Paul Jones - Extinction Point - The End

He took a long drag, held the smoke in his lungs for a few moments before exhaling it into the cool evening air in one long, slow breath. He was trying to give the things up, weaning himself off them by using them as a reward. When he completed five pages of the book, he got to have a smoke. Of course, he had been using the same excuse for the last ten years or so — didn’t look like his technique was working too well.

At twenty dollars a pack, it was amazing that anybody could still afford to smoke the damn things. Countries and presidents, ideologies and industry; they all came and went, but cigarettes outlived the lot of them. Jim wasn’t sure whether that was a testament to the resilience of people’s freedom of choice or just to the obscene amount of money that tobacco companies still threw into their marketing and advertising campaigns.

He hadn’t completed his five-page quota today; it wasn’t for lack of trying on his part, and he’d be damned if he was going to take a ride on the guilt-trip-express just because he fell down this once.

Its New Year’s Eve for God’s sake , he reminded himself.

Glancing at his wristwatch, he realized it was almost 10 pm. Still another two hours left until the ball would be falling in Times Square.

He could have chosen a hotel closer to the festivities; instead, he booked himself into his usual room in the small family run place on Royal Street, just a block or so away from the Old Ursuline Convent. If he was quick he could change into some fresh clothes and head for one of the bars that littered Bourbon Street . Jim didn’t want to see in the coming year stuck in a room on his own.

He would take a wander down Bourbon Street and see the sights; have a few drinks and maybe he would even treat himself to a cigar.

That’s what he loved about this city, you could amble through the streets drinking a glass of wine and smoking a big fat stogy if you wanted, and no one would look at you sideways. If he tried doing that in LA, he would have half-a-dozen unemployed actors — between jobs , they would be quick to correct — yelling in his face how much harm he was doing to himself, how he was depleting the ozone, blah-blah-blah . He’d heard the same arguments for the last half-a-century. Even good sense can start to stink if your nose gets rubbed in it for long enough , he thought.

Jim laughed at himself, a quiet half-mocking snort. A cigarette, the promise of booze and a cigar, damn he was living dangerously these days.

What the hell! Why should he care? He was sixty years old, after all. A couple of smokes and a few drinks weren’t going to shorten his life by more than a couple of minutes. He deserved a break. He had thrown himself into the latest book with more gusto than usual. It had consumed him for the past four months and it had also taken a toll on him, both physical and mental. A few hours away from it would do him good, give him a chance to clear his mind and reset his imagination.

Jim Baston had never once encountered writer’s-block during his career as a writer. Twelve books, all of them in the top ten of all the right bestseller lists. The books had flowed from him. He had written them on the fly , straight from his imagination to the computer. The completed novel invariably needed little in the way of editing; such was the clarity with which he was able to visualize the story and its characters in his mind.

But this one was different.

It was a work of non-fiction, his autobiography of sorts. Facing his past was hard and painful. So many mistakes locked away, hidden in the darkness of his previous life. And, as he released each memory out of its mental holding-cell, carefully removing the psychic padlock that had kept them safely locked away, he was forced to confront them in all their horrible glory.

As he watched the thunderheads moving closer to the city, he realized how weary he was. It was a weariness that started deep in the marrow of his bones, radiating out through every sinew, along every vein and nerve ending; resonating in every atom of his body.

Exhausted , he thought. Tired of getting up in the morning alone, of drowning himself in his work, of the only calls he ever received being from his editor. He was tired, he realized, of life. He was exhausted by the weight of his past. One night of rest would be a good thing. He could rejoin the human race for a little while.

Flicking the dog-end of the cigarette onto the concrete of the balcony, he extinguished it with his foot, turned and walked back into the room. A shiver ran through him, it was cool out there.

Jim grabbed his overcoat from the hanger behind the door, threw it on, picked up his wallet and keys from the side table, and headed out the door that would take him to the streets of New Orleans.

Byron Portia slipped his silver-gray Peterbilt Hydro-Con into gear, rumbled out from the truck stop off I-15 and headed towards the interstate onramp.

In his late fifties, Byron was a man who just seemed to slip past the view of most people. If he had walked into a restaurant and blown away a couple of the patrons, the survivors would have been hard-pressed to remember any distinguishing feature. ‘Nondescript’ was the word most people would use to describe him, if they had to.

Of course, they would be completely wrong.

His unremarkable appearance was a carefully cultivated part of his persona. He did not want people to remember him. The mop of graying hair, usually hidden beneath a Met’s baseball cap, changed color at his whim with the use of an off-the-shelf hair dye. He didn’t favor wigs — too much chance they could fall off in a struggle. The paunch jutting out over his belted Levi’s was sufficient to suggest a lazy, relaxed, lifestyle, of nights in front of the TV and a diet of Coors and fast food. His naturally frost-blue eyes were occasionally altered with the use of disposable tinted contact lenses, and he was always quick to cultivate a beard or mustache, interchanging as he saw fit. Underneath the baggy, blue flannelled shirt, he was a tightly muscled man. He worked out regularly using the dumbbells he kept in the back of his big-rig, putting in three hours a day most days.

Strong as an ox , as his dear departed mom had often said.

He was meticulous about one other thing: maintaining his mask .

It did not matter how careful he was with all of his physical disguises, if you didn’t take into account your mask then you were screwed. He had learned that little lesson early on in his career. No matter how well he manipulated his appearance as non-threatening, however shy he acted, how big-brotherly or fatherly he appeared, if he could not control his unconscious thoughts he would betray himself.

That bitch in Las Vegas had proved that to him.

The big-rig thundered up the onramp. The interstate filter light showed green, so he slipped the gear stick up a notch and gently eased his foot down on the accelerator, pushing the speedometer up towards sixty. He did this on instinct, his subconscious running through the routine of controlling the rig. His conscious mind… elsewhere.

Byron could have activated the rig’s artificial intelligence system and had it drive the vehicle but he was a man who liked to remain in control of every situation. In all the years that he owned the truck, not once had he switched the AI on.

Instead, he allowed his mind to drift, running through memories almost a quarter century old.

Vegas Baby! What happens here, stays here. That’s what the old ads had extolled. That whore of a city, built by the mob and run for years by a mayor who had represented more killers and triggermen than he could probably remember. It was in this place that his calling had almost ended before it started.