CHAPTER ONE
Alex Cutler spent most of his days stooped over the latest monitor, his black hair swaying against his smooth jaw line as he rocked in sync with the rhythmic clicks of the keyboard.
His co-worker, Sean, knocked on the open door. With long thinning hair and an inflated belly, he reminded Alex of an alcoholic skater from the early two thousands who told radically different stories about the wipeout that ended his career. Even now, he clung one decision from stardom. Like the thing where you doubled a penny everyday for a month, him posting a daily shot of his eclectic T-shirts would compound millions of followers in no time. Today’s shirt, black with dominant white letters, read: 99.9% CHIMPANZEE.
If Alex received the riches his new employer promised, he would consider hiring Sean as a wardrobe consultant, or at least bribe him for his method of procurement. Until then, he dressed similar to today: slim, not skinny jeans, a snug V-neck under a loose fitting flannel, and shoes with fat laces.
“Today’s the big day?”
Sean’s grin relaxed Alex. “I guess we’ll see. Come in.” Over the past few days, he worried his decision to leave Vision Tech had irked his buddy. Despite never meeting outside of the office, Alex considered Sean his only friend.
“Knock that off,” Sean said. “You don’t work here anymore.”
“One…second…” Alex’s lightning fast typing increased as he neared his intended breaking point. Sean plopped in the chair across from him, set a few stapled pages on the desk, and grabbed the lone knick-knack—two metallic stick figures on a seesaw—before leaning back.
“…Aanndd there,” Alex said. A few clicks, followed by a series of musical notes, and he shut down his computer for the final time as a Vision Tech employee. Remembering deserting his coworker claimed a spot on the day’s itinerary; his eyes darted from Sean’s as he gathered the random flash drives left in his desk, and placed them in a box on the floor.
“You can keep that,” Alex nodded to the object Sean toyed with. Once given a tap, the seesaw rocked for an exorbitant length. Every time someone activated it, he thought of his childhood—of happy times gone forever. “Something to remember me by if I’m never seen again.” He spoke in jest, but as the words slipped out, he accepted his subconscious might have summoned them as a warning to the alert self. Beyond “somewhere in the northwestern United States,” the exact geographical location for the Broumgard Group remained a mystery. His grasp of the company’s purpose could be surmised in one line: Broumgard provides solace for the suffering and leisure for the affluent.
“Thanks, Bro.” Sean inspected the knick-knack. “Now, if you save the world or something, I’ll auction this off on eBay for a couple thou.” Apparently satisfied, he placed it on the desk and set it in motion. “I’ve done some digging on the Broumgard Group.” His voice grew somber as he nodded to the stapled pages. The gesture ignited fire under Alex’s skin, until he noticed Sean’s mouth twitch as he struggled to suppress a smile. “You’re not going to like what I discovered.”
Even with the knowledge of some impending gag, Sean’s words gave Alex pause. He scoured the Internet, yet still knew nothing about his future employer. What company avoided search engines?
Sean placed his fingers on the stapled pages and rotated them for Alex’s viewing. “Satan, my man. You’re going to be working for the devil. Like you always have.”
Alex chuckled, relieving tension.
His friend nodded for him to peruse the documents. “I’m serious. It’s total mind-fellatio. Obviously, you’re going to be working on a computer.” He pointed at the printout. “Computers are here to usher in the Antichrist.”
Alex focused on the apparent farewell joke. A simple bar graph constructed the black header accentuated with orange flames, Youplaywiththedevil.com. He appreciated the gesture, but…
“It starts breaking down Revelations.” Sean scooted to the edge of his chair. “How the first communication between artificial life is a sign of End Times, known as abomination, accomplished in 1969 when computers from CAL and UCLA spoke to one another. And how their mascots, the bear and the tiger, match the Bible’s prophecy. I mean, did you know the first Macintosh personal computer, the Apple One, retailed for six hundred and sixty-six dollars?”
Alex located that notation and frowned. He wasn’t ready to bathe in holy water, but six hundred sixty-six dollars seemed an odd price point, and he would have thought a terrible marketing strategy, but Apple thrived. Alex read a recent article claiming Apple teetered on the brink of becoming the first trillion-dollar company.
Noticing his consternation, Sean hummed a satisfied, “Mmm-Hmm.”
Despite the strange subject matter, Alex warmed with nostalgia. Part of him wanted to stay at Vision Tech. Keep life simple. He knew this world and would miss Sean’s antics, but something else pulled him forward, toward a grander fate.
Broumgard’s impressive salary held little sway. He had been headhunted before, especially after the success of his program, Plow Straight, universally adapted software for writers of code. The secrecy meant less. The NSA extended him an offer to apply during his freshman year in college. He tossed their information packet in the trash. Nothing could induce him to disregard the masses in favor of politicians. No, he chose medium pay in the private sector at a firm close to his vexing mother. But the Broumgard Group offered riches, secrecy, and a project of benevolence—who could resist that?
“That’s not all,” Sean leaned forward and flattened the stapled edge before tapping halfway down the paper. “If you take the word computer, and assign each letter a numerical value based on its alphabetical positioning, like A equals one, B equals two, C equals three, etcetera, add up the letters, then times that by six, the word computer equals six hundred sixty-six.” He paused for effect. “He’s rubbing it in our faces, my man.”
Concluding in the era of the internet a person could find data to support any argument, Alex exhaled, “Pretty compelling stuff.” He then resumed his packing, knowing, despite the absurdity of computers as the chariot for Satan’s son, he would check the math at a later time.
Grabbing the cardboard top to his box, he paused at the sight of a plastic-protected copy of Computer World magazine sitting atop the items. A younger version of him adorned its cover—an eighteen-year-old misfit wanting nothing but to escape the madness of Roger’s Park, his lower-class neighborhood.
The photographer had given him a Vision Tech sweatshirt for the photo op. Recalling the ratty condition of the gray, coffee stained V-neck underneath, he grinned.
In the six years since that photograph, Alex’s ability to visually encompass an idea, aggregate its many possibilities, and transform them into lines of codes, sequences, and commands, had grown by leaps and bounds. His hair hung farther down, too. Behind the eyes of that smiling young man lay an inner confusion, an uncertainty to the point of it all. His increasingly frequent bouts of anxiety focused on the possibility he was regressing; that he used each day to avoid thinking about the final one. Perhaps that represented the main reason he accepted Broumgard’s offer? To discover if a change of environment could help him identify his purpose. Maybe, if their definition of benevolence aligned with his, he would find salvation.
Sean stretched his neck to see what held Alex’s attention. “I kept a copy of that too.” His tone adopted a seriousness that caught Alex off-guard. When their eyes met, Sean bobbed his head. “Always knew you were special, Bro. For real.”
Alex shimmied the box lid on tight, leaned over, and stopped the rocking men.
“So, what’s next?” Sean lifted the knick-knack as he rose.
Good question. “Well, I’m all packed and my stuff has been picked up. I’m gonna stop by the condo for a final inspection and then that’s it for me and Chi-town.”
“Wow.”
Wow said it all. Alex breathed deeply. The banter had soothed his nerves, but, as he approached the point of no return, the trill crept back. Hefting the box, he rounded the desk, where Sean stood stiff, chewing on his bottom lip, his face furrowed in concentration.
Unfamiliar with seeing his friend ill at ease, Alex said, “I’ll stay in touch.”
“That’s fine,” Sean said with the wave of his hand, “But I want to ask a favor.” He locked eyes with Alex. “No, a pledge.”
“Sure, man, whatever.”
“It might be unethical or whatnot, but you have to promise me: if you find out you’re working on some Noah’s-Ark-type deal, you’ll let me know.”
Alex thought about that for a second. He had considered bionic prostitutes; text messaging God (or aliens); and, programming robotic dolphins that could spin at tremendous velocities allowing them to sink multiple enemy vessels. He hadn’t considered any doomsday scenarios.
Finding Sean’s expectant face watching his, Alex nodded.
Sean’s gaze lingered, possibly gauging Alex’s sincerity. Once accepted, he cracked a sly smile, they bumped fists, and Sean trotted away.
Alex’s boss, and founder of Vision Tech, Robert Stetson, waited halfway down the center aisle that split the cubicles. He was the only person on the floor who dressed formal. The sight of the dapper man saddened Alex.
With a queasiness that mounted with each step, Alex reached him, balanced the box on his hip, and they shook hands.
“We’re going to miss you something fierce here at VT,” Robert said.
A few employees gathered around to share in the farewell speech.
“We all wish you the best of luck wherever…”
As Robert spoke about him having a job here if his new employment failed, and them being family, things Alex appreciated and agreed with, he retreated internally. Before completely cocooning himself, he caught sight of a screensaver behind Robert. The green mask from Jim Carrey’s movie The Mask, floated across a black monitor: dominating eyes, over-sized teeth, a demonic bone structure. The periodic animation of the green face bursting into a cackle recalled his earlier conversation about computers being tools of the devil.
A thought chilled Alex. If he somehow discovered computers were harbingers of end times, would that knowledge be enough for him, or anyone in society, to forsake the beloved device?