The Mediator Pattern Page 6

  Chapter IX

  Marcus awoke determined. His muscles ached. His eyes throbbed. His arms felt heavy. He struggled to his feet, cigarette pursed in his lips. His lungs felt thick and full. His breathing was labored and slow. He felt tired, worn out. He quickly placed his palms flat on the mattress and seated himself.

  Instinctively, he withdrew his matches and flipped open the book. Seven matches remained. He inspected them thoroughly, and then placed the matches back in his pocket. His mind was clear, his intentions were well defined, and his senses were keen. Marcus had a plan.

  He chewed the cigarette as he recited Avant’s instructions in his mind; flip the switch beneath the access panel. Avant’s voice was distinct and his instructions were prominent, brilliant in Marcus’s frontal lobe like a flash of light in a dark room.

  He sat there on the bed until his strength returned to him. Then he made his way to the small, circular window embedded in the wall beside his twin mattress.

  Marcus stared through the window, down into the busy street. He saw the multitude of BelisCo emblems displayed upon storefronts and billboards up and down the busy boulevard. He saw the sea of BelisCo taxi transports braiding down the streets. He watched as the silent masses shuffled along the sidewalk. He took note of the brilliant shining sun, the bright blue sky, and the flawless white clouds as they drifted westward, high over building tops.

  Marcus watched all these things intently as he considered the truth Avant had revealed to him—had been revealing to him. Marcus wondered which of the persons below were real, and which, if any, were suspicious of their reality. He wondered if they had destinations to reach, families to love, employers to placate, or if they were simply loop-like constructs to maintain the semblance of reality for the rest of them.

  Then, roughly two-thirds of the people flickered and clicked off, vanishing before Marcus in the blink of an eye. It was as if the illusion had answered Marcus, answered him in the best way it knew how, through demonstration.

  After a moment, the sidewalk repopulated, the people returned, reemerging from nothing, and continued on their ways.

  Marcus nodded to the sky, in no particular direction, nodding to the machine.

  “Game on,” he said.

  He gnawed his cigarette as he watched for more signs from the device, more direct communication, more challenge. His brow strained as he inspected the bustling city landscape; nothing. The scene was still, normal, so to speak.

  Before long, his cigarette had been reduced to a moist clump of tobacco and stained paper. The filter was chewed through, and hung limply from his bottom lip. He spit the mess from his mouth and brought out another. This time, he lit it. Six matches remained.

  As he smoked, he moved across the room to his fax machine. Atop a desk in the corner stood the boxy device. As he leaned heavily against the desk, he casually extended his hand, palm up, below the machine. Just as soon as he reached for it, the internal mechanisms activated and Marcus heard the spinning of tiny gears humming within its hull. It whirred and buzzed and beeped, and after a moment, Marcus was presented a printed communication from the Inner Office of Colin Belis.

  He held the page in one hand and with his other he forced the burning tip of his cigarette through the company letterhead. He watched as the smoldering point incinerated a hole in the page. The embers quickly consumed the BelisCo logo.

  Satisfied, Marcus crumpled the remains of the page and let them drop to the floor.

  He plucked his coat from the bathroom door, did not collect his porta-fax, left his briefcase on the cabinet, and hurriedly exited his apartment.

  Marcus shuffled down the cramped hallway lined by doors, then down the flights of stairs, where it dawned on him. The pieces fell together like a puzzle, as it always had for Marcus, and he understood. His plan changed. He possessed no foresight of the future, for as with all the instances, this was his first time through, but his memory was strong and his awareness was stronger. In that moment, his intuition surpassed that of Avant and he knew his place, his purpose, his destiny.

  He mashed his cigarette in the brass ashtray at the base of the stairs.

  Once through the triple locked gate and onto the street, Marcus took out a cigarette and placed it in his mouth. He brought out his matchbook and inspected the sticks inside. He counted them; six matches. As he went to tear out the match, he saw a familiar woman approaching with an even more familiar look of disgust. The buttons of her smart pantsuit sparkled below her chin as she stared, scowling viciously at Marcus. He placed the smoke back in its pack, and returned it and the matchbook to his coat pocket.

  Marcus knew it was the cigarette that bothered her. He hadn’t even lit it, and this was a smoking zone, but he knew she was right.

  Marcus moved aside, allowing the woman to pass, and made his way to the curb. Stepping off, he effortlessly dodged taxi transport after taxi transport, flawlessly anticipating their movements as he made his way across the busy street.

  On the opposite curb, he stood before a pair of large, double doors. The words, Tools and Quip, were etched into the steel frame above them.

  The doors slid open, inviting Marcus into the hardware store. Once inside, Marcus headed for the counter. Behind the row of cash registers, a young attendant sat reading a comic book. The attendant had dusty blonde hair bound tight in a ponytail and sported round, neon-blue framed reading glasses perched atop his crooked nose. Bib overalls and an orange shirt completed the ensemble.

  Marcus cleared his throat.

  The attendant remained unaware of his customer.

  Marcus ripped the book from the kid’s hands. “Where’s your tape and watch kits?” he growled.

  “Aisles 17b and 36f, man,” stammered the attendant as he struggled to stay on his stool.

  About forty minutes later, Marcus returned to the counter. He placed seven items on the desk; a roll of aqua-nylon tape, a small, black, plastic case of watch tools, a six-volt camping battery, a spool of electrical wire, a two-inch pipe and a pair of donut-shaped magnets.

  The attendant diligently counted the items and quietly announced the total, “Thirty-four, sir.”

  Marcus reached in his pockets for his crumpled money. He felt something that wasn’t there before. With his fingers, he could make out a roll of tape and a small boxy item. He took the item out to inspect it.

  In his hand, he held a small watch tool kit. It was identical to the one on the counter before him, except this was a walnut case.

  He patted his coat pockets, placed the box back in his pants and said to the attendant, “Nevermind.”

  Marcus exited the store.

  The attendant called after him, “Sir. You need to let me see that item.”

  Marcus turned to see the young attendant running after him. There, on the street, Marcus furnished the walnut case for the attendant’s inspection.

  “I hope you don’t think I stole this,” Marcus said calmly.

  The attendant was out of breath. He took the box from Marcus and turned it over in his hand. He looked at each of its six sides and declared between breaths, “We don’t carry this item.”

  He sheepishly conceded the box to Marcus and headed back to his double doors.

  Marcus returned the item to his pocket and hailed a taxi transport.

  Once in the vehicle, Marcus grumbled an address and pulled down the convenience tray hidden in the back of the seat. Marcus rummaged through his pockets, extracting seven items and placing them on the tray. Each piece was hidden deep within a separate pocket. Once his pockets were emptied, he sunk into his seat and looked over his items.

  On the tray, sat a roll of aqua-nylon tape, a small walnut case of watch tools, a six-volt battery, a spool of wire, a two-inch pipe and a pair of donut-shaped magnets.

  Marcus hadn’t seen such craftsmanship since prior to his days in San Jose. The items bore no identifying markings. They had no manufacturer’s notes or serial numbers. Not a single one had the famous BelisCo moniker, a
s all items in zoned cities typically acquired on import.

  Each item was strangely elegant. The wire spool was made of a dark cherry wood, instead of the standard dull, white plastic. The tape had a high quality sheen to it; Marcus could tell it was top of the line. The tool box was simple, well constructed and solid, with quality hinges. The tools inside had tips of tempered steel with handles of violet-swirled ivory. The magnets were perfectly shaped, their contours smooth and seamless, a work of art on their own; perfect twins. The battery was much smaller than the camping battery he intended to purchase. It possessed no markings and no voltage warnings, only a deeply etched set of positive and negative symbols below their respective terminals protruding from the top of the seamless, black casing. Energy hummed inside as it sat on the tray.

  Marcus knew exactly where these components came from. He had no doubt in his mind. He had been given exactly what he needed, just when he needed it.

  By the time the taxi transport had reached its destination, Marcus no longer had a mix of components and tools upon his convenience tray. Instead, before him sat a device very similar to Avant’s handheld tower machine. Marcus’s version, however, had no orbs suspended by wire and stood no taller than a pack of cigarettes. On either end of the pipe, the shape of the toroidal magnets could be made out beneath uncountable rows of spiraling wire. The coils moved counter-clockwise around the device, enveloping its exterior in glossy, nylon-insulated copper and crossing at the center of each end’s opening where the wires were swallowed by the shadows of the small pipe and magnets. Marcus leaned back in his seat, admiring his creation.

  Marcus’s door opened.

  “We’ve arrived, sir,” the cabbie interrupted Marcus’s silence.

  Marcus swooped up his machine, and quickly exited the vehicle.

  He stood before the glass, double doors of Cafe Diem. Beyond the glass, Marcus could see Stacy as she served two coffees to an older couple in the cafe.

  Upon entering, Marcus’s senses were flooded. His mind became inundated by all of his visits to Cafe Diem. He saw himself arrive at different times in the same day. He experienced himself sitting at an array of different stools along the fax-bay on the far wall. He listened to Stacy’s cheerful voice as she took his order a dozen times. He felt her beaming joy and true sincerity as she asked to join Marcus over and over again. He plainly saw his warning from BelisCo, and this time he knew the cause. It happened two instances of this moment ago. He witnessed himself grow overly excited about his Belis contract, and say far too much. Marcus knew that if not for everything else, that instance could have ended in ISE detainment for both of them, a punishment worse than death. However, he knew that wasn’t the case.

  Marcus continued to experience his overlapping evolutions in time as he stood motionless in the doorway. Although his constitution and determination remained, and his knowledge did not falter, the layers of Cafe Diem dissolved around him, and Marcus was returned to now.

  He maintained his composure as he made his way to a vacant arrangement of chairs. Stacy smiled at him from across the room as he slid a chair from beneath the table. Marcus kept his hand tucked under his coat, holding tight to his device. He smiled in return, his lips tight across his teeth, and then sat; his body rigid, his back straight in his chair.

  After a moment, Stacy made her way to Marcus. She had a coffee and two spliffs in hand.

  “It’s my break time, Mr. Metiline. Mind if I join you?”

  With his free hand, Marcus pulled out the seat beside him and smiled cordially at Stacy.

  “I’d love it if you would,” he said.

  Stacy had never heard such sincerity from Marcus. He was always friendly, but also closed-off and distant. In that moment, Marcus seemed very much there. She knew something was different. After all, Stacy thought she knew Marcus fairly well, better than any other customer, and although she knew it to be out of place, she liked this side of him.

  Stacy placed the cup before Marcus and sat beside him. She placed the two spliffs between her soft, rosy lips and lit them gracefully. She puffed a few times until they were smoldering and then handed one to Marcus.

  With his free hand, he accepted the spliff. He dragged heavily, taking three successive breaths of the cannabis smoke. Then, while holding his breath, Marcus asked, “Is there somewhere we can be alone?”

  Stacy didn’t hesitate. “Follow me,” she said with a smile.

  Stacy led Marcus through the cafe, and together, they disappeared behind the double doors embedded in the back wall.

  Now, out of the main room, the two of them stood in the kitchen. Along the wall, an arm's reach away, sat various coffee pots on kerosene burners. Each bore a label of its contents. Opposite the variety of coffees stood an outdated gas-powered stove. Its hood was painted in decades-thick strokes of grease that climbed the walls and hung in globs from the ceiling. Straight ahead was a dark hallway, long and stifling, lined by cracked and tarnished makeshift doors.

  “We’ll go to my place,” Stacy said as she took Marcus’s free hand and guided him down the hall.

  She stopped at a run-down door shoved crookedly in its jamb. It was one of many in the hallway, but this was the only one with a single pink flower clinging to its face.

  “I think it brightens things up,” Stacy said to Marcus as she tapped the flower.

  She smiled and lifted the door by its knob, forcing it open with her shoulder. The door creaked and cried as it widened, just enough for them to pass.

  The room was smaller than Marcus’s apartment, and had no windows, no kitchen, or even a bathroom. Marcus assumed it to be a standard community worker apartment, and considered nothing further of the missing rooms. He was surrounded by peeling baroque walls that desperately hung onto dozens of densely packed pictures. A single dangling light bulb cast dancing shadows as it swung slowly overhead, exaggerating and then concealing the tears in the old, drab wallpaper. There was a cot-style bed against one wall. Its frame was rusted and tired. At the foot of the bed, an empty vase sat on a small table bolted to the wall.

  Marcus brought his device out from underneath his coat and placed it on the table next to the empty vase.

  “I can’t stay long,” Marcus advised as he extinguished his spliff, “but I need you to have this. Keep it close.” He motioned toward the small device on the table.

  Marcus pulled an envelope from his pocket and placed it in Stacy’s hands, clasping his own over hers.

  “Everything is in here. When you’re ready.”

  He leaned closely. He could smell the coffee and cannabis on her. It was soothing.

  He whispered, “Trust me,” and then pushed past her, toward the door. “I have to go now.”

  As Marcus made his way down the tattered hallway, he realized how old this building looked. Especially, considering the relatively new Cafe Diem attached. Even compared to the rest of San Jose, this was an old complex.

  Marcus pushed his way through the double doors and into the main room of Cafe Diem. A moment later, he was out of the cafe and onto the street.

  Marcus hailed a cab. He was headed to The Belis Corporation. Marcus Metiline still had a job to do.

  Chapter X

  Marcus sat on the edge of a white, plastic, ergonomically contoured chair. His hands were clasped firmly in his lap. The beaming image of Colin Belis stared at Marcus from atop the neatly stacked magazines on the glass-topped table before him. Belis’s two-dimensional countenance was encased by a halo of golden rays and surrounded by white songbirds frozen into the flat, blue background. Green blades of grass lined the edges of the cover and over them were the words The Rise of Colin Belis printed in italics along the bottom of the page.

  “Fall,” Marcus whispered to himself.

  The waiting room was empty. Bright fluorescent lights illuminated the horizontally running steel bars embedded in the purple-hued wall. Thick glass circles were dispersed in a grid-like matrix across the floor, radiating distorted eggs of light on the marbl
e swirls of the dome-shaped ceiling above.

  Marcus was still feeling the effects of the farewell spliff he had smoked with Stacy. He paid no attention to the eccentric, postmodern decor of the waiting area. He kept his eyes locked on Colin Belis. He stared as he waited. He knew what he had to do. He cycled his plans through his brain, echoing Avant’s instructions.

  It seemed to be only minutes to Marcus, when a tall, broad-shouldered man entered the room, breaking his meditation. The man’s frame blocked the light and casted an elongated shadow across the room, enveloping Marcus and alienating him from his surroundings. The man moved closer. His shadow encroached, looming over Marcus.

  “Can I help you?” Marcus asked as he strained his neck up toward the towering man's face.

  Light ripped at the boundary between the man’s silhouette and the marble above, blurring the shape of his flat, square head.

  “I am Reg,” the shadowy giant responded, “Follow me.” He had a surprisingly soft voice for such a large man.

  Marcus grunted as he stood to his feet. Now facing the soft-spoken behemoth, Marcus was able to better distinguish his attributes. The man, Reg, wore his reddish-brown hair short and high above his ears. He possessed deep black, button eyes beneath thick, wiry eyebrows. His jaw extended a good two inches beyond his thick neck. He wore a skin-tight, navy-blue deep-necked zippered vest and matching pressed slacks.

  Marcus’s nose sat in line with the bottom of the man’s zipper neckline. The navy blue accentuated the man’s pale skin stretched taut against his pectorals and oversized collarbone. The veins in his neck throbbed rhythmically with the expansion and contraction of his chest as he breathed his salty breath through his nostrils and down upon Marcus.

  From the way he stood, Marcus could tell he had been in the military, if he wasn’t still. Probably from the same outfit as the last Reg, Marcus thought to himself.