ImageChaos

Not dead, actually.

This is the first part of a continuing fiction piece preliminarily entitled “The Last Arrow”. Listen, enjoy and leave feedback if you feel you need to.

How appropriate the birth of a new podcast season on my birthday?

Eckhart

 

 ImageChaos Episode 1 - The Last Arrow 1 [12:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I regret to inform you that the lighting in most government buildings built before the 1980s is terrible. Similarly, the fixtures, the paint work, the furniture - all utter crap. The sun-lit beautifully wooden conference rooms that inhabit most political intrigue films rarely exist. Even the House and Senate floors are in need of new carpeting and an upgrade in technology.

I say all of this to impart onto you how utterly disinterested I was waiting for the Department to get to me. As usual, they had me wait in the lobby of the building, just far enough into the structure to feel as if I had arrived and just far enough past security to make leaving and re-entering a hassle. I was considering leaving anyway - fifteen minutes is much too long to wait for anything, much less a meeting I didn’t relish attending - when a sharply dressed woman stepped into the moderately lit hallway.

I watched her approach. She was much like the buildings in Washington, impressive for what they stood for but in and of themselves, just brick and mortar. This was a woman with the power of a blank check black ops budget dealing with all sorts of events and situations the common man had last encountered in a badly produced science fiction film. Come to think of it, she was rather impressive.

She took my offered hand, shook it and nodded. “Mister Valentine, a pleasure to see you again, ” she said as, minutes later I sat in a small viewing theater. “I’m sure you know Miss Shayne, Madam Chen and Mister Diego,” I knew them, and nodded to each in turn. With the inclusion of three other mystics, my interest was piqued. “You’ve been called here to consult the Government on a particular supernatural phenomenon.” She gestured to the back of the room and I almost chuckled as the sound of a pictureslide machine whirred through the room. “This was as high tech as we could get without having circuits melt. We couldn’t even email the images.”

The image on the screen caught my full attention.

Several hours and dozens of shouting matches later, I stood in the small cafeteria, trying to decide between geletin and yogurt. A tray clattered down next to mine impatiently and I glanced up to its owner to find Director Lynn Bergen smiling at me. “You really are something,” the impressive woman said.

“So they tell me,” I replied, turning to study my options once again. The gellatin was, with that deep color, cherry. But the yogurt had fruit in it.

“What are your thoughts on Egypt?” she asked carefully.

“You were in that room. You know where I stand.”

“Yes, but barring that option, what could be done?”

I looked at her again. She was searching my eyes for an answer I knew was not there. She was looking for a right answer, a solution that would squash her fears. She may be familiar with the strange happenings in the world, but she wasn’t a part of them, not like I was. “You read the letter I sent to Jameson.”

“Yes, but -”

I slammed my fist onto my tray, causing the display of gellitan to jiggle and the gathered silverware to clatter. The general level of noise behind us in the cafeteria proper lowered, then rose again, as if nothing had occurred. I kept my voice soft, but I was irritated, very irritated. “I told them to stop, to leave well enough alone. Why did you not listen?”

“I don’t have control over the Smithsonian or any of their operations. We can’t be seen to-” she began, as if trying to calm an angering toddler. I wasn’t having it.

“And so now fifteen years after I warned you to stop, the very thing I warned against is happening and you’re coming to me for a solution. Well, that was my solution. Fifteen years ago. You’re better off nuking all of North Africa to glass,” I replied hotly. “And for that matter, incinerate your morgues.”

“Mister Valentine, I don’t understand what you mean,” she replied, her eyes growing hard. Obviously she’d taken the time in her life to be sure of everything that she encountered and the exact way to fix it with reasonable success. Now, she was face with something greater than even she could fathom, or rather, something she didn’t have time to fathom.

“The pyramids were built by the risen dead summoned alive by those symbols you found carved in their flesh,” I said slowly. “It’s a virus. A harbinger.”

I paused. Then took both the jello and the yogurt.

I use the term “demon” loosely. The man who sat before me was not a demon in the strictest Christian sense - there are few things that do - but as far as I was concerned, he was. And what was worse, he worked for the federal government.

“Lyonius Valentine, trouble in paradise?” he drawled, looking at me with unnervingly pale eyes. More unnerving was the manner in which he dressed. Time and again I had my administrators send memos out to the employees that this was a business, not some sort of hair-brained start-up company and that they should dress accordingly. Though in much more eloquent terms I imagine. I didn’t read any of them. Clad in a simple t-shirt and jeans, the government demon leaned in his chair, watching me.

I’m sure he did it just to annoy me.

“The trouble is,” I began, collecting the disk from the desk. The hovering globe disappeared with a gentle hiss, “that I allow you to enter my office - at any time, mind you - and yet you insist on trying to push me to distraction. What is it that you want? I am very busy, James.”

James, of course, was not his name. It was something that sounded a great deal like James to the ear, yet carried an extradimensional inflection that no human I knew could imitate. Something to do with their echoing voices - which apparently weren’t really echoes, but reflections of emotions. I never had time to master it. Nor, really, did I care. “Department of Defense, Homeland Security, NSA one of those government agencies wants to talk to you about Egypt.”

I fixed him with a steady stare. The reason why the government tolerated and hired this particular type of demon was two-fold. First, the natural abilities of this species made them a combination of a seige tank and intelligence-special ops agent. They were near bullet proof save for a point blank shot and they had the uncanny ability to simply disappear. Second, mages had a hard time restricting them. I, of course, had no problem. “You were here when I explained to the Hawthorne woman about the seventy-five year timeline on -”

James waved his hand dismissively. I found myself growing more irritated. Not only had he arrived in jeans, but he didn’t have the courtesy to cut his hair to a reasonable length or shave. I pushed aside the irritation of his appearance to focus on my irritation on being cut off. “They don’t much care about the drought, not in any capacity that they can’t do anything about. They want you to investigate in Cairo. Some Ambassador and staff got themselves killed.”

I raised a brow. He ignored it. I asked the question anyway, “And why are they asking after me?”

“Well, they have the symbol of Alorium carved into their flesh now don’t they? Looks like they wanted you to come,” James shrugged. “And the government wants some kind of briefing or debriefing or consultation. Look. Get your ass to Washington.” He got up from the seat, stretched and disappeared.

I leaned back in my chair and let out a long calming breath. I’d only arrived in my office 20 minutes before.

I didn’t even have a chance to check my email.

It wasn’t the first time someone spat on me but it was the first time blood accompanied it. I reached into a drawer of my desk, retrieved a tissue and wiped the spittle that had punctuated Jenna Hawthorne’s statement from my cheek. Across from me Hawthorne glared, as if to bore a hole through my skull with her hatred. That, too, was not a new sentiment. I tossed the tissue into the trash then leaned back in my chair to regard her.

“I don’t consider myself a villain, an evil person or an asshole,” I replied, keeping my voice soft, slowing the pace of my words. “I am a businessman, Miss Hawthorne. I deal with industrial technologies, not human lives as certain news media would like to suggest.” I paused and watched as her cheeks flushed with fury. In a way, it was somewhat amusing - for me at least. “Now, what would lead you to believe that I am, in any way, evil.”

“You sold your soul to the devil for power and wealth,” she hissed, trembling.

I would like to state that I hated this office. The desk was some sort of mahogany monstrosity and the walls covered with a rather useless bit of art. There were pieces of non-functional /things/ everywhere. Behind me an wide expanse of rolling green which gave way to the Chesapeake in the distance. There were no other buildings and the roads that cut through the forest was only noticable by the subtle gaps in the forest foliage. I found this particularly irksome. What is the use of a beautiful view that cannot be seen while working? Aside from that, the office was far too large. The interior designer I’d hired said that it conveyed power and intimidation.

I’d just wanted someplace to do my work.

This devil accusation was such a part of my life- every interview, every conversation - that to bring it up to me, even now, would cause my mind to wander. Better that than cutting back with an inappropriate response.  “Contrary to popular belief perpetuated by the media, as far as I know, I still have my soul. With that aside, I think it’s important that we focus on the issue at hand. Why did you try to kill me?”

Her plan, I gathered later from videotape and records, had been to infiltrate the administration and get close enough to shoot or stab me. She’d been working in the company to that end for three years. She’d been at the company picnic that past summer. She sat before me wearing a dark power suit - the type that women wear that simply results in them looking overstuffed and awkward. Her hair, which had come loose in struggle with security, hung around her face in pale strands.

“Central Africa,” she said. I immediately knew where the conversation was headed, and retrieved a disk from another drawer. “There’s drought in Africa, hundreds of thousands are dying and you’re doing nothing.” She tensed and I could see the conviction in her eyes. If she hadn’t been restrained, I would not have been over surprised if she tried to attack me.

I twirled the crystal flattened sphere  of the computer disk and set it on the desk. It spun slowly. “I donate millions to the affected areas of the world, Miss Hawthorne.”

“But you can do more,” she shot back. “Damn you, Valentine, you’re a fucking mage!”

I raised a hand as the disk’s spin increased. It threw light upwards into the air above the desk and displayed a shimmering sphere, Earth. “These are the affected areas, yes?” I pointed out, then steepled my fingers. “This is a weather simulator. Change the weather in any part of the planet and move forward. Say 50 years. Oh, yes, sorry.” I released her from her invisible bonds.

Hawthorne glared at me for several long seconds and, again I thought she might leap the two meter wide desk to tackle me. Finally, her eyes swept up to the globe and she reached out a hand. I watched as she manipulated data and rainfall, watching the consequences with a quiet, seething rage. She grew more frustrated with each passing moment as the world would not relent to her will.

I raised a hand and took the controls from her, manipulating data. “If I were to divert and direct reasonable weather in central africa.” the area of the world pulsed brightly. “As time wore on,” I set the timeline in motion, I’d done this before. “Monsoon season in Asia is brutal. Hurricane season everywhere else is stronger than in recorded history. Trillions of dollars in damages, hundreds of thousands dead, drowned.” The areas indicated darkened.
“You can’t put a price on human lives,” she began hotly. I could see that she didn’t want to believe me or the computer. This was some kind of trick or ruse on my part.

“With water diverted, other parts of the world face drought. More dead. The Atlantic and Pacific current engines will be disrupted. Jet streams realligned. The world’s weather in chaos,” great swaths of the globe dimmed until only the narrow band of Central Africa remained alight. “Ten billion men and women over fifty years. The end of human civilization. Given the choice, Miss Hawthorne, would you make that decision?”

I  watched her eyes, they still resisted, did not believe. I offered her a smile when we were interrupted by a gentle tone from my desk’s telephone. I pressed the intercom button and the chipper, over excited voice of my intern-assitant piped through the speakers, “Mr. Valentine, the police are here for Miss Hawthorne.”

“Thank you, Charles. Send them in.”

As they bore her away, she stared at the globe. The narrow strip of light slowly dimmed as they timeline below the holographic globe progressed. It was a senario I had been through on my own countless times. There was little I could do that the people could not do themselves. Hence the reason for my yearly eight figure donations. I couldn’t put a price on human life, misery or death, but hopefully some of my money could help.

There are far more dangerous issues that I must handle.

As the door shut behind the police and Hawthorne, a demon sat in the chair opposite me, staring at the globe, leaning as if waiting.