Ted Kosmatka - Prophet of Bones

Password fail.

“Fuck,” Paul muttered.

Three failures would lock the system down, triggering a series of security protocols that would lead directly into deep shit. This was not the time to be playing the password guessing game.

He stood and reached his arm around the side of the computer, feeling for more sticky notes. There were none. He opened the desk drawer. Again nothing.

“Fuck,” he said again.

Paul hit No, then Exit, then Log off.

The machine groaned as the hard drive worked.

Paul pulled the black sweatshirt over his head and stuffed it into his backpack. Underneath he wore a white shirt and tie, his usual laboratory attire. He tugged his sweatpants down and pulled them off over his shoes, revealing gray slacks.

The computer chirped again.

Log off complete.

Paul yanked the flashdrive from the port and clicked Shut down.

The machine chirped.

Shutting down.

Three seconds passed. Five seconds. “Jesus. Seriously?” Paul glanced at the doorway. “Come on.”

Nothing was happening.

“Fuck it,” Paul said and hit the power button. Cold shutdown.

He sprinted across the room and out the door. He crossed the hall in five long strides and was at his own door, card in hand. He swiped into the type lab just as the elevator doors dinged.

Janus stepped into the hall.

That night, Paul walked inside his apartment building with the flash drive in his pocket.

He took the stairs up and on the third floor passed two men in the short hall leading up to his apartment. This seemed strange to him, two large men he did not recognize. Men who didn’t make eye contact as he passed. Paul turned and watched them disappear down the stairs. When they were gone, he continued to his apartment. There were only two doors at the end of the hall. There wasn’t a lot of places they could have been coming from. Paranoia, he told himself.

Still, he knocked on his neighbor’s door. The old woman, Mrs. Anderson, answered.

“Did you just get visited by two men?” he asked her.

“What two men?”

“Visitors. Did you just receive visitors?”

“I have visitors? She stuck her head out into the hall.

“No, I was asking if you’d just had visitors.”

“No, no visitors in a while.”

“Thank you,” Paul said.

The old woman eyed him suspiciously and shut her door.

He opened his apartment door and stepped inside. Nothing looked different. The same random chaos. Papers on the table. A few dishes in the sink. A cup sitting out on the counter. If they’d been inside, they’d left no evidence.

The next day, Paul arrived early to work. He nodded to the guard and took the elevator up.

He smiled when he realized that he’d beaten the secretaries in. On impulse, as he reached Charles’s empty office, Paul looked both ways, then slipped inside.

This time the room looked different.

The office had been ransacked. Gone were the stacks of papers and neatly ordered binders. The desk drawers were open, their contents gutted, scattered across the floor. Anything resembling a work in progress had been taken away. Paul stared at the whiteboard where the formulas had been. Everything had been erased.

There were so many Charles stories.

The time Paul had overheard him talking to Leonard, the two of them in the hall, arguing like an old married couple.

“Don’t you remember?” Charles asked.

“No,” Leonard said.

“You said it was slide two fifty-three.”

“I don’t remember,” Leonard said.

“I said, ‘Okay’ and walked around to the other side of the bench.”

“It was six months ago.”

“Remember, you said slide number two fifty-three was showing signs of necrotization, and then I said we’ll have to start using the two percent solution, and then Michelle walked in. Remember?”

“I remember something like that, but it was a while ago.”

“And then she said, ‘Do you have a—’”

“Jesus, Charles, was it cloudy that day? Do you remember that, too? Was there an airplane flying overhead? What was the weather like that day?”

“It was sunny.”

“Really, are you sure? What time of day did this conversation happen? Was it nine-oh-five or nine-oh-six? Was it the second Tuesday of the month?”

Paul zeroed in on one of the messiest-looking piles. He searched through the chaos of papers, hoping to get lucky. After five minutes, he found it.

He held it up in front of his face. An envelope, a bill from an insurance office. In the center was Charles’s home address.

Paul Google Mapped his way to Charles’s home, which turned out to be an apartment.

A small, neat walk-up, not far from the water in a quiet, gentrified part of town. A simple fourplex with a dark shingle roof and blue siding. It wasn’t at all what Paul had expected. Or maybe he wasn’t sure what he’d expected. There were always stories circulating around the lab about other companies trying to hire Charles away. Each time it happened, he’d go to the bosses, who would match the offer. Somebody must have told Charles that this was the thing to do. If Charles made a lot of money, the apartment didn’t show it. It was a humble, simple building, in a humble, simple neighborhood.

So that is what a company does when its star decides not to work anymore, Paul thought. It keeps paying him, so he won’t work anywhere else.

Paul climbed out of his car and walked up the short sidewalk to the door.

He knocked.

There was a long silence, then the sound of rustling from inside. The curtain beside the window parted, though Paul couldn’t see into the darkness of the interior. He could make out only a hand on the curtain. Long, pale fingers. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the hand withdrew, and the curtain settled again.

Paul waited for the door to open but it didn’t happen.

He knocked again.

A few moments later, the door opened a crack.

Charles’s face appeared. He looked like he’d lost weight.

“Hey, Charles.”

“Paul,” he said. “What do you want?”

From most people, such a salutation would be rude. From Charles, it was an honest question. Nothing more, nothing less.

“I want to talk to you.”

Charles looked at him through the gap. They’d been acquaintances, but never friends. Charles had no friends, not really.

“Come in.”

Charles retreated from the doorway, disappearing into the shadows. Paul pushed the door open and followed him inside. He closed the door behind him.

The interior was neat and clean. Almost sterile. A functional brown couch sat against one wall. There were books in a shelf. A TV sat in the corner. A reasonable love seat rounded out the room.

“Would you like something to drink?” Charles asked. Paul sensed that some protocol was being followed.

“That would be great. Water is fine.”

Charles disappeared into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a glass.

They sat on the couches. Paul put his pack on the seat next to him.

“So, Charles,” Paul began, “how have you been?”

“I’ve been well.” Charles sat with his hands on his knees. He looked uncomfortable, unsure of how to navigate the social niceties of an unexpected visitor.

When it became apparent that he wasn’t going to say anything else, Paul said, “I haven’t seen you at work in a while.”

“No, not in a while.”

“What have you been up to?”

“I’ve just been here.” Charles looked around the room. “Yeah, just here.”

Paul saw no reason not to avoid the point. “Charles, why aren’t you at the lab anymore?”

Charles nodded to himself. As if he had some private list in his head and he’d just checked off an item.