Chris Mooney - World Without End

Beyond the front door is what can only be called a two-room changing chamber. The first part has a floor made of white marble and a set of four lockers, two on each wall, for the three-man cleaning team. They work solely for the owner and have been handpicked for their discretion. They are well paid and must submit to blood tests at the beginning of each month. In this age of technology, disease runs rampant a man in his position needs to be careful. When the owner is in Austin, as he has been for the past few months, they come to clean the condo every two weeks. If you are granted the rare opportunity to meet the man inside, this is what you must do:

Strip out of your clothes and hang them neatly inside the locker. Now face the long, rectangular monitor. The owner will want to check your skin for sores or lesions. Exposed cuts, even ones that are in the process of healing, are cause for rejection. Make sure your nails are trimmed. And do not try to hide anything. Security cameras placed in the corners watch your every move.

The stainless-steel shower has two doors that operate on locks controlled by the owner. Enter. The door will shut and lock itself, and the water will be turned on for you. It is hot. Pick up the bottle of PhisoHex and the scrub brush and then face the monitor. Start scrubbing your skin, paying particular attention to your fingernails, a known breeding ground for bacteria. If the owner is satisfied with the manner in which you have washed, the water will be shut off and the lock on the shower's second door will be released. Step out into the second room and begin the elaborate process of suiting up.

The regimen is specific. Do not deviate from it for any reason.

Towel yourself off and then toss the towel inside the biohazard bag.

Use the iso-foam alcohol on your skin. Make sure you cover each part of your skin; the camera is watching you, and you will be told about the areas you've missed. Tyvek suits, folded and sealed inside plastic bags, are stacked in a stainless-steel container next to the shower.

Rip open the bag and place the provided sterile Tyvek strip on the floor. Place one foot on the strip and then put the bootie on your other foot. Now step down with the booted foot and place the second bootie on your exposed foot. Slip into the Tyvek body suit and secure the hood around your head. The Tyvek body suit will keep your body hair and any remaining dead skin cells from contaminating the condo.

The glove process is elaborate and time-consuming. Two pairs of gloves are required. Again, rub your hands with the iso-foam alcohol and then put one glove on, rolling the cuff down. Repeat with the other. Now rub more iso-foam alcohol on your gloved hands and repeat with the second set, making sure that the gloves are sealed under the cuffs of your Tyvek suit. Secure the breathing filtration system across your mouth and nose, and then put on your goggles. If the owner is satisfied by the procedure, you are granted access.

The lock on the door clicks open. Come inside.

The HVAC unit is a constant, low rumble. The air-conditioning units give the rooms a cold, refrigerated feel. As always, the owner is alone.

Outside, the morning temperature has already reached ninety degrees.

The man's breath fogs the air and then disappears. If he is bothered by the cold, he doesn't show it. He stares out the window, the sunlight bright and warm against his pale face. He can stand like this for hours and stare. Thinking. Meditating. Right now, he is thinking about the origin of the name the CIA has given him: Angel Eyes.

The man's real name is Amon Faust. The CIA doesn't know this, of course. They know nothing about him. But Faust knew about them, about the trap waiting for him at the airport.

This morning, Faust was dressed in white linen pants and an off-white sweater. When inside, he preferred wearing white, the only color that could be bleached. His head recently had been shaved. Faust detested body hair. Each morning, he shaved his head and the few patches of skin on his body that were not horribly scarred by the burn. Only his eyebrows remained. Removing them would only draw attention when traveling outside. His line of work demanded anonymity.

Faust walked across the hardwood floor in his bare feet to the living area. Clipped to the waistband of his pants was a phone with a wire running to the headset and microphone. He would be on the phone a large part of the day.

It was safe to talk. The windows were multiple-pane glass with a Mylar film inside. If someone outside was using a laser listening device to pick up vibrations off the glass, they wouldn't be able to hear anything. The phone he used had state-of-the-art digital encryption that Raymond Bouchard and his private group of twenty-first-century warriors couldn't crack. The condo's walls were lined with copper and for added security he had devices that prevented phone calls, conversations, and emissions from TV and computer screens from being picked up by any outside monitoring devices.

Mounted on the wall was an audio system along with a single row of neatly stacked titles of rare vinyl records that dated back to the early fifties. He preferred vinyl records over audio tapes and compact discs, or the more popular MP3 music files, which could be pirated from any number of Internet sites. Faust found the weight and feel of the cardboard sleeve in his hands comforting, the way the needle sounded when it first hit the record, implying a shared intimacy between the singer and listener.

He was in the mood for something soulful. He scanned the titles…

Dinah Washington. Perfect. He removed the cardboard with his bare hands and then slid out the record, catching a whiff of the aged, moldy cardboard. The man who brought him these records, Gunther the boy Faust had raised himself, used a special cleaning process to disinfect the record. Ultraviolet light killed lingering germs on the cardboard sleeve.

Faust played one of his favorite songs: "TV Is the Thing This Year." As Dinah sang over the ceiling-mounted speakers, he walked into the kitchen, rubbing his hands over the cool, smooth surface of the Corian counters. He preferred the look of granite but couldn't risk possible infection. Granite was notorious for holding germs and lethal bacteria deep in the microscopic crevices, places that not even the cleaning solutions could reach. He opened the Sub-Zero refrigerator and removed a glass bottle of water. Faust had the water imported from Iceland, where the water came from a glacier that was over one thousand years old. He did not drink water from the United States, and avoided drinking any fluid stored in plastic. The chemical used to form plastic, Bisphenol-A2, was a carcinogen known to leach its way into bottled water. The world was in such a deplorable state, plagued with viral diseases that had no cure and cancers and toxins that lived in the very air we breathed, the food and water we ate. Faust knew his measures were extreme, but they would help to ensure his health. He had to live in order to carry out his personal vision.

The phone rang. Faust pressed the TALK button.

"Yes, Gunther."

"Conway and Dixon are on their way to the skydiving school."

"How many following?"

"A surveillance unit and two vans containing their Hazard Teams."

Since Major Dixon wouldn't make it to the airport, there was no need to direct any resources to the IWAC members lurking about the terminal or the CIA's base of operations, Delburn Systems.

The exchange of the disc, no doubt laced with a computer virus, was not going to occur today.

"And how is Major Dixon?"

"Nervous. At breakfast Conway tried to talk Dixon out of skydiving."

"Obviously. And?"

"Dixon wouldn't back down. He wants to go through with it."

"Good for him. It's about time the boy came into his own." And over time Faust would show him how the same way he had taught Gunther.