Omegasphere (2 page)

“This is me, here,” Ursula said.

This is much too refined a home for this eccentric girl, Kurt thought.

“Well, it’s not exactly me,” she said.

“. . . Sorry?”

“I don’t exactly live
here
.”

“Oh. Then where exactly do you live?”

“Just around the corner.”

Was she ashamed of where she lived? Kurt wondered. Or afraid to tell someone she feared was a creep?

An awkward silence lingered until she finally said, “I usually don’t tell people where I live.”

Her paranoia was more serious than he had originally suspected.

“The government doesn’t even know where I live. How could they? I don’t pay taxes. Don’t have income. Haven’t in years. I live off of an inheritance.”

Kurt was too astounded to say anything.

“If you knew what I knew, you would act the same way,” she said. “I’m not crazy. I promise.”

“I believe you,” he lied.

“Fine. But since I need your help with my book, I guess that means you should know where I live.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. It might be better if we just parted ways right here.”

“I need your help, Kurt.”

“What can I do? I’m unemployed. Cut off. I can’t help you.”

“You have connections. You can help me find the right people. You can show me how to get their attention.”

She conned him into following her to her apartment with a sad-eyed expression, despite the protesting of his better judgment. When they got there, she took out her keys from her purse. She turned to him and said, “Do you have a cell phone on you?”

“Yes.”

“Would you mind turning it off and putting it in here?” She went to the mailboxes recessed in the wall and opened one. It was lined with tinfoil.

“I know this is weird, Kurt, but please. I’m not crazy. I have a good reason for my paranoia.”

Kurt turned off his cell phone and put it in the mailbox. He noticed the other mailboxes weren’t labeled.

“I own the building,” she said, “and I don’t need tenants.”

There were several locks on her apartment door. When they were inside, she relocked them and fastened a metal bar to the door.

“I know this is New York, but I think you might be overdoing it a bit,” Kurt said.

“Says you. Wait until you read my book.” As she made her way to an adjoining room she said, “Wait there.”

Kurt stood in the foyer as if an invisible field kept him from going any further. Who knew how she’d act should he penetrate her personal space? He did notice, however, that the apartment was surprisingly quite nice. A leather couch and club chair were arranged atop a Persian rug. Wall sconces provided a soft glow. It was a place of wealth and taste, which seemed the opposite of Ursula.

She returned quickly, holding a cardboard box.

“Here it is,” she said.

He took the manuscript from her. “I’ll take a look at the book when I have time. I have a crisis of my own right now.”

“I realize that. I really hope your work situation clears up.”

“Yeah, me too. I’m sure it’s just a mistake. I’ll probably be back to work in a few days.”

She escorted him out of the building and retrieved his cell phone from the mailbox.

While walking home, Kurt was kicking himself for agreeing to read her material. He never was good at saying no. But, by time he got to his apartment building, he realized that, despite her oddness, he liked her. It was the one positive in an otherwise horrible day.

CHAPTER 3

Kurt took the elevator to the fourth floor. As he walked down the hall, he thought about Ursula. She was either the most interesting woman he had ever met or the weirdest. She was certainly not an easy one to pin down. What girl in Manhattan had no sense of style and didn’t own a phone? She was an urban anomaly, and that excited him.

The matter of her book—that he now carried burdensomely in his left hand—was a completely different situation. He had no problem with the writing style or science behind her claims, but as an author she was what they referred to in the literary business as “Patently Unmarketable.” She was pathologically reclusive and the marketing of a nonfiction author relied heavily on the author’s willingness to go on the lecture circuit, go on book tours, and do interviews. An Emily Dickinson complex was a career killer. At the very least she had to be willing to have a website and do a weekly blog, but Ursula didn’t even have Internet access!

Something told him that he was going to help her anyway. They had made a connection and Kurt felt that, for some reason, he understood her. The overdeveloped intellect, the quirkiness, and the shyness were just a shell created by a tragic event, a mask that concealed a deep sadness. Lately it seemed that his ability to read, understand, and therefore connect with people on a deeper level had been greatly enhanced; however, in this case, he also felt an attraction to her and he was looking forward to seeing her again.

His phone rang in his pocket. It was Miles. Before he answered it, he took a deep breath . . . lawyers, copyright infringement, the police searching his home . . . reality was about to get rough.

“Please tell me this has all been a bad dream,” Kurt answered.

“Where are you?”

“Walking towards my apartment.” Kurt searched his pockets for his keys.

“Listen, you probably shouldn’t go home. Turn and walk in the other direction.”

Kurt stopped. “What’s going on?”

“Go check into a hotel. I’ll pick up the tab.”

“What’s this about, Miles?”

“The wife of one of the authors told me that men came to the house and took her husband into custody. She was hysterical. Apparently they didn’t have a warrant, didn’t read him his Miranda rights, nothing. I can’t get ahold of the other writers.”

“The other writers? You mean the ones who
also
plagiarized Richard Bock? Don’t you think it’s a little strange that we all decided to plagiarize
him
? It has to be a mistake, Miles. I started working on that book months ago. I can show you my notes.”

“Listen carefully. They’re taking people into custody, so get yourself to a hotel until we can figure this thing out.”

“They’re arresting people over a book?”

“Bock has friends in high places. He plays cards with the Secretary of Homeland Security.”

“This is ridiculous. He can’t have people falsely arrested just because he’s famous!”

“Don’t be naive, Kurt. You need a lawyer. Tomorrow you’re going to turn yourself in, but we’re going to have the media there with us. We’re going to make an event out of this.”

“Miles, don’t tell me this is some kind of a ploy to get publicity for the book. Come on, man.”

“I’m trying to help you. This has already gotten out of hand. Right now our best play is to get this out into the open. It’s the only way.”

“Get what out into the open? Do you know what’s going on?”

When Kurt got to his apartment door, he noticed it was ajar. Through the crack, he could see someone was inside: a dark-skinned man, about forty-five years old, wearing a khaki-colored trench coat over a gray suit. The bastard was sitting at Kurt’s desk, searching through files on his laptop.

Kurt’s heart went into overdrive. Then a bizarre feeling came over him . . . a loss of control. Something was taking over his mind. It was a mental ability he didn’t know he had, something preternatural yet instinctual, something within him, part of him, yet unknown to him. His mind sucked up all the adrenaline in his body like a sponge and used it to become hyper-fixated on the intruder’s face. He honed in on a break in the bridge of the man’s nose, then to a slightly enlarged left eyebrow, and then to the barely perceptible sag of his right cheek. A less insightful person might have assumed it was the face of a boxer, a face that had been pounded on for years by the padded gloves of pugilists, but Kurt’s mind was much more insightful than most, now more like a computer, able to split the face into sections and find explanations for each of the facial deformities.
What’s happening to me?!
He nearly cried out.
You know what’s happening to you.
A calm inner voice responded.
You’ve known about it for weeks now. You aren’t the same person anymore.

His attention went back to the trespasser’s face, breaking it down, analyzing it. The damage was done by a bare fist, a right-handed male, significantly taller than his victim. It had happened years ago . . . when he was a child. A sudden realization seemed to cover Kurt’s bones like a cold blanket, sending a chill up his spine. He knew what had happened to this man, the years of abuse, the humiliation—Kurt could feel the anger smoldering within him, radiating off him with bone-chilling intensity. This man could not be trusted. His pain was in command, influencing his every decision—an unbridled quest for revenge had grown out of this tragedy, one that would destroy anything and everything in its path.

Kurt’s instincts forcefully shut his mind down. A cry of alarm had gone off inside him and every cell in his body was telling him to run.
Stop analyzing! Run!

Panicked, Kurt doubled back toward the elevator. In a harsh whisper, he said into the phone, “There’s someone in my apartment!”

“Get out of there, Kurt! Go get a room. I’m going to call my friend at the
Times,
” Miles said.

“I’m going right now!”

“Call me when you get there.”

A few blocks away from his apartment building there was a hotel Kurt had often walked by but had never been inside. The rates were out of his price range, but since Miles was picking up the tab, he decided this was as good a place as any to get a room. In the lobby, he tried to reach Miles on his cell, but there was no answer. He had to produce his own credit card and hope Miles would reimburse him.

The front desk agent ran the card twice then handed it back to him. Declined.

Kurt went to the closest ATM and tried to withdraw cash, but the card was consumed by the machine. The 1-800 number told him his account had been frozen.

Miles was still unreachable.

Kurt started walking. He had nowhere to go. It was times like these that he regretted not making friends in the city. He had plenty of pals back home in Southern California, but he rarely talked to them anymore. He had moved to New York to pursue his dream and hadn’t looked back. It was lonely living in the city, but he had wanted to put all his energy into maintaining his job at Lor and writing his novel.

After about an hour of wandering aimlessly, he ended up near Ursula’s neighborhood. He was getting tired and he had few options. It was either sleep in the park or knock on Ursula’s door. Though it seemed Ursula had massive trust issues, she did own an entire apartment building. He still had her book, and in exchange for lodging, he was prepared to offer critiques or as much literary advice as she wanted.

After he knocked on her door, he wondered what to say.
I’m being hunted by the government because someone thinks I plagiarized a book.
Sounded crazy!

She came to the door in a yellow jumpsuit and pink slippers. Off his sour expression, she said, “Jumpsuits are in style this year.”

“Not the one you’re wearing.”

She smiled and said, “Cell phone in the mailbox, please.”

He turned off his phone and put it inside the mailbox.

“I’m not sure I should be here,” he said, entering the building. “But I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Would you be willing to let me crash in one of your spare apartments? I can pay you as soon as I get ahold of my boss.”

She unlocked her apartment door and escorted him inside.

“Something to drink?” she asked.

Kurt sat down on the sofa. He folded his hands on his lap and shook his head in disbelief. Why was this happening?

She brought him a shot of Scotch on the rocks. “My dad used to drink this every day after work. He said it calmed the nerves.”

The liquor burned Kurt’s throat on the way down. “This was your parents’ apartment building?”

“One of many. They died a few years ago in a car accident.”

“Sorry.”

She sat down in a Queen Anne chair and crossed her legs.

“I should probably tell you what happened,” he said.

“Can’t wait to hear it.”

“As you know, I work—used to work—as an assistant editor for Lor, but for the last couple of years I’ve been writing a novel. Two weeks ago I finished it. Yesterday I gave it to the editor-in-chief of Lor Publishing, Miles Cohen. He was the first and only person to read it. Earlier today, he told me it was derivative of six other novels that had been submitted to him in the last week, one of which was written by Richard Bock.”

“Derivative? Is that a nice way of saying plagiarized?”

“He told me my novel was exactly like the others. According to him, we all wrote the same book, practically word for word.”

“Seems unlikely. Are the other writers also editors for the publishing house?”

He sighed and then he sipped the Scotch, this time prepared for the burn. “I see what you’re getting at. You think we all plotted to steal from Richard Bock. If so, then tell me this: why would we all submit the same exact book? Be pretty stupid, don’t you think? Stealing a plot is one thing, but anyone in the business knows better than to copy a book word for word. Ideas can’t be copyrighted, just arrangement of words. If I really wanted his idea, I could’ve had it, legally.”

“Actually, I was asking because there’s a psychological condition called cryptomnesia, which can cause someone to write something they’ve read before, word for word, without the author even being aware of it.”

“A whole novel?” Kurt asked.

“An entire novel is a little unlikely, but you never know.”

“It wasn’t cryptomnesia,” he said. He put the glass down; the alcohol wasn’t helping. “It was probably a computer error or a copying mistake. Something completely explainable.”

“What an ordeal.”

He took a deep breath and tried to shake off the buzz from the Scotch. These words were slowly wrought, “You haven’t heard the half of it. Richard Bock, world-famous writer, wants to press charges against us. His lawyers confiscated my manuscript and gave me a gag order. I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this. To make matters worse, as I was walking home tonight, I got a call from Miles and he told me that the other writers have been taken into custody.”

“Taken into custody? Seems a bit extreme.”

“Bock’s lawyers want blood. This is probably great publicity for him. Pisses me off.” Kurt lost his train of thought for a moment, then said, “It’s hard enough in this business without best-selling authors trying to have me arrested. I’ve never even read one of Bock’s novels. His books suck.”

She laughed. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m a wanted man,” he said.

“The authorities are looking for you?”

“Yes. But don’t worry; they don’t know I’m here.”

“That you know of.”

“When I went home tonight, there was someone in my apartment. I panicked and ran. Probably shouldn’t have, but I did. I tried to check into a hotel, but my credit cards have been canceled. My savings and checking accounts were frozen.”

“My family has a lawyer. We’ll call him in the morning. Tonight you can stay here.”

She went to a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a handful of keys with tags on them. She picked out one and asked, “How about apartment C?”

“Does it have a view of the courtyard?” Kurt asked.

“That would be F.”

“You sure about all this? This is New York. You shouldn’t have strange men staying over.”

“I’ve had stranger men than you stay the night.”

She took Kurt to apartment F and he was surprised to find it was furnished. She also supplied him with fresh linens.

“This was my dad’s apartment. He used it as an office.”

“I like it.”

Kurt always had trouble sleeping in foreign places. Hotel rooms were the worst. Tonight he had too much to think about. He started pacing the apartment.

The living room was arranged like a study. Rows of expensive leather-bound books lined the shelves, some of which appeared to be rare first editions. A painting from one of the Dutch masters hung behind an old oak desk, and Kurt didn’t doubt its authenticity. The only oddity in the room was a multicolored Rubik’s cube perched on a special holder on the desktop. He had never been good at puzzle games, but out of curiosity he picked it up and made a few turns. He studied it a moment. Viewed multidimensionally, it actually made sense. He made a series of quarter turns, again, again, again, and finally—it was so simple—he had it solved. What was all the fuss about? It was easy.