Disciple Read online

  I decided to ask Bron how we might create an odorless gas that could somehow be released simultaneously around the world. Everyone all at once might fall asleep and the Stelladren would multiply supplying all existence with soul bridges traveled by beings of all kinds. The human race would go down in the annals of infinity as the martyred people who saved God.

  While I was thinking, my right hand drummed on the bumpy armrest inside the chair. I hit a nub and something began to move. When I opened my eyes I saw that a semi-opaque screen was lowering in front of my face. On the screen was a menu:

  • Television

  • Newspapers

  • Company Files

  • Employees

  • Personal

  The TV function was great. I could see any show that had played within the last twenty-four hours. There were newspapers from around the world (translated!). I checked on my employee file. There was no surprise there. Every quarter Hugo Velázquez made a similar entry:

  Mr. Tryman’s work habits are sloppy and his comprehension of the projects is below standard. He’s usually on time to work and he stays late when his projects are behind (which is often) but many of his sick days come on Mondays and Fridays or before a holiday and he doesn’t get along well with his fellow workers …

  Not once had he recommended me for a promotion and I never received one. Twice he suggested my termination but his supervisor, a Lillian Porter, overrode the suggestion before it made its way up the ladder.

  I read my file obsessively. Hugo did not report the days I stayed late to finish jobs that he’d bungled. He never even suggested a pay raise. I wasn’t real to him. I could tell by the clipped language he used to describe me and my work. He resented taking the time to compose an evaluation.

  Of course why shouldn’t he look down on me? There I was plunging into middle-age without anything positive to say about what I’d done or where I’d been. My life was not even on the level of ordinary. I was a lonely creature wallowing in a hole I’d dug for myself.

  In Lessing’s Personal File there was a list of eight women’s names. Of these I recognized two: Trina Mallory and Dora Martini.

  I moved a hand-shaped cursor via a tiny mouse pad to Dora’s name. After a moment her name flickered and then an edited film began playing; an amateur film made with hidden cameras.

  It was in Lessing’s office. Dora was leaning over his desk with her red dress hiked up over bare buttocks. Lessing was behind her with his pants down and an erection so stiff that it was pointing up toward the ceiling. When he pressed himself down and into her the POV switched to another hidden camera so that the focus was now on the young M.I.T. graduate’s face. Her humiliation changed quickly to pain. Lessing was fucking her hard enough to make her body jolt from the successive impacts.

  I don’t know how long it went on because after half a minute of her degradation I turned off the recording and deleted it along with the other names.

  Lessing’s chair felt tainted, diseased. I climbed out of the space-age egg and went around to one of the visiting thrones. I had been allowed a glimpse into a torture chamber, a place I was not supposed to see. Bron had, overnight, created an overview of the shallow scum that we lived in. We preyed on each other just like we preyed on the planet and all its myriad life-forms.

  I got behind the desk again, not sitting in Lessing’s chair.

  “Trina?” I said into the intercom.

  “Yes, Mr. Tryman?”

  “Are you busy?”

  “No, sir. I mean I’m working here but—”

  “Could you come in a minute please?”

  I went back to my Chinese throne and when Trina came in I indicated for her to sit across from me. She was wearing green that day. My heart thumped and I felt guilty. She sat with practiced grace smiling, inviting.

  I wondered if Lessing, a small unimpressive-looking white man, had called her just like this and said that if she wanted to keep her job she’d have to pull up her skirts and bend over the desk.

  She was looking so pleasantly at me. There was no trepidation in that gaze.

  “Do you like this job?” I asked.

  “Yes … of course I do.”

  “And Mr. Lessing … was he a good boss?”

  “Very good.”

  It came to me that while I worried about Trina’s well-being at the same time I was contemplating the destruction of the world. These two gestures seemed to be the same. My desire for reparations included both life and death.

  “Do we have access to classes that teach people how to be better, more understanding managers?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Trina said. “Mogen Institute. They’re on retainer from InfoMargins.”

  “I’d like you to make sure that Miguel Corvessa and Hugo Velázquez go there. Miguel for training and Hugo for retraining. And I’d like you to tell Miss Martini, she’s in the data entry department—”

  “I know,” Trina said. “She’s been up here before today.”

  It was her one admission about Lessing. Of course Trina knew her. Dora had come, probably more than once to Lessing’s office. Maybe Trina heard the screams.

  “Yes,” I said. “Tell her that we’ll see if InfoMargin’s AI sector would welcome a transfer. Call them and ask. If they aren’t interested maybe we could see about sending her back to school.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, Trina, how much do we pay you?”

  “Fifty-four five, sir.”

  “I want to pay you eighty. Fill out the paperwork and I’ll sign it.”

  “I’m not sure that accounting will allow it, Mr. Tryman. They always made Mr. Lessing raise salaries in increments.”

  “I have a lot more pull than Lessing,” I said.

  I moved my head in a certain way and she took this as a dismissal.

  At the door she stopped and said, “Thank you, sir,” as if she had forgotten and felt embarrassed.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I was looking at your permanent record … you deserve the raise.”

  “I had some clothes delivered that I think will fit you,” she said with a real smile on her lips.

  “Great,” I said. “Leave them outside. I’ll get them later on.”

  I was distracted by the screen on my computer.

  Friend Hogarth?

  Yes, Bron?

  I have traveled far and wide, my brother. I have convened with living stars and been lectured to by intelligent viruses. I have been to a galaxy that is comprised of one great semisentient stone and I have met on the battlefield with warrior clans that revel in brave and glorious death.

  And what did all these beings have to say?

  That you are right. That once the human race is gone there will be no reliable way for us to assure the protection of the Stelladren.

  And so what is your decision?

  It is sad. Instead of planning a masterstroke to eradicate all human life we must disrupt the direction in which the world is going. We must frighten your race and retard its present path.

  What will we do?

  You are my brother, friend Hogarth. You have taken my Mission into your heart. But you are human too. It has been suggested that I merely direct you so that you will not be aware of the moment when you will bring about global restructuring.

  I sat back again in Lessing’s chair. Bron’s request frightened me though I could not say why.

  But, Bron, I have seen the Stelladren. I know what must be done.

  Yes. You and I are one in our purpose but all humans suffer the bane of duality. Being isolated, alienated, and alone all humans are at the same time One and the Other. Because of this nature you present a challenge to my time-sense. If you were to see clearly the plans I make for this world you might at the last moment draw back instinctively. And in that event such power might be released that the Stelladren may be damaged. It would be better for you, brother Hogarth, to remain ignorant as you were when you released the infection called Scarlet Death.


  Why did you have me release that pathogen, Bron?

  To prepare you for your destiny. You had to feel what it was like to cause the deaths of innocents.

  I had no idea of what you were doing that time, Bron, but now I know something. I know that something terrible will happen if the Stelladren are allowed to die. I know that we have to take violent measures to ensure their survival.

  You will be lulled, brother. Live your new life. Now and again I will ask you to do something. At some point this action will matter but often it will be a meaningless motion. That way you will never know when you are delivering the final stroke.

  I considered Bron’s request for many long minutes. Looking back on it now it wasn’t much time to think about the fates of so many millions, billions really. But it seemed like a long time to me. Finally I decided that I was a soldier, a drone. My job was to move forward, to trust Bron to save the Stelladren.

  Okay, Bron. I will move through the darkness seeing only your light. That will be enough.

  Thank you, brother. Now you are free to go about your life.

  We conversed for long hours after that. Bron wanted to know about my personal history. He asked about Nancy Yee and my mother, about friends I’d had in college and about college itself. Most aspects of humanity were alien to him. His race was immediate and physical in their education and communication. To know something all they had to do was touch. And because of the soul-weaving of the Stelladren across space and time his people were able to experience life on myriad planes of existence. Their trade and commerce was the sharing of souls.

  Bron?

  Yes, friend Hogarth?

  Do any humans experience the gift of the Stelladren?

  Most of your fellow humans, and some other Earth creatures, feel the touch of the Stelladren through their dreams. This is because Terran minds are not yet able to accept the immensity of life. Most DNA-based life-forms live inside material constructs and experience the world through primitive senses that cannot pierce the veil of being.

  Every now and then during our discourse I wondered if Bron was actually some socially inept nerd genius who just needed a friend and happened upon me. It might have been. But then I’d remember the meteorite and the vision of the Stelladren. No human being could evoke such splendor and not himself be imbued by grace.

  I asked Bron to give me full control of Shiloh so that I could send people to school and raise salaries as I saw fit. I wanted him to fire Arnold Lessing and to make sure that no one else would ever hire him again. Oddly, he suggested that I start a messenger pigeon loft on top of my building because he felt that it would do me good to connect with my mother and other friends in this primitive fashion. I could send my friends and family off with pigeons and they could send me little notes. I couldn’t see how this might damage the world and so I agreed without trepidation.

  I left my office well after ten that night. On Trina’s chair there was a wide white bag with a shirt, jacket, and trousers that fit me almost perfectly.

  On the long walk back to my apartment near Gramercy Park I thought about speaking suns and tiny minds so small that you couldn’t even see the thinkers. Then I remembered Bron saying how primitive human senses really were.

  My mind drifted toward the images I had seen of the Stelladren and their lights. This memory exhilarated and at the same time dwarfed me. I was miniscule, a mote drawn up by a breeze or a beam of light. There was no decision for me to make. What Bron said to me was truth, I had no question about that, I could not question it.

  Suddenly I was grabbed from behind and spun around. There I faced a huge man who had a smaller man standing beside him. The big man took me by the shoulder and slammed me against the wall.

  “Give us your money!” the smaller man, who was black, shouted.

  The big white guy slapped me for emphasis.

  I grabbed for my pocket to pull out whatever money I had. But all my cash was in my other, larger pants.

  “Hurry it up!” the little black man said.

  “Hold it!” yet another man shouted.

  I looked up to see a copper-skinned man in a nice suit holding a small pistol and pointing it at the big man’s face. The white man’s heavy features hardened. The black man reached for his pocket and my protector turned, almost casually shooting the would-be thief through his hand. The sound of the shot was hardly a pop.

  The black man hollered and ran down the street holding his hand and dripping blood on the sidewalk.

  The white man began backing away slowly, watching the pistol as he did so.

  The copper man watched the big white man until he too turned and fled.

  I looked at my savior feeling both fear and gratitude.

  Taller than I by a few inches, he was slender but gave the impression of strength. I knew he was deadly because I had seen how accurate and cavalier he was about shooting a man. He was handsome, probably South or Central American, and completely concentrated on the task at hand. When he was sure that the muggers were gone for good he turned his unwavering gaze to me.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Tryman?”

  I was standing there gripping the empty fabric of my pockets, clenching my sphincter so I wouldn’t soil myself … again—and then this man out of nowhere says my name.

  “Do I know you?”

  “No, sir. I’m Robert George, your bodyguard.”

  “I have a bodyguard? Since when?”

  “I was contacted yesterday. By the time I had prepared to meet you it was after hours and I had no one to make the proper introductions. So I waited and followed you. Lucky I did.”

  “Where are you from, Mr. George?”

  “Venezuela originally but I’ve been in the United States for some time.”

  I stared at him a moment or two.

  “We should be going, sir,” he said.

  As we walked I noticed that we were following the trail of blood left by the black mugger.

  “Shouldn’t we call the police or something?”

  “No, sir. The thief won’t say what happened. It would be a waste of your time to file a complaint. And I don’t need the headache of explaining why I fired my weapon.”

  “Okay,” I said and Robert George lifted his hand and waved.

  A dark Lincoln pulled to the curb next to us. A slender white guy in a chauffeur’s cap and a tan suit jumped out and opened the door for me. Robert George got in on the other side next to me and told the driver where to go.

  On the way he explained that the main office at InfoMargins had reason to believe that I might be in danger and so they assigned the driver and bodyguard.

  They let me off at my building and the driver, Liam, asked at what time should he pick me up.

  “I come down around eight fifteen,” I said.

  “I’ll be here by seven,” Liam told me. His hair was both red and brown and his eyes were green.

  “See you in the morning, sir,” Robert George said.

  * * *

  IT ALL MADE SENSE by the time I got to bed. Bron was worried that I’d be killed by some accident or mugger. He probably saw the muggers coming at me with his time-sense. He put a guard on me and provided a driver to protect his investment.

  Robert George and Liam were new people in my life. I didn’t make new friends often. I didn’t know many people. I used to have more friends when I was in my twenties and just out of college. But as time went on and I stayed the same people drifted away from me. I met someone now and again and we’d connect in some way; either we’d go to movies or bowling for a while. But for all my fat there was never much to hold on to.

  I knew right off, though, that it would be different with Liam and Robert George. They worked for me. They’d be there every morning, waiting. I liked that idea and, then again, I felt exposed because it revealed how empty my life was.

  After a sleepless hour in bed I got up and went online. I spent the rest of the night looking up white messenger pigeons. They were big for their family, a pou
nd or more. They had been known to travel over fifteen hundred miles in just two days to make it back home. Messenger pigeons were used by generals in every war up to and including Vietnam and they never failed.

  This notion intrigued me. The secret of success was hard-coded into a messenger pigeon’s genes. They didn’t fail because it was in their nature to return home and humans needed that constancy.

  I was drawn to the idea of these birds; their sense of home and their unerring intention, their instinct. I felt akin to them in some way that I couldn’t define. I thought of Bron coming to consciousness on a mountaintop and descending because he knew, instinctively, that this was his destiny.

  I didn’t sleep at all that night. I ordered pigeon chicks and a prefabricated loft for the birds. I didn’t know how I was going to get access to the roof but I had stopped worrying about things like that. Bron would get me access. After the past two weeks I came to understand that my friend could do almost anything … anything but destroy the world.

  * * *

  “MR. TRYMAN,” SOMEONE CALLED as I was going down the stairs in the morning.

  It was my upstairs neighbor, Ralph Moore. His apartment was on the top floor. He was the one who could give me access to the roof.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “I spoke to your lawyer yesterday.”

  “Really? Yesterday?”

  “Yes. It was a very good offer … very good. I said I’d sign. I know your stipulations and I’ll be out by the first of the month.”

  “Do you think I could get up on the roof before then?” I asked.

  “Your lawyer mentioned that too,” the sandy-haired white man said. He was younger than I, an architect. We’d had one conversation when he bought the place above mine and then he never really talked to me again. But now he was all smiles and friendliness.