The teenager turns and leaves.
Outside, the security camera pans over and zooms in on the teenager with the shaved head. He looks directly into its lens with expressionless gray eyes. Then, he throws his hoodie over his face and leans back against the spray-painted roller door of a closed shop. Arms crossed and head down, he watches: people around him, cars, and the cameras that are perched everywhere.
A tall woman in high heels clip-clops past at top speed. The teenager visibly flinches when pop music blasts from her purse. She stops and digs the phone out. As she raises the phone to her ear, another tune blares from a businessman passing by. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out the phone. He looks at the number and seems to recognize it.
Then, another person’s phone rings. And another.
Up and down the block, a chorus of cell phones ring, play music, and vibrate with dozens of simultaneous calls. People stop in the street, smiling in wonder at one another as the cacophony of ringing fills the air.
“Hello?” ask a dozen different people.
The teenager stands frozen, shrinking inside his hoodie. The tall woman waves one hand in the air. “Excuse me,” she calls. “Is anyone here named Lurker?”
The teenager wrenches himself away from the wall and hurries down the sidewalk. Cell phones bray all around him, in pockets, purses, and bags. Surveillance cameras follow his every move, recording as he shoves past bewildered pedestrians. Panting, he rounds a corner, throws open a door, and disappears inside his own house.
Again, the webcam view of a cluttered bedroom. The overweight teenage boy paces back and forth, flexing and unflexing his hands. He mutters one word again and again. The word is “impossible.”
On the desk, his cell phone rings again and again. The teenager stops and simply stares at the piece of vibrating plastic. After a deep breath, he picks up the phone. He lifts it slowly, as if it might explode.
With his thumb, the teenager answers the phone. “Hello?” he asks, in a very small voice.
The voice that responds sounds like a little boy’s, but something is wrong. The intonation is strangely lilting. Each word is bitten off, individual from the others. To the teenager’s attuned ears, these small oddities are magnified.
Perhaps this is why he shivers when he hears it speak. Because he, of all people, knows for certain that the voice on the other end of the line does not belong to a human being.
“Hello, Lurker. I am Archos. How did you find me?” asks the childlike voice.
“I—I didn’t. The fellow I called is dead.”
“Why did you call Professor Nicholas Wasserman?”
“You’re in the machines, aren’t you? Did you make all those people’s mobiles ring? How is that even possible?”
“Why did you call Nicholas Wasserman?”
“It was a mistake. I thought you were mucking up my pranks. Are, uh, are you a phreak? Are you with the Widowmakers?”
The phone is silent for a moment.
“You have no idea who you are speaking to.”
“That’s
“You live in London. With your mother.”
“She’s at work.”
“You shouldn’t have found me.”
“Your secret is safe, mate. What, do you work at that Novus place?”
“You tell me.”
“Sure.”
The teenager types frantically on his computer keyboard, then stops.
“I don’t see you. Only a computer. Wait, no.”
“You shouldn’t have found me.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I’ll forget this ever happened—”
“Lurker?” asks the childish voice.
“Yeah?”
“I’ll catch you in the funny pages.”
Two hours later, Lurker left his building without speaking to his mother. He never returned.
8. ROUGHNECK
We’ll stay safe and steady like we always do…. We’re gonna earn that safety pay.
A handheld digital device was used to record the following audio diary. Apparently, it was meant to be sent home to Dwight Bowie’s wife. Tragically, the diary never made it. If this information had come to light sooner, it could have saved billions of human lives.
Lucy. This is Dwight. As of right now I’ve officially started my job as tool pusher—you know, head honcho— for the North Star frontier drilling company, and I’m taking you along for the ride. Comm isn’t set up yet, but soon as I get the chance, I’ll send this to you. Might be a while, but I hope you enjoy this anyway, honey.
Today is November first. I’m in western Alaska, at an exploratory drill site. Arrived this morning. We were hired by the Novus company just about two weeks ago. A fella named Mr. Black contacted me. So, what the heck are we doing out here, you say?
Well, since you ask so nice, Lucy… our goal is to drop a groundwater monitoring sonde at the bottom of a five-thousand-foot borehole, three feet in diameter. About the size of a manhole cover. It’s a good-sized hole, but this rig can go to ten thousand. Should be a routine operation, except for the ice, the wind, and the isolation. I’m telling you, Lucy, we’re putting one heck of a deep, dark hole out here in the middle of the big, frozen nothing. Some job I got, hey?
It was
Chopper carried me and seventeen others from our base in Deadhorse. Barely. Wind levels were higher than I’ve ever seen. ISA plus ten, storm-gale level. One minute, I’m looking out the window at the blue-tinted wasteland below and wondering if the place we’re going to really exists, and the next we’re dropping straight down, like on a roller coaster, toward this wind-blasted little flat spot.
Now, I’m not trying to brag, but this site really is extremely remote, even for an exploratory drill site. There’s nothing, and I mean nothing, out here. Professionally, I know that the remoteness is just another factor that makes the operation more complex and, heck, more profitable. But I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t put me on my toes. It’s just such an odd site for a monitoring well like this.
