Razor Mountain — Chapter 31.3

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

David Tull was the Director of Media, responsible for overseeing all the books, movies, television and any other forms of text or video that originated inside or outside the mountain. Perhaps more importantly, it put him in charge of censorship and ensuring that no information entered the mountain that would go against the narratives that had been carefully constructed for the general populace.

He was a short man with a precise gray crew-cut. He entered the office wearing a salmon dress shirt, a wine-red tie, and khaki pants with a crisp crease. He talked fast and spoke little, and struck Christopher as decidedly unfriendly.

The first thing he did after sitting in the chair on the far side of the desk was to hand over one of the two manila folders he carried. The topmost thing within was a page of questions, double-spaced and numbered.

“These are all the questions I could think of that only God-Speaker would know,” he said.

Christopher glanced down the list.

“Would you like me to answer them right now?”

“Yes, that’s the idea.”

“And your opinion of whether I am, in fact, God-Speaker will depend on my success.”

“It will be a contributing factor,” Tull replied.

Christopher sighed.

“As I said before, I haven’t yet regained all of my memories. I also have to say that some of these things…I just don’t care about, and I will never remember.”

The corners of Tull’s mouth turned down a fraction of a millimeter.

“I believe you are the twelfth person to hold your current position,” Christopher said, starting down the list. (This was either incorrect or very incorrect, depending on how specific he wanted to be about the position and its predecessors, but accurate to what Tull knew.)

“Numbers two and three I’ll just write here, and you can look at them. I assume you don’t want to talk about those things in detail with others present,” Christopher continued. He glanced over at Cain, who was sitting in a chair off to the side, ostensibly working on a laptop while observing the situation.

The other questions ranged from pretty reasonable indicators to complete ridiculousness.

“I don’t remember what color the halls in section B-22-F are painted, but I would assume something awful in the range of dull gray to dull green. If the maintenance rounds still work like they did before my absence, they will have been repainted…three or four times.

“The last edition of official city history was finalized in 1974, with the usual yearly updates. That’s again assuming that there hasn’t been an updated edition and you’ve all just been keeping up through those updates. The list of disallowed topics was 1975, with the same caveats.”

As he worked his way through the list, Christopher became more and more distinctly aware of the knot of thoughts and emotions that he felt as God-Speaker’s presence in his head. These thoughts were both irritated about satiating a slightly annoying subordinate, and mildly pleased to finally be getting back into the workings of Razor Mountain. The place had decayed in his absence, but that also meant new opportunities to fix things. To make them right again.

Christopher felt uneasy discussing the various ways that information was manipulated within God-Speaker’s society. The God-Speaker thoughts, perhaps in response, were about whether it was really much different beyond the confines of the mountain.

Christopher was also constantly aware of the gun slung under the desk, ready for quick access. It served as a reminder that any of these people might have betrayed him, might be ready to do it again.

#

The new Secretary of Justice was named Justine Vahn, and Christopher knew nothing about her beyond their brief encounter at that first chaotic meeting with all the secretaries. She wore a stylish navy business suit, offset by a gauzy yellow scarf.

“Is there anything I can do to reassure you of my identity?” Christopher asked, after she had introduced herself.

“Oh, no, no, no,” she said, waving the question away as though it were an insect. “Your story and Cain’s clearly line up, and I don’t know what reason Cain would have to lie to us.”

She turned in her chair to talk to Cain. “You’re not exactly the power-hungry type, are you? And if you were, you wouldn’t wait three decades to get ’round to your secret master plan for taking over.”

She turned back to Christopher.

“No, I think the big question now is how we can all readjust to your presence. It’ll be a relief to have everything properly organized again. No more petty squabbles among the cabinet. Of course, we still have the matter of who exactly this traitor is, but I have every confidence we’ll get that business out of the way soon. With any luck, you’ll confirm that the cabinet convicted the correct person, and we can get back to doing our jobs.”

“You’re not worried that it might be someone else?” Christopher asked.

“The truth will out,” she replied. “I trust that my colleagues did not take it lightly to convict and imprison my predecessor. Obviously that was before my own tenure. I was relatively new to the deputy secretary position at that time, so I really didn’t have the access to know the details.”

“You didn’t go back and look at the events in retrospect?” Christopher asked. “I assume you have access to all those records now.”

“Well, of course. But it hardly seemed appropriate to re-litigate.”

“Even if the result is that my murderer might remain free and in power, among you?” Christopher asked. This was entirely God-Speaker’s irritation leaking through. “You’re the Secretary of Justice.”

“You have to understand, there was no authority to appeal to,” she said, for the first time sounding a little more hesitant. “Without you around, the cabinet is a council of equals. We each have our own domains of control, and no particular authority over each other. There was a great deal of debate as to whether I should even be permitted to take over the position. Nobody was supposed to be appointed to the cabinet without your approval.”

Cain chimed in from the corner. “It seemed like a better option than giving one of our remaining number double-duty.”

“I must say,” she continued, becoming more prim with every word, “it was quite a shock to learn how everything really works. I felt rather out of my depth. I certainly didn’t feel like I ought to be leading a charge to reopen the investigation. There was a certain period where I thought the whole thing might just fall apart.”

“Luckily, everything seems to have worked out,” Christopher said, through the barest hint of a smile. “Here I am.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “It’s remarkable.”

“…Although it may not have worked out so well for Moira McCaul,” Christopher said.

There was the faintest hint of a twinge in Justine’s dimple. Her smile had begun to look a little artificial.

“Yes, well, I suppose we’ll know soon enough.”

“I suppose we will.”

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