Jared Millet's Blog, page 6

The Whisper in "Take Manhattan. Please!"

I’ll try to keep this short.
I used to be a reporter named Allan Jones. That guy died, for real. (Long story.) Now I’m just a temporal anomaly armed with a bandolier from the future that lets me turn invisible and walk through walls. I’ve got a special mask that lets me breathe when I “ghost out,” which has the added benefits of muffling my voice and concealing my identity.
I don’t carry a gun or beat up crooks like some kind of vigilante. Instead, I use my abilities to uncover secrets that the powerful and corrupt don’t want exposed. You’ve seen my work in the paper, but you’ll never see my byline. To my contacts in the news business I’m a phantom. You can call me The Whisper.
Believe it or not, I’d never been to New York. So of course I picked a heatwave in the middle of August to follow up on a nice, juicy corruption case. What’s worse, the stooge politician I’d targeted was an even bigger bonehead than me. Instead of using some nice, airy office or hotel for his clandestine meeting, he chose the sweltering ground floor of a building under construction. The walls were finished, providing a modicum of secrecy, but the only light came from some extremely hot construction lamps.
The building was an upside down cupcake of a Frank Lloyd Wright monstrosity on the edge of Central Park – the Guggenheim, they were calling it, and it wasn’t due to open for two more months. Invisible, I leaned against a workbench and waited for the players to arrive. If it makes you feel better to imagine me in a cloak and hat like the Shadow, go ahead, but I’m not that dumb. A short sleeve shirt and loose tie, that was the way to go. My breather was too stuffy already; if it wasn’t for the off chance that I might have to turn visible, I’d have been in my skivvies.
My mark was already there: City Councilman Fred Farstow, accompanied by two bodyguards and his jittery secretary. They were all sweating through their clothes, but that girl looked like she would pass out from fright before the heat ever got to her. She wore a severe business outfit with her blouse buttoned up to her throat and a tight skirt down to her calves. Her only concession to femininity was the blue and yellow kerchief around her neck.
“Jeez, Mr. Farstow,” she said. “Was this the best place you could find? Why not an icehouse?”
“I said no talking, Daisy. I told you once already.”
“Sorry, Mr. Farstow.”
“See? No talking means no talking. Tell me you’re sorry later.”
She hung her head and clutched her oversize handbag. I nixed any benefit of doubt I might have given the Councilman and turned on my tape recorder. It wasn’t a moment too soon, because just then a thin figure in black pin-stripes stepped out from a shadowed alcove. Four other men in business attire followed close behind.
“I see you have brought an entourage,” said the pin-striped man in an accent from the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.
“Mr. Luczek,” said the Councilman. “Good afternoon. I see you did the same.”
Luczek gestured at his men. “This is not an entourage. This is my merchandise. You wish to put pressure on the dock workers union? These men are the pressure.”
Farstow snorted. “What are they, accountants?”
“Show,” said Luczek. At his order, two men pulled out guns. The third whipped out a hammer and the fourth a crowbar.
“This is what you need, yes?” Luczek sounded annoyed. Farstow swallowed. I did my best to memorize faces. “What about you? Did you bring what I ask?”
“Daisy,” said Farstow.
She reached into her handbag and pulled out a thick folder. “You didn’t tell me you were dealing with a Russki,” she said as she handed it over.
“I am Ukrainian, not Russian.” Luczek took the folder and quickly thumbed the pages. Daisy backed away, white as a ghost.
“Everything you wanted,” Farstow said. “Plans for the whole Manhattan power grid, whatever good it’ll do you. You got a buyer wants to make a bid on the utilities, is that it?”
“Something like that,” Luczek said. “I will honor our arrangement. Give me a few days and you’ll find the dock workers much more amenable to negotiation.”
“Maybe I should get you to negotiate me a raise,” said Daisy.
“Excuse me,” said Farstow. He launched a haymaker at her jaw.
I saw it coming and couldn’t stop it. His punch connected with a crack that made even his bodyguards flinch. To her credit, Daisy didn’t drop right away. She staggered but kept her feet until she stumbled on a loose timber and fell over backward. Her head hit the concrete and I cursed myself for not being armed.
“Sorry about that.” Farstow straightened his tie. “Where were we?”
“Concluding our arrangement,” Luczek said.
Daisy sobbed and pulled herself to her knees. Farstow swore under his breath.
“Are you too dumb to stay down?” he said. “Get back to the car. I’ll deal with you later.”
She wobbled to her feet and made her way out of the construction site. I could see there was blood on her face and being the idiot I am, I had to fight the urge to follow her. I had to remind myself I’d be doing a bigger favor by tape recording her boss. When the next day’s papers came out, Farstow would be disgraced and in handcuffs.
“I got a couple names for you,” Farstow said. “Some union guys I think merit special attention.”
“Wait,” said Luczek. He was looking through the papers a little more carefully. “What is this?”
“What do you mean?” said Farstow. “It’s the plans you asked for. I checked them myself.”
A gun flashed into Luczek’s hand. Double claps exploded and both Farstow’s guards flew backwards.
Luczek walked up to Farstow, aiming at the Councilman’s chest. “The first few pages, yes. The rest are diagrams for transistor radios. Where are the power grid schematics?”
“They’re right there!” Farstow sounded like a balloon about to pop. “I put them there myself, in that folder. I watched Daisy put them in her bag. I… Oh my god. It’s Daisy! She must have run off with them. Look, Luczek, I promise –”
Thunder clapped again and blood sprayed the Guggenheim’s floor. I cried out, but luckily the noise and my mask hid the sound. Luczek dropped the papers on Farstow’s useless corpse.
He addressed his men. “Dispose of the bodies. I locate the girl.”
The girl. I ran before Luczek started walking. She had a head start on both of us, but I was the only one who could move through walls. I could outrun her, but could I outrun a bullet? Ever since I took on this “phantom reporter” gig, I’d made it a point not to risk my neck. Now, thanks to Daisy, I could feel myself drawn into the open, in a city I didn’t even know.
*
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*
My lungs were cramping by the time I reached the street. It’s hard to run when “ghosted.” My breather had a hard time keeping up. Maybe the damn thing needed its filter replaced. I didn’t even know if it had a filter. I’d stolen my gear from a super-crime syndicate from the future called JANUS, and as a result it didn’t come with a warranty.
Staying invisible, I dialed myself solid and pulled off the mask to breathe real air. There was no sign of the girl on the sidewalk in either direction. Across the street was Central Park. I caught a glimpse of her blue and yellow kerchief and darted after her.
I almost got creamed by a car. Damn thing didn’t even honk. The driver couldn’t see me and I’d forgotten to ghost out again. Breathing be damned, I dialed myself intangible and put my mask back on.
For a hot afternoon the park was sure crowded, probably by people who didn’t have air conditioning. I followed Daisy across and through a short stretch of woods until I hit a walking trail, an iron fence, and a huge body of water. Christ, no one told me there was a lake this size in the middle of New York City.
I looked left and right and picked her out on the left, moving at a steady jog despite her attire. As such, she wasn’t inconspicuous. Assorted strollers turned to watch her dart by. At my feet lay a discarded pair of women’s shoes. Smart girl, those heels would have slowed her down. Running barefoot on concrete would eventually do the same, but she had desperation on her side. I would have to work to catch up.
We ran a good three blocks before the lake came to an end and the path curved to the right along its bank. I don’t know how that girl was doing it. I used to run five miles a day in boot camp, but that was before Korea and I hadn’t kept up with my exercise. My mask was fogging and my chest felt like it had taken a bayonet. At least I didn’t have to worry about dodging pedestrians. Instead, I ran right through them.
From behind, Luczek ran through me. I had the disconcerting experience of my head being inside his for a moment before I veered aside.
He’d made her, sure as I did, and at the speed he was moving he was going to catch her first. His legs were longer and his stamina had a one-up on mine. My mission had to change. If saving Daisy was more important than catching her, then stopping Luczek was priority one.
At least he didn’t know he was racing me. I poured the last of my strength into one mad dash to pull in front of him, then dialed myself solid and planted my feet.
He creamed me and we both went sprawling. Luczek hit the fence on the edge of the lake and I plowed into a man and his lady friend. I pushed myself up while he swatted the air. Luczek came halfway to his feet, but I kicked him in the gut and then kicked him in the side when he was down.
I reached into his coat and got my hand on his gun, but he punched me away before I could grab it. He nailed me in the chest; if he could have seen me he would have put me down. I shoved him against the fence with all my weight.
Crazy, right? For all I knew, Daisy was as crooked as her boss Farstow. At the moment, I didn’t care.
Luczek figured out quick that he was fighting an invisible man, ludicrous as that must have seemed, and he shifted his tactics accordingly. First, he closed his eyes. Second, he hooked his arm under mine and twisted. I cried out. He reached his other hand to the sound of my voice in order to rake my face. His fingers latched into my breather instead.
“Gyuh!” he said, and pulled his hand back in disgust. I should probably mention that my breather isn’t like a gasmask. Instead of a canister, there’s a mass of rubber tubing covered in some kind of grease that never comes off. If you saw it you’d think that a squid had swallowed my head.
There was no point in wrestling this guy any more. I’d done all the good I could without hurting myself, so I pulled away, turned intangible, and kept running after Daisy.
Did I mention the park was hot? It was worse when running in ghost mode. Instead of stopping at my skin, the summer air got to pass through my whole body. And yes, while I couldn’t feel the people I ran through I could definitely feel the heat. With the sun in the cloudless sky shining straight down through the trees, it felt like my guts would boil.
Ahead, the way opened to a wide, treeless platform. To the left were steps down to another walkway, and to the right was a large stone building jutting out into the lake. An inscription read “Central Park Reservoir – South Gate House.” Daisy stood there in the open next to a pair of drinking fountains, looking back the way she’d come. Her hair was disheveled, her feet bare save for torn hose, and she clutched her carrying bag like her life depended on it.
A shot like a backfire knocked a bite out of the stonework above Daisy’s head. I turned to see Luczek with his gun out in broad daylight. Women screamed and men jumped aside. He took aim again and I dove at Daisy, dialing solid and then ghosting again when I had her in my arms.
The bullet went through us like a hiccup. I said “Don’t scream” in that atonal rasp that’s all that my mask allows. I dragged her around the corner of the gate house. She flapped and flailed exactly like a fish on land. I spun my bandolier’s dials to turn solid and visible, and for the first time in forever someone got a look at my get-up. I can imagine what she saw: some sweaty guy in a dripping white shirt, ramshackle tie, and a black rubber sea monster for a head.
She gasped. Holding on to her, I dialed us invisible-only and rolled us both to the side as Luczek’s third bullet cut the air behind us. I couldn’t ghost us again without choking her, so I pulled Daisy along down the steps away from the reservoir.
“Wait,” she said. “What are you? Where are we going? I was supposed to meet –”
“Shut up,” I said. “You’ll give our position.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Luczek standing exactly where we’d been a moment before. If we’d been lucky he would have kept on the way Daisy had originally been running, but he guessed correctly and followed us down the other path instead. I pulled Daisy by the arm and we ran the shady path south. Before long it dropped us on 86th Street as it cut east and west through the park. Cars whizzed by at a steady enough clip that it would have been suicide to cross while invisible. I knew Luczek wasn’t too far behind.
Crap. There was a way out of this, but it needed timing and cooperation.
I watched the oncoming cars and picked one. “When I say jump,” I said, “jump straight forward and hold your breath.”
There was a third dial on my bandolier besides visibility and tangibility, and it was the trickiest one to use: the dial that set my frame of reference. It’s what stopped me from sinking through the ground or let me match speed with any vehicle I happened to be riding in. It also, when I was feeling particularly stupid, let me try a stunt like this. My target, a bright red convertible Chrysler with tail fins like a god damned rocket, was almost upon us.
“Jump!” I screamed through my mask and spun all three of my dials.
We jumped right in front of the car, fully visible. As the driver slammed on the brakes, we ghosted through the engine block and the front seat. By the time we reached the back seat, my bandolier had shifted our frame of reference from the road to the car, so we were moving along with it. I dialed us solid so Daisy could breathe and I pulled off my mask before our driver, some poor kid out on a joy ride, decided that aliens had landed.
He swerved all over the road. I reached and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, hey, hey, kid, calm down. Get a grip.”
“Who are you?” he shrieked. “How’d you get in here? What the hell, man? What the hell?”
“Road!” I shouted.
The kid swerved again to avoid an oncoming car. He gripped the wheel so hard I thought he might rip it off. His chest heaved. I was afraid he might lose consciousness.
“Breathe, kid. Breathe.” I patted his shoulder. “Keep driving. We’ll be out of your hair as soon as we figure where to stop.”
“What do you mean ‘we’?” said Daisy. She leaned back in the seat to collect herself. I could see where she’d ripped the hem on her skirt to make running easier. “Why are you after me?”
I wiped sweat off my face. I hadn’t shaved in days. I probably looked like I’d escaped from the drunk tank or a lunatic asylum.
“You can call me the Whisper.”
“I don’t want to call you anything,” she said. “I want you to leave me alone.”
“Daisy,” I said. “I know you’re on the run from Luczek. I know you’ve got what he wants in that bag. He’s already killed Farstow. Next he’s going to kill you.”
Her face was white. “How do you know all this?”
“I was there. I saw the whole thing.” I cracked my best cocky smile. “I’m the Whisper, baby. The Shadow took the day off.”
Our joyrider screeched to a halt at the corner of Central Park West. Daisy jumped from the car. I shouted for her to wait, but she was already dashing down the sidewalk.
“Thanks for the ride, kid,” I said. I pulled my mask back on.
“Sure thing, Dad, no problem.” He spoke slow while he watched me in his rearview, then yelped as I turned invisible. If nothing else, I’d certainly made his day.
*
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*
Confident that I’d lost Luczek, now I needed to make sure that I didn’t lose the girl and with her the story. There was still a story, I just didn’t know what it was. Farstow’s death would hit the papers without my help. The question I needed to answer was “Why?”
Daisy kept a brisk pace toward 87th, but I had longer legs and the benefit of shoes. She was starting to limp and the sidewalk must have been scorching. Instead of crossing to the shady side of the street, she kept on the side by the park. Before long I saw why: up ahead was an entrance to the subway. It wasn’t one of the big ones, just a fenced-off set of stairs heading underground, no wider than those in a brownstone.
I followed her down. I must have jostled the knobs on my belt wrong when getting out of that kid’s car, because apparently I was still partially solid. A short Hispanic guy walked through me and stumbled. For me it was like swimming through molasses. Unknowing, he dragged me ten feet upstairs with him before I got unstuck. I lost sight of Daisy in the process.
I fixed my ghost setting and walked through the turnstiles. Just as I faded through them, the lights flickered in the station and several people gasped. Had I just made that happen? My equipment never seemed to short out electrics before.
The station was a narrow concrete cavern with a crowded shelf for passengers and an empty chasm for the trains. I really preferred D.C. and its trollies, safely above ground where you could jump off and book it if you had to. I looked up and down the platform for Daisy, but couldn’t see her. Where the hell had she gone?
Wait, there she was, hiding behind a column. She wasn’t alone. I could tell from her body language that she was chewing somebody a good one. Curiouser and curiouser. No need to be coy when you’re a phantom: I strolled around the pillar to scope what was going on. The man she was reading the riot act to was a well –dressed black fellow; he turned his head and I got a look at his face.
Christ almighty with a hockey stick, it was Special Agent Buck Powell of the F. B. goddamn I. He was one of the very few people who knew my story, and though he was on the side of the angels, he’d still like nothing better than to catch me with my pants down and confiscate my Whisper gear.
“Look, we can handle this,” he said to Daisy. “Just let me have Farstow’s papers. With that and your testimony, we’ve got Luczek dead to rights.”
“Yeah, when you catch him!” She gripped her carrying bag like a bulletproof vest. “If you catch him. You were supposed to take him out when the deal went down. Now that maniac’s loose and he’s after me. Not you, me.”
“I know and I’m sorry.” Powell wiped his brow. “Nothing went down the way it was supposed to. First the meeting place changes at the last minute, then Farstow’s driver manages to lose his tail. Nothing today’s gone like I planned, but that doesn’t mean our deal has to change.”
“You bet it does, sugar.” Daisy inched away from Powell in the direction of the edge of the platform. I resisted the urge to go solid and pull her back. “I’m gonna need protection. More than you’ve given me so far. And not just for me, for my family, for as long as that goon is out there.”
“Now Daisy, we’ve talked about this,” said Powell. “We can’t afford to keep you under guard indefinitely. And besides, that would make you even more of a target.”
“Don’t tell me what you can’t afford,” said Daisy. “If you can afford to send some spooky Invisible Man after me, you can pay for a couple of beat cops.”
Uh oh.
“Invisible Man,” said Powell. “What are you talking about?”
“You know, you Feds and you cops like to pretend you’re all strapped for cash and manpower, but if the government’s figured out how to make a guy see-through I don’t see what you need me for at all.”
God damn it, Daisy. I wanted to chase a story, not become one. Again.
 “This invisible character,” Powell said. “He give you a name?”
“Whisper something.”
“Jones!” Powell turned slowly in a full circle. “You meddling son of a bitch. I know you’re watching us. Stop being a coward and show yourself for once.”
What the hell. I turned half-visible but not solid.
“Ehh. What’s up, doc?”
Powell punched harmlessly through my face.
“Oh well,” he said. “Worth a shot.”
“What, he’s not with you?” Daisy backed away from both of us. A gust of wind from the tunnel ruffled her skirt and the rails sang a high pitched whine.
“Most definitely not,” said Powell. “What’s your angle, Jones?”
I shrugged. “Following a story. I thought the Times might like to know that Farstow’s been dealing with organized crime.”
“It’s more than that, Jones. I’ve got intel that says Luczek’s got ties to JANUS.”
Holy shit on a hamburger. “That’s why you’re here and not someone else. Has the FBI got a JANUS task force now?”
“If you can call it that,” he said. “It’s only me.”
“Guys!” said Daisy. “Guys, remember me? I’m glad for your little reunion, but can someone please explain what you’re gonna do for me?”
A train blew into the station and drowned Powell’s answer. The rush of air pushed Daisy away from the tracks. Overhead the lights flickered; this time I couldn’t take credit. Somehow over the din, I picked out the sound of a gun being cocked.
I spun around. Luczek, as brazen as daylight, stood the length of a train car away. He leveled his gun. 
Everyone around him was pushing away, and I heard someone shout for police. The train’s brakes hissed and the doors slid open.
A strange, deep sound vibrated through the station. Lights flickered a third time, now much stronger than before. Luczek looked up, distracted, as did everyone else. I put my hand on my control knobs, unsure if I could ghost both Powell and Daisy.
Somewhere a light bulb popped. Then every other light blacked out.
To Be Continued
*
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"River Ascending" in Leading Edge #66

This is a much-tardy post, but my latest story, "River Ascending," has just appeared in the newest issue of Leading Edge Magazine , available now from Amazon! BUY IT.

What's extra cool is that for the first time one of my stories has been illustrated, with some fantastic artwork provided by Jake Giddens. Also in the magazine are Hoen Taylor's "Killing Einstein" and Sarah E. Seeley's "Driveless," as well as a selection of poetry and reviews. Check it out!

After a highly productive November I plan to get back on the short fiction wagon this year. While I hope to find paying homes for most of my work, I hereby pledge to present the long-promised next installment of The Whisper right here on this blog in one week's time or die trying.

See ya soon!

NaNoWrapUp

So NaNoWriMo 2014 has been over for a few days. All in all, a successful year. I met my own goal (yay!) by the skin of my teeth and a last-minute 3,000 word chicken chase on the moon. What's more, the Birmingham region's 355 participants racked up a solid 5.6 million words of ficiton. Nice going, guys!

This was my eighth year doing NaNo and my seventh win, so the question might be asked whether or not the contest does anything for me anymore. The answer is... well, yeah.

Mind you, I'm stretching myself each year and not just relying on the old 50,000 word goal as my sole target. Last year's crazy stunt was to produce and publish a ten part serial during the course of the event, which demanded even stricter deadline control than normal and a violation of my "no one sees my early drafts" rule.

This year the goal was short stories, which have always been a challenge for me. In the past, the first draft of a single story would take me just as long as a whole NaNoNovel. For this month, I was required to churn stories out at the pace of a young Robert Silverburg (without the corresponding level of quality, unfortunately). This year's event taught me a lot about the short story process and how to get the damn things down on paper without being precious about it.

My starting goal was 10 stories of about 5,000 words. It ended up more like 1 essay and 6-8 stories depending which ones you count and how often you count them. I hope that at least three of them are things I can polish into a non-embarrassing shape and set them loose into the wild. Another is a new romp staring The Whisper, which I'll be posting here shortly.

Another thing I re-learned for this NaNo, and you'd think that I of all people wouldn't have to learn this, is to Embrace The Pulp. I'd pretty much taken a year off from my own writing, and in that time I've been consuming contemporary short fiction that, while still in my SFF comfort zone, is definitely of a more literary bent, all the while with the realization that my stuff would never, ever fit in with the stories I was reading.

But like Ben Folds says, "You've got to learn to live with what you are," and I'm a pulp writer god dammit. Soul-searching, new wave, deeply personal examinations of the human condition of the kind you find in Clarkesworld and such are awesome, but that's never going to come out of my typewriter. I'm from the tradition of stories with chase scenes, fight scenes, and characters who want to kill each other. I'm all for stretching myself, but to be happy as a writer I've got to stay true to my roots.

So, in the interest of challenging myself and keeping the pulp pulpy, I'm hereby announcing my crazy stunt for NaNo 2015: My next 30-day novel will be interactive in the style of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series, in honor of the late, great R.A. Montgomery. I'll polish it up and post it here on this blog with all the story paths hyperlinked for your Choose Your Own Adventuring pleasure.

There you go. Now I'm committed.

Smells Like NaNoWriMo

Well, it's that time of year again, and not a moment too soon. As my lack of activity on this blog will indicate, my writerly ambitions have been lying fallow this past year. However, an unexpected short story sale (which will appear in the very next issue of Leading Edge , hip-hip-hooray) has spurred me to action.

Last year my crazy NaNo stunt was to write a 50's pulp serial and post it chapter-by-chapter right here on this blog. This year's crazy stunt will be to write... dun dun DUHNN ... 10 short stories in 30 days.

I'm hereby dubbing this November's lunacy The Dragonfly King and Other Stories.



The title piece was originally a story I did for Flash Fiction Night two years ago, but I haven't posted it here because I felt that it was too truncated at 1000 words. I plan to rewrite it from scratch, give it a little more breathing room, and should the gods smile upon me I'd like to shop it around after all is said in done. In fact, what I'm hoping to get out of this year's NaNo are a bunch of story drafts that I can polish up in 2015 and set loose into the wild.

And just in case anyone cares, one of the shorts will feature my hero from last year, The Whisper, and I'll publish his new adventure right here on this blog, where he belongs.

Let the games begin!

Meanwhile, in the real world...

Lots of stuff been going on, interfering (as life does) with writing. On the upside, I've got a new kitchen, a new job, and I've made it all the way to green belt in Tae Kwon Do.

On the writing slate for this year, if I can light a fire under my ass, I've got two short stories that need revision and sent out, I've got a novel that needs a pass through the meat grinder, and maybe.. just maybe.. I'll do an edit on The Whisper and offer it up as an ebook. Apparently from my non-spambot page hits, people are still stumbling across it and reading it. God only knows why.

At the end of last year, I turned over Write Club to the capable hands of Katherine Webb and Russell Hehn (Hi guys!), but that still didn't stop me from pitching in once again for the annual Flash Fiction Night.

Because, look! A new story:

Dying's Easy

by Jared Millet

Stop me if you’ve heard this.
A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says “Why the long face?”
The horse says, “Don’t even start. We’ve got trouble. A priest, a rabbi, and an atheist are about to come in any second now.”
“What?” says the bartender. “Here? How’d they get across the road?”
“How do you think,” says the horse. “They followed the damned chicken.”
It’s a pale horse. He thrashes his tail while the barkeep weighs his options.
“Right. They’ll have to be sorted, then. Where’s your partner?” He nods at the horse’s empty saddle.
“All things considered, he’d rather be in Philadelphia.”
“Cute. Get lost before they see you.”
The horse backs into a dark corner as the door swings open and three men enter, shuffling as if they’ve already had too much to drink. The bartender wipes a glass and looks around the edge of the men’s shadows to see what brought them to his place.
There it is: a car bomb in Haifa, on their way to a conference on religious tolerance. It was over so quickly that the poor bastards still didn’t know what had happened. That was good. It would make things easier.
“What’re you having, friends?”
The priest slumps onto a stool and orders a beer. His voice is tired and Irish. The barman pours a stout from the tap, giving it a perfect, frothy head, and the priest takes a sip.
“Begorrah! If that isn’t the best tasting Guinness I’ve ever had. I must have died and gone to heaven.”
And poof, like that, he’s gone.
The rabbi doesn’t seem to notice. “Excuse me, sir, but do you have any kosher wine?”
“I have a Flam. Care for a glass?”
“Yes, please.” The rabbi sips and says, “Oy, that’s so good you’d think I was in the World To Come.”
And poof, like that, he’s gone.
The atheist glares at the void where the rabbi had been and says, “What is this, a joke?”
“What do you mean?” The barkeep holds an empty glass, waiting.
“I remember the flash. It was a bomb, right? Now I’m in a bar, no idea how I got here, and my fellow panelists just vanished in a puff of smoke. Not to mention there’s a horse playing hide and seek by the dartboard. Is this really the best my subconscious can come up with?”
“Your subconscious?” The bartender wishes the third man would just order his drink. As long as he didn’t accept his surroundings as real, there was still hope for him.
“Then again,” says the atheist, “what if this isn’t a dream? Dying in an explosion wouldn’t leave much time for hallucinations, and this one’s going on for a while.”
“Look friend,” says the barman, “are you going to order something already or not?”
The atheist shakes his head and takes a stool. The bartender sets aside his glass.
“Okay, so maybe I was wrong all along,” says the atheist. “Maybe there is some kind of afterlife. But this ain’t heaven, and I haven’t seen my childhood flashing before my eyes, so I’ll ask you again: Is this all some kind of joke?”
The bartender leans forward. “You want to hear a joke? Here’s one. A priest, a rabbi, and an atheist are driving to a peaceful conference. Some whacko blows them up in the name of God. The end.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Here’s another. A priest, a rabbi, and an atheist are on their way to heaven, but the atheist cocks it up because he can’t so much as order a drink without questioning the nature of existence.”
“Now you’re just being an ass.”
“One more. The whole human race sits alone in the dark. They hear a noise. Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
The barman doesn’t answer. The silence stretches on.
“So that’s it, then,” says the atheist. “Life really is a joke.”
“No.” The bartender pours himself a shot of Jameson. “It’s a joke without a punchline. All setup and no payoff.”
The atheist shakes his head. “It stinks to be right.”
“Almost,” says the barkeep. “You were on your way to finding out what the payoff really is, but you made a wrong turn in Albuquerque and ended up here. Too bad for you.”
“Why too bad?” The atheist eyes the whiskey as the bartender slugs it down his throat. The bartender sighs.
“Because a punchline doesn’t work if you see it coming. So now you’re stuck here.”
“Could be worse.” The atheist looks around. “Where am I, exactly?”
“The bad joke factory. The substrate of human consciousness. This is the shared level of human experience where mankind tries to make sense of the senseless. It’s a lot of work, let me tell you, but I could always use someone to bus tables.”
“But what’s the point?” says the atheist.
“Haven’t you been paying attention? What’s the point of any joke? To alleviate pain. I mean, why do you think people would rather blow each other up? Dying’s easy. To relieve human suffering, even for a moment, that’s hard.”
The atheist eyes the bartender and the pale horse in the corner as if trying to decide whether they’re pulling his leg.
“And this is where all that comes from?”
The bartender nods.
“Okay, then,” says the atheist. “Let me try this again from the top:
“A priest, a rabbi, and an atheist die in a car bomb, but instead of the pearly gates, they end up in a bar. The priest orders a beer and says ‘This beer is so good I must be in heaven.’ And poof! He goes to heaven. The rabbi asks for wine and likes it so much he says ‘Hey, I must be in heaven too!’ And poof, there he goes.
“The bartender asks the atheist what he wants, and the atheist just asks for water.”
“Water?” says the bartender.
“Yeah,” says the atheist. “I don’t believe in spirits.”

This story is copyright 2014 Jared Millet.

It was performed on March 18, 2014, at the Hoover Public Library Flash Fiction Night, sponsored by the Hoover Library Write Club.

The Whisper: Chapter 10

What Goes Around
We emerged into the time machine lab to find Lane Young and the technician working furiously at one of the control panels. The technician’s shirt was covered in blood and his left arm hung in a makeshift sling tied together from strips of his lab coat. Four bodies lay on the floor, one of them Marlston. The turbine hummed like a jet engine and the walls of the transport chamber glowed a hot red. I wasn’t sure if it was about to explode or if the technician and Lane had removed whatever wrench the Whisper had thrown in the works. The lab guy looked like he would have already passed out but for Lane scowling over his shoulder like she would kill him if he didn’t work faster.
I put my gun to the poor bastard’s head and cleared my throat.
Lane snarled, shoved the technician out of the way, and lunged nails-first. She might have torn the skin off my face, but instead flew through my immaterial body and sprawled, undignified, on the floor. She spun around in a crouch, but the Whisper kicked her on her side.
“That’s enough, Mother.”
You could have heard a penny drop. Explanations slid into place, how the Whisper could be part and not part of JANUS at the same time. Instead of simplifying things, this new wrinkle made the situation a million times more complicated. I dialed myself solid before the lab tech realized that my bullets wouldn’t hurt him. Lane made a noise between a sob and a laugh.
“Of course. I should have known it was you helping Jones. Who else would crap all over my work? You spoiled, ungrateful whelp.”
“Can it. I’m not having this talk again.” He pointed his gun at the lab tech. “You. What did you change? Did you send anyone through the machine?”
“N… n… not yet. We were—”
“Shut up, Ford.” Lane brushed herself off and stood up. “Are you going to kill me now, like you killed your father?”
“Canton wasn’t my father.” The edge in the Whisper’s voice had me worried. “My father was worth ten of that douchebag.”
“If you’re referring to Brandon Roche, he was an irresponsible idealist and he wasn’t Family. He may have been your sperm donor, but he wasn’t your father.”
“Look,” I said, “can we sort out the family issues on Thanksgiving? Shut down the time machine, please.” I tapped Ford’s head with my gun to make my point.
“You heard him,” said Lane. “Shut them down.”
I knew that was bad. “Don’t you dare,” I started to say, but I never got a syllable. The lab tech punched a button and lightning blasted the room.
I remember my feet leaving the ground. The ceiling slammed me like a runaway car. A bolt of white flashed from the turbine to the time machine. Then the ground rushed up, head-on to my mask. The filter jammed back in my face and I screamed.
I scrambled to my knees, pulled the mask off, and spat out coppery blood. That arc from the generator had blown me a dozen feet across the room. My phasing belt smoked like an overcooked pie, so I flung it off; it was hot to the touch. My gun was nowhere in sight.
No, there it was. Lane had it in her hand.
The Whisper disappeared. Ford the technician pulled himself up on the edge of the control panel. I got to my feet and Lane took aim. I raised my hands.
“Can’t you see that JANUS needs to stop?” The voice came from everywhere at once. “Can’t you see what monsters we’ve become? We have the power to save the world.”
“No, we don’t.” Tears inched down Lane’s face. “You stupid child, you’ve ruined everything. Canton was going to make JANUS matter. By taking over the organization’s finances, he would be in a position to make a difference. He would have ruled the Families. He would have pushed us out of the shadows. We could have taken over the world and forced the human race to survive. Isn’t that what you and your precious Brandon wanted?”
She pointed the gun at her head.
“And now, what have you left? Canton’s dead. I might be arrested, and then JANUS will kill me. You can be damn sure they’ll kill you. There’s no way out for either of us.”
Her hand tensed as she readied to fire, but time seemed to stop as something clicked in my mind.
Roche. The father’s name was Brandon Roche. Or another way: Roche, Brandon. The Whisper was a child of JANUS, but not an actual child. I’d mistaken the Whisper’s small physique for that of a young man, but there was another explanation, a “mistake” I’d made once already when I’d accused Lane herself. The Whisper was dedicated to stopping JANUS, but had also gone out of the way to help me, as if we knew each other. And as I’d learned from experience, time travel could let someone be in two places at once.
I knew what was going to happen. I’d already seen the result.
The Whisper grew solid to stop her mother’s suicide.
I shouted, “Roxy, no!”
Lane whipped the gun around and shot the Whisper point blank in the gut. The blast threw her backward ten feet to the wall. I ran to her side, not caring if Lane shot me. The Whisper struggled for breath. I pulled off her mask to reveal the face of Roxy Brandt.
She’d already gone white. I pressed my hands on her wound to slow the bleeding and shouted, “Get a fucking doctor!” I looked over my shoulder, and Lane ran to the time box. I couldn’t move without leaving Roxy, so I could only watch as she jumped inside and vanished. I didn’t know where she went… and then I did.
I remembered when Marlston ordered his men to shoot me, but this time, instead of the Whisper putting three bullets in his chest, a second Lane Young appeared from thin air and ruined Roxy’s aim. Roxy pulled me from the room in all the confusion, and we still made our way to the reception to rescue Aranjuez. I remembered seeing Roxy in the ambulance – that part hadn’t changed, and though I didn’t understand it I was getting there. Like before I felt the time shift beginning, and the Whisper and I both raced back to this chamber to see…
Canton Marlston, alive and well, waved his wife goodbye as she stepped into the past to ensure his survival. Then he turned to smile down at his step-daughter and me. Five black-garbed, masked men with assault rifles held their weapons trained on both of us.
“She’ll be back in a minute,” Canton said. “I believe she has a misunderstanding to clear up with the police. As for you two, well, it won’t even be that hard to hide the bodies.”
He pulled a cigar out of his pocket, clipped off the end, and grinned like a cat in a cage of canaries.
***
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***All I could do was play for time.
“I thought you couldn’t kill me. You said the universe hates a paradox.”
“It really doesn’t like them,” said Marlston, “but you can force the issue. The Families are proof of that. I suspect that if these five gentlemen shoot you full of holes, the time stream will find a way to deal with it. Cause and effect don’t always matter for people like us.”
People like us. Somehow I was just like JANUS, the product of an ‘ultimate paradox.’ But how could that be? Roxy was right, I couldn’t be descended from the Families, but whatever had happened at the airport had certainly messed with my normal perception of time.
One look at the time machine, and suddenly I knew what had happened. But with Canton and his goons standing in my way, I couldn’t figure out how.
Canton lit his cigar. “Okay, boys. Do ‘em both.”
“Wait,” I said. The men adjusted their aim anyway.
Roxy laughed. It sounded like a death rattle, but her smile was unmistakable.
“Bill and Ted,” she said. “I figured it out.”
“Oh for the love of God,” said Canton, “just kill them.”
“Last words! Give us one fucking minute.” I turned to Roxy. “Go on, baby.”
“In the movie, Bill and Ted have to break someone out of jail. They need the keys, but they don’t have time to steal them. So they promise each other that after the breakout, their future selves will use their time machine to go back and steal the keys in the past and leave them for their present selves to find.”
That was her big revelation? “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Yes it does.” A cough wracked her body. I pressed harder on her bleeding stomach. She groaned and grabbed my shirt. “Listen. You’ve got a time machine. You can make something happen nowfrom an action you haven’t taken yet. You just need the intent and the will to follow it through. I know you can do it, Allan. You’ve already done it. It’s already happened.”
“Are we done?” said Canton. “Can we kill them?”
“They won’t,” I said. “That’s not what happens.”
Canton’s men didn’t shoot.
“What the hell is this?” Canton said. “I told you to fire.”
“No.” The idea was growing, but I didn’t have time to work it out so I thought out loud. “Once I get out of this mess, I’m going back in time. I’ll go to the FBI and collect the tapes that identify you as the one behind the shooting at the airport. I’m going to masquerade as the Whisper and give them to myself in Roxy’s apartment. That puts me on the trail to expose you and JANUS. Roxy already knew you were the bastard behind this, but she couldn’t say so without revealing that she was a vigilante from the future. And I’m sure part of her wanted to protect her mother, despite it all.” I glanced down for confirmation, and Roxy nodded.
“What good does that do?” said Canton. “So you come here to ‘expose’ me, and you both wind up dead. Even if you did altar something in the past, which you can’t by the way, I could still go back and erase it myself.”
I shook my head. “No, because before I get my younger self involved in all this, I’m going to convince Agent Powell at the FBI to infiltrate your staff and not reveal himself until I give the signal. Which is now.”
All five of Canton’s men pointed their guns at their employer.
“What the fuck?”
One of the men pulled off his mask. Of course, it was Agent Powell.
“Mr. Marlston, you’re under arrest. I advise you to surrender peacefully.”
“What?” said Marlston. “You can’t do this. You’re not JANUS. You can’t change the past.”
I could, but there was a price I’d have to pay. Before that, I had to save Roxy. “Agent Powell, I need Mr. Ford over here.”
Powell crooked his finger for the lab tech to attend. He knelt next to Roxy and me, and I noticed that in this version of the evening he’d never been shot.
“Can you set up the time machine to send me back to the airport? Can you put it on some kind of automatic trigger?”
He nodded.
“Do it. Before I go, you need to take Roxy to the ambulance outside. Take her back in time to the moment they arrived, before the police figure out what’s going on.”
“And what happens to me?” he asked.
I looked askance at Powell, then whispered, “You get to run.”
He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. Powell knelt beside me as Ford ran to make his preparations. The other four agents were busy restraining Marlston, who snarled and twisted on the ground like a beast. They’d managed to cuff his hands, but it looked like they were going to have to shackle his feet and carry him out on a stretcher.
“I’ve got to tell you, Jones, when I saw you alive after the airport, I thought I was straight for the funny farm. There’s no way I would have believed all this if I hadn’t seen your body for myself.”
“Thanks,” I said. “That tells me how to make my case. I think Canton has a mole in the FBI somewhere. Do you have any idea who it is?”
He looked surprised. “A guy named Ulrich. You told me that yourself.”
“Ulrich, right. I’ll have to remember that.” I shifted to cradle Roxy in my lap. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m draining away.” Her voice was faint. “Do you think it’s going to work?”
“I know it does, baby. I’ve seen it.”
“That’s good.” She was fading fast.
“Hey, listen, kid. I’m going to find you when this is done. I’m going to see you’re taken care of. We’ve got to live happily ever after, right?”
“Sure thing.” She was barely a whisper any more. “Allan? Kiss me.”
I did, softly. Her lips gave no resistance and she smelled of her rubber mask, but for one sweet moment we were the only two people in the world.
“Mr. Jones, sir?” said Ford. “I’m ready.”
“Take her.” As he lifted her, I pulled off her invisibility belt and gun. “Sorry, I’m going to need this.”
“Be careful,” she said. “There’s only three shots left.”
I chuckled. “That’s all I need.”
Ford and Roxy vanished into the box. I slipped the Whisper’s belt over my shoulder. There was one extra dial I hadn’t seen, but what it did was pretty obvious. Roxy’s hat had fallen to the ground. I picked it up with her breather mask and settled them both on my head.
“Where do you think you’re going?” said Powell.
I glanced at the screen and saw the scene at the airport, frozen mid-slaughter. “To make all this come true. Don’t worry, I’ll be right back.”
I dialed myself mostly invisible and stepped into the chamber. There was no sensation of movement, of translating to another place and time. I simply stepped from Marlston’s basement to the tarmac at Friendship International.
Somehow I’d expected time to be frozen, but it wasn’t. People screamed and metal flew. I flinched at the gunfire, and I swear something flew right by my head. I could very well get shot pulling this stunt, but I knew where I had to stand. I would just have to cross my fingers.
And there I was: my younger self. Mere days younger, but what a difference that made. He knelt over poor Tim Leslie, already beyond saving. Allan “Smithee” Jones, the poor dumb bastard, with all his dreams of success, recognition, and the Big Scoop that would make the world take him seriously. Would it at last have made him respect himself? I guess I’d never know.
I lifted my gun to his head. Something made me look up in time to see Younger Self #2 running toward me at full speed. I’d almost forgotten about that. I’m glad neither of them saw the bitter smirk on my face.
I tensed as I took aim at the youngest of the three of us. I put a hole in his chest, then another one. Only when he realized what was happening did I put the final bullet through his head. And that was that.
***
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***
Here’s the best I can figure it. The original JANUS created their “ultimate paradox” by knocking off their own grandparents. I did them one better. I went back and whacked myself, which the universe didn’t like one bit. So what must have happened was that at the moment of paradox it spat out a duplicate who could do the deed while the real Allan Jones died. The “me” that woke up on the tarmac (knocked backward in time like a rubber band misfire) was a fake. Ever since that moment I’ve been living a false life. I was never Allan Jones. I’m just an anomaly who thinks he is.
Still, life is life no matter how you come by it. I followed through on my plan, meeting up with Powell and convincing him to play along. We even got Tyler from the NSA in on it, once they let him out of the hospital. Thanks to him, all those banking co-conspirators who ran for their lives from the party would have a nasty surprise when they found all their assets frozen.
Facing myself in Roxy’s apartment was the hardest part. I did my best to get my lines right, making sure to drop the “Bill and Ted” hint for Roxy to figure out. One day I’ll to have to watch that movie and find out if time travel make any more sense.
On the night of the reception I couldn’t decide whether to keep my distance or stick close to the action. On one hand, I was dying to watch things play out; on the other, I might be tempted to interfere and screw the whole thing up.
I wasn’t given much choice in the matter. All the rewrites of history that went on that night must have set up some kind of barrier. Every time I came within a block of Marlston’s mansion, a wave of full-Hitchcock vertigo brought my head to the pavement. The tide surging me away didn’t ease up until Roxy’s ambulance sped off.
The mansion was crawling with Feds, so I left my invisibility on until I got to the west wing’s basement. When I made my way down to the time machine chamber, the room was thick with smoke and Agent Powell was livid.
“You should never have let that Ford guy get away.”
“What did he do?” Stupid of me to ask. It was easy enough to guess from the smell of burning wires.
“Some kind of delayed failsafe. All this equipment is wrecked.”
That was for the best, really, but I didn’t say that out loud. It was getting hard to breathe, so we both walked up to the mansion proper.
“You’ve still got Marlston and Young, and anyone else you can want to arrest.”
“You know that includes your girl Roxy, right?” Powell leaned against the wall and rubbed at his temple. “According to you, the Whisper was responsible for several deaths. If we link them back to her, she’ll be in prison ‘til she’s gray.”
“I expect you’ll want to cut her a deal. Now her secret’s out, you might find she’s got buckets of information.”
“And technology.” He pointed at my invisibility gear. “I’m going to need that, I’m afraid.”
I slipped my hand under the belt to lift it off, but it was heavy. Now that the moment had come, I didn’t want to let it go. I was given a reprieve when a young agent ran up to us.
“Sir, it’s about that Lane woman.” He glanced sideways at me before saying more.
“It’s okay, son,” said Powell. “Go ahead.”
“We can’t find her on the grounds. Two officers had her in custody, but she disappeared out from under them.”
I’ll bet she did. Damn it, we should have expected her to have an escape plan.
“And another thing,” said the agent. “We got a call from the hospital. That ambulance we sent back arrived, but when the staff checked, it was empty. The driver, the medic, that girl, all gone.”
Oh no. The best case was that Lane had absconded with her daughter. The worst was that JANUS was already erasing this whole affair. Ford had destroyed Canton’s time machine. It was only a matter of time before the rest of the slate was wiped clean. So far I hadn’t noticed any twisting of reality, but an organization that could walk through walls would have no problem stealing back whatever the FBI confiscated, no matter how dark a vault they buried it in.
I reached for the invisibility dial. Powell saw what I was doing.
“Jones, don’t think it.”
“I don’t have a choice,” I said. “She’s out there, and so is JANUS. I can’t go after them if you bench me.”
“Damn it, you won’t do any good as a vigilante. We need to study their equipment so we can use it against them.”
“They won’t give you the chance. I’m sorry.”
Powell grabbed for my arm, so I turned phantom first. Then I put the mask back on before I started to choke, and vanished the rest of the way. Powell ranted and screamed at the spot where I’d been standing, but I was already on my way out of the building, into the dark.
***
Allan Jones had a small funeral in a tiny chapel. Aside from the minister, only Farnsworth, his wife, and a half dozen writers from the Street attended. And myself, of course, quiet and unseen in the far back corner. An anonymous donor had sent several huge bouquets. I suspected they were courtesy of my old Uncle Pepe.
There was one reporter I didn’t recognize. A young kid, his suit looked brand new but his shoes were well worn. I followed the whole gang back onto the trolley and all the way downtown to the magazine office. The new kid sat at my old desk and fed a clean sheet into the typewriter. I looked over his shoulder and saw handwritten notes for my own obituary.
Powell was right. I wouldn’t be any good as a vigilante. I wouldn’t know how to start if I wanted to, but an invisible man had other uses than fighting crime with guns a-blazing. If I was ever going to find Roxy (or whatever her real name was) I would have to track down JANUS, and to find JANUS the only place to look would be in the highest halls of power. I would never get in as a V.I.P., but a ghost didn’t need an invitation.
Whether Roxy had been serious about bringing JANUS down or just trying to annoy her stepfather, I wasn’t certain, but I believed the former over the latter. She’d had the idea of inserting herself into a newsroom to steer information our way, like she did with Hugo Harvey. It was an idea I could run with, and those tapes weren’t the only thing I’d absconded on my trip back through time.
I dropped a heavy manila envelope on top of the new kid’s notes. He about jumped out of his chair, then looked around both directions and up to the ceiling to see where it came from.
“Calm down,” I said, the breather masking my voice. “Eyes forward. Don’t say anything. People will think you’re nuts if you talk to thin air.”
“Where are you?”
“Wrong question. Try, ‘What’s in the folder?’”
He slipped it open and pulled out a photo of Representative Crawthorn.
“What is this?”
“A story, if you’re interested. Or if you’d rather, you could go back to writing obituaries of nobodies.”
He pulled out another sheet from my Crawthorn file and started reading.
“So who are you?” he said, settling back in his chair. “H. G. Wells?” The shiver in his voice gave the lie to his act of nonchalance. 
I almost told him ‘Allan Smithee,’ but that wouldn’t have been right. That life was over, and my new one started right here. Might as well kick it off in style.
“You can call me the Whisper.”
The End
***
This chapter of The Whisper has been brought to you byB. B. Morden & Sons Funeral Services,Flowers By Mail, and science fiction authorJared Millet
If you’ve enjoyed this serial, you can read more of his work in the Dreams of Steam anthology series from Kerlak Publishing, Summer Gothic: A Collection of Southern Hauntings, and various free stories available at Jared Millet Blogs.
***
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The Whisper © 2013 Jared Millet
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And yes,
The Whisper will return.

The Whisper: Chapter 9

Out of Time
I woke on a couch with pain in my head and my chest. I was really, really sick of this. For once, why couldn’t someone kill me outright and spare the hangover. I tried to sit up and all the blood drained out of my head.
“Easy, friend.” A firm hand kept me from tumbling over and lowered me back to the couch. “You’ve had a shock.”
“You can say that again.” I opened my eyes slowly. The décor was red and gold and far too ornate, and from the feel of the barely-padded bench I was laying on I’d say that the furniture was selected for appearance rather than comfort. An elderly man with caramel skin and stark white hair sat in a chair facing me.
“When you feel well enough to sit,” he said, “you should drink a glass of water.”
“You,” I said. “You’re Diego Aranjuez.”
“Si.” He bowed slightly. “And like you I seem to be a prisoner in this house.”
Adrenaline helped me right myself. “It’s Marlston. He was behind the attack.”
“I know.” Aranjuez passed me the water he’d promised. “There are no Marxist rebels in my country. A handful of Marxists, nice people to be sure, but they have no real influence. San Magin needs los turistas and their dinero to survive, no? Everyone knows this.”
“Not the bankers, apparently.”
Aranjuez raised a glass of something darker than water. “You can say that again.” He downed half the tumbler in a single gulp. “All this fuss over some little regulations. It makes no sense.”
The door to the room opened with the distinct sound of a latch being unlocked. Lane Young walked in, an armed escort behind her. Her guard hadn’t bothered with the pretense of dressing up. He wore a black bodysuit, a glass facemask, and held a monstrous looking rifle. In all respects, he was identical to the man who’d attacked me in my home.
Lane evidently had time to change while I was unconscious. Her pink, backless gown was the perfect complement to her yellow hair, and her caked-on makeup almost covered the bruises I gave her. I downed the rest of my water and, since I assumed I was dead anyway, decided to lead with ‘cocky.’
“Ms. Young. The President and I were just discussing the merits of using the slaughter of innocents to negotiate bank rates. Maybe I’ll remember that the next time I open a checking account.”
A slight sneer wrinkled her face, but it was the only acknowledgment she gave me. “Mr. Aranjuez, the guests are beginning to arrive. You’ll find your escort in the hall outside. Please be mindful of what we discussed earlier. Mr. Marlston has been slightly detained, but you will be in our care for the entire evening.”
She kept her hands politely folded and her back as straight as a dancer’s. Aranjuez downed the rest of his drink and climbed out of his chair.
“Gepetto pulls the strings, eh? Perhaps someday I’ll be a real boy.”
“Diego.” Lane gestured toward the door. Aranjuez nodded to me and slowly made his way out of the room. Once the door closed behind him, Lane took his place in the chair.
“Not bank rates,” she said. “Privacy, anonymity, and absolute control. These are essential to us. Essential enough that yes, we will kill for them. But not usually on this scale. That’s on you.”
I didn’t feel sorry for punching her. “Why don’t you just jump in your time machine and fix it?”
“We already did. You see how well that worked out. Sit down.”
I’d started to rise from the sofa, but halted in mid crouch. The guard shifted his rifle ever so slightly as Lane refilled Aranjuez’s glass from a half-empty cognac bottle on a side table.
“Once upon a time,” she began, “there was a lawyer named Hugo Harvey. He overheard something he shouldn’t and managed to record it. This lawyer met with a friend in D.C. – that’s you – and passed him the tape. You never managed to identify the second person, but you did get enough on Bordani to take to the FBI, and you wrote a piece for the Street exposing some of our partners in the financial sector. As for JANUS, instead of consolidating our hold on a surprisingly crucial financial nexus for the next hundred years, we were left with our panties in the wind to look for somewhere else to funnel all our money. Are you still with me?”
I nodded.
“So we could have done that. In previous iterations of the 20th Century, our ancestors would have written San Magin off and made do. But Canton’s ambitious. He’s more ambitious than anyone in JANUS has been for centuries. To feed his ambition, he’d built his own time machine. Not as powerful as the big one, but it works well enough for short, personal hops to the past.”
I raised my hand to speak, but she shook her head and sipped her cognac.
“Not yet. Questions later. Anyway, Canton went back a few days and arranged for Bordani to kill Harvey. He was supposed to kill you too, but that didn’t happen. Because you lived, the Aranjuez hit got foiled by the NSA, so a second trip is made by two of our agents. They pointed the NSA to you as a murder suspect and possible spy, which prevented you from turning over your evidence straight away. Then our agents were supposed to kill you and destroy the tape.
“That didn’t work either. So I went back, met up with Canton, and had him buy out your stupid magazine so we could take your story away. But even that didn’t cool your jets.”
“Wait a minute.” Wheels were turning. Lane had always spoken behind Canton’s back with a little irritation. Now she was clearly frustrated at the way he’d handled the whole affair. And she was spilling everything, undermining him. Was that her play, to take over JANUS herself?
She was tall for a woman, but slim in the hips. Small breasts would be easy to hide. In a suit, in the dark, you could conceivably mistake her for a man. And her voice would be utterly shrouded behind a breather mask. Now that I thought about it, she’d been at the airport, but I couldn’t remember where she was when the attack took place, even though I’d witnessed the massacre twice, from two different angles.
“Oh my god,” I said. “You’re the Whisper!”
She stared, unblinking, and her jaw dropped. Then her mouth cracked into the ugliest smile, and she cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West. She whooped and she hooted and she rocked back and forth, nearly spilling her drink. She laughed from the gut and almost started to cry. At last she started to cough and got control of herself. She took a sip of her cognac and chuckled.
“The Whisper.” She tittered. “Oh Lord. I can’t imagine…”
“Then why are you telling me all this?”
Her face contorted with rage. “Because I want you to understand the total futility of your situation. No matter what you accomplish, we can go back and undo, again and again and again. I want you to know what’s happening, and how, and why, when we erase you.”
I didn’t say anything. How could I? What was the follow up to that? I waited quietly while she finished her drink.
There came a knock on the door, and Marlston opened it. A white bandage was taped to the side of his face.
“We’re ready” was all he said.
“Bring him,” she told the guard.
He gestured for me to stand, then nudged me down the hall with the barrel of his gun. We crammed into an elevator and rode it to a level below the first basement. The room the elevator opened on was nothing less than a dungeon, and a mad scientist’s dungeon to boot.
The walls were reinforced, packed earth. The floor looked like hospital tile. Lights and electrical wiring hung from exposed beams in the ceiling. Plastic boxes connected by wires lined every table in the room. Above these were flat glass plates that glowed like giant televisions. At one end of the room was a turbine the size of a car. At the other, at the nexus of a web of cables, was a box like an empty telephone booth – or an upright coffin.
There were two more armed guards and a balding technician in a lab coat. The technician touched one of the screens and an image appeared of the Baltimore airport in the middle of the massacre. I thought I could even see myself, kneeling over Leslie’s body.
“Mr. Marlston,” said the lab guy. “I think we’ve found it.”
“Excellent.” Canton pointed to the coffin box and my captor shoved me inside.
“This is an awful complicated way to kill me,” I said. “You could have shot me already.”
“I tried that, remember?” Somehow Canton knew about my alternate death scene. “It seems the universe won’t let me. But don’t fret. Your death has an appointed time and place. We’ll make sure you don’t miss it.”
“So this is the big JANUS scheme, then? You use a time machine for money and power? How long has that been going on?”
“For about two thousand years,” said Lane, “but only since 1941.”
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“Excuse me,” I said, “but what?”
“The first atomic blast in 1945,” said Canton, “opened a weak point in time with a five-year radius. It let our distant ancestors slip through from the mid-21st Century. Since then the Five Families have been living the same hundred years over and over. At the end of the cycle, we come back and start again. We’ve gotten pretty good at it, except for the occasional glitch like this San Magin thing.”
“That’s insane,” I said. “You build up all this wealth and power, then chuck it and start over? What’s the point of that? Why not carry it on into the future?”
“The world has no future,” said Lane. “We’ve seen it time and again. No matter what path human civilization takes, it doesn’t survive the 21st Century. Too many things go wrong. Economic collapse, environmental catastrophe, plague, world famine, nuclear Holy Wars. Escaping to the past is the only way to survive.”
“We’re so good at the game,” said Canton, “that we’ve even arranged for the world’s destruction once or twice, to see if we could do it.”
Lane snorted. “Two cycles ago, our grandparents blew up the world in on the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse, just for shits and giggles.”
I sagged against the wall of my execution box. “So you don’t care about humanity at all?”
“What’s to care?” said Lane. “If we have someone killed, they’re alive again the next time we rewind the century. Take you. The next time through the 20th, our descendants might let you live. Maybe we’ll leave them a note to have your guidance counselor steer you to a career in medicine.”
“Or maybe we’ll have you shot as a teenager and avoid the whole mess.” Canton pointed to the airport image behind him. “Remember that?”
I didn’t even answer with a nod.
“That,” he said, “is when you die. The world hates a paradox, but we’ve rewritten so many things in the last week that the time stream spat you out. Once we slip you back into place, everything will be right again.”
“So you’ll hit some big red button and I’ll be back at the airport in time to get shot.”
“That’s about it,” said Canton. “But really, it’s only a little red button.” He held up a small box to show me. “Any goodbyes, Lane?”
“Fuck him,” she said.
“Arrivederci then. Better luck next life.” He pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
Canton pressed the button again. He shook the little box, then turned to the time machine tech in frustration.
“Is there a reason this thing isn’t working?”
“I, uh…” The lab guy, face red, started tapping the screens as if the thought that would do something. For the moment, all eyes were on him and not me. I wasn’t going to get another chance.
I dove out of the machine and tackled Marlston from behind. He went down hard and the control box flew from his hand. I could hear all three guards rush forward for a shot, so I grabbed Marlston by his arms and rolled so he was on top as a shield. He struggled like a bear, so I tried to pin his legs with mine and pull him into a better hold.
No good. Physically, the man was a whip. He jerked himself upright, then slammed me in the head with his elbow. Dazed, I went limp as he scrambled away from me. I grabbed at his ankle, but Lane kicked me in the chest.
I screamed. Damn, but pointy lady shoes are hard. Canton got to his feet.
“Damn it, someone shoot this fucker in the knee.”
Three shots. BAM BAM BAM. Three holes in Canton’s chest. He looked surprised. Lane screamed before he hit the floor.
The Whisper took a moment to punch her in the face. All I could see was his white suit and hat, but it was enough for the guards to take aim. The air filled with metal. The room shook with noise. I covered my head. The time machine tech didn’t drop fast enough and a slug tore through his shoulder. One of the screens exploded.
Somewhere buried in thunder were three precise shots. The last one brought silence. The three guards were dead. In a corner, Lane moaned.
The Whisper held out a hand. “Come with me if you want to live.” I grasped it and got to my feet. The Whisper snickered. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Quick, through here.”
We ran around the generator, through the wall itself, and into a dark storeroom. The Whisper flipped on the light. Row upon row of plastic boxes lined aisles of black plastic shelves. There was no door to the time machine chamber. In fact, I couldn’t see a way out at all. Fluorescent bulbs buzzed overhead, and something in the room made the Whisper easier to see.
He wasn’t Lane Young, that was for damn sure. He was shorter than me, and not as well-dressed as I’d remembered. The outfit looked hastily thrown on, the shirt not even tucked in, and the coat, I decided, was there for bulk – to hide a distinctly small frame.
My god. Was the Whisper a child?
“Uh, thanks for breaking the time machine for me,” I said.
“I didn’t. I changed my mind.” The Whisper pulled the lid off a box, then another, then another, glancing for an instant into each. “I did put a hiccup in the software to keep them from using it, but I might need it myself for an escape hatch.”
I peeked into one of the boxes. There were strange objects like alien toys, each encased in a clear, flat shell. In between them were hundreds of soft, white nuggets. I picked up one of the objects and read its label. “How is this thing supposed to be a ‘mouse’?”
“Put it back. In fact, don’t look at anything in here.”
“What are you looking for?”
“This.” He handed me a phasing belt and a breather. With his other hand, he passed me a gun.
“I told your girl Roxy to call the police. They’ll be here any minute, but we have to make sure JANUS doesn’t kill Aranjuez now they know the gig is up.”
“But you just killed JANUS.”
“I killed that asshole Marlston. JANUS is still out there. This isn’t even their main time machine; it’s just a copy Marlston had made for his own private schemes.”
“Wait, so even if we escape, JANUS can still start over and erase us.”
“That’s my problem, not yours. If it’s any consolation, the big JANUS rewrite is only once a century. You’re not from the Families, so you can’t even feel changes when they happen.”
“But I can,” I said. “When you saved me from Marlston the first time. He shot me, then you changed it so it never happened. You used the time machine for that, didn’t you?”
“You shouldn’t be able to know that. Allan, the Families can tell when history is changed because we live outside of time. You can’t alter the past if you’re part of it, which you are. You’re not anyone’s secret JANUS love child; you were born before ’41.”
“What happened in ’41?”
“The Families arrived from the future. And the first thing they did…”
I waited. “Go on.”
“They murdered their ancestors. They created the ultimate paradox. They evicted themselves from history, and after that they were free to change it at will.”
It was too hard to take in. “What an evil bunch of prigs.”
“Not at first.” The Whisper put a phantom hand on my shoulder. “You have to understand, the whole purpose of JANUS was to save the human race. They wanted to rewrite the 20th Century and avoid the mistakes that wreck the 21st. Only they failed. They failed over and over, generation after generation, until they finally grew bitter and gave up. Now they’re stuck in their own endless loop, repeating the same schemes time after time.”
“So no matter what, we’re all going to die.”
The Whisper shrugged. “That’s true anyway. At least you won’t live to see the world burn. We children of JANUS live longer, so chances are that I will.”
“Why the masquerade?” I had to ask. “The coat and the hat and the poor man’s Shadow routine. Why does an invisible man need a disguise?”
“How many times have you been captured and interrogated in the last few days?” he countered. “You could have I.D.’d me to a JANUS agent by accident if I hadn’t been careful.”
That was fair. “What’s our play now?”
“There’s no tunnel or stairs out of this store room. You can only get out by phasing. I’ll lead you up, then we head for the reception. You get Aranjuez out. I’ll make a distraction.”
***
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It only took moments to reach the mansion’s central wing. After walking blindly through the earth, we emerged into the wine cellar two floors below the library. A low rumble of chatter came from above.
“Get Aranjuez out,” the Whisper repeated. “You’d better leave too. You probably won’t see me again.”
“Is that a joke?” A more important question occurred to me. “Where am I supposed to go?”
“I don’t know. Have a normal life. Tell Farnsworth you aren’t dead. He’ll probably give you your job back.”
I stuffed the gun in the back of my pants. “How do I look?”
“Beaten and bloody.”
I glanced down. Tiny red dots peppered my white jacket. Marlston’s blood? Most likely.
“See you ‘round, Jones.” With that, the Whisper disappeared.
I climbed to the ground floor, put on my breather, and cranked the ‘phase’ dial all the way up. No more taking chances with bullets, and I had no more patience for whatever greasy henchmen might be roaming the party. And unlike the Whisper and JANUS, I didn’t give a damn about keeping their fancy-schmancy technology secret.
I walked through a wall into the grand ballroom, which was blaring with light, noise, food, liquor, and people. The mass of bodies made a sea of black and iridescent color under a sky of gold, electric candlelight. A middle-aged society lady saw my entrance, and a cocktail shrimp fell out of her mouth. I nodded politely and walked on as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
I knew I looked a mess even without my bizarre mask, so someone would undoubtedly try and remove me from the festivities. Not that they could, but a fuss would erupt when their fingers slipped through me. I skirted the edge of the crowd, always craning over heads for a glimpse of Aranjuez, and hoped that the Whisper would get on with his distraction.
Ask and ye shall receive. There must have been some kind of public address system in the room, because the next sound I heard was the incredibly loud thump of someone tapping a microphone with the volume turned up, followed by a blast of feedback and a booming, raspy voice.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Please don’t be alarmed. Tonight’s entertainment has only begun.”
The rumble of conversation shifted frequency, as people looked in all directions for the source of the intrusion until one man yelled and pointed at the buffet. There, on a table, between the salmon canapés and the foie gras, stood my pal in white. His outfit and hat were visible but his head and mask were not. He held a mic on a tall metal stand like a jazz singer about to do his next number.
“You can call me the Whisper,” he said. “Very dramatic, I know. I’d like to welcome you all to a very special event I call the Fall of the House of JANUS. What is JANUS you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.”
The diplomats, businessmen, and socialites were certainly paying attention, though I’m not sure if they understood a word. I saw eight or nine who didn’t stand still, but weaved through the party in the Whisper’s direction. Assuming those were JANUS men, this was my cue. I dove into the crowd, not caring who I walked through, and made a beeline to the center. Somebody screamed and at least one person fainted.
“They’re the shadiest of the shady. They’re the blackest of the black hats, the most powerful of the powerful. They’re your master’s lords and masters. You’ve never heard of them, you’ve never voted for them, you’ve never bought any of their stock. But they’re all around us tonight. Let’s give them a hand!”
No one but the Whisper actually applauded, but I did hear the sound of guns being cocked. The Whisper could take care of himself, though, and I’d finally found Aranjuez in a circle of men in tuxedos, a champagne glass in one hand and his walking cane in the other. The man right behind him stood a foot taller than either of us, and he held his hand inside his coat while keeping his eyes on the ghost at the buffet.
“Mr. President,” I said when Aranjuez noticed me. “Gepetto has dropped his strings.”
Understanding dawned, then his face broke into a wicked grin.
“Señor, I could use some fresh air.”
I dialed down my knob just as gunfire broke out. Everyone flinched, and the crowd surged away from the buffet line. I didn’t see what happened to the Whisper, but Aranjuez’s handler saw me. I grabbed the President by the wrist, then yanked out my gun and shoved it in the bodyguard’s face. He moved his hand away from his shoulder holster.
“Mr. Aranjuez, hold your breath and run.” I dialed us both intangible and dragged the President towards the wall. When I looked back to check on him, his cheeks were bulging to keep pressure in his lungs. The man could certainly follow directions. We dove through the wall without stopping, and once outside I dialed us back to reality and let go Aranjuez’s arm.
He gasped. “That was incredible.”
There were lights of police cars down at the main driveway. More gunfire sounded inside. I pulled off my mask.
“Run!” I waved toward the lights and took off, pausing only to slip the gun in my pants. There were five squad cars in the drive, as well as a pair of ambulances. Good going, Roxy. They were going to be needed.
“Officer,” I shouted at the first cop I saw. “This man needs to be in protective custody. His life is in immediate danger.
“Slow down, mister,” the policeman said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“My name is Diego Aranjuez,” said my companion. “I am President of the island of San Magin and I have been held against my will in this house for three days. I officially request the protection of your government.”The cop’s eyes widened as he put all of that together. Once he had it digested, he pointed to the nearest vehicle.
“Get in the car, sir. We’ll get you out of here right away.” Then he turned to me. “Who are you in all this?”
“I’m here with a girl named Roxy Brandt. She’s the one who called you in. Do you know where she is?”
At first he shook his head.
“About this high.” I showed him with my hand. “Short, bobbed hair. Wearing black and white.”
“Ambulance.” He pointed to the nearest one. I froze while that sank in, then ran.
I banged on the ambulance’s back door. A medic opened it. The scene inside flashed me back to Korea. A body on a stretcher under a blanket. An oxygen mask over her face. Her midsection soaked in blood.
“Roxy!”
“Excuse me, sir,” said the medic. “You can’t be in here.”
Roxy noticed and reached a weak arm for me. “Allan.”
“Out of the way,” I said. “I’m a friend.” I jumped around the medic and grabbed Roxy’s hand. A tear ran down her cheek.
“Allan, we did it. We really did it.”
“Oh my God. Kid, what happened?”
She looked confused. Shock was setting in. “Don’t you remember?”
“Okay, buddy,” said the medic. “You can ride to the hospital, but stay out of my way.”
But that’s not what happened at all.
In front of my eyes, the medic vanished to be replaced by a nurse with a surgical mask. It had been her in the ambulance all the time, but I remembered it both ways. She pulled her mask down to reveal a slightly Latin face.
“Sir, are you a family member? Can you fill out some papers?”
I looked back to Roxy. She was still on the stretcher, her eyes wide with fright, but the sheet covering her had changed from white to light blue. She shook her head.
“Oh, no,” I said, and stumbled out of the ambulance.
Outside, two police cars were gone. They might have driven off, but I don’t think that’s what happened. As I watched, one more flickered out of existence, then two reappeared to replace it.
“God, no.” Someone was changing the past. We’d left the damn time machine working, and someone was changing our history. I ran back to the mansion, pulling my mask on and dialing out of phase.
Diplomats, the wealthy, their wives and their mistresses stampeded down the hall. I ran right through them to the ballroom. Inside, four bodies lay on the floor and several tables had turned over. Three of Marlston’s men, now wearing breathers like mine, fired in three different directions, laying down some kind of pattern. Of the Whisper, there was no sign.
Since they were out of phase, the men’s bullets didn’t leave any holes in the wall. I took a shot, not expecting to hit, but I winged one in the arm. He screamed and went down, clutching it. Another one turned to fire at me, but a bullet blew his brain out before he could. The man beside him went down a second later, so the only one left was writhing on the floor.
“Hey,” I shouted. “The time machine!”
The Whisper became slightly visible, and the world around us proved my point. Tables uprighted on their own, then flickered back to how they were. The reception from minutes before faded back into view, then vanished again.
“Shit,” said the Whisper.
“No kidding.”
We ran for the basement and the passage across to the time chamber. I didn’t know how long we had. I didn’t know if seconds counted for anything. Our victory was being erased before our eyes, and there might be nothing we could do about it.
To Be CONCLUDED
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Table of Contents
The Whisper © 2013 Jared Millet
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The Whisper: Chapter 8

Question and Answer
That night I became the first guy from The Washington Street to take Roxy Brandt on a date. Given everything I had to go through to get there, I doubt anyone else would have begrudged me the honors.
We had to dress up so as not to draw attention, so we took a cab downtown where the department stores were still open. There was no time to get a suit tailored, but anything off the rack was better than what I had. A tux would have been nice, but all I really needed was a black suit and tie, a black hat, and shoes. Roxy sprung for it; I was going to owe her big time.
“What’s this place called again?” she asked from the store’s changing room.
“Di Godere,” I said while adjusting my tie in a mirror next to the women’s blouses. “It was one of Leslie’s hang outs. The proprietor set me on the trail to Bordani.”
“What do you think?”
Framed in the dressing room door, the backlight gave her a warm, golden halo. She posed like a model, with one arm stretched above her. Her red chiffon cocktail dress had a halter top sprinkled with rhinestones, and her shoes looked like something Dorothy would wear to dance out of Oz. Long, red gloves came up past her elbows, a tiara held back her hair, and her necklace and earrings, though simple, displayed deep red rubies. Her cheeks were a natural blush, but her eyes were dark enough to pull you in forever. Her lips were as red as the devil himself.
She smiled. “I’ll take your silence as approval.”
I sighed and remembered that our plans for the evening didn’t include enjoying ourselves. “You know that comment you made that I should drop everything and start a normal life somewhere? I’ll do it right now if you swear to come with me.”
“Ease up, tiger,” she said with a smile. “We’ve got to conquer the world first.”
“I’m serious,” I said. “Well, mostly. You’ve helped me out so much. I don’t want you in harm’s way.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” she said. “I’ve been in harm’s way since you broke in here. Hell, I’ve been in harm’s way since since I took that first message from your friend in L.A.” She walked towards me. In heels she was almost as tall as I was. “I’ve lost people too, you know. Tim was a good friend. He deserved better.”
“Well, that’s the card we’re playing tonight.” I wanted to kiss her, but it would mess up her makeup. “Call a cab?”
“I’ve got to do everything, don’t I?” The teasing grin never left her face. “Do guys even know how to work a phone?”
I should have felt on top of the world, waiting at the curb with a lady as glittering as Roxy was. Instead I felt like a kid with his date for the prom. The cab picked us up and I gave him directions as best as I could remember. When I mentioned Di Godere, he smiled and told me not to worry.
It was only when we pulled into the driveway that I remembered the doorman’s name.
“Sam,” I said, “good to see you again.”
He froze for a moment before responding. “It’s a surprise to see you, Mr. Jones. Are you expected?”
“Actually, I hope not.”
Sam helped Roxy out of the cab. “Good evening, miss, and welcome to Di Godere.”
“Good evening to you,” she said. “I’ve heard such wonderful things.”
“I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself, miss. Mr. Jones, should I notify Mr. DiFranco of your visit?”
“Please.” Sam wasn’t stupid; he would have reported me anyway. I was glad he was being polite about it.
The mood inside was more subdued than the first time I’d come. The band played something slower, sadder, not anything you could dance to. The place was no less crowded for being Thursday night, but conversations were muted and contained to small tables and a crowd at the bar. Roxy and I took a table next to the empty dance floor. A waiter presented us with two martinis and the words “compliments of the house.”
“So, Mr. Jones,” said Roxy after a tentative sip. “What do you do for a living?” The quiver in her voice matched how I felt.
“Oh, not much. This and that.” I slid my drink’s olive off its spear with my teeth. “I’d kind of like to be a writer someday.”
“Really? What kind of writer?”
A hand tapped gently on my shoulder.
“My apologies, sir,” said its owner. “Mr. DiFranco would like a word. The lady is welcome to entertain herself as she wishes.”
I nodded. The stage was set. Time for my entrance.
Uncle Pepe welcomed me to the kitchen with a hug.
“Jones, my friend,” he said, “so good to see that not everything in the paper is true.”
“What was it Mark Twain said? By the way, in addition to not being dead, I’m also not a commie spy.”
“I never doubted,” said Pepe. “I don’t suppose my Timmy will also make a miraculous recovery.”
“Unfortunately, no. That’s why I’m here.”
“Ah. Are we going to be doing each other favors again? As friends?”
“As friends. I’ve got an angle to get back at the bastards behind all this, but I need help. For Tim’s sake.”
“Say no more. You were his friend as well, so I believe we are in agreement. Tell me what you propose.”
Before I could, a thin man in pinstripes let himself into the kitchen and DiFranco held up a hand for me to wait. The pinstripe man whispered in DiFranco’s ear, and the owner of Di Godere scowled.
“Excuse my rudeness, Mr. Jones, but our talk will have to wait a moment. Perhaps you will follow while I tend to some business? This is not unrelated to our conversation, I think.”
Intrigued, but a little scared, I walked behind Pepe and his associate through the back of the kitchen, across a slightly damp lawn, towards a free-standing guest house shrouded by tall bushes. The blinds were shuttered, but a light was on inside. Before we entered, DiFranco put a hand on my chest.
“Everything you see here is in the strictest confidence. Do you understand?”
I nodded, gulped, and went in.
The sitting room was modestly furnished, too modest for any guests DiFranco might genuinely want to entertain. A plain, round table, nondescript chairs, and the well-used sofa did seem to suit the rough gentlemen who all stood to attention when Mr. DiFranco entered. There was a single door to what I guessed was a bedroom on the far side. DiFranco gave the slightest of waves to acknowledge his men and crossed to the other side. I and the thin man kept with him.
In the next room sat a man in a chair. The rest of the furniture, a collection of antique chairs, a dresser, and an old bedframe, had been shifted carelessly against one wall. The man himself had been stripped down to nothing but boxers and a sleeveless undershirt. His head slumped, and there were bruises on his face and arms. One foot had swollen to the size of a football.
“Mr. Jones,” said DiFranco, “permit me to introduce Mr. Bordani. Unlike most whom I welcome into my home, Mr. Bordani is not my friend.”
So here he was. During this whole affair, the man had been nothing but a voice and a name. For all practical purposes he may as well have been a fiction, a boogey man hiding in my closet, an unseen monster under my bed. In the flesh he was somewhat pathetic. But then, who wouldn’t be after this kind of work-over?
“It will not surprise you,” said DiFranco, “that my associate has been asking Mr. Bordani questions. Thanks to you, I know he was involved in the so-called ‘airport massacre,’ and that he is in the employ of some other person. However, he has been surprisingly reluctant to cooperate, even when the consequences of not doing so have been… ah… demonstrated.”
“Ask him about Canton Marlston,” I said. Bordani jerked when I mentioned the name.
“Marlston?” said DiFranco. “I know this man. He’s a member of my club. Are you saying he’s behind all this?”
I nodded. “He’s Bordani’s contact in a group called JANUS. He may be their leader, I don’t know. But he’s definitely in the middle of this whole airport shooting.”
“Is this what you came here to discuss with me?”
I nodded. DiFranco looked at the pinstripe man and made a sign of closing his fist. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but the skinny man nodded. DiFranco took me back to the living room and closed the door. To the other men he said, “Give us two beers and a moment alone.”
I sat at the table while DiFranco opened the bottles. No noise came from the other room, and I tried not to imagine what might be happening in there. I was unsuccessful.
“You know I like to be square with my friends,” said DiFranco. “How might I repay this gift of information?”
“I want to break into Marlston’s mansion. There’s a reception there tomorrow night, before Aranjuez goes back to San Magin. I want to warn him he’s being played, and I want evidence against Marlston. I want to ruin the bastard.”
“Why not just kill him?”
It made me dizzy that he would ask that so up front.
“Killing him won’t expose the conspiracy. In fact, it would bury it deeper.”
DiFranco nodded sagely. “And you believe I can make all this happen?”
I shrugged. “Can I ask a question?”
“By all means.”
“Why do you care about any of this?”
“For Tim. His death must not go unanswered.”
“What was he to you?”
“The son of a man to whom I owe a debt.” The look he gave me closed my line of questioning.
“I just need to get in the mansion,” I said.
A warm smile brightened DiFranco’s face. “This much I believe I can arrange.”
***
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It was the oldest trick in the book. In addition to Bordani’s sideline as a leader of thugs, he was first and foremost a caterer. Canton Marlston’s caterer, as a matter of fact, though he hadn’t been actively involved in that aspect of his business while pursuing his criminal ambitions. Therefore, when DiFranco quietly removed Bordani from the game board, he quietly assumed control – not of Bordani’s security firm, but of his hospitality business.
Long story short, it was no problem for DiFranco to insert me into the catering staff hosting Marlston’s reception. Short story complicated, Roxy insisted on coming with me.
It was five in the afternoon of the following day. The party wouldn’t start for another two hours, but clean linens, bottles of alcohol, and fresh ingredients for the hors d’oeuvresarrived by the minute. Roxy and I rode to the house and unloaded a long crate of individually packaged champagne flutes from the back of a white van. We’d arrived with the liquor but wouldn’t be leaving.
“I’m starting to wonder if this was a good idea,” I said.
“Shut up,” said Roxy. “Stay in character.”
Like all the wait staff, I wore a white jacket, black slacks, and black tie. Roxy wore a sleeveless black blouse with a white skirt and white pillbox hat. The pearls on her wrists and necklace were fake, but added to the overall effect of elegant subservience. There was nothing to disguise either of our faces. I’d wanted to wear glasses, but Roxy thought they looked silly.
We carried the champagne flutes to the kitchen, and that’s where the plan started getting fuzzy. At some point, we were going to cross a line beyond which was nothing but the word “improvise.” But first, our job was reconnaissance.  There were parts of Marlston’s mansion that our uniforms gave us access to, and areas we would draw attention to ourselves. We would explore the safer areas, then when the moment presented itself we would branch out further. My main goal was to locate Aranjuez, but I wouldn’t mind finding out where Marlston hid his secrets.
The estate was enormous. The grounds encompassed at least four acres, with several outbuildings, a rose garden, a kennel, and a hedge maze. The main house had three wings, the eastern dedicated to servants, kitchens, cleaning, and maintenance. The central wing was given over to entertaining visitors up to, and including, royalty. Its Grand Ballroom was bracketed on one end by a honeycomb of studies, libraries, and sitting rooms, and on the other by an indoor pool. The west wing had to be where Marlston actually lived and where he kept his guests close and under his thumb.
This much, at least, we deduced from the building plans in the probate records that Roxy was able to pull that morning. The house had been built in the 1920s by a man who made his fortune in speculation and lost it in the crash. It then sat in receivership for years until Marlston bought it in 1945. Of where Marlston came from, or where he got his money, there wasn’t a mention. Having met the man, I’d assumed all his wealth was inherited. Now I suspected that the truth was less savory.
Roxy and I kept in the flow of traffic all the way to the ballroom. The chandeliers had been lit, but gold evening sunlight still poured through the upper windows  and chased odd shadows in every direction. A row of buffet tables were laid along the north end of the room with dining tables encircling the rest of the chamber. Roxy and I grabbed loose tablecloths and took them to a far corner, spread them on two randomly chosen tables, and slipped out of the room when no one was looking.
We found ourselves in the hall from the ballroom to the main foyer. The corridor was lined with tasteful paintings and narrow lamp tables wide. The doors (on the floorplan, at least) led to sitting rooms and smoking rooms, while immediately to our right was a staircase up to the studies and down to a winecellar. I suddenly felt too exposed in this main corridor, so I signaled to Roxy that I was going upstairs.
The carpet runner kept our footfalls silent. On the second floor the landing opened on a much more subdued hallway. Portraits of famous authors broke up the wallpaper, and dim light fixtures made it feel much later in the evening than it was. I had a fantasy of opening one of the doors to find Diego Aranjuez reclining in a lounge chair and reading the latest Washington Street. I’d introduce myself, explain what I’d been through, and warn him that he was being used. He’d be outraged but grateful, and we’d both take a cab to the State Department where he would declare to anyone who’d listen what a total fucking scumbag Canton Marlston was.
Calm down, Allan. Nothing’s that easy.
I opened the first door on the right. As I’d guessed from the blueprints, the room was a library. Built-in shelves lined all four of the walls. Two wide windows let in the last of the evening’s light, and an open arch gave a glimpse of the next room beyond. Many of the books had leather bindings, and all of them looked old and solid with the weight of important words. No pulp thrillers on these shelves, I suspected. There were two long study tables on either side of a display case with several volumes protected under glass. I went for a closer look.
“What do you think?” I asked Roxy. “First editions?”
There was The Histories of Herodotus translated by A. D. Godley. Next was The Outline of History by H. G. Wells. There was The Prince by Machiavellli and The Art of War by Sun Tsu. There were others as well that all displayed certain interests of the collector: that of history and manipulation. There was a small metal plate at the center of the display with a tiny, cursive inscription. I had to lean close to read it.
Presented With Gratitude to the Families ofJungen, Arnholt, Nilsson, Ulrich, and Smythe
Oh my holy God. I had suspected, though I wasn’t sure of what I would find. But here was proof. I had no idea who these people were or what they were after, aside from wealth and power, but without a doubt I was in the house of JANUS.
“Shit,” Roxy whispered. I turned in time to see her slip out through the door we’d come in. I looked the other way, and Lane Young entered from the next room.
Lane Young. I hadn’t thought about her. I’d avoided it, in fact. Once I knew that Marlston was part of JANUS, I should have wondered how deep Lane was in. She had to know something, a great investigative reporter like her. That she was close to Marlston was unmistakable, but was she a conspirator too, or just caught up in events? I didn’t for a moment consider that someone who’d reported with so much passion on the sufferings of American soldiers in war would be party to acts of inhumanity and slaughter, but still I was on very shaky ground.
I pulled a napkin out of my pocket and pretended to dust the glass case.
“Excuse me,” she said. “What are you doing in here? The catering service is restricted to the kitchen and ballroom.”
“Um.” Dammit, why didn’t I have a lie ready in case I was caught? I couldn’t not look up at her, and when I did she went pale.
“God,” she said. “Jones.”
She ran. I ran after her, tangling for a moment on a table leg, then grabbing her arm when she reached the study next door. I tried to shush her, but before I could she screamed, “Help! He’s here!”
Damn it. I reached back and punched her in the jaw just below her ear. Her head smacked the wall and she crumpled to the floor with a bang.
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First, I checked to make sure she wasn’t dead. Having to knock out my one of my personal heroes was bad enough. Either way, so much for sharing that byline. I was about to creep through the study and into the hall, but the thunder of footsteps back towards the library spurred me on. The study was an obstacle course of antique sofas and cabinets, but I weaved around them and dove through the exit to the main hall just as whomever answered Lane’s call for help threw open the library door.
Of course, there were even more guys in the hall. Five to be exact, running out of a room on the other side. Two on the far end had Roxy in their clutches, arms pinned and one meaty hand over her mouth. She twisted but couldn’t get away. The other three pulled guns out faster than I could blink.
“Wait!” Canton Marlston stepped into the hall behind his men. His tux was so black I could practically see my reflection. His voice stopped his men from shooting, but they kept their guns trained on my face. This was the part, I expected, where they’d drag me off to someplace like DiFranco’s guest house and give me the same treatment he gave Bordani. I expected wrong.
“Bastard’s mine,” was all Marlston said. He pulled out a gun of his own with a long, black silencer.
“Wait!” I said, and he shot me.
But that’s not what happened at all.
Rewind sixty seconds. I checked to make sure that Lane wasn’t dead, then heard footsteps running toward the library. I lunged for the other door out of the room, but before I got there someone grabbed my ankle and yanked me through the floor.
My breath blew out into vacuum, and I clamped my mouth shut to keep more from escaping. I fell through the room below, where I caught a glimpse of artful flower arrangements and a fishbowl. Then I was through the floor again into darkness. My rescuer let go of my ankles, and this time I went limp before hitting the ground. Some kind of short, metal pipe fell into my hand a moment later.
“Pick it up. It’s a flashlight.”
I fumbled in the dark for the button and turned it on. I was in the wine cellar, and the flashlight beam shone through a ghost in a white suit.
“Bastard,” I said.
“You’re welcome. This was a stupid plan, you know. What exactly did you hope to find?”
“Answers.” I tried to slow my breathing, but it was difficult. Getting shot wasn’t getting any easier, even if, like before, it was only a memory.
“People like JANUS don’t leave written notes lying around for reporters to find.”
“JANUS,” I said. “You mean the five families? Which one are you from?”
The Whisper waited before finally answering. “Jungen. I was born into Jungen. Marlston’s name is actually Arnholt. That’s pretty good, but it won’t take you any further.”
“I’d love to stay and chat,” I said, “but they’ve got Roxy. And what the hell happened up there, anyway?”
“I saved your ass.”
“Before that. When Marlston shot me and everything rewrote itself.”
“You remember that?” I’d never heard the Whisper so surprised before. “How can you remember that?”
“Kind of hard to forget.” I walked straight through him toward the stairs. I wished the flashlight was heavier. It would have made a good club.
“Wait.” The Whisper became solid enough to tug on my sleeve, then held out a belt with two knobs and a button. “Take this.” After I did, he passed me a breather. Unlike the filter I’d used days ago, this one had a strap to keep it attached to my face.
“Why?”
“They won’t do anything to Roxy here. They’ll take her to the west wing before they work her over.”
“You got a gun for me too?”
“Not this time. The first knob dials you immaterial. The second controls your frame of reference. Set in the middle, it keeps you from falling through the floor. All the way left and gravity takes over. All the way right and you’ll match the velocity of the nearest large object. Got it?”
“Yeah. No. What?”
“You won’t be invisible, but you can get her out with this.”
“And where are you going to be?”
“Breaking a time machine.”
“What?” Forgive me, Roxy, but I couldn’t let that go. “They’ve got a time machine?” All of a sudden, things began to make sense. “All these gadgets, they come from the future, don’t they? And that’s how I got zapped back six hours at the airport. You shot me with some kind of time machine gun.”
“Oh, for the love of God,” said the Whisper. “I did not shoot you with a time machine gun. There’s no such thing as a time machine gun. I don’t know what happened at the airport, sugar, but one thing I can promise is that I wasn’t there.”
“Bullshit.”
“Truth. I don’t know who you saw, but it wasn’t me. You haven’t seen me since I tried to spring you from the FBI.”
“Then who was at Roxy’s? Who brought me those tapes?”
“I don’t know. Honest, Allan, I’ve got no idea. Now move it. You’re wasting time.”
“You’re lying,” I said. “Is this all part of that ‘Bill and Ted’ thing you mentioned?”
Again, the Whisper paused. “What did you say?”
“In the apartment, you said you were trying to ‘pull a Bill and Ted.’ What the hell was that about?”
I could see from the outline of his hat that the Whisper was shaking his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would I… Why would anyone say that?”
“Beats me. Who are Bill and Ted anyway? More JANUS scumbags?”
The Whisper laughed. “If only. It’s from a stupid movie about two kids who use a time machine for a history project. But it doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone say that?”
“I don’t know, you tell me.”
“There’s no time. You need to save Roxy right now.”
Damn it. He was right. “Give me a gun.”
“No. Get out.” The Whisper turned a dial and disappeared.
I put on my breather and hurriedly examined the belt he’d given me. It was too wide for my waist, so I slipped it over my head to wear it as the Whisper did, like a bandolier. The knobs weren’t labeled, and neither was the big, black button that the Whisper hadn’t explained. I started with the one to make myself immaterial and turned it halfway. My hand was able to pass through a wine rack, but it met with resistance like passing through water. I turned the dial all the way and tried to climb the stairs out, but my foot passed right through them. I turned the knob back one notch, and it gave me enough solidity to climb without sinking too quickly.
Time was out. I ran as fast as I could.
I surprised one of Marlston’s goons when I popped to the first floor. He fumbled his gun out and shot me, but the bullets passed right through and put a hole through a window. I laughed and ran through the window myself, barely feeling a twinge as I melted through the wall.
In between this wing and the next was a narrow courtyard filled with exotic pants and iron benches. It was dark but for light from windows on either side, so I don’t even know what I ran through crossing over.
Two maids were mopping the floor in a small dining room. I burst in on them so silently that one didn’t notice until the other screamed. I put a finger to my lips (well, my breather), but I they didn’t even see as they ran for the door.
Fantastic. As they would have said in Korea, I’d given away my position to the enemy. But where was Roxy? Where would they take her?
Where do thugs always go to beat someone up in private?
If the other wing had a basement, this one probably did too. I prayed that it was directly below me and turned the “frame of reference” dial. Gravity took over, as the Whisper said it would, and I fell feet-first to the unknown. For a heart-stopping moment, I imagined there was nothing under me but the earth itself, dragging me down to the center. When an open space appeared, I turned the dial back and stumbled when my feet hit the ground.
I landed in the middle of a table. Only the soles of my shoes were solid. Roxy sat in one of the chairs, and so far she looked unharmed, but her eyes bulged when she saw me. We were surrounded on all sides by well-dressed thugs and the king of them all, Canton Marlston.
“My, oh my,” he said. “Our mystery man makes his entrance. What was it you told the FBI, Jones? The Whisper? Clever to pretend you were two different men.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I could barely understand my own voice through the breather.
“Oh, please. You’re a caveman playing with toys you can’t understand, but we both know where they come from, and we know them better than you. Right now the men around you are syncing with your phase so their bullets will tear you to pieces. Step out of the table slowly and dial back to normal, and maybe, maybe, I’ll think about letting you live.”
First, there was no way in hell that was going to happen, not after how casually he’d snuffed me in that ‘rewritten’ moment. Second, if this yahoo really thought I was the Whisper, then the Whisper himself was currently free to get up to all the mischief he wanted. Was this what I was? A distraction? The men around me donned breathers like mine and turned dials on their belts to join me as phantoms.
I felt a hot spasm where my waist intersected the table. I put my hand down and felt the wood. Was I turning solid? No, I realized, the table was ghosting out with me. Was this what happened if you stood inside an object too long? To hell with the real Whisper for not giving me an instruction manual. How was I supposed to handle an emergency?
“Allan,” said Roxy, water in her eyes, “I’m sorry. This is my fault.”
“No it isn’t, babe,” I whispered. It was mine. The table slowly knifed into my gut. In a moment it would snap me in half, thugs or no thugs. What was I supposed to do, how does someone escape when a piece of equipment has you trapped? Was there some kind of emergency release?
Like a big, black button.
I slapped it as hard as I could and felt solidity rush into my body. The table blew apart. Its pieces passed through Roxy and Marlston, but blasted the rest of his men, intangible themselves, with the brunt of the explosion. Half of them vanished through the walls. Two more flew through the ceiling. One toppled over so that only his boots stuck out from the dirt.
And I still held the flashlight in my left hand. I swung it hard at Marlston’s jaw. The bulb shattered and Canton went down with a nasty gash. I pulled Roxy out of her chair. I’d never seen her so impressed.
“Jesus, Allan!”
“No time to talk, kid.” God, I felt like John Wayne. “Let’s get out of here.”
I ran up the stairs first. Hopefully all of Canton’s nearest heavies had been in the basement, but even if not we didn’t have to get far. Once back on the first floor, we could walk through the walls, find Aranjuez, call the FBI…
Wait. How did Marlston know what I’d told the FBI?
“Mr. Jones.”
At the top of the stairs was Lane Young. She had a shiner on her jaw and a bruise on her forehead. In her hand was an odd, square gun. I quickly dialed back to intangible, but nothing happened.
“I’m very disappointed.”
She pulled the trigger and two darts shot out, trailed by a wire. That’s all I remember before lightning shot through me and I slammed to the wall.
To Be Continued
***
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The Whisper © 2013 Jared Millet
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The Whisper: Chapter 7

Play It Again
I hitchhiked back to D.C. It was after midnight when I left Baltimore, and before I did I verified that it was, in fact, now Wednesday. Just as I’d jumped backward six hours on Tuesday morning, I’d skipped ahead another twelve after the shooting. I had no money, and it took me a while to find someone willing to give me a lift for free. I ended up riding in the back of a produce truck, and the driver only took me as far as Eckington. I hoofed it the rest of the way downtown, and by sunrise I was strolling (and shivering) on the world-famous Mall.
I had a lot of time to think. I’d always felt that I’d wasted most of my life and that I had to do something big to make up for that. But in my lust for recognition, for that one big scoop, I’d done far worse that mess myself up, I’d ruined –in some cases ended – how many others? If not for chasing this story, my neighbor wouldn’t have burned to death. Those Secret Service men wouldn’t have been blown up. Maybe JANUS wouldn’t have fired on all those people just to get to Aranjuez.
Who could say? If I hadn’t stuck my nose in, maybe they would have carried out the hit with a minimum of fuss and only one corpse. I wasn’t sure. Though I was willing to blame myself, JANUS’s response to my investigation felt like overkill. Seriously, what was the point of all that carnage? Maybe that much chaos was what they’d intended all along. But to what end?
And why was I still thinking about it? I couldn’t write the story now. I was dead. As long as I stayed that way maybe my few remaining friends would no longer be targets. Leslie – Jesus Christ, Leslie. It wasn’t the first time I’d known someone who died; everyone came back from Korea with a list. But I’d never been that close before. Everything Tim had dreamed of, everything he’d hoped for, blown away in an instant by scumbags who didn’t care.
That’s why I was still on the case. It was as clear as the sun coming up over the Capitol. It wasn’t about the story, or recognition, or proving myself. I couldn’t let it go because someone had to pay, and as long as I was dead they’d never see me coming.
Rage felt good, but it wasn’t much to go on. I was hungry, homeless, and broke, and I couldn’t think of where to turn because of what the consequences might be. If I went back to the Street, all hell would surely descend. If I went to the FBI, they’d have me locked in a cell faster than you could say twelve hour interrogation. I had to turn somewhere no one would expect, seek help from someone that JANUS wouldn’t even notice.
A thought popped into my head like the answer on a quiz show. I pushed it aside. No way. It presented itself again, and I told it to screw off. It caught my attention again, and I told it I was not going to put that person in danger. It told me that was a fine sentiment, but pointed out that no one else on this earth gave two shits about me or would stick their neck out to help.
Roxy lived in Georgetown at a boarding house for unmarried, working women, if I remembered correctly. I slogged toward the nearest public library to look up her address, stopping on the way at a kitchen for the homeless for a breakfast of toast and powdered eggs. I hadn’t had a smoke in days, and that on top of the hunger, tiredness, and pressure in my head was about to kill me.
I found where she lived in a city directory and walked all the way on foot. Halfway there I stopped to rest on a public bench and fell asleep sitting up. It was after noon when a cop shoved me awake and told me to beat it.
I was half delirious from exhaustion when I finally found her place on 34th Street, not far from the university. Somewhere along the way I’d considered that her boarding house might have a matron who wouldn’t react well to an unannounced male caller. I couldn’t think clearly enough to come up with a decent solution. I hoped I’d be able to play it by ear and not make too much of a scene.
The house was a two-story affair divided into several apartments. The front door was white, but the building was dark green. I climbed the steps, raised my hand to knock, then changed my mind and turned the knob as quietly as I could. It wasn’t locked, and the door swung open on well-oiled hinges.
Roxy’s apartment was ‘F.’ The doors on the ground floor were labeled A through D, so I crept up the stairs – or at least that was the plan. The first step groaned like an elephant under my weight. I froze and waited for a horde of unpleasant women to storm from their rooms and toss me out. When nothing happened, I realized that the residents were probably still at work. So as not to press my luck, I climbed the stairs as quickly as I could.
There was a wooden heart hanging from a nail on Roxy’s door. I knocked, but there was no answer. Of course, she would still be at the Street. I risked a second knock, again with no response, and tried the knob. It turned, but not all the way.
If only I’d been a burglar, I could have sprung that ancient lock in no time. As it was, I’d have to find somewhere to wait. The street outside was too open. Someone in the neighborhood would be sure to get suspicious if I lurked about for too long.
But there was a door at the end of the hallway with daylight bleeding around the edges. I went to look, and it opened on a rear patio above an alley. It was surely a good place to wait for Roxy, but even better: one of Roxy’s windows faced the narrow porch. I checked if the window would open.
Lo and behold, it did.
I can’t state strongly enough that I was so tired I was out of my mind. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have crawled inside Roxy’s apartment while she was away.
The furnishings were spare. She didn’t have any of the frilly knickknacks I would have expected from a girl her age. Her kitchen was spotless and her living room looked comfy but clean. Her couch was only big enough for two if they were friendly. Her only extravagance was her television, which looked like one of the latest models.
The walls were decorated with movie posters. It was almost like a producer’s office back in L.A. I liked her taste; she seemed to have a thing for crime dramas. There was Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum, and Otto Preminger’s Laura. The Maltese Falcon, of course, and The Postman Always Rings Twice. I sat on her sofa and enjoyed the moment’s quiet. This was so much better than the dump I’d lived in, even before it burned down.
I woke to the sound of a gun being cocked. My eyes blinked open, but I didn’t move except to sit up.
Roxy stood in the door. She’d dropped her bag and held a revolver two-handed to steady it. She was shaking, and looked about to cry.
“Allan?”
“Hey, sweetie,” I said. “It’s me.”
She stepped forward and pointed the gun between my eyes.
“Bullshit. Allan’s dead. Who the hell are you?”
I raised my palms and spoke as slowly as I could. I’d suspected this might be a problem. There’s no telling what she’d heard.
“I’m not dead. It’s really me. I promise. No ghost.”
“Don’t fuck with me.” Her voice shook with fury. “Allan Jones is dead. I saw the body. Who are you?”
That took me back. “What do you mean you saw a body? You weren’t… You didn’t drive to Baltimore, did you?”
“Of course I did,” she said. “I dragged Farnsworth off his ass and made him come too. Allan was in trouble.”
“I told you to call Farnsworth, then call the FBI. I didn’t say anything about coming to get me. I told you the NSA was taking me in.”
The gun lowered an inch. “Allan? But that’s not possible.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“We got there and the police had the whole airport blocked off. We saw them putting bodies in ambulances. George identified Tim, and then you… I can’t believe it.”
“I don’t either. I can tell you what happened, but I can’t explain it. It’s got to be some kind of miracle.”
“Oh, Allan.” She lowered the gun and rushed to hug me. She didn’t put down the gun or ease the cocked hammer, so I gently pushed the weapon away while holding her with my other arm.
“Too bad a miracle couldn’t save Tim or Aranjuez.”
“But don’t you know?” she said. “Aranjuez is alive.”
***
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Roxy boiled spaghetti and I made the meat sauce. It turned out she wasn’t much of a cook, but what the hell. At least she had the basics in her fridge and a few decent spices on her spice rack, even if it looked like she’d never used them. That’s the great thing about living on the edge of the South: people are aware that there are more things to put on food than salt and pepper.
Over dinner, I told her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Bless her, she never once looked like she doubted me. Then again, after seeing a dead man come back to life in her living room, her disbelief was probably suspended indefinitely.
I started with the car chase. Her eyebrows lifted when I brought up the invisible man. She smiled when I first called him ‘The Whisper,’ but it was the smile of a fan of Detective Story Hour hearing that their fantasies had come to life. She grew more serious as I detailed my encounters with Bordani’s thugs and the FBI, and she barely even blinked when I laid out what went down (the first time) at the airport.
I described how the Whisper killed me. She went white.
“No. You’ve got it wrong. That can’t be. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m not trying to make sense. I’m just saying what happened.”
“But it can’t be the same person. It had to be someone else.”
I’d thought of that, actually. “The Whisper told me he was the only one with an invisibility device. The other JANUS hit men could only walk through walls.”
“But if he stole that device, they could have built another one.” She sounded eager to exonerate the bastard. I guess I’d built him up too much as a superhero.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. But this person was familiar. How he stood, how he acted. This person knew me, came gunning for me personally. No, I think the Whisper didn’t need me any more for his schemes. Maybe he didn’t want me working with the Feds since he’s so close to JANUS himself. I was just another loose end to tie up.”
Roxy opened her mouth to speak, but held back whatever she meant to say. She slid down in her chair and I went on about how I woke up at sunrise on the same day. As I brought the story to my second arrival at the hangar, she grew a crease on her forehead like someone working out a complicated train schedule. When I got to the part about time slowing down and speeding back up, she looked like a professor – or maybe a psychiatrist – in deep thought.
“What do you think happened?” she finally said.
“Haven’t the foggiest. Not unless the Whisper shot me with a magic bullet that knocked me backwards in time, but then why’d I leave a corpse? You said you saw my body.”
She nodded.
“I’m sure the Whisper is close to JANUS. Someone on the inside. At first I thought he was an outcast or a renegade, trying to get back at his old partners in crime, but what if that’s not it? What if he’s still on the inside, but is working against some other faction?”
“But why?” Roxy asked. “And what does it have to do with some pea-sized Caribbean banking country?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to get on the inside myself to find out.”
“Get on the inside? You’re not still going after this.”
“You bet I am. This is all I have left.”
“You can start over. Get a new name, find a normal life somewhere.”
“What, after everything I’ve already seen? I wouldn’t be able to sleep. No, I need answers, and I’ve already died once for them. The universe owes me.”
“If you can live twice, you can die twice.” Roxy rubbed her eyes. “Mother Mary, I sound like a bad movie. I need sleep. You need it more than me.”
“I’ll take the couch.”
“Damn right you will. The bedroom is off limits. I’ll bring you a toothbrush.”
***
She woke me on her way out the next morning and told me not to leave the apartment. Also, not to answer the door. There was jelly and bread for toast, and I could help myself to some milk. No coffee, sorry. She instructed me not to turn on the T.V. until after everyone else had left the building, usually around 9:00, and to keep it turned down.
Yes, mom.
It was about 9:00 when I started going stir crazy. Television wasn’t going to cut it, and hard as it was to believe, Roxy’s apartment didn’t have anything to read. What I really wanted was a newspaper, but by ten in the morning I would have settled for anything from a journal on mathematics to a Victorian bodice ripper.
Well, damn the torpedoes. I had to get outside. I didn’t have a key, so I left Roxy’s door unlocked and hurried down the steps as fast as I could. I’d borrowed a nickel from a dish on her kitchen counter. I’d find a paper as quickly as possible, then head back and barricade the door. There was a sandwich place just down the street that hadn’t opened for lunch, but the bus boy let me inside to grab a Postfrom the stack by the door. Sanity saved, I made it back to Roxy’s without being accosted by the FBI, NSA, CIA, IRS, or the Mafia.
I latched the deadbolt and slipped off my shoes. I could imagine the screaming fit Roxy would beat me with if she found out what I’d done, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me.
“Christ, you’re a cocky son of a bitch.”
“Jesus!” I shouted. The vague outline of the Whisper reclined on Roxy’s couch, his legs crossed and his arms spread out along the back.
“Keep it down, asshole. This house is supposed to be for women only.”
“Keep away from me, you bastard,” I said. “What, are you here to shoot me again?”
“No. Once was enough.”
“So you admit it?”
“No time to lie. In fact, time’s running out on your next move.”
“So I’m just a pawn to you. I thought as much.”
“You’re more like a golf ball. Every time you land somewhere, I’ve got to whack you in the right direction.”
“Look, why don’t we cut the shit and you just tell me what you want.”
“Because that’s not how it happens. I’ve got to be very careful here. And you need to piece together your story as much as possible on your own. I can only help a little.”
“Yeah? And who makes all these rules. JANUS? Is that who I’m working for?”
The Whisper laughed. There was a bitter edge to his voice I hadn’t noticed before. “You’ll figure it out. Me, I’m trying to pull a ‘Bill and Ted’ here. If we’re lucky… extremely lucky… it’ll settle things for the both of us.”
“Bastard, I’m not settling anything for your sake.”
“Whatever you say, Chief. Enjoy your paper.”
What little there was of the Whisper faded from sight completely. For all I knew he was still hanging around, but it was only when he disappeared that I noticed the two reels he’d left on the coffee table. One was a seven inch just like Hugo sent me. The other was smaller, the size of the one I’d made for the FBI. Unlike the one that Tyler had kept, this one had dried, brown flecks on the wheel.
“Enjoy your paper,” he’d said. I flipped the front page over. There was a headline about Abbott suing Costello, of all things. Just below that was a column lead by the line “New Details in Airport Massacre.”
I read the first paragraph and said “What?” I kept reading further and said “What?!”
***
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***
When Roxy came home that evening, I took it from the top.
“The Whisper was here.”
She dropped her bag of groceries. “Who what?”
“The Whisper. Was here. On this couch.”
“But… when?”
“About ten, ten thirty. He slipped in when I went out for a paper.”
“Excuse me?”
“Roxy.” All the mothering was cute, but we needed to stay focused. “He already knew where to find me, so it’s not like I led him here. Anyway, the good news is he didn’t kill me. The bad news, if you want to call it that, is that he’s not even pretending any more that I’m anything but a Judas goat.”
Roxy looked shaken. She picked up her groceries, set them on the counter, and sat down at her little dining table. I took the seat across from her. For an independent woman trying to make it on her own, one strange man breaking into her apartment was probably enough. Two was definitely over the line.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing much. Just something about time running out, whatever that means. He left a present, though.” I showed her the two tape reels.
“Not much good those’ll do us here,” she said.
“Could we sneak back into the Street and use the player there? I’m sure there’s nothing on these I haven’t heard already, but Mystery Man is obviously waiting for me to figure something out.”
“The Street’s too dangerous.” Roxy sounded exhausted. Once again I felt guilty for pulling her into the center of things. “I might know someone at Georgetown U. who can set us up. Jill across the hall is studying in the Journalism department.”
“Speaking of journalism, by the way,” I said, “why didn’t you tell me what they were saying about the airport shooting?”
“Oh, God.” She pulled a piece of bubblegum out of her purse and popped it in her mouth. “Because I didn’t want you to go charging off on a big white horse to right all the wrongs of the modern world.”
“It says here…” I flipped the day’s paper open with a dramatic crinkle. “…that the attack was the work of Communist agents in league with rebel insurgents from San Magin. It says that these Communists, and I quote, ‘have been traced back to known Red sympathizers in the Hollywood movie industry.’ It also says that one of their conspirators may have even been working for a local Washington news magazine, having previously been employed for a tabloid known for stockpiling compromising information on influential citizens.”
I slapped the paper down. “So now I’m a Communist and a blackmailer? What does it say in my obituary, that I’m Adolf Hitler’s nephew?”
“That was just some freelance hack who got a story in the A.P. for being in the right place and not getting shot in the head.” She said it as if it was a skill I had yet to master. “I think he got the bits about you from those airport cops who arrested you.”
“Fantastic.”
“Hey, at least they didn’t mention you by name.”  She gave me a smirk, then blew a round, pink bubble that smelled like licorice.
***
Jill From Across The Hall was tall, about twenty-one, with long, curly hair a dark shade of red that probably came out of a bottle. Roxy introduced me as her brother from Cleveland, but I know Jill didn’t believe it, not from the conspiratorial smile she aimed at Roxy every time she thought I wasn’t looking. She brought us to the journalism school at Georgetown, specifically to the equipment room. When Roxy told her we needed recording equipment, she’d blushed and puckered her lips. I don’t know what sort of late night antics she thought we were up to, but at one time I’d have been keen to find out.
Not tonight, though. I had a crazy theory, but it had to wait until Jill left us alone. She gave me a leer on her way out that, had she been a guy and I’d been a woman, would have encouraged me to buy a gun.
“Okay,” I said, “hear me out. What if this whole thing is some kind of ‘false flag’ operation?”
“A what?”
“It’s like this. Suppose I want to attack China, but I don’t want China to know it’s me. So I sneak into North Korea and launch a missile from there. World War III starts in the Far East, and my hands are as clean as a whistle.”
Roxy popped her gum. “You want to blow up China.” She had one tape player set up on a workbench and was now threading ribbon through a second.
“Who doesn’t? But that’s not my point. This whole ‘commie infiltrator’ thing looks pretty obvious that JANUS is pointing the finger somewhere else. You do that if you assassinate someone. But the point is, they didn’t kill him.”
“So?” She stopped what she was doing.
“So there’s no way Aranjuez should be alive if JANUS wanted him dead. Not without the hardware they were using, and not if he didn’t have an invisible mystery man to jump out and save his ass. No, there’s no way he’s alive except that JANUS wants him alive.”
“Then,” she said, “this whole assassination plot was just to make him think that Communists were out to get him?”
“Exactly. He’s a brand new president of a brand new country. Prime pickings for Marxists. If he wasn’t paranoid already, he sure as hell is now. Then here come a bunch of wealthy bankers and businessmen. Hell, throw in a congressman or two for icing. They say, ‘We’ll save you from those Reds. All you have to do is scratch our back and we’ll scratch yours.’”
Roxy nodded. “Instead of killing a head of state and replacing him with someone whose legitimacy will be questioned…”
“You make the guy who’s already in office believe he owes you his life. God bless America.”
“So what’s on the tapes?”
“That one…” I pointed at the seven inch reel. “… is the one Hugo sent me, or I’ll eat my hat. The smaller one is the tape from the wire I was wearing at the airport. The Whisper must have swiped them both from the FBI.”
“I thought the second tape was with the NSA.”
“That was from Knocked Back In Time Me. From the stains on the reel on this one, I presume this copy was found on my corpse. The recorder must have leaked a little.”
“Lovely thought.” Roxy spat out her gum into a wrapper and tossed it at a garbage can. “But that means this reel is in two places at the same time.”
“So am I. Makes the brain hurt, doesn’t it?”
“Okay,” she said. “Which do we listen to first?”
We started with Hugo’s tape. It wasn’t any different from the first time around. Two men caught in the middle of a conversation talking about murder as if they were discussing a football game. I hadn’t heard it since the first night of this mess. Hugo’s appeal hit me as hard this time, but in a different way. The first time, all this was to me was a scoop. This time, it sounded like a call to arms, to find meaning in life so that your death didn’t count for nothing.
The second tape was just gruesome. How many times should someone have to listen to their own death? I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to plug my ears when those final shots brought an end to my previous existence.
But this time the tape kept going.
More shots popped in the distance, then came the sound of police sirens. An explosion, then a voice on a bullhorn. Something that sounded like a shotgun, then silence.
A voice spoke with an unusual accent.
“Are any of you gentlemen hurt?”
“Only my pride. I never cowered under a plane like this in the War.”
The second speaker’s drawl belonged to Crawthorn. He never passed up a chance to mention his service in World War II. The next voice was older, and had to be Congressman Abberline.
“The indignity of this is insufferable. Heads are going to roll at the Secret Service, I can tell you that.”
“Slow down there, Ace. Some of these Secret Service boys have laid down their lives. It’s not good P.R. to smear someone who took a bullet for you.”
“Mr. Marlston, that’s hardly an appropriate way to address—”
“Stop,” I said. “Play it again.”
Roxy rewound a few inches and started it going.
“Slow down there, Ace. Some of these Secret Service boys—”
“Stop,” I said again. “Go back to the other one.”
On Hugo’s tape, it took us a moment to find the spot I wanted. Bordani spoke first:
“So when do we whack him?”
“Slow down there, Ace. You may be in JANUS’s good graces, but you’re not all the way in.”
“Son of a bitch,” I said. “Did you hear that?”
Roxy nodded. The words were the same. The voice was the same.
“Have you heard where they’re keeping Aranjuez?” I asked.
“Canton Marlston has him locked away at his mansion up near Rock Creek. They put off his reception until tomorrow night.”
Canton Marlston. The same on both tapes. The goddamn ringleader, he had to be. Canton Marlston was JANUS, and he damn sure thought he was untouchable.
Time to prove the bastard wrong.
To Be Continued
***
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 ***
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The Whisper © 2013 Jared Millet
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