The Ferryman Institute (5 page)

“Ah, the crown prince finally graces me with his presence,” she said.

Nope, definitely not sitting well with her, either.

“I, uh . . . I owe you an apology,” he said, keeping his eyes focused on his tie. “I was just—”

“Stop. Right there, just stop. You always say that,” she said. Each syllable she spoke was granite. “You're sorry for this, you're sorry for that. Every time this happens, I get myself all worked up and bent out of shape over your disappearing act, only for you to waltz back in here like it's no big deal. It makes me feel like
I'm
the bad guy for trying to do my job. This is not the person I like to be, Charlie. And you know what makes me even more upset? You already know that.”

Charlie found himself with a sudden and desperate need to fiddle with his watch. He couldn't think of another time he'd seen Melissa this upset. Now that he really pondered the matter, though, he had been doing a marvelous job piling metaphorical straw on his manager's back for years. Putting just one more piece on top right now was, in hindsight, a really shitty idea.

He tried some more of plan A. “You're right,” he said, finally looking up. “You absolutely are. And I'm sorry.”

Melissa rolled over that one, too. “You say that, but what have you done about it? It drives me crazy when you do this. And yet, for some reason, I always end up forgiving you. Why, I don't know. Maybe because beyond this, everyone here loves you.” She sighed, brushing her fingers through her wheat-colored hair. “Look, I'm not saying you can't leave the Institute, Charlie—believe me, I'm not. This isn't some prison. I can understand needing time away from this place. I just need to know where you are in case we need
you. It's part of the job. Why is that so hard for you to do? Why can't you do that?”

The grimace was flush on Charlie's face before he could do anything about it. He tried to hide it, but he was willing to bet Melissa saw it.

Why can't you do that?
That was the real question, wasn't it? All the other
where were you
s and
what were you doing
s all boiled down to that fundamental
why
. So it had been with most of his former managers—the fairly recent ones, anyway—and so it was now.

Why, Charlie Dawson, are you continually breaking the rules? Why are you being such an asshole?

The answer was simple enough, really: because otherwise he'd have to tell them the truth.

Charlie was primed to serve Melissa another heap of bullshit-laden vagaries when the office door swung open and a short, slightly round man with an armful of papers ambled in. Dirkley Dupine made it halfway across the room before he noticed that something seemed amiss between Mr. Dawson and Ms. Johnson. His eyes darted back and forth between the pair as if he were unsure which one was going to attack him first.

He cleared his throat. “Umm . . . should I come back?”

There was an exchange of glances between Charlie and Melissa—an unspoken assertion on her part that the current discussion was merely being postponed—before she slid over on the couch, patting the seat next to her. “No, not at all. We were just going over a few last-minute things.”

“Oh, perfect. I have a few of my own,” he said, still a bit leery of the atmosphere as he meandered over to the newly opened space next to Melissa. He plopped down next to her, shooting her a quick, admiring glance as he settled in.

Dirkley was the third and final piece of Charlie's team. All
Ferrymen worked on teams of three: the Ferryman (which, despite its gender implications, was actually a neutral term that could mean male or female; the
-man
ending was an anachronistic throwback and/or an exercise in brand management, depending on who you listened to), the manager, and the navigator. In addition to his portly build, Charlie's navigator was balding slightly, his nondescript brown hair fading away in patches. Thankfully, it would never get worse than that because, as with all members of the Ferryman Institute, Dirkley didn't age. Charlie often wondered if being stuck in a perpetual state of almost balding was Dirkley's own little curse. Then again, he also wouldn't be surprised if Dirkley never even noticed. The man's wardrobe seemed to suggest that personal appearance was rarely a foremost concern of his.

“So,” Charlie said, grateful for the chance to change the topic, “how are we looking for tonight?”

Dirkley quickly riffled through some of the papers he was holding. “Not too bad. Believe it or not, the last report I received from the front desk suggested a quiet, if ordinary, Sunday night. I'm a little unsure as to its accuracy—historically speaking, the month of May is a very busy time, so I'm a little suspicious.”

“Noted.” Charlie looked over to Melissa. “Anything to add?”

Charlie was surprised to find her already looking at him, like there was something written on his face that she was desperate to read. It wasn't an intense look necessarily, just oddly thorough. When Charlie caught her eye, she looked away. Perhaps thinking better of that, Melissa stood up.

“Nope,” she said curtly. “I'm actually going to head to the control room. Have to go organize a few things. I'll see you guys out there.” Before either man could say anything, she wandered out into the hallway beyond.

Charlie watched Melissa stride away, all the while wondering if these were the last moments they'd share as a team before she inevitably quit in frustration.

With a short whistle, Dirkley extricated himself from the couch. “Was it me or did Melissa seem . . .” His right hand absentmindedly drew circles in the air while he searched for the word.

“Agitated?”

“I was thinking more like exasperated, but that works. Maybe because of something that happened earlier? Like, say, when I wasn't in the room . . . ?”

“Beats me,” Charlie replied while walking toward the door, his navigator following closely behind.

Dirkley scoffed, “Come on, Charlie. What the heck happened? The tension in there was so thick, I'm not sure how either of you could breathe.”

“I guess it's a good thing we don't need to, then. Ba-dum-chi.” He smiled. “Ferryman jokes never get old. And look at that—another great one without even trying. I'm on fire.”

Dirkley frowned. “You're avoiding the question,” he said.

This, Charlie knew, was very true, mainly because that's exactly what he was doing. Truth be told, his most recent interaction with his manager was bothering him something fierce. Melissa had seemed more agitated (or was it exasperated?) than she usually did after one of Charlie's vanishing acts. Much more, actually. That not only made him feel much guiltier, but also concerned him quite a bit. So, in a word, yes, he was casually trying to avoid the topic. Unfortunately, Dirkley was never one to accurately judge a moment, so the odds of Charlie escaping without giving a straight answer were somewhere down around zero.

“How about I put it this way,” Charlie said. “What do you think happened?”

A look of focused thought consumed Dirkley's face, his head bobbing from side to side ever so slightly as they walked. “Well, it could have been any number of things. Improperly filling out your SPT report for one, or maybe the Bradley case—”

“You can stop giving me the benefit of the doubt, Dirkley,” Charlie interrupted.

The navigator was silent for a moment, and then said: “You disappeared again, didn't you.”

Charlie simply smiled and continued on.

“Charlie, why do this to yourself? Why make her miserable? Heck, why make yourself miserable? You try and hide it, but, I mean . . . Look, we've been together long enough, and no offense here, but you're not exactly a hard person to read.”

They were about halfway down the hall when they arrived at a pair of double doors and stopped. While the other doors that lined the passage were single wooden affairs, the ones they now stood in front of were composed of thick glass with a horizontal gray stripe drawn across them. The words
Ferryman Resources
were etched neatly above the stripe, with each door taking possession of one word.

“No offense taken,” Charlie said. He grabbed the handle on the door marked
Ferryman
and pulled it open. “Don't think too much about it. I need that enormous, insightful brain of yours worrying about things that actually matter.”

“You say that, but—”

Charlie looked over his shoulder. “Please. Not today, Dirkley.” He appreciated Dirkley's concern—he really did—but there were times his consideration only made Charlie feel that much worse.

Dirkley's eyes suddenly seemed glued to the carpet. “Yeah . . . sure. No problem . . .” His voice trailed off.

The two men entered the obnoxiously fluorescent wonderland
that demarcated the office of Ferryman Resources. From the doors, the room quickly opened into a small waiting area outfitted with at least a dozen comfortable-looking chairs, not entirely unlike a doctor's office. Across from the entrance, a long counter ran along the length of the entire room. A short young woman sat typing behind the counter, a small nameplate resting off to her right. Dirkley hung back by the doors.

As Charlie approached the counter, the woman looked up, her facial features arranged into a rather perfect secretarial smile. He couldn't tell if she was actually happy to see him or if she'd just been trained to smile like that by rote.

“Good evening, Mr. Dawson. How are you?” she asked.

Shitty, thanks for asking.
“Good,” he replied, smiling blithely but feeling none of it, “and yourself?”

“I'm doing great.” She pushed herself away from the computer hidden behind the counter, scooting off to her left on her wheeled chair. She set about sifting through a stack of large white envelopes until she found the one she was looking for. “Here you go,” she said, offering him the envelope.

Charlie took it from her hand, making a show of studying the large stamp at the top. Not that he needed to—the stamp hadn't changed even marginally in all the decades he'd been regularly receiving them:
Office of the President of the Ferryman Institute: SENSITIVE INFORMATION
.

He held it up. “Great. Thank you.”

The secretary maintained her smile. “Of course. Enjoy the rest of your night!”

Charlie fixed his own smile in place, as if to say he'd do exactly that, when he knew he'd do anything but.

“Get what you needed?” Dirkley asked as he fell into step beside Charlie on their way out.

Charlie gave a weak shrug. “Something like that.”

They walked the rest of the hall in silence, continuing straight until they reached its end. There, Charlie opened the doors to the heart of the Ferryman Institute.

The hustle and bustle of the control room couldn't have proved a greater contrast to Charlie's time in the desert. People quickly bounded by, some furiously talking on headsets as they marched along, others simply plodding about with their heads down. The room itself was massive—it could easily fit fifteen or sixteen commercial airplanes, twice that number if they were stacked one on top of the other—and needed practically a small city's worth of people to fill it. To the left, the area rose gradually to a raised command area that, at its highest, was about twenty feet above the ground floor. To Charlie's right, thousands upon thousands of desks were strewn about, no two quite exactly the same.

Charlie and Dirkley casually weaved their way through the throngs of people, all in various states of activity. In front of each desk, a little square section was marked out on the floor. With a steady regularity, men and women materialized into those squares in the exact same fashion Charlie and Cartwright had in the desert. Other men and women sat at the desks, writing or typing away. Most stopped what they were doing to acknowledge Charlie as he walked by, and he tried his best to do the same. The main difference between the two interactions was that they all knew who he was, while, almost to a person, he hadn't the faintest idea who any of them were.

After spending upward of five minutes winding his way through people and pleasantries, Charlie arrived at a neat, slightly weathered desk with an outdated computer, even by Charlie's standards, on top. A gold plate that read
DAWSON / DUPINE /
JOHNSON
in bold black letters sat on the right side of the desk. Dirkley moved past Charlie, dropped his papers on the desk, and hopped into the waiting chair with the sort of enthusiasm generally reserved for newborn puppies.

“Good to be back,” Dirkley announced, more to himself than anyone else, Charlie guessed. While the control room always made Charlie feel a little uneasy—probably something to do with the volume of people—to Dirkley, it seemed, there was no place closer to home.

With a deft flick of the navigator's wrist, followed by a quick volley of typing, the computer hummed back to life. The machine itself bore no significance—it was merely the conduit through which Dirkley did his part for the team. As far as Charlie understood it, each navigator chose the form of his or her navigation instrument. The criteria that the navigators used to choose their particular instrument all boiled down to personal preference—the information the navigator received was the same regardless of what physical object actually relayed it. For Dirkley, that meant an original 1977 Apple II personal computer.

The machine now up and running, the navigator pulled open a drawer, removed a headset, and fitted it over his head. He turned to say something to Charlie, only to stop abruptly. His eyes widened; his jaw clenched.

Charlie didn't have to guess why. A subtle hush settled around the area as nearby employees suddenly lowered their voices, so much so that Charlie could hear the footsteps close behind him.

One. Two. One. Two. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
They sounded against the tiled floor like practiced breathing.