At the end of the hall, he pushes open a half-closed door and moves into the spectral radiance that reveals not an afterlife, but instead a kitchen with appliances that feature digital clocks and readouts. The window shades glow softly with lunar backlight.
On the center island are three bowls with spoons. He feels one bowl and finds it cold to the touch. He wipes a finger through a puddle of coolness in the bottom and brings it to his mouth for a taste. Perhaps melted ice cream. Chocolate. Cherry. A third flavor he can’t name.
On arrival, the fugitives felt safe enough to indulge in this treat, which deeply displeases Calaphas. He believes he understands enough about Michael Mace’s powers to be certain that the former security specialist has invaded the ISA’s computer system and knows exactly who is on his trail. At the safe house, Calaphas changed phones and cars without signing for either, leaving his quarry with no way to track him by GPS. That his pursuer has dropped off the map should alarm Mace and encourage him to keep moving. Instead, he and his two mysterious companions enter this house, somehow aware that it’s untenanted, and they sit down for ice cream.
Calaphas’s displeasure swells into indignation that these people seem not to take seriously the threat that he poses. Being underestimated particularly offends him. Being underestimated is equivalent to a slap in the face, an unforgivable act of contempt and belittlement, an affront not to be tolerated. Indignation flames into exasperation as he moves through an open door, along the main downstairs hall. He has conducted himself according to the rules of the game, achieving such an impressive kill total over twenty-six years, since the old man on the gurney, that he has come now to the last kill in this simulation, to the final gate and the ultimate reward beyond, but suddenly two new characters are introduced, two more whom he must eliminate, which is aggravating. Calaphas enjoys it, yes, and he will take pleasure in their fear and pain, but he wonders—as he has on a few occasions in the past—if the game is rigged so that it can never be won, additional new challenges added just when he is reaching for the well-earned gold ring, a new life of greater power and prestige. Rigged! The possibility enrages him, suggests that the game isn’t a game at all, but some kind of never-ending frat-boy hazing, as if the designers of this simulation take delight in mocking his expectation of being elevated to their level. It isn’t true, can’t be true, must not be true that his efforts have been a fool’s quest. The simulation is not, is not, is not, damn it, a sophisticated, cruel carnival of humiliations. How did her nipples taste, perv? It hasn’t been crafted for his endless mortification, but for his transcendence. The hateful memory of the candy between Britta Holdstrom’s breasts compounds exasperation into rage, even as his priapism is as painful as a grossly swollen boil. When he killed Gifford, his brother’s widow had given him the dead man’s solid-gold Rolex, which was an omen—a sign, a promise—that his time was coming, his glorious future. The gamemakers need to be reminded of that promise. Gifford can’t be killed twice, though it would be such a relief if he could be killed again and again. Here, now, Calaphas can find no one to kill, no one at all, by the time that he reaches the foyer. Then comes a clattering noise. Like wood knocking wood. Elsewhere in the house. His attention is drawn to the stairs, to the second floor, to the revived prospect of triumph and relief.
NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
Juan is seventy-four, and Walter is seventy-five. They are retired, and a life without work doesn’t sit well with them. Once successful entrepreneurs, they can spend only so much time on the golf course, on the bocce ball court, competing in pickleball tournaments, and playing cards with their wives and friends before they start adding double shots of vodka even to their nightly beakers of Metamucil. Consequently, they are always seeking new pursuits and projects, what Juan calls “reasons not to go crazy while we’re waiting for Alzheimer’s.” During the past six months, they have been acting as an unofficial neighborhood watch one or two nights every week, mostly between eleven o’clock in the evening and three o’clock in the morning, cruising the community in Juan’s F-150 pickup.
Back in the day, two burglaries a year was a crime wave. Now that Central American gangs have flooded across the open border, life here has gotten to be more of an adventure than it once was, with two burglaries a month. And the perpetrators aren’t lone wolves anymore. They come in crews of four or more, in paneled trucks well disguised as vehicles belonging to one public utility or another, or to a federal bureau like the ATF or the EPA, and they have several methods of defeating alarm systems. Unlike burglars in the past, these new boys aren’t after a few pieces of good jewelry, a little cash, and maybe a hockable sterling-silver tea service. In addition, they take antiques, art, audio-video equipment, major appliances, and a luxury automobile or two. Because people foolishly share their lives on social media, the bad guys are now expert at discovering who is on vacation. If people happen to be at home, they are beaten or threatened at gunpoint, tied up, and tucked away in a closet for the duration of the operation, which can take a few hours.
Juan and Walter have no patience for crap like that. They call themselves “geezers with attitude.” As is the case with most law-enforcement agencies in recent years, the sheriff’s department’s budget isn’t what it once was. The number of patrols have been cut back especially from ten o’clock at night until six in the morning. Neither Juan nor Walter is either deputized or armed with anything more than pepper spray, but their efforts are appreciated by the beleaguered local authorities. They cruise, looking for suspicious activity. When they see it, they alert the sheriff’s dispatcher by phone, and he sends a deputy to investigate. So far, they have helped prevent three burglaries, two carjackings, and an attempted arson.
On this occasion, when Walter spots something unusual moving through the grass and scrub, Juan switches on the two motorized spotlights fixed to the vehicle’s roof rack, and he directs one toward the bogey.
“You see this?” Juan asks.
“Alien robots,” Walter says.
Juan says, “Might be Earthmade.”
“You see them sold at Costco?”
“So then . . . do what?”
Walter says, “Burglars are burglars.”
“This planet’s our home, not theirs,” Juan agrees.
The robots veer away from the road.
“Hold on,” Juan says, and he wheels off the pavement in pursuit of the invaders.
EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE
Through the cameras of Gog and Magog, Michael Mace sees the license-plate number of the Ford F-150. He knows where to find what he requires, and he is so familiar with the California DMV system that he doesn’t need to imagine himself in a Bentley, driving the infinitely layered highways of the internet until he arrives at his destination. He slips into the DMV data pool and, in seven seconds, has the names of the owners of the pickup truck—Juan and Angela Gainza. He expects that the manufacturer’s records—where he has been before and to which he now returns—will yield the signifying number of the transponder in the pickup. But the vehicle doesn’t have a navigation system, a feature that the buyer didn’t want. Consequently, Michael can’t slide down a microwave signal that doesn’t exist, can’t enter the F-150 and affect its operation.