Морган Лливелин - Drop by Drop

“And I’ve always said you shouldn’t keep that much cash at home.”

“It couldn’t be safer in Fort Knox,” he assured her.

Lila Ragland kept a wealth of information in the most sophisticated AllCom on the market, a top-of-the-line multitasking international communicator with an immense data-storage system guaranteed to thwart hackers. It was set in a handsome case made to resemble platinum, and included a retinal identifier concealed in the hinge. The device gave her access to enough skeletons-in-closets to bankrupt billionaires and bring down foreign governments.

Many people put their AllComs beside their beds at night; she put hers under her pillow.

The furnished apartment she was renting did not contain anything else that might tempt a burglar. She did not even own a gun.

She abhorred guns.

Waking one morning from a restless sleep, Lila slipped her hand under the pillow.

And felt something sticky.

Robert Bennett stormed into the editorial office of The Sycamore Seed . “What the hell’s going on, Frank? Something’s gone wrong with my personal AllCom and there are things out at RobBenn that’ll be ruined if the Change isn’t stopped. My employees are freaking out.”

“What things?” Frank Auerbach inquired.

Oh, no you don’t, thought Bennett. My business is strictly my business. “The equipment it takes to run this factory,” he said blandly. “Like polycarbonate safety goggles for the assembly line.”

Auerbach gave a contemptuous snort. “Cyber attacks and chemical warfare and proxy wars around the globe and you’re worrying about goggles ? Get real, Rob; this is the world we live in.”

“We who?”

“Us. The good guys.”

“This ‘good guy’ isn’t just talking about goggles, and I damned sure don’t want to see any mention of my problems in your chickenshit newspaper! Just let me know as soon as you hear about a solution to the Change. Some of your money’s invested in this place too, you know.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Would I threaten you? Aren’t I the guy who advised you to diversify because the Seed wasn’t making enough in advertising revenue to keep food on the table?”

Robert Bennett stayed in his office late that night. Eschewing the company cafeteria, where he would have been asked questions he couldn’t answer, he deliberately chose the highest-cholesterol items in the vending machines for supper at his desk. Potato chips, corn chips, salted peanuts and a sickeningly sweet candy bar in a neon blue wrapper that urged, “Try Me! I’m Good for You!” An obvious lie, he thought. No truth in advertising. Who should know that better than me?

At last he fell asleep on the seven-foot-long couch in the reception area of the executive suite. Upholstered in the softest Italian glove leather, the couch had been purchased in anticipation of interviewing female personnel but was rarely used for its intended purpose. In retrospect, Rob decided, the ploy had been too obvious. He had exhausted his limited supply of subtlety years ago, wooing Nell.

He awoke with a start shortly before dawn. Like a ghost, he wandered through the deserted offices surrounding the executive suite. Not a living soul in any of them. No one had looked into his office to wish him good night either—though he had never encouraged that sort of camaraderie from his employees. He recalled the time Nell had visited the complex with him shortly before it opened. He was proud of the place after the years of hard work, and eager to show his achievement to his wife. All she had said was, “It’s hard to take it in, Rob. A manufacturing complex buried in the woods like this, far away from people… it seems so impersonal .”

He had never invited her back. Except for the grand opening, of course, when the lavishly decorated lobby was filled with loud music and important guests, and pretty girls were circulating with trays of wine and canapés. He had wanted to show off his lovely wife, so he steered her by her elbow around and around the room, introducing her to the men and enjoying the expressions on the faces of their female companions; the false smiles of wariness and jealousy.

Nell had left early that night, summoning a taxicab from town. They had quarreled about it later. One of those unresolved arguments that would come to punctuate their marriage.

The complex was worse than impersonal now; it was eerie. While Bennett was asleep the dissolution had spread. He went from one area to another, following its trail. In the business office the computer screens waiting on their workstations were supposed to transmit the slogan of RobBenn in red letters: We Package the Future! But the screens were blank.

He punched an on button.

Nothing happened.

He went from one machine to the next, punching buttons, holding them down, breaking into a nervous sweat.

Nothing happened.

An old joke ran through his head: If a bus station is where a bus stops and a train station is where a train stops, what happens at a workstation?

“Shit on a stick!” he said loudly. Into the silence.

He tried to restore normalcy by returning to his private office for a quick shower and shave. The adjoining bathroom contained a precise arrangement of mirrors that allowed him to see himself from every angle, to check on how far the creeping baldness on the crown of his head had spread. His daughter, Jess, had begun calling him Baldy. It didn’t feel like a joke to him.

On the top shelf of a bathroom cabinet was a carefully drawn grid chart depicting his fight against alopecia. When it reached a predetermined point he would start having hair transplants. This morning he wasn’t interested in his baldness problem. The haggard face in the mirror told him he had something worse to worry about.

Only slightly refreshed after his shower, Bennett called home. To his surprise his AllCom hissed when he thumbed the keys, but the call went through.

Nell’s personal AllCom was inactive.

He switched to the house number. No answer.

Shit and fuck. Doubled.

As Rob drove out the main gate of RobBenn, he paused to speak with the night watchman in the security hut. At least there was one person he could talk to. “Everything all right out here, Jimmy?”

“Same as allus,” the gray-haired man replied, “’cept for my coffee cup. I’m headin’ home to the missus as soon as that new fella arrives for the morning shift.” Noticing the expression on his employer’s face, he added, “’S everything all right with you, boss?”

“What happened to your coffee cup?”

Jimmy held both hands palms up in a gesture of helplessness. “Just went whoosh! It’s the cup on top of my thermos, y’know? I allus drink my coffee out of it. When I poured out the last bit this morning the cup went whoosh. Nasty mess all over my shoes. Go figure.” He gestured toward his feet.

Looking down, Bennett saw that there was indeed a nasty mess on the other man’s shoes. A revolting mix of viscous red jelly and coffee with cream.

Robert Bennett drove home well over the speed limit. The summer sunrise flooded the valley with light, but when he reached the main road there was scarcely any traffic. He did not even see a delivery truck, though within another hour the approaches to Sycamore River would be suffering from clogged arteries.

The Bennetts’ mock-Normandy château was located in a gated enclave west of town, close enough to be convenient to the city but within easy reach of Daggett’s Woods and RobBenn. Bennett parked his silver-blue Mercedes on the circular brick drive in front of the house and strode briskly to the double front doors with his AllCom in his hand.