The Chardon Chronicles: Season One -- The Harvest Festival (41 page)

Hey, pik up.

-Seth Kaswhetski

The phone rang again and he answered. A man
with a slight brooklyn accent said, “Hey, we need to talk.”

Matt asked, “Who is this?”

“Look, we have a friend in common, she calls
herself Samantha these days. A helicopter will be there in maybe an
hour. It’ll bring you and your wife here.”

“No.”

He heard a heavy sigh. “I don’t know why
you’d refuse a meeting. It’s extremely important. Look, if you
don’t come now, I hate to do it, but we’ll just kidnap you.”

The tone in Seth’s voice left no doubt that
he was serious. “Well, OK.” Matt agreed. Seth hung up
immediately.

He found Telia in the kitchen. “Hey Tee, we
have a meeting with a guy Seth Kaswhetski. He’s actually the CEO of
Black Cube Financial. I just Googled him.”

She furrowed her brow, “That’s odd.”

“He knows Samantha.”

She said, “I’ll go change. What should I
wear?”

Matt shrugged. “I’m wearing something I could
run away in.”

She frowned. “Run away? Well, that’s probably
not a bad idea.” She returned dressed casually in jeans and a black
commando sweater with some walking shoes.

They heard the rotors thumping and the
chopper landed in their front yard. Matt and Telia went outside.
Robbie, Amy, Johnny and Dana were all gathered on the driveway.

Matt said, “It’s for us… We’ll be back. I
think.” They walked out to the aircraft. A man helped them aboard.
The door closed and it took off and went east.

“What the fuck was that?” Robbie said.

The interior of the chopper was simple and
elegant. A persian rug was on a wood floor. The seats were soft
leather.

A tidy, almost boyish man sat opposite them,
“Hello Matthew and Telia, such a lovely name, I’m Francis. Can I
offer you a drink? We have a fully stocked bar.”

“Sure, I’ll take a Manhattan.” Matt said.

“Gin and tonic.” Telia ordered.

“Lime?” Francis asked her. She nodded.

The man exuded pleasant manners. He had short
brown wavy hair and a squarish slightly pudgy face.

He handed them the crystal glasses. “I have
to apologize in advance. We don’t have any food today. We left in
haste.” he shrugged.

Matt said, “this helicopter looks like the
President’s.’”

The man beamed, “It’s part of the same
production run as Marine One. Oh, and I am supposed to put you at
ease, feel free to ask me anything. I can answer without
reservation.”

“Where are we going?” Telia asked.

“Black Cube’s corporate headquarters, to
Seth’s suites. It should take about an hour.” He looked at his
watch.

“What’s the topic of the meeting?” Matt
asked.

“I would answer that if I knew. All that I do
know is it is very important. He cancelled every meeting today to
prepare. He never does that.”

“Who is Seth, really?” Matt asked.

The man clasped his hands together. “He’s our
King, for lack of a better word.”

“Our?”

“We have lots of different names, but I
always think of it as the Brotherhood of Saturn.”

Matt nodded, “You mean the drug running,
child prostituting, murdering Brotherhood?”

The man frowned, “I have to apologize about
all that. Really, I am guessing, those things are the main topic of
the meeting. That is, how to end them.”

Matt raised his eyebrow. “End them.”

“Yes. End them. They’re a severe problem.
Unfortunately, as bad as all that is, there are more dangerous
things to worry about.”

Telia was shocked, “Worse than child
prostitution?”

“Yes, unfortunately. Seth thinks we can end
it with your help.”

Matt leaned back with the realization, “Ah.
Samantha and he somehow talked?”

“Yes!” he smiled. “Seth and Samantha have
been talking again, actually for decades, then you two came along
and click.” He shook his two hands together.

The helicopter landed on the roof of a black
glass building on Wall Street. The man led them to a stairwell and
buzzed himself in with a keycard. He handed cards to Matt and Telia
and then led them down a hallway with thick red carpet. Gory
mythical paintings hung from the walls, Cronus eating his children.
A gory Spanish painting of the entire Saturn cycle. A photo of the
Cassini spacecraft with Seth signing the side of the probe.

He tapped on two black handless double doors.
“Sir, they’re here.”

The doors slid open. The man gestured them
inside. “A pleasure to meet you. I’ll be waiting out here. If you
need or even want
anything
just let me know.”

“Thank you, Francis” Matt said and shook his
hand. The man nearly teared up.

Telia and Matt went into the room and the
doors closed. The office was impossibly large and had panoramic
views of Manhattan and the Hudson. Every square inch of the room
was covered with sumptuous, expensive materials. The walls were
dark carved mohagony rails and stiles with tooled leather
panels.

The inner sanctum of the office was a plush
carpet with a short table at one end and several pillows that
served as chair backs. Seth was sitting at the small table drinking
tea. Owen was with him. He recognized them, “Aha! There they are
now. Come join us.”

They kicked their shoes and socks off and
walked on the carpet. Seth said, “This was Genghis Khan’s! He sat
right here. This table is a repro, though. Watcha gonna do? Can’t
find the original.”

Seth was wearing a pair of gray gabardine
trousers and a white dress shirt. It was as casual as he got.
Owen’s tweed jacket was hanging on the back of a chair. His shirt
had a hole in the elbow.

Matt sat down and Telia sat next to him.

“She speaks highly of you two.” Seth
said.

“Samantha?” Telia asked.

“Of course. Anyway, let me cut right to it, I
fucked up. I need your help, and I’ll help you.” He gestured to the
whole group.

“What do you mean? How did you fuck up?”
Telia asked.

“Long story short, version: back in the day,
I started building this. Excuse me, ‘we’ started building this,” he
gestured around the room at the opulence, “truth be told, per
usual, the others did all the work, and I was the last one they
pulled in just to organize it. But I got greedy. I discovered how
to cross over and I cut Sam off.” he made a chopping motion. “I
figured out how to tap into
it
. It will remain nameless, by
the way. Let’s just call it Nihilism for lack of a better word. I
thought it was dumb, just a force that could be used, but I was
totally wrong.” He shrugged matter of factly.

“I think of it as a great snake,” Owen
offered.

“So how do we fit into that?” Telia
asked.

“The problem was this thing started infecting
my organization. I didn’t perceive it
myself
until the
A-bomb. Our guys did that. Dropped it on Japan.” He sighed. “I knew
we
really
fucked up. I started seeing how this snake crept
into everything. I see neither of you is grasping the gravity of
the situation.”

Matt shrugged, “I really don’t see what
you’re driving at, yet.”

Seth said, “OK. I’ll get to my point. Let me
point out that the last President who wasn’t an employee was
McKinley.”

Telia gasped. “No way.”

Seth gestured to a corner. A man brought a
laptop over and put it on the table. He clicked on an icon. A man
answered the video chat request, “Hey Barry, say hi to Telia
Wells.”

“Hello Telia.” The President said. The color
drained from Telia’s face. She shook her head.

“Thanks, later.” he shooed the laptop away.
The servant closed it and carried it away. “Anyway, while this
organization has never been about puppies and candy, it’s never
been
this
bad, and gets worse every day.
I
shudder
about the possibilities. I tried to reign it in, but really it’s
been out of my control for decades. I think
it
took
over.”

Owen said, “So, to use an awful phrase, we
plan to get the band back together.”

Seth said, “My plan is to destroy this
organization, but more importantly we need to drive the snake that
it’s feeding back into the dark.”

Owen said, “This might be extremely hard to
believe, but we need to tap into the power of that.” he pointed out
the window.

“What?” Matt asked. He didn’t see anything
out there.

Owen laughed hilariously and rolled back on
the carpet, “the Sun!”

Seth saluted it with a cup, “We cut people
off from Him. Hid Him a box. That’s what the cube symbolizes, by
the way, well and also His rebirth… the implication being that
we
control it.”

He put a pendulum on the table. “I like this
sculpture. I talked with the artist for a week about this. He made
it out of titanium. You like the colors? That’s not paint, just
from a blow torch oxidizing the metal. The guy’s a genius.” He
started it going. The pendulum sped up and slowed down. “There’s
actually a pattern to it, but you have to watch a long time to see
it repeat.”

“What’s that?” Telia said.

“It’s the opposite of a clock.” he said. “You
see, the sun goes up, goes down. That’s a day, not the tick, tick,
tick of a watch. Not the 9AM timecard, not the 30 year mortgage,
etcetera, and so on. We systematically cut people off from the
Sun.” he pointed out the window.

“I haven’t mentioned this, but I pointed my
reflector at the Sun, and it was power that I couldn’t channel,
understand, or control.” Matt said.

Owen said, “Oh, of course not, who
could?”

Seth said, “Nobody--nothing could. You need
to be more subtle in your thinking about these things.” he handed
him the not-clock. “Like that. Take it and meditate on it.”

Telia said, “what if we don’t do this?”

Seth shrugged, “This is not just another dark
ages of limited human possibility--that was bad enough--that’s what
got us together last time around. This time it’s BOOM!” he mimicked
a mushroom cloud. “End of everything.”

Matt frowned. “My family has already been
trying to bring the Sun back in a way.”

Owen nodded, “Yes indeed, but they’re like
kids in the park playing ball. This is international league
play.”

Seth nodded, “Full fucking contact. So I want
to help you out in the transition.”

Telia asked, “How? What do you mean?”

Seth said, “We’re basically going to war with
super powers… I mean that word in both senses. It’s full-on, no
rules at all. So first things first, to protect your family, we’ll
fake your deaths. You’ll have a new identity. You’ll also have full
access to my resources. Hell, they’ll be yours.”

Matt said, “This feels very much like a deal
with the devil.”

Seth smiled archly. “It is. I don’t deny it,
but it’s to save the world. We’ve done it multiple times throughout
history. I mean, literally me and you, Matt. Cycles.”

Owen put a hand on Matt’s shoulder, “This is
the game.” He shrugged. “They make alliances, break them, shuffle
the deck over and over. Cycle after cycle. But we have to play our
part.”

Telia said, “We need time to think.”

Seth said, “It’s not like the world will end
tomorrow… probably. But, let’s keep things moving. You’ve got a
week. Use that to prepare. There’s really no deciding here. I’m not
going to bother you again if you decline, but if you do, we’re all
fucked. You’ll die, your kids, your friends, pets, everything,
poof.
It
wants that. If you want convincing, we can go see
it.”

“No, I believe you.” Matt said. He stood up
and helped Telia up. “Well, thanks for your time, I guess.” Matt
said.

“I’ll give you a call next week. Go home and
get your shit in order. Keep this hush, hush, the fewer people who
know the better. It’s really for their safety.” Seth said.

Francis waited for them at the edge of the
carpet. They were both slightly delirious and his friendly presence
bolstered them a bit. He handed them two gift bags and led them
back to the helipad. They boarded the chopper and flew back to
Ohio.

“Seth said Ohio--Cleveland is where it all
really started. He visited the place multiple times in the 1800s
when they really solidified the organization. He was there as early
as 1756 on a scouting mission. A french fur trapper took him in a
canoe. Incredible, no?”

Matt nodded, “Indeed, totally amazing.”

“So,” Francis traced a circle in the air with
his index fingers.

Matt said, “Yup.” He sighed and thought about
the farm being dead and barren.

Telia dug through the black gift bag. There
was a diamond necklace, a gold cased iPhone and a black credit
card. “That’s nice, I guess.” she said. “Thanks.”