Morningstar (Crossroads of Crosstime)

by A. J. Curry

  “Well,” he said, cadging another cigarette, “that explains a lot.”

  “There is a persistent rumor you founded the order.”

  “Not so, but I can see how bystanders might’ve gotten that impression. For a mere mortal, you have led an interesting life, Mr. Murphy.”

  “It had actually been getting a lot simpler. I’m still not entirely sold, by the way. Feel like doing some magic?”

  He took a shot and smirked. “Well, I could make you disappear.”

  “You and a lot of other people. How about something else?”

  “You probably have some exaggerated ideas about my abilities. I can change my appearance, obviously, but it takes a long time. I have senses you don’t have. I’m stronger, faster, et cetera, et cetera. For all practical purposes, I’m essentially immortal. The kind of things that make for good Hollywood blockbuster special effects? Not so much.”

  “Not what one expects of the second-most powerful being in the cosmos.”

  He sighed. “About that. I truly am an angelic being, and ‘fallen’ in the sense that I have seen better days. But the rest of what you think you know is utter hogwash. The celestial hosts at creation’s dawn numbered greatly. In no sense was I special among them. I just happen to be the one that wound up here.”

  “Rather the way you ‘just happened ‘ to be in the Lyin’ Lamb tonight?”

  “Believe it or not, yes. For what it may be worth, I find it improbable as well.”

  “The guy who is telling me he’s Lucifer in disguise doesn’t get to say what’s probable.” It was right about then that I knew he wasn’t going to kill me… and that he knew I knew.

  I jumped off the table and dusted off my jeans. “This has all been fascinating, Mr. Murgenstaern, but I need to sober up for a staff meeting that would otherwise be the most interesting thing I’ve experienced in a long time.”

  “Surely you have other questions?”

  “A ton of them, but there is only so much I can process at any one time. You may or may not be crazy, you may or may not be what you say are, you may or may not have a line on a cosmic mcguffin that may or may not have just started WWIII. But I still have an online meeting in a couple of hours with people who scare me the way you’re supposed to, and it’s been a long damned day − which is to say, I’m outta here.”

  Turning my back on him was still one of the toughest things I’d ever done, but I trust my instincts. “Be at The Lamb tomorrow for happy hour. We can… you know. Talk shop.”

  three: caroline

  It wasn’t a perfect marriage − there aren’t any − but it wasn’t bad, either. For one thing, he really did love me.

  Part of the problem was that all Murphy really wanted to do was “settle down and get married” − to me − and I wasn’t exactly sure about either of those things. But he could be a persuasive sonofabitch. And persistent.

  And he was hot.

  When I met Mike Murphy, he was running an after-hours club in the Houston warehouse district… and apparently knew everyone.

  Everyone had a “Murphy story” − the only problem was that not one of the stories was exactly the same. The short version was that he’d started out as a club promoter and sometime bouncer who somehow wound up doing IT work for an oil company. But it was hard to pin down which oil company he was actually working for. There were rumors that he was dealing drugs in no small way. Of course, he just smiled and waved his hand when asked about it. “They say that about everyone.”

  “No, Murphy − no one says that about ‘everyone.’ But a lot of people seem to say it about you.”

  “Pure speculation. Anyway, do I look like a drug dealer?”

  I snorted. “Yes. Or maybe just some guido enforcer on the make.” That was one of the other interesting things about Murphy. He always wanted to know how he looked. At first, I just took it for vanity. Later, I wasn’t so sure.

  On this particular evening, back in what you could think of as “the good old days,” Murphy had either dressed to impress me or impress somebody, or maybe he was just playing a role. He’d recently let his mohawk grow out at the sides and get cropped at the top − a “club kid” haircut, even though he was too old and too big to ever be taken for any such thing. He was wearing the kind of leather jacket stockbrokers wear to make sure someone asks them about their expensive motorbike, over a white silk shirt and jeans and boots.

  He looked like he should be hanging out behind a stadium arguing expenses with a tour manager, or flying to Bogota with a briefcase no one even thought about asking him to check, or doing something even more improbable in some action-adventure fluff movie.

  He also looked really, really good.

  We’d met through what he liked to call his “expensive hobby” − a community coffee shop/cybercafe /unlicensed club in an old building in the neighborhood he’d grown up in. I volunteered there in my free time from getting a degree, working in a bar, and trying to maintain a relationship that was going nowhere fast.

  When he kept showing up at the cafe when I was working, I didn’t think too much of it. When he started asking me if I wanted to stop off for “a drink or something” on the way home from my shift, I didn’t even bother to mention the boyfriend I knew perfectly well he knew all about.

  Between a boyfriend, school, a job, and community work, something was going to have to give if I was going to be seeing Murphy as well.

  Yeah, it was the boyfriend. He never really had a chance.

  We were sitting in Murphy’s living room, sipping wine in front of the fireplace. Unlike his wardrobe, there was nothing showy or pretentious about where Murphy lived. It was an old duplex in Montrose, the same neighborhood he’d grown up in. The cinder block shelves stuffed with books and records looked like they should be in a dorm room someplace. The sofa had been expensive once, before going to a thrift store and before Murphy’s cats had made it their own.

  “You can’t really blame them, you know,” I said.

  “Blame who?”

  “The people who think you’re a dealer or something. You run an after hours club, a neighborhood coffeeshop, you say you work downtown. For a guy with a day job, you have a lot of free time.”

  “Time I’m extremely happy to be spending with you,” he said, pouring me more wine.

  “Yeah, me too − but that’s not the point. The point is that you don’t really add up, and as near as I can tell, you never have. You say you grew up around here, but no one really remembers you as a kid. You say you’re paying for the club and the coffee shop out of your paycheck. The people who work there don’t ask any questions − why would they?”

  He shrugged. “There’s a lot ot be said for not being late with payroll.”

  “Which could mean all kinds of things and sounds nefarious as hell. Look, I really, really like you − but there are times when you flat scare the hell out of me.

  “I’d like to know what I’m getting into, Murphy. I’ve had some problems in the past with people lying to me.”

  He frowned. “Would it be better if I didn’t have the club or the coffeeshop?”

  “If you were trying to pass yourself off as ‘just some guy’, yeah − definitely.”

  “What about the clothes?”

  “Murphy, I like the way you dress just fine − but no one with a corporate IT day job dresses that way.”

  “Not even consultants?”

  “ Especially not consultants.”

  He was quiet for a long time, and I wondered if I might’ve pissed him off. The one thing I’d never hear anyone say about Murphy was that he beat up on chicks − but there’s always a first time.

  “Would you help me?”

  “Help you what?”

  “Help me be normal, Caroline.”

  I laughed. “Do you even wantto be normal? Normal people are boring.”

  “If you were a part of it, I think I would enjoy being normal very, very much.”

  four: murphy

  The itc
hy feeling between my shoulder blades didn’t really go away until I got home. I’d stopped off on the way for a triple-shot dirty chai. Under other circumstances, I might’ve made small talk out of habit with the pretty barista, but other habits had kicked in on overdrive.

  I didn’t expect him to follow me, and he didn’t, but I didn’t kid myself that he might not be in my living room when I got home, having reconsidered his kind offer to let me live.

  But there was no one there other than a couple of fat kitties who scolded me for getting home later than usual. I swilled down the last few bitter dregs of the chai and started getting ready for my meeting.

  I don’t do many teleconferences, and I consider it an infinite mercy. Not only do I have to wear pants, I’m expected to be wearing a shirt that has actually had recent contact with an iron. I keep one of those in the back of my closet against such occasions.

  I also have to hook my big-screen TV up to the secured modem. The twin flat panels in my office aren’t good enough for my boss. This is a little more of a hassle than you might think. It has to be a hardwired connection, and I have exactly one chance to get the password right. Failure to do so would probably be written up in the papers as a meth lab gone horribly wrong − not that I’d be around to care one way or the other.

  I made some more coffee while I was waiting for the meeting to start. The people I really work for had paged me, which came as no surprise. If the people I really really work for chimed in as well, it could be a long night − and possibly go a long way toward authenticating Murgenstaern’s extravagant claims.

  He was either crazy, lying, or the real deal. I was pretty sure he wasn’t baseline human, but there’s a wide range of options between “not quite human guy” and “prince of darkness” − some of which I have counted as either friends, coworkers, or deadly enemies. I had a feeling the question would resolve itself. Meanwhile, I had more pressing problems.

  I really hate meetings. Yeah I know, who doesn’t?

  The people who had originally recruited me had been what most people would think of as “cool”: Cocaine cowboys from old-school families who just happened to be in the right place at the right time to make a shit-ton of money while saving the world for someone’s idea of democracy.

  The people who replaced them were a pack of accountants. In some cases, literally. I was tolerated as a useful fossil. The fact that I’d written a lot of the tools they used to write their damned reports didn’t hurt. Or I may’ve been tolerated for other reasons. How deep The Order goes into The Company is one of those questions I’m happy to leave unanswered. I just do The Job… that’s usually good enough.

  At the appointed time, the screen lit up. The software beats “Go To Meeting” all to hell, and I don’t have the first damn idea how it works. A conference table receded into my television. I knew that some of the people sitting at the table weren’t any more “really” there than the image of me they were seeing on their ends. At the far end of the table, the head, sat Colvin Case. At least that much was real.

  Case had once been enough of a friend to sign off on my request to go full remote, but he’d done me no recent favors, and I didn’t really expect any. I still had a job. With any luck, that might even be true by the time this meeting was over.

  He’d joined The Company later than I had, risen further and faster. The recruiting standards had changed by then, and so had the culture. When I’d met him, he was a big, friendly, tow-headed kid from New England who liked to party and who would’ve lasted about 30 seconds in the field. But he had managed to get attention almost the same way I had, allowing for differences between the Eighties and the Nineties. Why he had wound up on the Central America operation or had actually wanted to live on the Gulf Coast was beyond me. By the time I knew him well enough to ask, he was already on his way to DC to take the promotion I could never quite convince myself I wanted.

  There wasn’t much left of the big friendly kid I’d taught the proper way to order tequila. He’d gotten skinny and respectable. The blond hair had thinned out into the kind of combover that only fools the person looking at it in the mirror. At a rough guess, I’d assume his tie clip, cufflinks, and eyeglass frames probably cost as much as every article of clothing or clothing accessory I currently owned. The eyes behind the expensive glasses were the eyes of an auditor who already knows the books are cooked and plans to prove it.

  Could that have ever been me at the head of the table, looking at the world like it was a botched spreadsheet? Guess I’ll never know.

  He looked into what appeared to be the space directly over my head, where I knew the teleconference suite controls were at his end. “OK, that looks like everyone. Let’s get started.

  “At 0400 yesterday, an… event… occurred resulting in the unplanned reentry of a communications device. Claims in the media that this device was ‘knocked out of orbit’ are, of course, absurd. But the end effect is largely the same.

  “As many of you have probably already guessed, the device in question is none other than the ‘Archangel Array’. Like most sensitive assets on this level, the Array is equipped with numerous safeguards. Including a fairly unique self-destruct that has… not behaved to expectations.

  “Consequence to this failure, Archangel has splashed down in the Indian Ocean, where recovery efforts are underway. Russian and other assets are en route into the area as well, but our expectation is that recovery efforts will be completed in advance of their arrival. Post-recovery actions will depend on the initial on-site forensic analysis. As usual, we’ll be briefed as matters proceed. Any questions, so far?”

  Plenty, but I was going to let someone else ask them. Luckily, there were plenty of Bright Young Things in the meeting that didn’t know any better. “Sir,” one of them chimed in, “how exactly did the destruct system fail?”

  How Case answered this was going to be fun. He reported directly to the braintrust that had built the thing.

  “The Archangel Array is equipped with hull sensors designed to detect attempts at boarding or commandeering it. In the event of such an incident, the array’s stealth retrorocket assembly fires. Once the array is in full reentry mode, explosive charges fire and destroy it. Reentry occurred. The detonation did not.”

  The Bright Young Thing persisted, as Bright Young Things always do. “But wouldn’t it have burned up on reentry anyway?”

  “The Archangel Array is the size of several stacked cargo containers. In other words, no. Any other questions?”

  I decided to ease the bright young thing off the hook. “Any current theories as to how the charge failed to go off?”

  “None worth mentioning, and it’s out of scope for this discussion in any case. Anyone who wants to is welcome to join the root failure cause analysis team after the current crisis has been handled.”

  Yup, and kiss your career goodbye.

  “Any further questions?” Of course not.

  “For now, this is a standard discovery/disinformation campaign. You will all be receiving directions to pass on to your respective teams shortly. Unless matters escalate, I think we can dispense with daily staff meetings like this, but I do want daily status summaries via email no later than close of business in your respective time zones.”

  Case’s gaze shifted toward me. Great. “Murphy, I need you to activate an additional stateside team to ensure absolute media containment. Your analysts need to be monitoring the situation 24/7.”

  “Sure, Case − no problem. That means I can scale back the offshore teams to eight hour shifts, right?” I don’t normally fuck with Case, but it had been a long day.

  “As long as there are no coverage gaps or issues with your own availability, manage your teams as you see fit.”

  “Will do”.

  The meeting wrapped up quickly after that. I probably should’ve unhooked the TV from the secure router, but I also could’ve blown myself up trying. I did the sensible thing instead, and fell asleep in front of the TV.

  fi
ve: caroline

  Murphy got rid of the club and the coffee shop when we got married. He traded in the silk shirts for buttoned-down oxfords, and started wearing Dockers. He looked like a dork, but he was still hot.

  Well, sort of.

  I finished my degree, got a job in the Med Center. Instead of getting a house, we stayed in the old Montrose duplex Murphy had lived in for years. I picked out new furniture the same way I’d picked out Murphy’s new clothes. We were happy.

  Well, sort of.

  I’d made a mistake. I’d thought being married to Murphy would be like dating him, only better. I’d never thought he was serious about “being normal,” but he was − and I’d already told him that I thought normal was boring. But that wasn’t even the real problem. The problem was that Murphy wasn’t normal, didn’t know how to be.

  Also, he had secrets. The one room in the duplex he wouldn’t let me redecorate was his office. Sure, every guy likes to have his “man cave” − but this was a little bit more than that. He didn’t like me even being in that room… and I didn’t like it, either. That room just felt wrong. Even the cats wouldn’t go in there… and after a while I didn’t, either.

  When he’d first told me his duplex was haunted, I hadn’t thought too much of it. Montrose was the Houston equivalent of Haight-Ashbury, and Murphy had lived there pretty much his whole life. I’d always had friends there, and believing in ghosts was pretty par for the course. I’d grown up in the suburbs, which might be why Murphy thought I could coach him on “normal.” There are no ghosts in Kingwood, except the ghosts of lost dreams and opportunities. And I was starting to feel my own dreams dying.

  There were other things as well. The more I got to know Murphy, the more I realized no one really knew him at all. His parents were the sweetest people in the world, the total opposite of mine, but nothing they told me about Murphy as a kid matched anything he’d ever said.

  I’d already known some of Murphy’s old friends and met more − but not a single one of them told the same stories, and all of the stories had gaps that no one could really fill in. How he had gone from being a part-time bouncer and drug dealer to doing IT consulting was something no one could explain, even Murphy. He just smiled and said “It’s just a knack I have. And it seems to pay pretty well.”