wildcard

a deafening goodbye & skin pressed under a knife

-I can hide you no longer.

-Me? or us?

-Both of you. I cannot keep you hidden if you are
together. The voice was casual, almost bored sounding.

-How long do I have?

-Separate. One, or both of you, must be in a different city within three days. The voice chuckled. Three. It seemed to be referring to something else.

-Who are you?

-Hmm…Call me Seeker.
She was at a payphone. Can’t you get more time. A week?

-No. She heard the sound of a knife thunking into wood on the other end. Unfortunately, that is not the part of the game at which I excel. The others are better than I am, deeply Named.

-What? What did you call me?

-Oh? You have not heard that. How interesting. Deeply Named. It is one of your… titles. By the way, I have a message for you. Would you like it?

-Yes. Of course I would.

-Hold out your left hand. Don’t look. 5-4-3-2-1.
She felt an envelope touch her outstretched hand. She grabbed it. From whom?

-You will find out, but not today.

-Is it from you?
Seeker made a throat clearing noise. Don’t read it until you are separated.
That had been the third and final phone call.

Martha had trusted, or at least believed, the voice for four years. Since she had taken Karl. Never saw the face. Four years earlier, a payphone rang when she was walking by. The voice had told her that no one could find her, find them, for the time being. The owner of the voice would hide and protect them.

She believed, not that it made much difference. She didn’t change her pattern at the time. But if the voice wanted them dead or otherwise, it certainly could arrange that. Much easier than making a random payphone ring when a particular person is walking past it.


No one else ever found her. She would have known.
She received a second call in that four years, again on a payphone. Outside of a grocery store. Told her she would not be called again until they had to separate. Things were looking for her. There was a need to minimize contact. Be prepared. Prepare your young charge to be…discharged. Chuckle. Gender neutral, the octaves and registers strange and misplaced.

Then this, the final call.
48 hours after it, she walked through Grenoble holding a young boy’s hand. He was wearing a backpack, large for his size. Heavy, a bit, for his strength.

-Would you like to get lunch, Karl? She wanted to say his name, although it was painful to do so. At our favorite place? In the square?

-Oui, said the boy, who looked and acted 12. He was smiling, happy, wearing a red baseball cap. For luck, he said. Martha chewed her lip.

-Aloneliness, she whispered to her herself.
Karl looked up at her.

-Qu’est-ce que ca veut dire? What does that mean?

-Nothing. Just talking to myself. Speak English for now.

-What did you say? He skipped his feet back and forth, in the manner of children who want to move, but not to move ahead. What does aloneliness mean?

-It doesn’t matter. Somewhere between loneliness and alone.

He considered the puzzle, turning his head forward again, and bouncing it from side to side in rhythm with his feet. He had wide, bright eyes and an open expression. Curious, interested. Intelligent. Martha had always thought of him as intelligent, but not in a science/math way. Socially. Karl could engage socially. Did so automatically. Not in a brusque, or invasive manner.

He would see a group of children playing, and, almost invisibly, become part of their group. Never the leader, though. They would accept him as if he had always been there. Every time.

He had learned French with no more difficulty than eating an apple. Attractive and charming, but not in a way that caused too much memory of him. Which was good.

Karl needed to disappear. Rather, Karl needed to stay disappeared.

She had taught him much in the four years of tutelage. Martha had been trained in many things as a child, matters of espionage, modes of survival, languages and non-verbal communication if you did not know the language, means of very rapid language acquisition, techniques to disappear. She invented games for him to play and learn, so that he could stay alive, possibly even thrive, in the harsh and bizarre milieu he had been born into.

She understood her destiny. Or perhaps her mission in life. Her principal aim. Finally. She had come to know it in the last 48 hours, since Seeker had called her. Her nerves, the fibers of who she was, seemed to realign. Her mind oriented itself to this goal. Her life’s work. It might, would, take years. Her entire life, perhaps her death, eventually. And patience.

Her life might be spent waiting, watching. Dying of old age, having done nothing. That could be the task. The shape of it was not clear. One painful act to perform before the waiting and hiding began. Not began, but entered a new level, aloneliness.

Karl, she knew, was born to disappear. Not dying, or ceasing to be involved. But to be invisible, untraceable. He had been designed that way, it seemed. An innate skill in him, which she had learned, been forced to learn, painfully, and was good at it. But Karl was impeccable. Completely natural. He was invisible, not by being separate, but by being part of. Blending in. Fading into crowds. Getting another’s focus of gaze, focus of attention, to slide away, just past the shoulder. Not cutting their interest, but slipping it off, onto something else.

There were techniques – looking over your shoulder, or the other person’s, as if something interesting was there, going beige, so that you were not interesting enough, dropping money surreptitiously to shift attention away, making the other person notice themselves by staring for an instant at them – but there was a thing that Karl had which could not be taught, which Martha did not have.

He could simply vanish.

In the larger circle of disappearing, Martha had taught Karl more sophisticated technique: creating trails in other cities, leaving multiple witnesses who were certain you had gone to a false location, appearing on paper elsewhere by using credit cards, hotel room records, and legal documents, paying people to plant evidence, but making them think they were doing something else.

He was too young to understand it well, but she would do it for him. Eventually, he would understand. If he lived. If he remained free.

Why so soon? Painful irony, to have to do this, only to wait for years. She had more to teach him, more to learn from him. It was not fair, but fair was useless. Probably dangerous.

They sat at a café in the large square in Grenoble. Karl ordered an American burger, fries, and a coke, and dug in. Martha got a salad and a milkshake which she hardly touched. Martha had always known the day would come. Technology could no longer be outrun.
She brushed something off his coat. Let’s play our game.

-Which one? Hiding? Mask? cross-back?

-Crowds. Blend into the crowd. I want to play it longer this time. For a few hours. Keep your pack. Disappear. She leaned over, lifted his chin with a finger, held it.
Karl, you must disappear now. A psychokinetic suggestion.

Martha had worked with Karl frequently, implanting knowledge and tactics which his child’s mind could not understand, but would be useful later. She had laid down deep tracts of behavior routines which would automate in various circumstances. Now this. Disappear.

-What? He did not understand. Or did and did not want to. He wanted to pretend they were just playing one of their spy games for a little while longer. So did she, and she let him play.

-Go, disappear. Into the crowd.
She could not tell him much more of value. Most of it was explained in a note in his pack. Places where money was hidden. His past. What to do if he was caught. The most important – Je t’aime, M - at the end.

Everything except why. A question she could not answer. He knew how. Just tap into who he was and combine it with the training she had given him.

-Where do we meet and when?
She could not lie, could not tell him the truth. Look in your bag in one hour. There is a note.

He smiled weakly. Anything else?

-No.

He turned to walk away.

-Wait. Come here. She hugged him, kissed his forehead, and held the kiss for a long minute. Thankfully, he hugged her back and asked no more question. She spun him around quickly so that he would not see the tear welling up in each eye.

-Go, she said, with a slight push.

He turned and left, humming.

-Go, Karl, she whispered, after he disappeared in the crowd.



The General dressed in his field khakis. Button up shirt and trousers. Green 5 centimeter wide pistol belt. White lanyard of command buttoned inside the epaulet of the left shoulder. Brass fleur-de-lis on both shoulders. Vetements de travail, he called them. Working clothes.

The General was French, with a heavy accent. He pronounced ‘th’ as ‘zh’ and ate seven course meals every night. He owned a palace and a military headquarters. The latter was on an island. He liked the island better.

He prepared for his interrogation of the Mechanic.
The Sergeant had captured the Mechanic. He had also interrogated him, under orders, including significant torture. But he had been torture proofed. He never spoke a word. Catatonic.

He walked through the underground cement-walled corridors of his compound to the interrogation room. The Sergeant stood outside, feet a half meter apart, hands clasped behind the back, standing straight. At ease posture. As the General approached, he snapped to attention.

-Doucez vous, Sergeant.

The Sergeant relaxed back into an at ease position.
-He’s ready for interrogation, sir.

-I will enter alone.
-Sorry, sir, I can’t let that happen. Not with him.

The General nodded. Comme vous souhaitez. Shall I enter first?

-Prefer not, but as you want, sir. Being captured was not on his resume. His capture is a ruse for something else.
The General opened the door.
The Mechanic lay strapped to a metal frame, naked and unmoving.

-Monsieur le Mechanic. Parlez avec moi.
His eyes snapped open. He stared at the ceiling a few seconds, eyes twitching to different points, stopping, twitching again.

-Qu’est-ce qu’il fait? What is he doing?

-A memory recall device, most likely. His persona was inaccessible to us. Our best guess is a triggered catatonia, base condition: his capture.

-Why does it end now?

-Your presence, no doubt. He’ll be in an intermediary state.
He tried to sit up, then realized he was strapped in place.
-I come authorized to negotiate. No inflection.

-Free him, Sergeant. What have you to offer?
The Mechanic sat up. We can open the gate. He spoke woodenly, and sat the same.

-How?

-We need the Deeply Named and l’Innocent.

-Why do you need her?

-The gate will be blocked until the Deeply Named and the Benefactor meet.

-Why?

-You do not know?

-Tell me.

-I cannot say this.

The Sergeant spoke up.
-He has very sophisticated defenses about certain information. His loyalty, like mine, is genetically encoded.

It’s difficult to find much. We have found an information store, probably laced with data bombs and false trails with perpetual fractal spins. It probably has good information, but it’s dangerous. Do you want us to examine it? I advise against that, by the way. It could be a trap.

-Non. Not yet. Why is he like this?

-Part of the conditioning. Most of his persona seems to be absent. He probably cannot remember many things and others are locked away.

-Tell me about the Deeply Named. To the Mechanic.

-We cannot find her. You must. Send her to us. We will share what we learn of reconsciousness and the gate. To a point. Later, we will need l’Innocent. His eyes were staring but unfocused. He had not blinked since sitting up.

-Where is she from?

-She is the first clone, created in IKG labs.

-The clone of who?
The Mechanic’s right eye, mouth and head began to jerk furiously.

-Le clone de qui? Sergeant, le forcez a repondre. Make him talk.

-Trident, punch him with the nano-nerve stimulator.
The Mechanic screamed, began writhing. Ten seconds.

-OK, Trident.
He ceased screaming.

-Donnez-moi l’information. Qui est le Deeply Named, vraiment?

Nothing. Trident hit him again. And again.
-Who is the Benefactor?

He tried to answer, began choking, foamy bits of spittle flew from his mouth. He fell over, turning blue, slid to the floor.

-Don’t answer that question, The Sergeant said. The Mechanic was on hands and knees, vomiting, but no longer choking. The Sergeant picked him up and set him on the table, brought him a glass of water.
-It will kill him to answer that.

The General nodded. I want the gate open.

The Mechanic drained the water. He set the glass down, suddenly much more present. The Sergeant bladed off a fraction, ready to strike or defend.

-So do we, General. The Mechanic smiled. Shall we open negotiations?


The Mechanic coughed into his hand and a plain white business card appeared in it, turned away from the Sergeant’s wrist device. He offered it to the General, who looked at the Sergeant, who slid his device arm behind his back.

The Sergeant scanned the Mechanic visually. He reached out for the card, but the Mechanic pulled it back, indicated the General by a nod.

The Sergeant signaled a slight no. The Mechanic brought his hand down slowly, palming the card, holding it between index and middle finger, the edge not touching the palm.

No one mentioned it.

-We have located Karl.

-Vous avez trouve L’Innocent? Formidable. Where?

-He is in Lyons.

-He stayed so close to Grenoble? The General looked into the corner, thinking. Etrange et brilliante.

-No doubt, being who he is. You have to do the project. We cannot. You must bring a team together, one which includes Karl. You must gain his trust, as well.

The General shrugged. Your situation is unchanged?

-We need Martha. You must find her for us. Send her to us willingly. Nothing happens until then, and for a time after. We will block it until then.

-I think this is what must happen. I will do these things. He turned to leave.

The Mechanic nodded. He offered the card to the Sergeant whose arm was still behind his back. Holding his eyes locked to the Mechanic’s who returned the stare impassively. The Sergeant took the card, held it palmed, but pinched between middle and index finger, the edge not touching his palm.

The General and Sergeant left the room.
The Sergeant held back to examine the card. benefactor, the only thing on the front. Writing on the back, tiny, neat cursive.
Recipe to fell a god. It had many lines. The rest were too small for any human save the Sergeant to read.
Some tek on one of the short edges, an obsolete computer interface.