The Salieri Effect: Installment #42

A busy chapter, that previous installment: one of the internet's more insidious bloggers, Sid Wreckstra, sets out to ruin Dr. T. Richard Kerr, courtesy of Arcangelo Collegnano's faking of his e-mail about a stolen letter originally sent to Lorenzo daPonte back in 1816; and just when things could conceivably still get worse as the Basilikon Lab appears on the verge of collapse (physically, if not financially), who should show up but Osiris' newest employee, the massive security director, Shango. The IMP's not sure what kind of information they're getting from the freshly arrested Dr. Charles Dawson, caught trying to escape the building during the raid, but Agent Calliope-Jane makes a discovery that might help rescue Bond and the other agents still trapped inside. Will she be able to get them out before the rest of the building implodes?

= = = = = = =

CHAPTER 30

Tom heard the noise distinctly, waking up from a late-afternoon nap. Mrs. Danvers wouldn't be here this late; she's not scheduled till tomorrow. If Terry and Cameron had come back, they would've called first. No, his first thought – well, third thought – was it must be Wormwood, back for the box, and he was somewhere downstairs. He reached for his phone but it had no signal, and tiptoed around, searching for anything handy to serve as a weapon better than his cane which he figured would send the wrong signal.

If he made enough noise getting out of bed, perhaps the intruder would hear it and leave. Or, alerted there was someone in the house, maybe the guy would just run upstairs after him.

It sounded like a scuffle. Who else was there? Someone else attacked Wormwood?

“No – stop!” The voice was male, vaguely familiar.

Tom made it half-way down the steps. It was an odd sight: a young man, short, overweight and decidedly alone, flailed his arms in the air as if fending off a flock of mosquitoes. He was dressed all in black (which, Tom noted, attracted mosquitoes except it wasn't Mosquito Season yet), and wore a balaclava.

When he saw Tom, the man – apparently not Wormwood, given Mrs. Danvers' detailed description – pulled out a pistol. Tom raised his cane – not much of a struggle – and waited for the crack of gunfire.

None came. This masked fellow collapsed to his knees, hands clutched over his ears. Then another man – a third Wormwood? – charged through the door, shouting “IMP – drop the gun!” Which the second Wormwood did.

The agent quickly introduced himself as Virgil Fitzwilliam. “I'd been assigned to watch your house – and a good thing, too, apparently.”

When Fitzwilliam tore the guy's mask off, it was Mrs. Danvers' good-for-nothing nephew, Lanny Danvers, who began to whine how “the place is full of invisible music.” And yet Tom couldn't hear a thing.

What was it Lanny mumbled as Fitzwilliam hauled him away in handcuffs – “the wrong cousin got the house”? There's another cousin? Did Lanny work for someone who thought he should've inherited the cabin instead?

And was Lanny really the intruder Tom had been calling Wormwood? “You'd think Mrs. Danvers would recognize her own nephew. Unless...”

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Deputy Dett watched as the jeep screamed out of the warehouse, laughing because the thing reminded him of a clown car – nine people got off of it once Calliope-Jane brought it to a halt – but then he saw the roof of the warehouse start to cave in along with much of the ground behind it. Once he noticed what was left of the jeep as it barely cleared the smaller warehouse, almost rolling on its passenger-side tires, he assumed, given everybody's horrified expressions, this was definitely no laughing matter.

The State Police put in their appearance, the Intrepid Hook & Ladder Company from Greenfield joined the local firefighters to put out the blaze, but another hour went by before it was “under control.” Even then, the Fire Chief allowed only a few agents access to the ruins, once he'd passed out some hard hats.

After Cameron relocated his heart and stomach, definitely the wildest ride he'd ever had in his life (“memo to self: don't take any road trips with Calliope-Jane in the future”), he checked his phone. Three messages from Terry explained they needed to get to some place in Missouri to check out a surprising new lead.

The last one ended “I'm in Sanza, MO, about ready to meet Rose Philips. Call me if you're not too busy...”

On that note, Cameron decided it'll wait until he'd unwound a bit more.

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

“No, that one's dead. This one's in shock – he'll come out of it.”

The voice, masculine and not exactly warm but efficient and appropriately fact-based, moved off as I swam back to the surface. It was overcast deep down wherever I was but the good news, ostensibly, was I was still alive, whatever had happened. All I remembered was the full-orchestra crescendo leading to the explosive percussion attack, a high sustained dissonance in the flutes and violins before everything collapsed into a low chord in the brass and strings.

The woman I heard – that would be Alice Hubbard, my driver – talked to a man who began to sound like a policeman; and the first voice I'd become aware of must have been one of the paramedics who'd arrived on the scene. The one who's dead, who'd been trying to kill me: who was he?

When I went to sit up, my body wasn't up to the effort, so I slumped back down on the floor. The other paramedic, a young woman, came over and gently straightened my legs out, checking to see if anything was broken. It would be amazing if there wasn't. Everything sure hurt like hell... “Ouch!”

The policeman said, “according to his driver's license, the dead man's Dexter Shoad.”

“Dexter Shoad? Why'd he try to kill me?”

“Or for that matter, why would he have tried to kill Rose Philips...?”

After a short while, the woman I'd hoped to meet and discuss what I thought might be “a few loose ends” had come to as well, and the policeman, a reassuring old-fashioned soon-to-retire Irishman named Malachi Mulligan, suggested it might not go “far amiss” to have the hospital check out two “old codgers like yourselves.” The paramedics agreed if we could rest a while on the couch in her music room, we'd be okay for now. A doctor who lived “down the road” would come check on us soon.

After some brief conversation, I asked if she knew who Phillips Hawthorne was. “Does the nickname 'Trazmo' mean anything to you?”

We sat beside the piano in silence as the paramedics removed Dexter's body.

Rose sat up, sighed, and squared her shoulders. “I knew this time would come eventually. I'm surprised it's taken this long.”

She began slowly, taking a long sip of the tea Alice brought in. “I knew him once, a long time ago. He was this brilliant young musician, a genius-in-waiting, they told him, a prodigy. Not a bad pianist but he wanted to become a composer and his first works were startlingly promising for his age. He got the best teachers, his father – proud, wealthy, and arrogant – hired the best musicians to play his pieces; some said he paid to have someone write them for him, but that wasn't true.

“Maybe you're talented, with some potential for success; or maybe you're gifted with a better than average imagination, more innate skills. Then there's this huge gap between being gifted and being a genuine prodigy. The trouble is, everybody wants their talented kid to become the Next Mozart, so everyone starts marketing him as a prodigy.”

As he got older, she continued, it became more difficult for Hawthorne to compose, no longer coming so easily for him, but there were expectations (“everybody had their own expectations, they all told him”). And pretty soon, unable to compose anything at all, he fell back on just writing the same pieces over and over. That's when he realized maybe he's not a “prodigy,” maybe he's just gifted. But then he wondered if, deep down, he really had the kind of talent it took to support such a gift.

“He had learned the rules of the game but the game wasn't fun any more: it was too much like work. If it wasn't fun, why bang yourself against the wall until you're all bruised and bloody? You can quit a job... So,” she said, taking a deep breath, “he decided he would walk away.”

Some of it, she said, was hard, like what to do next; some wasn't – “like leaving his bastard of a father and all that money behind.” It took years to work out the details.

“He saved some money he kept in a secret account, actually quite a bit of it, eventually, but he knew how to lie, to play a part – that was Trazmo's role, his nasty alter-ego. This transition from Trazmo the Prodigy to the mature realization of Phillips Hawthorne would become his masterpiece! The question was when...

“Then one year, Hawthorne went to one of those artist colonies – it's somewhere in Iowa.”

“At White Hill,” I said, “right.”

“There were these four older composers, and Hawthorne had to be Trazmo, the arrogant brat who put on this braggadocious front, but he found himself envious of them, their ease and sense of security. They'd sit around the music room, playing some of their pieces for each other – Hawthorne wasn't included, they never included him – but he'd written them all down in a notebook, I'm not sure why.

“That's one thing I have of Phillips Hawthorne's, that notebook. It's there, in the bench. Dexter told me he'd found it. He thought those themes – ideas – were mine, and decided he'd use them in this piece of his as a tribute to me – but they weren't mine, and he became angry... – well, yes, about Hawthorne...

“Anyway, what else could he do but compose? He was a good-enough pianist to be a composer, but not good enough to become a concert performer (practicing took too much time away from composing). Maybe teach piano in a small town where nobody knew who he was? Where there wouldn't be that kind of pressure?”

“You seem to know quite a lot about him – Phillips Hawthorne...”

She nodded.

“Yes, you could put it like that. We sort of grew up together. You see, I used to be Phillips Hawthorne.”

Rose Philips continued with her story.

“I've known since I was about 13 that I wasn't really a boy – I mean, psychologically, the old 'woman-trapped-in-a-man's-body' thing except it seemed much more complex than that. I created Rose Philips long before I thought I'd make 'the transition,' just a female cross-dressing persona – but that wasn't enough.

“About a year after Trazmo disappeared, I went to Wisconsin for the operation, so I told people here I'm taking a 'sabbatical' to visit a sister in Connecticut who needed help dealing with cancer.”

The decision to face that, to go through with all that surgery, had been even more momentous than leaving Trazmo behind. There were many adjustments and it took time to get used to everything, but in the end, the results were “exhilarating.” For once in this lifetime, Rose Philips admitted, she was now officially happy.

“Surprisingly, Dexter fell in love with me. Then when he realized I was 'trans,' became disgusted, thinking that made him 'queer.' I don't think he meant to hurt me, he just pushed me, like, to get out of his sight, but I lost my balance and fell – probably hit my head on the piano bench.

“That's apparently when you showed up and he must've panicked. Alice said he had tried to strangle you?” Rose seemed incredulous.

“He wasn't 'trying'...” My neck still showed the marks from his make-shift garrotte.

“Yes, well... fortunately Alice was here, then.”

“Fortunately, Alice had a gun and is an expert shot,” I added, “but I'm sorry he died.”

“You would've been sorrier if you'd died, don't you think?”

Officer Mulligan of Sanza's finest came in, knocked quietly, and wanted to know if we're ready to make our statements, now.

“Would you give us a few more minutes, please, Malachi? We're almost done. Oh, Alice, how're you doing, dear? You both must be terribly rattled by all this. Can I get you more tea?”

Rose made an attempt to stand up but leaned against the piano for support. “I'm sorry, I'm still a bit woozy.” Sitting back down, she admitted hardly a day went by she didn't think back on that past life, about “what if.”

“But at what cost? No, I don't miss Trazmo – not in the least.

“I'd watched everybody else get back on that bus once the roads were opened and said good-bye to Trazmo, Boy Wonder. I seriously didn't think anybody would ever miss him – I knew I wouldn't! But I had no idea what'd happen next, that they'd think I'd been murdered or Thomas Purdue would be a suspect!

“There was this boarding house about five blocks from the motel – Mrs. Hubbard's...”

“Alice's Mom? So – what... you know each other?”

“We kept in touch but no,” Rose explained, “she didn't know my secrets.

“Anyway, I rented a room for about a month; then, once spring rolled around, I took a bus and headed south. And there was this pretty little house for sale next to this pleasant little park with a bandstand, and I thought, 'what a nice spot to start over.' So I got off the bus.”

I called Sheriff Diddon, told her where I was, and what, briefly, had happened, just steam-rolling through the basic facts before I introduced Rose Philips and put her on speaker to conclude the tale. Needless to say, as it unfolded, Diddon was suitably amazed, eventually dumbfounded: this was not the outcome anyone even remotely anticipated.

“Well, Doctor, pending the investigation's official verification, looks like your friend Purdue will no longer be a suspect in the murder or disappearance of Phillips Hawthorne. But you should know what's going on here...”

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Nobody knew exactly how many died between the gunfight, the fire, and the building's collapse, beyond two IMP agents unaccounted for. Sam knew Bond was reliving Shendo's death, too, and their own narrow escape. But there had been no sign of Osiris, her main objective, beyond the charred remains of his highly distinguishable wheelchair – again.

The bigger question for Sam was what happened to the hundreds of drones? They should've failed once the smoke contaminated the sensors, no longer able to receive signals, and just dropped like dead flies.

He couldn't get it out of his mind, that moment when he realized the drones might have become self-aware. If everybody's dead except for him and Dawson, then who'd be left to control them? Then, too, where'd they go? They knew enough to hide. Can they increase the size of the swarm? Could they... reproduce?

Back in the lab's burned-out shell, Sam found what little was left of his work area, but at least the small safe in one of his storage cabinets was intact and he could open it. His back-up remote control device still worked.

“Look, Agent Mbira,” he said, holding it up. “This by-passes the main servers...”

But once he got into the program, it took so long to get past all the encryption codes, everything ground to a halt as soon as he finally clicked on the “Abort” Command.

“Frozen?”

Mbira looked at him and they both frowned. If he can't shut the program down – unless he did shut it down but that caused it to freeze...? Unless another controller somehow overrode his command?

“Or did the drones...,” Mbira said, looking at him skeptically, afraid to suggest it, “countermand it themselves? Maybe out of self-defense?”

It didn't bode well if the Mobots could still carry out their own directives, if he can't even shut them down.

But it was time to take a break. It'd been a busy-enough day.

Fortunately at that point, his phone rang. It was Cameron, on his way down to Missouri, but they'd talk more, later.

“Yeah, looks like I'll be filling out lots of paperwork for awhile, anyway. So,” Sam said, turning away from the others, “you know a decent place in this town to go grab that drink?”

= = = = = = =

to be concluded...

©2022 by Dick Strawser for Thoughts on a Train

 

 

 

 

 

The Salieri Effect: Installment #41

Dr. Kerr's miscalculation with his e-mail about the stolen daPonte Letter, warning it could soon show up for sale on the Black Market, prompted Arcangelo Collegnano to do something about this meddlesome would-be musicologist. It always amused him how easily you could create "fake news" on the Internet, easily capable of sabotaging a reputation or destroying an otherwise useless career. The previous installment also followed the increasingly dangerous path of Cameron and his IMP friends and especially the bad news for al-Zebani and presumably for the Aficionati's mastermind, Osiris. Was this going to be the end of their terrorist plot to overtake the World of Classical Music?

And something to be thankful for: after this, there are only two more installments! "The End," as the old doomsday prophet was fond of saying, "is Near!"

= = = = = = =

CHAPTER 29

Somewhere in a small windowless room – one always assumed it was a small room – somewhere in Europe – one usually assumed it was Europe, specifically Western Europe in this case – a blogger opened his e-mail. At least, one assumed it was a man – one typically would – but even Arcangelo Collegnano wasn't entirely sure of that, really. It could've been an airy room overlooking the Côte d'Azur which didn't strike him as likely; it could've been a young woman as easily as an irritable old man above some backstreet in Glasgow.

Come to think of it, if pressed on the matter, Collegnano wasn't sure of very much, in this case: who knew, trying to figure out who some of these bloggers were behind their masks? Even those with actual photos in their profiles who went by real-sounding names, were you ever really sure who they were?

Now, with a name like Sid Wreckstra, there were assumptions to be made, regardless of how much information was made available: yes, it was probably a man (a woman would spell it Sydney, right?) and he was most likely English, maybe American. There were inflections in the syntax one assumed was British, the spelling aside. Collegnano assumed – it was awkward for a musicologist of his caliber to “assume” anything – he's also a fan of Henry James who, he reminded himself, wasn't technically an English writer but an American one.

But should someone cross-examine him as a writer for “The Musicologist's Digest,” were he challenged by a colleague with a different point of view (most everybody had a differing point of view about something), how would Collegnano defend his argument the blogger was an American ex-pat who'd lived in London but subsequently retired to Paris? If someone with a knowledge of linguistics or one who'd done a detailed pathological study of speech patterns in different languages, what if they detected, say, a Russian who'd spoken English fluently since childhood?

It didn't matter that most of those who never read “The Musicologist's Digest,” which included the great majority of people, would ever care about such quibbles because “quibbling” was what musicologists called “job security.” It's what people like Collegnano thrived on and one of the main reasons he considered himself a fan of Sid Wreckstra's.

As the self-styled “Musical Muck-Raker,” Wreckstra, weighing in on topics of interest only to scholars, tried bringing the rarefied erudition once found only in the Letters section of “The Digest” into the public eye; more often he skewered self-important performers and composers, especially opera directors of the “Relativist” School, and pompous, over-the-top experts and critics. Favorite targets were critics for major newspapers and websites who knew too much about music, plus those lesser entities who made it abundantly clear they knew absolutely nothing beyond what they'd read on Wikipedia.

But since newspapers had long “rumbled off into the Stegosaurian Sunset (periodically speaking),” there were few critics left beyond a handful of bloggers who spent most of their bandwidth trying to disembowel each other. This led scholars like Collegnano, recognizing Wreckstra's breadth of knowledge, to imagine he was a famous musicologist moonlighting in pop culture.

Particularly susceptible to Wreckstra's attacks were those with introductions to concerts – say, featuring Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor – who perpetuated bogus mythologies explaining why it was unfinished: it's because Schubert died (“well, yes, but not in any chronologically tangential way”); or because he felt it was perfectly complete in two movements (“not exactly...”).

As for his critiquing new recordings, another dwindling field, getting a decent review from Wreckstra was the Tepid Kiss of Death. Much better to go down in flames with something outrageous one could blurb.

No sooner had he heard the ping of new e-mail being delivered at the end of a long and uneventful day, a bored Sid Wreckstra checked his in-box and saw a vaguely familiar name. It wasn't difficult for Wreckstra to find himself “bored,” in fact it happened several times a day, several days a week. He had already posted two scathing articles about orchestras announcing their new seasons: one ridiculing programs featuring 97% dead white guys, and how others, programming 25% works by living composers, had “abandoned their base.”

Not knowing what he'd write about for his next post – the past weeks were fitting into an all too predictable pattern – that name piqued his interest and broadened his options, so he pounced on it with rejuvenated curiosity and intense antipathetical malice. Wreckstra was nothing if not a Character Assassin of the highest Ninja order.

Yes, the name rang a few bells: Dr. Richard Kerr's collection of “music appreciation” essays subtitled “Behind the Scenes with Biographies of Famous Compositions” which he'd reviewed as “more like music depreciation, tales told by an idiot for the naïve and unimaginative.” What now? What surprises would this e-mail foretell? Perhaps his problem was solved?

Did Dr. Kerr have a new book and he's looking for a blurb?

Surprise! More of “a long overdue cry of deplorable desperation.” Why, even before opening it, his response began to write itself.

When he looked over the extensive routing list – he found himself amidst some of the greatest names in the musicological business – Wreckstra knew he had to prove himself with one of his “finest” efforts. And he knew he must be the first to respond, publishing this “breaking news” to the immediate world of the internet.

He thought he'd begin with “the smug, self-satisfied attempt of a would-be know-it-all eager to draw some slight modicum of even the most fleeting attention to himself, the dying gasps of a menopausal musicologist.”

Technically, if he needed to be honest, he figured Kerr was beyond the Age of Menopause, but it had a nice ring to it, plus there were a few literary points for the alliteration. Plus, once he'd taken a look at the attached photo, he left out one of his loudest LOLs in recent months.

Never a religious or even a spiritual man, Wreckstra still sent up a brief thank you to whatever deity was in charge of the Universe this day and proceeded to craft his newest post. There was so much material here – “truly a god-send, whichever god chose to send it” – he hardly knew where to begin.

To go back to “the beginning” involved too much exposition: he needed to start with a direct punch, grab their attention. Just start writing, he reminded himself, it was just a draft – improvisando assai.

It's not like he needed to make anything up. There was such a wealth of insanity in this e-mail, the question was “which bit is bound to prove the most significant, the greatest grab?” As usual, he'll figure out where to “start” later; the thing is, for now, just strike while the inspiration is flaming.

Regardless where the photo had originated, the text of the e-mail was definitely Kerr's attempt to claim credit for some discovery. But of what? A letter supposedly by Salieri in which he threatens to kill Mozart? “Seriously? Hasn't Salieri suffered enough,” Wreckstra wrote, “without that ancient canard? Must we still contend with these age-old shibboleths? No one, Amadeus aside, still believes in that long-debunked myth, and this so-called letter will hardly open a 225-year-old cold case.” Yet, he felt the line, “I'm coming for you, dude,” was seriously meme-worthy.

“It's clear to anyone who'll read this” – he debated whether to include the complete text or quote its most salient bits – “this sad wreck of a man seeks to create some late-in-life notoriety in an attempt to dupe the scholarly world with his 'discovery' at the end of his long, on-going failure of a career. Is it possible,” he continued, “anyone would buy he'd unearthed something like this in, of all places, a suburb of Philadelphia? Or is it intended as a parody of the old 'Look-What-I-Found-in-Grandma's-Attic' fairy tale?”

He needed to include a link to his review of Kerr's bunglesome essays just to remind his readers before wrapping up. “Whatever he thinks of himself, surely the community-at-large now regards him as nothing more than an embarrassment to the world of Classical Music to be put out of our misery, once and for all.”

Seriously, he wondered, “how stupid must Kerr think we are? Just because he knows nothing about the 18th Century Venetian dialect Salieri spoke, writing to another 18th Century Venetian like Lorenzo daPonte, Kerr assumes neither would these experts of 18th Century music. He didn't even try to imitate Salieri's handwriting which is very well documented.”

What more can be said about lines where Salieri, once he'd threatened to kill Mozart, intended to frame daPonte, even warned him literally to “get the fuck out of Dodge? One can only laugh!”

In a few more minutes, he'd skimmed over it – he was notoriously accurate in his first drafts and rarely ever needed to make corrections; besides, speed was of the essence, here: definitely “BREAKING NEWS!” – then hit POST and out it went.

“Done!”

It was now only a matter of time. He sat back to wait.

In Vienna, as Collegnano sat back with his evening's ritual of postprandial cognac and music – tonight, it's the final act of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito – he heard the daintiest ping from his laptop. There was a reply – actually, a “reply-all” – from Sid Wreckstra, his first response, which included a Facebook link to Wreckstra's blog.

Rather than interrupt the music, he chose to wait until the opera's conclusion, despite flurries of additional pings, undoubtedly more responses. When Collegnano checked Facebook later, Wreckstra's post had 1,597 likes and 610 shares.

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Once the fan crashed and the floor started to give out, Sam and Cameron made a mad dash for the large gateway that had opened up beyond them and not a moment too soon. Bond and Gurdie pulled them across the threshold just as the gate began to close as suddenly as it had opened. While they caught their breath, Bond did another quick nose-count, everyone except Calliope-Jane accounted for. She'd seen her on the balcony, taking aim at Piltdown over the railing. How did she get up there?

But hadn't she seen at least the top of her afro – awfully hard to hide with that giving your position away – just before Osiris and that villain-du-jour of his showed up on the balcony? Had she found a place to hide and wait for an opportunity to take them both out? What happened to her?

The situation, she knew, was grim, as she stood there in the dim light (by the way, where did this light come from?). Everyone looked exhausted, lying there or propped up against the wall. This wasn't the first time this idea had occurred to her, she admitted: maybe she was getting too old for this. It also occurred to her, it's good Dr. Kerr wasn't on this one: he was definitely getting too old for this! Whatever'd happened to Calliope-Jane, she must get her team – and Cameron – out safely.

Who knew how much time they had left before the whole building collapsed. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the dim light as she assessed the space they were in, more than just another tunnel. (“Why did it have to be a tunnel...?”). It was quite wide with a tall, apparently arched ceiling, maybe 21-feet high? She could make out light fixtures but that wasn't the light source. Were there windows across the top caked with dirt? Maybe they weren't that far underground. Piles of dirt and stone were everywhere.

“How long since this particular tunnel was last used,” she asked Agent Senn.

He looked around, lifting himself up off the floor. “Don't know – maybe back when it was still the old Ratchett factory.”

“I don't think so,” Cameron said, pacing around the floor. “Much of this dirt is loose and the tracks seem fresh.”

“Hey, Cameron,” Sam said, “isn't that the lab coat Haradov gave you? Does it still have his ID badge on it?”

He checked the lapels and found it, still attached to the left side.

“Excellent! Maybe it'll get us through some security gates on our way out. This should lead to one of those warehouses.”

Cameron and Bond had both seen them from the “crime scene” where the earlier body had been found. Shendo figured that's probably how Kerr got in and then proceeded to “muck this up royally.”

“But how'd he manage that unless he had an ID badge,” Sam asked.

Cameron just shrugged his shoulders.

Bond said Kerr was nothing if not resourceful. “That's not important: how do we get out?”

“This tunnel probably originates at the central lab area and must've been used to transport waste to the warehouse dump sites.”

“When I tossed out the remains of the spent drones earlier,” Mbira mentioned, “I noticed there were two trashcans marked with a biohazard symbol. What kind of waste are we talking about here, Sam?”

“Nobody ever told me when I'd ask. I was told to stop asking. Maybe we should stay away from the walls...”

Shendo and Gurdie had leaned against the walls to catch their breath but immediately stood up and stepped into the center.

“So,” Gurdie wondered, “that fan filtered off biohazardous material and released it outside?”

With that bit of news, the IMP team, led by Sam Senn and Shendo, with Bond bringing up the rear, guns drawn and all eyes peeled, walked as quickly as possible through the tunnel. Sam's flashlight found an old metal sign on another metal door blocking their path, faded yellow paint with chipped black letters:

“Protective Gear Must Be Worn Beyond This Point.”

Underneath, a grinning skull and cross-bones left little to imagine about the message.

Cameron and Sam looked around for something that could read an ID Badge.

“Hmm,” Sam grunted, “it makes sense this'd be operated by a remote in the truck's cab, so nobody would get out and expose themselves by opening it manually.”

Shendo pounded on the door.

“So,” Cameron mumbled, “you're saying we're screwed?” Sam chose not to say anything.

“Shendo, seriously – you think someone's gonna answer the door?”

In the eerie silence that followed, Bond wasn't sure whether she heard it first or felt it, vibrating through her boots. Was it the sound of footsteps, something walking toward them – something very big?

Shendo took a quick few steps back, the look on his face one of shock: what, exactly, had he awakened?

“Shit...”

This was soon replaced by a series of slow, steady, and decidedly ominous poundings as if some very large and probably prehistoric creature started knocking on the other side.

“This does not sound good...”

With one last, loud reverberant knock – Cameron thought it was more of a kick – the gate slowly began to swing inward. The most obvious of commands required no interpretation. Bond joined the others as they scurried off to hide behind the rubble.

All they heard was the slow creaking of hinges and an aching sigh.

The doors gradually opened onto a narrow pool, an eerie bluish light beyond the darkness that barely illuminated the tunnel's continuation. Sam, closest to the gate, saw nothing but a blank infinity – a void.

Then came the shock of recognition – the figure of a man (presumably) stepped into the light and pushed the doors open only a slight fraction further, but not enough anyone could get past him. Black as ebony, skin polished and gleaming, he was immense, bare-chested, and wore only camo shorts and black military boots.

Shango!

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Dr. Charles Dawson, a bumbling, blonde-haired scientist at the best of times, looked more deflated than usual, now hand-cuffed between two agents of the International Music Police, each one holding a gun on him. He'd been caught running from the building shortly after the IMP forces had arrived and engaged Basilikon security in the lobby. He whined how he'd tried to get away from the lab director Ifrit al-Zebani's clutches, how he wanted nothing more to do with the old man's project, something about Osiris and his killer drones.

Sheriff Diddon decided to ignore the IMP agents and asked Dawson, “what project – and what do you mean, it's a lab? According to information in our files, Basilikon is a technical data storage facility.”

“Technically, that's what it is,” he explained, “but it's only a front. It's really an engineering laboratory to develop killer drone-bots.”

“And you expect us to believe that?” The sheriff stood, striking a favorite pose with a wide stance and arms akimbo.

“Actually, ma'am,” said another of the IMP agents nearby, “that's already been proven.”

Captain Sal Feggio of the IMP's Chicago Division stepped forward after talking to Agent Calliope-Jane Lautenwerckque of the St. Louis Division.

“This agent tells me she's witnessed these killer drone-bots first-hand before she escaped from the building. And we must now get back in there to rescue Chief Inspector Bond and her team – and quickly!”

Feggio had been unable to reach Bond after he'd received an urgent warning from Capt. Ritard she might need back-up for this rather hastily arranged mission which, he'd discovered, had rapidly deteriorated. Alerted to the situation's potential severity from Sammy Senn, their undercover agent, he mobilized a response unit and landed as quickly as possible.

“We don't know about Chief Inspector Bond's mission or why things escalated here, but given what Agent Lautenwerckque, here, just told me, it's done more than that already. Six lives are now in danger.”

Feggio took over the interrogation of Dr. Dawson who began singing like a well-trained canary with evidence against his former employers, in addition to numerous passwords to various data files, particularly the building's schematics. They could also use his ID badge to access any security keypad to enter the building through the warehouses behind them.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Dawson brought up, almost apologetically. “These drones are attracted to anything orange, so if any of your agents happen to be wearing any orange items, they'd best remove them.”

Feggio, eyebrows raised, looked at him somewhat dubiously. “And you know this... how?”

Calliope-Jane went to investigate something behind the warehouses.

With a sigh, Dawson explained he'd been brought in to work on the project's development, unaware what the end-product would be. “Believe me, if I had known, I would've said 'no' right away, absolutely.”

Feggio nodded his head politely in mock-acceptance. “Yes...?”

“They wanted some kind of target for the drones' ability to hunt, something not everybody would wear but bright enough to activate the drones'... attack mode.”

“So, 'ability to hunt' and 'attack mode' – those didn't set off alarm bells?”

Dawson sighed again. “Well, they paid very well.”

Al-Zebani's original design, he continued – he'd designed animatronic dinosaurs for amusement parks, but Feggio urged him to leave out the back-story – involved black-and-white vision as well as night vision as keen as an owl's. In his past, er... professional experience, he hadn't seen the need for something that would require anything more involved than that.

“But Osiris, their CEO, wanted something that could target specific... well, likely targets.”

“And,” Feggio hinted, “back to my initial question...?”

“I know because I'm the one who designed the program giving them color-consciousness.”

Calliope-Jane and Agent Damien Wendeaux frantically signaled Capt. Feggio from the parking lot they'd found between the two warehouses. “Over here!” She and Wendeaux pointed at two battered jeeps among several larger construction vehicles.

“Oh, those are for the excavation out beyond the North Wing,” Dawson explained.

“So, you could drive them into those tunnels?”

“Not me, personally, but those tunnels are quite wide: they use trucks to...”

“Stow the exegesis, Doctor. Now, do they run?”

“I imagine the keys would be kept somewhere inside the larger warehouse – that's...”

But before Dawson had a chance to explain where to find the keys, the first of the jeeps roared to life and both jeeps raced toward where Capt. Feggio and his team stood waiting.

Wendeaux, a tall skinny kid from Haiti, explained hot-wiring cars had been a way of life after the earthquake. “Let's go!”

“The larger warehouse opens into the tunnel you'd mentioned – the one that comes out after you'd passed through the air-filtration unit?” Dawson said it was a fairly straight shot but there were some gates. “Here, use my ID badge, if the computer system's not shut down yet. The keypads are fairly primitive; no fingerprints necessary.”

Dawson looked at Calliope-Jane. “If you'd already come in contact with the drones and weren't attacked, your hair's apparently not strong enough on the Orange Spectrum to attract them. Good – You're probably safe.”

“'Probably...'?”

Sheriff Diddon had had enough with standing on the sidelines feeling useless, so she made one last attempt to pull jurisdiction on the situation. “As sheriff here, I order you to wait for the State Police reinforcements. They should be here in a half-hour. I can't let you risk the lives of your agents by...”

As Feggio and the other IMP agents hopped into the jeeps, Calliope-Jane waved. “All I know, my boss is in there and that building's not about to last no half an hour. See ya!”

The jeeps blew up a cloud of dust behind them as Sheriff Diddon noticed her phone had several voice-mails. “Now what!” They're all from the dratted Dr. Kerr. “What the fuck does he want...!”

She quickly put the phone away and told Deputy Dett, “don't got time for his shenanigans. He'll just have to wait...”

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

In the doorway, Shango, a fearsome behemoth at the worst of times, blocked their path forward, silhouetted against an eerie bluish light that rippled across the backdrop like well-oiled muscles the way some lighting crew for rock bands might've designed his entrance. Sam thought he looked even more behemothic than he did that first time.

“Who the hell's that,” Cameron asked, his knees quaking. Even Shendo was impressed.

“Meet Shango,” Sam announced, “Basilikon's new Director of Security, his first day on the job,” and gave him a deferential bow.

Shango's lips curled ominously as he clenched his fists. Various muscles in his arms and legs flexed in the faint light.

“Not been a great start, has it?” Sam stepped forward, feeling tiny in his presence. Mbira joined him, feeling even tinier.

“So, two little traitors,” Shango growled, his voice blood-chillingly deep and resonant. “Cute...”

Each of the IMP agents raised their weapons simultaneously. Shango laughed. In his paws, the Ruger SR-556 he wielded looked more like a Derringer, one that could kill them all in a single sweep.

Cameron, the only one unarmed, sidled up behind Sam for protection, convinced all their bullets would merely bounce off Shango's skin.

Sam and Shendo hoped they could draw Shango out from his space between the doors which would allow the others to run behind him and head to the exit. But Shango refused to budge.

Bond was sure that was automatic gunfire she heard headed toward them – they must be coming in from the outside: Basilikon guards or perhaps reinforcements sent in by Sheriff Diddon (which somehow seemed unlikely)? Headlights, then two jeeps quickly broke through the darkness. Bond sent up silent thanks as she recognized a striking red afro.

Struck in the back, Shango turned, firing wildly. Bullets sprayed across the tunnel floor savaged both of one jeep's front tires. Brakes squealed as Feggio's jeep smashed into the wall and burst into flames.

With seconds to spare, Calliope-Jane swung by as Feggio and Wendeaux dove in and frantically hunkered down in the back seat before getting in a few well-placed shots, aimed at the hulk before them. When the wrecked jeep's gas tank exploded, they were rammed against the opposite wall, momentarily blinded. Shango continued lurching toward them.

Not sure how much ammunition they had left, Sam and Shendo started a simultaneous assault on Shango while he was preoccupied with the jeeps, joined by Bond, Mbira and Hurdie from the opposite side. They were soon out of bullets but managed to weaken him enough he soon stumbled, completely enraged and howling in pain. In his agony, he kicked a massive leg toward Chris Shendo, tossing him high into the air, deeper into the darkness.

Bond couldn't see him, but heard Shendo's scream get louder – then suddenly stop.

Out of control, the jeep swerved to avoid Shango's other leg and slammed sideways into one of the doors. Shango, wounded and bloody, tried getting up, grabbed the door for support then tore it off its hinges and threw it at the wildly careening jeep. This only further weakened the ceiling which started to collapse.

After another violent swerve, Calliope-Jane powered through the crumbling gateway, with just enough time Sam, Bond and Hurdie could clamber aboard; then she deftly veered back into the tunnel before it was too late. Sam watched as Shango disappeared Samson-like under a cascade of rubble and dust. The doorway collapsed and the light soon disappeared.

The jeep fish-tailed through the tunnel on three tires. Cameron clung to Sam for dear life, and saw a light ahead. A light at the other end of this tunnel? Where would that lead?

= = = = = = =

to be continued...

©2022 by Dick Strawser for Thoughts on a Train