles for librarians and research assistants.
Where are you going? Surely, there must be something in this vast chamber that could be of use to us.
“Maybe. But it would take way too long to find it. So, we’re heading toward the future instead.” A sign reading “Digital Media Center” adorned a doorway at the end of the room.
Bingo.
I do not understand. Marcus sounded legitimately disappointed, and I felt a little bad. Maybe once all this was over, I’d come back and get a library card after all, just to make it up to him. For now, he’d have to deal with the fast lane.
I paused in the entrance to the digital media center. “It’s like this.” To my left were the looming rows of books. “All this stuff is the past.” I gestured to the right, at corresponding rows of computers, printers, copiers, and all kinds of other stuff Marcus couldn’t hope to fathom. “This is the future. And if we’re looking for something out of the ordinary, this will be our best bet.”
Illuminate me, he said.
There was one free computer in the very back, which I snagged before anyone else could. It made me feel better to sit with my back to the wall, especially given the sensitive nature of my research. It seemed unlikely that a standard search engine would unearth secrets of the gods, but the internet was full of surprises.
“Watch this,” I said to Marcus.
Following my conversation with Frank, I was fairly certain Lorcan was at work on the west coast. But that didn’t exactly narrow things down. I took a wild stab. My first search, jobs in California, brought up mostly employment sites in an abundance of fields. I went five pages deep into the results before I gave up. Then I tried news in California, in case strange things were plaguing the west coast the same way they’d begun to plague New York.
No luck.
I am unconvinced by this technology, Vic. We had more success with your newspapers.
“Ugh. Just give me a second.” I sat back in the chair, tapping my chin to encourage thought. The third time, I typed, events in California. At first, this one looked like a bust as well. Halfway down the first page, a link caught my eye. “‘A LIGHT in the Cosmos’; Keynote Speaker Silas Monk. Silicon Valley Global Tech Expo, Palo Alto, California?” The words struck a weird chord of familiarity in my memory, so strongly that I actually shut my eyes to try and recall whatever it was. Imagine my surprise when the slack-jawed, gap-toothed mug of that shitty vamp in the alleyway floated to the top of my brain. His voice echoed distantly.
“Pretty soon, we’re gonna have a light of our own.”
“Whoa,” I muttered. Could that possibly be a coincidence? Didn’t seem likely.
None of those terms are familiar to me, said Marcus, yanking me back to the headline on the blog
I ignored him and clicked on the link. It brought me through to a sleek, simplistic blog post discussing the finer points of the Expo, including dates, times, and special guests. “Hey, Marcus, this is next week!” A thought blossomed in my head. “What if the reason those mobsters weren’t coming back is that they’ve been sent to get ready for this thing?”
Why would the mobbing ones be so invested? Delano and Lorcan both have power that far surpasses the capacity of humans. They have no need for your technology.
“Maybe, but I think you’re wrong on this one. Back in your era, human technology might have carried no more damage potential than sticks and stones, but these days, we’ve got enough power in the US alone to blow the world up a hundred times over. You said Lorcan was a master of using everything at his disposal to his advantage. This could be it.”
I scrolled quickly, skimming the text. The guest list had two names on it. The first, Silas Monk, I recognized. Inventor, innovator, and technological guru, he had fast become the darling of the internet age. It stood to reason that he’d be attending any Global Tech Expo.
“It says he’s going to be revealing some new advancement he’s been developing. But there’s nothing about what kind of tech it is.” I hit the back button and scoured the following search results for something more. Just below the Global Tech Expo blog was a post entitled, “The Monsters in Silas Monk’s Closet.”
Modern technology wasn’t exactly in my wheelhouse, but I knew a thing or two about monsters.
“Check this out.” The post’s original location was a blog called Valley of Shadows. All of the site’s content was maintained and curated by someone named SplitScreen. What intrigued me the most was its sheer volume. SplitScreen had gathered pages and pages of lengthy articles on the noted inventor, and not just regular interviews or biographical stuff, either.
I had stumbled on a treasure trove of what looked like conspiracy theories. On closer inspection, however, some of the details didn’t seem so far-fetched. Not in the world I knew.
Who is this SplitScreen? Marcus asked.
“Beats me. But they’re presenting meticulously researched evidence that in addition to coming up with cool apps, Monk works on weapons’ contracts for the government. Most of this info is redacted, but I don’t know. I can’t say it’s fake.” The documents, both digital and scanned, certainly looked real enough to my untrained eye. If it was a hoax, it was a damn good o
ne. “And holy shit.” I inhaled sharply and received a nasty look from a mean spirited librarian.
Lowering my voice, I leaned in closer to the screen.
“Look here. This blog says here that several employees of Monk Industries have been murdered in the last few months. Their bodies were found exsanguinated. Apparently, local law enforcement has kept the whole thing under wraps.”
I pushed back from the keyboard and rubbed my eyes.
That sounds like Lorcan’s minions at play. We must go quickly before they have more time to spread their sinister network. How long will it take to journey to this California?
“Six hours, give or take.” I navigated to the contact page on SplitScreen’s blog. A lone email address stood out against the white background, betraying no hints as to its owner’s identity. I copied it down. Maybe they knew more about Monk than they had put online.
“Okay, Marcus. I’ve got one question for you.”
Yes?
“You ever seen an airplane before?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The wallet I carried onto the plane at JFK, and then off again at SFO, was entirely my own. I’d been way too absorbed in the massive trip I was about to undertake to spare a thought toward pilfering from anyone. The cost of my plane ticket barely even registered to me. I still had a credit card left over from better days that I saved for special occasions only, on account of hardly ever being able to pay it off.
This was as special as things were going to get.
And hell, if the world were coming to an end at the hands of the gods, the last thing I really needed to worry about was my credit score.
So, having procured my passage one hundred percent honestly, I felt no shame as I settled into my window seat near the middle of the plane. It was a nonstop flight, and I planned to sleep for most of the six hours and ten minutes. Marcus, however, was too gobsmacked by the whole idea of flight to be chill.
I should have known.
What is this contraption? He asked this while I gazed out of my window across the long wing of the jet. It’s like sitting in the galley of a ship. But there is no water. How is it going to get us to California?
“It flies, dude.” I spoke very, very softly so that my seatmate wouldn’t hear me talking to myself. “Like we’re about to go six miles up into the sky and not come down until we’re on the other side of the country. Bet that’s a sentence you never thought you’d hear.”
Marcus didn’t believe me until it happened. Then, I was forced to take off the medallion and put it into the seat back pocket in front of me. I had no idea a spirit could yell so damn loud.
We got off in San Francisco just as the sun was beginning to slide behind a bank of clouds in the western half of the sky. Renting a car to drive the thirty-four miles to Palo Alto had been a consideration, but a cursory search of average hotel rates told me to find a room in the city and brave the commute. I told myself I’d fit in better that way: another young, eager techie driving into the IT Valhalla that was Silicon Valley.
But who was I kidding? Pretty much anyone could tell by glancing in my general direction that I did not belong in the polished, freakishly utopian world of the technological elite. Everywhere I looked, I saw people integrated with machines in one way or another. Glasses with glowing frames that augmented the wearer’s reality. Unmanned, remote-controlled delivery drones laden with small packages, whirring casually through the air. At the first crosswalk, I noticed that not all of the cars at the light had drivers behind their steering wheels.
You know, totally normal shit.
This is inconceivable. I had no idea humans were capable of such rapid progression.
Honestly, neither did I. Maybe it was the five years spent basically living under a rock, but being at the cutting edge like this was sort of stunning. It made me wonder if New York had a similar gleaming allure under all the layers of filth.
Nah, probably not.
I dug my phone out of my bag and thumbed the email app. Right before we left New York behind, I had sent SplitScreen the blogger a little message. Nothing too drastic or unfriendly; just a heads-up that I knew of yet another juicy secret Silas Monk was hiding.
Mostly it was another stab in the dark. Who knew what a face-to-face with a tech blogger would get me? It had taken me over an hour to comb through the blogger’s posts and links on Monk, and I couldn’t imagine that there wasn’t more inside of their head about the tech mogul. Maybe my charm could elicit a bit more useful data. At this point, anything might help.
For six hours, there had been no response, but something popped up as I trotted across the street in the middle of a jostling crowd.
It was an email from SplitScreen.
Tomorrow. 11 AM. Adam’s Rib. Back left corner table. Come alone.
“Yes!” Part of me couldn’t believe they responded. “Did you see that, Marcus? Tomorrow! I can’t wait to find out who this really is.” Or what sort of dirt they could help me dig up. Maybe Monk had a secret identity. Maybe Monk was the secret identity. Maybe there was a whole other dimension to things that I had so far completely missed.
I shouldn’t have been hoping for that last one, but hey, knowledge was power, right? And I really needed to know if Monk was Lorcan’s target, or if he was a key player in the game. The last thing I wanted to do was travel three thousand miles just to spin my wheels in different scenery.
After days of chasing down wild geese, it finally seemed as though we were about to get somewhere for real.
Victoria, I have a concern.
“What’s up?” A big grin spread across my face. Not even Marcus’s tendency to act like a stick in the mud could bring me down from this high.
As far as I am aware, you do not actually possess any new information regarding Monk or his ideas. No doubt, this person intends to question you thoroughly about the nature of your intelligence. What do you plan to say?
“I dunno.” I shrugged. “I’ll make something up. If I do it well enough, it’ll get them to say something big.” All I needed was confirmation that Silas Monk was a lead worth pursuing. What did that sound like? I wasn’t sure. But I was confident I’d know it when I heard it.
Marcus was silent, thoughtful. And you believe this to be an effective strategy?
“Why not? I’ve talked my way out from under the mob plenty of times before. It’s gonna be fine, man. I know what I’m doing.”
If you say so, Victoria. Although your past record does not grant a positive outlook on the future.
I couldn’t help but smile. “Bite me, Centurion.”
Marcus could be a Debbie Downer all he wanted—that was his problem, not mine. Now that SplitScreen was in the bag, I had two more things to do.
One: find a room.
And two: figure out how the hell we were going to speak to Silas Monk. Sure, my hopes were high for the meeting tomorrow, but not even I was naïve enough to trust a conspiracy theorist blogger to give up everything they knew. Ultimately, we’d have to get to Monk.
I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be as accessible as Cameron Cruze. And I sure as hell couldn’t barge into the Expo with my sword out.
Greater men than I had already tried that and failed.
The first thing I saw about the west coast, other than its techno-fantasyland image, was that it was expensive as shit to stay anywhere. Fortunately, available resources appeared to match the cost of survival, as long as you had a particular skill set. The downside?
Those skills were starting to seem a little too aggressively immoral, what with Marcus talking nonstop about honor and heroism right in my head. I won’t lie and say I didn’t think about trying to filch from one of the overly polished dickwads strutting down the street, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Checking my reserve, I saw I had enough to get by for at least a few days, provided I lived on a pretty tight budget.
Good thing I was no stranger to that. But I’d have to find a way to remedy my finances eventually.
&n
bsp; In a city like this one, money always talked.
The place I chose was a little motel, the kind where the doors faced out toward the parking lot and headlights shined through your windows at night. Far more glamorous digs surrounded the spot, but no respectable establishment would take cash only. A nice place would ask questions, and I didn’t want to push my luck. No one would be there to post bail for me in San Francisco.
The cash I had on hand bought me three nights to start, one of which I was about to spend. Seeing that the check-in slip asked for the make, model, and license plate of my car, I was suddenly glad I hadn’t rented one yet. I still needed to, but now, the motel didn’t have to know about it.
Score one stealth point for Vic.
I felt pretty good on my way to the room, key jingling merrily on its chain. “What do you think, Marcus? What’s Lorcan up to?
It is hard to say. He was powerful enough to deceive even Kronin, which means his moves will be far from predictable. But in New York, he sent his agent Delano to infiltrate positions of influence. It’s possible he will do more of the same here.
“Monk is influential all right, but I have a hard time picturing him as a particularly potent vampire. The bigger question is, what would Lorcan want Monk’s influence for?” I switched the television to a local news channel and flopped back against the plumped-up pillows. “Man, this bed feels amazing.”
That is indeed the question.
A news anchor’s smooth voice filtered in one ear and out the other. A car accident on the freeway, an increased risk of brush fires due to recent drought, a measure going forward to mitigate the extent of smog pollution above the city. Zero mentions of exsanguinated corpses leading back to Silas Monk.
That didn’t mean squat. The guy was more than powerful enough to smother undesirable press. No, the bottom of this was way, way down. Near the center of the Earth, maybe.
“Well then let’s just ask him. He’s in town for the Expo, so this could be our best bet to grab a little chat. I wonder how hard it would be to locate where he’s staying.”
