Mind Hive Read online

  Mind Hive

  ———

  A Science Fiction Thriller

  JAKE BERRY ELLISON JR.

  Copyright © 2019 Rooster Dynamics

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781548178604

  Forever Paige and The Three

  "We (the undivided divinity operating within us) have dreamt the world. We have dreamt it as firm, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous in space and durable in time; but in its architecture we have allowed tenuous and eternal crevices of unreason which tell us it is false."

  —Borges

  Part One

  I

  The big man flicked his legs under the bedsheet, seeking, shifted his head. Adam’s mind sniffed for the warm and dopey cloud fading from all around him. There it was again. Something had broken or flown through the room, electrically. A bug? Big bug? He tossed onto his left side. The bed creaked under his efforts. He leaned. There it was again. Out there somewhere, buzz buzz buzzing. A goddamn phone! His slumber-panic had some justification. Only three numbers from his contacts would make that thing buzz this time of night: the city editor’s, the pressmen’s and the mother’s. One of which would’ve had to come from the grave. So either the dead had cellphones or the city editor or …Buzz Buzz ... He had no idea what time it was. “Timeless is the night.” His mind captured the phrase and modified to it a strand of a popular song from his youth: “Timeless is the night, when you find yourself alone.” He flung himself over onto his other side, facing away from the direction of the sound of the phone. Finally it kicked over to “Leave a fucking message already.” Irritation and fluttery panic tightened across his chest. Wouldn’t be the first time the presses broke down and decisions had to be made for what sections wouldn’t get a full run. The buzzing started again. So, it was definitely serious, whatever it was. He groaned into the darkness as the curtain of alcohol and sleeping pills parted slightly before his consciousness. He rejected the world, pushing the side of his face into the pillow. How many more twenty-hour days can he be expected to handle! The phone stopped. A second later, the buzzing started up again.

  “Fucking fuck!”

  He flipped over toward the edge of the bed and looked into the dark. A muted glow floated a few feet away, downward. Maybe it was his dead mother after all, seeking rescue from the afterlife as she had episodically sought escape from the nursing home. Go to sleep, mother. You’ll have forgotten it all by morning. It stopped. It started. If he doesn’t answer, his managing editor will work down the list until someone answers and chases whatever ambulances are streaming through the fog of her dreams. The twenty-four hour news cycle had ruined everyone’s life. He leaned off the side of the bed and clawed around at the vague light until he found a pant leg, dragged it over and then got the phone out just as it kicked over to message. Kristi Beach, the phone announced with a very bright light. The fucking city editor. Time was 3:45 a.m. No message. He dialed her back preemptively.

  “Kristi?”

  “Adam! You can be woken from the dead. Terrific. Just got a call I wanted to tell you about.”

  “Oh, okay. I'm always here for you. You know that. Your daughter missing again? Publisher heard something that sounded like a gunshot?” He couldn't entirely scrub the panic out of his tone. Despite thirty years in the newspaper business and sleeping drugs, a late night phone call still made him panicky. Or, maybe the panic was because of his decades as an assistant city editor at the Seattle Daily-Record. As his chest tightened more, his doctor yelled at him from the back of his mind: "You’re too young to have these kinds of heart problems! Relax. It’s just life!”

  “Your blogger …” Kristi let the pause drag for a moment for full effect.

  “Natalie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Can I talk?”

  “Sure,” he said, rubbing his left arm. “Just my doctor was distracting me.”

  “Sleeping with the enemy?”

  “This point in my life, I’d sleep with the publisher.” He pushed himself into a sitting position and took a deep breath. The sharp pain might have been imaginary. This really might be it, he thought.

  “Ha!” She sounded awfully chipper, which might normally seem like a good sign save for the time of night. “Okay, look, just got off the phone with ...”

  “You know I have a heart problem.”

  “Ted Mannerheim’s attorney.”

  “Perfect.” His chest relaxed. Breath came more easily. A lawyer call didn’t mean shit.

  “Well, he said Natalie took some photos of Mannerheim at a private party, which he said invaded Mannerheim’s privacy. They want ’em.”

  “You told him to go to hell.” Adam yawned. Jesus he hated these rich tech bastards.

  “In no uncertain terms.” A dish struck a pot or something in her kitchen sink. If Beach was awake, she was moving. “Nevertheless, I would like to know what in Sam Hell she was up to, you know, just to get my story straight before my phone rings and it’s Brodman on the line. Did you send her?”

  “Yes. I sent her to cover one of those private dance parties on the off chance Ted would be there. She got a tip.” If the Executive Managing Editor Neal Brodman also got a call, Adam would lose the morning to meetings. His chest retightened just thinking about listening to that pompous …

  “... and that mattered to us because?” Sound of liquid pouring into a container. She’d been trying to save her marriage through sobriety, so he hoped it was water. The last thing he needed was a drunk, mid-divorce Beach storming around the office.

  “Not sure,” Adam conceded in tone. “Just a hunch. She’s been after me to cover the damn resurgent electronic dance scene and of course I refused. But when she heard Ted was going to be at this party and given his reputation ...”

  “Which we will not speculate about in terms of our motives.”

  “Right. But, we just wanted to see why he would go to some dance party full of 20-somethings.”

  “Okay. I guess she is running a blog and that’s sort of blog-like.”

  “Now I feel dirty.” He swung his feet off the bed, failing to resist going for the cigarettes in a bedside drawer … somewhere in the dark before him. He pointed the phone’s screen forward for a second, spotted the white dresser and then caught her mid-sentence.

  “… it’s the new, old world.” She paused. A lighter ignited. She’d beaten him to it. “Let me put it to you this way.” Exhale. Cough. “You gave her the assignment.”

  “Exactly.” Adam got his own cigarette lit. “And why I gave her the assignment is a matter of free speech, and I don’t have to tell anyone jack shit about it.” He pushed pillows into a ramp against the headboard and leaned back. He had become his mother, smoking in bed though everyone had begged her not to.

  “I love the First Amendment,” she said while exhaling. “Now. I think you’d better call your girl Friday and let her know lawyers are involved and she’s to keep her yap shut. AND no social streaming either, for fuck sake.”

  “I’m dialing as I hang up.”

  He got off the bed and fumbled for the switch on the bedside lamp, got it on, rubbed his face and mic-checked his voice. Put on his pants. Laughed at not wanting to talk to the reporter in his underwear. Goofy. He sat back on the bed, let himself wakeup while the cigarette lasted, preparing for Natalie’s over exuberance. A lawyer call! I’m a real reporter! One lawyer call does not a reporter make … Her phone rang about a half a second before she answered.

  “Uh oh,” she said.

  “You’re fine. Just don’t say anything to anyone outside of myself and Kristi. Got it?”

  “K.”

  “What happened?”

  “I kicked ass. That’s what happened.”

  H
e imagined her high-kicking and that did not boost his confidence in how this might all turn out.

  “Yes, but, what happened?”

  “When I got there, I decided I would go all paparazzi and worry about the details later.”

  He did like her initiative, though he’d never say so. Nothing wrecked a young reporter’s productivity more than praise.

  “Did you happen to take down any names, email or phone numbers?”

  “I didn’t.” She projected patience in silence. To her credit, he acknowledged, she didn’t over explain. Some reporters would've talked for ten minutes by this point, defensive and whining about having to take their own photos. Natalie, on the other hand, waited for him to either have a full-fledged fit or give her a chance to explain herself or both, which was more likely, from her perspective.

  “Just give it to me chronologically,” Adam demurred, lit another cigarette.

  “I got out of my car. Walked into the house with a few new arrivals and took some photos, and very casually walked out in case his security saw me.”

  “But there must have been others taking photos.”

  “Nope.” She didn’t attempt to explain.

  “And why was that do you suppose?”

  “They had portable lockers for phones … with names …”

  “You weren’t invited?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Complication. He exhaled loudly at the dim ceiling. His mind worked the problem for a solution he wanted. Mannerheim was a local celebrity, and he was attending what they took to be a public event … but of course their issue gets a lot easier if … “Where were you when you took pictures of Mannerheim? Inside? On the lawn?” Leading the witness your honor. Time-honored. “Don’t tell me you were on the public sidewalk?”

  “Definitely on the sidewalk.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Thank you!” She sounded as surprised as he was glad.

  “Can you see him plainly, inside, you know, hanging out?”

  “You can in the photo I took from inside the building.” Deadpan delivery.

  He snorted appreciation, trying not to like her. They pass through so quickly … “Okay. What photos do you have?”

  “I emailed you the three best. Two from outside with him going in and then the only image I could get of him inside, under the lights, swinging his little arms around.”

  Adam walked over to his desk and opened the laptop. “He does have short arms.”

  “They’re like T-Rex arms. I had to use a flash, so as soon as I got it, I bolted for the door.”

  “Okay, fine. But why would he be all worried about us taking a photo of him at a party, even though he was swinging his little arms around?”

  “Because it’s gross?”

  “Maybe. Looking now.” Adam opened the mail program and got to her photos. Two were taken with a zoom pointed at the front door, from possibly the sidewalk or driveway. Those plainly showed Mannerheim smiling up at three young women. He stood about five-foot-three. One of the women was a foot taller, with an afro. She wore a long coat, buttoned closed, that caught the street light on a shoulder. Her eyes were locked on Mannerheim's. The two others, blondes with dark eyebrows who looked like they could be sisters or part of a dance troupe, stood with their arms crossed on either side of the tall woman. They looked up at her between them while she spoke down at Mannerheim with intensity. It did not look like she was saying something pleasant. The third photo, the indoor photo, was somewhat blurred but still a clear view of Mannerheim, jacketless, with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his arms poking downward. His face pointed at the floor. He appeared to be shimmying. Adam laughed.

  “I know! Right?” Natalie chuckled a bit too casually.

  “This would be easier if you’d have stayed.”

  “I just wanted the photo …”

  “But you should have let him explain himself and maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the middle of the night.”

  “”I …”

  He tuned her out. It didn’t matter. It’s over now and so he studied the pictures more closely, looking for signs of drug-use or even drinking or vaping, anything that might embarrass the tech giant more than simply hanging out with a few young women, who, unless they were minors, could have a perfectly good reason for hanging out with him in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, Natalie prattled on with her story.

  “… in my car until I saw him walking up the sidewalk, alone. When he got to the door, it opened and the women came out and the tall woman with the afro started talking at him. I couldn't hear what she was saying. I got those two photos, like I said, from the sidewalk.”

  “They didn’t see you then?”

  “I was standing in the shadow of a tree just under the streetlamp.”

  “You’re like a private eye.”

  “That’s what growing up with the television always on will do for a person, that and I have actually done this job for a while ..."

  He didn't bite.

  "... then I put the big camera away and went in with just my phone."

  "Door security."

  "No one."

  “Hmmm." Could be a good thing. They had no controls, so how was she supposed to know it was private? But then it’s probably bad, he thought. You don’t have a bouncer at a private party with friends. “Hmmm,” he said again.

  “What?”

  “Just, hmmm. Go on.”

  "I went inside to find him and saw him in a corner dancing very close, but not obscenely close, between the two blondes from the door photos, more like they were talking and trying not to look like they were talking. I flashed him and left just as they started for me.”

  “Who?” Adam paced a zig-zag that would eventually end in the kitchen.

  “The two women he’s dancing with.”

  “You should have stayed. Not like they were going to beat you up or anything.”

  “You don’t know that.” She’d put a bit more defiance in her voice. “I don’t know what was happening, but it wasn’t just a dance scene. No drugs. No alcohol. I got the feeling they were putting on a show for him."

  Scanning the background of the photos, he saw what looked like a pretty normal party of this sort—young, tattooed kids and flashing lights. But there was Mannerheim.

  "Anything odd about the women, other than they were talking with Mannerheim, you know, before they came for you?”

  "Not really. They just looked like your average sorority types, sort of ... more like girls who played soccer in high school and stayed fit.”

  “Okay. We can debrief later.” Adam closed the laptop. “We might have to give up the photo from inside the party,” he said just to let her know she’d made a mistake by not staying and asking questions. The photo meant nothing journalistically. And yet …

  He walked to the dining room table, opened personal journal and wrote the date on the top of the facing blank page, waiting for Natalie to realize what he was saying. He had decided he would be more successful as a diarist than a novelist. She cleared her throat, waited to be dismissed. “I don’t know,” he set the pen on the page, “maybe not. He is a public figure. Just wish you’d have been invited to the party.”

  “That’s never going to happen. They run a tight ship.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They have an encrypted, private social network platform and the only way I heard about this was from some guy on Reddit who'd gotten himself uninvited and then outed them to me. Anonymously, in case you were wondering.”

  “And I was. In the morning, we’ll work this through and look at whatever other notes you have.” He walked back into his bedroom. “Also, we’ll want to get library on Mannerheim, not just the shit we’ve written about him already. I want all his public records, home ownership, businesses, corporate boards, everything updated. As soon as you get there, tell library I said so.”

  “Okay. I will. And ... Thanks!”

  She hung up quickly.

&n
bsp; He snorted pleasantly, took up the phone-charging cable dangling off the edge of the dresser and plugged it into his old phone with a cracked screen. New phones didn’t crack, so he carried the damaged phone and displayed with pride its retro-coolness. He walked back to the dining room, folded the notebook over the pen, like a dog’s unconscious impulse to bury a bone, and went back to bed. Lying flat on his back, he let his mind swarm around the photos and asked himself several times, koan-like, "What could possibly be in them that would upset Mannerheim?" There wasn’t any obvious drug use going on. So even if someone there was underage, what did it matter? Was someone there a spy or illegitimate offspring?

  At 6 a.m., he gave up the search for sleep or any answers and got out of bed. He sat at the dining room table and opened the journal. He cleared his mind to let intuition swim. He had been working on a zombie novel for most of a year since his divorce and had filled his head with extensive research on zombie culture. He had too much invested to switch to a diarist. All he needed for a novel was a new kind of zombie plot, a unique twist to the well-worn story. His therapist in collusion with his physician had instructed him to meditate on his novel when he woke early or, hell, stare blankly out the window. Anything as long as he wasn’t thinking about his ex-wife. He lit a cigarette.

  Adam turned his gaze out his floor-to-ceiling condo window. Downtown Seattle gleamed in ambient florescence below Capitol Hill, already teaming with predawn crawlers. Several more minutes passed like this, and though he craved a drink, writing or at least preparing to write his zombie novel would have to be satisfaction enough. They had warned him that he was on the brink of losing his health for good, and, yes, possibly dying much too young from cardiac arrest or stroke. A train of thought he had not pursued before bubbled up: What if angels, which are consciousness without bodies, came down to battle zombies, which are bodies without consciousness? His hand twitched to write the question and he lowered his eyes, but the question was unsatisfactory. The most important part of a zombie story was that humans had to save themselves. And the best zombies had the appearance of rudimentary consciousness, hinting at the tantalizing possibility they could become a thinking, deadly rival for dominance over Earth. What if zombies could breed? What if they could spread zombieism by biting and procreation? He wrote in the notebook: It became a well-known fact among the survivors that the zombies were not only driven by an insatiable desire to eat living flesh, but that they were also driven to have sex. He exclaimed into the quiet of his bachelor condo: “The first zombie story ever to include zombie orgies!”