Exit (22 page)
Authors: Thomas Davidson
A distant siren wailed.
TWITTER (random sample)
Walter B Hooten PhD
@EndtimeHere - 1h
OMG. Saw and sang Disney’s Lion King for the 4th time today w/ kids. No sex, no swears. Then saw TV news.…http://dmkr.bs/8br6TzBS
Walter B Hooten PhD
@EndtimeHere - 58m
FFS. Bloodthirsty fugitives at large in Cambridge/Boston: man beaten, stabbed, set on fire, cooked in car…http://dlzr.itb/7br6TzQ
Walter B Hooten PhD
@EndtimeHere - 3m
GMAFB. Bloodthirsty fugitives horrify Cambridge/Boston: 2nd man tortured, begs for life, murdered by maniacs…http://dlzr.itb/3br7TmZ
Walter B Hooten PhD
@EndtimeHere - 28s
FUBAR. Bloodthirsty fugitives terrorize Cambridge/Boston: these screaming banshees f***ing live on MY STREET…http://dlzr.itb/9br5TzP
Walter B Hooten PhD
@EndtimeHere - 3s
Message 2 my neighbors…GTFOOH…RUN 4 YOUR LIVES…RUNNNNNN… http://dlzr.itb/cr8ZY
“My Buick.” She could still hear ringing in her ears. “He blew up my
beautiful
Buick.”
Rayne steered the Vic toward Alex Portland’s neighborhood. Tim sat beside her, facing the rear windshield, stunned. Pale as a vampire.
“Wonder if the Buick got hit with a small drone,” he said. “If C.C. called in a drone strike. Or maybe he ducked down and rolled something around the far edge of the bay while we were talking. And it rolled right beneath the Buick.”
“Just before C.C. dropped to the ground, I saw something flying through the air, in the back of the car wash. It was just a few feet off the ground. Maybe the size of your fist.”
“Then it
was
a drone strike. Imagine having a small drone trailing your car, ready to zap you. How do you shake that off? You’re screwed.”
“That’s a question for an MIT student.”
“Seriously.”
“I need to call Martina back. Let her know what happened.”
“Where we headed?”
Rayne pressed a palm to her ear. The ringing was subsiding. “Alex’s. Or near Alex’s. After we got that message from him…”
“I know. I’m curious too. But let’s not get too close in case, well, who knows who’s out there now.”
“Here.” She reached into her pocket, handed him the phone. “Before we call Martina, we need an update. Check the local news. We already saw WXZY; they’re sort of rational. I want to see how this is being covered across the board. Let’s see how, I don’t know, try WKO.”
“WKO? You mean, let’s see how we’re covered by the fringe. We should stop at the liquor store first.”
“Do it.”
Tim got online, downloaded the WKO News app. “Here goes nothing. I’m on the main page. Big update at the top, headlines, a video…uh-oh…”
“Let me pull over. I can feel a heart attack coming on.”
“I just thought of something. Wonder if C.C. has Tinks planted in this car? We could be tracked.”
“Bug his own car? Maybe, but I’ll take the chance. Better than being on foot.” She rolled to a stop. “Let’s see the video.”
They saw a picture of an apartment building with three police cars and an ambulance in front. The headline:
Assassins carry out mission of…
Cold-Blooded Murder
“Claire S. Patchett reporting from Cambridge. Police report that a Cambridge man who had suffered blunt-force trauma by a table lamp to his head was found dead in his apartment this afternoon. Alex Portland, age 31, was discovered lying on the living room floor of his home, where he lived alone. According to Sergeant John N. Bullington. Minutes after the discovery, multiple copies of a video were sent to local media outlets, including WKO-TV. Viewers are warned that this video contains graphic language and images. Discretion is advised.”
The doppelgangers,
Rayne
and
Tim,
appeared on the screen. They again stood in front of a white sheet. No other sign of their environment was evident. Alex, kneeling in front of them, had his hands presumably tied behind his back, begging for his life. He sounded so terror-stricken that his speech was largely unclear. This was discernible between sobs:
“This ain’t no fuckin’ movie. This ain’t Up. This is real…”
”What the…?” Tim said.
Rayne glanced at him, speechless, then back at the screen.
The Rayne look-alike kicked Alex, then faced the camera with icy eyes.
“Boiling Frog Syndrome has swept Cambridge. Wake up, you frightened frogs. We are the Watchdogs. This video is not brought to you by crowdfunding on Kickstarter. This video is a labor of liberty, a wake-up call. We are the parallel-world border patrol, defending against aliens and their collaborators. The Watchdogs are watching the mad dogs.”
Claire S. Patchett reappeared on the phone.
“Anyone with information in Portland’s death should contact Homicide Detective Rhonda Huff at 617…”
The picture switched to the WKO-TV studio. Larry Rillo, part of the newscast team, stared into the camera and sneered.
“We’ve nicknamed these two terrorists. Her full name is Dorothy Connector. Or, as we like to say, Dot Connector. Because she really knows how to connect the revolutionary dots. His name? Well, he’s obviously a political visionary, and his left eye looks a little puffy. So we dubbed him: Isaiah the Prophet. We’re spelling it E-Y-E-S-A-I-A-H. Eyesaiah the Prophet. Dot and Eyesaiah. Furthermore…”
“I’m ready to puke,” Tim said. He shut off the phone. “I don’t know whether to laugh or scream. ‘We are the Watchdogs?’ Are you serious? And what, he’s killed by a table lamp. Right out of our screenplay. Only Alex would know that detail. But…”
“Did you catch it, too? How many years have you known Alex?”
“Five, six.”
“Would he ever, ever say the words, ‘This ain’t no fuckin’ movie.’ He never talked like that. He never said ‘ain’t’ in his life. Maybe he’d say, ‘This isn’t a movie, it’s a cartoon for the brain dead, directed by a lobotomy victim.”
Tim almost smiled. “And they got you saying,
‘Boiling Frog Syndrome has swept Cambridge. Wake up, you frightened frogs? We are the watchdogs?’
You wouldn’t say that crap at gunpoint.”
“EyeSoar has obviously grilled Alex about us, about our screenplay. But that wasn’t Alex just now, or us. And EyeSoar did not put that video together, with dead-on images, overnight. The picture, the sound, no way. So those are real people. How is that possible?”
After a moment, the seat squeaked. Tim leaned toward her with a dark smile. “How did we not see it until now? Rayne, yesterday I was in a parallel world.”
An inner switch flicked on. She couldn’t help but share a cold smile. “Well, well, well. How blind we are. A parallel Cambridge, with parallel people.”
“What I saw, most of that city is a mirror image. It’s gotta be filled with doppelgangers and look-alikes. Sort of like clones.”
“Alex could still be there. They grilled him for our address, background, et cetera. They located our look-alikes, and his, and James Carney. Then…well…”
“Exactly,” he said, rubbing his face with both hands. “And now we’re the Watchdogs. WKO is slaughtering us in the media. So, I have to wonder…it does cross my mind…”
“Settle down. What?”
“I wonder how this is all trending on Twitter? Facebook?”
“And this matters because…?”
“Rayne, imagine the Watchdog terrorists showing up on something called ‘Facebook.’ Imagine a terrorist manifesto next to your list of favorite books and movies. Imagine people doing
like
or
unlike
on the Watchdog terrorists. Even the
name
is childish. ‘Facebook’ sounds like a picture book for pre-school kids who can’t read yet.”
Rayne stared at him and shrugged. Against her better judgment, she stoked him on. “How about Twitter?”
Crowe continued in the Crowe Zone. “I can totally see that trending right now. Watchdog tweets.” His voice dropped, sounding like a Kindergartner.
“Tweet. Tweeting
.” His voice bounced back. “We live in a world where terrorists fucking
tweet
. They cut off people’s heads, and then say, “Gee, I gotta tweet this. I gotta commit mass murder in a delicatessen, and then share it via a social networking service. Social? How about antisocial media? Either way, the service has a silly-ass corporate name. ‘Twitter’ rhymes with ‘jitters.’”
“You done?”
“No. Imagine someone twenty years ago signing up for cryonics, getting flash frozen. Then, flash forward to today. Guy gets sprayed with a can of deicer, wakes up, turns on the TV news, and hears the words ‘terrorists,’ ‘tweets’ and ‘Facebook’ in the same breath. The dude looks at the doctor and says,
‘Freeze me back into oblivion. I can’t take this shit.’”
She had to admit, he had a point. She wondered if, when Tim was substitute teaching, he shared his miscellaneous concerns with high school classes. She decided not to inquire. Other issues preoccupied her.
Their shared silence snapped at the sound of
Girls Just Want to Have Fun.
Rayne grabbed the phone. “Martina? Where are you?”
“Where you been? I called at Kendall Station. Then I got on the train.”
“We’re okay. We’re on the road. There’s been…wait, where are you?”
“Now I’m at Central. I’m taking the stairs up to the street.”
Rayne nervously bit her lower lip, thinking.
“Still there?” Martina asked.
“Hang on for a minute.” Rayne hit the pause button, turned to Tim. “Tell me what you think. We’ve got a different car. The cops aren’t looking for this—yet.”
“I’m guessing C.C. Seymour didn’t want to stick around when the police hit the car wash. He’d need a slick answer to explain the coincidence of why he’s there. I don’t see him reporting his Crown Vic missing. Then again, who knows?”
“Well, it’s not as obvious as the Buick.”
“The Buick was radioactive. But this car, no.” He paused, then added, “When C.C. was behind the wheel with his drone haircut, this’d be a Ford
Clown
Victoria.”
“So, then. We drive this to Mama Salgado’s parking spot, hide out in the garage, and just freaking sleep for a couple hours. I’m dying here.”
“Me, too. We’ve been going full tilt way too long. Get some rest, maybe come up with a plan. Let’s do it. We should be able to sneak in and out all right. It’s still early. Maybe the word won’t get out on this car for a while.”
“Martina,” Rayne said, turning to the windshield. “We’re gonna get you. What corner you on?”
“This really blows,” Detective Dennis Warciniak said, light and shadow flickering across his clean shaven face.
Detective Steve Mariott grinned, and glanced at his partner. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder in the dark, two public servants in their mid-forties. “It’s an acquired taste. I have an idea. Pretend we’re having a ‘date movie.’”
Warciniak grunted under his breath, and turned. His squinty eyes viewed the world with nonstop suspicion. “Would you like to hold my nightstick?”
Mariott appreciated Warciniak’s sense of humor. Last Christmas, the man had given his two kids toy handcuffs. Maybe this Christmas, Warciniak could give them toy nightsticks. Or maybe toy Taser guns.
“Officer,” Mariott said, “you can be arrested for solicitation. Whenever a degenerate uses words, actions, or any type of conduct in an attempt to engage in an act of nookie, particularly at a theater in Harvard Square while sitting among Harvard and MIT graduate students, he can be arrested.”
“You haven’t been the same since you arrested your ex-wife for dissing the Gene Hackman movie,
The Conversation
.”
“It’s a good movie.”
“Not that good.”
“That’s what she said.”
A couple sat in front of them, next row. The man, in his mid-twenties, turned around and spoke in a tone that suggested air hissing out of a punctured tire.
“Shhhhh
. You’re eroding my movie experience.”
Warciniak perked up in his seat, and shot an elbow into Mariott’s side, wrinkling his suit.
Mariott was already stifling a laugh. His partner didn’t let him down.
“We’re here on official police business,” Warciniak said, and actually held up his badge. “This is a crime scene. It’s a crime that people paid money for this. Look at this torture chamber, it’s packed with assault victims.”
The concerned theatergoer drew a blank, said nothing, turned his head back to the screen. An extremely strange movie was playing.
Gone.
Warciniak sat back, turned to Mariott. “Like I said, this really blows.”
Over the last three years, Detective Steve Mariott had sat beside his partner in a variety of vehicles and venues. Lately, they drove a dull brown Chevy Impala the color of dead grass, with a dull yellow interior, also the color of dead grass. They made daily trips to crime scenes and Dunkin’ Donuts. Tonight was a first. They went to the movies together.
“Look at all these morbid thrill-seekers,” Warciniak said.
Mariott found the size of the crowd surprising. The Gateway’s recent notoriety in conjunction with the terrorist video had really drawn them in, like flies on a pile of manure. He wondered what the audience expected to see, other than a dark and indecipherable movie. Movie? No, manure.
“I don’t get it,” Warciniak said. “Why’d the video mention this place along with The World Bank, EyeSoar and…what was that mumbo jumbo?”
“Various Illuminati hybrid bloodlines.”
Mariott pictured the streets outside, patrol cars scouring Cambridge for the two recently identified Watchdogs. Since late afternoon, the police and TV tip lines buzzed. Neighbors and co-workers dime’d out Rain or Rayne Moore and Tim Crowe. Moore drove a 1988 Buick, until around six o’clock. Evidently Moore’s car had exploded like a suicide bomber, though most of the auto parts were contained within the bay’s two walls and roof. It had taken a while to identify the car’s owner. The rear license plate had zoomed over a cyclone fence bordering the back of the car wash, and dropped below street level, onto subterranean train tracks. The front license plate evidently had shot through the air like a ninja throwing star, sailed across the street and nearly decapitated a man at the gas pump of a Gulf station. Mariott imagined the absurdity of being murdered by a spinning plate with the slogan
The Spirit of America
stamped on the aluminum.
“We been here almost an hour. There’s nothing here,” Warciniak said. “We checked the foyer, the rest rooms, this room, the crowd. And ‘Gone’ is getting on my nerves. I’d rather watch an endless loop of the routine ground ball going between Bill Buckner’s legs during the ‘86 World Series.”
“A few more minutes.”
“Steve, come on.”
Mariott checked his watch: 9:11 p.m. Nothing unusual had turned up at the theater tonight, which reminded him of the two suspects. Earlier, an initial background check on Moore and Crowe had turned up nothing but traffic tickets. Nor was anything weird found on social networking sites. Mariott assumed that dedicated terrorists adhered to the terrorist playbook and used Facebook and Twitter, which set the standard for affordable advertising on a global scale. If you want to take over the world, start Tweeting. So what did investigators find? Some posts by Crowe; virtually not a word from Moore. Moore was a strange one; evidently her idea of social media was to put weird signs in her apartment windows.
And so he wondered, again, how these two people, who never hit the radar, suddenly became such mad dogs. Not impossible, but unlikely. How did an ostensibly coherent high school substitute teacher become so incoherent and crazed? Neighbors described Moore as bright. No evidence of that on the video. What possessed a sub teacher and an artsy waitress to cook someone in his car? To bash in the skull of a filmmaker and friend? Where was the logic? His eyes traveled up to the screen; the logic was…
Gone
.
“Wake up, Steve.”
“All right, all right.”
Warciniak pointed toward the rear, left corner. They were sitting in the middle of the show. “Let’s hit the exit, it’s closer. We can check the alley for terrorists. Maybe the ushers in here wear suicide vests, because they’re forced to watch ‘Gone’ twice a day.”
“You’re on a roll, sir.”
The bottom of their seats flipped up when they rose in unison.
“Like the saying goes,” Warciniak said, “don’t let the theater seat hit you in the ass on the way out.”
“Gee,” Mariott said, “we’ll have to do this again. I bet you’re a fan of the Swedish director, Ingmar Bergman.”
“Who? Igor Iceberg?”
They walked down the rubber runner on the declining aisle, and glanced at the red sign overhead that glowed in the dark.
EXIT
The crash bar creaked as the door opened. The heavy door clicked shut behind them as they stepped into the alley. Detective Mariott was relieved to exit the theater, the movie had gotten under his skin, too, except he couldn’t quite say why. He’d seen his share of art films and indies. But there was something about
Gone
that…well, what did it matter.
“It’s pitch black out here,” Warciniak said. “I don’t remember the alley being this dark.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever been back here.”
They began walking through the alley. In the distance, a streetlight shone.
“That was a weird-ass movie, Steven. I feel like I should take a shower.”
“I wonder why that theater was mentioned in the video? That keeps bothering me. It doesn’t add up. Their whole taped message, none of it adds up. All that ranting about another world, and how ‘they’”—Detective Mariott raised both hands and made finger quotes in the air—“are coming after us. And ‘they’ are aliens. And our borders are breached.”
“I dunno, beats me. For that matter, why would those two assholes blow up their car at a car wash? What could that possibly mean? Maybe they’re fighting for oppressed car wash employees who make minimum wage.”
“The more we dig, the crazier it gets. Maybe it is what it is. Maybe those two are just flat-out crazy, and we’re looking for meaning in a meaningless situation.”
“Jeez, Steven, you are really deep. I can tell because you got a mustache and goatee. You must’ve finished high school.”
“When no one’s looking, I turn on Public Television and learn how to talk good.”
“No wonder.” After a moment of silence, Warciniak said, “It’s like walking through a mine shaft out here.”
Soon they reached the end of the alley, and lingered for a moment. They faced the graveyard on the other side of the cross street.
“So, our investigation continues,” Mariott said. “We’ve checked out the theater, the alley. Let’s see if we can crack the case by heading into the Square and investigating a pastrami on rye at the deli down here.”
They turned right, walked toward the next intersecting street. Straight ahead, cars rolled by, headlights brightened the night.
“Is it chilly out here,” Warciniak said as they reached the corner, “or is it me?”
“It’s…” Mariott said, then stopped. His head blew a fuse, switched off, went blank.
“The fuck is…
that?”
his partner asked.
Detective Mariott craned his neck, seeing a flying object heading his way. The green batlike creature with a huge wingspan flew above the trees and telephone wires. The wings did not flap, not a bird, but it was unlike any aircraft he’d ever seen. A young couple jogged into the middle of the street, knelt and held up their cell phones, then waved at the bat. Stamped on the bat’s belly: DR1.
“No idea.”
“Since when did…why’ve I never seen that before?”
The sound of a crowd nearby snagged his attention. Mariott leveled his gaze, looked across the street at O'Henry's. The bar’s entrance was open, the place was packed on a Friday night.
“These kids are kneeling in the street. Looks like they’ve seen it before.”
The detectives moved into the middle of the street and stood. Steven Mariott had a hunch that Dennis Warciniak, right beside him, was sensing the same thing. Something here, right here on the street, was not quite right.
“Detective,” Warciniak said, facing his friend. “I detect something.”
Mariott paused, reluctant to respond, because a confirmation would muddy the waters even more. Finally, he kept his voice low and confidential. “Me, too.”
They stood for another ten or fifteen seconds, watching the young couple head down the street.
“Let’s go in here for a minute,” Warciniak said, putting his hand on Mariott’s back, steering him toward the bar. “I know one of the bartenders. McLane can fill me in on…” He glanced up at the sky. “Maybe there’s a circus coming to town. Ringling Brothers or the Big Apple. This is some promo bullshit. McLane will know.”
Before Mariott had a chance to respond, he was guided through the entrance and into O’Henry’s.