“No. I can’t do it.” Susan shook her head violently, rising half out of her chair, trying once again to get her point across to the three executives at the other end of the table. “Ask me to do something easy. Ask me to part the Red Sea. Ask me to get blood from a stone.” Her voice rose in volume and in pitch as she worked up to a good rant. “Ask me to bring people back from the dead. Anything. But I just can’t get you sixty engineers in three weeks. It Just. Can’t. Be. Done.”

Lewis Levant, CEO of InterMob Media, age 26, dressed in a light grey Armani suit, and with a net worth of over $1.2 billion dollars in recently minted InterMob.com company stock, steepled his fingers and pursed his lips disapprovingly. The very blonde marketing VP to his right, equally young and equally well dressed, gazed at him adoringly. The Chief Financial Officer on the left, mid-fifties, less well-dressed, scribbled spirals on a pad as if the whole conversation bored him. Lewis waited several moments, as if he was letting Susan’s protests settle around him like dust onto the carpet.

“When I hired you to run this division, Susan,” he finally said, “it was my understanding that you had significant recruiting connections in the Valley. Are you telling me,” there was a significant pause — Lewis knew all too well the value of the significant pause — “that your skills are not up to this challenge?”

Susan reddened and thought she might press her fingernails right through her palms. “I am telling you, Lewis,” she said, carefully, slowly, repeating the same words for the umpteenth time and wondering if her CEO was excessively stubborn or just plain stupid, “that no one, not even the king of recruiters, can find sixty qualified programmers in this valley in three weeks. I can staff you a department. I can find you programmers. But it will take TIME. When you hired me you told me I had six months. Now you move up that schedule to three weeks? Three weeks doesn’t begin to cover it.”

Lewis stood up and put his knuckles down on the conference table, a habit that made him look somewhat like an over-groomed gorilla. “Let me emphasize to you, once again, how important this project is to InterMob.” he said. Susan groaned inwardly. Oh God, not again. “UniMicro has announced an video server project. Other companies are about to announce video server projects. I believe that if we have a video server project out before them we can successfully leverage our reputation and our user base into social media, and from that we can achieve recurring revenue. We *like* recurring revenue, don’t we Audrey?” He turned to the woman next to him, who grinned and blushed. “Yes we do, Mr. Levant!” she chimed in brightly. Susan wanted to twist her head right off her skinny little neck.

“With a successful video server project I believe we can compete on the level of a UniMicro or an NOL. I believe that with this project we can catch the wave, cross the chasm, and enter the tornado. It believe we must step outside our value network to avoid the innovator’s dilemma.” He paused, significantly, as if to make sure the buzzwords had sunk in. I read best-selling business books, was the impression Lewis wanted to give. I don’t understand any of them, was the impression Susan got. “But in order to do that, we need to start now, or we will miss this window. And our shareholders don’t appreciate missed windows.”

Obviously making the same point yet again wasn’t the right tactic. So Susan tried another one. “I understand that this project is very important to the company,” she began. “And I hope I’ve impressed upon you that getting these programmers this quickly will be exceedingly difficult.” Lewis opened his mouth to interject again, but Susan stormed ahead before he had a chance. “–but I have a suggestion. While we’re interviewing for the full-time staff, we hire contractors to get the project off the ground.”

“Contractors, there’s an idea.” Lewis mused. “InterMob has had very good luck with contract web designers.”

Susan smiled wanly. InterMob’s “good luck” with web designers, of course, meant hiring recent liberal arts grads who had read a couple books about web design, paying them next to nothing, giving them free pizza and nerf toys and convincing them it was a Cool Working Environment. It meant working them 100 hours a week and then firing them on a whim when they started to burn out. Programmers, with a lot more core skill and much more scarce, wouldn’t tolerate that sort of nonsense.

“Contractors will, unfortunately, be significantly more expensive than staff,” Susan said. “*Significantly* more expensive.” She emphasized. At the mention of money Bob, the CFO, suddenly woke up and put down his pen. They were talking money. Money was his territory.

“The budget we’ve given you for this division is already quite generous.” the older man said, frowning, pulling a printout of a spreadsheet out of a folder and gearing up for an argument. “The budget for your division already exceeds our current operating capital –”

“But contractors will get us off the ground quickly?” Lewis asked. Susan nodded.

“Do what you have to, then.” Lewis said. “You have InterMob carte blanche.”

Bob stared agog at what Lewis had just said, and then stared down at his now useless spreadsheet as if it would get up and crawl away. “Lewis, I must protest,” he stammered. “This will totally throw off my projections, all the earnings forecasts — the stock analysts –”

“Shut up, Bob,” said Lewis, in his typical style. “Do what you have to.” he repeated to Susan. “I need the video server project up and running in three weeks.”

* * * *

Susan was finally released from her meeting, and trudged back over to her division in building D. The building was mostly empty, its cubicles still being assembled, the network wiring still being strung, for the project she would run and the staff she would hire. The staff she had to hire in three weeks.

She had been working through her usual headhunter contacts since she had arrived at InterMob, used her usual methods of finding programmer recruits. It had been working reasonably well. But there wasn’t any time for “reasonably well” any more. It was time to call in the really big guns.

A quick glance at her contact list for the phone number, and she dialed the direct line of Martin Amherst, of Martin Amherst and Associates, Recruiters.

“This is Martin,” came the venerable voice at the other line.

“Martin, Susan Foster,” Susan introduced herself.

“Susan!” Martin replied warmly. “It’s good to hear from you! How are things?”

“Not too bad,” Susan said.

“How is your father?” he asked.

“Oh, fine, fine.” Susan’s father had been an executive at Hewlett Packard for many years, and now advised top venture capitalists on technical strategy. He played golf with Martin. It was her father’s friendship with Martin that allowed her access to his direct line. No one had access to Martin’s direct line.

“So what can I do for you this morning, my dear?”

“I need help. Big help. You know I’m running this new division at InterMob–” she began.

“Yes, your father mentioned that. Congratulations.”

“Well, I have kind of a recruiting problem.”

“I can help you with a recruiting problem!” Martin laughed. “What sort of recruiting problem is this?

“I need to come up with sixty programmers in three weeks.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Hello?” Susan asked, wondering if the line had gone dead.

“Good God, Susan,” Martin said in a long exhalation of breath. “Why didn’t they just ask you to move the mountains into the bay with a spoon.”

“Would have been easier, huh.” Susan said ruefully. “But its not all bad. They’ll let me bring in contractors while I hire full-time people, and I have a big budget on this. Big. But I need to move really quickly. I need lots and lots of contractors. Any ideas?”

Another pause, and a riffling noise, like paper being flipped through. Martin was an old-fashioned kind of guy; whereas all the new young recruiters had moved their contact databases onto computers and tiny sleek handheld toys, Martin still made do with a huge row of well-thumbed circular rolodexes. Between the rolodexes, his seemingly bottomless memory for people and faces and connections, and the thirty years he had spent in the Valley recruiting for the biggest and best of companies, Martin had no problem keeping up. No problem whatsoever. He was the uber-headhunter.

“About how big was that budget, you said?” he asked.

“BIG big,” Susan emphasized.

“Money-is-no-object big?”

“I’d put it right up there.”

“Hmmm.” Martin mused. “InterMob’s stock is up some 800% from the IPO, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t know you played the market, Marty. Yeah, we’re doing well.”

“Congratulations,” Martin said. Susan, as an InterMob employee, had her own share of stock options and would of course benefit from the stock price.

“Don’t congratulate me yet,” Susan said. “I don’t vest for three years. A lot could happen in three years.”

“True, true,” Martin said. Martin took his commissions in cash and stock. No options; actual shares of stock. Given his Mercedes, his huge house in Woodside and the summer house in the Bahamas, this had served him well over the years. “I believe I know someone who might be able to help you with your problem.”

“Great!” Susan grabbed a pad of post-it notes. “Hit me.”

“His name’s Rafael St. John.” He rattled off a phone number. “He runs a very special agency for engineering emergencies just like yours.” He paused to let her write it down. “He can supply good programmers, lots of them.”

Yes! Susan thought, scribbling madly. Just what she needed. Contractors would get the job done, but leave her time to be able to hire full-time employees. This would work just fine.

“Now, I should warn you, Susan, that Rafael runs a really unique shop. He will have some unusual requests.”

“Unique?” Susan echoed. “Unique in what way?”

“I should let Rafael explain that to you,” Martin said, coyly. “But I can assure you — those clients I have referred Rafael to have had nothing but praise for his programmers and for his professionalism.”

* * * *

Rafael’s office was in a small building in a town called Colma, just south of San Francisco and off of Interstate 280. It was a short trip for Susan from the InterMob offices in Menlo Park; a quick and scenic drive over the mountains for lunch.

Rafael was an older gentleman, well-groomed, with a slight european accent she could not place. He wore the same expensive italian suits that Lewis Levant had custom made but still managed to look uncomfortable in. Rafael looked as if he had been tailored from birth.

They went to lunch at a small Italian restaurant where Rafael knew the owner, and discussed her little recruiting problem over excellent hand-made ravioli and a bottle of Sangiovese. Normally she would not drink in the middle of the day, but with Rafael, somehow it seemed appropriate.

Rafael had seemingly solved her problems even before the main course arrived. He could supply her with the programmers she needed, with the skills she needed. He explained to her that his programmers were already even organized into teams, and there would be team leaders she and her managers could work directly with on specific portions of the project. She could barely believe her luck.

But then he quoted her the rate, per programmer, for that six month contract, and she turned white. “That much?” she stuttered. Bob the CFO would string her guts up in the courtyard flagpole for that.

“Allow me to explain,” Rafael said, placing his hand gently over hers, a gesture that would have seemed patronizing in any other man but totally natural in him. “My programmers are amongst the most dedicated in the Valley. They live for the art of programming, and they will live and breathe your project for the time that they are working on it. They do not keep apartments, and they do not have personal lives outside of work. They cost this much because they work in shifts and sleep onsite. You are actually getting at least two to three normal programmers for one of mine, well-organized, well-trained, working around the clock. You are getting a ruthless programming machine from me for that price.”

Susan did some math in her head. Even if his programmers weren’t as good as he said he was, just having those bodies around for that much time meant a lot of work would get done. Lewis could make serious headway on the video project, and Susan could get plenty of time to staff the project for real. She could probably make the case for the cost. It was a big risk. A really big risk. But Lewis liked big risks. It could possibly work.

“In return for their dedication, however, we will need dormitory quarters made available for the team,” Rafael added. “That will be an additional cost you must incur if you agree to take us on.”

Sleeping and showering facilities were not a problem at InterMob; they already did that for the Web designers. Adding a few more to building D as it was being constructed would mean only a slight incremental cost. Susan nodded. “Will I need to feed them, too?”

“No,” Rafael said. “That we take care of ourselves.”

“Not even soda?” Susan joked. Free soda was one of the mainstay benefits of Valley programmers. If you didn’t have free soda available, you almost weren’t considered a real company. Rafael smiled. “We will supply all nourishment for the programmers.”

“This isn’t some kind of cult, is it?” Susan abruptly asked. “You haven’t brainwashed these guys or anything, have you?”

Rafael exploded into laughter. Customers at adjoining tables stared. “I assure you, all my programmers work for me of their own free will. No cultism involved.”

“Then how do you get programmers to work for you, with such strict controls on their lives?” she asked. “The programmers I’ve known have always been much more free spirited than that.”

“Many of them are,” Rafael explained. “But there is a certain class that appreciates the sort of working environment we can give them. We take away the difficulties of life so they can concentrate on what they love the most: the code. Many of them appreciate that. And a few years of consulting with me and they can retire comfortably. There’s none of the risk of a startup, where maybe they’ll strike it rich or maybe they’ll be working this hard for nothing — they WILL be able to retire off the pay they make working for me. Its not an uncompelling arrangement.”

Susan shook her head. She couldn’t believe how easy this was going to be. “Is there anything else?” she asked.

“Yes,” Rafael said, picking up his wine glass and taking a short sip. “The most important requirement of all. We are signing up for a six month contract. That six month contract is firm.”

Susan waited for the actual problem to be mentioned. “I’m sorry?” she asked when Rafael didn’t continue.

“I mean that we can only work for six months. After that time the contract is over. Irregardless of whether your project is complete, whether you have the money to retain us for longer, or whether you think we are the best programmers you have ever met — the contract is over. My programmers will leave before noon on the final day of the six months, and you may not re-contract with us for another year.”

Susan blinked. What was this arbitrary six month deadline thing? Just six months and that was it? How bizarre. “Why the six months?” she asked.

“You could call it a requirement of byzantine government regulations,” Rafael said, waving his hand dismissively. “It would be too difficult to explain. At any rate, that requirement is absolutely non-negotiable. If you cannot acquiesce to that, I’m afraid we cannot come to an agreement.”

Six months. Susan puzzled. The project was supposed to be finished as soon as possible. But six months of killer programmers, working around the clock — and six months of time in which she could hire full-timers. If the project wasn’t done in six months she would possibly have enough staff engineers around to pick up the slack. But if not — at the end of six months things could seriously fall apart without Rafael’s programmers. Another big risk. A big expensive risk for the company. But a major coup if it worked. If it worked Lewis would be all over her.

“I can have my building done in a week,” she said. “How soon can your programmers move in?”

* * * *

She was right, Bob the CFO did go utterly postal when she told him how much Rafael’s programmers would cost. But she was also right about how Lewis reacted when she proposed hiring Rafael’s programmers in the right terms. Lewis had grabbed the bait; the ability to get off the ground this quickly was too tempting. In fact, after talking to Rafael personally Lewis came down so much in favor of the plan that he decided it was his idea in the first place. Susan, being the good executive that she was, allowed him this belief.

The programmers had arrived on schedule in two big unmarked busses. They looked like any other programmers in the Valley, running the gamut from large unkempt bearded hippies to younger men of Indian descent in cleanly pressed Gap khakis. There was even a woman or two.

Rafael arrived with them to finalize the deal, to tour the building, and to make sure his programmers got settled. Susan introduced him to Stewart, her technical architect and operations manager, the man who would be the actual director for the project. Susan had worked with Stewart in many previous companies and knew he would ensure that the group stayed on schedule and to update her regularly. Stewart was her field general and she trusted him.

“Well, what do you think?” Susan entered Stewart’s office a few hours after Rafael had departed, shutting the door behind her. Stewart was practically bouncing in his chair with excitement.

“I was just sending you email with the new schedule,” he said. “These guys are really hot. I put the architecture up on the white board and the project leads just took it and ran. I didn’t even have to explain much of it at all — just a few of the more complicated protocols and connections between components, and they all grasped it immediately. Then they broke down all the tasks, set milestones for themselves based on which team was better at each particular thing — I don’t think I’ve ever worked with guys this good.”

“So you think we can make the deadlines Lewis has set for the project? You think this team can get us significantly underway in six months?”

“I think we may be able to *finish* the project in six months.” Stewart’s excitement was contagious. Maybe this was going to work, Susan thought. Maybe they could pull it all off.

They had six months to find out.

* * * *

Nearly six months later, Susan was getting increasingly nervous. The first few months had been spectacular. Code flowed like wine. The status reports from Stewart were good — the programmers were making astonishing progress, far more than would have been expected, and with hardly any complaint. But as the months progressed the reports were less positive; Stewart admitted that things were not progressing as well as he’d like given how much Lewis interfered and how often he changed the scope of the project. Additionally neither Susan nor Stewart had been doing as well as she had hoped in hiring on full-time staff. Part of the problem was Bob — after losing the battle with her over the contracting budget, he had retaliated with her by cutting her stock option budget to almost nothing. How was she supposed to hire programmers if she couldn’t offer them significant options? Getting Lewis to listen wasn’t working; he was so focussed on the brilliance of Rafael’s contractors, on the sheer amount of work they generated every day she could not get him to put the squeeze on Bob to get him to release her more options. The net result was that in five months she had only managed to hire a dozen full-time programmers — far short of the number she needed to replace Rafael’s contractors once they disappeared after their six-month term was up.

And that six-month deadline was awfully close, a cliff wall looming up at the end of the highway she was traveling at 100 miles per hour. Every morning she woke up closer to the wall, still with more of the project left to do, still with more programmers left to hire. What would happen if she didn’t make it? She tried not to think of that. She got up every morning and called more of her contacts, went over more resumes with the HR associate she had working for her, schmoozed with more prospective applicants. Every day she had an appointment for lunch with another programmer who was trying to decide between an InterMob offer and other offers from other companies — usually better offers from smaller, pre-IPO companies with more excitement and better options packages. It was hard to get the programmers to come around to her point of view.

One day she took off from the persuasion lunches and had a lunch with her friend Brenda instead. They had met at a small cafe in downtown Palo Alto. It was nice not to have to do the hard sell over artisan bread and dipping oil, for once; here she could relax, let down her hair and just rant about how nervous she was about the project.

“It would have been so easy if it wasn’t for Lewis,” she said after filling Brenda in on the details. “Every day he has a new idea. Every day he changes the spec. Every day he comes over to my building and mucks around with my programmers. This isn’t my project any more. Its my name on the org chart, but its really his project. His project when it goes well, but if it gets screwed up its my butt out the door with footprints on it.”

“Typical,” Brenda commiserated. “Typical pushy type A CEO behavior. You think Ellison or Clark or any of those guys are any different? Could be worse,” she said, taking a sip of her wine. “He could also be hitting on you.”

Susan’s hand, with an olive in it, paused just short of her mouth. She made a face. “I’m trying to eat here.” she protested.

“Now Susan,” Brenda admonished, jokingly. “Lewis is quite a catch. Young, relatively good-looking, excellent future earnings potential — ow!” Susan had pelted her with the olive.

“*I* have excellent future earnings potential,” Susan insisted. “At least I will if this project doesn’t fail.” She paused and picked at a thread in the tablecloth. “I have to give Martin Amherst credit, he’s the one who got me this far, recommending Rafael’s outfit to me. Those programmers are just totally amazing. They never stop! They just keep working! No complaints, no tantrums, they just generate enormous amounts of code. Its brilliant.”

“Yeah, but what about that six month thing?” Brenda asked. “What happens when the deadline is up?”

“I have no idea.” Susan breathed. “I have no idea. I try not to think about it, but sometimes it keeps me up nights. I’m just scared to death that on the first of the month he’s going to show up with those busses of his and take his programmers back to Colma and I’ll be left with hordes of incomplete code and no one to work on it and Lewis will have my head..”

“Colma?” Brenda laughed. “Your recruiter is based in Colma? That’s funny.”

“Why do you say that?” Sarah said, looking at her quizzically.

Brenda stared back. “How long have you lived here?” she asked. “Don’t you know Colma? No one actually does anything in Colma. No one alive, that is.” She picked at her salad and laughed again.

“Excuse me?”

“Suz, you really need to get out see more of the Valley beyond the freeway and your office. Colma is the city of the dead. It’s ninety percent graveyards. When San Francisco got too busy during the gold rush they relocated all the graveyards to Colma so they’d have more room for houses. Its more built up now, there are townhouses and stuff, real people do actually live there. But mostly it’s still just graveyards. I can’t believe you didn’t know that.”

Susan thought back to her her first meeting with Rafael, and did vaguely remember driving past a number of graveyards to get to his office. She didn’t think much of it at the time, so eager was she to meet Rafael and to get the deal signed. She shrugged. “Is it such a big deal? Maybe offices are cheaper there or something.”

“It’d creep me out,” Brenda said. “Working right next to all those dead people. I wouldn’t want to work there.”

“Doesn’t seem to bother Rafael,” Susan said. “Doesn’t seem to bother any of this programmers. Of course his programmers work onsite all the time. We have dorms for them, did I tell you that?”

* * * *

They didn’t make it. The six months was up and they didn’t make it. Susan had hired a total of nineteen programmers, she finally managed to get Lewis to stop changing the scope and requirements for the project, but they didn’t manage to get everything done on time. From the estimates she and Stewart and the leads put together she figured they had only a month’s left of coding to do. Just a month. From there they could get by with the full-timers they had. But without Rafael’s programmers, for that month they were dead in the water.

The day before the end of the contract Susan got in early and slogged down four cups of bad coffee in her office as she prepared her strategy. At precisely 9AM she met Bob at the door as he arrived to work. She was determined and wired enough to intimidate an army of Bobs, and with a minimum of shouting in the hallway and threatening to call Lewis she got him to sign off on a contract extension for the team. She went directly from his office to the fax machine and sent the papers over to Rafael’s office. OK, she thought, nervously wiping her hands on her skirt. We’ll all get through this.  

On the last day, Susan hadn’t slept much the night before. She hadn’t heard from Rafael. She didn’t know where they stood. The tension was killing her. She paid a visit to building D first thing in the morning. The busses were already there, taking up space in the parking lot, and waiting. The busses that would take her programmers away and ruin her career.

The programmers were still working on that last day, working as if nothing had changed. One would expect that normal programmers would slack off, knowing it was their last day. These guys just kept going and going, as if they had a fire lit inside them. Susan and Stewart stood at the edge of the cube ocean and watched as the programmers typed away at their desks. “They’re not going to just walk out?” Susan asked Stewart, who was just as surprised as she was. “What’s stopping them?”

“They say they won’t go until we release them. They’ll just keep working until we tell them to leave.”

“Oh, good,” Susan breathed. There was still time to work out a deal with Rafael. “Keep them here,” she told Stewart. “Keep them working.”  

Barely hour later the receptionist called her from the building entrance. Rafael St. John had arrived and was demanding to see her. “Ms Foster,” he frowned at her as she opened the door to the reception area. “I am greatly displeased. The terms of the contract we signed were very clear. Six months, not a day more. Your director will not let me into your building. He tells me he will not release my programmers until I clear it with you.”

“Please, come into my office,” Susan said placatingly, beckoning him through the door. He stood his ground in the reception area, his arms folded. “I would be happy to discuss this with you,” she continued, “I had a conversation with my CFO and I believe we can come to a new agreement.”

“My busses have waiting in the parking lot since early this morning,” Rafael insisted, standing his ground. “It is imperative that you release my programmers this moment. Absolutely imperative.”

“Now, wait, Mr. St. John,” Susan said, smiling her best and most conciliatory smile. “I faxed you a contract extension yesterday, and I hope we can come to terms. The programmers are already here, they have facilities, surely you won’t pull them–” Susan’s cell phone tweedled at her side. She pressed the ignore button unconsciously with one hand. “Mr. St. John,” she said, turning back to the man in front of her. 

“This is a severe breach of our contract,” Rafael said sternly. “Very severe. The repercussions will be substantial. *Substantial.*”

“Look, Mr. St. John,” Susan said. “I appreciate your position. Please try and appreciate–” her phone rang again. She tried to ignore it. “We are very close to the end of the project. I am authorized to pay your programmers overtime pay if they stay.” The phone was insistent. “I am authorized to give them substantial InterMob stock options if they stay. I really don’t–” The phone interrupted yet again. Irritated, Susan answered her phone and shouted into it. “What do you want!”

“Susan,” Stewart was on the other side. His voice was urgent, scared. “You have to come over here. Something really bad is going on.”

“Really bad?” Susan echoed, looking up at Rafael, whose face suddenly furrowed. He covered his mouth with one hand. “What? What’s going on?”

“Please. Just come down here.” Stewart abruptly hung up the phone.

Susan turned on her heel, Rafael following close behind, and together they sprinted across the lawn to building D. They were held up at the door as Susan fumbled with her key card. “Do you know what’s going on here?” she asked her companion.

“Yes,” Rafael replied sadly. “I fear we are too late.” Through the door, past the receptionist, down the hall to the main floor of the building where all the cubicles were, where all the programmers worked. Susan flung open the fire doors.

The smell alone was enough to push her back a few steps. A dank smell, a thick, sweet, rotting smell, like the smell she had had in her house the previous summer when a rat had died behind the walls. “Oh, my god,” she said, reeling back. Rafael caught her as she stumbled, but she covered her mouth and nose with her hand and pushed away from him, with the other.

“What the hell is this?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sadly, as Susan steeled herself and moved into the room. “I really did try to warn you.”

Initially, beyond the smell, everything seemed to be fine. It was awfully quiet, though. Usually there would be programmers wandering through the halls and grouped in the common areas, discussions and arguments going on — the sound of work. But now, nothing. It was utterly quiet, no sound except the faint hum of the machines.

The walls of the cubicles were tall enough to hide their interiors. Susan turned into the entrance of the nearest one. “Oh, my god,” she repeated. The occupant of the cubicle — Susan didn’t know his name — was obviously dead, slumped over his keyboard, letters still streaming into the editor on his screen. If Susan didn’t know better, if she hadn’t just been there a few hours earlier, she would have believed that the man had been dead for weeks. His skin was purplish, bloated, and a black substance that looked like tar had spread over his clothes and the chair on which he sat. Susan couldn’t bear to look. She backed away from the gruesome scene.

But that same picture was repeated all over the room, in nearly every cubicle. In the center of the room by the pool table it was worse; here the bodies had fallen as if struck. Coffee had spilled from cups as they fell, leaving dark stains on the carpet next to bodies that looked as if they might be leaving dark stains of their own. It was if some gas had come through, some nuclear blast, some sudden force had swept through the building and struck down every one of her programmers. 

Susan heard a noise, a faint cry, and turned to the office at the end of the hall. Stewart’s office.

Stewart was backed into a corner, crouching behind his desk, wild-eyed, his arms wrapped around himself. One of the programmers had fallen in the doorway, face down on the floor.

He looked up and saw Susan. “He just came in,” Stewart said, pointing to the body in the doorway. “He just came in, looking really bad, all bruised or something, and said he couldn’t work any more. None of them could. He said the contract was up and it was time to go back. And then…he…..” Stewart swallowed. “He had no eyes. He *had no eyes.*”

Susan looked down at the body in the doorway. The horror she had just walked through replayed itself in her mind. And the smell; oh, the smell. She could feel thick panic rise up like acid in the back of her throat, but with it a strange realization. The uneaten food in the dumpster. The agency based in Colma, city of the dead. This was impossible.

Where did Rafael get his programmers, when there were no programmers in the Valley to be had?

She turned to Rafael, who was looking about dispassionately, as if this was the sort of thing he saw every day. “Rafael,” she asked, licking her dry lips with a dry tongue. “Did you send me zombie programmers?”

“I am very sorry.” Rafael continued to be solicitous. “This is very unfortunate. But I did warn you. The contract was only to last six months. That was a very firm date. The programmers go bad after six months.”

Susan’s lower jaw fell open of its own accord, and then she burst out in a giggle. “They go bad?” she asked, looking down at the corpse at her feet. She giggled again, and nudged it with her toe. The nudging broke something inside, and a small spurt of brackish liquid stained the carpet. “They go bad. Of course. They go bad. Past their expiration date. I understand.” She pressed her hand against her mouth, wrapping her other arm around herself as if she would burst apart like the bodies of the programmers in her building.

Rafael clasped her by the shoulder. “I will send a team to retrieve the staff and to clean up,” he said.

“Oh,” Susan said, still trying to control the giggles. “That’s good. Thank you.”

*        *        *        *

UniMicro announced it’s video product at Comdex in November to much industry fanfare. UniMicro stock was up five points on the day.

InterMob, which had earlier announced plans for a competing video product of great sophistication, claimed “difficulties adjusting to the new business model as well as extreme competitive pressures,” closed the division, and wrote of all of its considerable development expenses. On the announcement InterMob stock lost more than a third of its value, resulting in several nasty shareholder lawsuits and causing Lewis Levant’s net worth to plummet to a mere $900 million, dropping him off the list of Top Internet Zillionaires and severely impacting his social life. Susan Foster left InterMob when the division was closed, leaving the Valley and the high tech industry altogether to open a flower shop in her home town of Poughkeepsie, New York.

St. John Consulting continues to supply emergency programming services to some of the largest companies in the Valley.

Copyright © 1999, 2012 Laura Lemay ]]> http://www.lauralemay.com/fiction/the-deadline.html/feed 0 http://www.lauralemay.com/fiction/transmission.html http://www.lauralemay.com/fiction/transmission.html#comments Fri, 02 Jan 2004 02:17:32 +0000 laura http://wptest.lauralemay.com/2004/01/transmission.html Strange Horizons said that funny futuristic tech support stories are way too much of a cliche and they never want to see any more. But then I dug it out again recently and thought well, it isn't that bad. So my cliche is your gain. ]]>

“Good morning, this is the Honda Starlight Owner Satisfaction Team(tm). Is this Mr. Lipinsky I’m talking to?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Very good, sir. And how can I help you today?”

“My car won’t start. I’ve tried a bunch of times.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Lipinsky. Lets start from the beginning. Did you place your hands on the Honda AutoRecognition BioSensors(tm) when you got in the car?”

“Yes, I did that. The car wakes up, it recognizes who I am, it just won’t start. I’ve asked it a bunch of times and it doesn’t even answer. The only command it took was to phone home.”

“All right, sir. Let’s go through some simple diagnostics. I can see your car on my system, so your GPS transponders are all working. Let me connect to the car’s computer and see what’s up. You may see some blinking on the dashboard, there’s nothing to be alarmed about.”

“OK. I’ve only had the car a couple of months, you know.”

“I know, sir. I have your records right here.”

“Its been a really great car, though, totally reliable, and really convenient. I really hated always filling up my last car. I really like the mileage meter.”

“HondaMiles(tm) are awfully convenient, aren’t they sir?”

“Oh, yes. And all the adaptive stuff –”

“The Honda NeuroCognitive Adaptive Driving System(tm).”

“Yeah. Its like the car is built just for me, and it drives just for me. Its so sweet.”

“Well, thank you very much on behalf of the Honda Motor Company, sir.”

“Which is why I’m so surprised that it didn’t start today, its been so perfect up to now…”

“We’ll get to the bottom of this, sir, and get you back out onto the road as fast as we can, sir. I’m connected to your car’s computer now, sir, and processing your logs now. All parameters appear to be within normal ranges, although I do notice that you have been exceeding the speed limit for 6.4% of your hours of operation.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m sure you’re aware that speeding is very dangerous, sir.”

“You record my speed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I didn’t know you did that.”

“It’s in your Honda Owner’s Satisfaction Guidelines(tm), sir. Page 346.”

“Oh. I’ve been meaning to read that. Its kind of a big book, though.”

“There’s a lot of excellent information in the Guidelines, sir. I’ve read it dozens of times myself. ”

“I’m a very safe driver, you know.”

“I’m sure you are, sir. No, there’s nothing here that would prevent your car from starting itself. Why don’t we reboot your car.”

“Reboot the car?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll send a special signal down to the car to reset its internal systems. The car needs to be awake when it happens, so you’ll need to be in it, but you won’t feel it.”

“Oh, OK. It won’t hurt the car, will it?”

“No, sir. The car will go dark momentarily, and you’ll lose contact with the satellites and with me, but then everything will return to normal after a few seconds.”

“Oh, OK. Go ahead then.”

“Do you have a pacemaker, hearing aid or other medically implanted electronic devices?”

“What??”

“The signal can interfere with electronic devices. If you have a pacemaker or other implant you’ll have to get someone else to be in the car.”

“Um, no, I don’t have any implants or anything like that.”

“All right, Mr Lipinski, we’re all set. The car is awake?”

“Yes, its awake.”

“I am sending the signal now. I’ll open the channel again when the car comes back.”

“OK, talk to you — Ow! OW! shit!”

… “Mr Lipinsky?”

“Goddammit! What was that?”

“Sir?”

“The car zapped me!”

“I don’t understand, sir, you’re saying the car ‘zapped’ –”

“Yes! You said it wasn’t going to affect me! You said it was just for the car! Well it wasn’t, it felt like pissing into a wall socket! What the hell was that?”

“That should not have happened, sir. The signal should not have affected you. This is very unusual.”

“You bet it is! This had better have worked cause I’m not doing that again! I’ll go back to a gas car before I do that again! Goddammit!”

“Could you try starting the car now sir?”

“I can’t fucking feel my hands right now. Give me a moment.”

“On behalf of the Honda Motor Company I am extremely sorry. May I ask you a personal question, sir? Are you sweaty?”

“Am I sweaty? Excuse me?”

“Yes, sir. Are you perspiring heavily.”

“I’m in Tucson. Its July. I have no air conditioning because my car. Won’t. Start. Yes. I am perspiring heavily.”

“I’m very sorry, sir. I am afraid you are correct. There is a rare case that if there is contact between the Honda PosteriComfort Climate Sensors(tm) in the seats, such as can happen with excessive perspiration, the signal can result in the tingling sensation you experienced.”

“Tingling. Right. The Honda Motor Company will be hearing from my lawyer.”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Page 23 of your Honda Owner’s Satisfaction Guidelines(tm). All disputes between yourself and the Honda Motor Company are to be resolved through the Honda Owner Satisfaction Team Representative.”

" … That’s you?”

“That’s me, sir. And I am pleased to tell you that I am authorized to grant you 1500 HondaMiles(tm) as compensation for this incident.”

“I see. 1500 miles, that’s very generous.”

“However, I have just received a message from your insurance company. They have instructed me to inform you that because your speeding record is above the average for your combination of age class and your car type, they will be raising your rates in the next quarter.”

" … I see.”

“Could you try starting the car now, sir?”

“I think I’d like to stay home now.”

“Sir?”

“I’m sorry. Car: start. Yes, the car is running now.”

“Excellent! Is there anything else you’d like me to help you with today?”

“No. No, I think that’s enough for today.”

“Thank you for contacting the Honda Starlight Owner Satisfaction Team. And thank you for driving Honda. Have a Nice Day.”

It was the mushrooms that gave it away. It was cold, and it was wet, and it was mushroom season, and Martin saw them from yards away, even through the fog, even as nightfall slunk through the trees, and he went over to look.

He didn’t know one mushroom from another, would not know a button from a morel from a deathcap. He had a cousin, once, used to go mushroom hunting for food and probably to get high, although he never told Martin that, of course. The cousin got really sick one year and stopped doing it. Probably best that way.

These were big mushrooms, white, almost glowing in contract against the dark of the oak leaves in the ground. There were dozens of them, clustered in fairy rings, laced and concentric fairy rings. But only in this one spot, this one small clearing in the oaks. As if someone had dropped a stone into the forest floor, right here, and the mushrooms had rippled outward. All from this one spot.

He kneeled down, and the leaves were wet and smelled of moss and damp. The fog spun away from his hand as he reached out to a small hillock where the largest of the mushrooms was growing. He tipped the mushroom to one side and it delicately broke off from the stem, the gills underneath the cap glistening white and streaked with dark blue. He pushed the leaves aside. Under the mushroom, a flash of skin. White, streaked with blue.

He let out his breath, slowly, and the mist clouded his face. “Charlie,” He called to the other man whose hat he could just still see through the dusk, bobbing over the crest of the hill. “Charlie, I’ve found her body.”

“…and in the South Bay, we have a three-car accident on southbound 85 just before Saratoga.”

South Bay! South Bay! The mother in the minivan fumed as the traffic in front of her moved exactly ten feet and then glided again to a stop. Why did they always talk about the South Bay and never what was going on where she was. “When are we going to get home, Mama?” the child in the back seat asked her. “Soon, Allie,” the mother replied, trying to keep her voice calm and her hands not so tightly clenched on the wheel as the clouds around them darkened. Looks like a storm’s coming in, she thought. I hope we make it home by then.

“On the Bay Bridge the metering lights are on and the traffic is backed up well beyond the maze…”

The top-notch executive in the convertible sports car made a split-second decision. He abruptly transferred his cell phone to his other ear, shifted his car into second, turned his head to check the next lane, steered with one knee and cut off the car next to him, all while simultaneously castigating his CFO for last quarter’s numbers. This gained him one car length’s position. The driver of the car he had cut off shouted something. The executive made a rude gesture out the window, and something fell on his hand and stuck there.

Curiously, he pulled his hand back into the car. Stuck to the back of his hand was a large piece of ash, an ash that might have risen from a log in a fireplace and then settled back again into the hearth.

He looked up, looked around. Fires were not unusual for this area, and a fire up ahead would explain the rotten traffic today. But there wasn’t any smell of smoke in the air, and the dark clouds ahead of them were rain clouds, not smoke. As the executive watched more ash began to fall all around them, falling lazily to the ground like grey powdery snowflakes and drifting in clusters on the hood of his car. “I have to go,” the executive snapped at his cell phone.

“In Napa County Highway 29 watch out for a ladder in the roadway. CHP is en route…”

The electrician’s truck wasn’t doing so well in this traffic, and he eyed his gauges worriedly as they creeped upward. His brother had told him just that weekend that the water pump was going to be a problem, but he had laughed. This old Ford had been nothing but rock solid for him for years, it would last a few more weeks. He had some good jobs down in the valley to do, high-paying jobs, and that would give him some money to fix up the truck.

He watched uneasily as the ashes fell heavily from the blackened clouds and not a car on the road was moving, not an inch. People all around him were getting out of their cars, faces turned toward the sky, holding their hands up to catch the ashes, pressing their fingers against them, crushing them in their palms.

“Highway 17 slows at the Summit…”

The electrician heard the first raindrops hit the roof of his truck like tiny marbles, tap tap tap. Then he saw one drop onto the hood, sizzle, and the vanish in a bit of steam. Another, larger, slapped down bright red on the sheet metal, rested for a moment, and then melted right through it.

“My God,” the electrician swore, crossed himself and slammed his truck into reverse. He accelerated backward, crushing the bumper of the car behind him, then shifted again and came forward. It was no use, he was trapped in traffic.

“Roadwork at Fillmore and Van Ness…”

The air was growing hot as the drops became a sprinkle became a storm, and there were cries and shouts from cars all around him. Molten raindrops pocked his truck; one came through the roof and melted through the seat next to him leaving a stink of burnt plastic and foam rubber. The electrician pressed his hands to his mouth and prayed.

“Traffic is stopped at the 101/880 interchange….”

In the executive’s car, the convertible top provided no protection against the rain, and the drops punched through again and again and again. The executive used his briefcase for a while to try and cover his head, but after a while not even the best quality leather workmanship money can buy could stop it.

“Nothing but brake lights all the way from 880 to the toll plaza on the Dumbarton Bridge…”

The mother in the minivan was in the fast lane, and she got out of traffic and drove into the grassy median, something that had only occurred to a few other drivers on the road. But there the rain had pooled in the ground and it was only a matter of a few feet before the tires overheated and melted and blew. She did not get far. As the minivan ground to a stop she got out of the front seat, pulled her screaming daughter out of the baby seat and curled up on the floor of the back seat as the storm pattered noisily down on the roof, sounding entirely like the big thunderstorms she used to remember when she was growing up in the midwest and had missed so much when she moved to California.

“And this just coming up on my screen, it looks like we have a major backup on the Sunol grade due to a rain of fire. CHP is asking people to use alternate routes. More weather and traffic every eight minutes.”

*             *              *             *

I broke up with Joey after he torched my car for the third time. He said it was an accident, but its always an accident with him, you know? There’s always so much a girl can take, always scrubbing soot off the windows, always patching holes in your clothes and in the furniture, or covering the car seats with towels and duct tape because of his little “accidents.” And the smells he always leaves around him — those smells that make your sinuses hurt and force your eyes closed. Its just too much to take.

I told him last Saturday, and he argued with me, like you’d expect him to. You knew I was like this when we started dating, he said. You knew this was part of the package. And that’s true. Joey was always kind of scary, but in a fun way, him with all his matches and lighters, always playing with his Zippo, clacking it open and shut against the side of his leg when he was bored. And that habit he had of never lighting my cigarette with a single match. Always a whole book of them, all the matches exploding up in a stink of sulfur. He’d always take my cigarette from me, light it for me, lean into the flame and then look through it and past it and smile, and when he did a little flame would catch inside me, too. Every lit cigarette was a promise. And man, he always made good on those promises.

Joey was fun that way, for a while. But it just gets too much, you know?

Once in the middle of the night he came to my house, pounded my door, come on, come on, he got me out of bed, got me dressed, I was half asleep and didn’t know what was going on. There’s a big fire up by the lumberyard, let’s go watch, he finally explained to me as he bundled me up into my car, as we snuck up the hill over the high school. The lumberyard itself was on fire, I could see as I hunkered down on the grass with a blanket around me and Joey paced excitedly in the light. I knew people who worked at that yard, and I tried to explain this to Joey, but he just said yeah, whatever, and then the roof fell in and the flames blew up into the air and he jumped up and whooped like his team won the Superbowl or something. Like he didn’t even care.

I wondered after the fire burned down a little how it had started, and Joey said that maybe they had been storing gasoline in the warehouse. I said I couldn’t imagine why they would do that. Joey just laughed. Later on the newspapers said that the fire had started because of cans of gasoline in the warehouse.

Joey’s come by the house a couple times since I ditched him. Called a couple times. I figure I’ve said all I need to say, and that’s it, there doesn’t need to be any more arguing. I thought he had gotten the hint a few days ago, but the other night when I got home I thought I saw someone out by the basement door. Went out with a flashlight but there was nothing there. Thought I smelled something, but its fall, you know, and things always smell funny in the fall.

But I’m just here to tell you, just in case, that I’ve never stored any gasoline in my basement.

[samir 485]%> make all
cd src; make all
CC='gcc' CFLAGS='-g -O ' CPPFLAGS='-D_BSD_SOURCE    '
LDFLAGS='' MAKE='make'
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/builds/src'
cd mm; make all
CC='gcc' CFLAGS='-g -O ' CPPFLAGS='-D_BSD_SOURCE    '
LDFLAGS='' MAKE='make'
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/builds/src/mm'
make[1]: ERROR: can't find file tags.c
make[1]: ERROR: can't resolve symbol _mmtag
make[1]: ERROR: can't resolve symbol _libtag
make[1]: ERROR
make[1]: ERROR
make[1]: ERROR

To: tom
From:  andreag
Date: Wed May 24 1999 02:32:45 AM PST
Subject: FUCK THIS SHIT

I QUIT

[tom 4]%> last | grep andreag

andreag     ttyp16       fnord           Tue May 23 20:45 - 02:46 (6:01)

[Wed May 24 02:25:12 andreag] Fuck you UniMicro.  Fuck you all to hell.

* * * *

* * * *

* * * *

* * * *

[tom 15]%> cvs commit

It was more than thirty miles from where Carol lived to the city; forty by the mountain highway. Carol worked in an office in the city, and commuted the distance willingly every day. It would have made more sense for her to live in the city, or at least in a suburb closer to work, but she liked the neighborhood she lived in, and the commute didn’t bother her. In fact, if she traveled on the mountain highway it was almost enjoyable. Often while commuting, the rolling sweep of the road through the hills had a calming effect on Carol, helping her to relax after a long day, hypnotizing her to the point where she didn’t even mind the time she spent on the road. With the exception of the occasional deer which wandered out onto the road, there were few other disturbances on the long trip from the city to home, even during rush hour.

On this night Carol had stayed in the city long past rush hour. She had a date tonight, dinner at a little restaurant and coffee at a cafe next door. The gentleman she had been with worked in the office next to her; they had seen each other almost daily in the elevator and exchanged jokes and polite comments for months before she got up the bravado to ask him out. She had been more than impressed with him tonight as he revealed himself to be literate and outspoken, easy to talk to and quick with a joke. She had had a wonderful time, and had he offered to let her stay at his place, she would have gone. But it wasn’t altogether disappointing that he hadn’t; there would be future dates, and future chances.

It was almost midnight when she started home, and on a midweek night there was almost no one else traveling on Carol’s route. It had been a wonderful evening, and she felt relaxed and happy. It was dark on the freeway, foggy and cold, and she drove with the window open, the wind blowing in her hair, a tape on the radio blasting into the night. She sang along, off key, missing some of the lyrics and volunteering both lead and backup vocals. She drove fast and messily, with one hand, staying only marginally within the lane, and watching the fog roll over the freeway as if someone was standing by the edge of the road and blowing it out into her path. If she unfocussed her eyes she could almost see ghosts dancing in the fog before her, illuminated in the brights, running to hide as her car tore through them.

Suddenly, a dark shape appeared before her on the road, and Carol’s eyes snapped back into focus. She couldn’t tell what had wandered out into the freeway, she came upon it so quickly, but it was big, and black, and made no attempt to get out of her way.

She was going much too fast to be able to avoid it, but she wrenched the steering wheel to the side to try, slamming her weight down on the brakes at the same time. Agonizingly, she heard a thud, her car rocking on its tires in rebound, and she let out a short scream as her car came to a sudden halt.

Her car had stopped in the middle of the freeway some distance beyond where she had hit the creature. Carol’s heart was beating in her ears, drowning out the sound of the music still blaring. She reached over angrily and snapped it off. Breathing hard, she gripped the steering wheel in both hands, took several deep breaths to calm herself and looked behind her in the rear view mirror. There was only darkness behind her, dimly lit by the red glow of her brake lights. She could not see far enough behind her to see what she had hit.

Carol pulled over to the side of the road, and got slowly out of the car. Her knees were weak under her and she supported herself with her hands on the side of the car as she crossed around the front to the corner where she had hit the creature. The fender was dented, but it was a strange, even dent. She had hit a dog several years ago, and the dent on her car then had been smeared with blood and bits of fur. This dent was clean, as if she had hit a wall or another car, rather than a creature with flesh and bones.

Carol looked back along the road, into the darkness. Leaving the keys in the ignition, she got a flashlight out of the glove compartment, and began walking along the shoulder of the freeway back towards where she had hit the creature. She had to see what she had hit, to see if it was still alive, to see what she could do.

It was quiet and cold as she walked, slightly foggy, with no wind. She noted a call box along the side of the road; if she had killed whatever she had hit she could call for help. Twenty-five yards, forty she walked, flashing the beam of the light all along the shoulder and into the first lane of the freeway to try and see what was there. If when she had hit it the creature had been thrown out into the other lanes of the freeway, she would not have been able to see it.

Finally, far ahead, a dark shape lay huddled on the shoulder, and Carol squinted, focussing her flashlight on it as she walked closer. She drew up next to the creature and stood looking at it. It was black, whatever it was, big, and covered with long matted fur. It wasn’t a deer, and it didn’t look like a dog. Carol stepped still closer and played the beam of the flashlight over it. It was lying on its side, its hindquarters pulled up into its chest. It looked slightly ape-like. It was unlike any creature Carol had ever seen or read about. Puzzled, she nudged it with the toe of her boot. It did not move.

Holding her breath, she reached with her foot and turned it over onto its back. Its arms, long, hairy, with thin spindly fingers, fell to either side of its body. Carol stood back up again, her heart beginning to beat heavily again as she looked over the creature.

It was short, and stout, with long arms and legs. Its head appeared to be joined directly to its body without needing a neck. The head was the only part of its body not covered with hair; the skin on the scalp was scaly and pink. The eyes, which were closed, were huge. Its jaw, slightly agape, was full of sharp teeth. What was this creature? Where did it come from? What had she found?

Bending even further forward over the body, Carol realized that the body was unhurt, that there were no signs that it had ever been hit. There was no blood, nothing broken, nothing out of the ordinary, at least for a creature that was as odd looking as this one was.

Maybe its playing dead, she thought to herself, and as the thought crossed her mind, the creature opened its eyes and looked up at her, the beam of the flashlight reflected on its black eyes. Carol drew a breath to shriek but the creature reached up faster than she could pull back, took the front of her clothes in one hand and then ripped the scream and her throat out with the other.

The flashlight fell to the ground, shattered and went out as Carol fell heavily to her knees. On her knees she was about the same height as the creature, who now climbed up on its hind legs, her clothes still clutched in its hand. Carol’s vision faded in and out as the creature looked at her; surprisingly the pain was not as bad as she would have expected. The creature frowned, or at least, it made a face. Carol could not fathom the thought or intention behind the expression. Loosening its grip, it pushed Carol sideways, letting her fall to the pavement, her legs too weak to support her body. She landed on her jaw, and it splintered, and then she felt the pain, but she could not open her mouth wide enough to scream, so the sound she made was more of a pitiful moan. She had fallen on her side, and she could feel the warmth of her blood as it ran down the incline of the pavement past her cheek. She tried to gasp, but she could not draw air into her lungs. She looked up at the creature who was still looking at her with the big eyes, eyes with no irises, just endless fluid black. The creature looked at her impartially, and then turned away from her, walking with a low shamble back along the shoulder the way she had come, back towards her own car.

Carol’s vision darkened, and the pain overcame her. Tears formed and blurred in her eyes as she blinked to try and see what was going on She tried to push herself up onto her hands, but her muscles were frozen. As she died, she heard the engine start in her car, and watched as the lights in her car came on and it pulled off of the shoulder and vanished down the freeway road into the fog.

Ellen was nearly finished with her third drink when she noticed the man in black. He was standing by the edge of the dance floor, watching the crowd with a bored expression. The crowd deserved his disdain; for an underground nightclub, there were certainly a lot of normal-looking people at Shades of Midnight tonight. Ellen had been on the prowl all night, and had been decidedly unimpressed with the variety of men she had seen. Until now. She put down her glass and turned to Tamara, prodding her on the shoulder to get her attention.

“What do you think of that one?” she asked, leaning close so her voice could be heard over the blast of the music. She pointed through the crowd where the man was standing

“Oooh, definitely do-able,” Tamara replied, nodding. “And just your type, too.”

“Who’s this?” Andrew, the third at their table, asked. “Who are we talking about?”

“The longhair in the corner. Black jacket, black pants,” Tamara replied, gesturing with her cigarette to the figure Ellen had just pointed out. “Ellen wants him.”

Ellen put on an mock expression of indignance. “I only pointed him out, I didn’t say I wanted him.”

“Just your type,” Andrew affirmed, as the man took a long drink from a bottle, completely oblivious to their observations. “Long hair, black clothes, earrings. Yup. Ten bucks says you wants him.”

“Ah, but you don’t know if he’s tattooed,” Tamara noted as Ellen opened her mouth to protest.

“True,” Andrew demurred. “Five bucks.”

“Sucker’s bet,” Tamara said, refusing Andrew’s outstretched hand.

“Cut that out,” Ellen laughed. She had obviously spent far too many nights in nightclubs with these two; they knew her taste in men all too well. Although she had to admit her taste was all too predictable; to give Andrew credit, the mysterious man in black had most of the characteristics she looked for in fresh meat.

“Well?” Tamara asked, nudging her with her arm. “If you don’t get a move on, some other sweet young goth thing’ll steal him away from you, and I’ll have to listen to you bitch all the way home.”

“Wait, the song’s ending,” Ellen protested. “And besides, he sees me. I have time.”

* * * *

Ellen took her time in approaching the man in black. For almost three songs she watched him as she had a fourth drink, watched him as he danced a little bit, danced with the showy air of someone who knows they are being watched. He had most definitely seen her in the corner, watching him; even though he was positioned on the dance floor at the opposite corner of the room, he peered at her through the spaces in the crowd. Ellen felt herself flushing with drink and with the attention; she loved this game of tease and reply, of hide and seek.

All the while Tamara and Andrew made fun of her for not getting up from her chair, but she shushed them. The crowning glory in Andrew’s and Tamara’s evening came when the man removed his jacket after dancing to a particularly hard and fast song, revealing his bare chest underneath. Covering the front of his upper torso, and snaking over his shoulders and around his sides, was a single, huge, tattoo. Andrew and Tamara practically crowed with glee.

“Ten bucks,” Andrew reiterated his bet. Tamara merely gave him a sarcastic look.

“What is it of?” Ellen asked, peering through the darkness as the man wove between the dancers in his own rhythm. “I can’t see clearly from here.”

“Its some sort of monster, I think.” Tamara said. “I can see claws, and….eyes.”

“Its beautiful work,” Andrew commented. Of the three of them, Andrew was the resident tattoo expert and owner of five of his own. He was on a first name basis with most of the artists in the city. “I don’t think I’ve seen so many gradations of purple blended like that before….”

Tamara snorted. “Leave it to Andrew to provide a running commentary on the artistic qualities of punker tattoos.”

“Oh, its ok,” Ellen said, relishing the chance for the teasing to turn to someone other than herself. “You know how Andrew gets sometimes –”

“Holy shit.” Andrew abruptly said, sitting upright in the chair. Tamara and Ellen turned to face him. “What?” Andrew’s gaze was riveted upon the tattoo. “Thats a Mark Killock. I’d swear it, its his work.” Andrew leaned even further forward, trying to get a better view through the lights and the darkness. “Shit, I never thought I’d see one.”

“Who’s Mark Killock?” Ellen asked.

“A tattoo artist, obviously.” Tamara replied. Andrew looked sharply back at the two of them. “Not just any tattoo artist. Mark Killock is one of the very best tattoo artists…his work is incredible. That tat is just his style, the colors, the blending, and the subject matter….”

“Its delicious.” Ellen commented, grinning, standing up and adjusting her short skirt over her thighs. “He’s mine.”

“Don’t look so worried,” Tamara commented after a pause, reaching out a hand. “Ellen will be fine. You know her, she likes dangerous-looking longhaired boys.”

Andrew shook his head. “I was just thinking about that tattoo.”

“Is it that special?”

“I’ve heard some really wild rumors about Mark Killock,” Andrew replied, looking at Tamara mysteriously. Tamara laughed at him, taking his hands in hers as if to reassure him. “Ellen can take care of herself.”

* * * *

Ellen was pleased with how the night was progressing. When she had started dancing the man had ignored her, but he had been watching her the whole time. When this song had started he had given her his undivided attention. One more song and she would be sure. The music pounded in her ears as she swayed back and forth, and the man in front of her mimicked her movements, watching her with black eyes that radiated lust and made her breathe faster even before he had even touched her. And here on the dance floor, with the lights, Ellen could get a better view of the tattoo.

It was a shapeless monster of a tattoo that seemed to writhe as its owner moved. It appeared to have dozens of tentacles, tentacles that ended in claws, claws that were tinged with dark blood at the ends. It had no head, this monster, but it had eyes, thousands of them, greenish purple eyes over the expanse of its gelatinous body that seemed to look straight at Ellen while she danced. Its mouth, in the center of its body, was ringed with teeth in rows, sharks’ teeth. The creature was purple, varying shades of purple that reflected and glistened in the light, almost like scales. It was a repugnant picture, and Ellen could not fathom why anyone would want it painted permanently on their skin. But at the same time she had to agree with Andrew that the work was fantastic. It was hard to believe that any single needle had crafted the lines and blended the inks so perfectly that you could not tell where one shade of purple ended and another one began. Reaching out playfully, Ellen ran a finger down the center of the man’s chest, right over the creature’s mouth. The man’s chest was smooth and hairless, with nothing to break up the lines of the tattoo. Beautiful. “Do you like it?” the man mouthed to her as he danced.

“Yes,” she nodded admirably.

“He likes you too,” the man smiled at her, and Ellen smiled back. Bingo, she thought. She had made her conquest.

* * * *

Later on Ellen approached Tamara and Andrew, who had moved to the upstairs bar where the music was quieter. “So what’s up? Progress?” Tamara said as Ellen approached their table again.

“Oh, yes,” Ellen said, smiling. “We’re leaving.”

“Have a good time,” Andrew commented. It was ritual that made him say that; Ellen always had a good time.

The man approached Ellen from behind, wearing the discarded leather jacket over his bare skin once again. He reached out and took the back of Ellen’s neck in the other. Andrew looked uneasily from the hand to the man’s face; he looked like he could close his fist and snap her neck with barely a thought. “Ready?” the man asked, as Ellen took her jacket and purse from the chair where Tamara had put them.

“Yes,” Ellen said, nodding politely to the pair, and turning to leave.

“Excuse me,” Andrew suddenly asked. Ellen and the man stopped and turned back to the table. Andrew motioned to the tattoo with his chin. “Is that a Mark Killock?”

The man looked at Andrew, and his eyes pierced the darkness as if a light was shining behind them. “Yes,” he replied. “It is.”

“Are the rumors true?” Andrew asked, his voice straining to remain causal. Tamara could feel the tension behind it in the air. “The rumors about the rituals…?”

The man laughed, once, a short laugh that showed only in his mouth. “Of course not,” he replied, taking Ellen by the shoulder and guiding her away from the table. Ellen waved back as she left, grinning.

Tamara waited until the couple was out of sight before turning to face Andrew. “Rituals?” she demanded, eyebrows raised, “what rituals?”

“Its just rumor.” Andrew shrugged, watching at the doorway where the two of them had vanished. “I’ve heard a lot of rumors about Mark Killock’s work.. weird satanic shit.”

Tamara waited several seconds for Andrew to continue and when he did not, asked, “what sort of satanic shit?”

Andrew shrugged again, reluctant to continue. “Mark Killock tattoos demons.”

“I’ll say,” Tamara stated. “That creature was horrible –”

“That not what I mean. I don’t mean that he tattoos pictures of demons; he tattoos the demons themselves.” He took a pause as Tamara absentmindedly let the ash fall from her cigarette onto the floor. “Its just rumor,” he finally continued, when he realized he had said too much to just let it drop. “I’ve heard that just finding Mark Killock is a test; you have to be really determined to want to find him. It’s not like he tattoos in any shops. Then once you find him if you want to get tattooed by him you have to go through years of training, to prove yourself, before he lets you go through the rituals. And the rituals are the weirdest part. I’ve heard claims that during the ritual, black magic draws out demons from your soul. Usually the worst kinds of demons. The magic enslaves them and then Killock tattoos the demon itself into your skin.”

There was a long pause, and then Tamara took a long drag on her cigarette and laughed. “Do you actually believe all that shit? Thats major twilight zone stuff…Personal demons, exorcised from the body and painted into the skin. Ooooh,” she laughed, waving her hands about in the air in front of her.

Andrew looked over at her almost angrily, grasping one of her hands in his. “Does it really matter if I believe it or not, or even if its true or not? The point is that if someone goes through the trouble to get tattooed by Mark Killock, he very probably believes it himself. Regardless of the validity of the rumors, Ellen has just gone home with a man who believes that he has enslaved his own personal demon under his skin. And thats what worries me.”

* * * *

Ellen laughed as they walked to his apartment, feeling drunk and silly, and loving the feel of a new man in her arms. They weaved haphazardly down the sidewalk, occasionally taking breaks in the dark sections to grope each other. Inside the building, he stopped her abruptly in the hallway outside his door and shoved her up against the wall, one hand tangled in her hair, forcing her head back to kiss her, hard, and the bit at her neck. Ellen pushed her hands up under his jacket, gasping at the naked skin on his back. She gasped when he hurt her. Then as suddenly as he had grabbed her, he let her go, standing aside and reaching for the keys in his pocket. She had to press her hands up against the wall to keep her balance, t keep from collapsing in a heap on the floor. Lustfully she eyed him as he unlocked the door and gestured chivalrously into the apartment.

She giggled when he locked the door behind her and pulled her directly to the wide futon in the middle of the small studio. He pushed her onto the bed, and took off his jacket in the dark, dropping it absentmindedly on a chair. “Get undressed,” he commanded her, turning away from her and moving about in the room. Ellen did as she was told, watching him in the half light as he lit candles around the bed. In the flickering of the yellow light the tattoo on his chest moved with the muscles in his body as if it were alive. “Come to bed,” she said, impatient.

“In a bit.” he said, ignoring her as he finished with the candles. It seemed like an hour before he finally put down the matches and climbed onto the bed next to her. She gasped as his body covered her, gasped as his teeth bit into her neck and her breasts. “Oh,” she said, once, and he leaned over her, his hands on either side of her shoulders, the demon on his chest fully displayed by the light of the dozens of tiny flames around the room. “Oh,” she said, again, finding herself drawn to stare at the work on the skin a few inches before her face. It was moving in the light. The clawed tentacles undulated towards her and the mouth appeared to open and close, dripping black saliva as it did. The demon’s eyes looked down at her body in lust and hunger, and Ellen found she could not take her eyes away from them.

“Oh,” she said, a third and final time, as the man bent his arms and crushed her body beneath his.

* * * *

“She’s not home,” Andrew said, holding the receiver against his ear with one shoulder. “I’m telling you, she’s not home.”

“Well then where the hell is she?” Tamara asked. “She never misses Fridays.”

“Maybe she has a new guy,” Andrew shrugged as the phone rang over and over again in his ear. “Maybe she’s out with him. You know her.”

“She would never miss a Friday at Shades,” Tamara insisted. “Never.”

“When was the last time you talked to her?” Andrew asked, giving up and hanging up the phone.

“Same time you did,” she replied. “Wednesday, when she went home with that guy with the tattoo. He’s probably murdered her, dismembered her body in the bathtub and poured acid over it to get rid of the evidence.”

Andrew smiled, once. “And you claim that I have a vivid imagination.” Then looked worried. “I wouldn’t put it past him. He does have a Mark Killock, after all. The type of people who get Mark Killock’s tattoos are hardly the type who are into normalcy in any way shape or form. And I didn’t like that guy to start with.”

Tamara suddenly leaned close and pointed. “We could ask him.” she said, her voice low. “Thats him over there.”

He was standing by the bar, wearing the same battered leather jacket as before, once again bare-chested underneath it. The creature on his chest seemed much less frightening than when it was fully exposed. In the full flourescent light of the upper bar, it looked almost like a regular tattoo. Andrew and Tamara watched him for a while as he ordered a shot of something dark and sludgy looking, and swallowed it effortlessly. “Go ask him,” Andrew said, nudging at her arm. He didn’t admit that he was slightly afraid to ask himself.

“OK, I will,” Tamara took the challenge. Andrew watched as she pushed through the people standing around in her path, watched as she walked boldly up to the man and talked to him. Andrew could not hear their conversation, but the man looked puzzled when she asked. Tamara made motions that were obviously a description; about this tall, longish hair. The man looked at her, and a slow languid smile spread across his face. He leaned over towards her, and Tamara seemed transfixed by her voice. The man’s lips just touched her ear, and he whispered something to her. Tamara blinked, once, and then turned pale.

Andrew pushed himself away from the wall, ready to jump in if Tamara was being threatened. What was going on? Tamara took a step back, blinking, and the man leaned back and turned back to the bar, waving at the bartender with authority, that smile still stuck on his face.

Tamara stood stock still for nearly a minute, and Andrew was just about to go up to her to see if she was all right when she turned and bolted for the door, one hand pressed up against her mouth. Andrew paused, debating whether to confront the man, or run after Tamara. He chose to run after her, following her outside. He called her name as she stumbled along the sidewalk, chasing her, and finally caught up to her several doors down from the club.

“Tamara.” He said, grasping her shoulders, turning her towards him as she went weak against the wall. Her expression was panicked, her eyes wide and full of frightened tears. “Tamara, what is it? What did he tell you?”

“She — I–” Tamara started, and gulped for air, struggling for control. “He has her. He has her trapped.”

“Wait here,” Andrew said, turning back towards the club. He pushed past the door guy, pushed through the crowds to the bar where the man with the tattoo was still standing, talking to the bartender and looking as if nothing had happened.

“You,” Andrew said, pulling on his shoulder, spinning him to face him. “What have you done with Ellen?”

The man stumbled a bit as he was spun, but he caught his balance and looked coolly at his attacker, a faint air of disdain in his glance. “Ah, its you,” he said. “I just explained it to your friend, ask her.” As if that was the end of the conversation, the man turned back to the bar. Andrew took hold of his shoulder again, grasped the front of his leather jacket in his fist and turned him forcibly back around again.

“She told me already. She said you had kidnapped Ellen. I want to know what the deal is, but if you’ve hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you right here.”

The man looked into Andrew’s eyes for several seconds, and then laughed again with that faint humorless laugh. “I haven’t done anything with her.”

“Well, you certainly gave Tamara that impression. Why is that?”

The man pulled back, ripping his jacket out of Andrew’s grasp. There was a long pause between them as their eyes locked. “Perhaps because I showed her this,” the man said, and pulled aside his jacket, turning slightly into the light.

The full glory of the tattoo was displayed in the flourescent light, and Andrew found his eyes drawn once again to the fine detail in the work, admiring it even as he was disgusted by its subject matter. The thousands of eyes appeared to be staring at him, almost blinking. The tentacles writhed in the light, and then as Andrew watched it, the creature actually was moving, rolling about on the fabric of the man’s skin. And in one of its tentacles, viciously mauled, was Ellen. Andrew stepped back, unable to pull his eyes away from the scene. Ellen’s lower body had been entirely eaten away, the remainder cut in slashes over every inch of her skin and her hair hung in her face, caked in her eyes with blood and slime. Andrew watched in horror as Ellen’s body turned in the creature’s claws, and saw with ever mounting panic that Ellen was still alive, that she was fully aware of what was happening to her, and that she was screaming at him, screaming mindlessly, trapped within the tattoo.