Nightwise (27 page)

I stood and held up a hand. “One second. I want to show you something I recovered yesterday. If you have some blank paper—photographic or computer paper—that would be great.”

I ran upstairs, grabbed the old Kodak, and came back down. Bruce had a small ream of paper waiting.

“That's a beaut of an old camera there,” he said. “That a Brownie?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Special one too. Watch.”

I placed the camera on the stack of papers and laid my hand lightly on it.

“Veritatem revelare estis testificata,”
I said. Images from the archives at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing slowly developed on the paper underneath the camera, like an old Polaroid Instamatic, only faster.

“Very nice,” Bruce said. “An artifact of power. Someone loved this camera very much, and you took that love and power and turned it to a like-minded purpose. So you are an artificer too, Laytham. Impressive. It takes a bit of social engineering to make an item of power.”

I removed the camera and checked the paper; each sheet held one of the images I had taken of the mysterious occult symbols on the engraving dies for the U.S. currency.

“Not as impressive as you think,” I said. “I dabble. If I can't make the artifact I need, or find it, I steal it. It's got me in trouble quite a bit over the years. I almost grabbed a very badass straight razor a while back that would have cost me worlds of hurt.”

I handed the photographs to Bruce one at a time.

“What do you think? You ever see anything like this before?”

“No,” Bruce said. He opened a drawer in the buffet behind him and retrieved a magnifying glass. “I haven't.” He studied each picture carefully.

“It's an evolving system,” Bruce said. “Looks like they hit their stride in the 1930s. It looks pretty realized by then. I can see where it's derivative of a few Western traditional sources, but such bold, almost reckless innovation. This work is genius.”

“Any clue what it is, what it's doing?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“You ever hear of anything called ‘the Greenway'?” I asked.

“I'm afraid it doesn't ring any bells,” he said. “However, I might be able to put some of this into a historical context for you. Ever hear of Henry A. Wallace?”

“'Fraid not,” I said.

“He was Franklin Roosevelt's secretary of agriculture and second vice president,” Bruce said. “Not surprising you haven't heard of him. He's part of the history of the Life—one of those dark alleyways in history most folks don't wander down. He might have a connection to your mysterious new magic here, as well.

“Wallace was a damn good man, saved thousands of family farms during the Great Depression as agriculture secretary. He was also a seeker of truth and an avid occultist and mystic. He was into all kinds of stuff: astrology, Native American shamanism, Theosophy, Tibetan Buddhism. I don't know if he worked the power, but he sure as hell studied it and knew more about it than most.

“He was FDR's right-hand man and a heartbeat away from the presidency in the middle of the crucible of World War Two. I often wonder what path our world would have taken if he had become president at such a critical juncture.

“The reason I mention him at all is that he made many comments publicly that implied there were powers at work behind the economy of the United States. This was in 1935, the same year the dollar acquired the All-Seeing Eye, the same year this printing plate of yours, here”—he pointed to the photograph in front of him, the one with the unknown mystic symbols covering the edges of the die plate—“with a fully actualized and completely unknown magic system embedded into it, came into reality.”

“You think he was trying to warn people about whatever this is?” I asked. My coffee was cold. I didn't care. My instincts were screaming to me that I was on the right track here, and that this was much, much bigger than I had imagined.

“Or maybe he had been part of it and then saw where it was going and wanted out. You know how that works, Laytham. Sometimes there is no turning back. You're in too deep.”

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“Like I said, he was a good man, “Bruce said. “We both know what happens to good men in politics.”

“So maybe you can see if Wallace knew anything about this”—I held up a picture of one of the plates—“when you go into the Record.”

“I will try,” Bruce said. “Running the Akashic Record is like kayaking on a river full of rocks and falls. The more I go in trying to find, the rougher the ride, but yes, my interest is piqued.” He grinned. “I want to know too.”

 

NINETEEN

“May I study these photos? I have certain techniques to commit them fully to memory, but it takes a bit,” Bruce asked as he stood from the dining room table.

“Sure,” I said. “Any way I can assist? I'd like to see an Acidmancer in action, if I could?”

Bruce laughed. It was a soft, comfortable laugh, like mellow pipe smoke, or worn leather. It made you feel safe. “Come on, I'll show you the office,” he said.

He grabbed an old, worn dark green barn jacket off the hook by the living room doors, and I grabbed my leather jacket. He folded the pictures and stuffed them into a pocket of his coat. He led me out of the house and toward the big two-story metal prefab work building. The sun was bright again, but the wind had picked up. It was cold and our breath trailed out of our mouths.

We walked across the asphalt basketball court with its rain- and snow-faded chalk drawings and its lone post and goal, a rusting sentinel with a rotting net, a flag to an age of bright summer evenings, fireflies, and laughter.

“Pam mentioned our boy to you?” he said.

“Yes, I'm so sorry. A parent should never outlive a child.”

“Kids shouldn't outlive their parents, either,” Bruce said. “It's a mess, either way, this whole death business—poorly thought out, you ask me. And if you look back in the Record to the beginning or forward to the end, it doesn't change and it never makes sense in this world, ever. If I ever find God, I need to have sit-down with him about that.”

Bruce paused at the door and rummaged in his pockets until he found a key ring. He selected a key and unlocked the door. I felt a surge as powerful mystic alarms, wards, and defenses lifted like a stage curtain. He opened the door and gestured for me to enter.

Inside, the first level of the building was mostly taken up with what looked like a medical clinic. There were exam rooms, a well-stocked lab, and a waiting room and reception counter. Pam, in a Mumford & Sons T-shirt, red-and-black flannel shirt, and worn jeans, was doing paperwork in a small office just behind the waiting room and reception area. Her wall was decorated with pictures obviously drawn by children thanking her for healing their pets. She looked up and smiled at Bruce. He came around the desk and hugged and kissed her.

“I see you two found each other,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” he said. “I'm taking Laytham down to the office to show him around, and then I'm going in to find his mystery man.”

Pam tried to hide the disapproval on her face but failed pretty badly.

“Your loss,” she said. “I was making those scalloped potatoes you like so much for dinner.”

“Save me a plate,” he said. “I'll be home for dinner, just late. I want you to come fetch Laytham in about an hour or so, if you don't mind. I will be out in the Record by then, and I don't want him crashing any of our wards or our defenses crashing him while he's trying to get out on his own.”

“Okay,” she said, smiling. “I love you, old man. No wandering. I want you home by midnight.”

Bruce laughed, kissed her again, and then led me out of her cramped office. She waved to me and I waved back. I paused just long enough to see the worry slide back onto her face before she tried to outrun it in the paperwork.

The “office” of Bruce Haberscomb, the last Acidmancer, was a reinforced concrete-and-steel bunker hidden under the work building and accessible only by a hidden staircase. The secret door, the stairs, and the door to the office were all booby-trapped and dripping with magical and mundane alarms, detectors, and weapons.

“I need all of the security so that this doesn't end up with the wrong people,” he said, gesturing at the glittering womb of computer technology that laterally made up the walls of the large, cold spherical room. “It's the world's first fully functioning quantum computer. About twenty years ahead of its time. I had a friend at Los Alamos Lab. I hooked her up with an alchemist buddy of mine—funny story—they ended up getting married. They helped me get it up and running to deal with a little problem I had with a higher-order entity that was messing about with the world through satellites.”

“A higher-order entity?” I asked.

Bruce pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “A dragon, actually … Tiamat, actually, the um … the Mother of Chaos. She's not bothering anyone anymore, no siree.”

Bruce walked down a set of steel grid stairs to a large ring-shaped platform that surrounded the center of the room. The ring was edged with large flat-screen monitors, worktables covered with various electronic, computer, and alchemical gadgets, tools, bits and pieces, and lots and lots of computer servers and workstations. Another set of stairs descended from the ring platform to the floor of the chamber and granted access to another series of computer consoles, some lockers, a bunk, and additional workstations. Suspended from the center of the ring by massive steel and data cables was a dull steel capsule that reminded me ominously of a coffin with rounded edges. Bruce shrugged off his jacket and hung it on the back of a chair at one of the workstations.

“It comes in handy,” he said. “I need to keep the things I work on quantum-encrypted. I can't let the information I receive from the Akashic Record fall into the wrong hands.”

“So,” I said, “to sum up, you fought an ancient dragon-goddess with your magic quantum computer. Do you have a fan club? 'Cause if you don't, I'd like to start one.”

Bruce chuckled. He began to punch codes and commands into computers. The coffin-looking pod came to life. It lowered a few feet, and then a powerful gyrostabilized arm turned it until it was lying horizontally.

“We'll, I've heard a few of the tall tales about you too, Laytham,” Bruce said. “Needless to say, a whole heck of a lot more people know about Laytham Ballard than ever heard of me.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Only because you were busy saving the world, and I was busy trying to get all that attention.”

The pod opened with a hiss, and the top half of the capsule swung aside on hydraulic hinges. Inside was a grayish foam material with a vaguely human-shaped cavity cut out, allowing Bruce to lie down? Numerous hoses, cables, and sensory terminals lay coiled like snakes inside the cavity.

“Is it full sensory deprivation?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I like to narrow my perceptions to specific stimuli. I have contacts that function kind of like Google Glass, only more so. I have fast-twitch nerve-mouses built into those finger terminals there. All my vitals and brain patterns are registered at that terminal over there, and it regulates fluids and waste as well as the drip rate for the LSD. I have trained myself now so that, under normal circumstances, I can do with very minuscule doses of acid to achieve the state I need to metaprogram and navigate the Akashic Record.”

“Bruce, thank you for doing this,” I said. “I really have run out of places to look. Thank you.”

“Sure thing,” he said, smiling. “People like you and I have a gift. We get to see things, do things that normal folks would never, ever believe, never get. And the flip side of that is we have a duty to help when we can and to fight the bad guys where we find them. It's a privilege and an obligation.” Granny's words coming out of Bruce's mouth. “I'm glad to help you fight the good fight, Laytham.”

He set a few more parameters on the consoles before him, and then he took the photographs out of his jacket pocket and excused himself to the lower gallery. I sat, and I waited. After about twenty minutes, Bruce came back up in a white bathrobe. He was wearing swim trunks under it and had taken his glasses off. His eyes had a strange bright blue-white sheen, which made me think he was wearing smart contacts.

“Ready?” I asked. He nodded and checked a few readings on the screen. Bruce walked to the sensory deprivation pod and began to hook small sensor terminals to his chest and side.

“I've meditated and committed the symbols on the money dies to memory. Once I'm in, the pod will deliver the proper dosage of LSD to me through my skin, and I'll begin. You can sit quietly until Pam comes for you, Laytham. I'll see you by midnight, and I should have your answers.”

“Bruce,” I said, “I'm no hero. I'm nothing like you. I never wanted to be. I've always been the bad guy, or, at best, the selfish guy.”

“I know,” he said. “You don't think I'd jump into this without looking into you. I know what you are, I know what you've done, and I also know what a lot of people think of you. And I know what you think of yourself.”

“Then why the fuck are you doing this?” I asked. “You know what a bastard I am.”

Haberscomb tossed me his robe and chuckled. He climbed into the pod and got comfortable. He connected the terminals to his fingers and plugged several of the small cables into devices embedded in the sides of the pod.

“A person is his actions, not his intentions, and all I can say is that I looked you up and down in the Akashic Record, and I saw enough to convince me to help you. I haven't given up on you, Laytham Ballard, even if you have.”

With a gesture of his fingers, the pod began to close. Bruce gave me a peace sign and a wink before he was swallowed whole by the machine. Banks of computers began to hum and whirr. The air-conditioning in the office kicked into overdrive, and it became even cooler. The walls of the room throbbed with power as the quantum computer began to spin itself up to full power. The lights all dimmed. Music filled the chamber, and I realized I had seen Bruce pop small earbuds in. The music was slow at first, a piano, the whisper of strings. It enveloped the room, and it made me think of snow falling silently, gently in a deep woods. I looked on one of the monitors and it said “Metamorphosis One” by Philip Glass and Bruce Brubaker. I sat back and watched as the pod bearing Bruce Haberscomb rose on its metal arm of hydraulic tubes and cables, higher and higher, and then swiveled and turned over, around, rolling, moving Bruce through space as his mind now moved past the walls of flesh and bone into a realm of omens and portents, principalities and power, galaxies drifting like snow.