The Apocalypse Club (19 page)

“So HIG is behind global warming?”

“You laugh, but I don’t think that’s so far from the truth.”

“These things are all over the place and nobody notices?”

She took a sip of her wine. “Oh, people notice them, all right. Part of my job is finding those people before they become a nuisance.”

“And if they become a nuisance?”

“That’s GDI’s job. They work as a giant corporate security arm for the main company. They subcontract out for national defence, sure, but the majority of what they do is under-the-radar stuff. Like the group of Venezuelan protestors they took out last week.”

“What?”

“I was the one who found them,” she said, looking at the floor. “They were organizing to try to take down one of the company’s development projects there.”

“When you say you found them, you mean…”

“That’s part of my job. Not everybody is in love with everything we do, so it’s my job to track them down before they become a problem.”

“So you’re like some sort of spy?”

“Not quite that glamorous. It’s mostly signal intercept and some decryption. Pretty straightforward.”

“But this one wasn’t.”

She took a deep breath and swirled the wine around in her glass. “It’s a strange feeling to know that you’re directly responsible for the deaths of two hundred thirty-two people.”

I tried to think of something to say to that. Nothing came to mind. I wondered if Max might have been involved. I desperately wanted to believe that he had not.

“Holy shit. Are you sure? I mean…maybe…”

“Oh I’m sure,” she said. “I looked them up. Every last one. Twelve of them were children.” Tears were streaming out of her eyes again. I jumped up and grabbed a box of tissues, which I held out to her in lieu of more substantial reassurance. She grabbed one and pressed it against her face.

“You didn’t know that was going to happen,” I said.

She finished wiping her eyes, which were red. “I don’t know that I didn’t. I think I just didn’t want to think about it.”

“So tell somebody,” I said. “Leak it to a newspaper or something. Then pull a Snowden.”

She shook her head. “It would never see the light of day. Officially, I don’t exist. Neither does the company I work for. Those people were all publicly erased in every way you can think of. You’d never be able to prove they ever breathed. And if I said a word about it, I’d be in a black bag before you could finish zipping it up.”

“So quit.”

She laughed. “People don’t quit my job. They disappear.”

“The video store is like that,” I said. “Guy who worked there before me just didn’t show up one day, too. He didn’t disappear in the literal sense, though. He became a Mormon. I saw him a couple of weeks ago walking down the street in a white shirt with a black backpack dodging questions about Joseph Smith’s bank fraud issues.”

“Thanks, but that’s not really helpful.”

“Sorry. I’m not sure I know what I could say that would be helpful under the circumstances. Why are you telling me all of this, now? I don’t think we exchanged more than five words before you just sort of randomly started popping up, and three of those words were always ‘You’re an idiot’ or words to that effect.”

“Sorry about that. I used to be incredibly arrogant.”

“Used to be?”

She smiled. “I always wanted to be the smartest one in the room because nobody ever took me seriously. I used to think the world was just an extension of my imagination.”

“Who’s to say you’re wrong? Maybe the next time you leave, I’ll just go back to ceasing to exist until you make your return.”

“I doubt it.”

“Shouldn’t you be worried about telling me all this? I mean, won’t the GDI come crashing through the door any second to haul us both away?”

“No,” she said, looking sharply up at the window in a way that did not inspire confidence. “They can’t watch me all the time. At least, I don’t think they can. Are you worried?”

“Not really. I think that’s the way people always figured things were run. It’s almost – almost – kind of a relief to know it’s real and not some big crazy conspiracy.”

“I don’t think relief is the right reaction, but I see what you mean.”

“Besides, who would believe me if I said anything? There are a million guys on the internet spouting crazier shit than this.”

“Most of them aren’t real,” she said. “The serious ones get tracked very closely. The rest are just avatars of the system, set up to spout self-discrediting nonsense. I know a girl who writes a fake blog that’s rebroadcast on the Huffington Post.”

“And if they ever did consider me a threat, it wouldn’t exactly be difficult to take me out. All they’d have to do is return a copy of
Un Chien Andalou
stuffed with anthrax and they’d find me two hours later in the discount bin.”

“That would draw attention. They’d be a lot more subtle, believe me.”

“GDI hit squad?”

“They reserve those for high risk targets, like terrorists and press barons. That’s how they got Murdoch and Branson.”

“I thought those guys were still alive…?”

“Keep thinking that.”

“Jesus. What else can you tell me about your employer? Good medical plan?”

“The best. I keep breathing for as long as I work for them.”

“That’s not so bad. The video store has no medical plan, but I can rent movies for fifty per cent off. Who needs a regular insulin supply when you have access to the life’s work of Ingmar Bergman?”

She laughed. “You’re not diabetic.”

“How –” I started and stopped myself. “Never mind. Of course you know that. You probably know more about me than I do.”

She swirled her wine in an oddly suggestive manner. I glanced at the bottle and noticed we had gone through almost the whole thing. I gestured to the small metal wine rack – wine stand would probably be more accurate as it only holds five bottles – and she nodded to indicate that more would be acceptable.

“Indeed I do, Mark Horatio Simms.”

I groaned. “My father is a big fan of the one-armed general of Trafalgar fame. And it happened to be the name of one of my mother’s uncles, so she went along. I never use it. At least they didn’t give me Nelson as a first name. I’m sure my dad campaigned for it.” After a moment’s deliberation, I grabbed a Spanish red and started to work on the cork. “Sorry, I only have two wine glasses. I can rinse that one out for you.”

She shook her head and held out her now empty glass for me to top it up. “Two glasses? You must do about as much entertaining as I do.”

“Are you kidding? I’m like…” I tried to think of somebody who threw a lot of parties. I couldn’t. “I dunno. A regular socialite, I am. I’m only down to two because the rest of the set got all smashed the last time that Clooney fucker and his posse stopped by. Those guys are worse than any frat I’ve ever seen, believe me.”

She glanced around my apartment. “Functional, but doesn’t exactly scream woman’s touch. Or even a woman brushing past on the subway. You’re quite the ascetic bachelor, Horatio. Did it ever occur to you that there might be more in heaven and earth than are dreamt in your philosophy?”

I gave her a slightly sour grin. “You’re about as Danish as I am. Living the James Bond lifestyle, are you? Toy boys in every glamorous European capitol?”

“
Toy boys
. Now there’s an expression I don’t think I’ve heard in a while.”

“Superficial, handsome and usually much younger men with whom you have numerous, meaningless dalliances.”

“Hmmm. Don’t think I’ve ever had a dalliance before. Does it have to be meaningless?”

“It does insofar as the term was explained to me.”

“And, strangely, I did not find myself tripping over a floor covered with bras and panties when I came in.”

“Of course not. I cleaned up before you came. I have a special bin for those. Recyclables in blue, organics in green, miscellaneous in black, and female undergarments in a special pink bin. I’m not the only one who has one of those, of course. You should see the size of the one Drake has in front of his condo downtown. He needs two. And they do pickup for him every other day. I don’t know where the guy finds the energy to sing.”

She laughed. “In that case, I retract all of my previous statements. Should I leave? Are you expecting a party of coeds to arrive any moment?”

“I can safely say there is little danger of that.”

“So why the Franciscan lifestyle?”

“I don’t really know,” I admit. “I would like to say that I was psychologically scarred for life by what has come to be known in military judicial circles as the ‘shower incident’ or sustained irreversible nerve damage as a result of the unsanctioned discharge of an assault air rifle to what the official incident report described as ‘the crotchinal region,’ but that would be…disingenuous.”

“I could track Ida down for you, if you like.”

“She was a nasty piece of work, but a GDI hit squad seems like a bit of overkill.”

“Unfortunately, distributing pictures of erect penises doesn’t qualify as a terrorist threat, so I wasn’t able to call in a GDI hit squad on your behalf. Unless, of course, the penis in question happened to belong to a high-ranking executive and was being used for blackmail purposes. That said, an alarming number of men seem to have no problem doing this themselves.”

“You track a lot of Wienergate scenarios in your job?”

“Why would anyone think that sending a picture of a penis, engorged or otherwise, is going to drive the recipient wild with uncontrollable lust? The truth is, they’re weird-looking and kind of comical in a sad turtle sort of way. Except when they’re erect. Then they look like angry, one-eyed aliens.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“I was on a date with this guy once and after we had eaten we were just sort of sitting on the couch and the next thing you know he’s unzipped his pants, pulled it out, and he has his hand on the back of my neck pushing me toward him like it’s open mic night and I’m the next contestant. Not even so much as a ‘How did you like the Lo Mein?’ from this guy. No, all of my conversation was apparently supposed to take place with his little friend.”

“Charming. I’m guessing it didn’t end well.”

“No. He quickly learned that having so many nerve endings in one place can be both a pro and a con.”

I tried not to think about what that might mean. “That is a truth I am also familiar with.”

“Poor baby. Why are you sitting way over there?” she said, patting the couch. “Come and sit here with me. I promise I will do nothing to injure you.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” I said nervously, getting up and cautiously lowering myself onto the couch about six inches away. She quickly shuffled over and put her head on my shoulder.

“There,” she said, putting her glass on the table and sliding one hand behind my shoulders and the other one onto my leg. “Now what were we talking about? Oh yes! Those terrible pictures. See? That’s another reason you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

“How so?”

“Well, I’ve already seen what you look like naked, so you have no reason to think that I might recoil in horror at such a sight.”

Not, I thought, the most encouraging thing anyone had ever said to me. Her hands were moving around a lot, however, and it was hard to maintain focus. “But there were probably dozens of pictures on that phone. How would you know which one was me?”

“I admit that it took a fair amount of analysis,” she said. “Height, weight, body mass, hair colour. There was also a fair amount of motion blur in many of the images. Adrianna was a lousy photographer.”

“Yes. And unethical.”

“I managed to narrow it down to three possibilities.”

“Three, you say?” She was talking straight into my ear, which was creating a tricky reverb effect.

“Yes. Although I have to admit, I am rather pulling for number three.”

Her hand had made its way to the waistline of my jeans, the button of which had been popped and the fly dropped, as her fingers advanced rapidly over the Maginot line.

“And what were the, er, merits of option number three?”

She giggled. “It’s all in the frenulum, Horatio.”

“We don’t have to discuss this right now, do we?”

“Of course not. Oooh! Looks like I guessed right. But then, I usually do.”

S
he started putting in slightly more regular appearances after that. Sometimes she would let me know in advance that she was coming, but more often not. When she did let me know, it was never by phone or email. The first hint I got of her return was a strange-looking entry on my monthly cell phone bill:

The bill arrived on a Wednesday. Sure enough, Saturday at 6:30, I got back to my apartment to find that she had already made herself at home in the kitchen, where she was finely chopping garlic and onions to go in a large saucepan (that was not one of the four pieces of cookware that I owned).

“Well, hello,” I said.

“You don’t look too surprised,” she said. “So I assume you got my message?”

I nodded and pulled out the small bouquet of tulips I had picked up on the way home. I had debated about buying them all day, even going so far as to ask the opinion of Talia, the heavily tattooed, lesbian biker chick who was working the evening shift.

“She leaves you these weird little messages, so you don’t know if she’s actually coming or not?”

“That’s right.”

“What kind of messages? Like, on the phone?”

“Not like that.”

“Then how?”

“I…uh…can’t really say.”

This got me a long, incredulous look tinged with disdain. “You can’t say.”

“No.”

“Okay. That aside, this chick leaves you some sort of coded message, by passenger pigeon or whatever the hell she’s doing, to say that she’s coming on Saturday – and you don’t even know if she means
this
Saturday – and you want to know if she might think it’s weird if you buy her flowers?”

“That’s exactly it, Talia.”

“It is weird, but not in the way you think it is.”

“Thanks.”