lots
They drove a mile or two out from the thickspace, until the stacked-up buildings gave way to rows of brick houses with porches that had been converted into shops. Hand-lettered signs tantalized Isaac with meaning beyond his grasp.
In the yard of a house with no sign, a stout woman oversaw a broad pan of brown-tinged grease that bubbled desultorily, blackened pieces of meat resting at the grease’s border like overcooked sunbathers at the edge of a jacuzzi.
Several houses passed, and then Roman spotted what he was looking for. “There it is, Dulce é Cafe,” he said, taking the next left. They parked two streets away in an overgrown alley.
“Perhaps Bob is already compromised, but if possible we’ll avoid compromising him further.” He switched the thickspace projector over to battery power, unbuckling his seat belt and opening the door. “The van will conceal itself from anyone close enough to be influenced by the thickspace.”
As they walked away from the car and its thickspace projector, Isaac felt the relief of Mindlessness come as sudden as bursting up out of the water.
Interesting. He’d never experienced the absence of the Mind so suddenly—the journey from thick to attenuated space was always slow: space gradually thickening or thinning.
They emerged from an alley just to the left of Dulce y Cafe—an unmarked chocolate-brown house with white trim. They climbed crumbling cement stairs onto a cracked cement porch, pulling aside a screen door (whose slightly trapezoidal shape looked un-closable) to enter a living room that had been converted to a cafe.
Isaac scanned the room with assessing eyes. A table stood at the entrance to the kitchen with a credit-exchange scanner, a couple of apple pastries, a third of a cake under a plastic dome, a loaf of bread, and nine mismatched mugs stacked in a neat pyramid.
The place was empty but for one man seated at credit-exchange table, his stubbly face framed by a dark blue hood, his attention fixed inwards on his mindscreen, drinking coffee. He looked up, shifty eyes widening slightly at Roman, and stood.
“Well, Roman.” His face expressed slight condescension, “I thought you weren’t going to make it today. And of course I trust your discretion, but I was wondering if the off-shift wasn’t going to be over by the time you made it,” He looked directly at Roman with a hint of challenge. This must be Bob. He spoke and looked like an operator, except for a hardness around his eyes and wrinkles just beginning to form at the corners of his mouth. A reject, then?
“Hardly.” Roman’s eyes were on the table. “You and I share an interest in your continued survival. I see they’ve entrusted you with these excellent-looking apple pastries, Bob, and so surely you’ve not betrayed their trust yet.”
“Your appetite is legendary.” Bob snickered slightly, and gestured permission with his head, “A half dream-cred.”
“In the usual way, then.” Roman grabbed an apple strudel and bit into it with gusto.
“So who’s the kid?” Bob stared down at Isaac with a wolfish gleam in his eye.
“A pupil of mine. Una persona de confianza. No te preoccupes.” Roman swallowed his bite of strudel. “Now, where were we? I believe you’d like to update me on the young men’s suicide club?”
Bob laughed without kindness. “Exactly. They’ve got ten caches of explosives across the city. Of course I could only point you to one, which would finger me or three others. The date has not been set: it seems we’re waiting for the moment to present itself. That, or it is known by some and I don’t know it.”
“So sorry if I didn’t catch it, but where is the explosive cache again?” Roman bit hard into the strudel, sending a shower of flakes to the scuffed wooden floor.
Bob’s eyes fixed on the snowed pastry-flakes on the floor, “Look, I can tell you, but if you bust it, they’ll finger me for sure. And I’m out of the plot. Of no further use to you. Dead, maybe.”
“Of course, of course.” Roman gestured dismissively with his pastry-hand as he chewed and talked. “You understand we’re waiting for the tip of the hand. We’d scarcely benefit from uncovering one of ten caches across the city. But I need to know where it is.”
Bob looked Roman right in the eye. “Alright, so long as we’re clear that this is a risk I’m taking for the benefit of the Mind.”
“It shall be recorded in the book of life,” said Roman drily, “Proceed.”
“Tenth and Walnut, the garage attached to the white house with siding on the northeast corner. Trapdoor under the tool locker.”
“Excellent. And any further speculations on the motives?”
Bob’s feet shifted. “Marx. Testosterone. What more do you need?”
“You know what I mean,”
“Of course.” Bob looked down at dirty nails, bored. “You know my opinions regarding stupidity and heroic sacrifice.”
“And you know mine. There is hardly a hope for them, they have to know that. The Assembly is a hive of military drones and the thickspace reads everything.”
“Look, these are people living out a fantasy of patricide. Half of them have tasted the good life like I have and they can’t get past the fact that they weren’t chosen. The other half are have-nots with a vision of having. It’s simple. They really think opioids can shut off recording.” Bob’s smile was thin.
“Fast-forward to the part where you indulge me,” said Roman with a hard look.
Bob’s eyes widened briefly, then resumed their flat affect. “Alright.” He nodded once.
“The ‘plot beneath the plot.’” He made air quotes with hands hanging at his sides. “I’ve put out my feelers but I’ve had no bites. You can watch the footage if you like.”
“I think I will.” A hint of steel crept into Roman’s voice. “Don’t betray yourself, but dig a little deeper. This is a screen for something else. I want you to find it.”
“I will do it. But I don’t think we’ll find anything. My question is whether or not I can begin my re-testing after the massacre of heroes.” His eyes darted around Roman’s face, probing.
“You are a perfect case, I have my assurances. If you are right, and it is simply a massacre, you will be rewarded. Generously. If this is a screen and you’ve found nothing… well. The footage will be reviewed.” Roman shoved the last bite of strudel into his mouth.
“And the afterlife?” Need cracked Bob’s face for a second, and then it was gone.
Roman rolled his eyes and sighed. “Let’s not do this, shall we? I have places to be. You’ll find the credits in your account, with the extra half cred.” He looked over at Isaac and jerked his head toward the door, “To the batmobile!”
As they turned and walked away, Isaac could feel Bob’s eyes on him like a creeping at the edge of vision.