Gordon Knox sat in his wheelchair near the sliding glass door his eyes staring outside.
Ashley paused.
“May I come in?”
Without turning Gordon replied, “Yes. Of course. What will we be reading today?”
Ashley said, “Tomorrow is our reading day, remember? And besides,” she walked to his side, “you know we haven’t finished Heart of Darkness yet.”
“Ah, yes, we haven’t even met Kurtz, yet, have we?”
“So you have read it before,” she smiled as if she had won a bet.
He finally turned. “I admit it, yes. But it sounds different when you read it. It sounds- better. Of course you don’t have to, you know. I’m more than capable of reading. The eyes, at least, still work just fine.”
“I enjoy our time together.”
“Yes,” he mused. “I suppose this monster isn’t quite so scary anymore.”
She swallowed hard and insisted, “You are not-you never were-a monster.”
“Yes, I was,” he corrected with no malice. “That’s why you were always afraid of me. That’s why you turned to me last summer. You needed a monster.”
“I was never afraid of you.”
He ignored her. “I suppose that is one good thing to come out of this,” he patted his hands on the wheelchair rails. “You’re not afraid anymore. Thank you for visiting with me and reading to me each week. It’s a bright spot in what has been a very bad year.”
“I enjoy it too.”
“So why are you here, if not to read to me? It’s not the report. There’s nothing wrong with it.” His voice suggested he found it amusing she would say as much.
She looked at the booklet in her hand then at him again.
“It’s missing something.”
“What?” He took the book and paged through. “It’s all here. Everything we know about Voggoth’s position. The temple, the Urals-years of strength estimates. Do you know how many agents we lost? Do you know how many of our European friends we lost? No, it’s all here. It’s-”
“It’s missing you.”
Her statement puzzled Gordon.
She did not wait. She pushed, “I’m not letting you send couriers over with your intelligence reports. That’s not enough. There’s a meeting today and you need to be there.”
His faced glowed red. His hands pulled into fists.
“I told you before, I can do my job from here. Besides-besides I don’t think-I don’t want people to see me-it’s better if I stay in the shadows.”
“That was good enough for a while. But it’s not good enough anymore. The end is coming, Gordon. This meeting may be the last one we ever have. Trevor needs more than your reports, he needs your insights. He needs your thoughts. He needs that more than ever.”
Gordon shot, “Well that’s not what I do anymore.” He pushed the joystick on his motorized chair and wheeled into the center of his ring of equipment. “I work from here. This is my nerve center. From here I can communicate with the field offices, with agents, with ships and military posts. I analyze the data as it comes in. My reports are the best they have ever been. And they will have to be enough.”
“Who is afraid now, Gordon?”
He turned to her, still red-faced.
“Don’t try that reverse psychology bullshit on me. Do you really think I’m that stupid? You think you can guilt me into something?”
“Okay, fine,” she returned his stare and, surprisingly, he blinked. She was, after all, the one person who could give him pause.
“You have a job to do Gordon, just like Trevor has a job. You think he wanted all this? No. But he’s done it, because it’s been his responsibility.”
“Ashley, I serve Trevor from here.”
“And I could have served him as nanny to his son. But what have I done for the past decade, Gordon? I’ve been his figurehead wife. The smiling face for all The Empire to see. I’ve been on his arm for every official reception, for every press conference. Look! There is Ashley Stone. How beautiful a first lady she is! How devoted to her family!”
Ashley’s breath grew rapid. She shook a finger at him saying, “But you know the truth, Gordon. It is has been a lonely, miserable life for me. I have no husband. There has been no love between us for years. He has his duty, I have mine. I could have sat around crying day in and day out or hid away in the attic of the mansion but I didn’t. I did what I had to do!”
He did not respond, but the color drained from his face. In his expression she saw something she rarely saw from anyone: empathy.
“Do you think I’m going to let you shirk your responsibility to Trevor because you’re embarrassed to be in a wheelchair? Do you think when the others see you they think you’re weaker because of it? Don’t be an ass, Gordon. They know how you got in that chair. Of all the friends Trevor ever had you were one of the few to put it all on the line for him.”
He hung his head.
“If you don’t see it that way, that’s your problem. I know you hate it. But right now you have to set all of that aside. Right now you have a job to do. After all these years my responsibility to Trevor is over. But you still have more to do. Now you get your ass over to that meeting and be there for your friend. He needs you.”
She walked closer to him, knelt in front, and said, “We’re all counting on you, Gordon. And if you’re there for Trevor this last time, then maybe we just might have a fighting chance.”
Did the key really exist? Trevor could not be sure. Of course he could not be sure what ‘real’ was, either. Regardless, twice in his life Voggoth’s minions took him prisoner and twice they failed to discover the key. Perhaps more telling, during his trip to a parallel Earth the key had disappeared from his neck.
He wondered if, perhaps, the key the Old Man had given him was actually a product of his mind. Then again, Nina had seen it when he had shown her his secret. Of course, she only saw it after he produced it. Maybe the thought of the key made it real; or, rather, it became real when he needed it. Or…
Trevor shook his head and gave up the idea of solving that particular riddle.
Regardless, the secret key opened an equally secret door hidden behind a cabinet inside the utility closet in the mansion’s basement. That tiny door opened to a tight staircase descending into darkness. The modern feel of the finished basement disappeared replaced with earthen walls. The stairs ended at a small, damp room. A gentle hum radiated in the darkness.
Trevor moved through the lightless chamber aided by memory and habit until he found and ignited a small lamp atop an ancient wooden table. An oily burning smell added to the aroma of damp rot.
The soft glow of the lamp illuminated the room’s only other object: a decaying wood and iron chest that could have come straight from the set of a pirate movie.
He walked to the chest, stooped, and opened the lid. A blue and gray glow radiated out, filling the chamber in light.
Trevor retreated a step from the chest and waited. A sphere floated up, hovering above the chest like a buoy floating on water. As his eyes grew accustomed to the light Trevor saw-through the orb’s clear membrane skin-the image of a double helix-of DNA.
“One more time, I suppose,” and as he spoke he stopped to think. He had visited the orb on his first night in the mansion. It imparted knowledge and skills from a library of genetic memories. In the years since, he periodically returned to recharge from the data bank by standing within a few paces of the object as it delivered bursts of knowledge. Sort of like warming his hands near an open fire.
The glowing sphere taught Trevor how to shoot like a soldier, how to fly an Apache helicopter, how to repair electrical wiring, plumbing, and drive a main battle tank. All skills taken from dead human souls whose memories had been stored by the floating sphere.