Miss Brandymoon's Device: a novel of sex, nanotech, and a sentient lava lamp (Divided Man Book 1) Page 2

  Fin was utterly depressed by the time he got to Magic Beans, and ended up having an Irish coffee and a black cherry tart because the color of the fruit reminded him of Rook’s lips. His tongue ached where she’d bitten him. When he drank his coffee too fast, the heat and the alcohol burned exquisitely and took his mind off his broken heart. After two more Irish coffees, he saw Dan and Elise on their break and remembered he had to go to work, so he ordered one more and another tart to go.

  At the magazine office, he stashed the tart in his desk drawer and sipped the coffee while taking out the instruction card she gave him. After reading the front, he turned it over and couldn’t suppress a whoop of delight. Right after ROTATE THE RING TO WORK THE OINTMENT INTO THE PIERCING there was a handwritten note:

  M Beans 4:00 Wed

  *** *** ***

  Reverend Brian Shaw watched the monitor as the technician, Gregory, explained what it displayed.

  “There, that’s a new subject coming online. Serial number puts it at Talisman Tattoo over in Webster. This number is the signal ID, and beside it is the frequency. Being brand-new, it has listening priority set to High.”

  “Why is that?” Shaw asked. Gregory quailed. Shaw smiled at him. “I’m not criticizing, I’m interested. Why does being new cause it to get higher priority?”

  Gregory turned back toward the screens and said, “The number of devices in the field is currently 178% of our available bandwidth. That means we get 1.78 times more signal than we can take in at one time. So, there’s a schedule, and priorities. Until we gather some data about a new subject, we don’t know how to fit them into the schedule. They start off as High priority so we can get data quickly.”

  “Well, that seems very sensible.”

  “What we really need,” Gregory said, handing a set of earphones to Shaw, “is more equipment. Then we wouldn’t need to have the signals in a rotation, because we could just listen to all of them all the time.”

  “I’ll see what can be done,” the reverend replied, still smiling. “They don’t exactly sell these things at Walmart.”

  He put on the earphones, and heard, “I wanted to see if your tongue was pierced, too.” He handed the headset back.

  Listening in was of only secondary importance to Shaw’s plans, but it did vex him that a glaring logistical gap like the equipment shortage wasn’t mentioned earlier. He might never have known about it if he hadn’t insisted on being briefed about the nuts and bolts. The irony that he gained this valuable insight from a traitor amused him.

  In his youth Shaw let it trouble him that God made him so strong, yet not strong enough to do it all by himself. Such foolish pride had long ago been replaced by pragmatism. Just as a carpenter needs a hammer, Shaw came to realize that he needed tools as well. First television, transmitting his words to millions. And soon, with these marvelous devices, he would transmit divine grace itself.

  “Thank you for the demonstration, Gregory. I’m quite impressed.” Shaw gestured and said, “Could one of the others take over for you for a few minutes? I’d like to speak with you up in my office.”

  Gregory said, “Wow, I don’t know about that. I mean, without a little advance notice it might be awkward…”

  Shaw waved over one of the other technicians while Gregory tried to stall, and ten seconds later they were in the elevator together.

  “It’s a long ride up,” Shaw remarked, and Gregory nodded nervously. The reverend mused aloud on the subject of the expansive Shaw Ministries compound, notably the large portion located below ground. So many tunnels twisting and turning through the darkness, interconnecting most of the above-ground structures. As Shaw spoke, Gregory grew drowsy. Shaw let himself ramble about the cthonic maze, and the parallels between its physical nature and its convoluted and hidden purpose.

  The words weren’t important. The reverend’s voice carried the hypnotic power.

  Shaw reached into Gregory’s mind with his own and overrode his volition, paralyzing him.

  “I know about the little notes you’ve been passing to your friends,” Shaw said. “You’re quite clever, Gregory, but you’re in way over your head here. I don’t know what made you think you could pull this off, except you obviously don’t know enough about me. Well, now you do know. But it’s too late.”

  The elevator doors opened, and Shaw glanced out to make sure the anteroom was empty. He could feel a bleak and tremulous kind of feedback from Gregory, who wanted to panic but no longer knew how.

  “You deserve to understand my interest in the jewelry.” Shaw flashed his on-air smile. “What I’m doing to you now, it only works in person. And it’s devilishly tricky to apply to more than one target at a time. The marvelous technology hidden in those baubles is my key to widening my reach. I like you, but you’re a threat to my great works, Gregory. I wish it weren’t so.” As he shut off Gregory’s heartbeat, the reverend said, “I hope you understand that I never kill without an excellent reason.”

  Chapter Two

  PARTY

  09/22/2000

  New Subjects

  Talisman Tattoo [6] InkWell [3]

  Males [2] Females [7]

  Ear [1] Face [1] Tongue [1] Nipple [3] Navel [3] Genital [1]

  Notes: Subject T358~ft~18C, male w/facial piercing from Talisman Tattoo, is our first example of type ^Ω^, and therefore tracking protocol 2 will be in effect until such time as the lab techs have completed the diagnostics and signal mapping, and new surveillance protocols can be developed, if necessary.

  from TEF listening post daily report

  The party had already reached cruising altitude when Fin got home from work at 10:30, still giddy from the prospect of his upcoming date with Rook.

  Parties happened frequently in the run-down house where Fin and five other guys rented rooms. A lot more frequently than, say, mowing the lawn. This smelled like a good one, the blend favoring pot and beer over sweat and vomit. The green bulbs in all the lamps labeled this as one of Booth’s parties, and made the whole thing feel like it was happening inside an aquarium. Techno-flavored music thudded out of the speakers in a blatant attempt to get girls dancing.

  Fin filled a plastic cup at the keg, handed the tap to the next person in line, and turned toward the kitchen to scrounge for food. The song cut out abruptly, a dozen gyrating bodies freezing in mid-dance. As their collective “Aww!” rang out, Fin put on his best dancer-face and spun around twice, bobbing his head like a pigeon and not spilling a drop of beer. Someone over by the stereo called out, “Sorry!”

  Fin shimmied his shoulders, and moved with a zigzagging swagger through the forest of sweaty mannequins, keeping perfect time to the nonexistent beat. His efforts drew little reaction.

  The music returned midsong, and everyone simultaneously resumed pumping and swaying, like they hung from the same set of strings. Fin stopped as abruptly as the music had, waiting for traffic to clear so he could cross the remaining distance to the kitchen. He finished his beer in three quick gulps before that happened, so he got back in the keg line behind his heavily tattooed black housemate, Booth. They exchanged nods.

  “You went to Talisman!” Booth said, pointing at Fin’s bandaged eyebrow.

  “Thanks for the tip. You were right about the piercer.” Fin grinned.

  The line for the keg crept.

  A man in a sleeveless black t-shirt with a ring in his nose sat at the foot of the stairs, talking to a hipster goof in a puke green cardigan. They were preoccupied with dreams, trying to describe a dreary one they’d both had. They called it “the green spaceship dream.” Fin rolled his eyes for Booth’s benefit and spotted Kyle coming in the front door. He had three of his muscle-headed cronies behind him, and as they filed into the house the party shrank back like a kicked dog.

  That’s when the heavy self-medication started. Fin needed something stronger than beer, so he absconded with a half-empty bottle of tequila and went to the kitchen for lemons. Or limes. Or anything citrus. An orange maybe. He found none, b
ut encountered a motley assortment of revelers seated around the formica table, sharing a joint.

  Booth tagged along, steering Fin into a private conversation. “You okay, man? You don't seem like yourself.”

  Fin was almost offended. “Who do I seem like?”

  Booth laughed. “Fin. Mostly. Maybe it’s just me.”

  “I seem like you?”

  Booth smirked. “No, man. It’s not that bad yet.”

  “Well, you can’t be yourself without someone else.”

  Booth blinked, and shook his head again. “What?”

  “How else are you going to know if you’re doing it right?” Turning his back on his friend, Fin snagged the joint and took a deep drag.

  ***

  Something hideous was trying to climb in through Fin’s ears and let the air out of his brain.

  He sat up and looked around. He wasn’t really at the party anymore, inasmuch as he was alone in the third floor bathroom. Lint, grit, and a bad-smelling tacky residue clung to his shoulder and cheek where he’d been in contact with the floor. He pawed at them disinterestedly and ran his hand back over his lawless hair.

  Fin’s only sensory input that didn’t keep dropping below the threshold of perception was his hearing. The irony was not lost on him as the melodic lobotomy twittered through the floorboards. If he nodded a bit, which he couldn’t prevent, his eyes went below the surface of a rainbow Kool-Aid swimming pool and everything had dripping edges for a minute after he snapped his head back up. He couldn’t tell if both his eyes were open.

  His shirt lay in the sink, wet from the ever-dripping faucet. Fin pulled it back on. It smelled like beer and cigarettes. Comforting. He didn’t bother to button it. Water trickled down his flesh, tiny cold snails heading for the waistband of his dilapidated black cargo pants. The phosphorescent slime trails helped him focus.

  He had been having a good time until Kyle and his friends showed up. That would be Kyle’s music doing violence to his brain, then. Kyle always slipped into wedding DJ mode when he got trashed, and Fin always slipped into misery mode when Kyle started having fun. No amount of drugs could dim the glare of Kyle’s personality.

  In this house, Fin had seniority. He wasn’t going to leave his fucking home just because some entitlement prick moved in. Soon enough Kyle would realize he wasn’t welcome.

  Fin began the process of standing up and achieved it by stages, leaning on the toilet and the radiator. Slouching against the wall, he started to move along the short hallway to his room before he was entirely upright.

  How did he get upstairs? Maybe it was a new drinking game, and the loser had to carry him to the bathroom. He chuckled, which made him dizzier.

  By the time he unlocked his room, he couldn’t retrace his mental steps to account for his silly grin. Kyle’s so-called music was still present and accounted for, so the smile melted and formed a shimmering puddle on the floor. In the reddish glow from the lava lamp, the smile took a linty hairball hostage and scuttled behind the TV. Fin blinked and switched on the overhead light. Dingy off-white walls, avocado shag carpet, black garbage bag covering the only window — no feral facial expressions in evidence.

  If only stupidity were painful, Fin thought, as Kyle’s sonic assault renewed itself. He flipped the power switch on his amp and hefted his bass. He could taste a bit of throb coming through the amplifier.

  With all the knobs all the way to the right on the bass and the amp, he dropped the instrument on the floor in front of the speaker.

  When Fin got downstairs to the living room he was the only one smiling. The squeal of feedback shook the tired old house, making bottle caps and shot glasses skitter around on the coffee table down here. It didn’t cover the awful music, but guaranteed nobody could really listen to it. Kyle’s customary smirk had vanished. He was trying to be goth in a black turtleneck, so the scowl fit pretty well. Booth banged his head maniacally, dreadlocks flying.

  Bishop stopped the stereo. Kyle’s friends stood around like sheep with drinks. Kyle was no longer in sight, so Fin congratulated himself on his victory.

  The feedback stopped. Premature congratulations.

  On the way back upstairs, Fin startled Kyle on the second landing. Fin glared and grasped the bannister to steady himself.

  “Nobody goes into my room,” said Fin.

  Kyle tried several faces, and settled on wounded pride for unintelligible reasons. He met and held Fin’s gaze with his algae-colored eyes, but took too long preparing a retort.

  “You went into my room,” Fin continued.

  Kyle squared his shoulders, wanting the full effect of the half-inch height advantage his combat boots afforded him.

  “That makes you Nobody,” Fin concluded.

  Kyle pushed Fin’s shoulder, trying to send him down the stairs, but Fin let go and melted to the side. Off-balance, Kyle stumbled down the next few steps. He stomped down to the first landing where his toadies could see him and yelled, “Asshole!”

  Fin climbed the rest of the stairs and made the walk down the hall to his room with more grace than the last time. The only evidence of an interloper’s presence was the unplugged amplifier. Fin placed his bass back on its stand and reset the dials on the amp so it would be less likely to detonate upon being powered up again, then sprawled on his threadbare recliner with a cigarette. Ordinarily, bringing about the untimely end of a party’s life would be cause for shame and reproach, but in this case Fin regarded it as a mercy killing.

  “Uh, Fin?”

  Vesuvius sounded somewhat concerned. Or he could be seriously ticked off. Fin couldn’t tell by the tone of voice, a quavery monotone he found soothing, usually.

  Vesuvius continued, “I have a question, Fin.”

  “Yeah?” Fin lolled back on his chair and shifted his gaze to the nearby lava lamp. “And what might your question be?”

  The lamp was quiet for a few moments. “Why are there express checkout lanes at the supermarket, but the deli is all one speed?”

  Fin laughed until he choked and sat up, causing his skull to fill with marching band collisions. He curled up and tumbled onto the floor croaking, “Fuck!”

  At length the environment inside Fin’s skull returned to something approximating its normal grime and clutter and he slowly sat up, chuckling. “That was not nearly that funny,” he observed.

  “You were,” retorted the lamp.

  Fin stood. He said, “Want to discuss the game?” Vesuvius occupied a privileged place in Fin’s pantheon and a prime spot in his room, right beside the chess board on the tall cafe table. He occasionally coached Fin during a game. Chess was evidently not his calling, but it was fun to ‘cheat’ anyway.

  “I said you should attack with the knight. You still should.”

  “That’s it?” It was unlike Vesuvius to show disinterest in the game, even when it had been discussed to death already.

  Guilt swept Fin. The feedback. Poor Vesuvius had been trapped in the room with it.

  “Hey, ‘Suvius, I’m sorry.” He stooped and checked the glass capsule for cracks. Languid crimson clouds rose and fell in the self-contained amber sky.

  “I moved about an inch toward the edge,” the lamp stated.

  “Shit, I didn’t even think.” Fin ran his left hand down the warm surface.

  Everything seemed okay, but Fin felt stupid for being so cavalier with such a good friend, and moved him back toward the center of the table.

  “Come on, let’s figure out what Bishop’s up to.”

  “You’re about to find out.”

  Fin didn’t understand, until he looked toward the doorway. Tom Bishop towered there, about four inches taller than necessary. His perpetually friendly face was rimmed with dark hair, and he sported a mane that reached his waist even in a braid. How long had he been standing in the hallway, smiling and infuriatingly patient?

  *** *** ***

  Bishop was relieved when Fin finally spotted him in the doorway and stopped mumbling and fussing with h
is lava lamp. Fin blinked his bottle green eyes a few times. Because his eyelids were not behaving in a coordinated manner, the effect was that he winked rapidly and spastically several times with both eyes. He told Bishop, “I know. And of course you’re right, so go the fuck away.”

  “Up for some chess?” When Fin got really far gone, like tonight, Bishop knew to ease into conversation, and give him some extra personal space. Fin was not likely to harm anyone, not intentionally, but at times his threat displays could be a little emphatic. Bishop’s accumulated expertise in dealing with Fin in this state was put to the test more often these days.

  Bishop settled onto one of the cafe stools and waited.

  It was always Fin’s move, whenever the game resumed. Fin managed it that way, always playing black and always stopping on his turn and taking about a week to decide his next move. Bishop suspected he always had the move figured out right away but insisted on taking a week to decide if he liked it.

  Fin climbed onto his seat across from Bishop. The blank stare he gave the board was deceiving, as he invariably found and used the absolute sneakiest tactic available. His was the game that undermined traditional games. Blind to anything more than two moves ahead, he never had to think about his opponent’s third move, being always about to perpetrate something illogical, foolhardy, and exasperating that would foul the most elegant deployment and force his adversary to retrench in desperation.

  Fin toyed with his knight, giving Bishop covert glances to see if he could get a rise out of him with the implied threat against his bishop. Bishop kept his face pleasantly calm. Everyone he played chess with learned quickly that his favorite weapon on the board was the piece that bore his name. Adept at deploying the two of them as a team, he preferred them over even the queen as offensive tools.

  Fin always hunted down the bishops, quite cheerfully burning off half his own armada to get them. The move with the knight would not be a bluff. Still, he tried for a reaction before going ahead with it. Bishop glanced at the board to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything and shifted his bishop back two spaces to keep it out of the knight’s path for a while.