Chronicles of the Mask: Episode 2

30 minutes

General Audience

I.

Shelton grabbed another handful of cheesy jalapeno poppers. The breading had cooled, but the juices were warm and savory, and he had to concentrate to keep his stuffed mouth closed. He popped them into his mouth, then quickly returned his hands to ten and two.

Originally, Shelton had planned to gorge himself on the living room sofa. He’d stood beside the oven, waiting on the timer while his stomach spoke a strange tongue. His accidental assault on the BS squad had only served to increase his latent anxiety. Anxiety always made him ravenous. He’d wanted nothing more than to sit down in front of the TV, and forget the day’s strange events. By the time his jalapeno poppers, chicken wings, and onion rings were finished, he’d made up his mind that he was not the Butcher. What had happened had been a fluke. After all, he’d been wearing his mask — as required by international law — so it was unlikely that anyone would recognize him on the supermarket’s security feed. He could still back out of this, just so long as no one had a reason to scan his nanos, and place him there. But no sooner had he plopped himself down on the couch, and turned on the TV, then reality hit him like a BSer’s immobilizer rod.

It was all over the news. The Butcher caught on film. A black man in a standard-issue mask was taking out the BS squad, and adding in the grocery store manager for good measure. As he sat there, juices running down his chin, he couldn’t help but feel a little awe at the beatdown he’d administered. It really did look like he was an expert fighter, not a man in a mad panic. He listened as the news anchor analyzed his odd behavior with the plastic lane divider. This, it turned out, was a form of religious self-flagellation, and clear evidence that the Butcher was indeed a member of a death-worshiping cult, just as Shelton had suggested at his presentation. The more he watched, the more amazed he was by how well he fit into a narrative he’d constructed himself. But of course! That was Critical Theory Theory 101. “Facts have no reality apart from narrative. Craft the narrative, and you craft reality.”

He was almost pleased, except that he was now completely terrified. His nanos could place him there. Surely they’d be scanning. Perhaps they already had. Come to think of it, Shelton could not understand why the BS squad wasn’t standing outside his door at that very moment. His mind had raced. How the heck was he going to get out of this one? Thinking very hard — but not neglecting his munchies — a solution came to mind. 

If he could get back to LIVES headquarters, and take charge of the investigation, he might be able to head-off the nano scan. If the scan had already happened, well…he was hardly going to escape justice by running away. They’d find him, wherever he was. So he might as well just go in. Still, he froze at the thought. Then his phone had rung, Karen Stump’s avatar showing on the screen.

“Oh no!” he’d exclaimed, mouth stuffed to the brim. The phone rang five times before he’d picked it up.

“H-hello?”

“Shelton!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Don’t you ‘yes ma’am’ me! What the heck are you doing!”

“Uh…um…”

“Get in here now! Get back to the office!”

His heart had sunk. It was over. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. It was all an acci—”

“Don’t say sorry. Just get in here, and do your thing.”

“Do my…you mean, you haven’t run a…”

“Oh, believe me, I’ve tried — I don’t see why you should get all the credit — but something’s gone haywire with the software, and Quid can’t get a fix on the Butcher. Quid thinks we might have someone working against us on the inside. He…er…Quid’ll have it up and running within the hour.”

“I see,” he’d gasped, hope springing anew. “I’ll be right in!”

He’d made a mad dash for the car, not forgetting to grab the tray of jalapeno poppers on the way out.

At the moment, Shelton was speeding toward LIVES’ Brooklyn headquarters. “Speeding” was only a figure of speech, of course. Not being a member of the BS squad, his car drove itself at a steady, law-abiding pace. Which was to say, maddeningly slowly. The law also dictated that drivers kept their hands on the wheel, despite the fact that the car only registered and performed their steering motions if those happened to correspond perfectly to the AI’s determined course of action. Year ago, when the Safe and Free Auto Act had passed, a few American senators had succeeded in tacking on a rider that required that every driver have the right to drive his own car. The upshot of this legislative compromise was that every car must be under “human control” even though it also drove itself. Hence, a driver could be pulled over for failing to pretend to drive the car that was driving him. Finally, his car pulled into the LIVES parking garage, and rolled toward the closest available parking spot. Shelton requested backing in. The car ignored his request, and pulled in straight, because it was more efficient. Shelton dutifully checked his mirrors anyway.

II.

The office was pandemonium. Everywhere he heard the buzz of people moving around, murmuring, and doing their best to look busy.

“Shelton!” said Allie, brows furrowed in preemptive disapproval. “You took your time.”

He shrugged. “I’m here now. I saw the news report.”

“Well, how diligent of you. Everyone has seen the news reports. So what are you going to do? What’s the next move?”

Shelton put on his most thoughtful expression. What he had to do was get to Quid as soon as possible, and erase his location data. 

“I’m going to check in with Health Surveillance, of course,” he replied.

Allie stared at him, her expression unreadable. “Better go see Karen first,” she said.

“I will. In a second. First things first.”

She smiled, almost evilly. “So Karen isn’t a priority…”

Shelton laughed, nervously. Allie, it was well known, was Karen Stump’s chief unofficial informer.

“Of course she is. She’s my boss. But we have a situation, and there’s no time for delay.”

He started to move toward the hall that led to the elevators. Allie, who was quite slim, slid lithely past him into the corridor. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“There’s something going on,” she said. “I just can’t put my finger on what.”

Shelton tried to remain calm. Of course, it was only a matter of time before someone identified the man on the blurry footage. Yes, he’d been masked, and was moving very quickly for most of it. And no one who knew Shelton would have imagined in a million years that he was capable of that kind of athleticism. At the moment, everyone was still in thrall of a narrative. Whatever they saw — provided it was indistinct enough — would be interpreted through its lens. But facts had a way of coming out anyway, despite what Critical Theory Theory claimed. He had to change the facts before they could speak for themselves.

“I’m going to see Quid,” he said, calmly. “Then we’ll know more.”

Allie said nothing, but her eyes smiled behind her medical mask. It was an odd smile, and it made him slightly uncomfortable. To his surprise, she reached out and gave his arm a little squeeze.

“Good luck with that,” she said, winking. 

Shelton thought he’d seen that wink before.

III.

Virtually every room on the top floor of the Brooklyn LIVES headquarters housed Quid’s computers and workshops. Quid did not like company, and Quid generally got what Quid wanted. 

There were several reasons for this. For one thing, Quid was responsible for maintaining the Byzantine information, surveillance, and health-maintenance networks that flowed like rushing rivers into his hub, networks whose arcane architecture were fully understood only by Quid, who was also a top-consultant at CENTRAL. Also, Quid did not work well with people, and seemed to go out of Quid’s way to mess with their heads.

Shelton wandered into Quid’s Communication Center through one of the many doors that led from the long gray corridor. Large computers lined the walls. An urgent, constant beeping permeated the room, contributing to Shelton’s anxiety. But there was no point in rushing now. Quid surely knew already that Quid had company, and Quid would come out and talk to Shelton whenever Quid wanted to. The wait was helpful. Shelton was about to lie to the craftiest person in the building — possibly in the state of New York — and he needed time to get it right.

He wandered around, trying out different fibs in his head. Each phantom conversation ended with Quid getting to the bottom of things in that irritating way that Quid had. Shelton needed to keep his statements simple, and at least potentially true. He just needed a pretext for accessing the location data, so he could erase his own. The way to do that was to convince Quid to give him high-level access for his super-secret mission to get the Butcher. Once the data was erased, he could stop being this Butcher, and get down to the business of pretending to find him. He told himself that his plan was so crazy, it just might work. 

“Hey,” said a modified voice to his right.

Shelton turned to look. The speaker was a creature of indeterminate age, sex, and even height. Of all the people Shelton had ever met, Quid had taken body modification to most elaborate extreme. Today Quid’s main body-frame was loaded into a machinist’s exoskeleton. Quid slid up and down within the frame. 

“Just a second,” said Shelton.

He opened his device, and flipped through the company’s identity memos for Quid’s current species, gender, and preferred pronouns. Quid changed these regularly, and Shelton wanted to make sure he got off on the right foot. Quid bounced up and down in the twisty frame, impatient mechanical sighs from a custom voice box reminding Shelton of a remote controlled car he’d once owned as a boy. Not finding anything new in the identity memos, Shelton decided to play it safe.

“Hey, there. How is Quid doing today?”

“Quid is doing today,” said Quid. “Very busy, as Quid’s sure you already know.”

“Yes. Sorry to disturb…Quid.”

Quid was sporting a double row of eyebrows over Quid’s multicolored eyes. Above the left eye was a bushy, masculine brow overtop a long, thin, shapely, feminine one. The pattern over the right eye was reversed. Shelton noticed that the two female eyebrows arched up superciliously.

“If you were really sorry, you wouldn’t be here,” said Quid.

Shelton nodded. “True, true.”

“So you’re not sorry?”

Shelton shrugged. “I don’t want to interrupt y—Quid’s work.”

All the eyebrows went slant. “Well, you already have,” said Quid, “so you might as well let Quid save time. Quid knows why you have come.”

“Okay,” Shelton said, careful not to show his alarm.

“You’re here about the Butcher,” said Quid.

“Yes.”

“But you already know Quid’s working on the nano scan, and that something has gone wrong with the software.”

Shelton nodded.

“And you wouldn’t dream of coming up here just to tell Quid to hurry it up.”

Shelton emphatically shook his head “No.”

“So,” continued Quid, “you’ve come up for some other reason. You must need something that only Quid can give you. Which means you’ve come here to make some special request, which will necessarily add to Quid’s considerable workload.”

Shelton started to reply, but Quid spoke over him. “And it’s not something that Karen has already asked Quid for. And it’s not something that you’re willing to ask Karen for. Therefore, what you’re for is top-secret, and related to your clandestine efforts against the Butcher. Now, since those efforts — according to your press conference, which Quid watched carefully — involve maneuvers so secret that not even Quid has heard of them, Quid concludes that you believe that LIVES itself has been compromised. You would not be coming to see Quid now unless you regarded the situation as desperate. You are therefore here to ask Quid to equip you with the means to continue your secret war against the Butcher, and to do so in a manner that makes your efforts undetectable to other staff at LIVES.”

Shelton was stunned. Cautiously, he nodded.

“Ha!” Quid smiled triumphantly.

“What can I say, Quid? You really are the best.”

Quid’s eyes flared, literally — Quid had a modification that made them go red when Quid was angry — and Shelton bit his lip. He’d said “you.”

“You know that Quid objects to pronouns!” shrieked Quid. “Quid is not some kind of anonymous logical placeholder! Quid is Quidself!”

Shelton put his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Look…I’m sorry. It was an accident.”

Quid shook Quid’s head. “If it were really a priority for you…”

“—Look, Quid,” interjected Shelton, “it was a mistake. What does Quid want me to do? Prostrate myself?”

Quid smiled, and looked as if Quid were seriously considering it.  “Only if you’re really sorry,” Quid said, sliding up Quid’s frame until Quid towered over Shelton.

Shelton grimaced, and took a deep breath. Suppressing irritation at the infuriatingly obtuse creature, he slowly inclined his head in what was popularly known as the “Beat the Doggie” gesture.

“Well don’t actually do it!” said Quid, smiling down at him. “My, but you are pathetic. Or else, you just really need Quid’s tech.”

Shelton’s head popped up instantly. He felt incredibly foolish. But that was just how it was dealing with Quid. Quid made all the rules for dealing with Quidself, which had the effect of bringing everyone in Quid’s vicinity underneath Quid’s personal aegis. No wonder nobody wanted to work with Quid.

“Sorry,” he said again. “What I need is—”

“-No. Let Quid tell you what you need! First, you need top level access to the nano logs. This will allow you to track any individual whose bitsign you can identify. It will let you erase your record, so that the internal saboteurs can’t track your whereabouts. It will also let you turn off your nanos when you have a need for secrecy, thus thwarting the attempts of internal saboteurs to take you out.”

“Wait…really? You mean it will let me disappear off the gr-”

“Shhh! Stop interrupting! And you said YOU again! Second, you need a BS override key so you can drive without AI assistance. That way you can go anywhere that the anti-health terrorists go, at any time of night, and you can chase them down to your heart’s content.”

Shelton’s mouth fell open. This was more than he’d even considered asking for.

“Third, and perhaps most importantly, you need special enhancements.”

Shelton took a step back. He looked Quid up and down, suppressing the signs of his revulsion — the effect of his unanalyzed prejudices, no doubt — at Quid’s extensive body mods. Quid had taken it to such an extreme, that Quid’s humanity was hard to differentiate from the many machines that housed it. Just what sort of special enhancements was Quid alluding to in his case?

“I…I already have an enhancement, so…”

Quid scoffed. “You mean your eye mod? Give Quid a break! What the heck is vision correction going to do for you out there on the street, battling social butchers? No, what you need are add-ons!”

Shelton grimaced. Quid beamed, and swept his arm back in the direction of Quid’s workshop. “And,” Quid continued, “Quid’s got it all right here. Quid can kit you out, and have you out on the street fighting crime, inside of half an hour.”

Shelton’s lip quivered.

“But…but…”

He did not want to be a freak. Not that Quid was a freak, of course.

“Oh, don’t be such a Norma Ninny! Quid’s not going to do anything that will make you look truly awesome — like Quid. All your mods will be invisible to the naked eye. The Butcher could be anyone. Maybe even someone in this very building. Quid can’t have terrorists knowing just how dangerous you are.”

Shelton thought of the tangled web his lies were weaving, and wondered if it was too late to simply run. Quid emitted another mechanical sigh.

“Look, let’s be frank,” said Quid. “You’re a weakling.”

Quid reached out toward Shelton, telescoped his arm to double it in length, and poked Shelton in his stomach pudge. Insulting or not, the movement was incredibly fluid.

“That’s useful,” Quid continued. “No one would ever suspect you were some kind of a special agent. All Quid will do is give you a neural-drive with access privileges to the nano network, a tactics library, and gland pack. And don’t worry. It will all be inside your brain.”

Shelton made an involuntary sound, rather like a whimper.

“Inside my brain? You’re—Quid’s going to cut me open?”

Quid began to laugh, or something.  The laugh sounded a bit like a rusty pogo stick, an old and now banned toy that Shelton’s grandfather had owned.

“No, no, no!” said Quid, with exasperation. “Quid isn’t going to cut you open—”

Shelton sighed, relieved.

“—He is,” said Quid, pointing.

Shelton turned to see what looked like an enormous, orange metal spider tiptoeing through the office toward him. Two long, spindly arms reached out and waved at him. At the end of one was a sort of surgical multi-tool, while the other was tipped with an enormous syringe. Shelton began giggling, like a madman, then promptly fainted. 

IV.

When Shelton awoke, he sat up immediately, and looked at the clock. Only half an hour had passed since he’d entered Quid’s offices. Now he was lying on a faux-leather couch, feeling quite comfortable. He looked over, and saw Quid studying him, multi-brows furrowing and intermingling over kaleidoscope eyes.

“Is it…already done?” he asked.

“Yes. You are officially enhanced.”

Shelton sat up, and patted his head. Nothing seemed amiss—or missing. “So, what now?”

Quid telescoped Quid’s shoulders. It was something like a shrug.

“Try it out,” he said.

“How?”

“Use your neural-drive. Maybe download karate, or something.”

Shelton started to think about karate. At first nothing happened, then suddenly it was as if he’d opened a door that had always been there, but which he’d never before noticed. He perceived karate as one of several related, memory-like impressions. Numerous fighting styles seemed to float before him. He reached out, as it were, and took hold of one of them. Suddenly it was like he was a child sliding down a long tube. The experience was frightening, but exhilarating. Then he seemed to pass through a narrow end. When he came out, he felt as if he were carrying a new load.

“I…” he began, looking at Quid with wonder. “I know Taekwondo!”

Quid smiled, but shook Quid’s head. “Technically, you only know about Taekwondo. In order to know it, you’ll have to use it. But its scaffolding is now built into your mind. Your neurons have been primed to it. So when you start using Taekwondo, it will become real knowledge, experiential knowledge. Until then it’s like a mold that you have to fill with effort. But your efforts will pay off at what will seem to you a magical pace.”

Shelton whistled. “That’s amazing!”

Quid shrugged again. “It’s addictive, to be frank. Don’t spend all your time downloading. Remember, you actually have to use the knowledge to make it real. If you download and don’t use, the impressions will atrophy, and you’ll have to re-download.”

Shelton nodded. Then a sudden doubt occurred to him. He looked down at his soft stomach, and thought of the way his joints and muscles had ached ever since he’d accidentally knocked out the BSers. Quid smiled, as if reading his mind.

“Use your gland pack to call up loads of adrenaline, and to supplement your strength until you can trick your body into building muscle. Quid’s written a program for you called M-180. Download it, and it will begin using the gland pack to direct your body, and your appetites. You’ll also feel the compulsion to work your muscles. It’ll be like having a personal gym instructor who calls you up, and makes you feel guilty until you work out with him.”

Shelton shot Quid a look. “That’s…just weird.”

Quid scowled at him. “Who are you to judge? You’re the one with a childish fear of spiders.”

Shelton froze. “How…did you hear about that?”

Quid leaned forward, and smiled knowingly. Shelton couldn’t read the smile. “Well…the way you reacted to Quid’s surgical assistant. Of course…”

Shelton nodded, and chuckled nervously. “Oh, yeah. Of course.”

Quid stood up, and performed a motion that Shelton assumed was stretching. Quid slid up in Quid’s rig, extended Quid’s arms ten feet to either side, and made a groaning, creaking noise. Suddenly, Quid’s parts all snapped back into place, and Quid looked down upon Shelton.

“Don’t forget to try out your new access privileges. Make sure you know how to navigate around in there, and do any editing you need for your secret assignment.”

Shelton nodded, feeling strangely exposed. Quid’s demeanor remained opaque to him. “I’ll do that,” he said.

“Don’t delay,” said Quid. “Quid is sure Quid’ll have the network back online in, say, twenty minutes. Then, of course, Quid’ll be able to identify this Butcher character. Quid just hopes he hasn’t given Quid the slip by then…”

Quid turned as if to go. Shelton stood up quickly, determined to get off to some quiet place where he could use his new powers to edit his nano-signs. He made a bee line across the workshop floor, looking for the exit.

“Ahem,” said Quid, just as he was about to leave. “Quid believes you have something to say to Quid?”

Shelton thought a moment, then realized what it was. “Thank you,” he said.

Quid’s eyes flared again.

“Darn!” said Shelton. “I mean thank Quid!”

“That’s better,” said the other. “And don’t let it happen again!”

And Shelton noticed that Quid, though looking angry, had a sort of twinkle in Quid’s eyes.

V.

Returning to the office, Shelton was greeted by the tell-tale silence of a lively conversation quickly suppressed. He pretended not to notice. He could have cared less what they thought of him now. He’d just erased his location data from the grocery store. He’d erased all of his problems. At least, he thought he had.

He walked quietly in the direction of his desk, pretending not to notice the pregnant hush. No sooner had he sat down, then Allie appeared at the back of his cubicle.

“Hey.”

Shelton swiveled around in his chair to look at her. “Oh, hi there Allie.”

His smile was genuine. He felt light as a bird.

“So…” she said in a whisper. “You went to see Quid, right?”

“Sure did,” said Shelton, signaling by his placid smile that he had no juicy information to share. She frowned, and chose a different tack.

“So what are you doing now? What’s the next step with this Butcher thing?”

Shelton began to shake his head, for an instant forgetting that there still was a Butcher thing. Then he recalled that while he was free to stop being the Butcher, he was not free to stop looking for him. After all, he’d invented the man. Now it hit him that he wasn’t entirely off the hook. He had to hunt down this dangerous, fictional entity.

“Well,” he whispered, “I’m devising a strategy for getting much closer to his organization than I ever have before. I can’t say much more than that.”

Allie nodded, and lowered her voice. “Well you’d better think of something to say. Karen’s in her office biting her nails down to stumps. CENTRAL’s been buzzing her all day to hear about your progress, and she’s been in there waiting on Quid and you.”

“Oh,” said Shelton, his tone flat. He’d hoped to slip away without having to speak to Karen. “Did she send you to get me?”

Allie smiled sheepishly, and nodded. Shelton rose from his chair, smiled back at her, and shuffled toward Karen Stump’s office.

VI.

He’d hardly knocked on her door when it opened. Karen gestured impatiently to a chair. She didn’t take her own, but leaned down toward him across the desk, two meaty arms supporting her like pillars.

“Well???”

“Um, yes, Karen. How can I help you?”

“You can start by telling me what the heck is going on? CENTRAL’s breathing down my neck! The press won’t leave me alone! What are you doing? What progress have you made against the Butcher?”

On the walk to her office, he’d already come up with the answer. What Karen wanted, what they all wanted, was something concrete. An image that could supply the data of his narrative. And just about any image would work, provided it was unhealthful, and dark enough to let imagination fill in the gaps. He knew just where to go for that kind of thing.

“Well, Karen, I was just about to leave to make preparations for tonight’s mission.”

“Tonight?” she whispered. “You don’t mean you’re going out past curfew?”

For effect, Shelton stole an apprehensive glance over his shoulder, then nodded.

“But…but…you mean to tell me that you’ve been doing this all along? Breaking the law in order to find the lawbreakers?”

Shelton smiled. “I can neither confirm nor deny,” he said, but in a tone that suggested that that was precisely what he’d been up to. Karen looked at him with wonder.

“All this time, I thought you were just…well, forgive me, Shelton…but I thought you were lazy, You know…kind of a baloney artist, looking for ways to do the least amount of work. Making things up to justify your own line in the budget.”

She did not sound that sorry, and Shelton pretended not to notice that her half-apology was almost a question. He smiled at her with noblesse oblige, and nodded as if with deep understanding.

“Yes, yes. I can see that. No, I don’t blame you.”

She looked back at him, deadpan. “So what now?”

Shelton glanced up at the clock on her office wall. This clock was a nice, wholesome, digital one. It was 5:30 p.m. If he was actually to do any Butcher-hunting tonight, he would first need a nap. Then, since his car would be under his own power, he’d be free to go out cruising for trouble. Prospect Park was regular hub for health criminals, so he figured it was a good place to find plausible Butcher-types.

“I have a lot to do, Karen. I’m sorry, but I can’t say more.”

“I see,” she said, evenly. “In that case you’d better go right away.”

He popped right up, pushed his chair in, and started toward the door.

“Because,” she said, in a tone that made him turn back. “I must have something for CENTRAL tomorrow. And make it something good.”

He stepped toward the door, tripping the sensor, but she waved it closed. Karen leaned further toward him over his fleshy supports, fingers splayed out to bear her girth. She lowered her voice.

“You should know…some of the analysts up in CENTRAL…well, they have a lot of questions about this Butcher character. Just how big is his organization? Why has he evaded us so far. That kind of thing. They’re leaning on us hard, Shelton. They want answers.”

Shelton did his best to look concerned. That was not hard to do. He was genuinely alarmed at what he’d gotten himself into. Then, just as suddenly, he relaxed, and smiled coolly at Karen. After all, there was a Butcher. Thanks to Quid, he now had all the tools he needed to make sure of it.

VII.

On the way to his apartment, Shelton stopped by a clothing store. There he purchased several items to complement his clandestine nocturnal activities. He found a black, hooded trench coat, and some dark, breathable warmups. With these and the mask on, he’d look from a distance like a member of the BS squad. Perhaps at some future point he could add body armor like theirs to complete the look. At present all he needed was to pass the casual glance, to put off the curiosity of anyone who glanced through his car windows as he drove about past curfew, pretending to patrol. 

As he headed home from the store, Shelton continued to snack on the jalapeno poppers that had been sitting on his passenger seat. They were cold now, and had the smell of junk food that has lain about unrefrigerated. He still thought they were tasty. Once in his apartment, Shelton set his alarm, and climbed into bed. He rolled into his covers, letting them gather him up like a burrito. It was awesome.

VIII.

Five hours later, he awoke. He vested himself in his dark garb, and donned the BSer mask that the grocery store children had given him. But yesterday’s brief flirtation with vigilantism had been a mistake. A fluke. No matter what he’d said, he was most definitely not the Butcher. Yet despite his decision to not to continue as the Butcher, Shelton couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride at the idea of being the Butcher. The champion of the people. The protector of the victims of petty acts of bureaucratic injustice. The Man in the Mask. But that was all just feeling. He couldn’t actually do something so…so anti-social! So extreme. But he could play at it. Just the thought of this new game took the edge off of the antiseptic boredom that went with sanitized existence. He sighed. 

A few minutes later, Shelton was in his car, cruising toward Prospect Park. It was late. It was past curfew. And for once in his life, Shelton was driving the machine, and not the other way around. 

IX.

Donning his gas mask and his dark outerwear, Shelton looked for all the world like a Behavioral Soldier. At first he walked along the path that ran beside Long Meadow, hoping that from this vantage point he’d spy out curfew breakers, teenagers, narcotics users, stargazers, and any other sort of criminal that he could cast as the Butcher, or one of his minions.  Prospect Park was a well-known hub of health crime. People did all sorts of crazy, unsafe things when there were trees and grass about. 

It was a brisk Autumn night, and the stars were out. A slow but weighty wind pressed against him as he walked. The long black trench coat fluttered in the breeze, and danced around his legs and feet like some bound and flailing shadow. To walk about in this darkness, to break the law with such impunity, to drive himself, gave him the feeling of being a god. He was so used to external direction, that this small liberty felt like an act of primal rebellion. The girl from the grocery store popped up in his mind. “Now you can help anyone,” she’d said. But his brief and accidental flirtation with vigilantism had been quite enough. He was not here to be the Butcher. He was here to make the Butcher. To find him, or his minions, in every. unhealthful act or person he came across. No, he was not here to help “anyone.” He was here to help himself.

Seeing no activity in the Long Meadow, Shelton left the walking path, and slipped into the woods. He passed silently between the bordering trees, staying clear of the paved way. He looked. He listened. He enjoyed the sense of concealment. Shelton was in Midwood when he saw the first signs of company. 

Just ahead there were voices. Shelton ducked under the long shadows of a drooping Norway spruce. The voices went quiet, and he waited a long time before they started in again, half-wondering if he’d imagined them. Six shadowy figures finally appeared out of the woods no more than fifty feet from where he hid.

They were youths. He counted four boys and two girls. They moved in unison toward a spreading oak, stopping every ten feet or so to wait and to listen. The tallest of them, a young man of perhaps sixteen, gave quick hand signals that the others obeyed. This was no aimless rabble. The kids moved with purpose, and according to some careful choreography. Shelton smiled, pulled back his sleeve, and turned his wrist camera toward the interlopers. Whatever they were up to at this hour was, by definition, social butchery. He only hoped that what they did was horrible enough to make them the Butcher’s plausible minions. They weren’t wearing masks. Shelton smiled. Health indifference: check, he thought.

The six formed a loose circle around the base of the spreading oak. Gloveless, their naked hands touched, fingertips brushing extended fingertips. They began to sing softly. The melody was sweet, but quite sad. There was a hint of bitter irony in it too, as if its very notes were a grim commentary on itself. But there was also a certain paradoxical levity there; a sense of pleasant danger bound to consequences, and of consequences, freely accepted, as the cost of joy.

Under this spreading pin oak tree,
I know you and you know me.
As I look so shall I see,
If I’m to walk then I must breathe.

The song continued for many stanzas, but these were the only words he could make out. It was a pretty song, but it left Shelton disappointed. If this was what the kids were doing when they violated curfew, it was going to be a long night. He settled down into the shadows, hoping the song would escalate into something more interesting, more strange and barbaric — like maybe human sacrifice.

The human circle began to close. The teenagers joined hands, and circled the oak in a slow, sad orbit. Now the voices changed, the males and females trading off lines, their voices rising and falling like waves, weaving in and out of each other, a rainbow braided and unbraided and re-braided new. Then they stopped. All six rushed the tree at once. They engulfed it — and each other — in a close embrace. It was an oddly wonderful, and potentially infectious event. 

“It’s time.”

The tallest of the six was the one speaking. He was a lanky, dark-skinned boy whose eyes in the night shone like stars. 

“Who will go first?” he asked.

After a pause, one of the girls tentatively raised her hand.

“I’ve never done it,” Shelton heard her say.

“Never?” said the others, aghast.

She shook her head slowly. Even in the darkness, the girl seemed to blush. Shelton leaned forward, suddenly interested. The other five descended on her. For all Shelton knew, they were planning to tear her into little pieces, or worse. Instead, the tallest, the boy who was their leader, knelt at the base of the oak, and wrapped his arms around it. Another boy climbed onto his shoulders, planted his feet, and did likewise. One by one, they formed-up like acrobats, each youth a link in a ladder that climbed the oak’s thick bole. When all five were in place, the leader grunted a command from the bottom. The newbie girl giggled, and took hold of his shoulders.

Shelton watched her climb. Her face was radiant. Those she scaled seemed equally joyful, though more than once she stepped on a hand or a face. Finally, she summited the ladder, wrapped her small arms around the lowest branch, and swung herself up into the oak tree. 

“I’m up! I’m up!” she said.

The ladder began disentangling itself, link climbing down link until the whole thing was disassembled. The girl still on the ground reached her hands up toward the climber in a symbolic embrace. The boys nodded, grunted, and laughed to themselves like old men. 

“I’m up!” said the climber again. “I’m in a tree! In it!”

Shelton watched the tallest boy’s face. He seemed far older than his years. It was something in the way he smiled without the liberty of release. As the others celebrated, the leader observed. He was not there for himself, but for those he’d led out. Shelton could see the tension in his face: the desire to let them have their fun; an equal concern to keep them safe from external threats. Threats like Shelton.

Shelton liked the boy’s face. The young man even resembled him; looked as he had when he was younger. The kid was his twin out of time, down to the very tone of his skin, which was halfway between chocolate and midnight. A superficial form of unity, perhaps, but in the moment it felt quite deep. He could have been this boy. This boy, under other circumstances, could have been him. 

He wondered about the young man’s story. His background. He wondered where these teens made their homes, and how it was that they shared this ritual. Not for the first time, he sensed the presence of some other world living alongside his, or under it, in shadows. 

“Freeze!”

The harsh voice brought Shelton back to reality. Out of the woods stalked five dark forms, their tell-tale gas masks as grim as death’s heads. Black body armor glistened in the blue-green of the moonlit forest patch. The youths below the tree froze; all but their leader, who spun around to face the BS squad.

“I said freeze! Get down on the ground!”

“Run!” said the lead boy, speaking over his shoulders to the others, not taking his eyes off the newcomers. “I’ll take care of this.”

“What about Sarah?” said the girl still on the ground.

“Go. I’ll get her. Go! And scatter back!”

“Stay right where you are!” shouted one of the BSers, drawing a long-barreled weapon that Shelton knew was an immobilizer. The weapon could be used like a cattle prod, or it could fire a bolt of electricity sufficient to down a man without killing him. He leveled it now on the young man. The other ignored him, and reached toward the tree with both arms, calling to the girl.

“Sarah. Jump. I will catch you! I promise.”

The girl in the tree shook her head, and began to cry softly. In her face Shelton saw all the betrayal of every youth throughout history; hope looking suddenly upon a counterfeit world. But the boy’s face held no illusions that could be stripped away. He tried once more, half-heartedly, to persuade the girl to jump, but before her next panicked refusal, he’d already settled into a fighting stance. He stepped back lightly with his right leg,  planted it on the loam, and bent his knees. Each hand went deftly to his thighs, and from secret pockets he drew forth two black metal rods. 

“Throw those down, boy!” shouted the lead BSer, pointing.

Each rod expanded with a loud shunk, telescopically lengthening, and clicking into place. The young man gave each rod a gentle twist, twirling them through the air like cruel batons. He set his jaw, and rolled his neck to either side, a motion so natural and unhurried that the BS squad drew more closely together. There was a moment of silent indecision as the two parties closed on each other across an invisible divide. One of the BSers attacked. 

The armored gorilla thrust his weapon forward. Its end glowed blue, and crackled with angry electricity. The strike was quick and precise, but the young man ducked below it, crossed his rods in an X, and brought them together in a slicing motion on the soldier’s hand. The man cried out in pain, and dropped his weapon to the ground, but no sooner had it hit then the other BSers rushed the boy.

He parried the first blow, and the second, and the third. And yet Shelton could see that it was only a matter of time before he was overcome. His counterblows struck only black body armor, and he lacked the space to disarm the other men as he had the first. They thrust crackling blue rods toward him. He continued to repel them, sometimes dodging only seconds before a vicious, many-volted strike would have found its home on his unarmored torso. As the fight continued, the young man slowed. He began to retreat. The others closed in. 

Above him, in the tree, the girl whimpered. Shelton saw him snatch one glance at his young charge. The regret in his eyes seemed more for her than for himself. Soon enough he would be beaten. Defeat was inevitable. But he would not run. And he wouldn’t make it easy for them.

A strange thing happened to Shelton as he watched. Though he detested physical violence — he was never any good in a fight — he found himself analyzing the contest as he would a  communication problem. He did not know why, but he found that he understood what he saw. His mind seemed to map the many motions, assigning them values and probabilities. He knew what each player would do almost before he did it, or at least he could see how this blow must fall, or how that move must resolve. It was like music. And he had no reason to understand any of it; no experience or training that could account for his preternatural grasp of the logic of the dance. No! Wait! He did!

Hadn’t he downloaded Taekwondo? Hadn’t Quid given him something that was there and not there, access to a kind of latent knowledge that tended toward experience? What would happen if he tried to use it here? Granted, he was terrified of fighting, but what if that didn’t matter? What if he could do it anyway?

There was a sound like a wet slap, then a sudden singe and pop. The young man spun through the air like a top, rammed into the tree back-first, and dropped his metal fighting sticks. With a dazed look, he began to slide down the tree. There was a burn on his shoulder, evidence of a glancing blow. His eyes fluttered open and shut, but he refused to surrender consciousness. Above him, the girl screamed. It was over.

Well, not yet.

Shelton didn’t really know why he did it. It was the turning point of his career, the one clear moment after which all the rest might have gone differently. When he started charging forward, he was still terrified. He had no real plan, and did not even know if the strategy that his brain overlaid upon the scene would even work. For that matter, he didn’t even like teenagers. In general, he’d never been terribly sad to see one of the melodramatic little twerps getting knocked on his butt. Yet into the breach he charged, acting without knowing why.

It was a quick fight. When Shelton reached the first BSer, his elbow shot out, finding a small, unguarded gap between his helmet and the base of his neck. The man lurched forward, howling in pain. With the momentum from his charging blow, Shelton swept down, then up, snatching the immobilizing rod from one BSer, ducking, and zapping him in his left kneecap. Two down. The others he fought with his hands and feet, boxing, kicking, and at one point even flipping through the air. It was an extraordinary thing, for, before each blow, he only saw the outline of what he could do. Upon doing it, he knew it, and he knew that he knew it. It was as if he was moving backwards in time, discovering each moment as it happened. 

Soon no one remained standing but the man who’d first attacked the boy. The BSer stood there, still clutching his hand. Even through the gas mask, Shelton sensed the awe, the fear, and the confusion that his face must have worn. Shelton stalked toward the man, shoulders rolling forward like an angry bull’s. With a strength he hadn’t known, Shelton snatched up the man and held him, feet dangling, against the pin oak tree. 

“What?! What is going on? What unit are you with?”

The questions came out plaintively, like cries from a baby. More than fear, the man felt betrayal. You could hear it in his voice. His side never lost. And that, Shelton suddenly knew, was why he’d done it. Not for the kid — well, maybe a little — but for the sake of something that wasn’t in the narrative. Something new. Something old. Something, for once, that was different.

“I want you to do me a favor,” he said, growling through his mask, a fiend in his fury. “I want you to tell all your friends about me!”

The BSer trembled in his grip. He whimpered. Heavy as he ought to have been, Shelton did not feel any of his weight. He felt only an iron, expansive contempt for this big man made little. He was one of the world’s authorized bullies, now stuck on the pointy end of the spear. And, until recently, this man had been one of Shelton’s allies. So perhaps his contempt had another target altogether. Nevertheless, the man’s whimpering mutters drove him to greater fury.

“I said,” roared Shelton, “I want you to tell all your friends about me.”

The BSer muttered something again.

“Speak up!”

The BSer looked away. Shelton frowned. Wasn’t this the part where the fellow asked him who he was? What was this terrifying vision of dark justice that had come at him from nowhere? 

“What was that?” said Shelton. “I didn’t catch that.”

The dangling soldier cleared his throat, then spoke in a squeak.

“I said that I don’t actually have any friends. I mean…the guys in my squad…but I’m pretty sure they know about you now, so... I mean you just kicked their a—”

“Okay! Fine! I think you’re missing the point here!”

Shelton ground the man’s back against the tree to keep him aloft. His arms were finally getting tired. With what strength he could still muster, he tossed the man to the turf.

“Just...get out of here!” he said. “Leave these kids in peace. Run! Run while you still can!”

He was tired, but the feeling of power from commanding those who normally commanded everyone else was frankly intoxicating. The man scampered to his feet, ran twenty yards, then stopped. He turned back towards Shelton, and cocked his head ever so slightly.

“Take your own advice!” said the BSer, a little boldness coming back into his quavering voice. “Run! Run while you can!”

He turned himself, and hobbled off into the darkness, leaving behind his unconscious comrades. Just then, sirens wailed. Dozens of them, loud, close, and closing fast. They were coming.

“Oh oh,” said Shelton.

He looked up at the girl. She no longer whimpered, but stared down at him aghast.

“Now jump!” he commanded. “We don’t have any time.”

The girl looked from him, to the tall young man. The other was on his feet again, wincing from the pain in his shoulder. He was wobbly, but seemed otherwise unharmed.

“Do it, Sarah,” said the kid; then, turning to Shelton. “You can catch her?”

Shelton nodded. The siren sounds came closer. Sarah shook her head, measured the drop, and jumped. Shelton caught her cleanly, and set her down.

“We have to go,” said the boy, speaking to Sarah across Shelton’s body.

“But Faro, what about him?”

The boy called Faro looked Shelton up and down, then shook his head.

“We don’t know who he’s working for. This could be a trap.”

Shelton balked. “I just...I just saved you from being hauled off by the BS squad!”

Faro scoffed. “Is that so? And now you think you’re owed something? For doing what any decent person would have done?”

He spat on the floor. There was something violent and clean about an unmasked human creature expelling his disgust in such a visceral way. It was one of a thousand gestures about which Shelton had only read. 

“We go our separate ways now,” said the boy. “Thanks for what you did, but I don’t trust you. Nobody gets trust for free. I saw what you did. You’re enhanced. And that means you’re one of them.”

“I’m not—” began Shelton.

But if he was not, then what was he? Blue and red lights now pierced through the trees. He thought he could hear the distant tramp of booted feet. He took the boy by the shoulders. 

“Look, I honestly don’t know who I’m with. But I’m not with them. And I’ve got nowhere to hide!”

The boy closed his eyes, as if in deep thought.

“Faro! Come on!” said Sarah in an anxious whisper. “We’ve got to go!”

Faro opened his eyes. There was something different there. Something almost sly.

“Fine then, stranger. Follow us, if you can keep up.”

With that he darted forward into the woods. Sarah followed, and Shelton followed her. Faro navigated the dark woods with preternatural grace, dodging and weaving, crouching and squirming, and never losing speed. Sarah, whatever her inexperience, showed the same dexterity. Shelton tramped after them, his trench coat flying behind him like a cape. More than once it snagged, and he was forced to stop and free it from the brush. He almost lost the youths, but caught up with them just as the two came to a narrow pipe in the ground. Without hesitation, each crouched down and entered it. Suppressing squeamishness at the thought of the ten billion germs that must live in that pipe, Shelton squeezed in too.

For a long time he wriggled forward. This situation was really his worst nightmare: a dark, confined place, wet and crawling with microorganisms. After an eternity, the pipe spilled out into another, only slightly larger. There were no torches or electric lights. Every so often, a shaft of moonlight pierced through from some opening that he could not even crane up his neck to see. They seemed to be worming their way into the heart of the city, into its untrodden, underground, and abandoned places. For the most part, he had only the sounds from ahead to guide his progress. Had it not been for those sounds, Shelton’s anxiety at this confinement might have driven him insane.

Finally they seemed to come to the end of that narrow road. Ahead of him, Shelton heard Faro drop down into a larger space. Sarah followed, and scampered after him. Horrified at the thought of being left alone down here, Shelton shouldered forward, charging recklessly into the darkness. It was a mistake. He cleared the end of the pipe, and fell headlong onto a hard, irregular surface. It took him only a moment to realize what it was. In pitch darkness, he took hold of the old subway track, and stood. 

“Where are you guys?” he said.

“This way,” came Faro’s voice, dozens of paces behind him.

“I’m coming,” said Shelton, panicked. “Wait for me.”

“No!” growled Faro. “We don’t wait. You follow.”

Their footsteps tramped off quickly. He couldn’t see them at all. Twice he tripped, and had to right himself. The footsteps became more distant. 

“Wait!” he hissed. “Wait!”

There was no answer. Shelton struggled forward, hands before him, batting at the inky air. There were no more shafts of light from above. He was in total darkness. Only then did he remember Faro’s sly look. His sudden agreement to let Shelton follow. The boy had never intended to lead him back to his own home. They were going to lose him here. They were abandoning him in the dark. And that must mean that wherever they lived, it was far away from here. Some deep hole that they could reasonably expect he’d never stumble into. That he couldn’t lead others to. He’d hardly had a moment to admit the terrible fact to himself, when something struck him hard on the back of the head. Shelton swooned, then fell forward, slipping into an even greater darkness than the one in which he stood.

X.

Some time later he awoke. He was unmasked. He lay on the floor of a rectangular brick chamber whose yellowing ceiling was covered in lichen. Figures stood above him garbed from head to foot in crimson robes. Their hands held torches. Their mouths and noses stood exposed to the elements, but their eyes were concealed behind golden masks that reminded Shelton of the theater. The eyes of the masks were mere slits, which amplified the grim bearing of the red-robed figures that craned over him. Shelton tried to move, but his hands and feet were shackled. 

“Who are you? What am I doing here?” he said, unable to conceal the terror in his voice.

A figure stepped forward. It crouched, and brought its torch to within a hands-breadth of Shelton’s face.

“Who are we?” said a male voice, deep and disapproving.

“Who are we?” the figure repeated. “We know who you are. You are Shelton Winston Simpson. You are trespassing where you aren’t invited.”

“How…how do you know my name?” said Shelton.

 “You,” continued the face, now inches from Shelton’s, “are in our world. So you’re in no position to make demands and requests. You’ve passed out of your world. The world of safety. Of control. Of predictions. Of actuarial tables. Of micromanaged chaos. Of gestures without meaning. Now you’re in our power. Brace yourself, Shelton Simpson, for you have entered the realm of the Underground Abattoir!” 

TO BE CONTINUED

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