Month: June 2023

Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

The conference room was already filled with the cabinet, buzzing with whispered conversations. Cain, Reed, and General Reese were conspicuously absent, and everyone present had a good idea what that might mean.

The room quieted when Moira McCaul stepped through the door. She paused to look around the room. Her face was serene, with no trace of anger or bitterness, but few of those gathered were able to meet her eyes.

Justine Vahn, her replacement, looked around at the downcast faces, steeled herself, and pulled out an empty chair, offering it to Moira with an open hand. The corners of Moira’s mouth turned up almost imperceptibly, and she crossed the room to sit.

The buzz of conversation slowly returned to the room, only to be silenced moments later when the door opened again. Two figures entered: Reed, hands cuffed behind his back, and Reese, hands free, with his service cap in his hands and his head bowed. They were escorted by a uniformed soldier with a sidearm. This was something that had been forbidden for decades on the grounds that it would be tantamount to the military secretaries like Reese and Bell throwing their weight around in private cabinet spaces. Their world was changing, and the rules would change with it.

Cain and Christopher followed them into the room. Christopher pulled two chairs to the front of the room, where the prisoners sat. Cain whispered to the soldier, who saluted and stepped out, closing the door behind him.

Christopher’s mind was a vortex. In the center, an identity was coalescing, as though the memory of the murder was a blockage that had been opened, freeing the vast torrent of memories and feelings dammed up behind it. It could still only pour into him at a certain speed, but the end result felt more inevitable than ever. It could not be stopped. He was becoming God-Speaker.

As if that wasn’t enough, the voices were equally cacophonous. They congratulated and advised him. They raged against him. They howled and buzzed and thrummed with emotions that did not easily translate into human moods. The one saving grace was that it had become so easy for Christopher to tune them out. God-Speaker could block their noise as easily as turning off a faucet.

He stood at the front of the silent room. He kept his face neutral, but God-Speaker was reveling in the moment.

“Thirty-two years ago, Reed Parricida murdered me in my office. Today, he attacked me once again.”

“I have someone looking through the security footage,” Cain said. “We’ll see if it’s been tampered with.”

Reed sighed. “I’m sure it’s all there. I didn’t have access.”

“How did you expect to get away with it?”

He laughed. “Who said I did? The best I could hope was that you’d let your guard down and I could kill him. Either way, I was going to be found out.”

“Then why do it?” Cain asked.

“I was already as good as caught, once his memory came back,” Reed replied. “For all I knew, it already had, and he was playing his games with us. Better to keep my freedom, but since that no longer seemed possible, I thought I ought to at least try to finish what I started.”

“But why kill him at all?”

“Why? Because he’s made us all prisoners. You think you’re important, you think you’re in control. You’re just as trapped as those deserters.”

“I don’t need to be in control of everything,” Cain said. “Is that what you were hoping for? After all this time, you haven’t gotten very far.”

“You stupid ass,” Reed replied. “You just couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to kill him unless they had grand plans to become the new emperor. I just wanted him dead.”

God-Speaker frowned. “I gave you…”

“What?” Reed snapped. “A job? A purpose? Some modicum of power and a nice lifestyle? An endless stream of lies to tell and be told?”

“Everything,” God-Speaker said.

“My mother would disagree,” Reed replied. “With all that control, you could try to make things better. Even if it was just in this hidden corner of the world. No, even here there’s poverty and misery. People struggle. I grew up like that. I thought I might be able to make things better. Eventually I realized that you just didn’t care. Things only needed to be good enough to serve your needs. People are just tools to you.”

“This place has an important function,” Cain said.

“The only function of this place is to keep him alive. To keep him safe. And us, the people closest to him, we aren’t picked because we’re the best at what we do. Every one of us was picked because we were deemed safe. Useful enough, and docile. Pliable.”

“Obviously not all of us,” Cain said.

“No?” Reed said. “Look around this room. Everyone so happy to have their king back. To be told what to do again. And I’m hardly any different. Even when I realized what a monster he was—long after I realized—I never planned to do it. I never thought I would. I thought I would do his bidding for the rest of my life. Then he told me to forget about the job that was supposed to be my whole purpose. He had me drop everything because there might be some hint of a threat to him. Something just snapped in me. I…broke.”

Christopher saw the muscles working in the man’s jaw.

“I guess I’ve been broken for a long time now. So that’s something you gave me.”

Christopher studied Reed, who now faced the floor, and felt a weight in his chest, despite what had happened between them in the hallway less than an hour earlier, and what had happened in his office decades before.

“Do you feel any guilt? Any remorse?”

Reed laughed. “Of course. I couldn’t explain why, but I do. I’ve carried it with me all this time. I suppose it’s in my nature to abhor what I did. That’s why you chose me.”

“You killed another human being,” Moira said softly.

“No,” Reed replied, tensing. God-Speaker thought he might try to lunge to his feet, but instead he leaned back in the chair, shifting his cuffed wrists. His voice was softer than hers, but held a dangerous edge.

“No, a man of fifty years is human. A hundred years, maybe two hundred, sure. What about five hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? Oh, and he hears voices under the mountain. He picks out new faces the way real people buy clothes. I don’t know what he is, but he isn’t human.”

Silence followed this pronouncement. Into it, Reed spat, “and he isn’t dead. He’s standing here, isn’t he?”

God-Speaker’s gaze swept down the table. There was little sympathy in the eyes staring back at Reed. He wasn’t making any converts in this room.

“That’s why I’ve always had the upper hand,” God-Speaker said. “That’s why your story ends like this.

Reed shrugged, as much as he could while cuffed.

“You didn’t seem to have the upper hand when I put a knife through your heart. Or when I got my people on your plane. In fact, it seems like you’re mostly here right now through sheer luck and the hard work of a man you’ve barely acknowledged.”

He tilted his head toward Cain. “A man you once asked me to investigate because you thought he might be a troublemaker.”

“I couldn’t have been more wrong,” Christopher said. “But I am curious about General Reese’s part in this.”

“Oh, we’ve talked a lot, in recent years, he and I,” Reed said. “Talked about certain indiscretions, mentioned in confidence. He couldn’t bear the idea of his family finding out about his dirty little secrets. All he had to do to avoid that was go along with my plan to give you a little test.”

“I see,” God-Speaker said. “General, would you say that’s accurate?”

General Reese nodded miserably, eyes still on the floor.

“We’ll have to chat more about that, General. We might find that there are ways you could redeem yourself.”

The fact that this had happened meant that the General was a dangerous liability, but Christopher felt sorry for him, and showing him some mercy could benefit the morale of the other secretaries. Even if he couldn’t keep his current role, he might retire with his honor mostly intact, and his personal indiscretions kept quiet. So long as they weren’t a problem for God-Speaker.

“I think we’re done here, for now,” Christopher said. “Cain, these men are ready to be escorted out. Please make sure that General Reese is made comfortable until he has a chance to go over his story in more detail.”

Cain nodded, already moving to open the conference room door.

“And Mr. Parricida?”

Christopher glanced at Moira.

“I believe a cell just became available.”

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

General Reese had an almost cartoonishly military bearing. He was, after all, a man who had spent his life in the service, and his current position was as much about acting the part as it was about administrative competence. Today, however, there was something off, something ever-so-slightly loose or sloppy about the way he walked, a little ahead and to the right of Christopher, down the dull gray back halls of Razor Mountain.

“When did they arrive?” Christopher asked.

“What? Oh, about 05:00 this morning,” Reese said.

“I’ve had meetings with some of the secretaries, but we haven’t had the chance to talk, one on one,” Christopher said. “How are you feeling about everything that’s happened?”

Reese shrugged. “It’s hard to know what to make of it. I’ve done what I always do. Keep doing the work. We’ll sort everything out in due time.”

“That’s a good outlook,” Christopher said. “I tend to favor the long view of most things.”

“Ah, yes. I suppose so.”

“You have a son, don’t you?” Christopher asked. Reese visibly flinched.

Christopher let his left hand drift past his hip, ready to reach for the pistol stuck into his belt at the small of his back. But Reese kept walking without turning around to address him.

“Yes, he’s doing well. Made Captain just last year.”

“You must be proud.”

Reese nodded. “He’s a good man, and a fine soldier.”

Christopher felt almost as though he were watching a play, even though he was playing his part. He could sense God-Speaker directing all of it. The questions, to remind Reese just how old God-Speaker was, to remind him of his family and his personal honor.

They came to a corner. Reese stopped just short of it, hesitating.

“Tell me,” God-Speaker commanded.

The man deflated.

“Now.” It was a tone Christopher would never have been comfortable using, but it came out of his mouth with complete authority.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Reese said. “He said it would be a test, to see if you’re really who you claim to be.”

The lights went out. One heartbeat. Two. Three. Quiet footsteps beyond the corner. Then emergency systems kicked-in.

The emergency lights were dimmer, but adequate. Reese was already leaning despondently against the wall, eyes closed. Christopher pushed him further back, drew the gun, and peered around the corner.

Reed stood only fifteen feet away, gun already raised. Christopher pulled his head back as a shot rang out, chipping a chunk out of the wall behind him.

In the half-light, Christopher had also seen three more figures further down the hallway: Cain, flanked by a pair of men with MP armbands. He waited for two measured breaths, then peered around the corner again.

Reed was walking toward Christopher. He looked back and saw his pursuers. He threw down his weapon, but continued toward the corner as they closed in.

Christopher stepped out into the open to stare Reed in the face. The man wore a grimace. He drew a knife from his pocket and flicked it open.

The shadowy figure in God-Speaker’s memories resolved itself. Like an avalanche, that one uncovered moment turned into a cascade. Christopher’s perception shifted.

The knife came up toward Christopher’s chest, aiming to slip under his sternum, but the hand that wielded it was more than thirty years older, slower. Christopher turned his body so his profile faced Reed, his hand sweeping down to strike Reed’s forearm with the butt of the gun. Reed cried out, and the knife clattered to the ground.

Seconds thumped their passage in Christopher’s chest. His eyes were locked with Reed’s. Time and sound returned in the footfalls of Cain and the MPs, who immediately grabbed Reed’s arms and twisted them behind his back, pressing him against the wall.

“Are you alright?” Cain asked breathlessly.

Christopher looked down at himself. No blood, no wound. The change he was feeling was entirely internal. The world seemed to be painted with new colors.

“I’m fine.”

Cain moved between Christopher and General Reese.

“What about him?”

Christopher studied the man’s sad eyes, perched above the aquiline nose. He looked ten years older.

“He wasn’t involved in the original attack,” Christopher said. “I remember it now. I suspect we’ll find there was blackmail or some other leverage involved.”

“Should we cuff him?” one of the MPs asked. Cain looked to Christopher.

“Remove his sidearm. I’m sure he won’t cause trouble.”

God-Speaker fought to keep his emotions in check. After everything that had happened, this was the final, pathetic attempt on his life. A pair of old men, easily overcome.

“Call the cabinet meeting,” he told Cain. “Let’s put an end to this.”

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

“Do you know what this is about?” Christopher asked.

“No, he said it was news specifically for you,” Cain replied. “He said it was on a need-to-know basis. That’s the sort of thing he says all the time though.”

The pair walked the halls from Christopher’s apartment to his office. Christopher was still groggy from another night of strange dreams. The God-Speaker memories surfaced and integrated, sometimes clear and sometimes fragmentary. He still hadn’t caught hold of the key memory of his death, but there was now an image seared in his mind, a shadowy, half-formed figure looming above him, a knife glinting in its hand.

Cain had a squinty look that Christopher had come to recognize as his worried face. Cain worried that anything unexpected was an assassination attempt. It was probably the right mode of thinking, but Christopher found it hard to muster more than a steady feeling of mild dread. His body couldn’t pump the chemicals of fear through his system continuously, and his mind was a distracted whirlwind of memories, ideas and emotions.

When they arrived at the office, General Reese was already waiting for them. He was pacing, his service cap in his hands, seemingly rotating of its own accord.

“Ah,” he said, when he saw them. “You had an interest in the group of deserters that were holed up in the old 3-F office block?”

“Yes?” Christopher said.

“They were apprehended, and they’ve been brought back. They’re being detained, if you want to talk to them.”

“I trust they were treated humanely?” Christopher asked. “And they’re comfortable now?”

He imagined the entire group crammed into the white room with four cells, under the ministrations of Sergeant Meadows.

“Yes, of course,” General Reese said. “One of them gave us some trouble, but they’re none the worse for wear. You can see for yourself.”

Christopher didn’t like the sound of that. He could see a sheen of sweat on Reese’s brow. There was something he was hiding.

“The girl who can’t speak?”

Reese’s eyes flicked away for a fraction of a second. Then he nodded.

“Two of the members of the capture team were injured. Both relatively minor injuries.”

Christopher knew that he shouldn’t talk to the exiles. They knew nothing about him, and it was better that way. God-Speaker knew that a king was always a target. He ruled from the shadows, almost unknown in his own kingdom. He was protected from danger by a circle of proxy rulers and the belief that the real chain of command was in Washington D.C.

Still, he wanted to at least see the people who had briefly taken him in, and ensure they were being treated well. They would be court-martialed. Could he somehow intervene in that process? There would be problems if the rules were seen to be flouted.

Cain appeared to read his mind.

“Better to delegate it. Someone else can check on them. I can, if you’d like.”

Christopher nodded, but he said, “Where are they being held, Reese?”

“Military prison, standard area for those awaiting arraignment.”

“I don’t need to talk to them. I’d just like to look in,” Christopher said.

“We could get you a video feed,” Cain said.

Something was itching in the back of Christopher’s mind. He couldn’t tell what it was, exactly, but he felt an almost irresistible urge to follow it. An instinct honed over thousands of years.

He turned to Reese. The edges of the cuffs and collar on the man’s green uniform were outlined in dark sweat.

“What do you think?”

“It…it’s well in hand, sir. But if you want to see for yourself, that’s your prerogative.”

“Yes, I think I will. Care to join me?”

“Of course.”

Christopher turned and stepped close to Cain, so that their right shoulders almost touched, and leaned down.

“You’re armed?” Christopher asked quietly.

“I am,” Cain said, eyes narrowing slightly.

“So am I. Prepare a message for the rest of the cabinet to be ready for a meeting at short notice. Don’t send it yet. Then go straight through town and down to the military prison. Backtrack to us from there. We’ll take the back way.”

“Did you remember…?”

Christopher shook his head. “No, but I have a feeling that we’ll know everything soon.”

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

The Secretary of Labor sat in the chair on the other side of the desk with legs crossed and hands steepled. He wore a dark suit with a narrow tie that only further accentuated his lankiness. He didn’t speak, he just looked at Christopher.

“Well, since I’ve been asking everyone else, I suppose I had better ask you too: do you need more evidence that I am who I say I am?”

Reed frowned. “Is that what the others have been doing?”

“Some of them.”

Reed shook his head. “As I said before, it seems like the reasonable thing to do is wait. If what you’ve said is true, then it shouldn’t be long before we have all the incontrovertible proof we could ever desire.”

“What would you like to talk about then?” Christopher asked.

“I was under the impression that this meeting was for your benefit,” Reed replied. He picked up the briefcase next to his chair and set it on his lap. “I’ve taken the liberty of organizing some reports. It’s obviously not practical to condense decades of work, but I’ve summarized a few of the more interesting projects, and the things that are currently in progress.”

Christopher took the proffered papers and set them on the desk.

“I’ll take a look. I’m sure it will take some time to get caught up with everything.”

“Yes, half a lifetime of work. I’m sure by now Cain has mentioned his many concerns that everything is more or less falling apart around here, but I think you’ll discover for yourself that his claims are overblown.”

Christopher heard a faint sigh escape Cain from across the room.

“Honestly, I don’t think that’s been the nature of our conversations at all,” Christopher said.

“I see. Well, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by some of the advancements we have made in your absence.”

Reed stood, abruptly enough that Christopher sat back in his chair. His hand touched the gun under the desk.

“If there’s nothing else?”

Christopher shook his head. “No, I suppose there isn’t, at least for now.”

Reed left as stiffly as he had entered, briefcase in hand.

When the door had closed, Christopher said, “That was odd.”

“He came in expecting an argument,” Cain said.

“Why is that?”

“I assume it’s because he and I rarely see eye-to-eye on anything, and he thought I’d be busy telling you how awful he is.”

“Is he? From what I remember, he was competent enough.”

“He does his job well enough, from what I can tell,” Cain said. “It’s the way he always tries to do little bits of other peoples’ jobs as well that tends to irritate me.”

“I see. He’s one of the ones who has been trying to expand his kingdom, so to speak?”

“That’s my opinion,” Cain said. “Obviously I don’t expect you to take my word for it. You can form your own opinions. But that’s more or less the root of our particular disagreements.”

Christopher thought about the strange mix of people within the cabinet. God-Speaker had sought out a set of qualities in his administrators. They were supposed to be reasonably good at their jobs, but they also had to be servile and content with the limited power they had. Above all, God-Speaker had tried to build a place where he was safe and in control; a protective shell around himself.

Cain was a perfect fit for the job. He enjoyed the work and sought out improvements. He kept the trains running on time, so to speak. Beyond that, he had little ambition. In fact, he was so eager for God-Speaker to come back, he had almost single-handedly engineered it. It was a rare combination of personality traits.

“When did you send back the oracles?” Christopher asked.

Cain scratched his scalp. “We sent one an hour or two after you were found. Then everyone argued about how we would know if it had worked. The next morning we sent two more. The last two were a couple days after that. At that point, there was only one left. Despite all the arguments about whether or not the oracles were of any use at all, nobody wanted to send the last. Of course, at some point he aged out, as they all do.”

Christopher shook his head. “I remember now. I remember getting those messages, for all the good it ended up doing.”

“So they did actually make it?”

“They made it. But they didn’t tell me who the threat was.”

Christopher cocked his head, listening. “Nobody knows exactly how the oracles work. Not even the voices under the mountain. I received messages, but it’s hard to say if they were from you.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

Christopher waved a hand. “It’s not important. I remember being on my guard. I knew something was coming. Whatever happened, I wasn’t prepared.”

“We didn’t know who had done it either,” Cain said. “We couldn’t send you a proper warning.”

“That should have been enough.”

Christopher rose from his chair.

“I think I had better sleep. Maybe in the morning we’ll know the truth.”

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