Transcript

Bouncing over what passed for a desert road in the middle of Nevada, I found it easy to know what to do, and to predict the ways in which I could be discovered. The satellites covering the ground, the heat sensors embedded in the ground. The advanced sound detection systems. I’d never even heard of half of this stuff, but I intuitively understood how to avoid being detected. 

At moments like these, I loved Computronium.

I didn’t love what I was about to do. I had a plan, but I was going rogue to do it.

I have no one to blame. It’s my plan, after all, and I don’t want to die. But, I am the person who can do it. It’s up to me. And I’m up to do it.

And, I think back to yesterday.  In our final preparations, haphazard as they are, we took a moment to share with each other about why we going to do what we planned to do.

SeventyNine was an Army Ranger, and saw what Computronium did to three members of his Company in Afghanistan in 2002.  TwoZeroEight is a former Computronium addict, and also Canadian. NineNineNine lost her boyfriend to the Arcana.

Why did I? I’m still not sure. The responsibility gene is too strong, I guess. 

Rufus and Anna? They had been lifelong members of the Arcana. Part of Aaron Jefferson’s inner circle. Disillusioned when their daughters got caught up in the web, when they saw a way out, they started plotting.

Something grabbed my attention. I veered to the right and floored it!  (Boom!).  It was like some sort of mortar round, or guided missile. I didn’t really get a look.  I was weaving, it felt instinctual, but I knew it was the Comptronium, gathering clues I otherwise would not have noticed, quickly stitching them together into a reaction, and staying alive.

Something in my ears beeps. My bluetooth earbuds, going dead. Great.

Then, an idea. I open the Humvee’s door, jam the crowbar I used on those soldiers onto the gas pedal and roll out the door. Thump, bump, oof, awf.  I survived it, but altogether not one of my best plans. I wonder what came up with it. Was it me, or the Computronium?

The Humvee rolls on, blasting into the compound, a series of low buildings low on a rocky hill. It hits what looks like a dump – a pile of old tires and barrels and tangles of wire, flies up on two wheels, then skids on it’s side right into a small building, like a mobile office at a construction site.

I had made my announcement: “I’m here.”

That’s my plan. I want to flush the Undersecretary. Get him on the move. He’s stocked with Computronium. He can calculate all the rational possibilities, predict all the sensible outcomes. 

But, I remember what Jan had said to me.  We were in her apartment, weeks ago.  She was blow drying her hair.  Over the din of the blow-dryer, she said she was concerned about me.  I’d become unpredictable.  I’d gone crazy. 

Unpredictable. Computronium can’t predict the unpredictable. It can’t rationalize the irrational.   

My Computronium made me crazy. Undersecretary Jefferson’s Computronium can’t calculate crazy.

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Suddenly, there is a burst of action. I see a handful of soldiers, just like the two I had dealt with, and, a flood of children? An absolute flood.  Of little kids.

I say into my bluetooth headset, “Hey – I’m at the compound. I see the vault in the side of the mountain. Rufus was right. It looks impenetrable.”

Then I hear Rufus say, “Did you get the C4 from their stockpile?”

I say, “No, I’m changing the plan. I’m not going after the Computronium. Jefferson is going to bring it to me.”

From the other end: silence. Crickets. I imagine them thinking, “Has Sean finally lost his mind?” And I think, you bet I have. If my friend’s don’t know what I’m about to do. (Can’t conceive it), then there is no way Aaron Jefferson, the Undersecretary, can. 

I mean, right?

Then, I hear NineNineNine say, “Sean, we have a problem –”

I interrupt him. I say, “Hold on — Rufus, there are children everywhere. What is going on?”

NineNineNine says, “Sean – the helicopter!”

I say, “Hold on – Rufus – what’s with all the kids?”

Rufus says, “Jefferson’s always looking for more Computronium.  It’s a job for the young and healthy. And vulnerable.”

Then, I hear a helicopter. I say, “Hear I hear the chopper. Perfect timing.”

But NineNineNine says, “Helicopter? What?”

I say again, “I hear it. The timing couldn’t be better.”

NineNineNine says, “But, our chopper is grounded – I was trying to tell you. Something’s wrong with the rotor. It won’t fly!”

And I think, “Oh, no!”

There is chaos in the compound, which masks my full out sprint toward the small mountain, to where the large metal doors are.  It’s an entrance to a cave. The closer I get, the louder the helicopter. The sound is above me. I look up, there is a path to the top of the hill. 

And the Computronium speaks to me.

Two minutes later, I huff and puff my way to the top. I’m spent, but with a couple of minutes to recover, I should be fine.

I’m not going to get a couple of minutes to recover.  Just as I get to the top, and break out into the open, where there is a concrete helipad and another Humvee, I see the helicopter taking off.  It looks heavy, and slow. There’s only one man inside. The pilot.  The helicopter struggles to get off the ground, but does, and just as it does, I sprint over with the last of my energy and I climb into the cargo area. Was I spotted? 

I’m too tired to care.

I hear my earbuds beep. I’ve been on a call, in the middle of the desert, for an hour. The battery is about dead.

I can’t hear a thing anyway. The helicopter is too loud.  I can barely hear the beeps.

The Computronium speaks to me.

The helicopter is in the air. It’s jam packed full, and there is only one other person inside.  And I know already: My plan is working perfectly.

Computronium can calculate countless outcomes out of predictable data, and a few minutes ago, my Computronium, duct taped to my abdomen, helped predict that if I made a noisy attack on the Museum, Jefferson would panic and flee.  I didn’t predict he had a helicopter, but it was close enough.  And, Jefferson was acting just as I’d predicted.

I, on the other hand, was not. Jefferson didn’t know me, didn’t know what I’d do and it was all due to the Computronium taped to my —

I felt my abdomen – the Computronium was missing.  It had come off somehow. Probably when I rolled out of the Humvee. Oh shit, what was I going to do?!  I could black out at any time.

I needed advice from NineNineNine, TwoZeroEight, Rufus. I couldn’t talk to them, but I could text. In the cargo area of this chopper, hunkered down out of reach, I pull out my phone. I push the home button and… nothing. It was dead! I am on my own!

I’m at nearly a panic. What am I going to do? Unpredictable. Be unpredictable. What would be unpredictable!?! How am I supposed to know? How can I predict what is unpredictable? Argh!!

I was so close. 

Am.

No, I am so close.

Am.

I can do this, I can…

The Computronium speaks to me.

I am in a helicopter full of Computronium. Surely being surrounded by it will prevent withdrawal. Until.

Until I crash it. Ruin it all.

Jefferson is moving according to my plan. (Is it my plan) Heading straight for Hill Air Force Base. Flying across the Great Salt Lake.

I look to the other side of the chopper. We have arrived.

It’s time.  I stand up. Jefferson glances back.  He looks glib. Seventy years of doing whatever the hell he wants and getting away with it. He’s not concerned about me.

His hands are full with the controls.  If he’s not the pilot, we don’t fly. He can’t stop me from getting to the Computronium and…

What is salt, but iodine?  I remember back to Montreal. The iodine treatment. 

Instead of breaking open crates to get Computronium for myself. I will dump it into the salt water. 

Crate after crate.  I push them out. Splash. Splash. Splash. Into the salt water.

Jefferson is screaming at me. No!! 

He starts weaving, trying to fling me out the side of the helicopter. He almost succeeds, but in reality, he just makes it easier. The more he weaves, the more crates slide to the side. 

But then – suddenly, all the weight shifts to one side, the chopper tips to the left with it and in less than a second we are heading straight for the water.

We go down.  Deep down.

Down deep.

And, then I’m floating. I don’t even need to swim, or to dog paddle. My body hurts but my head feels great. Clear as a blue sky.

Iodine. I am swimming in iodine.  I can feel it has rendered useless the Computronium in my body. 

I sit up fast. 

Oh, that hurt.   Where am I?

A voice says, “Hey, relax, relax. You’re safe.”

It’s Jan. She’s holding my hand, then hugging me. I’m in a room. Is it a hospital?

I say, “Did I black out again?”

Jan says, “No, I don’t think so. I think you just needed a sleep.”

“What happened?”

Jan says “Do you remember anything?”

I say, “We crashed.”

Jan says, “Yes. You crashed. Three days ago. You and Jefferson. We assume he died, but haven’t found the body. All the Computronium was aboard that helicopter, and it’s all scattered over a three mile stretch of the Salt Lake.  NineNineNine and TwoZeroEight went and recovered some of it. And it’s useless.”

I say, “Useless?  It worked?”

Jan looks baffled. She says, “That was your plan?” She pauses. Then says, “Yeah, it worked… Well, NineNineNine and TwoZeroEight are pissed. Turns out they wanted the Computronium for themselves. But, I think this result is better.”

I say, “Me, too.”

She says, “How do you feel?”

I look down at my hand, cradled between her two hands. I say, “To be honest. Fantastic.”

Jan says, “Well, the high salinity water probably fixed your radiation exposure, too.”

I think about that for a minute. Yeah, I’m glad about that. But, it wasn’t what I meant.

I sit up in bed. I say, “I feel fantastic, because you are here.” Then, I kiss her, and she kisses me back.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Transcript

I could not help thinking about Anna as the Humvee I rode in bumped over rocks and gravel.

I couldn’t help it because I was laying on top of her dead body, hiding, stowing away. I couldn’t wait to get away from her. From her and her sticky blood. 

Yesterday, when we’d planned this, Anna and Rufus calculated that from where Anna would be picked up, we would drive by this huge, gnarly tree.  They said, “you’ll be following a faint road, a trail really. You will go right past it. When you do, count to 45. At that point, you will be traveling up a long slow uphill.”

When the count gets to 45, I will jump.  The Humvee will be driving uphill, slowly  enough to give me a chance to jump out. Jump out and then hide.  I would be inside the perimeter of the Museum security.  I wouldn’t be home-free, but it would be a solid start.

Just minutes before, I had been strapped to Anna.  Then, I admired her very lively and lovely older body as she sauntered away from me. How long ago? Ten minutes? Her body was still warm.  What was Ruthless Rufus thinking? She was his wife and business partner.  I bet he doesn’t even care.

Anna and I had jumped from a plane, landed, stowed our chute, and split up. Then these two men – American soldiers, by the looks of them – drove up and shot her. Point blank. (zero) No questions asked. 

Now those same shooters are up in the front of the Humvee, joking and laughing. As though they hadn’t just killed a human being. As though she didn’t matter. And though I had hated Anna, I wanted to punch them both in the face.

Then, I see a tree. Is that the one? I start counting, and get ready to jump, but – false alarm – the tree isn’t very impressive.  Anna said it would be impressive.  Rufus called it gnarly. They both said it was alive when the first white man landed in North America. The tree was so impressive, they said, that it had survived a nuclear blast just a score of miles away. 

I look up and see the blue sky, and the bright sun.  I think: impress me.

Then, I hear talking through my bluetooth earbuds. I am apparently on speaker-phone.  Jan says, “I am telling you, this is crazy.” 

Jan continued, “They’ve already shot Anna, are you going to sacrifice Sean, too?”  

79 says, “None of us like this plan, but if Sean doesn’t do this, no one lives. None of us, at least.”

I hear 208 say, “Jan, we are all sacrificing. We’ve sacrificed so much already. If we don’t do this, we sacrifice everything we’ve already done.”

I hear Jan say, “No, this is not right. I can’t stand by for this.”  I want to tell Jan to not worry.  I want to tell her I’m doing this of my own free will.  But, I don’t risk speaking.

Then, in the background, I hear a door slam and then Robbie says, “She’s in love with him, you know.” And I hear 208 say, “Shh – we’re on speaker phone.”

But, I realize I already knew that Jan was in love with me.  And, the Computronium triggers something in my brain. An idea. Hmm. Yes. An idea.

And, I change my mind. 

I pull out my phone and type a quick text message. Anna’s blood is all over my hands, and I have trouble with the fingerprint reader, so I have to type in the passcode. I wipe my hands and type out my message:

“Stowed in back. No tree yet.”

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The swoosh sound of the text being sent sounded so loud, I expect the men in front to hear it over the sound of the engine.  I fumble to try to find the volume button, but the blood makes my phone slippery and I don’t succeed. 

I’m on speakerphone and I hear my text come in.  Joanna says, “Sean just texted. He’s in the car but hasn’t passed the tree.”

Just as I heard that, I saw it. And, it was impressive, just as Anna said. Beyond gnarly. Knotted, dead-looking, majestic, like a religious shrine to nature.  Genuinely amazing. It looked like the kind of thing that was strong enough and weird enough to survive a full on nuclear blast, though of course it hadn’t.  

My mind is changed. I have a new plan, though I can’t risk sharing it with the team. My plan is risky.  They wouldn’t like it.

I listen to the Humvee’s engine roar as it climbs the hill. It is so steep that I can see down to the bottom of the hill. It feels like we are going to topple over backward.

And, I realize: I forgot to count. I can see the gnarly tree behind me. How far away is it? How fast are we going? Has it been twenty seconds, or two minutes? Shit!

The Humvee slows. I decide that this is my chance. Back at the warehouse, Anna made me practice this move, using some obstacles we had found. The idea is that I hook my leg and arm on the back ridge of the truck, low so I can’t be seen, and push up and over just before we crest the hill. Then, I will lay flat on the ground and hope the driver doesn’t look into the mirror until he has navigated the crest of the hill and I am out of sight. 

If I get that far, I will run for the bushes. I was now just inside the virtual fence perimeter but not to the first checkpoint.  I have to get out before the checkpoint. 

That was the plan.  Few plans have gone well lately.  But, I am in contact with Computronium, and I am changing the plan. 

The back of the Humvee’s cab is canvas, and there is also a vinyl window, cloudy with dust and age. I roll in the blood from Anna’s body, I smear blood on my face and arms. Then I roll off of Anna’s body. I find a small tear in the canvas, and I pull, ripping it wide open. I crawl up into the cab and see the two soldiers. They are intently focused on navigating the steep final section of the hill – practically a cliff, and I climb in behind them. The Humvee rolls over the top of the hill and lurches to the top and lands flat, struggling a few meters onto flat ground. I look around for something I can use, and spot a crowbar. I pick it up and hit the soldier on my right as hard as I can. I hear a crunching thump and I wonder if I just knocked him out, or if I actually killed him.

The driver turns to me and I can see on his face, the question: “What the fuck!?” I have blood all over me and though I look nothing like Anna, he is momentarily confused, like, maybe she’d risen from the grave.

I hit him in the face.

The Humvee continues to roll forward, then lurches and bounces. I climb into the wide middle section between the seats, reach across the driver, push open his door and push him out. I jump into the seat and settle in and slam on the brakes. I look up, and only meters away is the checkpoint, with two soldiers looking from me, to the driver laying on the ground, then to me. I can see the same shock on their faces, and I release the brakes, slam the gas and roar right past them. I duck as bullets rip into the back of the vehicle.  A mile ahead, I can see some sort of compound, and I’m racing right toward it.

 The original plan has not survived confrontation with the enemy, but my new plan is already working.

I yell into my phone. I scream, “I’m in, fire up the chopper, now! Bring some cable, because I’ve got a new plan!”

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Transcript

I am strapped to Anna’s back, plummeting at 120 miles per hour. Straight down. Down. Down.

We were dropped low and fast, it’s our only chance. Fast, undetected. Then Anna pulls the cord and …

Freefalling is a rush, but it’s not scary. Scary is when you release the parachute and are then dangle in mid-air, hundreds of feet in the sky. And, I would not have been able to do it. 

That’s why I was strapped to Anna.

A minute later we land with a thud, and fall and twist and drag and scrape and Anna says, “Dammit, Sean. I told you to lift your legs!”

I don’t answer. I didn’t do it on purpose, the leg thing, but it feels good to exact a little revenge against this, this… person. Anna’s aggravating. It’s been torture to be strapped to her back for the last thirty minutes, this nemesis of mine.  We stood ready to jump from the plane at any time, we weren’t sure how far we’d get. 

Strapped in.  Feeling the curves of her body, being massively turned on against my will.  And have her feel that I was turned on and work her body this way and that way and… Well, the free-fall was a free-for-all and I enjoyed it immensely.

Against my will.

We work, Anna and I, to untangle ourselves. She says, “Hurry!” Which: duh.  We cut away the chute. I tell Anna, “It would have been a lot easier to concentrate, you know. If you’d left me alone.” She smiles, tilts her head back, and laughs. 

It was the only real laugh I had ever heard from her, and it would be her last.

The Computronium doesn’t help with a lot of important things. Like, fear of heights. Nope. Still weak-kneed. Butterflies in my stomach.  Speaking of Computronium, I check my stomach, where a chunk of the rock is duct-taped three times over.   Should what I’m about to do come down to a struggle, I can not lose contact with the Computronium.  I just can’t.

Anna points to a hill. She says, “The LZ is on the other side of that peak. You got three hours. We’ll detonate the thing as soon as we lift off.  I’ll see you on the inside. Good luck, and remember the satellites.” 

Anna looks at me for a minute.  I imagine I look ridiculous in diving goggles and a too-tight jump-suit. She says, “If Aaron Jefferson is going to be stopped, you are the man who is going to stop him.” I nod and try to swallow, but start coughing instead.

Anna looks at me, as though to say, great, you’re supposed to stop a madman, but you can’t even handle involuntary bodily functions.

For encouragement, or maybe to cop one last feel, Anna slaps me on the ass. She then spins and struts away like a runway model showing the latest in skin-tight jump-suits. I’m unable to peel my eyes away. When she disappears over a small hill, I jog into a group of bushes just tall enough to conceal me. 

This next scene is Anna’s. She’s going to sacrifice herself to get me in the building, then, the stage is mine.  If all goes well, I’m a hero.  

If not, no one is.

I can see the main road in the distance. I look at my watch. The Undersecretary has tapped into several surveillance satellites and watches this plot of land from the sky. But, there are gaps. We need to hit those gaps. Or else. The gap started while we were airborne. Strapped to her back, we looked like one sky-diver.  They spotted that much. Now, I hide until they confront Anna.

The group called The Arcana are aware of the threat from the air, but they are not concerned by sky-divers. In fact, Anna and Rufus have paid sky-divers to jump and land here sporadically off and on for the last few years.  Security will run the thrill-seeking trespassers, of course, and threaten them for-sure. But eventually the Arcana began to view them as a nuisance, not a threat.  Anna and Rufus’ foresight secured our entrance to our only chance against The Undersecretary.

I put in my bluetooth earpiece and dial my phone. While it connects, I notice the battery life: 83%. That could be a problem.  What if the phone dies right when I need it most?

I connect to the conference call. 79 says, “Sean, is that you?” I whisper, “Affirmative.” 

I hear Anna connect as well. She speaks in a regular voice.  She sounds confident, unlike me. Unlike me, Anna has done shit like this before. 

I get to the bushes where I will hide while the Arcana security team confront and pick up Anna.  While she distracts them, I will circle around, get behind them, and stow away on the vehicle. They’ll take her back to their headquarters, the Museum, and I’ll be on the inside. When Anna and Rufus described their plan, they said this was the easy part.  Once I’m inside, it’s going to be my Computronium and fresh body vs The Undersecretary,  his massive stash of Computronium, but aged body.

But not yet. First, the Arcana security team. Anna and Rufus had worked this job when they first started with the Arcana over forty years ago.  They know how it works. Anna could be recognized, but the Arcana’s onsite Nevada security team are usually the youngest of the young, so she’s not concerned.

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I hear it before I see it. A diesel engine.  Then, a military Humvee. It skids up to Anna, in the wide open, just as she predicted. She says into her earpiece, “They are here. Sean, go.”

I am supposed to circle around behind the vehicle, but honestly, I am in perfect position. Maybe fifty meters from the Humvee, already behind it. I jog bent over, and am at the back of the vehicle. When they put Anna in the back and climb in the front, I will run out and stow away in the small pickup bed in the back. 

I hear Anna start to explain the rehearsed excuse.  It’s the “I got blown off-course while sky-diving” story. She’s putting on a show of acting grateful they found her so quickly.  As long as these soldiers don’t recognize her, we will be okay.  

They will take her to the Museum, debrief her, threaten her, then drive her back to the jump school where she left from, and that would be it.  Except.

Except, none of that happened. What happened was: The soldiers drove up to Anna, and they shot her, point blank. Two soldiers, two machine guns, bam, bam. Bam.

Four quick ones. Then, a single, final shot, and I’m single, alone about to be caught.

I stopped myself from screaming, but I can’t stop myself from looking. And I see. Anna, on the ground. Shadows growing around her despite the high sun. 

Not shadows. A flood of blood. Not good.

I whisper, hopefully not too loud, “They shot Anna!”  And, I hear 79 say, “Fuck!” and 208 says, “No!!” and Rufus says, “Sean, focus! You have to get in the Museum. This is our only chance!”

Then, I hear 79 say, “Are you sure they shot her?” but Rufus saves me an answer. He  says, “Security is ordered to shoot on sight.” I can’t stop myself, I say, this time, way too loud, “What??”

I hear 79 say, “You said they’d just pick her up!”

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I hear Rufus’ voice waver as he says, “Anna knew how important this is. Don’t waste this moment, Sean. Go!”

But I cannot move. For a long moment I am terror-stricken. 

Then, my courage returns. I move to leave the bushline to run for the Humvee, and as I do, I see the two secure guards carrying Anna’s lifeless body to the back of the Humvee.  They dump her in the back, face down, right where I was supposed to stow away!  They get in, I hear it shift into gear, and I know this is my last chance. 

I chase after it, racing, running bent over.  The wheels spin, spitting gravel back and me. It hits me in the knees and thighs, I take a rock in the chest and another in the stomach, and I …  just … catch the tailgate and hop in the back and lay down flat.

And right on top of Anna.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Transcript

As the first brick flies out of my hand, toward the old warehouse wall, I think, “Have I ever been this mad before?”  And I think, is this a side effect of Computronium, too?

Then, another brick, an empty gas can, an old car bumper. I am furious. FURIOUS. Anything laying around, I throw it. A tantrum, a collapsible table that is right in front of me.  Another brick.  I pick up a box. It’s heavy. Heavy is good. Heavy throws far, goes far, throw it high, it goes where the crows are.

Right as I wind up to throw the box, my brain tells me what it is.  But I am already on to throwing something else, and it doesn’t quite make it through to my consciousness.

What does hit me is the fear I see. In Robbie’s eyes. All over Joanna’s face. The way NineNineNine turns and ducks, shoulders up near her ears. 

Even, from Rufus.

It surprises me to hear Rufus trying to calm me, saying, “No – Sean. Stop – that’s — No don’t…”  He trails off as the box goes flying. The way Rufus winces makes me wonder if it’s a box of explosives.

From Jan, I see sympathy. 

But from Anna. No. No sympathy. 

—

Anna and SeventyNine, enemies to their death, together laugh at me. My brain understands that Anna must have predicted this outcome. She must have said, “When he realizes you’ve given him his drug, he will flip out.”

But, what the fuck, SeventyNine? I thought you were on my side?

And Anna was right.  The only thing that could bring me back from that distant lonely land I had been inhabiting was more Computronium. It’s also the thing that keeps me isolated and addicted.

—

And, after I’ve exhausted myself, I stop, and collapse onto this warehouse floor and I say, “What is this, anyway?”

SeventyNine says, “What is what?”

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I say, “Where are we?”

SeventyNine says, “It’s a warehouse. Rufus and Anna lured us here –”

That’s when Anna cut him off. She says, “We brought you here because here we are safe.”

As she speaks, Anna begins to strut.  To pace. She digs into a small purse, and worse, pulls out a cigarette and this long cigarette holder. She lights the cigarette, an addiction I now get after my week of no-Computronium sweat. Anna then pushes the end of it into the holder and begins to smoke. And pace. And speak.

She says, “We brought you to this warehouse because The Undersecretary cannot trace us here. It’s one of the last places.”

TwoZeroEight says, “The Undersecretary knows we are here –”

Anna jumps her, “I know he knows we are here. I am not stupid. I said here we are safe. For a day, at least. We can plan. It’s one of the last places where we can plan. That’s what I mean, you little twerp.” 

Anna didn’t say twerp.

I almost ask the question, but Joanna gets there first. She gets there first, because my mind is racing right now. My brain feels like a thousand Cray supercomputers competing to solve the world’s most important problem all at once.

Joanna says, “How is my boss involved with this?” Joanna’s boss is the Undersecretary of the Department of Energy, a mid-level bureaucratic government position. Since Joanna is my boss, the Undersecretary is technically my boss, too.

Anna answers Joanna with a question, “How long has Undersecretary Jefferson been at his position?”

Joanna says, “He was Undersecretary when I started nine years ago.”

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Anna says, “Aaron Jefferson has been the Undersecretary to the Secretary of the Department of Energy for sixty three years.”

Joanna says, “That’s impossible, he can’t be more than 40 years old.”

Anna says, “My point exactly. He’s nearly one hundred years old but looks like he’s 40. He’s in the exact center of the US Government in order to give him the access he needs to corner the market on Computronium, without losing his job every four years to the next cabinet. He’s smart enough — because he has enough Computronium — that he has remained in that position since the Kennedy administration.”

Joanna says, “Impossible.”

But, SeventyNine says, “No, this makes sense. In his position, he oversees all of the country’s nuclear arsenal, has access here in Nevada and doesn’t raise eyebrows as new presidential administrations come and go. No one pays that close attention to mid-level bureaucrats. Especially if those bureaucrats have Computronium. Undersecretary Jefferson is practically untouchable. We’ve never even considered him.”

TwoZeroEight shakes her head and whispers, “Genius.”

Then Robbie says, “What is Computronium exactly?”

 —

Ironically, it seems Computronium can not help me understand Computronium.  Because, I don’t know.

TwoZeroEight says, “Sean, we need your help. But, it’s best if you are in the dark on the nature of Computronium.”

I say, “You can’t be serious.”

TwoZeroEight says, “Yes, I am.”

I say, “Then, I’m out.”

TwoZeroEight says, “Everything depends on this.”

“Then tell me what this is!”

TwoZeroEight grunts and turns to SeventyNine who nods and then stares at the ground, as though unable to look at me.

TwoZeroEight says, “Okay. Sean Harley, you are number 1000. Remember that. It’s important. It’s your code name. You are the first four-digit. You are one of us in the Membership.”

I say, “Whatever. Tell me what Computronium is.”

TwoZeroEight says, “You are a Member now. Do you understand the commitment?”

I say, “The next words you say better be a description of Computronium, or I’m leaving!”

SeventyNine says, “Computronium is –” He pauses, then says, “Computronium is a radioactive fulgurite.”

Joanna, Robbie and Jan are all listening. Suddenly Jan turns to me. She says, “Wait – that’s what I said. Sean, remember?”

I nod. Back on the day I was given Crazy Rock, Jan took one glance at it and had called it a fulgurite.  I remembered that, but I didn’t understand what it meant.

I say, “Fulgurite. Fine. I still don’t understand.  I googled it. All it said that fulgurite is sand fused into glass by the heat of a lightning strike. What does that have to do with anything?”

SeventyNine says, “So, Computronium was created during US Government nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s, here in Nevada.  A nuclear explosion creates a storm – lightning mainly – and this nuclear lightning created the fulgurite. After all, as you say, fulgurite is just fused sand or rock, welded by the heat of a sky-to-ground lightning strike. But, because the lightning was generated by a nuclear explosion, those rocks were … changed.”

I laugh, “No, seriously.”

Everyone is dead serious, even Anna. No scoffing or mocking. I look at Rufus, NineNineNine, TwoZeroEight. Frowns. Wrinkled foreheads. Fear. I say, “So, this shit – Crazy Rock – Computronium is created by a nuclear lightning strike?”

Then Robbie says, “So, this shit’s been laying around the desert for 70 years, waiting to be found?”

Anna laughs and says, “Oh, no.  No, no, no, no. All the Computronium has long since been collected from Area 51.”

Robbie says, “Wait –”

Anna continues, “Yes, the famous Area 51. Now you really know why it was restricted. Computronium is the reason America made it to the moon first?  It’s how America won the Cold War.”

Joanna says, “So, that’s it. Russia wants all the Computronium to become a superpower again?”

Anna says, “No, you fool.”

Robbie says, “No — Russia could just make their own. Right? Or China – Or …”

Joanna cuts in. She says, “Oh God. North Korea. And Iran.”

Anna says, “Everybody. Computronium is the new ICBM. And no country has any.  Only the Arcana has Computronium. And, Undersecretary Jefferson is about to wield that power.” 

SeventyNine says, “Until Sean came along and reacted so strongly to the Computronium, we were powerless. Now, I think we have a chance to stop him.” 

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Transcript

I sleep three quarters of every day. I’m actually not really sleeping. But, I’m not aware and to avoid the real subject, SeventyNine and TwoZeroEight call it “sleeping.” Not, “Being Overcome.” Which is the really nasty version of “sleeping.” NineNineNine seems to get more exasperated with them day by day. 

And, when I’m aware of what is going on, I’m aware I’m in a car with NineNineNine. Just her and I. And, I’m aware that TwoZeroEight and SeventyNine each drive a car of their own. I recognize road signs saying miles, not kilometers. We must be back in the States.

Then, I’m no longer aware.

Then, I’m again aware.  This time, I awake and I am alone in the car, parked in front of a roadside diner.  I am lost. Where am I? What is going on? What happened to NineNineNine?  Moments after I awake, really, no time at all, all three of them — 79, 208, 999, are of them are with me. Opening the car door. Saying, “hey man, how are you?” and “you’re awake!” and “are you hungry?” And I’m saying, “Yes, I’m hungry.” and “where were you?” and  “where are we?” and “what is going on?”

And, then I’m aware of nothing else, until, I am again.  I am in bed, and NineNineNine is in bed with me, and she’s holding me. We are spooning, and our skin on both of our bodies is sweaty. I’m breathing hard and I’m hot and I kick off the covers.  And it feels good, I feel strong, but it feels wrong. But, I am not aware of that for long.   

I drift, in and out.  In.  Out.  In. Out.

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Then, I am In again. And I’m looking at Robbie. And Robbie is talking to SeventyNine, saying, “Well, we did call it Crazy Rock. So, I guess it’s not a huge surprise it made him crazy.” And I think, wait, what? Robbie is saying I’m crazy? Crazy Rock made me crazy? 

But, then I’m gone again.

The next time I’m aware, I’m like, “Robbie? Is that you?” I am sitting at a picnic table by the side of the road. The sun is low and warm, even though the temperature is maybe 35 or 40 degrees, I’m comfortable.  I haven’t seen Robbie in over a week. Last time I saw him, it was in a Polaroid photograph of him with his kidnappers.

Robbie says, “Yes, it’s me. I’m okay. And, we’re going to get Jan and Joanna back, too. We’re still tracking them. You know, Rufus and Anna.”

I ask Robbie, “Have they hurt you?” But, Robbie says, “No, it’s not like that. We’ve tried to explain it to you.” Robbie says that, then looks at NineNineNine and says, “He just doesn’t get it. As soon as he understands it, he forgets it.”

And I understand that and I panic.  I hear myself say, “What is wrong with me!? Why can’t I …”

And, I’m gone again.  Gone.  I’ve gone away, but I didn’t leave.

Then, I’m aware of being hugged by Joanna.  I hear her say, “Will he ever be normal again?” And I know she’s talking about me. And, I strain for the answer because I want to know, too. Will I ever be normal again? Was I ever normal to start with? But, I don’t hear anyone answer Joanna. At this point, I’m assuming the answer is going to be “no”.  No now, no forever. 

No is the new normal.

And, I hear them discussing something. Nevada. Arcana. Jan. Joanna is telling them a story.  Instructing them. But, I can’t quite understand what is going on.

And then…

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The next time I’m aware, I’m AWARE. You know what I mean?! I’m back, baby. And, I’m like, what the actual fuck is going on?

We’re in a big empty building, and I’m face to face with Rufus and Anna. First thing I do – first thing ANYONE in their right mind does – is, I punch that asshole Rufus. Right. In. The Kisser. Boom! Hahaha!  I yell, “That’s for Jan!!”

Yeah, it feels good. But then, Robbie, and SeventyNine and TwoZeroEight are all grabbing me and holding me back and I’m like, what the hell, man? Blood is streaming down Rufus’ face, but he’s smiling. A big smile with his aggravatingly perfect white teeth. Argh!  I wish I could have at least knocked one them.

Anna is standing there, arms crossed. She’s got a smirk, like, “I told you so.”  Rufus does nothing to stop the blood flow, which drains down to his lips and mouth and makes him look like Hannibal Lecter mid-meal.

And I’m struggling and struggling before I realize that Rufus and Anna are doing nothing. No guns, no punches. And then Jan and Joanna are there, and everyone is telling me to ‘calm down!’ which makes me so much angrier. Who the fuck, ever, in any occurrence, never, not once calmed down when someone said, “calm down?” You might as well say, “Here’s some gasoline, let’s get this guy really fired up!” 

“Calm down.” Puh-lease.  Hey, I’m calmed down. My calm is down. My calm is nonexistent. On a scale of 1-100, my calm is at 0. So, I’m down with the calm. What you want from me is to bring my calm levels up. To Calm UP.  But, I ain’t doing that either because fuck you, and fuck you, and you and up and all y’alll!

Okay, so, I’m starting to see Jan and Joanna’s point. I take a deep breath and look at Jan. Her face isn’t a big bruise anymore and I realize that she is beautiful. I’d never really thought of her that way.  But, she is. 

And, what I did next, I didn’t do with a grand plan in mind, and I clearly surprised everyone, but it felt like the right move.  I mean, right over there, the bloody nose I gave Rufus was pouring down into his mouth and down his chin and curling under and rolling down his neck and soaking his shirt.  A few feet away from that Anna is standing there the way a bitchy ex-supermodel stands when she has to wait for something, and I was being held back by three entirely different human beings when… I kissed Jan.

It felt like the right move because I could see into the future again.  And, Jan was in the future.

So, Jan is right there, right in front of me. I crane my neck, and I kiss her.  Kiss her just like they kiss in the movies.

Jan is surprised, but she embraces me and kisses me back. It is a strange moment because Robbie, SeventyNine, TwoZeroEight, they are holding my arms and I’m kissing Jan. It hasn’t gone down like that since college. 

Then, Jan is touching my cheeks, cupping my face in her hands, and kissing me passionately. And she’s wiping away tears on my face, and tears on her face. We’re crying and laughing and she’s hugging me and I realize.

Oh fuck. The only way I’m back like this, is that they gave me Computronium. 

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Transcript

I push the hotel lobby door, and I walk out into a cold evening. I do not know if I am chasing, or if I am running.

Out into the dim, gray evening. It’s snowing lightly. Flurries. Just the sky telling me that it is cold, but I know. The cold feels permanent.

I turn a corner, and run right into a man with white hair. I’m startled. I set my feet, and prepare to throw a punch but then I realize it’s not Rufus. Just a random older man, who says, “Watch it, asshole!” I think, “That’s not very Canadian of him.”  

He looks at the way I’m standing and says, “What, you want to fight?” I say, “No, no, my bad.” As I jog away he yells, “Watch your back! I’ll avenge that!”  It’s an odd thing for him to say, and I wonder if I heard him right.

The snow picks up. I’m only wearing a light jacket, so I duck into a bar. Inside, there’s music, and it’s rather full for being so early in the night. I think about a drink to bring me back from the brink so I sink onto a bar stool and ask the shrink for a Scotch, neat. The bartender nods and turns around to grab a bottle. As he does, his gaze lingers…

Lingers… behind me… and I wonder, what did he see? There is a mirror behind the bar, and I study it. What did he see?

I’m startled as the bartender bangs a glass down in front of me. He says, “You want to open a tab?” I shake my head and hand him cash.   

The bartender says, “We got a kitchen if you want food. Special tonight is Revenge, served cold.”

I say, “What?” 

The bartender says, “I asked if you wanted another Scotch.” I look down at my empty glass, but I don’t remember drinking it. Had I blacked out again? Already?

I nod, and I ask, “Did you say you had a kitchen?”  

Bartender says, “We got a kitchen, but the stove is broken. Everything has to be served cold tonight.”  

He brings me another Scotch. I sit at the bar, studying the mirror, thinking about how the blackouts are coming faster now. Will there be a time when I am no longer conscious at all? Will I just float along, remembering nothing, forgetting everyone?  

I pull out the Polaroid photo from my back pocket. The one I found on the hotel room floor, and I think, “what am I going to do about my friends?” Rufus and Anna want me. If I run, then maybe they’ll let my friends go. They want me. 

Then I think: No, they never leave loose ends. 

What I should do is hide, figure out how to free my friends. Rufus won’t hurt them until they have me. I’ll make a great plan, get my friends, and I’ll kill Rufus and Anna. That’s what I want, revenge.

But, without the Computronium, I stand no chance of making a plan.

Then, I realize I’m talking to a woman. She’s saying something. She says, “Buy me a drink?” I look at her and can tell right away that she’s drunk. Hammered actually. I shrug and say, “Sure.”

She sits down and says, “You know what you need?” I say, “What do I need?” I hear myself slur my words. Am I drunk, too? 

She says, “What you need is revenge. You… need revenge.”  

I was just thinking that. Had I said something to her about it?

I say, “Why do you think that I need … revenge?” 

She says, “Your aura. It’s all wrong.”

I say, “My aura?”

She slurs her words, “Your aura is all wrong. You need to set it right. I know these things.”

I say, “And… how do you know these things?”

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She says, “Magic. That’s how I found out my husband was fffucking our neighbor.  I divined it. Her name’s Grace.  That’s what happened to you, too, right? Your lady cheating on you?”

I say, “No, it’s not like that.”

She sways for a moment and says, “Oh. Who you need to get revenge against?”

I say, “I’m not planning revenge. It’s complicated. And, revenge isn’t the answer. There’s a saying… uh, ‘when setting out for revenge, first dig two graves.’ That’s not my plan at all.”

Drunk woman says, “Ah, that’s bullshit. Revenge is good for the soul. That’s why I’m here.”

I wait for her to continue, 

but she doesn’t so I ask, “Why are you here?”

She says, “My soul. It needs revenge. My husband’s been sleeping with our neighbor. Asshole. I want revenge.”

I say, “How are you going to do that?”

She says, “Fuck at least one guy tonight.”

I say, “At least one?”

She says, “As many as it takes.  Starting with you.” 

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The next thing I know, we are in a cab. Me and the woman. I panic. I blacked out again. Shit! I think, “no, I don’t want to go home with this woman. I don’t want to help her avenge her cheating husband. No.” 

But then I realize it’s morning. And the next thing I know, we are at the Casino. The cab pulls up, and the woman gets out, comes around to my side and opens my door. And, SeventyNine and TwoZeroEight are standing there.

They are paying the cab driver and thanking the woman. 

I stumble out, and SeventyNine puts his arm around me. The woman from the bar kisses me on the cheek and whispers, “I found your friends for you. Remember: revenge.  It’s good for the soul.”

SeventyNine steers me toward the Casino and says, “Thank you, officer. We’ll take care of him.”

Officer? I turn around to say goodbye to the woman, but she’s a cop, getting back into a cop car.  TwoZeroEight looks at me and says, “Good God you’re an idiot. You’re just lucky you spent the night in a Canadian jail.”

I say, “I did what?”

TwoZeroEight says, “Forget it. We have to leave. Rufus and Anna killed EightHundredThree.  It’s my mission to put each of those two maniacs in their grave.”

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Transcript

It is morning, and I wake up. I smell coffee. And, I smell the six, or eight, maybe nine cocktails Joanna drank last night on an empty stomach. That’s how strong she smells. All while she was gambling on Baccarat.   At first she was up big – probably twenty thousand, but then she came crashing down and then came to the Royal Suite, then puked while I held her hair, and then passed out on the bed.  Then I grabbed a blanket and pillow and slept on the couch under the window, twenty feet from the bed.  Twenty feet away and can still smell her. Yay.

I also smell coffee, so I get up and stumble to the kitchenette. This suite is so big.   These Four Anti Arcana are all up and dressed in suits and talking on their chipped and worn out old flip phones and I notice a prehistoric laptop sitting on the coffee table.  Ancient.

I say, “You guys have the oldest tech ever, I don’t know whether to laugh or to be really worried my life is currently in your hands.”

I point to the coffee table with the laptop and say, “That laptop looks like you found it encased in amber, like dinosaur DNA in Jurassic Park.”

SeventyNine looks at me, smiles serenely, and says, “Good — uh, afternoon. Looks like you guys had a blast last night.  I’ve had a long talk with Hotel Security.”  

I say, “Yeah, Joanna is a handful when she’s hammered.  She was talking shit with this guy who claimed he was a diplomat. She tried to steal his turban.”

SeventyNine says, “The man is a diplomat.”

I say, “They were threatening to kick her out of Canada.”

He says, “Yeah, that wouldn’t do. I fixed it.”

I say, “Damn. You hold some sway.”

SeventyNine laughs and says, “Let’s just say, the casino owners are friendly to our cause. And, so is that diplomat.”  

Then, SeventyNine takes a sip of his coffee.

Then, SeventyNine says, “Any issues last night? With being Overcome I mean.”

I say, “No, nothing since the one you saw.” I felt so embarrassed.  I didn’t want to talk about it.  Like, I just black out now? That’s a thing?

SeventyNine takes another sip, nods his head a couple of times and says, “Hey, so, I needed time to work out a few details last night, but didn’t quite get it done. Grab a shower, then come with. We leave in ten minutes.”

I generally like a long, hot shower, especially when the shower is the size of my entire living room back home.  But in fifteen minutes, I am standing at valet with SeventyNine, NineNineNine and TwoZeroEight.  EightHundredThree stays up in the room with Joanna, who only moaned when I told her I was leaving.

So standing there in the cold, and this big orange Lincoln Towncar rolls up. Yeah, I said, orange. It hurt my eyes.  NineNineNine gets behind the wheel and I’m afraid the car is going to disintegrate as she shuts the door.

The car is such a beater. I mean, I thought their phones were teetering ancient scrap heap devices, but this is a junk yard work of art! 

Remember in Star Wars when Luke sees the Millenium Falcon for the first time and he says, “What a hunk of junk!” and then later, when Princess Leia sees it for the first time, she says, “You came in that thing? You’re braver than I thought.” 

Remember that? That’s what I’m thinking looking at this burnt orange P.O.S. “You drive around this hunk of junk? You’re braver than I thought.” It looks like, if I pull on the handle, the door might just come off in my hand.

SeventyNine says, “this is us” and I’m like, nuh uh, no way, not getting in that rattling death trap.  Not happening, Senor. You can’t make me.

But then, we get in. Oh, wow! Easily the nicest car I’ve ever been in. How nice? Think of the nicest car that you’ve ever ridden in. Now, forget it, that car is a piece of shit compared to this one.

So, now we’re driving around and I’m like, “What about Joanna?” And SeventyNine says, “She’s sleeping it off.” I ask about Jan, and TwoZeroEight says, “Jan’s fine. Dropped her at an ER. Robbie’s with her.”  I say, “But, what about the Arcana?” NineNineNine says, “They are afraid of the Canadians.  That’s why Montreal is our home base in North America.” 

And I’m like, “Hmmpft.”  They got an answer ready for anything. And something is bothering me about that.  

Annnnddddd …. Next thing I know, we are stopping in an alley. I’m like, “I must have fallen asleep” and TwoZeroEight says, “No, you blacked out again. We’ve arrived, get out.”

Eh. Again.

SeventyNine says, “Hey, it’s going to be okay. Come on. This should help.” I like him better than I like TwoZeroEight.

And, I have a funny feeling as we go into this building. We enter a building. And it smells weird, like Maui Wowie mixed with every barn in the county, and however how many cherry incense and a lime bath bomb dropped in a vat of embalming fluid combine to smell like lighter fluid. 

But, as soon as we enter, I feel sharper. Alert. Awake. Aware.

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SeventyNine points me to this small man, he says, “This is Tomas. Tomas is  going to give you a potassium iodine treatment. Takes about ten minutes, right Tomas?”

Tomas nods.

I say, “Why?”

SeventyNine says, “It uh, will help your issue.”

TwoZeroEight says, “Just do it. We don’t have a lot of time.”  I give her what I hope is a dirty look.

Tomas and I go behind a shower curtain in the middle of the room.  There is a toilet, all by itself.  Tomas says, “Pull down your pants.” I’m like, “What?” From the other side of the shower curtain, I hear TwoZeroEight sigh loudly and say, “Don’t be a baby!”  Tomas says, “When you drink this,  you’re going to want to be sitting on this toilet.”

I give Tomas what I hope is a dirty look.

He says, “This is a potassium iodine cocktail. It will clean you out. It works quickly. It’s safe, though.”

One thing I’ve learned, when someone says, “It’s safe, though” it means it’s not safe at all. So why did I drink what he gave me and said to drink?

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I mean, I was sitting on a toilet in the middle of the room with four other people practically staring at me.  I wasn’t really in a position of power, even if I was on a throne. 

So, I drank, and yeah. Went right through me. After I was done, I felt dehydrated and exhilarated. It was both completely awful and actually awesome.  I can’t really explain it, you’d have to try it. Also, I don’t suggest you try it.

We get back in the car, me feeling violently violated, decidedly annihilated, like I’d just been to a frightfully large-fingered proctologist with a leaf-blower, and I’m all like, “What just happened there?” 

And SeventyNine says, “It’s experimental. We’ll see if it helps.  You’re at an advanced stage of withdrawal, so we could learn a lot, maybe save lives.”

I say, “Save my life?”

He looks at me very seriously and says, “Yes.  Especially your life.”

We head back to the casino, I feel great. The best I’ve felt in two weeks, I realize. SeventyNine says, “One more night at the Royal Suite, then we need to move to a new casino. They are great places to stay, but it’s best not to stay too long.”

We drop the car at Valet, head up to the room, and… EightHundredThree and Joanna are gone. Not there. Missing. What is there? A Polaroid photo.  On the floor, on the nice white shag carpet.  I pick it up.

And I see who is in the picture at the same time that I hear TwoZeroEight yell, “Fuck! Eight is in here, call an ambulance!”

SeventyNine and NineNineNine run over there. But I stand here, looking at the Polaroid.

The picture was taken in this room, on the red couch over by the floor-to-ceiling windows. In the picture, I see Robbie, Jan, and Joanna… and… Rufus and Anna.  Those ancient, white-haired assholes have all my friends.  And, they want me to know it.

And, while everyone else is in the bathroom, trying to save EightHundredThree’s life, I slip out the hotel door and leave.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Transcript

I’m walking across a wide open Casino, feeling like this is a Very Bad Idea().  And, there is a man right there – right there! – looking at me like he recognizes me.

I hold myself steady. Tell myself: Don’t look away. Don’t act suspicious. Act like you belong.

None of us really belong here.  But, here we are, and I gotta say, I’m kind of excited.

My life had become Capital B, boring.   Every day, the same thing.  Every day, the same thing. Every day the – it, uh, became repetitive.  

But I see the light, I’m looking at the exciting light.  I am walking toward the motherfucking light!

And I look to my right where someone struck midnight.  Craps tables there. To my left, it’s poker,  slot machines, roulette.  Everywhere, blackjack.

— haha! Yeah!

I’ve always loved casinos. Always some action! I just felt like, it’s kind of odd we were just parading around the casino without any concern just hours after fleeing the beach house in the middle of the night.

I was just about to say something to SeventyNine when Joanna yelped and said, “ooo, Baccarat!”

Joanna had been like this since we arrived across the border in the early morning.  We had taken SeventyNine’s special route. That’s what he called it. His Special Route. He said, “Obviously, we can’t cross at a normal border crossing.”  

So, we drive down a dark highway, take a left onto a plain old two lane road, then a right onto a narrow straight-as-an-arrow asphalt road, a road I can best describe as a pothole with potholes.  Somehow, that got us into Canada? Next thing I know we’re onto a freeway with road signs marked in kilometers.  

—

I had asked why we obviously couldn’t cross the border normally.  Joanna answered. She said, “Well, we don’t have passports.  And, there is a pandemic.” But, SeventyNine brushed off those concerns. He said, “Oh, we could deal with that. But, remember Sean is wanted for murdering one of the Arcana thugs. His photo is all over the news.” 

See what I’m saying?  Exciting! I am wanted for murder.  I am innocent, of course. But, I’m famous!  And It’s about time!

It was like, who do I got to murder to become famous?!? Oh, that guy. Done. Okay, not really. I didn’t actually kill anybody, it’s a big misunderstanding. I’m giddy, that’s all. I’m in a casino.

Who else is giddy? Joanna. In the casino, she grabs my arm and says, “Ooo – a baccarat table!” I say, “A backa-what table?” Joanna says, “The game James Bond always plays. I still have a bunch of cash leftover from hitting the ATM yesterday. Come on, let’s go!”  She pulls on my arm.

I look at SeventyNine.  Surely this is a stupid thing to do. Gambling in public when we should be hiding from the Arcana. To my surprise, SeventyNine smiles, takes out his wallet and hands us both a freakin’ fistful of fifties. Canadian money, but still.  

Joanna grabs all of the money, waves it excitedly and heads for the cage. 

—

And then, the next thing I know, it’s like five minutes later. I’m still in the casino, but I’m sitting at a slot machine, surrounded by the Anti Arcana Fab Four. I’m like, “what happened?”  And TwoZeroEight says, “He’s back.”

I’m like, “What happened?”

TwoZeroEight says, “You blanked out again. That Computronium you had was extra-radioactive, I guess.”

I say, “Wait, what? Radioactive? Holy shit!”

TwoZeroEight says, “You need to get around some Computronium soon. You have serious withdrawal. Whadcha do, keep the thing in your pocket all week?”

I say, “Yeah. Whenever I touched it, everything went right. It was like a good luck charm.”

TwoZeroEight says, “Good luck? Good God. You’re fucked. Even the Stacy sisters didn’t do that.”  

I say, “Because they probably knew it was radioactive – I didn’t! Also: How is it radioactive??”

They don’t answer, but SeventyNine says, “Okay, look. There is a temporary fix for this. I’ve been avoiding it, but it’s getting dire if you had so much contact with it.  Give me until morning.  In the meantime, stay with Joanna. We’re going to need her.  Keep her happy for now.”

I say, “Shouldn’t we be hiding somewhere?”

He says, “No, the Arcana can’t touch the Canadians. Never could. Stay here. Casinos are the safest place to hide, with security, and all the cameras.  And, we’ll leave NineNineNine with you.”

SeventyNine takes out a room key access card and hands it to NineNineNine. He says. “We’re all in the Royal Suite. There’s room enough for all of us.  Have fun. Don’t leave the casino property.”

NineNineNine nods and SeventyNine spins and walks away, along with TwoZeroEight and EightHundredThree.

—

I’m alone with NineNineNine and I say “Radioactive?”  NineNineNine says, “Sounds like you got greedy. Most people just use it for big decisions.  Even Natasia and Stacia didn’t get this bad this fast.

I repeat, “Well, they probably knew it was radioactive. Some asshole just dropped it in my pocket.”

I start to repeat my question, “How did it get to be radioactive?” but NineNineNine says, “look” and she points.

Across the room, I see Joanna making a Huge Scene.  She’s yelling and laughing and leaning over a table and raking in a pile of chips.  NineNineNine says, “Come on” and we walk toward her.

I look at NineNineNine and say, “So, what’s your real name?”  She says, “NineNineNine.” I say, “No, I mean, before you, like, signed on to be the Anti-Arcana or whatever.”  She says, “It’s best if I’m anonymous.”  I say, “Good luck with that in this day and age.” And she says, “Oh yeah, you would not believe the lengths we go to.  I’ve had plastic surgery twice since I joined.” 

I was like, “Plastic surgery? Twice?” but I didn’t have the chance to ask anything more because just then we arrived at Joanna.  Joanna is smack talking with this guy who looks like a Nigerian prince. She has a mound of poker chips on the table in front of her. 

She looks at us, eyes wide and says, “I’m up ten grand!   Here, take some. Let’s play!”

Transcript

I sat at a kitchen table in a beach house, drinking my third hot cup of coffee.  I was talking to two men and two women who had traced us to this place I’d never even heard of twelve hours ago.  Well, not really traced. They got here first. 

I looked at the spokesman for the group, who called himself SeventyNine. I said, “Okay, everything you told me makes sense. I mean, if any of this really makes sense. But, I still don’t understand this Computronium at all.” 

Just then, a pager beeped, in stereo, all around me. The whole room was echoing, beaming from wall to wall, ricochet bounce. 

A pager! Like, the ones we used to carry around in the 90s. Each of these Suits had one. And, they had these ancient cell phones. Just like that Windbreaker Man at the office earlier today. I looked at my watch. Was that still today? The watch said seven-seventeen. Yup. Not even twelve hours ago.

The pagers beeped again. In stereo. Behind me. In Front. Both sides. All four agents reached for their belts. I realized they were beeping in sync. Each agent pulled the pager up in front of their face and read off the small screen.

SeventyNine said, “They’re onto us. Fifteen minutes. Let’s go. Rendezvous at…” SeventyNine paused, counted on his fingers, then said, “Location Blue. I repeat. Location Blue. Got it?”

The other three all nodded. SeventyNine said, “NineNinNine, Joanna, me and Sean. The rest of you with TwoZeroEight. Go!”

With military precision, the four of them stood up and started moving. Joanna, Jan, Robbie and I looked around, like, “What the fuck?”  SeventyNine said, “I’ll explain in a minute. We do need to go.” Robbie looked completely freaked out, and made a move for the front door. TwoZeroEight said, “No, upstairs.”  She turned and ascended the staircase. Robbie said, “Upstairs?”

SeventyNine nodded, “We came in through the attic. We want to leave as little trace as possible.” The fourth Suit was putting dishes in the dishwasher, and cleaning up the kitchen, arranging chairs, turning off lights.

I just stood there. My mind kind of… My mind kind of… it … uh…

TwoZeroEight said, “Sean – snap out of it!” 

I said, “Oh, sorry. I kind of blanked there.”

TwoZeroEight looked at SeventyNine and said, “He’s already showing signs.” 

I said, “Signs? Of what?”

SeventyNine said, “I’ll explain in the car. Clock’s ticking!”

We followed TwoZeroEight up the stairs, into the attic, across some sort of rigid plank from this house to the empty neighboring house. Let me tell you, it was freaky. Me and heights: not friends. Me and heights: enemies. It was only ten feet from one attic window to the attic window into the house next door… but I almost crawled.

We repeated the process to the next house, and the next. It Was Torture. 

The homes were all from the same era, probably the twenties, and all built with the same basic plan. At the fourth house we descended down and through and to an attached two car garage, which must have been a recent addition. 

Parked in the garage were (sigh) two little black Ford Focus hatchbacks. I thought, “uh… a Ford Focus? Are these guys on a budget?”

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Five minutes later, we were on the road, a dark rural road, speeding along. Zoom! We zipped across roads that were a mix of black ice, sheet of sheer, mirror smooth ice and just your normal extra fucking slippery ice. NineNineNine was driving, SeventyNine was in the passenger front seat, Joanna and I in the back, death gripping the seatbacks in front of us.  I said, “Do you really need to drive this fast?” 

NineNineNine just chuckled.  For no real reason, she downshifted and floored it.

From the front seat, SeventyNine said, “So, back at the house, you suddenly had this five-mile stare. It’s called Being Overcome. It’s a problem.”

I remembered something. I said, “The Arcana pair, they said that about the Stacies!”

SeventyNine said, “Yes, I was told that those young ladies were in a bad way. About a month ago, Stasya and Natasia stole that Computronium, some call it fulgurite. You call it Crazy Rock.  They used it for about two weeks. Flew all over Europe, raves, parties. Paris, Madrid, London.  Tons of men.  When the fulgurite — the Computronium — was stolen from them, it was smuggled to the US, then stolen again.  We’ve lost track of it a couple of times. That’s how you got it.”

I said, “Well, I don’t have it anymore. I just want them to leave me alone!”

SeventyNine said, “No chance of that. They never stop until they have what they want. Your only chance is to help us.  You help us, maybe we can find a way to leave you alone.  Our goal is to find the location where they store their stash of Computronium. They call it the Museum.  We find the Museum, maybe we solve the problem.”

I said, “Find the Museum. Okay, can’t you just Google it?”

SeventyNine said, “No. It’s very secure.  It’s somewhere accessible, but the Arcana security is thorough and brutal.  It’s a mystery how the Stasya and Natasia got it out.  But we are glad they did. This is the best chance we’ve ever had to reverse engineer the location of the Museum.”

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We drove for a minute, deep in thought, just the roar of the little car flying down the icy road. 

I looked to my right, where Joanna sat, still death-gripping the arm rest, I thought about Jan’s bruised face, and the four dead men I saw in the courtyard.  I said, “I just want this to be over. I never intended for any of this. I didn’t ask to be given the Computronium.”

SeventyNine repeated, “We all want it to be over. Everyone who has been fighting the Arcana has lost almost everything.  I’ve been at this for a decade.  I want my life back, too.”

He looked at the driver, NineNineNine. He said, “Right?”

NineNineNine said, “The Arcana killed my boyfriend just after Thanksgiving. That’s why I joined.”

SeventyNine said, “NineNineNine is our newest member. She traded in her old identity for NineNineNine. If we ever win this war, she can trade it back.”

I said, “That’s a lot of sacrifice.”

SeventyNine didn’t say anything, but he looked really sad.

I sat back heavily. What have I gotten into? Just the idea that this rock would do anything other than, you know, be a rock, seemed like so much BS.  SeventyNine’s pager beeped. He looked at it. He said, “Okay, we’re clear. They’ve lost us.”

SeventyNine said, “You help us, we’ll help you.”

Nine-nine-nine slowed a bit, down from driving Completely Fucking Insane to just “going way too fast for the road conditions.” I started to repeat my question when I heard a phone ring. SeventyNine reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out an old Motorola flip phone covered in duct-tape. He said, “Yeah?” He listened for a minute then said, “I was concerned about that – do what you need to do. What’s your plan?” He listened again, then said, “You have my approval. I’ll deal with the fallout.  Be safe.” Then he said, “Oh wait, one more thing… “ Then he covered his mouth with his hand, leaned forward by the dashboard and said something into the phone. It was muffled and I couldn’t understand what he said. 

He flipped his phone closed, looked forward through the window and said, “Jan just threw up, and then passed out. They’re going to find an emergency room.”

I slapped the window way too hard!  I thought, Shit! I should not have gotten Jan involved. Why did I do that? And Joanna, and Robbie. 

And I knew what I had to do.  I said, “Okay, I’m on board. Tell me how to find the Arcana people, and that Museum.”

SeventyNine said, “If you really want to find the Museum, you won’t need to find the Arcana. Just let them find you.”

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

They headed to Robbie’s parent’s beach house to get away, regroup and figure things out. But, they arrived second. If no one knew where they were going, how did they get there first?

Transcript

I am in a beach house, in a kitchen. Staring at people who look just like the people we just escaped.

Suits. Windbreakers. Feds? Arcana?  No time to find out! 

I turned to my friends, I whispered, “Joanna, Robbie, Jan – I’ll distract them, get to the front door, get out, get help!”

I stepped forward. The suits – two women, and two men – stepped back. Robbie, Joanna and Jan slid sideways, through a back hallway, trying to flank these four, to get to the front door. 

But, they didn’t engage with me, two of them took the other way around, and cut off Jan, Joanna and Robbie. 

One of the suits said, “Hold on — this isn’t what you think it is.” This one appeared to be the spokesman. So far, he’s the only one who has spoken.

Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Robbie wave to me.  I heard him say, “In here!” I looked back, and watched the three of them divert into a room off the hallway. None of the four suits made a motion to follow. But one went out the front door. I heard the door open, I felt a rush of cold air, I heard the door close. 

My mind races – what do I do? What do I do? My brain sees too many options, and none of them make sense. There is an overload. What do I do?

Robbie poked his head out the door to the room where he just went, he said, “Sean, in here!”

I backed slowly into the room.  None of these suits make a move. Robbie shut the door.  I looked at him and he’s smiling. I said, “What?”

Robbie said, “my dad has a gun safe in here. I have the code.” Robbie opened a closet door, and taking up the entire closet is this big, six-foot tall gun safe. Robbie keyed in the code. I hear the safe door unlatch.

And, I see through the window, a dark outline of the woman who left through the front door.  Apparently she’s there to prevent us from leaving through the window.  We’re trapped. Except, they don’t know about the guns.

Through the door, the spokesman said, “Do what you need to feel safe. We’re not here to threaten you. We have been infiltrating the Arcana. We’re on your side.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Perhaps a better way to state it is: you are on our side.”

Robbie whispered, “How did they find us? They shouldn’t have known about my parent’s summer home!”

My brain was on overload. The only options I saw, personally, were for us to grab these guns and fight our way out. But then what? We thought we would be safe here. How did they know we’d be here? We told no one. We paid cash for our tickets. We don’t have our phones.  Oh… Wait. I said, “Jan, do you still have Ivan’s phone?” Jan said, “Oh shit!”

And, my brain computes. And it does not compute what I expect. The best available option I feel I should take is… to talk?

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So far, the options have all been action, no talk. Act, move, fun, fight. Now, discuss? I’m not touching the rock. I don’t have the rock. Clearly, I’m on my own. 

I whispered to Robbie, “Get those guns, we have to get out of here.” Robbie opened the door to the safe.

It was empty.

Robbie swore. “How the fuck?”

Through the door, the spokesman said, “We secured the guns. You don’t need them. You are safe.”

My intuition says again, “Talk.”  I looked at Robbie, Joanna and Jan. To say they were “freaked out” belies even how wide-open their eyes, the deep lines of fear clear in their wrinkled foreheads.

To the Spokesman, I said, “What do you want?” To myself, I think: okay, they took the guns. How they knew the code… How they knew of the beach house… Why they didn’t just shoot us already… My intuition says, “Listen.”

Through the door, the man answered. He said, “We want your help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Come out here, and I’ll tell you. I’m friendly. Let me prove that to you.”

I looked at Joanna. She’s my boss. She’s my leader. I’m used to looking to her for cues.  Joanna gave me a little smile and nodded. Her shoulders dropped. Was she relaxed… or resigned?

I said, “Okay ‘Spokesman.’ You have us trapped. That doesn’t seem too friendly.”

The man said, “My name is SeventyNine.  You are not trapped. TwoZeroEight is outside the window so you wouldn’t go running off, and into the hands of the Arcana.  I have been informed that the Undersecretary has the Computronium back, Sean.  They found it in the conference room and returned it.  Anna accidentally shot one of their men, but they’re blaming you. The two women you know as Stacy have recovered, thanks to the fulgurite.  It’s only a matter of time they trace you here. No more than two hours, maybe less. Come out, let me talk to you. Let me tell you how you can help put a stop to all of this.”

Two weeks ago, life was normal. Not great, really. I worked, I watched a shitload of youtube videos. I played games all weekend. I hacked. Mostly script-kiddie stuff. Running some metasploit scripts, just to mess with people.

One week ago I thought I hit the lottery. Some sort of magical rock or something. If I touched it I was… transported… it was amazing. I loved it. And, it loved me back. Work worked out, I partied like I hadn’t since college, I won several fistfights against badasses.

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To “SeventyNine”, I said, “Okay, uh, ‘SeventyNine,’ I’ll come out. But, you have to let my friends go.” 

SeventyNine said, “I can’t let them go until you hear me out. They are in danger. And, you are as well. Your driver, I believe his name was Lucas?  He’s dead.   It won’t be long before they trace you here.  We had a head start.”

Behind me, Joanna said, “Fucking fuck!” And I thought, “Why on earth did Train Platform Man choose me?”

The guy who called himself SeventyNine said, “Once you hear me out, then you are free to make whatever decision you want. But, be clear: the Arcana will kill you before morning. The sunrises here are beautiful. Hear me out, and you’ll live to see one.”

I turned to look at Robbie, Jan and Joanna. Robbie was bent over the gun safe, feeling around at the bottom, disbelieving it was truly empty. Jan was holding her head and swaying, eyes closed. Joanna nodded again. 

I turned the door handle. I opened the door.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

In the middle of a struggle, Rufus does something even the Computronium can’t help Sean predict. Then, a thrown plant, a chaotic lobby, a car chase and a big, black-eye. Sean and his friends are on the run now, can they find somewhere to go?

Transcript

So, I was in a fight. God it felt good. Rufus and I. Arm to arm combat. Usually I’d stand no chance in this kind of dance. Ahh, but this time, hehehe. This time!

Behind me, my coworkers streamed out of the office, headed toward safety. I kept Rufus and the Windbreaker Men busy.  It was so easy. I was in the zone. I had the Computronium vibe… alive inside me. 

But, there must be a limit on what I can predict, because Rufus did something unpredictable. He suddenly  flung himself to the floor, dropped like he was shot. He yelled, “Shoot him, Anna!” 

And time slowed.  I was in one of those slow motion movie scenes. Oh… Fuck… . Everything moves at half speed, and the one thing you need is never going to happen.  I needed Anna to not pull the trigger. But, she’s going to. 100%. Anna is going to shoot me, and only a six-pack of Felix Felicis would stop it.

And, what do you know? Right as Anna squeezed the trigger, one of the Windbreaker Men threw himself at me, handcuffs at the ready.  He lunged and said, “You are under arrest –” but just as he said, “arrest”, Anna fired (pop, pop!) her gun. Windbreaker Man grunted as he fell into me, pushing me out the door. 

My coworkers were stampeding back through security, toward safety. An alarm sounded. I looked right, spotted Robbie, Cynthia, Penelope, and Joanna in an elevator.  They had Jan. The doors were closing. Another Windbreaker Man, a different one, he turned and levelled a gun toward them. The doors were halfway closed, time was slow, and I needed to  figure out something. Fast.

My brain made a computation, I saw a dozen options, decided on the best one and immediately grabbed a big potted tree from the corner of the hallway, right next to me, and in one fluid motion I flung it up and out. The plant flew between the man and the elevator just as he fired. The plant’s pot popped, bursting into pieces, blocking the bullets. The elevator doors shut. 

I turned and ran. To the stairs, down the stairs, down, down. (repeat a few times in different ways and use them all)

The lobby was chaos. An alarm blared and an automated voice announced “Please remain where you are. This is a lockdown.”

I danced across the lobby, lost in chaos, looking for Jan. I wanted to return for the Computronium, but I had to find Jan first.  

I spotted her.  Jan was with Robbie and Joanna on the street.  I ran up to them just as a dark SUV pulled up. Joanna opened a door and said, “Get in.”  I took one glance and said, “No fucking way!” It looked like the exact car the Arcana would drive.

Joanna said, “Get… in!”

Robbie helped Jan in, and got in himself. Joanna pushed me, got in behind me and looked at the driver. She said, “Lucas, thank God. Go. Now. I’ll give you an address in a minute.”

As Lucas pulled away, I said, “No, I need to go back and get something.”

Joanna looked at me incredulously and shook her head. We drove, turning, then going straight, then turning.  Speeding away from the building.

Joanna’s phone rang. She looked at it and said, “Ah, fuck.” She slid her finger from left to right, put it to her ear and said, “Mr Undersecretary.” While she listened, she covered the microphone and said, sotto voce, “It’s my boss’s boss.”

Joanna said into the phone, “Sir, there were shots fired.” She listened for a moment then said, “No, I will do no such thing.  If you must.  Good, bye!”  Joanna punched the electronic window button on the door next to her. The window whirred open.  Cold air rushed in. She reached her hand out the window, and dropped her phone. 

She said, “Boring conversation anyway. Lucas, we’re going to have company.”

I turned to Jan, who was not only alive, but awake, with a fast-bruising black eye. I said, “Jan, I am so sorry.” She didn’t answer.

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Then Joanna reached out her hand and said, “Hand me your phones. All of you. They are tracking us.”  Joanna took our phones and dropped them out the window. We went a few more blocks and she told Lucas-the-driver to pull over.

We stopped, piled out onto the street, Jan said to Lucas. “Drive. Go, anywhere, don’t stop for at least an hour.  And be careful.“

Joanna slammed the door, wrapped Jan’s head in her scarf and said, “Let’s get off the street. Over there.”

We went into a Chinese restaurant, found a dark booth in the back.  It was barely lunch time and the place was sparsely populated.  

We ordered drinks and egg rolls, though no one was hungry.  I turned to Jan and asked, “How’s your head?”

She said, “Sore. Something popped when he hit me. How’s my face look?”

Joanna said, “Like a poster child for domestic abuse.”  Jan tried to use a spoon as a mirror. Half her face was a bruise.  I said, “This is my fault. I’m so sorry.”

Jan looked at me and said, “Yeah, turns out, you aren’t the only crazy one. Those motherfuckers, too.”  

In twenty minutes, we hatched a plan. Robbie’s parents had a beach house in Crescent City. I objected. I said, “Robbie, these Arcana people have no reason to think you’re involved with this. Get out now, before you can’t.”

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Robbie paused, looked at Joanna, who kind of shrugged noncommittally and looked down at her plate. Robbie said, “No, I’m with you. I want to help.”

We found an ATM, got as much cash as we could, caught a cab to a bus station, paid cash for tickets and rode to Crescent City.  We arrived at Robbie’s parent’s beach house at dusk.  Robbie located a hidden key by the back garage.  As we approached from the beach side, I noticed my brain computing something, a consensus from all of my senses, a scent of something that didn’t make sense. 

I said, “Uh, I have a bad feeling about this.”

Robbie said, “It’s creepy, I know. I hated coming here as a kid. But, come, on, I’m freezing.”

None of us had jackets, I didn’t even have socks. So, I nodded.

We noticed no cars outside. No tracks in the snow. No lights in the house. But when we made it to the kitchen, there were two men and two women waiting in the dark, suits covered by windbreakers with big yellow letters.  They stood tall, arms crossed, like a small army. 

The shorter man said, “I’m glad you finally made it.”

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

The Arcanas, Stac[iy] and some guys in Windbreakers visit Sean and Jan at work. And, there are fisticuffs, backhanded insults, weird phone calls to guys with weird job titles and a turning point. Does Sean even need that Computronium any longer? Why are (is?) Stac[iy] being so weird?

Transcript

I was in a conference room at work, all my coworkers were there, plus three guys who looked like feds, and the two Stacies, and those Arcana representatives.

The white-haired Arcana woman barked, “Stacy, do you feel it?”  The Stacies made no move. They stared… at nothing… eyes glazed. Their mom’s eyes blazed as she bellowed, “A nswer me!”

Her husband, the man I’d heard called Rufus said, “Anna, they are overcome.”  

The woman, Anna he called her, scurried over to where I sat. She slammed the table right in front of me and yelled, “You! This is because of you!”

Thirty minutes before, Jan and I were together in the conference room, just us, when we spotted this group on the other side of security.  Before we could duck or run, they had pushed past our completely ineffective security team like a mob infiltrating the Capitol Building during a historic convening of both houses of Congress. 

As quick as you could snap a selfie with a cop or steal a lectern, they were upon us in the conference room. 

Joanna, my boss, got between them and us and said, “You are not allowed in here! This is a classified government project. You need clearance!”

Anna had smiled serenely at Joanna.  Then she snapped her fingers and one of the men in windbreakers said, “Anna’s okay. I’ll vouch for her.”

Joanna turned to Windbreaker Man and said, “And, who are you?”

The man reached into his pocket. He looked like a fed, I thought he was going to present a badge, but instead, he pulled out a phone. An old flip-phone. He punched one single button, waited a moment while Joanna looked from Anna to me, and back to Windbreaker Man. Finally, Windbreaker Man spoke into the phone. He said, “Mr. Undersecretary, your assistance is required.” Windbreaker Man listened for a moment, mumbled something I didn’t understand, then handed the phone to Joanna.  

He said, “Here.”

Joanna hesitated, took the phone, and said, “Hello?”  She listened. Then, her back straightened and she said, “Oh, yes sir. No, sir, I didn’t –. I see, yes, Mr. Undersecretary. No, I understand, sir.  I will.” 

Joanna slowly lowered the phone from her ear, then handed it to Windbreaker Man. She looked at Anna and said, “You may proceed.”

Jan shot me a glance as though asking, “What the hell?” I just shook my head.

I had no idea. 

Then, the guys wearing suits and navy-blue windbreakers, rounded up everyone in the office. Developers, managers, the intern. Packed us in.  Even our unarmed security team was there. 

And now, after slamming the table and yelling at me, Anna surveyed the room and announced, “My daughters have been overcome. Anyone with knowledge of this Matter must come forward now.”

Jan and I were the only ones knowledgeable, and we didn’t say a thing. Then, Windbreaker Man pulled out handcuffs and said to me, “You are under arrest for the murder of three men last week –”

Rufus cut in, “Not yet. First, we help our daughters.  They have been overcome. They need to hold that the Computronium this man is hiding.” 

I said, “I don’t have it.” 

Rufus lunged at me. He grabbed my shirt and lifted me so easily it was like gravity stopped obeying the law.  All two dozen of my coworkers gasped. I said, “I threw it away. Really. In a trash can. Honest!”  

I was lying.  To me, it sounded plausible. I felt good.

Until what happened next. 

Rufus flung me aside, then he grabbed Jan and lifted her out of her chair. Everyone gasped again. Two of the office security started to stand, but the Windbreaker Men turned toward them and security slunk back into their chairs.

Rufus had ahold of Jan, I was lying on the floor where he’d discarded me. He looked down at me and said, “You will talk. Or, we will make her talk.  When you see how we make her talk. You will scream!” Rufus twisted his torso, and to punctuate the word “scream”, he slapped Jan with the back of his hand so hard her head spun. I swear, it spun. 

Surely, the impact of Rufus’ ruthless slap had snapped Jan’s neck, and next in a fact, I snapped. 

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I remembered later what I did, but in the moment, it was a blur. I did not have the rock. The rock was in the room, jammed up under the table. I was not touching it. So, this was all me and somewhere in me I found the ability to kick ass. 

It was just like having the Computronium. I could see each action before it happened.  I felt like I had superhero powers.

I shouted, “Run! Everyone out!”  I lunged at Rufus.  Anna went for her gun. She waved it for a minute, tracking me, but I was engaged with Rufus and she couldn’t shoot. The two Stacies had guns, too, but they were sitting placidly in the corner, doing nothing, a five-mile stare on their face. 

Joanna and Robbie had grabbed Jan, everyone bolted from the conference room, pushing each other, screaming.  In the melee, my intuition showed me how to keep hold of Rufus, blocking them from the door, blocking Anna from shooting anyone. Rufus was much stronger than me, but I computed which option would keep him off balance. Nudge him this way, sway him that way. 

Enough to keep his wife from shooting me.  Enough to allow everyone the chance to escape. But, Rufus wasn’t an idiot. And Rufus did something I did not expect.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Sean find Jan and seeks her help. Will she join him, or (continue to) think he’s b*tsh*t cr*zy? Moreover, will Sean be able to escape the clutches of Rufus and the Mystery Woman, and their desire to get their clutches on this rock. And, what is this rock? Anyone? Please?

Transcript

I was in Jan’s apartment.  It was bigger than my place. Nicer than my place. Cleaner. Nice paint, lots of cool art, modern furniture, a large East-facing window with sunlight streaming through.  

And It made my place feel like a dungeon      decorated by a punch-drunk someone with vengeance     who didn’t know the difference between expensive and pretentious.

I made a mental note about redecorating.  I was going to need a new bathroom door, that for sure. 

And, I’ll probably build a bonfire and throw my bed into it.

I told Jan all about what had happened. 

She said, “TWO women? Both named Stacy?” And I thought, maybe I should have left that part out.

I said, “The important thing is right now, those two women and their maniac parents are after me and the Rock.  Remember the rock?”

Jan’s head drooped and she said, “The Rock, again? Really Sean, you need to see a doctor.”

She gave me a look of pity and stalked off to the bathroom.  I heard a hair dryer start.

While she finished getting ready, I tried on some shirts and shoes her last boyfriend left when he moved out.  I showed Jan and she said, “Raphael was a body builder, so the shirts are a bit baggy. He’s also taller than you.”

I thought: Raphael’s shirts are baggy.  Raphael is a body builder. He’s tall.  Fuck Raphael.

Jan said, “Look, we’re supposed to be at work. We’re already late. We should go.”

Go? I wasn’t going to leave. This apartment was safe.  Clean.  Bright.  Not a maniac in sight.

I took the rock out of my pocket and gripped it tightly, searching my intuition.  

Jan face-palmed. 

I ignored her. My intuition said, yes, work… work is the safest place right now.  For some reason, my feelings speak in a strange accent.

To Jan I said, “Yes, work is good.  Our office has good security. Yes. Since we got the DoE contract, they added all those security checkpoints.. And… and scanners.   That’s a good idea, Jan. Okay.  Yeah, yeah, let’s go. Let’s hurry. We’re late. Come on.”

Jan rolled her eyes, spun on her heel, grabbed her bag and we left. I gave the apartment one last hopeful glance as Jan locked the door.

I insisted we not use the front, so Jan led me down a back staircase into an old, dusty art studio, through a big sliding industrial door, down a hallway packed with old furniture, and onto the street. It was such a whirlwind exit that I half expected to be … on an avenue in Paris with prickly street vendors and a mime.  But, nope, same city.  We circled around a few times, doubled back a couple more then Jan finally stomped her foot and said, “Enough, we are late for work!”

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I kept my eyes peeled as we walked. And talked. Jan asked a lot of questions, almost as many as Cynthia usually does.  They were questions like, “Have you given a lot of your stuff away lately?” and “Do you hear voices?” and “do you often have these fanciful thoughts of taking home beautiful sisters you meet at nightclubs?” 

Alright, so apparently Jan was a skeptic. But I answered her questions as honestly as I could short of risking Jan thinking I was batshit crazy.  I mean, Jan already thought I was crazy. If I was completely honest, then Jan would know I was crazy.
Wait, what did I just think? If I was honest she’d know I’m crazy?  I’m not crazy, though plainly you couldn’t blame me if I was insane.  Me? I searched my feelings again.  In my mind I asked, “Hey, Computronium Rock, am I crazy?” 

Then, I noticed Jan staring at me.
I said, “Did I just say that out loud?”

Jan nodded. She said, “You were talking to that Rock.”  Then I realized I was holding Computronium Rock out in front of my face, on my palm, at eye level, six inches from my nose.  In public.

Shit. 

After that, we walked in silence, Jan and I.  For a bit. Then, I had an idea.  I said, “Hey, hold out your hands.”  Jan sighed. Her shoulders sagged.  She said, “Work!”

I said, “We’ll get to work sooner if you quit resisting.”

She held out her hands.

I said, “take off your gloves.”

She took off her gloves.

She darted a dagger stare as I placed the rock on her hands.  I said, “Just, just hold on to it for a minute.”

Jan sighed and said, “Sean, I’ve seen this rock before. I was in the court — yard –” Suddenly, Jan’s face changed. She had this five-mile stare.  And I knew, the Rock was murmuring to her feelings.  Muttering. Mumbling. And I thought, damn she looks stupid. Is that what I look like when the Rock whispers to me?  Huh.

Moments later, I helped Jan to her feet and took back the rock. Jan said, “What the fuck is that thing?”

I said, “See?”

She brushed the snow off her pants and said, “Don’t ever touch me with that again!” 

A few minutes later, we finally arrived at work, navigated the maze of security, and Jan convinced Joanna she and I were working on an important project together and needed the small conference room. Jan and I grabbed our laptops and went in.

We spent the morning googling everything under the sun, and a bunch of things in the darkest shadows. Computronium. Arcana. Insanity.  How to size a straight-jacket for a proper fit.  Do you, like, measure it like a shirt, or is it one-size-fits-all?

After a couple of hours, Jan stopped, rubbed her eyes and said, “Okay, let’s go over it again. How does it work?”

I said, “Well, I’m not totally sure, but I think if you are holding onto it, it like, connects with your brain or something.”

Jan said, “Connects how?”

I said, “I don’t know.  I mean, it’s not like we can plug it in. But, if I’m not physically touching it, skin to rock, nothing seems to happen. Like, earlier, if you had your gloves on.”

Jan said, “The Internet has all this stuff about Jupiter brains and Computronium, but it’s all sci-fi stories and far-fetched Twitter theory.  But, say it’s real, it would have to be like some sort of bio-tech, right? That guy at the train maybe stole it from a lab?”

Jan had told me she was skeptical. She had said she was “just helping.” But… she was talking like she believed me.

I shrugged and said, “Yeah, maybe. I really don’t know.”

She said, “You didn’t research it at all?”

“I mean, I did a little, but it was like a good luck charm. You know in Harry Potter, when he takes the Felix Felicis?”

She said, “You read Harry Potter?”

“Yeah, but the thing is, I was doing really well at work.  Like, it was kindergarten shit. And going out to clubs was mind blowing. Heck, I even got you to — ”. I stopped and thought, oh no.

Jan said, “You got me to what? Wait. Oh, my God. The backrub?”

I said, “Yeah.”

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Jan said, “You are an asshole. But, look, can’t you ask it? You were talking to it before.”

I said, “It doesn’t work like that. It speeds up pattern recognition, and seems to like, simulate options.  But, it doesn’t just give you thoughts… I tried to guess lottery numbers and it didn’t work.”

“Oh, that would have been cool.”

“I know, right? I tried it three times. Didn’t get a single number correct.”

“What about this guy’s phone?  Ivan? Maybe there is something on it?”

“No.  Just found a bunch of text messages to his wife.  Facetime calls. That’s it.”

Jan turned on the phone. It showed a silver Apple with a bite taken out of it, then went to a passcode screen.  She typed in the passcode I gave her, that Ivan had told me. 

Suddenly, the phone started buzzing. Dozens of messages came in. Jan said, “Is it always like this?” I said, “I turned it on twice. I never got a single message.  What’d they say?”

But Jan wasn’t looking at the phone anymore.  Jan was looking behind me. Her face changed.  She said, “The Arcanans.  Describe them to me.”

I said, “She’s tall, severe-looking, like a 1970s East German swimmer. He’s short, built like a brick shithouse. Early 60s, snow-white hair, like they’d seen a ghost.”

Jan said, “Shit.” I spun around. The two Arcanans, along with several dudes in suits and navy-blue windbreakers, were talking to Joanna. And Joanna was pointing to us.  And the Arcanans were smiling.  And the dudes in windbreakers were walking toward us.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson

Sean is startled by who two white-haired, humorless assassins he presumes is the (are the?) Arcanans. They want what Sean has, what Sean was given. His only hope is getting his hands on the Computronium he has hidden for safe-keeping. But, can he get it, and can he use it, and will it really help when the chips are all down?

Transcript

This one makes my top ten.  The Two Stacy’s parents, white-haired, probably in their sixties, severe-looking, and humorless.  They had snatched me from my bed and marched me to my kitchen.  Their adult daughters were still in my bed, tapping on their phones like two influencers hard at work. Top ten weirdest moment ever!

The mom looked like someone who might fall in love with Voldemort. She said, “Give to me the Computronium and in reward I shall kill you quickly.” 

I’d met them before, could not forget them for sure.  I suspected they were from the Arcana.  Or, they were the Arcana. Who are the Arcana? No clue.  Not even The Google could tell me. 

Of course I had googled “Aracana”.  There was a lot of stuff about tarot cards. Some anime. And that was it. Maybe I spelled it wrong, or heard it wrong.   I was just going on what the Train Platform Man told me. He said, “Beware of the Arcana!” 

And Victor and Ivan had spoken about them, too.  Then, last week in the courtyard, this Spartan pair were treated with wanton fear by the FBI and Secret Service. So, yeah. Whomever are the Arcana, I was bewaring them.

And I was sharing my apartment air

With them staring and glaring

Aware I wasn’t wearing a thing

Aware I did not have the Computronium

And without the Computronium

I was a square peg

And this situation was a very round hole.

—

The fact that I wasn’t currently touching the Computronium was a major problem. I wasn’t currently touching it because when I came home with the Stacies, I hid it. I hid it because I actually had the thought, “What if they try to steal it?”  I felt like it was good opsec. 

It wasn’t.

Good opsec would have been to come home alone.

Then the woman said, “Last week, you told us you did not have the Computronium, but you very clearly do.  For this lie, you will pay a handsome fee.”  

I said, “Look, I just wanted to see what it was, alright? Now I know: It’s just a useless rock. Take it. Here I’ll get it — ”  

Severe Woman smiled. Here was my moment.  At least, I hoped it was my moment. If I was holding the Computronium Rock, if I was in physical contact with the Rock, I would know if it were my moment.  The Rock would have given me a kajillion options in a heartbeat, worked it’s magic, simulated all the outcomes.  Highlighted the best one.

My own brain could muster but a single choice. In a feeble voice, I said, “Can I first put on some pants? I’ll make some coffee…” 

Severe Woman shook her head curtly. 

The man, her husband I presume, had so far just sat there, placidly. With muscles carved from ancient stone,  welded by effort, outlining a long-sleeve mock turtleneck.

I had a plan. I said, “Come on, what kind of host am I?” I moved toward the kitchen — 

The woman swifty removed a gun from her purse. The man stood up. 

I heard the pistol cock.  The gun already had a silencer attached.

And I thought, Shit! Okay, new plan.  New plan.

I said, “Okay, nevermind. The Rock’s over here by the couch.” I put my hands up and walked toward the couch.  I said, “I think I stashed it between the …” (106) But, as soon as I was even with the bathroom door, which was next to the couch, I pivoted, leapt into the bathroom, slammed the door and locked it. 

As soon as I locked it, two bullets pierced the door as though it were made from paper.

Then I heard Severe Woman bellow, “Dammit, my gun jammed again.  Stupid Glocks. Rufus, knock down the door!”

I heard the man say, “Yes, dear.”

I had maybe ten seconds. I pulled the top off the toilet’s reservoir tank and dunked my hand in.  Last night I hid the rock in the tank.  Also, Ivan’s phone was in there. The one he told me to take, told me the password.  I had sealed it in double zip-locked bags. 

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As soon as I had hold of that rock, this happened:

First, I relaxed. I felt calm. I felt like I knew exactly what would happen, when it would happen, and how it would turnout.  I thought, okay, I have more time than I think. Take a nice deep breath.  Breath out.  Okay, grab the toilet-tank cover.  Climb atop the vanity by the bathroom door. Wait for Rufus.

And I did. And then the man called Rufus easily kicked in the door.  It flung open, Rufus stepped in, and I brought the porcelain tank top down on his head as hard as I could. 

Rufus went down in a crash. 

Landed on his ass.  

He was out cold in a flash 

and I went out the door just as fast.  

Severe Woman was slapping her gun, tugging on the slide, and I bum-rushed her. She screeched as I knocked her over. I bounded over to the kitchen, catching a glimpse of the two Stacies still in bed, but now pulling out guns of their own.  I thought back to last night. Where in the world had they stashed guns?

I saw my jeans on the kitchen floor. My phone was still in the pocket.  I grabbed them, bolted for the door and danced into my pants as I hopped down the hallway. I ran past the elevator, to the stairs, down the stairs and into the street.  I was barefoot, in jeans, no shirt, running down the icy sidewalk.  Snow was falling.

How far did I need to go until I was safe? (fwing!) A bullet flew past me, telling me I needed to go a little farther.  I looked back and saw Severe Woman coming out of my building, her long jacket billowing in the wind like a gunfighter from an old Western. (fwing, fwing!) More bullets.  From the front doors, emerged one of the Stacies, I couldn’t remember which.  She was wrapped only in one of my bedsheets, firing her gun errantly.

I took off running. I ducked around cars and tried to blend in as well as any shirtless, barefoot man clutching a rock and two cell phones, sprinting over the snow and ice could blend in.

After six blocks I was tanked.   I stopped, caught my breath, and my bearings. My intuition said to go into the building I had stopped in front of.  I obeyed.

And it looked familiar. Where was I? Ahhhh….

This was Jan’s building. Jan had a Fourth of July party here two years ago.  We shot bottle rockets out this big window in her living room. The cops busted us.  I forgot about that. I had only lived in my flat for about six months. I didn’t realize Jan lived so close.  I couldn’t remember her apartment number, but I did remember it was on the seventh floor.  

There were tons of people leaving for work, and I went against the flow, saying, “got locked out! So awkward. Just moved it! Locked myself out on the third day! My bad…” No one stopped me.

I got in the elevator, punched the number seven, and just as the elevator doors closed, through the front window, I saw the two Stacies and their two parents, looking down, examining the snow in front of the building.  Looking in the exact spot I had been standing moments before.

The doors closed and I hoped I would find Jan’s apartment, quickly.

Credits

Written, Produced and Narrated by Hans Anderson