At first, she tried to straddle the window and lift herself through, but as she got her left foot over the sill she fell backwards into the bushes. With the shower going, Jon wasn’t worried about what his mom might hear, but that had to hurt. He had done it himself, in past, with much better-trimmed hedges. Those weren’t pricker bushes, thankfully, but it wasn’t exactly a featherbed out there, either.
“Ouch. Hell. I scratched the crap out of back. And my arms.” She had, too. The red lines criss-crossed the sides of both arms and the tops of her hands. A few lighter, white scratches ran across her forearms. “Maybe I should just try tumbling over—“
There was a considerable gap of floor, and junk on the floor, between the window and Jon’s single bed. He didn’t think the tumble over strategy would be a wise one.
“Let’s try this,” Jon suggested. “Grab my hands and push against the wall. Sort of walk up it and pull against me, or just try and get your feet up as high on the wall as you can and then pull up against me and I’ll be pulling you over—”
“’kay,” she said. “You’re the super genius.” Jon bristled a bit, but let it go. Megan and Johnny had ribbed him for the better part of the school year, since he had made the honor roll with every report card. As far as Jon was concerned, it had just been the most efficient way to keep his mom off his case. Absentee mothering or not, a lot of Jon’s freedom and autonomy would dry up without those straight As (well, except for gym) on every report card.
Megan lurched up, pulling against Jon as he tried to pull her in. She was wobbly, but was up the wall and had her feet at the level of the window sill in a moment. Then, she fell forward on Jon, who fell back against the bed, their hands still linked.
There is a God, Jon thought. There can be no doubt. Earlier that day, he had been speculating about the possibility of maybe getting to look down her shirt once or twice while she flirted with Johnny Miller—a little more intense version of the sort of thing that had been happening at school for the last semester. Maybe he’d get to spend some time alone with her—he had, after all, found excuses to bring his lack of parental oversight into the discussion a lot during the last month of school for a reason. Megan would complain, in a sort of angst filled flirt with Johnny Two, about her parents fighting and how hard life at her house was, and Jon would weasel in there with something about how bad that sucked, he was glad to be a latchkey kid, had the house to himself practically all the time, it was peaceful and easy and so on. He had stopped short of inviting her over specifically to avoid her parents, yeah, but the offer had been there, all the same.
Apparently, the angling had worked. School was out and Johnny Two had parents who were home all the time, and Jon did not. From the tone of conversation earlier in the evening to the “not wearing a bra” comment on the street, Jon was beginning to think that, as of final bell, Megan had maybe shifted her flirtation interests. She didn’t have a boyfriend. She had spent more and more time talking to Jon over the past month, on the phone and even at school. And now, they were both in his bed and she was laying on top of them, as braless as ever, breasts pillowed against his chest, her hands in his—and not letting go just yet, even though she was, obviously, well through the window. Indeed, there was a God, and He was smiling on Jon tonight.
And with your bounty, comes your duty, Jon thought, the video cassette—quickly stowed in his tiny closet before opening the window—flitting through his mind. I’m so sorry, Jon, to put you in this position, Dr. Bernhard had said—apparently from beyond the grave. But I am afraid you are in tremendous danger. And I’m afraid I’ve put you in it.
“Shhhh,” Megan’s puckered lips blew air right in Jon’s face. Her breath smelled like beer, cigarettes, and day-old food, but it didn’t bother Jon a bit. The magic of hormones, he thought.
“We shouldn’t wake up your mother,” Megan said groggily, her eyelids heavy and fluttering again. Jon didn’t bother to correct her; his mother was still showering and, most likely, not yet asleep.
Megan shifted, and let go of his hands, putting her hands down on the bed to steady herself. Jon let his hands fall, one dropping—not unintentionally—to her side, fairly far up, only to land on the bare skin of her midriff. Bare skin? Apparently, falling in had pulled up her shirt almost to her boobs. And there his hand was, on her naked side—he could feel her ribs, he could feel each breath making her rib cage expand and contract—and she was just smiling drunkenly at him.
The urge to just grab her head and kiss her, kiss her hard, beer and cigarettes and all, rose in him like a tidal wave. Like someone had taken the distraction he had felt earlier, thinking about Megan, and turned the volume up ten times. For a moment, he felt dizzy.
“Hey, now, don’t get any funny ideas. I’m not that kind of girl,” she said blearily, and rolled off of him. When she did, he saw that, indeed, her shirt was up to her breasts, and he could see the white skin of her rib cage and belly clearly and closely. The soft curve of her abdomen at her navel. Again, the urge to grab her. To possess her. It was almost overwhelming. Possessed video cassettes seemed irrelevant, unimportant. Learning assembly language? Playing Pitfall? Who gave a shit? The line of her ribs and the soft swell of her belly, the oval of her navel—what could possibly be more important?
Megan pulled down her shirt. “All right, all right,” she said. “I’m not a big juicy steak, Tiger.”
Jon felt his face flush again. Busted. Once more. Maybe not for the first time, if his score tonight was any indication. His body was betraying him. Hell, his mind was betraying him. It was full-scale mutiny. He suddenly understood very clearly why adults did not want young girls and young boys spending a lot of time alone together. While he couldn’t speak for the girls, the effect on the male of the species clearly seemed to overpower almost all reason.
What would happen if she were more drunk? Or if he was Johnny Two, and she was more amenable to the idea of making out? Or if he was a charmer, willing to bargain and barter and promise the moon and eternal love for a little nookie, right then? On the one hand, the thought had some appeal. On the other hand, the last thing on earth Jon would ever want would be to play Jackson Edmonds to some poor girl’s Doreen Edmonds. He’d stay a virgin until they day he died, if that was his only option.
“Sorry,” he muttered, rolling off the bed. “Busted,” he finished sheepishly.
“I am so tired,” she said. “It’s not a big deal, guys are just sort of hardwired that way and sometimes you just need a good smack. And I'll smack you. Just see if I won't.” She crawled out of the bed, laying down on the floor between the wall with the window and the bed, instinctively going for the one place she could sleep and not be seen. She was right, too—Jon didn’t think Doreen had peeked over to that side of his bed since they had moved into the house. “I know you’ve got your head and heart–and your hands, let's not forget those–in the right place. Lots of guys don’t.” She reclined on the floor, stretching and yawning, and just watching her he felt the tremendous desire to touch her. To hold her. To taste her.
He looked away, shaking his head. Hoping she hadn’t seen him do it again. Too many times, and she’d forget any benefit of the doubt she’d given him about having a good head or a good heart. And she had it right about the “juicy steak” comment, too. When he saw her stretching, or had been staring at her bare midriff, or had been staring at her boobs earlier, he had felt like a ravenous wolf who hadn’t eaten in weeks and weeks who had just run across a fresh kill. Fresh meat. Like a wild, hungry animal that smelled blood.
Good smack, hell. Jon thought maybe Megan ought to get a cattle prod.
He knew Megan’s interest in him was more practical than personal. More logistical than emotional. Still, that didn’t mean he wanted to be thinking of her like a piece of meat. He wanted to be better than that. For her, sure, but even more so for himself. Right?
Jon got out of bed and opened the closet. He could hear Megan making a long, high-pitched groan as she stretched, but he refused to turn and look. It was hard. It was amazingly hard not to turn and look.
The first thing he saw, on top of a blue milk crate full of dirty clothes, was the video cassette. That cut into the desire to turn around and look at Megan stretch. Just thinking about it hadn’t been enough to break the spell, but actually seeing it . . . well, that sobered him a little. He quickly grabbed and extra blanket from the top of his closet and tossed it to Megan, trying not to look directly at her.
“Ooomph!” she said dramatically. “Thanks a lot. Not in the face, next time.”
“Sorry,” he apologized. The pulled a sweat shirt off a hanger. He tied it at the neck and at then stuffed several t-shirts and loose socks into it. Then, he tied it together at the bottom and tossed it to Megan. “Hoo,” she mumbled. “Jeeze, I was almost asleep, is that everything?”
“Unless you need something else,” Jon said, turning around to look. She had unfolded the blanket and pulled it up around her.
The sweatshirt stuffed with t-shirts and socks was in her lap. “Whassis?” she asked.
“Pillow. Or I could use that one, and you could use mine—”
“S’fine,” she mumbled, sticking the stuffed sweatshirt under her head. At about that time, the pipes banged as the shower water shut off. Jon thought about turning on music, as he had said he would, planning to cover up any noise with his stereo. Whatever he had thought that noise was going to be–them talking, them making out, or perhaps him showing Megan the video cassette–it apparently wasn’t going to be necessary. Megan was already snoring. When he glanced again a moment later, her lips were parted and she was drooling on her pillow.
“Okay, even I’ve got to admit, that’s not exactly attractive,” Jon said quietly to himself. There, that was good. Obsessive lust might have some boundaries, he thought. However, the idea that he was fourteen and men reached their sexual prime at eighteen made any temporary victory over lust seem sort of pointless. If it was this bad now . . .
The though occurred to him to try and touch her boob, while she was asleep. Maybe he could touch her nipple. Or lift up her shirt, anyway. After all–
“See, that’s the stuff I’m talking about,” Jon said to himself. “Do I want to be like the sperm donor? Do I want to be a creep?” He asked himself out loud.
Do you want to be salivating over this sweet and fundamentally good girl like she just a piece of meat? his mind asked him. Is that how you’ll do it better than your parents? Better than Jackson?
“All righty then,” he said, sitting on the side of his bed. He started to lay down the way he normally did, which would be facing the same direction Megan was, and then thought better of it. He could see his hand falling over the side of the bed at night, as if often did, and he didn’t want to end up doing something that would further embarrass him. Not to mention, doing something that he might sleep through. So he laid down on the bed the opposite way, his head toward the closet. This way, if he did drop his hands out of the bed, the worst damage he might do would be to grab an ankle. Innocuous enough.
It was inevitable, of course, that with Megan asleep and the closet just a few feet from his head, his thoughts shifted from her and his undulating sense of lust and embarrassment. Back to the tape. He had just started it, really, when Megan had called. And no small message, that: I am afraid you are in tremendous danger. And I’m afraid I’ve put you in it.
There was more, and he needed to listen to it.
He opened his closet and pulled out the tape. When he had tossed it in the closet earlier, he had been quick about it, and it hadn’t started up. Now, he took it out and held it deliberately. If Megan woke up, Megan woke up. He was tired now, as it was very late and it had been an enormously packed evening, and he was feeling that it couldn’t be a coincidence—Megan being at his house, now, all by themselves for the first time ever, and the arrival of that video cassette. Or that he first began to see what it had to tell him, when Megan had placed the phone call that had led to her sleeping on the floor, next to his bed, right now. If she saw something, she saw something. And Jon wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to be going on this trip alone, anyway.
The thing was, nothing was happening. Before, the process had seemed to be speeding up, and the tape—or whatever it really was—had seemed to be on a hair-trigger. Every time he had touched it, the clicking and whirring began. Now, nothing.
From beside the bed, Megan snorted in her sleep. Then she worked her mouth, smacking her lips as if she had tasted something unpleasant.
Jon looked at Megan, then at the video cassette. Then back at Megan. Then back to the cassette. The idea that it had all been his imagination was still knocking around in his head. With Megan, asleep and braless in his bedroom, all alone with him—well, hell, he might be dreaming right now.
It was also, he supposed, possible that he had broken it. But, somehow, he didn’t think so.
He thought the video cassette wasn’t transfiguring itself now—and he didn’t know exactly how to think about what it seemed to do when he touched it except “transfiguring”—because of Megan. Because Megan was in the room.
He didn’t just think it. He knew it. Crystal clear and sky blue, right in the center of his head. Dead certainty. The sort of way he knew that if Johnny Miller had absentee parents, and run of his nicer and larger house, Megan would be asleep on Johnny Two’s floor right now. Only stronger.
Safe enough. Especially if the tape, as he was certain it did, had some sort of mechanism to keep it from activating when somebody else was in the room with him. How in the world Dr. Bernhard had created such a thing, Jon had no idea. Why, if capable of such an amazing piece of technology—and certainly, that’s what it was, not some supernatural phenomenon or other such hokum—then why hadn’t Dr. Bernhard been making a zillion dollars a year selling portable holographic projector things? Why would he have developed such a thing, and then . . . sent it to a fourteen year old kid? That made the least sense of anything, to Jon. Why him? Why such a bizarre—and, frankly, initially terrifying—delivery mechanism? And, of course, there was that whole “tremendous danger” thing.
Jon made his way down past the little hall that led to his mom’s room and the bathroom and across the living room—in truth, a room not much wider than the hall–and into the kitchen. He hunched down, with his back to the rest of the house, against the kitchen door that led out to the carport. It was about as far as he could get from both his and his mom’s room and not go outside. Hopefully, if he was correct and the device was somehow sensitive to the presence of other people, this would be far enough away.
It was. Before he had even finished hunching down, the video cassette was whirring and clicking. Transfiguring. The silvery mirrors started sparkling, and the miniature image of Dr. Bernhard’s head began to coalesce.
“Jon, as you have received this, I will be dead. Well, for the time being, anyway,” the head said, again.
“Okay, good, I got that,” Jon whispered back.
“I’m so sorry, Jon, to put you in this position,” he continued. “But I am afraid you are in tremendous danger. And I’m afraid I’ve put you in it.”
Jon braced himself. This was the part where the phone had rung before. The next part—well, given the impossibility of what he was holding in his hand, given the impossibility of what he was seeing, it couldn’t be good.
“Jon, I’ve stolen something. Something very terrible and very powerful. There are good reasons for what I did. At least, I think there are. I hope there are. Just as I hope that there are good reasons for putting you in such terrible danger. I don’t suppose I can be sure, not yet.”
There was a pause, as the head turned from glancing towards the dishwasher to staring directly at Jon. Jon, again, felt that earlier sense of fear growing. Not of this device, not anymore. Jon was scared of what he suddenly, clearly knew would be the next thing the good doctor would tell him.
“I have hidden what I have stolen, Jon. It is in your possession. I believe you will know what it is. I hesitate to be more direct; I’m sure you understand. I have built what safeguards I could into this message, but it is hardly all-encompassing. I expect, given time, others could make it play. Much of where we go from here will depend on your memory.” Unbelievably, Jon was sure he saw the deadly-serious, I’m-so-sorry-I’ve-put-you-in-danger disembodied head smirk. “Although you didn’t know it, I’ve been telling you about this since the moment we met.”
The earlier fear now seemed tame. This fear—no, not just fear, this creeping sense of impending doom-made the earlier episode seem almost lighthearted by comparison. He had something the professor had stolen—certainly, he must be talking about something he had stolen from his government research job, so Jon was in possession of something some crazy old man had stolen from the CIA or something. What was more, Jon was apparently supposed to know, without ever having been told, just what the hell it was.
“Holy shit holy shit holy shit,” Jon repeated to himself, sweat beading up on his forehead, a chill crawling up from his belly and spreading out from his chest, then his arms. He had just been sort of casual friends with the old guy. Had done some chorses. And now he the good doctor had stolen something important—and the way the message was delivered proved it had to be something terribly important—and stuck Jon with it. And Jon didn’t even know what it was. Unless, he thought, it was the tape, but—
“You will need to be very alert,” the head continued. “I suggest you trust no one. I know you are young, and may need assistance, but be very careful who you tell. For your safety and quite possibly for theirs. For the moment, you should be safe.” Again, the smirk. “I have left my former employer many, many clues to consider, mainly designed to buy you time. I think you may understand now, too, why I didn’t give you my phone number when you asked. Why I didn’t go to anything outside of my house when you invited me. Why I steered you away from making your thesis in English class on anything to do with me; I know you weren’t happy about that. But I knew that this day would be coming, and I wanted as little left behind, when it did, that would tie us together.”
Jon stared at the translucent, glowing head, mouth agape. His jaw started working. “You lying mother—“
Dr. Bernhard’s head sighed, almost as if he heard Jon. “I know this doesn’t paint me in the best light. I hope you understand. Putting you in this position wasn’t my first choice, but simply trying to run with the item myself, or conceal it—I knew that wasn’t going to work. It would be found out and eventually I would be found. I’ve spent most of my life in government work, or in academia, and you don’t meet too many people you’d trust with your car keys, much less your life, in either area of life.”
Jon shook his head. Even now, the old coot was rambling aimlessly. What was the point of that? He wanted to know what the hell it was Dr. Bernhard had stuck him with. And just how dangerous it was.
“Jon, when I met you, I hadn’t talked with you for an hour before I knew you had been sent into my life for a reason. That in sixty-eight years of life, you were one of the few people I had met that I knew I could trust. That I felt for sure that I should trust. Even with great power. Perhaps especially with great power.”
“Thanks,” Jon murmured, his mouth dry and cottony. “Wish I could say the same.”
Great power? Jon didn’t like the sound of that any better than of tremendous danger.
“I would like to tell you the object must be destroyed. Unfortunately, if that was all there were to it, I might have done it myself. Might have. There is, however, every indication that it survived multiple nuclear blasts, largely without a scratch, and probably worse. And it is of such a durable and advanced technology as that even if you thought you had destroyed it, there would be no way to know. Not for sure.
“I would like to tell you to get rid of it. To drop it to the bottom of the ocean or launch it into the heart of the sun—”
Jon felt that cold, sick feeling spread out from the center of his stomach again with the casual way the good doctor mentioned those options, as if sending something into the center of the sun was something as simple as throwing a candy wrapper in the trash. What the hell did you stick me with, doc? He thought. What the hell did you do?
“I’m sure you want more explanation,” Dr. Bernhard’s ghost image said. “I expect you understand that this is serious. You are a very intelligent young man. You know that what you are holding in your hand represents a technology unknown to Sony and unavailable at Radio Shack. Technology that is easily fifty years ahead of anything we have developed. But—oh, Jon.”
It was hard to tell, but as the head glanced away, over towards the kitchen sink, it looked as if his eyes glazed over. He looked a little bit like a man in love. “The item—it represents technology a century beyond anything we have achieved. Five centuries beyond. Maybe a thousand years beyond anything we have achieved. I believe it represents an end to technology, Jon. The end. The point beyond which there truly is nothing more to discover. The point at which technology turns us into something like gods.”
The head just floated, seeming to gaze off into the distance. Looking a little love struck. Looking maybe a little wistful. Or maybe not wistful. Maybe hungry was a better word.
He suddenly thought of Megan, pulling down her shirt uncomfortably. All right, all right, I’m not a big juicy steak.
“To tell you the truth, even if I was sure as to how to dispose of it at this moment, I’m not sure that I could. I would like to think I am a better person than the people I am working for. That, were I to run away, to secure myself some uncharted desert island from which I could use the power of the item only for good, that that’s what I would do. To feed the world. To provide abundant energy and resources for all. To transform medical care. To make everything safer. To make a world where there was no cancer. No heart disease. No Alzheimer’s. A world where my wife might still be alive.”
The head stared away at the kitchen sink, and then turned, again seeming to look pointedly at him. “I would only mean to do good, Jon. I think that is the terrible trick of it. I would only mean to do good. But the people I’m working for—mostly career government types, but there are also civilians in the mix, as you might imagine—they would only mean to do good, as well. To defend our country. To ensure freedom. To liberate people around the world. To develop a tremendous technological advantage militarily and economically. And those are truly noble goals. They are, Jon. But in the end . . . ”
The head looked away again. “Jon, if you wanted to build a ‘doomsday device’, how would you do it? Do you remember when we talked about that?”
Another day, he had shown Jon Dr. Strangelove—which Jon had thought was hilarious. He had also loved the conspiratorial way in which Dr. Bernhard had confided in him that some of the portrayals were a little too close to reality for comfort. There were, he said, a lot of people in the government and in the military that reminded him of some of the characters in the movie. There had been a doomsday device in that movie, too.
Dr. Bernhard had suggested that perhaps a real doomsday device—something truly designed to wipe out entire civilizations, entire planets—might better come disguised as a gift. That it might come as a Trojan horse, and depend on the very people it would end up destroying to deploy it. Use their resources and energy, their time and labor, and in the end lead them to annihilation.
“It could, in fact, be a test,” he had said. “Give the foolish monkeys a gun, and see if they kill themselves. Gift or curse—it would be up to us. Could you let go of absolute power, even if you knew full well to hold on would kill you? But to let go would be to surrender everything you ever thought you wanted?”
Jon suddenly felt very cold. Had all their conversations been like that? Had everything they had talked about had some double meaning?
Crazy, Jon thought. It’s crazy. He’s crazy. Crazy old man. He was just a kook, that was all. A kook that had somehow had invented a portable holographic projector in his spare time and built it into the shape of a video cassette—
“Or what if some alien civilization, with all the best intentions, shared their advanced technology with cultures not prepared for the responsibility?” Bernhard’s head sighed. “It could seem wonderful. Or it could be like letting a five-year old drive his father’s Buick on a winding mountain road. Do you remember when we talked about lottery winners?”
Jon remember that, too. That conversation had stuck with him. At Jon’s house, they were always short of money. There were always things he wanted that they couldn’t get. They were always shopping at the thrift store. He had dreamed on more than one occasion of winning a sweepstakes or a lottery. He had thought of how their problems would be over. He had been amazed to learn from Dr. Bernhard that most lottery winners ended up in worse circumstances than they had been before they won the money, within five years of having won it. That many of them ended up declaring bankruptcy for the first time in their lives.
Bernhard had had stories, too. A woman living in a trailer park had won the lottery, and then bought the trailer park. She had evicted everybody she hadn’t liked and let only her friends stay. Three years later, she had declared bankruptcy, and lost the trailer park and her own trailer. A man had won a sweepstakes and sold his winnings, which were to be paid over fifteen years, to a financial company for a lump sum that was 60% of what he had won, just so he could have it all right then. He had bought a big house, a car, chartered a plane, lavished gifts on several women and ended up declaring bankruptcy less than two years from the day he collected his check. Additionally, he had burned a lot of bridges in his former circle of colleagues and friends, and had found it impossible to get a job, or find anybody to help him.
“It’s an important lesson,” Bernhard had said. “Sometimes there are shortcuts to the benefits of life. Money, career success, relationships. But there are rarely shortcuts to the responsibility and maturity it takes to cope with them. Successful business people who are hated by their families—what have they won? The handsome fellow that you probably have a class with in school, that all the girls love, who seems to have it so easy—five years from now, when he’s pumping gas and paying child support, what has he won? The drug addict—what are drugs but a shortcut to pleasure? And when addiction has destroyed the addict’s career and relationships, yet he still cannot—or will not—give it up, what does he really have?” Bernhard had shaken his head ruefully. “Great success can be an ugly thing, Jon. A very ugly thing.”
“—but eventually, a connection will be made. We have to expect it,” the luminous, floating head of Dr. Bernhard was saying. Jon had gotten distracted by his memory, trying to put the pieces together. An object of great power. Of advanced technology. Might be a cleverly disguised doomsday device. And it was in Jon’s possession. And someone was going to figure it out. And come after him.
“So you will need to take the object and start moving. I’m not going to tell you where. I cannot tell you how long. Unless you surrender—and you might want to, in the end. Or even the beginning; I know that is a possibility. I just hope you will do the right thing.
“And I may be wrong. If you turn the item back over to the government, it might take months and years or even decades before anything happens. You might be old and gray like me before it all ends. Who knows, I might be wrong. People have been predicting the end of the world since the beginning of recorded history, if not before. Though, I must say, I don’t think any previous doomsayers were faced with anything quite like this.” Again, the smirk. Jon found himself wishing he had never, ever met Dr. Bernhard.
“I have done a lot with the item, but there is much I haven’t. You may discover something I have not. A way to securely and definitively dispose of it, perhaps. If you do, I suggest you get rid of it. I think you can.” Again, he looked away. “I am ashamed to admit it, but I don’t think I could. There is too much promise. Too much potential. It would be like having won a million dollars and throwing a match on it—even though you knew your life would probably be destroyed if you did not. It might be impossible to do. You might talk yourself out of it. Bargain with yourself. Rationalize. I have already done that.” The head chuckled. Chuckled.
Jon was appalled. The old coot was insane. Insane, and casually condemning Jon to a life on the run from the government and God only knew who or what else with some sort of technology bomb.
“I stole it from people I felt would not be good stewards of its power. Who I felt, even with the best intentions, would end up destroying us all. As it turns out, I’m not sure I’m a much better steward. But I believe that’s why it is in your hands now, Jon. I believe you came into my life for a reason. And this is it.”
Jon just stared at the head, afraid of what was going to come next. Oh, by the way, this tape is going to blow up for your safety, I think you’ll understand why I had to blow off your arms—
“I think you should have some time, as I said, but I cannot tell you how much. First, you need to find the item. Think about it, and I’m sure you will. Next, I have prepared a package for you. It is in a locker somewhere. If you think, you will know where, and what number. There is a small slot, if you look, in the front of the video cassette you are holding. Insert two quarters in it.”
Jon blinked. Dr. Bernhard’s head floated, frozen in miniature, over the tape, waiting. Jon felt as if he had been asked to insert a quarter for another three minutes. Insert quarters? What the hell? He searched his pockets and came up with one quarter and some nickels and pennies. He put in the one quarter, touching it to the thin slit on the front of the video cassette, and it disappeared with an unpleasant sucking sound.
Jon then stood up. It hurt; he had been crouching by the kitchen door for almost ten minutes now, and he’d gone stiff. Still keeping one hand on the video cassette, he fumbled around in the kitchen drawer beside the dish washer. There was a little dish with change in it, and, sure enough, another quarter. He took the other quarter and pressed it to the slot, it disappeared with same noise. The tape vibrated briefly in his hand, and then an object emerged from the slot.
“Take the key,” Dr. Bernhard continued.
Jon removed the key from the slot. He could barely make out a crude impression of George Washington. Like the Penny Press at the Knoxville Zoo (which would turn out an elongated penny with an angry gorilla embossed on one side), it appeared the video cassette had stamped his quarters into the shape of a key.
“That goes to the locker,” the head explained. “I think you know where.”
Jon thought he did, too, but that could wait.
“A word of warning—the package in the locker is keyed to you. As is the item. As is the tape. However, I could only anticipate so much. Exercise caution in the presence of others. The key serves another purpose, as well, but use it cautiously. This message will not be activated without you touching the tape, and was designed not to play with other people around—I did not know in what circumstances you might be opening this package. While not foolproof, I believe the mechanism I devised was close enough for government work.” The head smirked again. The old asshole thought all this was funny. “The slot you put the quarters through—it will always be there, though difficult to see. To play this message with somebody else, press the key to the slot—you will have to keep holding it—and it will play even with others around. However, it is keyed to your fingerprints and will never play without you.”
His fingerprints. Jon suddenly remembered being over at Dr. Bernhard’s house, watching a movie on his BetaMax—still quite a novel thing, to Jon, who didn’t even have cable, to watch a movie whenever you wanted to—and Dr. Bernhard had asked him if he had wanted a drink. Jon had said yes, a Coke would be great, and Bernhard had come back with a black glass and handed it to him. Jon had taken it, and then looked inside it. The glass had been empty. Bernhard apologized, and immediately snatched the glass back, holding it at the rim between thumb and forefinger, and returned a moment later with a glass filled with Coke and ice, only this was a blue glass. Not black.
Jon shook his head. Bernhard had been lifting Jon’s fingerprints. How many other stunts like that had the old man pulled?
“The package I’ve left for you contains more information. Additionally, I have had some time to develop a few things—the clever little gizmo you currently hold in your hand being but one example—that I hope may be of help to you.” As he described the video cassette as a clever little gizmo, Jon couldn’t help noticing that Bernhard looked quite pleased with himself. “As you have an opportunity, you may wish to study the item yourself and develop things as you need them to protect yourself, and the item. Until you can find a way to dispose of it. And, in the end, you must dispose of it. There will be no end of trouble unless you do.”
No end of trouble. Great, just great.
“Time is of the essence. I suggest you retrieve the package I have left for you as soon as possible. Take it and the object and get moving.” The head bent down, and then disappeared halfway up, as if he had been leaning to turn something off. Then, it came back into full view. “Another thing, Jon. Stay away from my house. They will be watching it, and there will be nothing for you there. Avoid airports and car rental—”
“Car rental?” Jon couldn’t help but ask, exasperated. “I don’t have a license! I don’t have any money! I’m not old enough to drive!”
The head ignored him. “Pay for everything in cash. Avoid using your real name at hotels and motels. Keep a lookout for strange people and strange cars. You might want to occasionally vary your style of dress and hair. Some of things I have provided should help you there. Be very careful who you involve. For their sake as well as your own. And be vary careful of how you use the item.”
The head bent forward, and there was a flash. The video cassette was just a video cassette, and Jon was standing by himself, in a dark kitchen, face sweating and legs trembling, holding an unmarked key pressed out of quarters in one hand, and the fairly normal looking video cassette in the other.
Finally, he went back to his bedroom. Placing the key on his dresser, he laid down on his bed, not knowing what to do. Not knowing what to believe. Megan snorted on the floor beside him. He looked down at her, and he only felt ill. What the hell had that old bastard gotten Jon into?
He turned over, looking away from Megan. Shit! What the hell was he going to do? How was he going to get out of this? Find the thing, figure out what it was, and maybe go drop it out in a dumpster at the mall? Go drive up into the mountains and drop it a mile into the woods? He’d have to get someone to drive him—
Oh, Lord. Jon felt nauseous. He turned over on his back, folded hands on his chest, and quietly started to pray.
A few moments later, he was asleep.
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