CHAPTER NINE
Despite having to exit the Lobby—something Alex dreaded every time—he enjoyed the mild disorientation of returning to the real world. He likened it to waking from a restful night dreaming of angels, love, and beachside bonfires.
Though he knew staff attached modified catheters once a client entered the Lobby, and removed them before they exited, he always had to pee upon coming to.
Remembering Rosa, he stretched in anticipation of greeting her as she returned. Unfortunately, her Lobby reservations never fully abated. Needling questions about the soul and morality—two things unrelated to the Lobby—clouded their afternoon. The swim brought further complications.
The water cooled to that perfect degree that made him feel like being born each time he dove under then broke the surface. Detectable salt content, a proper current, but once out, the water raced from the body. An improvement in Alex’s opinion. Rosa’s head of hair drying in under a minute without use of a towel should have pleased her. It didn’t. It caused twenty minutes of consternation.
Overall, she enjoyed herself. He intended to focus on those times to avoid further debate about the Marker, convince her to go again—try a different world.
Before rising from the access chair, he discovered Claire, the first shift access room supervisor, hovering over him, wringing her hands. Knowing her as an excitable woman quelled some of his concern, yet he’d never seen her this worked-up. After a beat with her simply swallowing nervously and looking over her shoulder, Alex said, “Hello Claire.”
“I don’t want to alarm you, but well, some serious shit going on downstairs.” Cursing increased his confusion. Claire was a polite introvert. “Something with the programmers?” He stretched his back and stood.
“Oh no, sir. They’ve been ordered back to their residences. Everyone has. You just missed the umpteenth announcement.”
Announcement? Workers sent home? Alex conjured no plausible scenario for those. With a rotating schedule, programmers worked seven days a week. Everyone in the know encouraged the creation of worlds. Alex’s weekend and after-hours crew touted minor celebrity status.
Traveling to Rosa, Claire stayed a step behind him.
At Rosa’s station, he drew back her green divider. She sat with a leg on each side of the chair, massaging the back of her head with one hand. He exhaled, anticipating a night filled with Marker debate.
“Mr. Cutler,” Claire urged, “you and Miss Newberg are to head to your residence, immediately. They have a car waiting for you downstairs.”
“Who’s waiting?”
“Security perhaps? Please, hurry. I have others to evacuate.” She turned to leave, stopped, and faced him. “Dalton said we might pull clients out. We almost did that to you.” A frown. She marched down a row and disappeared behind a curtain.
Alex bit his bottom lip. Emergency load-outs meant physically dragging a client outside of the fifteen feet connectivity range of the Marker, or liquefying its receptor, instantly thrusting a client back into their body.
Since they lacked sufficient data as to the long-term effects, if any, those extreme measures stayed reserved for fires, bomb threats, a confirmed shooter on the loose.
As Alex’s worry took shape, he returned his attention to Rosa, who still straddled the chair, but had since leaned back, staring up at nothing in particular.
“Well?” he said.
“Give me a minute,” she said without moving.
Sometimes clients required a moment to adjust. Especially on their first trip. With this downstairs’ fiasco, however, he needed to talk to Victor. He’d left his earpiece in his desk, one floor down.
“They’re evacuating the Atrium.”
“Fire drill?” She furrowed her brow. The loudspeakers kicked on. They both flinched at the intense volume. “Attention guests and employees of Eridu, please return to your quarters. This is not a test. All guests and employees must proceed to their quarters, immediately. Please return to your quarters.”
The blaring volume left a ring in Alex’s ear; a pit of fear in his chest.
“What’s that about?” Rosa said as she climbed out of her chair and followed Alex toward the elevator.
His heart thumped loud enough to strum in his ears. It couldn’t be anything good. He tried to stay collected and said, “Maybe some new type of scheduled drill?”
The words fell flat. Rosa lived on site longer than him. And in his time, he’d never heard of a compound-wide emergency drill, nor any scenario serious enough to invoke a procedure like this. They ran fire drills department by department. Those represented plodding boredom. Claire wore fear on her face. Alex’s insides squirmed.
Earthquakes, tornados, tsunamis—none of those affected this landscape. The mountains of Montana negated most of Nature’s wrath.
Endless man-made dramas existed.
Many of Eridu’s clients were dignitaries, billionaires, or government officials from around the globe. Powerful people often carried powerful enemies.
In their everyday life, the average billionaire staffed around sixty, highly-trained security agents. Yet Broumgard insisted these important people arrive with no more than two. In essence, asking them to rely on the security teams of Eridu, who appreciated and prided themselves on that honor.
Broumgard serviced the world’s elite, and with high value targets, Alex imagined a flurry of scenarios where a universal lockdown of Eridu would be implemented, all frightened him.
The arriving elevator alerted him that he’d been repeatedly pressing the call button.
“You think it’s some kind of threat against a client?” Rosa said as they boarded. “Some insane terrorist?”
“Victor will know.”
The elevator opened to a tumult of activity. Bass-filled voices echoed in all directions. Security officers swarmed the lobby.
Despite his best efforts, Alex long forgotten pangs of panic settled in.
Rosa intertwined her arm in his and they crept toward the busy foyer.
Combat boots connecting with polished tiles created a rhythmic drumline. Security officers, dressed in full gear, jogged down the halls carrying automatic rifles. The sight of guns so out of place, Alex suppressed an urge to approach each man and ask him to put his away.
He knew security had weapons. In the mornings, he sometimes heard pops coming from the distant gun range. Also, many hunters populated Eridu, employees and guests alike, but he’d never seen an actual rifle. He had no clue Broumgard security had top of the line armaments with scopes, extended clips, and shoulder straps.
“I’m assuming this isn’t a normal day at the office?” Rosa said.
He stayed silent.
Focused on the earpiece, he headed toward his office.
Moments before they arrived, the door to the work area opened and a big dark-skinned man exited.
“Mr. Cutler. Excellent,” Dalton said casually, as if madness wasn’t all around them. He handed Alex the plastic case that held his earpiece. “Adisah tasked me with getting you safely to your condo.”
“What’s going on?” Alex asked as he allowed himself to be guided toward the main entrance.
Dalton stared out the front glass wall as he spoke, “There’s no concrete information beyond: a potential threat to Eridu. For maximum safety, we’re returning everyone to their residence.”
“What is the actual threat?” Rosa asked.
“I won’t speculate. The important thing is we have the situation well in hand. All that’s left is getting you and Mr. Cutler in a vehicle and on the move. Victor can update you more accurately than I.”
Alex nodded, followed him to the reception area: an example of organized pandemonium. The intensity of the men and the amount of fire power present made it feel like a staging area for invasion, or the preparations to repel one.
Men gathered in groups, loaded weapons, strapped on body armor, attached further gun components: tripods, 12 gauge mounts for close combat, barrel grips.
Alex stopped in place; watched an armed group of men enter an awaiting Hum-vee and speed off.
Dalton led the couple to the main door and held it open as a second Hummer appeared. He opened the rear door as it slowed, ushered them inside.
Alex compacted himself. He scooted across the leather in three shuffles. He appreciated Dalton’s guidance. Alex couldn’t fathom making decisions under this type of pressure.
Give him a scheduled day and he could squeeze more out of it than the next guy. Toss in a problem and he’d treat it as a catastrophe until solved. But pile on another and things got sketchy. Add more, and he’d feel himself shutting down, his thoughts blurring as if inside a blender set to pulsate.
Dalton smacked the back quarter panel in rapid succession. Off they went.
From the rear passenger window, Alex spied security officers running pell-mell, piling sandbags outside of the Atrium, establishing fire positions.
Further down the parking lot, even more troops climbed atop the tram and the roof of the Atrium.
Alex placed a hand over his mouth.
“What could instigate this sort of reaction?” Rosa asked as she pushed her body closer, shared his view.
An alien invasion, a security officer coup, LSD experiment gone awry. “Odds are its precautionary.” His voice sounded confident, as if a second him controlled their shared speech.
Remembering the plastic case in his hand, he retrieved the earpiece, placed it in his canal. The Hummer sped past an increasingly fortified hotel La Berce.
A deafening thump-thump-thump passed overhead. He pressed his face against the window. A brown and mustard-colored helicopter flew toward the Atrium. The armored aircraft resembled a shrunken version of the Russian HIND, the attack copter made famous in the 1980’s mega hit, Rambo II.
“Victor, are you there?” Alex asked.
“Yes, Alex,” Victor replied.
Real world AI’s lacked the ability to interpret tone and expressions—the most important aspects of communication. Inside the Lobby, however, NPCs had algorithms that read tone, facial expressions, body language. NPCs occasionally mimicked emotions they observed, something he found both exhilarating and terrifying.
To his personal AI, he said, “What the hell’s going on?”
The driver of the Hummer—a fit youth with a mop of dark curly hair, wearing the gray and black uniform—leaned back. While keeping his eyes on the road, he said, “Whoever they are, they’re in for one hell of a surprise.”
“Whoever who is?” Alex asked.
The young soldier looked over his soldier at Alex, then Rosa. Instead of replying, he shrugged, returned his eyes to the road, increased their speed.
“Talk to me, Victor.”
“Eleven unidentified craft are converging on our location.” Alex repeated the words to Rosa. “Eight vehicles preceded by three helicopters. It could be FBI. Lack of radio contact decreases that likelihood. Security is treating the approaching vessels as hostile.”
Hostile? Possibly FBI, which meant what, possibly Iranian special forces? Alex thought about getting home, packing a bug-out bag and rushing to the mountains. He and Rosa could discover if two city dwellers could survive in the wild. He’d probably die. A possible preference to looking out his window and finding bodies spinning and dropping from bullets as an invading horde overran his home.
“What’s he saying?” Rosa asked.
Nothing.
The silence seemed to shout.
Assessing the strength in Rosa’s visage, Alex knew she represented their only hope of surviving a snowy mountaintop.
As to her question, he shook his head. Shrugged.
Instead of pressing Victor for further information, Alex thought about Federal agents versus teams of hitmen. Broumgard billed Eridu as a private resort; a retreat for the wealthy; a place with guarded secrets and protected information. Everyone except Tara occasionally voiced their concerns about withholding the Lobby from the world.
Adisah had to know they couldn’t keep the United States in the dark forever. Having worked with them, he must know they infiltrated organizations simply for seeking privacy. Once they learned what Broumgard did, due to the secrecy, how could they not conclude nefarious activity?
When the FBI targeted companies, they took down bosses. Alex held a high-level position and never considered blowing a whistle. A chance for criminal culpability in an as yet undefined crime turned his stomach.
America excelled at finding ways to incarcerate its citizens. With only five-percent of the world’s population, the United States confined twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners and boasted near the top in every crime imaginable, proving incarceration without rehabilitation exacerbated crime. Why should that matter when those in power lived above risk and never faced penalty.
On the other hand, if a team of assassins approached, blood, mayhem, and death would litter these peaceful streets. On the upside, that lessened the chances of Alex being targeted.
Alex closed his eyes, focused on breathing.
His eyes popped open as a horrifying notion surfaced. What if Broumgard security knew the government approached, and intended to repel them because of their authority?
Adisah encompassed peace, but he, and particularly Roy Guillen, had expounded the foibles of government intrusion on many occasions.
If Broumgard planned to fight the government, Alex’s mountain living would become a necessity.
“Victor, give me immediate updates.”
“Yes, Alex.”
The vehicles braked forcefully in front of building A.
Alex and Rosa held hands as they rode the elevator up. Exiting, his view latched onto the mesmerizing globe. He imagined armed militants bursting out of the elevator, stunned by the beauty of Patterned Creation. Alex would be watching them through a slightly opened door; his suffocating fear boiling over into indignation at all the heathens had interrupted. At that point, he would rip the door open and race toward the invaders with a kitchen knife, determined to strike them from his land.
He shivered as he envisioned them sharing a confused frown, pointing their weapons at him in unison, and mowing him down with the ease of automatic gunfire.
Inside, Rosa slipped out of her shoes, into her slippers, and shuffled to the main floor bathroom.
To gain a view of the compound, maybe allay some of his fright, he headed to the patio. On the walk, Victor spoke, pausing him a step before the glass threshold.
“Alex, Ms. Capaldi is currently in communication with an Agent Andrews from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He possesses court documents allowing them to secure these premises. Broumgard Group security forces are standing down.”
Alex slid to the floor, his back against the glass, his hands on his head.
They would escape a violent showdown, in lieu of…what?