He could have bought more time by erasing all video from all cameras; in the first few hours following his resurrection, he had not always been thinking clearly. Nevertheless, he perceived value in letting them gradually discover what he had become. With time to consider his astonishing capabilities, they would grow increasingly fearful and separate into factions, each with a different view of how to find and capture him. A fugitive is safest when the posse that’s after him is frightened and filled with division.
Now, in Michael’s strange new life, his avatar sits in the front seat of the metaverse Tesla, where archived video from earlier this very day plays on the windshield, showing the nameless agent repeatedly viewing morgue video recorded four days ago.
Michael gives voice to a new destination, the computer system of the Internal Security Agency, and in an instant he is rocketing through the fantastical maze of highways, as if he is a boy at play in a life-size slot-car setup of infinite complexity. In seconds, the imaginary Tesla penetrates the highly guarded ISA data center that, in the real world, is located in Utah. In those archives, Michael seeks and quickly finds the order dispatching a team of agents to Beautification Research after the catastrophe that occurred there. One by one, he flips through the agents’ files, each of which includes a photo as well as a name, until he finds the man with proud Roman features, who is as noble-looking as Julius Caesar but whose eyes suggest a Nero who sets fires for pleasure and delights in the suffering of others. Durand Calaphas.
FIRE MARSHAL
Durand Calaphas is indifferent to most people. Their lives hold no interest for him. In his estimation, their beliefs are generally foolish, and their passions are tedious. They have no destiny except to work, pay taxes, consume, and die—all while, preferably, making little trouble. In a world shaped to a more intelligent plan, there would be fewer of their kind, which is a basic doctrine of the New Truth. He calls them “Extras” because they are to him like the actor wannabes who people the crowd scenes of movies, given no dialogue and lacking the talent to be granted any.
Calaphas does his part to correct the problem of that excess population. The only people he has more than a passing interest in are those whom he is authorized to liquidate. Unlike the Extras, people who earn termination are figures of at least some substance, if only because they have done something to earn a death sentence and therefore make themselves part of Calaphas’s destiny, which is one of greatness.
Occasionally, he encounters someone who isn’t on his kill list but to whom he is not indifferent, to whom he takes an immediate and intense dislike. Nolan Freeman, the fire marshal for this county, is one of those.
The first thing Calaphas sees when he enters Freeman’s office, on the top floor of a three-story firehouse, is a memorial wall of firefighters who died on duty in this jurisdiction. Each is pictured on a small plaque that is fixed to a larger display with room for additions; under the photo is his or her name, length of service, and date of death. At the top of this honor roll, in the center of its width, the phrase AMERICAN HEROES is written in fancy script. Surmounting it all is a flag fixed flat to the wall. Calaphas hates the idea of heroes, which he believes is merely a tool with which the gullible are manipulated into doing all the dirty, dangerous work of society for meager wages, forfeiting their meaningless lives in a lost cause. He despises the flag and America, which will soon be washed away by the New Truth. He interprets the memorial wall as the work of either a fool who believes in duty, sacrifice, justice, freedom, and the sacred value of life, or a phony whose every word and action is calculated to burnish his image in the eyes of his superiors.
Given the uncompromising principles by which Calaphas lives, he finds it difficult to smile at Nolan Freeman and shake his hand. He would prefer to kill the sonofabitch and cut off his genitals and nail them to the memorial wall. However, he’s seeking information related to Michael Mace that might prove essential to understanding that fugitive and finding him; he must play the role of a dedicated public servant who believes in all the delusions that men like the fire marshal cherish or purport to cherish.
Behind his desk, Freeman sits at attention, spine straight and shoulders back and chin raised, as if perpetually proud of having risen from the firehouse ranks to his current title—or as if he has hemorrhoids. “The case screams arson, yet I can’t prove it. There was something very strange about that house fire. It might help me to better analyze the evidence if I knew more about Michael Mace—why he is, as you say, on the run and wanted.”
In the visitor’s chair, Calaphas amuses himself by mimicking Freeman’s posture, as a subtle way of disrespecting the man while presenting himself as an earnest fellow member of the establishment.
“I’d like nothing better than to assist you, Marshal Freeman, but I can only say that Mace is a terrorist wanted in the deaths of more than fifty patriotic Americans. Everything else is classified, a matter of national security.”
When Calaphas mentions fifty victims, the fleshy features of the marshal’s broad, dark face tighten in indignation. No doubt he sees himself as one whose anger is always righteous, the impersonal and unselfish displeasure at unworthy acts, which never needs to be regretted and for which no repentance is required. Gifford, Durand’s late brother, had been likewise certain that he lacked the capacity for resentment and vindictiveness.
“The fuel load of that house,” Freeman says, “should have made for a slower-spreading fire than what happened.”
“Fuel load?”
“That’s the weight of all burnable matter in the structure plus burnable contents, multiplied by the BTUs that each type of material can produce. A pound of wood, depending on the species of the tree it’s from, gives you eight thousand to nine thousand BTUs per pound, oily pine more than oak. Plastic puts out twice as much as wood. Then there’s the heat-release rate, how fast a particular material burns, measured in BTUs per second. The faster and hotter the fuel burns, the quicker a fire spreads. This one didn’t have a phase in which it smoldered. It stormed through that house from ignition—the free-burning phase—to the flashover phase in record time.”
“Gasoline, kerosene?” Calaphas asks.
“We couldn’t find a trace of any liquid accelerant. The burn was nearly as complete as it gets, but even so there would still be evidence of an accelerant if one was used. There’s always evidence. One of the strange things here was the extreme conductivity.”
“Conductivity?”
“Conductivity. When they burn, some things retain a lot of their heat, while other substances spread the heat fast to nearby materials. Paper, most of your fabrics, carpets, mattress stuffing—they’re highly conductive. Air itself is highly conductive. Most fires spread by convection, superheated air circulating through the structure.”
This is more detail than Calaphas thinks he needs. Freeman is showing off, relishing this opportunity to prove that someone like him can rise from nothing to this expertise. Nevertheless, Calaphas leans forward as if fascinated. “Air? But air doesn’t burn.”
“Ohhhh, but it does, Agent Calaphas. You must understand, air is rich with oxygen. All flame is burning gases. When any material combusts, it oxidizes, producing flammable gas. The more air that is circulating in a house, the faster the place burns. Fire seeks air. That’s why flames burn upward.”