DETOUR

  Sebastian waited at the exit of the site, his back to the cold on the other side of the door, though, it was at the forefront in his mind. He was sitting at the top of the damp stairs they had shed snow onto on their way in. Distracted as he was, by reliving the degradation of his sister, and then her sudden vanishing, he had not noticed the watery footprint he sat in, before it was too late.

  From that moment on, as he watched Lord Tredici pace the entry hall, Sebastian’s wet chinos, and how cold they would be outside, dominated his focus.

  “…put me through to them then. Immediately. The emergency line.” The usually casual lord let his frustration fly freely at whatever poor operator had the misfortune of answering his call. His commands came in concise bursts, which read less like worry, and more like annoyance at the person’s confusion at his chosen title. Every word was emphasized by exaggerated hand movements, despite the operator not being able to see them. “Sorry? What? Why would it matter? I don’t care which of them I speak to! Dio mio! Connect me to them. Yes, whatever agents you fools sent after VIO-071.”

  While he waited, Lord Tredici lowered the phone away from his mouth, in order to hurl Italian insults at the ceiling. When he was done, he glanced at Sebastian, before returning to the call. “Hello? Hello?!” He pulled the phone away from his face, again, to check if the call was still going. A sharp, exasperated sigh left his mouth, as he put it back to his ear.

  His attention turned to Sebastian with a roll of his eyes.

  “How long does it ta—,” Lord Tredici stopped, when someone came on the line, “—yes, who am I speaking to? Agent Gregory Hawke? Right. You’re vacationing in Hume, Virginia, correct, Agent Hawke?” He sighed at the reply. “Yes, I understand that. No, you—I don’t care about that. No. No. You are to put your current mission on hold, and do something for me. Alpha priority. What? Do you know what that means? Do you know who you’re speaking to? Lord Tredici, fifth member of the advisory board. How else would I be speaking to you on this line?”

  He tensed his jaw, stroking his beard like he might pull it off, while the rhetorical question was answered.

  “Good. Yes, I need you to find a keyhole to scan. A keyhole. On a door, yes. Any door will do. I need janitor’s access.” Another moment passed, as Lord Tredici listened to Agent Hawke. “No, you do not need to call for backup if I am on my way. Yes, I am sure. Yes. Preferably, as close as possible to the ranch, but any in Hume will do. Yes. Send the file as soon as possible.”

  After closing the phone, then sliding it under two layers, Lord Tredici zipped up his jacket.

  “I do not understand who they’re hiring these days,” he mumbled, as he climbed the steps up the exit. Near the top, he turned to Sebastian. “Tell me there’s not fools like this in your mountain,” he laughed, before letting a hint of sarcastic anguish into his voice. “Not our historians, too, Dr. Hale…”

  “From top to bottom, it seems,” Sebastian said, with too much poison. He cringed, as he stood up and felt his cold, wet chinos, soaked through to the boxers. When he turned around to face the door, Lord Tredici was looking at him questioningly. “At the Monolith, I mean. Not the Foundation entirely. Not—”

  The advisor’s indiscernible face cracked into a smile. “Of course, of course,” he said, laughing. Turning to address the door, he continued in Italian. “Il pesce puzza dalla testa.”

  “What’s that mean?” The question was automatic. Sebastian was not sure he cared.

  “The fish stinks from the head,” Lord Tredici told him. “Oh—,” suddenly remembering something, he unzipped his down jacket to his waist, so he could reach the ring of keys on his belt, “—you would say rots, yes?”

  “Right.”

  As Sebastian watched Lord Tredici casually ponder the keys, the past day’s events began to creep into the present. “Hume?” His throat had gone dry. He swallowed a lump. “Hume, Virginia?”

  “Yes,” the lord said, without looking away from the jingling keys.

  “Is that where—,” either the question or name stuck in his throat, “—is that where Tabitha is?”

  “Hmm,” Lord Tredici continued poring over his choices. When he spoke, again, his voice was slow, clear and pointed. “Variance Imbued Object number Zero-Seven-One.”

  “What?”

  “That is the designation your sister was given, no? After her…outburst.”

  Sebastian had known what he meant. He just needed a moment to temper his reaction, while he grit his teeth at the advisor’s dehumanizing tone. “You pushed her to that.”

  Lord Tredici’s eyebrow began to climb up his forehead. Rather than turn to face him, he shot side-eyed daggers at Sebastian.

  “What—whatever the fuck that was,” he continued. His confidence grew with each word, as his frustration gained momentum. “Whatever that was when she…,” he paused to think of the right word, “…disappeared? That site director was right. You provoked her.”

  Breaking his side-eye glare, to return to the keys, Lord Tredici’s finger landed on a solid black key. Taking it between his fingers, he turned to face down his accuser. Something like smug pride painted his face. “And?”

  And? The word, and all its singular implications, struck true in the center of Sebastian’s forehead. He could feel his brow furrow instinctively, unable to match the advisor’s poker face. “And what the fuck was that? Why did you do that? Why did you bring me here?! To see my sister like that?! Now you’re dragging me along to help hunt her down? Did I hear that right? Why?!” Throwing his hands up, he gestured at the situation, then at the advisor. “What are we—no—,” he looked down at himself, and flailed wildly at his own presence, at the borrowed parka, and his wet pants and shoes, “—what am I fucking doing?!”

  The two of them stood there, in silence, until his anger burned itself out.

  The warmth returned to Lord Tredici’s voice. Now, the slow, intentional way he spoke lent itself, not to the image of a cold detached advisor, but a benevolent lord. “Dr. Hale, in our time together, you will see that, while there are many things I can abide from the high seat, the expropriation of a name, from the named, is something not even my station can keep me from loathing.” He turned, and pulled the heavy door open, letting bitter cold rip into the hall. Leaning in, he yelled a secret against the howling wind. “The helper and hinderer’s hands look no different, until the deed’s undone!”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  He’s speaking in riddles? It was a language that, unlike Italian, he could usually translate, given his interest in folklore and myth. But, while it had the cadence of a riddle, making him look for meaning beneath its surface, he found it no deeper than a puddle. Sabotage? Sebastian’s look of bewilderment followed Lord Tredici out into the oppressive cold.

  ~~~

  Closing the door behind them, with the all the icy wind of a Russian tundra pouring into the room, proved nearly impossible on his own. It did not help that Sebastian was being yelled at to do so delicately, in order to not injure the door. He did not know how to fight tooth and nail delicately. It was only when Lord Tredici decided to help Sebastian, by pressing his shoulder begrudgingly into the fine mahogany wood, that it finally closed.

  With the cold, went the noise, and all the distance between here and there unfolded, again.

  Just to be sure, Sebastian turned the handle to the closet, and flung the door open.

  The winter landscape had vanished, leaving only a closet behind in its place. It was the same room full of racks and shelves of expensive clothing that the casual lord had pulled their coats from. “Whoa,” he said, the novelty of anomalous travel breaking through his haze, “that is crazy.”

  “Hang your jacket up, won’t you?” Lord Tredici returned from another room, a towel in hand. “On the hooks, so it can dry first,” he said, handing him the towel. “So much snow! Dry your shoes, and then the floor, won't you?”

  Rather than wait for a reply, the advisor moved on to taking his own jacket off, and hanging it up inside of the closet. “Join me in my office, when you’re done.”

  As he walked off, Sebastian eyed the man’s shoes for the snow he must be tracking around. The budding frustration, of him thinking he was going to dry the entire floor, blossomed into confusion, when he realized Lord Tredici had none on him. Rather than dwell on it too hard, he shook his head at it, and chalked it up to good luck.

  Lord Tredici’s home was another sign of his good fortune. The room they had entered into was, by itself, bigger than his entire apartment in the Monolith. It was a sprawling living room, with a bar in the corner, and large conversation pit in the floor around the fireplace. Most of the it was either white stone, or dark mahogany, in an almost brutalist design. There were no windows, minimal furnishings, and maximized levels of art.

  On the wall above the door to his office, a full scale recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper had been painted. Sebastian counted twenty-six other paintings, of various things, were spread across the other walls of the room. In every corner, there were marble sculptures, each with enough space to walk around and admire them from all angle. Even the seven rugs, some of which looked Persian, and thrown around in no particular arrangement, would be considered art to most.

  All in all, the place looked more fit for entertaining guests than living in.

  Something about standing there, surrounded by so much, and yet so little, reminded him of home. The feeling lingered, as Sebastian walked toward Lord Tredici’s office, and a strange sense of nostalgic foreboding overcame him. He was a child, again, walking the green mile, on his way for an assessment, or the punishment that, more often than not, followed. After the day’s events, it would make perfect sense for it to be his mother waiting for him there.

  Instead, through the short hallway beneath Jesus and his twelve disciples, Sebastian found Lord Tredici’s office, with only him in it. He was sitting at his desk, staring at a laptop open on it. His face read impatient, but the song he was humming to sooth himself had an anxious rhythm to it.

  When he noticed him hesitating in the doorway, Lord Tredici snapped out of his rumination. “Ah,” waving Sebastian into the room, his thoughtful face shifted to a smile, “come in, Dr. Hale.” Pointing at the screen, his face flickered back to a grimace. “Still waiting on the scan.”

  “Right,” Sebastian said, stepping into the office.

  It was far lighter in color than he expected. Most of the darker shades were centered around the desk. The few paintings hanging on the white stone walls were of bright, picturesque landscapes, with fields full of flowers, and valleys running off into sunsets. Behind the desk, a singular painting of a bulbous mountain hung. Monte Sibilla, Sebastian thought. He knew it by the description of it he had picked up at some point in his studies: a big, grass covered breast, and was happy to finally confirm it.

  Lord Tredici clocked the smile that crept across Sebastian’s face. His own face mirrored it, before exaggerating it, with pride. “Beautiful, no?”

  “It is,” Sebastian nodded. “It’s very…green.”

  “I had it commissioned by a painter we have in containment,” he said matter-of-factly, as if to get a rise out of him.

  After a moment of not getting a reaction, Lord Tredici continued. “His is an interesting gift. These paintings he makes? When he sleeps, he can use them as portals into the places they’re kept.”

  Sebastian could not help but squint dubiously at the advisor.

  “Unfortunately, he is made of paint when he visits, and a pain to entertain. A painfully boring conversationalist, too,” Lord Tredici said, with a dramatic sigh. “Unlike some others I know.”

  Dodging the friendly jab, Sebastian turned his attention to the machine sitting in the corner. It looked like a miniature 3D printer attached to kiln. Wires ran from it to the laptop on the advisor’s desk. “And which captive made this?”

  “Ah!” Lord Tredici shot up out of his chair, laughing. He stomped proudly over to the contraption, and beckoned him over. “No, no, Dr. Hale, this is something Ms. Apropos herself designed for me, believe it or not.” When Sebastian got closer, he pointed at the logo etched into its side. “See?”

  It was a tiny, Swiss Army style hand, with tools of industry coming out of each fingertip, and a light bulb in its palm.

  Like most Blackwell employees, Sebastian was more than familiar with Apropos Inc.’s logo. Nearly every piece of technology used in the foundation was designed, or redesigned, and then manufactured by the company. Any technology that was not invented by Apropos Inc. was most certainly reverse engineered and improved by them, to then be used as proprietary tech. Their most advanced inventions were said to be second only to magic, if not first to it.

  Sebastian leaned in, and nodded in recognition. His face must have looked interested, or uninterested, enough to continue.

  “She said it was almost too simple to bother with,” Lord Tredici’s smugness began to show through his smile, “but I insisted, of course.” A creepy wink confirmed that he used his variance. “It’s not as simple as it looks, but, in a way, it is,” he said, gesturing emphatically at each component, as he explained. “The file goes from my laptop, to this thing, and then it prints the key there. Once that’s done…”

  His explanation of what was essentially a very fast 3D printer, that uses metal filament, and can sinter it all in one machine, went on long enough for Sebastian’s thoughts to drift back to what they were using it for. For the briefest moment, he pictured his sister back in the interview room, bound to a chair. When his mind tried to picture where she was at that moment, it fractured into a million possible places. He imagined the number’s climbing from one into infinity, as he counted every possibility, improbable or not. Anything seemed possible after she disappeared right in front of him.

  Hearing Lord Tredici say the word kill pulled his mind out of the spiral.

  “…only if you have to.”

  “Sorry, what?”

  Lord Tredici squinted at Sebastian. He repeated himself slowly, speaking to him like he was stupid. “After we get to Hume, we will see what those two foolish agents have planned, and wait for the opportune time to strike.” In order to make sure he had his attention, he grabbed Sebastian’s shoulder. “Do not kill them, unless you absolutely must.” He smiled. “That makes for a lot more problems.”

  Sebastian raised a dubious eyebrow at the advisor. “Kill them? Why would I? How would I…”

  “Oh,” Lord Tredici took a long moment to roll his eyes, “you missed that part, too.”

  Suddenly, he was moving toward his desk, and opening one of the drawers, with his fingerprint.

  “I have something to give you.”