Paul Jones - Extinction Point - The End

“God forgive me,” he said, kicked the chair from beneath his feet and jerked spastically at the end of the rope for over a minute until blackness finally claimed him.

There was a certain gaudiness to Bourbon Street at this time of year that, while it repulsed him with its cheapness on one level, was also a strange attractor drawing Jim Baston towards it, like a priest to a potential convert.

Sitting at a street-side table of an out-of-the-way café, he waited for a waiter to fetch his drink. It was a kitschy little theme-café, with fake lampposts and piped accordion music, attempting — in vain, Jim noted — to recreate the ambience of a Parisian street cafe. But it was the only place he could find that had any space left for him to sit; all of the other restaurants and clubs were filled to brimming, and he was averse to elbowing himself through a heaving body of youngsters just for the sake of some company.

The waiter, a tall teenager with a stubbly goatee and dressed in a long white bib and apron, brought his drink; whisky and soda… on the rocks.

“May I get you anything more, Monsieur?” the teenager asked with a half-decent French accent. Jim shook his head and told the kid thanks, but this would be fine for now.

Spiraled black bars of wrought iron set firmly in a red brick base and similar surround separated the sidewalk from the table area that Jim now sat at. Perhaps that was why the cafe was less popular? People liked to be able to walk — or stagger — freely between bars in this town. Jim was glad of the space, he could sit unobserved with a clear view of the street and watch the world and its inhabitants wander by undisturbed thanks to the cage like bars.

From the breast pocket of his jacket, Jim pulled the cigar he had bought earlier at a small tobacco vendor he’d come across as he strolled along Bourbon Street. A hand rolled Churchill maduro; Cuban, clothed in a clear plastic wrapper that crackled as he rolled the cigar between his fingers. Cuban cigars had become widely available in the United States, the trade embargo finally lifted after Castro’s eventual death back in 2013. The owner of the cigar store had been kind enough to give the cigar a cut and supplied him with a complimentary book of matches, the shops logo and address printed in colorful relief on its cover.

Flipping the cover open, he tore a match from the book

and struck it against the safety bar on the backside. The match flared, casting shadows on the plastic-ivy lined bistro walls, the sulfurous smell of the match’s ignition filled Jim’s nostrils and he felt his mouth begin to salivate in expectation.

Tearing away the plastic wrapper, he placed the cigar between his lips, twisting it close to the flame of the match while taking quick deep puffs to ensure the cigar lit evenly. When he was certain the tobacco was lit, he took a long draw from the maduro and allowed the smoke to fill his mouth, exciting his senses.

He shook the match to extinction.

A billowing stream of blue-gray smoke drifted above his head as he exhaled slowly.

There were only two kinds of people in this world, Jim thought; Cigar-people and non-cigar people. It was one of those smells and tastes that you either acquired immediately or just never developed a liking for. He had never met anybody who had ever said that they didn’t mind cigar smoke or that they thought cigars were okay . Invariably, on asking if his company would mind if he lit a cigar they either enthusiastically allowed him while basking in the aromatic smoke themselves or, conversely, gave a shudder of horror beyond comprehension at the very thought of being in its presence.

Strange to say, that he had always found women more accepting of cigars than men. Perhaps it was a subconscious homophobic reaction to putting something so phallic in their mouths that turned certain men off.

At a nod from Jim, the waiter brought him another drink. Jim handed the kid his empty glass, took one more long pull off the cigar and settled in to watch the old year die.

In the moments leading up to midnight it seemed to Jim that the city had found a voice as thousands counted down the final seconds together at the top of their lungs.

Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six , it exclaimed, Five, Four, Three, Two, One.

Fireworks erupted into the night sky, exploding in great flourishes of color, glorious in their beautifully short life.

Raising his half-full glass to the light show high above the city, he spoke quietly to the night air; “Happy New Year, Lark,” before downing his drink in one swift swig and setting the empty glass on the table.

Jim arrived back at his room just after 1 am, his head buzzing pleasantly from the three drinks and the cigar, the taste of which still lingered agreeably on his palate and in his nostrils. He dropped his raincoat over the back of a chair still dry, the threatening storm never having materialized.

Standing at the window, he looked out over the city. The city was silent now.

“ Jim! You have a call from your agent in Los Angeles .”

The sudden sound of his computer’s AI voice made him jump. He was half-tempted not to take the call. He knew that Archie would be disappointed with his lack of progress but he also knew that if he did not take his agent’s call he would be pestering him until he got what he wanted.

“Put it on speaker,” he said.

There was a faint click and then the voice of Archibald Krogh filled the room.

“ Hey Jim! Happy New Year.”

His voice sounded nasal, he probably had a cold.

“Happy New Year to you to Archie. Don’t you have better things to do than harass your clients in the middle of the night?”

His remark was met with a chuckle that deteriorated into a coughing fit. “Good God,” Krogh said finally, “

I swear this Flu is gonna’ kill me one of these days… So tell me, how’s the book coming along?”

Jim was not comfortable lying but he decided that for the sake of both his own sanity and his over stressed agent’s health he would make the exception this time.

“It’s doing just…”

Everything changed.

At 1.30 a.m., the laboratory was finally prepped and ready.

The transmitter sat on a plain wooden table in the center of the laboratory. About the size of two paperbacks stacked one on top of the other, it was not what style magazines would call ‘sexy’ in its design. Encased in dimpled black impact-plastic, it looked clunky and utilitarian. No sleek curves or shaded coloring, no logos or trendy advertising motifs; just a solid black box with a connector for a microphone on its fascia. Next to that; a plug for a VR-keyboard, and from the rear of the box a two-inch thick red high-voltage lead that snaked across the floor to a large transformer sitting in a locked cage in one corner of the lab.

A young woman wearing a white lab coat, her blond hair tied back in a ponytail that stretched down to the middle of her back, approached the table; a portable microphone in her left hand and its corresponding floor stand in her right. She placed both items on the table next to the box, careful not to jostle the delicate piece of equipment.

“Doctor Lorentz would you like me to connect the microphone now?” she asked.

Dr. Mitchell Lorentz looked up from his VR-Comp and regarded the girl over his pince-nez glasses.

“Yes, please do Doctor Drake. The sooner we get this over and done with the sooner we can get on our way, yes?” He smiled warmly at his assistant before turning back to his VR-comp.