WARNING: This is NOT the BEGINNING of “EVEREST & THE EXCEPTIONS.” To start at the beginning, go HERE.
V0Go idles very near. Harrison can hear the satisfying whirring mechanisms that kept him company like white noise all last night. Head pounding, knee searing, blood and heat on his cheek slowly bringing his electric senses back into certain awareness and grave physical pain, Harrison knows he is broken. Somewhere. Probably several somewheres. But, clarity begins to waft and weave through his blood stream, coming from the welcome tenor of a familiar British voice.
Nothing will keep us together
We can beat them for ever and ever
We can be heroes, just for one day
Harrison cracks open his eyes to see V0Go, wheels-up, parked directly in front of his forehead, granting him a freebase of Bowie as if it were plasma, “Where am I?”
Indiana.
“Indiana hurts like hell.”
Harrison clutches his ribs and attempts to roll up, spitting a streak of blood an impressive distance from between his two front teeth. His eyes meet the back of his brother a few dozen yards away, cross-legged and staring into the water from the edge of the road, his left hand comforting the panting greyhound who just saved his life.
“I seriously underestimated that dog.”
You have a dog? I feel like I missed a lot.
“It’s good to hear you.”
Same. Sounds like it got pretty hairy overnight.
“The hairiest. How are you finally back on?”
The Clarksville Exit on I-65, of course. Melior Quam hotspot.
“Not any more.”
That freak only blew up the buildings. The valuable stuff is always underground.
Harrison locates his beloved Braves cap crumpled on the pavement, worse for wear. He crawls to it and secures it firmly on his head, attempting a standing position. The pain brutalizes him.
I assessed your vitals. Your kneecap is cracked. You shouldn’t stand.
“I need to check on Everest.”
He limps to the other side of Valiant and groans as he plops himself parallel to his equally bruised and battered brother. Everest stares down at the scar of the bite marks on his own hand that had still been concealed with a bandage just yesterday. A part of him wishes he had never ripped that bandage off. Never searched under his bed for the source of that Bob Dylan song. Never started this whole chain of events. He looks out into the water and considers the haunted soul that Zero must be. Is he somehow headed toward the same sort of regrettable existence?
“I would imagine she is dead,” Harrison consoles.
“I am certain she is not.”
“Did she hurt you?”
“That” Everest hesitates, “is an extremely complicated question.” A burst of Bob Dylan, too loud, too close - startles the living daylights out of Everest.
When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you've got no secrets to conceal
HOW DOES IT FEEL?!
“Geez - V0Go! VOLUME!”
Sorry. Feeling a little left out.
“For advanced technology, you’re a bit clingy.” Everest grabs the mechanical creature, assessing him with more admiration than the last time he carried him. Valiant sniffs and licks the machine with too much fervor.
What’s happening? Why do I feel violated?
“When did he come back online?”
Harrison defends, “Right on time.”
“Do we trust him now?”
Do you what? Excuse me?
“You’d be dead without him, Ev.”
You know, I’m right here. And also, of course, very far away.
Physically leaning on one another (after being administered a literal shot of adrenaline from V0Go courtesy of the Beacon Bright), Everest and Harrison find themselves back on their feet, hobbling to the backseat of the equally crippled Yugo. Harrison receives an assist from the blind man, who isn’t half bad at the triage of cracked and bruised bodies, “Any actual pain medication in that thing, V0Go?” Glib as usual, the machine philosophizes, I would imagine there are any number of unexpected things inside me.
“Where did you learn to do this?” Everest implores Corbin.
“Well, I wasn’t always old, Everest. Or blind. Or alone.” He wraps Harrison’s knee so tightly, the brother grimaces, “I would imagine you are not still so young that you do not see we are each many things. Often a mystery. Always a surprise.”
Who’s the Yoda?
Harrison makes the introduction, “V0Go, this is Corbin Crux.”
Corbin Crux?
“Not that you have any reason to believe that, but there it is.”
“You keep saying that.”
V0Go’s voice is cheery to a fault - Well, any friend of the boys, you know.
“I’m not convinced that I’ve earned the honor of being called friend just yet,” Corbin tilts his head curiously toward the brothers, wordlessly imploring if they actually know who is advising them on the other end. Harrison shrugs it off, but would be lying if he didn’t admit Corbin’s nuance of caution gives him pause.
“So, what now? We’re still well over a hundred miles out from New Harmony.”
Not a problem. The Beacon Bright could get you there on a lawnmower.
Harrison gazes at the carcass of the Yugo, “That’s not too far off.”
Just give me three minutes under what used to be the hood.
V0Go speeds like a scattering squirrel and disappears under the vehicle. Zaps and clanks and upgrades clatter in the background. Corbin, holding his own bruised head as the wind gives them all a moment of exhale. The absence of words speaks a mountain.
Everest breaks the tension, “What?”
Corbin speaks low and even, no idea how much of their exchange V0Go can or should hear, “How do you know you can trust him?”
“Because he would ask the same thing about you.”
“Did he?”
Harrison thinks for a moment, “No.”
“He should have.” Corbin rubs his temples, “If he’s trustworthy, he should have.”
Ten minutes later, the sun is setting as they drive, the three and the dog crammed back into the Yugo, research long gone, but at least the backpack and V0Go intact.
About to lose the signal again - there should be a strong one in New Harmony. I will continue to ping Victoria’s beacon, but otherwise, I’m dropping offline. Probably for the best. If I’m going to be of any real assistance, I need to make up some serious miles. I’ll be most valuable elsewhere.
“Don’t be long.” Everest extends the kindness, “It was hard not hearing from you all night.”
Yes. It was hard not hearing you either.
“What - what were you doing all night, V0Go?”
The static begins to overwhelm, V0Go’s next words clearly his last until they reach New Harmony.
Driving, Everest - just driving.
Twenty-four hours earlier, leaning over the open trunk of his Buick Skylark, Ransom was switching out cords and coding in bypasses into a massive electrical patchboard of his own making. Crude and disorganized, only he knew what each piece of colored tape and notated initial might prompt in the device he had personally hot-wired and reprogrammed into that damned robot dog without his partners’ knowledge. Viruses and backdoors and tricks no one could possibly detect or discover, but that allowed this wily technological savant of a rogue to hotwire the V0Go remotely and assist these boys in the errand he needed them to accomplish for his own agenda to succeed. As he turns one last meter, he can hear the Yugo transforming into a powerful, purring beast through the small speaker. On the receiving end, he hears Harrison practically salivating.
Oh, I like the Beacon Bright.
Thank the fates one of these fetuses knows how to drive. Ransom slams the trunk, removing only the listening device and the briefcase that are necessary for his night’s journey while reciting the speech he prepared for this very purpose, “Get to the girl by any means necessary - but be careful and be vigilant - for men are not the only ones on your heels. Those nightmares you both see are absolutely real - and now they have a way to find you.”
A moment of silence. Good. Everest heard it. That should plant the seeds of doubt and divisiveness. Exactly what Ransom needs for the crucial details to reveal themselves through conversation during the lengthy drive. The silence lingers longer than even Ransom expected, and he feels a rush of gratification that, after all this time, he’s not a half-bad writer. The idle motor in the small speaker increases and Ransom can hear the Yugo pulling away. Ransom pauses - assuming his babysitting gig for the evening is finally over - when Everest speaks.
V0Go - who are you?
Ransom cannot help but shake his head. Really, getting existential with the lunchbox? So innocent, that one. He’s gonna have a tough time, “I wish to hell I knew, kid.”
What just happened to us? Did we - did we just change?
“No, my boy. You just started.” And - mute.
Ransom cocks his head, allows himself to smirk just a bit. Pretty good landing on that last line. He could totally picture Stallone landing that last line.
Ransom turns the dial slightly so that he is certain to hear every word the boys say to one another in the dead of night. Every private thought - every revelation. It is information he needs - a currency he will cash in very soon. Of course, they won’t be able to hear him. They won’t know he is listening.
Realizing he should have secured it hours ago, he gingerly opens the steel briefcase and surveys the two dozen fobs, each labeled by a peculiar, hideous, and he admits, sometimes whimsical name. One space is empty. Labeled LATCH. Ransom removes the fob carefully from his keychain and squeezes it into the form-fitting hard foam, “Sleep tight, Nut Lick.” He clicks the briefcase shut and turns the numeric lock to 522, stowing it underneath the passenger seat.
He puts the Skylark into drive and pops open a Coors Light and a Hostess Pudding Pie, consuming half in a single snarf. He studies the map navigating his way to Roanoke on the seat beside him and exhales hard, “Time to make the doughnuts.”
Truly taken aback by how long the brothers go without conversation, Ransom begins to forget that they exist on the other end of the microphone.
“Come on, fellas. Spill something. Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.”
He finds himself whiling the miles away with the only pastime that brings him solace: quoting the movies. Ransom’s own life has been a cavalcade of ferocious disappointment and tragedy, so he finds great exhale in the pretend lives. The adventures on the silver screen may not be as treacherous as his own reality, but they contain significantly better catchphrases. He made a cassette tape of his favorites and, as an indulgence while the boys are catatonic, he pops it in and allows himself to quote along with the mighty wordsmithing of John Hughes, "Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it is we did wrong, but we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are,” Anthony-Michael Hall’s delivery is perfect, compelling. Ransom feels just a hint of emotion in his own throat, “You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out, is that each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess...”
Isn’t this the mixtape with all the sound-bites between the songs?
Yeah. Hulk Hogan’s on there once and Arnold’s ‘I’ll be back.’
SHUT IT! They’re in conversation. Ransom ejects the tape and cranks up the volume.
And Axel Foley’s laugh right after Hüsker Dü. I mean, who would think to do that? Such a brilliant move. I was fist-pumping.
What the hell is this? When are they going to fight? Not a word for hours as Ransom assumed the boy was building up a red-hot resentment against Harrison’s big fat lie, and now instead - kindness? An extension of the benefit of the doubt? “There is no benefit in doubt, you rube!” Ransom yells it out loud at the device, “Don’t be a patsy, Ev!” What the hell? Now, they’re laughing together? About what? A shared love of movie sound bites. “Oh . Okay, that’s - interesting, I was just doing that, too. No psychological scars to unpack there.” Ransom, not a fan of introspection taking him off-guard, finds himself just a little pissed at the turning tables of this manipulation.
The boys wax and wane about the music they love, clearly reconnecting on a deep level - a risk Ransom cannot afford. He rolls his eyes as they revel in Prince and R.E.M. and The Boss. He feigns a gag, “Oh my. Footloose. Your musical opinions are a revelation. You should write for Rolling Stone.”
Ransom suffers through their waxing eloquent about the state of pop music and relishes the palpable tension when Harrison realizes Everest posed as his twin to kiss an ex-girlfriend. But, even Everest admitting he noshed Rhiannon Cartwright brings the two closer, laughing in solidarity. Ransom finds himself rolling his eyes for the benefit of no one but himself. But then, Everest admits he spit his gum into the girl’s mouth and Ransom cannot help but crack an effortless smile, “Oh, Everest. You’ve got a hard road of romance ahead of you, kid.” And then, Harrison starts bragging about the last song on the cassette in question.
But, it wasn’t the last song on the mixtape...
“No.”
You’re just supposed to think it is - because of the clear resolve...
“Don’t do it, Harrison.”
But, then it surprises one last time....
“Don’t say ‘Ghostbusters.”
Ghostbusters.
Ransom pounds his fist against the dashboard, “LIVING HELL. You children are killing me. I serve you up Bowie and you blow back Ray Parker, Jr. plagiarizing Huey Lewis? Is there no God?!”
The brothers laugh. Put it in. Click. Hiss.
You cut your knee open. You really are a terrible boy, Everest.
Can I just play with Legos now?
Ransom’s eyes go wide. His jaw hangs. He cannot believe his good fortune. This - this accident is a brick of pure gold. He listens to the recording of Mother and eleven-year-old Everest. Giddy with the palpable silent tension, he listens. And listens.
And listens.
And his smile begins to turn as he hears the subtle shifts in desperate Everest’s wavering voice. Manipulated. Oppressed. Why not just say it - abused.
Ransom’s nostrils flare in cue with the white-hot kernel swelling in his brain. Damn it. Stop it. He cannot allow himself to feel for these boys. He cannot afford to empathize. Grit teeth, he closes his eyes and slaps his cheeks with his hands in rapid-fire succession. Damn it. Damn. Damn it all to hell.
Crying makes bad things happen to Harrison.
That’s right. Every time Everest cries, a bad thing will happen to Harrison.
That bitch. That cold, psychopathic bitch. Ransom listens as Mother Manning orders the boy out of the room. So like a mother. Like ALL mothers. Silence. A door shuts. And then, after a measure, a third voice emerges. A man, piping into the room on an intercom - wheezing through gritted teeth.
How the hell did an Affliction get inside this house?
Ransom slams the brakes of the Skylark so abruptly, he inadvertently swerves onto the median. When the car comes to a stop, his hazards on, he finds that he has left fingernail indentations in the steering wheel.
That voice. Ransom knows that voice. It is absolutely unmistakeable. The voice that has haunted him since the night he lost Jenny. Never, in all his days had he considered this connection. That voice? That voice is involved with the Melior Quam? The voice of Aristotle Mass.
Memories and connections begin to fire within Ransom’s mind. If this is true, then he must act immediately. Is there time? What time is it? He does the math. All the way there and then to Roanoke before the boys reach New Harmony? And time to do the deed as well? Is it plausible? He determines that he’d better make it damn plausible.
Ransom does a donut across the median and begins driving the opposite direction, mentally cataloguing the weapons he has stored in the trunk. He’s going to need all of them the moment he arrives in Wilmington, North Carolina because if Aristotle is at his compound, it will be heavily guarded. As Ransom drives, he remembers the only real sit-down he ever had with Aristotle Mass. The unforgettable conversation. Permission to marry his daughter.
He and Jenny had just come in from the cold. A brisk walk around the farm followed by a spontaneous and mutual warming in the shower, and Ransom was likely to be late for the all-important dinner. Jenny stood behind him in the mirror reflection, her flowing red hair angelic, gracing his shoulders with her delicate hands and showing him how to tighten the noose.
“You know,” she muses, “most men just call it a necktie.”
“How do you know what most men do?”
“I mean, technically seven-out-of-ten is most, right? That’s basic math.”
Ransom’s eyes go wide as a thought strikes him, “Oh. I had another breakthrough.”
“I don’t think you can keep calling them breakthroughs when they don’t tend to work.”
“No. This one is for real. My seventh prototype and I think I cracked it.”
“Is this the robot dog thing? Because that one gives me the creeps.”
“It’s supposed to give you the creeps, but no. I’m talking about rehistory.”
“What?”
Ransom drags her to the refrigerator and pulls an egg carton from behind a six-pack of Tab, “This.”
“You hate eggs.”
“They aren’t eggs. This is just so no one can steal them.”
“You are far too paranoid.”
“We’ll see.”
Ransom opens the carton. Resting on a pillow of cotton in each emptied egg carriage is a small royal blue stone the size of a jellybean. “This,” Ransom pronounces with pride, “is going to make my client go apeshit.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound pleasant. What does it do?”
“It rehistories. It blocks your memories and creates new ones in their place.”
“All of them?”
“Depends on the frequency you set. What memories would you prefer to lose?”
“Well, how about having a mother at all?”
“You’re too predictable. This one,” Ransom lifts the precious tiny thing out of the third nest in the back row, “is preset for precisely that. Wanna go for a test ride?”
Jenny looks at him suspiciously, “Put your toys away. I know what you’re doing.”
His face goes flush. After all this time, and so many lies to so many different people, he can’t deceive Jenny effectively. She knows. She always knows, “No fair.”
“You’re not going to skip dinner with my father by making me forget it’s happening.”
“Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
She presses her warm lips against his neck. Softly with a smile, “You’ve faced much larger threats.”
Ransom sighs, “He is going to hate absolutely everything about me.”
She kisses him, “Of course he is. So, might as well get it over with.”
Aristotle did not want to meet at the house. Ransom had never seen the house, but knew exactly where it was. A fortress for no apparent reason. Aristotle wanted to meet at the museum. And Ransom could not imagine a locale more likely to go terribly awry.
They sat alone in a private dining room surrounded by Pollacks, which was evidently not as offensive as Ransom had first misunderstood.
“How is your tartar?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t give me any sauce.”
“So, if I know my daughter, she will have a specific series of follow-up questions. I have taken the time to bullet point my responses on this laminated card so that she believes we have adequately discussed her concerns.”
“Aw. You are a romantic.”
“Wealth?”
“She doesn’t want that.”
“Children?”
“She definitely doesn’t want that.”
“Your personal aspirations?”
“Um - let’s see? Invisibility. Hyper speed. Solid metabolism into my forties?”
“I mean, what will you do with your life?”
“I will love your daughter.”
Aristotle laughs, “Well, in what world is that nearly sufficient? Of course you will love my daughter. Then, you won’t. Back and forth. Impress, disappoint. Be enamored, be repelled. The yin and yang of that equals nothing more than baseline. What will you do beyond that, Ransom? What more than love springs from your baseline?”
Ransom takes three swallows of water. Too many? Too many. “I will protect her.”
“You believe so.”
“I know so.”
“On what grounds?”
“On what grounds? Because nothing means more to me in the world than your daughter and I would rip out someone’s jugular with my bicuspids to keep her safe.”
“Safe.”
“Yes sir.”
“Well. That simply isn’t possible, Ransom.”
“You significantly underestimate me.”
“No, son. You significantly underestimate the situation. You insist that you have the power, the ability to keep my daughter SAFE?! The hubris. You have no idea to whom you are speaking. You could never keep Jenny safe because you have such an infinitesimal understanding of the forces at work that could cause Jenny harm. You are aware of such a fraction, an amoeba of what is actually out there plotting against all of us. You are so unprepared, so consumed with your own charm and juvenile wit, so oversure of your limited awareness and talents, that my precious Jenny will be dead in a ditch before you grow the balls you need to save her.”
Needless to say, Aristotle Mass did not give Ransom his blessing. But, Jenny stayed. She stayed until the night Ransom’s rogue client, the Melior Quam, stole her away as leverage for his talents. Since they forced his bidding. A fact he thought was exclusively his own fault and that he had somehow kept hidden from the father. But, now it seems as if Aristotle Mass has always been standing smack in the center of that grand foreboding shadow. And Ransom had been blind. Tonight, Aristotle Mass is going to pay for these omissions of information - as well as for his sins.
Ransom has his foot pressed against the gas pedal as hard as he dare. He must make up unscheduled ground, but not so swiftly that he risks being pulled over. The face of the father is now burned in his brain, old recollections and comments being reinterpreted by Ransom in real time. How did he never add this up before? With all of his unparalleled technological knowhow, you would think Ransom would be better at the basic math of human behavior.
And then, just as Ransom has forgotten there are other voices needing to be observed, he hears something eke out of the speaker. Something wholly unexpected that sends a chill up his spine. In the distance, clearly somewhere outside the Yugo, a ghastly wheeze pushes out, Huuuuu....
He can barely hear Everest answer her, Hello. Are you - are you okay?
Huuuungry.
Oh, of course. Of course. Yes. I may have something here.
Huuuungry.
Is that your baby? Is that your baby, miss? Does your baby need food?
Pleeeeeease. Hungry.
Ransom scrambles to pull over into a wooded glen, making the detour so quickly, the Skylark leaps over an uneven mound and skids to a halt, barely dodging a clearing of four trees. Ransom kicks open the car door and hurriedly fumbles to open the trunk, “Come on, come on, come ON.” Ransom knows an Affliction when he hears one - the frequency of this particular device fine-tuned for that very purpose. This is it. This is where all of the work - all of the months - all of the deceit finally - FINALLY matters. The plan had damn well better pay off.
Ransom fumbles with the lock on another large case shoved in the back of his trunk. An enormous piece of headgear, the same color and style as V0Go. He carefully places it on his own head, surrounding his ears and eyes like a helmet with vast wires and knobs protruding this way and that. He secures it underneath his chin and around his skull and taps a series of buttons at his left temple.
Somewhere in Kentucky, silent and completely undetectable, V0Go becomes fully engaged. With night vision, Ransom can see through the machine’s eyes. Three-hundred-and-sixty degrees. At the ready. Ransom sits on the open lip of the Skylark’s trunk, seizes a series of complicated joysticks on the dashboard of the opened case, and readies himself for the mission at hand.
Ransom knows what Everest doesn’t, that once he makes eye contact with the Affliction, Everest will be unable to stop himself from following it into danger. Does that prompt a pang of guilt in Ransom? Maybe a smidge, but Ransom needs Everest to follow if he is going to get what he is after. He can see Everest following the apparition into the wood, Harrison in the driver’s seat, searching for his brother’s location. In a faint blue outline, Ransom can sense Harrison’s panic, his wheels turning, weighing the many complicated facets currently at stake.
“Come on, kid. Disobey my orders. Leave the Yugo behind. For God’s sake, lean into that unhealthy savior complex of yours. I’m counting on it.” Harrison makes a decision, turns off the ignition, and rushes away toward the abandoned train. “Attaboy. Time to move.”
As soon as Harrison is out of eyeshot, Ransom lifts the controls. V0Go hums, hovers, and soars silently out of the Yugo’s half-open window.
Hovering lightly over the top of the three rusty train cars, Ransom scans for assessment. “Who are all these vagrants? Geez Louise. Welcome to the bar-mitzvah from hell.” He senses heat scans of thirty to forty actual people, scattered, signs of consciousness struggling, but it is the more nuanced data that is truly terrifying, “This place is teeming with Afflictions. For God’s sake, Everest. You sure can pick ‘em.”
Zipping through the night air parallel to the cracked-open boxcar doors, V0Go begins to track in tandem with Everest’s footsteps by way of his heat signature inside, scanning body after body the boy passes and determining if any might suddenly become a physical threat. And then - at the very end of the train, Ransom detects a very different level of enigmatic and evil energy, “Whoa.”
Boy.
The voice startles Ransom. His hand slips and causes V0Go to bang against the side of the train. Through V0Go’s night vision, Ransom sees the blue outline of the pusher. Shimmers and sparkles about him reveal a larger mass where he is protected away by an undulating and evil force. “What the hell kind of Afflictions are those?”
The woman was hungry, Everest stammers, I was only trying to help.
I’m leaving now.
You do not leave. No one leaves.
“What on earth are you doing, Everest?”
No - no. I’m not a threat to your enterprise. I’m - I’m fifteen.
Everything that I do not own is a threat to my enterprise.
I am leaving now.
You are - not.
Ransom can see it now. The pusher has a weapon, and he holds it at the ready, “For God’s sake, kid - GET OUT.”
I’m sorry. I made a mistake coming here.
Indeed.
The sudden sound of cicadas and Ransom’s radar begins blinking wildly. The entire train alive with evil. Everest abjectly surrounded by a mortal enemy. And then - silence.
The boy knoooooooows...
The Pusher raises his weapon toward Everest and takes aim.
“Oh shitballs,” Ransom opines, “Here we go.”
And with a squeeze of Ransom’s thumbs, V0Go shoots a debilitating
electrical charge directly into the jugular of the Pusher. Smoke
pouring from his teeth, the junkie drops dead.
Ransom’s headphones are blown out as his radar explodes in color and the scattering of hundreds of Afflictions, just beginning to swarm Everest when Harrison seizes him from behind.
HARRISON!
Everest! GET OUT!
“Hell YES get out - get out get out get out get out - GET OUT!”
V0Go zips this way and that, over and around the outside of the train, gauging the boys’ whereabouts and shooting tugging-fists off of them every time he gets a clear shot. He sees their outlines make their way to the roof and begin to run, run. Overtaken with the beasts and the runway too short, Ransom types in calculations of their trajectory and sees clearly that they are never going to make it. Everest is simply too slow, “Come ON, Everest - you couldn’t have occasionally done a JUMPING JACK?!” With no real option left but to seriously risk detection, Ransom zooms V0Go directly behind the boys. Low, but close - where hopefully they will not sense his presence. And, just as the final train car begins to subvert, V0Go sends a surge of adrenaline into Everest’s ankles, causing him to leap like he’s never truly lived - and somehow succeed in landing on the far cliff of grass. Against all odds, the boys are safe.
But, there is no time to exhale, for the specific purpose of this mission remains unfulfilled - and the window of opportunity is closing. Ransom pulls up quickly and presses a speed blast of energy. V0Go pulls up and over, double-timing in a spiral down toward the water. He sees them. Gum-mouthed corpses sucking on doomed necks. Dead fists, flailing as they fall. Perhaps a few dozen left, still tumbling through the sky. V0Go zips past the menagerie and shifts trajectory upward, a hatch opening on his back, a metallic rod spiraling upward - and just before the last of the monstrosities disappears into the rocky water below, V0Go flashes two separate beams from the appendage. In a double-blast of blue, a wriggling disembodied hand and a clicking bratback each dissipate, sucked inside of V0Go as the doors swiftly seal shut. Ransom drops the joysticks and punches both fists into the sky, “SUCK ON THAT, YOU DEMON DIRTBAGS!”
Ransom exhales. The Afflictions now its silent prisoners, V0Go slowly elevates, and makes the long way around the wood, settling back through the window and inside the Yugo before Everest even has a chance to stop crying in the grass. Finally - THIS will make the guys at the Collective very happy.
There at the clearing on the side of the highway, Ransom rips off the headset breathlessly - and pukes up half of an extremely regrettable Hostess Pudding Pie.
Shortly after four in the morning in Wilmington, North Carolina, Aristotle Mass feels the surge of his throat tightening. he fumbles for the inhaler and cannot seem to reach it in the darkness. He claps his hands twice and the lamp at his bedside flickers on.
“Looking for this?” Ransom, seated in a corner of the bedroom with a silenced revolver in his lap, holds up Aristotle’s inhaler.
Aristotle doesn’t flinch. He simply stares. Eventually, he opens his palm.
Ransom tosses the man his medicine. One squeeze, one breath, and Aristotle glances back, “You have a food stain on your letterman jacket.”
“Nope. It’s blood. Hey, nice house.”
“How many of my security detail did you kill? They didn’t come cheap.”
“I didn’t kill anyone. I broke some fingers, there’s a guy in sector nine I somehow
stranded on a flagpole. Paid one guy. Most of them don’t know I’m here. Once I finally realized you were Melior Quam, I just had to locate the underground. It’s really not that hard if you’re in the club.”
“You will certainly sympathize when I suggest this has taken you too long to surmise.”
“Egg on my face all right.”
“It took you a very long time to see the connection.”
“Well, I already hated you so I wasn’t really looking for a second reason.”
“You have the gun. You have the floor. Ask.”
“Where is Jenny?”
“Safe.”
Ransom exhales, both relieved - and insulted.
“The one thing I could give her that you could not.”
“Give her back to me.”
“There are so many irrelevant ideas in that small sentence that I cannot begin to amend it.” Aristotle takes his time finding his reading glasses, wiping them clean, “She is not mine to give. She is not yours to have. Not to mention her take on the matter.”
“Her take? She was stolen from my bed in the middle of the night as leverage for my abilities! To force me to hunt down and eradicate your Afflictions! And YOU. You have been behind it all along?”
“You accuse from grounds with which you are dangerously unfamiliar, Ransom. Dangerously. I adore my daughter. I would sacrifice anything for my daughter. And soon, I will.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“What do you think that it means, Ransom?”
Ransom’s nostrils flare. His eyes widen. He has to know, “Are you him?”
“Am I who, son?”
“You know.”
“I can imagine many conclusions to that sentence. Am I the mastermind? Am I the antagonist? Am I the savior? It all depends upon who is doing the asking.”
“Are you the Crow Father?”
This visibly stops Aristotle Mass in his tracks. He squeezes his eyes and expels a huff of disdain. A question he was not expecting. He takes another hit from his inhaler, slits his eyes and attempts to see through Ransom, “The Crow Father? You came all this way because you believe I am the Crow Father? Unexpectedly small-minded, even for you. There is no such thing as the Crow Father.”
“Lies,” Ransom spits, too angry, “It is the core belief of the Melior Quam. He is the ultimate enemy.”
“He is a campfire story. A way to motivate thousands. The Melior Quam is the single most powerful group of men in the world. It is politics and industry. It is not superstition and goblins.”
“So, you’re saying that it is only superstition that the Crow Father is the brain at the core of the hive mind - the Father of all Afflictions?”
“Common enemy. Rallies the troops.”
“Superstition that he can only kill you with that which you give him freely?”
“Metaphor.”
“For what?”
“For anything. Anything you want the people to cling to.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe? Why waste a second of your life believing anything at all? What’s the point? Don’t believe, Ransom. Decide. That is power. Decide what they will all think. Inspire and instill vision. Manipulate a mountain of people into doing your precise bidding.”
“Not my cup of shit, Aristotle.”
“Could be. You certainly have the charm. The charisma. All of the technological marvels you have invented and refined for the Melior Quam. They could have easily abetted your own uprising. You waste so much wandering, brooding, allowing your pain to dictate your path. You could be so much more. You could rule. You could have - whatever you want. Even her.”
“And you could be in a body bag by breakfast.”
“Doubtful. I don’t eat breakfast.”
“Coulda fooled me.”
“Fat jokes. So Plebeian.”
“Well - when in Rome.”
“The unexamined life is not worth living – Socrates.”
Ransom counters, “It takes Diff’rent Stokes to rule the world - Sitcom Theme Song.”
“Oh yes. Your wit always tasted a bit like a third-grade sleepover. Such a shame that what you consider your greatest strength is actually your Achilles heel.”
“Oh, do enlighten me.”
“Your rogue nature. Your need to keep as much of you as possible hidden - to work alone.”
Ransom hopes his face does not betray his surprise. Is Aristotle truly unaware of the Collective? In spite of their secrecy, it seems implausible that someone of Aristotle’s power and pull would be blind to its clandestine efforts. Of course, that doesn’t mean his assessment of Ransom is incorrect. Even when unified in purpose, Ransom would prefer to remain a free agent - and he is not above betraying anyone who stands in the way of his ultimate plan. He regathers his thoughts as Aristotle continues.
“It was the first of several disappointments. It’s why Jenny never would have married you.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong - because she didn’t.”
“You are wrong - because she did.”
“What?”
“The night after I asked you.”
“Impossible.”
“Evidently not.”
Aristotle eyes Ransom hard, assessing the level of the claim, “You are married - to my Jenny - even now?”
“I am.”
A moment. A weighing. A decision. Aristotle is convinced, “This changes matters. I didn’t expect this - but I should have. I suppose she only did what everyone eventually does. What you will eventually do. What I will eventually do. In the end - exactly what we most deeply want.”
“And - THAT is precisely why I am here.”
“What you most want is to kill me? My word, Ransom, with the cancer eating these lungs, I’ll be a brutalized shell of a human in nine months. You’d be doing me a favor.”
“I’m not interested in killing you. I’m going to give you what you most deeply want - in exchange for what I most deeply want.”
“A trade - for her.”
“For Jenny.”
Aristotle smiles, “These many years, you remain painfully consistent. I’ll give you that. Admirable even. After everything. You still love only her.”
“Nothing else in this world really up to comparison.”
“What could you possibly have to trade?”
“I have the only thing in the world that you don’t have. The only thing in the world that you want.”
Ransom lets the realization settle on Aristotle. He sees it in his eyes right before he clarifies, “I have the Afflictions.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You are well aware the Melior Quam has blackmailed me into hunting down and destroying Afflictions. But, I haven’t been destroying them. I’ve been collecting them.”
“How can you be certain? We can’t even see them.”
“I’ve developed tech that can see them - hear them - and capture them.”
A smile burns hard onto the face of Aristotle Mass. He swaps his inhaler for a cigarette, lights up, and assesses Ransom with an exhale, “Now, isn’t that an interesting turn? It all comes down to a simple swap. Tit for tat. My daughter - for weapons of mass destruction. Excessive, even for you.”
“I only love Jenny. For years, I have been disintegrating in that loss.”
“You have no idea what it is to truly love, Ransom. And you have no idea what it is to truly suffer loss.”
“I suppose you do?”
“Do not assume to know me.”
“Bring my Jenny back. You and the rest of this garbage heap of a planet can burn in hell for all I care.”
“You actually mean that, don’t you?”
“Try me.”
“It’s a compelling offer, Ransom. Except there is one hiccup.”
“What’s that?”
“There is only one Affliction for whom I am interested in bartering. And you do not have him.“
“But, I’m about to. Because I know he is captive in the Furnace beneath the Grand Horizon.”
Aristotle stares, “The pain you must have caused in order to put those pieces together. Can your technology contain the beast in question?”
“It should, though that is quite a significant Affliction.”
“I have quite a significant plan.”
“If you know where he is and you have access,” Ransom picks at the crust of blood stuck to his letterman jacket, “why haven’t you released him yourself?”
“I think you know that answer.”
“Because none of them can know it was you.”
“Until now, it was only an inkling. Look how well you and I are going to work together. Family business and all.“
“Don’t push it.”
“Not pushing. Simply - negotiating. I accept your offer. You will do this for me, Ransom - you open the Furnace, you fetch me that Affliction - precisely when I tell you.”
“And when and where is that?”
“Day after tomorrow. Halloween night. The Grand Horizon. You accomplish this - and I will return her to you. You will have your Jenny.”
“Looks like you and I are going on a road trip.”
“You know I’m in no condition for a road trip.”
“I’m counting on it.” And Ransom shoots Aristotle Mass in the chest with the tranquilizer gun.
A hundred miles outside Roanoke, Ransom is eyeing his backseat passenger in the rearview as he speaks to the brothers in Indiana through his remote dog of choice, “About to lose the signal again - there should be a strong one in New Harmony. I will continue to ping Victoria’s beacon, but otherwise, I’m dropping offline. Probably for the best. If I’m going to be of any real assistance, I need to make up some serious miles. I’ll be most valuable elsewhere.”
Don’t be long. It was hard not hearing from you all night.
“Yes. It was hard not hearing you either.”
What - what were you doing all night, VoGo?
“Driving, Everest - just driving.”
Aristotle Mass, wrist-bound but for the moment calm, pierces Ransom’s gaze from the backseat with a sly smile, “Adorable. You’ve built quite the manipulative little bond.”
“Who the hell is Corbin Crux?”
“No idea.”
“That’s bullshit. He’s extremely familiar with the private goings-on of members of the Melior Quam.”
“Only when they rear their head at the Clarksville Exit off I-65. I wouldn’t call that an expert. I’d call that a wannabe. Harmless.”
“He knows too much to be harmless.”
“Your paranoia has always held you back.”
Ransom breaks eye contact with the man, weary of his wheezing and philosophizing from the rearview. He inhales a thought. It’s a matter of hours now until his plan is finally put to rest. Until he has her back. Ransom pulls the blinker, exits the highway, and begins driving west, beelining for Elsewhere Storage in Roanoke, Virginia.
Visit www.EverestandtheExceptions.com for more information about Mark Steele’s forthcoming adventure novel. There, you will find character dossiers, music playlists, and other news to keep you waiting for the book’s debut in October 2024
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