The Last Bender, Chapter 46

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

 

          It was a long while before I put the binoculars down and when I did, the dome disappeared. I figured it had to be the glasses. Just like the radio. A trick.

          I felt like kicking his ass off that hill into the valley below. And then I thought about how badly I needed that scowling, mumbling, prematurely haggard shit in tweed. So I handed him the glasses and said, “Where’s St. Claude?” in a voice that blew all the heat out of him. He shivered.

          “In the dome, Jack. I promise.”

          It took everything I had not to stick a gun up his nose. “That’s just not possible David.”

          “It’s made of a special crystal. Do you want to know how it works?”

          “I’m tired of crazy stories. Where’s St. Claude?”

          David smiled. His eyes looked like they were following a mouse along the floor. “You’re going to like this Jack, I promise. The dome absorbs the visible spectrum and reflects everything your brain filters out to see. And then, your brain fills in the blank. It’s an optical illusion. It fills in the blank with the surrounding area. You do it without thinking. And, the dome material is flexible and intelligent.”

          I tried to see it. If I squinted, I could just make out a buzzing haze of gray. “Whose plan was this, your old man’s?”

          “I don’t think so Jack. I think he and Laraby had planned on us working for them at Urizen.”  

          “Laraby is working for Watts.”   It was hard to believe. Laraby was screwed so tight to Monozone. He had Monozone stock, a Monozone pension and had held his directorship for fifteen years. “You doubled up Watts and Laraby on an inside job meant to look like a hostile takeover. You built this behind their backs.”

          “It’s been in the works for years. The day Monozone offered St. Claude and dad a contract Laraby sent in his pander. The idea was to use Monozone to synthesize Botrytis here. Then we break loose and go to Urizen with Laraby. Meanwhile, St. Claude kept Horizon going in secret. Once the dome was built and equipped, we terminated operations at Monozone and made the move. There’s even a ship on hand if things get too hot.”

          “The TetAteT.”

          “A little joke Jack. How did you know?”

          “My partner knew. He and Braque and Helen had you figured out. Only I didn’t.”   I paced circles, toeing the sand. “I think it’s time I have a poke around Horizon Labs.”

          He walked around to the back of the van. “My men first. I want you to give me your best estimate here, as to what they need to do to be a crack unit.”   He yanked open the doors. I stood next to him and waited.

          “Why don’t you tell ’em to fall out, or go ‘atenhut!'”

          “We’ll have to get them out.”

          I looked in the van. It was dark and smelled like rotten meat. There were three or four coat racks. And on the coat racks hung his puppet army, a bunch of headless corpses in various states of decay. Their clothes were filthy and bloodstained.

          “I had to drag some through the woods, to save them. Then I drove them home to Guernsey. They don’t drive very well.”

          “But they’re brave honest men.”

          “Don’t you want to see the weapons?”

          I massaged my head. The foul cryptic odor made it ache. He shined a flashlight into the van. The torsos gently swayed back and forth, a quiet rhythmic squeak.  The light beam rested on a wooden crate with R5 stenciled on its side, a good generic assault rifle. Fragmentation grenades, stick mortars, phosphor bombs and gas guns were stowed on the walls. There was enough there to take care of St. Claude, even without Helen.

          I didn’t know what was worse, David there or David gone, shooting off his mouth.  So I tried it one way first, to see what would happen.  “David, you go back to that hotel and wait for me.”

          “You need my help getting in.”

          “This part is dangerous. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

          “I feel responsible.”

          I ate into his liver then. “If you don’t get down there soon, Wanda will take off with the money.”

          He snarled at the road. “She wouldn’t do that.”  

          I gave it time to sink in. “I didn’t like the way she talked to you in the parking lot.”

          “She’s disagreeable too. I must like disagreeable people, because almost everyone I know is disagreeable. And I don’t care about the money.”

          “How will you live without money?”

          “Do you really think Wanda would do that to me?”

          “Like the poet said, ‘she would eat shit and say it tasted good, if there was some money in it for her.’”

          He shook his head sadly and then nodded it, and then he shook it some more. It was like he was rolling the marbles around, trying to make them go down certain chutes so he could think. When his head finally clicked into place it stood still. “I don’t care if I die, Jack, I’m staying. It’s my only chance.”

          I didn’t even want to hate him anymore. “Look, you show me how to get in, and wait with your men up here till I signal, o.k.?” 

          “I knew I could trust you. Come on.”

          We walked down a narrow, steep path through the sparse pinewoods. Lichens and moss covered the outcrops of glacial bedrock. Birds flew in and out of the trees.

          Until now I must have had the sensation of climbing up this thing. I figured, when I found St. Claude, that was the top of the mountain. I’d be free one way or another. But as we descended that path, I suddenly felt very different. I had the sensation that all along I had been crawling deeper into a cellar. The cobwebs broke across my eyes and mouth as I groped for a light. The beams overhead were low, and the earthen walls were close to my cheeks. On the ground, small moles and centipedes rummaged through the debris. It was some sort of a killing ground. St. Claude was in the bottom chamber, surrounded by moldy heads with crusty spines attached, the teeth bared and bloody, the eyes sunken and black. We came out of the woods and crossed a small pasture. The grey house was just across the dirt road, surrounded by a small, well kept lawn. Next to the house was a rowboat up on sawhorses. We went around the house, crossed another small pasture and entered the meadow I had seen from the hill. It was very green and dotted with yellow and violet flowers. White moths and bumble bees looped and swarmed about. The sun was warm and pale. I looked for the dome. I sensed that something was there that didn’t smell like hot grass and whatever it was, it was alive.

          “That’s the stump,” said David.

          “What’s security like in there?”

          “It’s invisible.”

          “Security is?”

          “No Jack, the dome. We, they, don’t need security.”

          “What can I expect?”

          “The ground level is a giant greenhouse. That’s where they grow the food. There are four levels beneath that. That’s where the offices, labs and dorms are.”

          I checked my gun. David winced. “How do I go in?”

          “Here, put these glasses on.”   He handed me a pair of goggles. I put them on. The dome was perfectly visible, a series of interlocking triangles etched in black on an inky, primal blue. There was a door. “How long will you be?”

          “I don’t know. A few hours.”

          “Don’t take the drug, Jack.”

          “Because it’s addictive? Or because it makes you nuts?”       

          He laughed. He mugged a bit with his face. He worked it this way and that and said, “Not really. You can recover fully when you go off and you don’t get cravings. But it does have one small, permanent side affect that can only be alleviated by continued use. Aren’t you going to ask me what that is Jack? Don’t you want to know?”

          I figured this was the last loony conversation I would have to have with him, before he got picked up by the cops or someone killed him. So I thought, why hurt his feelings. “What is it?’

          “Boredom. Very slight. Nothing like despair, or even ennui. Just, everything’s a little bit slow.”

          “Like when you leave the city,” I said. He smiled. He was not cut out for this. He deserved a break. “David, the six million bucks, it’s phony. You get caught spending it, you hang.”

          He looked at me hard. His lips trembled. “You double crossed me. I trusted you and showed you where he is and told you all my ideas, how to get St. Claude, and you frame me up for counterfeiting!  Why?”

          There was nothing I could say. “I’m sorry. That’s how it goes, playing the best hand all the way. That’s what we were doing, all of us–and you got in the game. Now I just helped you to fold early, so be smart and save your own ass. Remember, Wanda’s in that hotel room holding a bag of rope around her neck.”

          I opened the door and entered the dome. It sealed shut with a hiss. I took off the glasses and blinked. It was a giant crystal. The ceiling arched high overhead. Everything, floor, ceiling, walls, was constructed of the same material. I stood before a fountain. The water rose eight feet in the air and splashed into a basin. The cool mist formed a rainbow halo around it. Next to the fountain was a pedestal, and on the pedestal was a bowl. The bowl contained an eye the size of a melon. It roved back and forth, blinking, alive, blue streaked with green and grey and yellow. It focused in on me. The pupil contracted.

          The eye followed me, as far as it could, as I cautiously stepped around it and into the greenhouse. The garden beds were arranged in rows, beneath sprinklers and misters. The air was bright with refracted sun. In the beds grew a vivid green grass about six inches high. Beneath the beds were logs covered in mushrooms.

          About a half an acre away, a man was messing around with the grass. He watched me approach and then went back to his work. The dome radiated light and heat. The air smelled peculiar. It was a smell I had read about but never experienced, the smell they call forest. I pointed the gun at St. Claude. He stood straight and faced me. He wasn’t afraid. In his hand he held a bunch of the grass. A few pieces were stuck to his lips. He was chewing. He said,  “If you’re here to kill me, aim for the heart, not the head.”