Here & There (39 page)

A blonde waitress in a purple chemise and black lingerie sets down two drinks, a bottle of water in front of the man, a pineapple juice in front of Reidier. Neither acknowledge her.

“And that’s where you run into trouble.”

“I’m not in any trouble,” Reidier says.

The man gazes at the table. He removes a Ziploc bag from his suit pocket. It contains at least three dozen vitaminlike pills. He unscrews his water bottle. “It’s the unfortunate sheep who doesn’t see the wolf until he feels the fangs.”

“Fate cannot be fooled,” Reidier counters.

“I did not take you for a fatalist. That’s rare in a scientist.”

“Fate made me an authority on myself.”

“Among other things.”

The music shifts to a quieter, though similarly beat-driven song.

“I apologize for the necessity of the environment,” the man says. “I hope you don’t interpret it as disrespect.”

Reidier leans back and sips his juice. “It’s a reflection on you and your company, not me.”

The man nods. “It provides a convenient cover for us. The noise precludes prying eyes and nosy ears, and the setting gives you a reasonable alibi. Your caretakers will assume you had an extracurricular impulse and won’t wonder too much when you neglect to mention to your family your whereabouts later this afternoon.”

“Very thorough. Still, it doesn’t explain what I’m doing here with you.”

“Tell me,” the man leans in, “How’s your work going?”

Reidier stalls with another sip of juice. “My classes are going quite well. Very bright students this semester.”

“And your other work?”

“What work are you referring to?”

“Clearly, I come to you having done my due diligence. Why else would I be here? Why else would you be?”

Reidier offers up nothing.

The man smiles and then laughs. “Of course your discretion would be something I would insist on too. Then again, discretion is nothing more than a polite word for hypocrisy. I worry we might be getting off on the wrong foot.”

“Having your man in a taxi wait for me outside my office and then intimate it’s in my family’s best interest to take a ride does sour first impressions.”

The man sighs. “You’ll have to forgive my methods. I could not of course show up in person. Please understand that in no way are you obligated to remain. Should you so desire, you’re free to leave, and my man in the taxi will drop you anywhere you wish. I hope, however,
you will do me the courtesy and yourself the favor of hearing me out so that both of us might consider the professional possibilities.”

Reidier waits a moment then says, “I think I’ll leave now.”

The man raises his hands, palms up, as if in an “as you please” gesture.

Reidier stands and extends his arm to shake hands, “Goodbye, Mr. Curzwell.”

The man reaches out and takes Reidier’s hand in his own. As he does so, his right sleeve pulls up, revealing a bracelet. It’s a half-inch strip of metal, gold on one side and silver on the other that twists around his wrist to create a Möbius strip.
*

*
When I read this for the first time, my heart accelerated to about 260 bpms, pounded my stomach loose from its moorings, and drummed it right out my asshole.

There I was, huddled, practically fetal, under the stairs. My phone sat silently next to me. Against my better judgment, I had to keep it on. But assuming my alcoholic Apollo had risen to action, he needed a way to give me the signal. On your mark, get set, run your ass off and dive into the cab before we get to Ninth Avenue.

Just don’t text or call me before that. Let’s not tip our hand, dear Tobias.

So far, so good. He was either on his way or too busy dancing with Bacchus to even notice his phone vibrating with my SOS. Either I was saved, or no worse off.

Or my guardians were mobilizing some sort of intervention. A bunch of officially unofficial G-men types, with a portable breaching ram in their trunk, semiautomatic .45s in their holsters, and extra clips in their pockets. Maybe they’d use a flash grenade. It’s Hell’s Kitchen. Who the hell would notice? Nobody’d come out of their apartments to check. That’s for sure. You’d be crazy not to double-lock your dead bolts and slip the chain for good measure.

With that little daydream, my pulse took off like a tap dancer on crack. As sharp as my mind is, it’s a double-edged scalpel, lobotomizing any sense of sanity and calm right out of my medulla oblongata. I had to do something to occupy it before it sent me screaming out into the night, right into the G-men’s backseat.

Hilary’s briefcase waited patiently at my feet. No. That fat fucker was
the whole reason I was in this state to begin with. The last thing I wanted to do was stoke the fire.

Fire. Hm.

Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe I should burn this place down. Slip out with everybody else fleeing onto the street. With my luck (and unskill set), I’d most likely just burn myself right into a corner. Not to mention public endangerment. Fuck, maybe they were thinking of trying the same thing. Smoke me out. Beat the bushes, so to speak. Nah. Might burn up the Reidier Report. It’d be easier just to come in and grab me.

Why haven’t they just come in and grabbed me, then? They can’t be worried that I might be dangerous. Is there some reason they need to keep
me
alive?

CLICK-CLINK.

And the little crack-powered tap dancer in my chest slammed to a dead stop, collapsing right on stage.

CLICK-CLINK.

Someone was trying the outer door. G-Men? Toby?

My phone kept up its silent treatment. No more texting. I was going to have to check. No broken mirrors in the trash. Nothing reflective. I could crawl back to the carriage house. Turn on the video surveillance. But if it was Toby, that’d cost precious minutes. I was going to have to sneak a peek from underneath the stairs. And, having unscrewed the lights, I had an advantage this time. The alcove fluorescents were still burning bright, trying to pierce my security blanket of darkness, but the unlit hallway just dulled it down to cataract dim. There’d be a reflection in the glass door. Whoever was there wouldn’t be able to see in, but I’d see out clear as day. My, how the carnival shooting range has turned.

A couple quick breaths to help my tap dancer get a beat going again in my veins, and I edged my head just around the stairs.

FUCK!
It was him. The Michelin Man tourist. His hand covered his brow, and he was pressed against the glass, peering in.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

I had to call off Toby. There’d be no way for me to get past. But how? Clearly they intercepted my last text. Could I yank open the door and barrel past? It could work. Couldn’t it?

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.

Christ. Someone was barreling down the stairs. Another resident.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.

They were going to unwittingly run the gauntlet.

CLICK-CLACK. SQUEAK.

“Good timing.” Man’s voice.

“Guess so.” Woman’s voice.

“Bundle up, it’s cold out there.”

“Right? Have a good night.”

“Stay warm.”

The outer door CLICKED shut.

Two FOOTSTEPS.

Stop.

SQUEAK. CLICK.

The inner security door shut.

Now I could hear his breathing. He stood at the foot of the stairs that I was hiding underneath, totally fetal.

CLUMP.

CLUMP.

CLUMP.

It was the sweetest sound I had ever heard.

CLUMP.

He was going up the stairs.

CLUMP.

Then it hit me. The image of him in the security camera from the other day. Dancing from foot to foot out in the cold, staring
up
at the building. Number five is up. He thought my little hideout was on the top floor.

CLUMP.

I risked a quick glance out from beneath the stairs. I couldn’t take my ears’ word for it. His hand on the railing. Michelin Man sleeve on his arm. And on his wrist, between the two, a flash of light—a shiny reflection off a piece of twisted metal. Then he rounded the stairwell to continue upward.

But the after-image still echoed across my retina. The rods in my eyeballs screaming in remembrance. A flash of white twisted across them like a Möbius strip.

I think.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

My phone rattled with vibration next to me. A text from Toby:

Nice fucking haiku

One turn deserves another

When poets collide

Relief. I was saved. His coded reply said it all. Wrapped in a cloak of sarcastic grandeur, Toby was turning onto 39th street, so we poets could collide. And if there was any doubt as to when, the first letters of each line were as clear as day. N-O-W.

I grabbed the briefcase, snatched up my phone, and burst from my hiding place toward the door. The Michelin Man was at least two
flights up. Whether he heard me or not, I don’t know. I was out the door, through the alcove, onto the sidewalk, and into the backseat of Toby’s cab. The light at Ninth Avenue, by the grace of God, was green, and down Ninth we went, blending into safe ubiquity.

Toby didn’t pressure me to explain. Didn’t question my sanity or diagnose my paranoia. He told me I looked like shit and needed a shower. We discussed where to take me. Obviously, my apartment was out. As was Toby’s. Hotels required credit cards. I could think of only one place.

Reidier holds Curzwell’s hand for an extra moment. “Interesting bracelet.”

“I’ll have one sent to your home.”

Reidier releases his hand, pauses, then sits back down. “Do you think they have absinthe in a place like this?”

The man’s smile lines fall into place. “I’m sure they’re prepared to cater to any taste.” Curzwell signals a waitress.

“Fifteen minutes. Then I’d be happy to have a ride to 454 Angell.”

Curzwell nods once. “Although it might be tidier to leave you somewhere close to, rather than at, your home?”

“So you know my address then.”

“As I said, I have done due diligence. Not to mention that house has an interesting history of habitants.”

“How does the Whole Foods work for you? Cloak-and-dagger enough or would you prefer the abandoned drawbridge off of Wickenden?”

“The Whole Foods will be fine.”

“Fantastic,” Reidier says without emotion.

The man wrinkles his brow in thought while Reidier orders his drink. Two dancers step up onto a small raised platform in the middle of the back room and start spinning around steel poles.

Curzwell leans in after the waitress has left them alone. “So that you needn’t worry about discretion, state secrets, or what have you, let’s start with what I know.”

“Sounds good. As long as you don’t expect me to confirm or deny anything.”

“There will be no need for that.” The man tosses five or so of his vitamin pills into his mouth, washes them down with a slug of water, and then launches into his recitation. “You’re a pioneer in quantum cryptography. The work you did for CSG was innovative and lucrative. Unfortunately, the management structure there did not adequately understand how to nurture your talents. The University of Chicago gave you a wide berth and encouraged your creativity, but being an academic institution, they would lay claim to any and all of your technological as well as intellectual property. And in spite of their endowment and impressive resources, they would have been unable to provide you with the necessities of your work on a financial, technical, and security level.”

The man pauses for Reidier to take it in.

“I believe most of that is on my Wikipedia page.”

“What is not in the public domain, however, is the breakthrough you’ve made with teleportation.”

Reidier doesn’t move a muscle. He waits for Curzwell to continue.

“Nor that you are now working for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under Donald Pierce. While the Department’s resources are vast enough to accommodate your needs, their agenda and their, for lack of a better term, power make them a potentially stifling partner. And although they might be encouraging and supportive, they will not hesitate to push you to develop a technology better suited to their ends, while ensuring that you mothball any innovation they see as irrelevant, such as quark echoes.”

The man turns his pale-blue gaze on Reidier and searches his face for a reaction to his revelation.

“Interesting update. Tell me, where do you get your information?” Reidier asks.

“The Beimini
^®
Corporation
¹⁰⁵
is not without resources. While I am unable to illuminate you on our research methods, I do share your concern for how we came to learn so much.”

Reidier presses his palms together and brings them up to his lips. After some time he asks, “Tell me, in your story, do you know the Department’s agenda?”

“I have a guess.”

“Please . . .” Reidier gestures for him to continue.

“While your quark echo method might prove more successful in the transference of consciousness from one pattern container to another, it has the drawback of being a one-to-one transmission.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you destroy the original.”

“Ah.”

“Whereas your current technique, the one in which you’ve had your initial success, allows you to ‘copy’ the subject.”

“Why would the Department prefer this method?” Reidier asks. “Especially if what you’re saying is true that the quark echo approach would yield better results with the transference of consciousness.”