Title: The Questionable Occurrences Spawned In August (Pretentious Title, Quick Read)
Author: Antje Farries
Fandom: The Zeta Project
Rating: Teen
Language: English (UK)
Note: Sequel to Whole Day Off; faraway prequel to Predestination (et al.), but you don't need familiarity with either title to read this . . . Notes are available at the end of the book (the end of chapter 24), sorted by chapter.
Warnings: For anyone who's read my work before, it's the same ole stuff. VOP's (very odd pairings) and TMER (too much excessive realism). Psst, I don't own the Zeta Project... But cross my heart and hope to die that I invented ... well, some characters. Imaginations are great, aren't they?
Date: All chapters 14 July to 7 August 2006; except chapter 1 on 15 April 2006
Length: About 70,000 words; 24 chapters; and it's all written already!

o – o

A thank you to Rodney Brooks, author of Flesh and Machines, a compelling read about our past and present with robots, and a possible future with advanced, syntax-capable automatons.

o – o

This convict, this desperate man, whom I have pursued even to persecution, and who has had me beneath his feet, and could have avenged himself, and who ought to have done so, as well as for his revenge as for his security, in granting me life, in sparing me, what has he done? His duty? No. Something more. And I, in sparing him in my turn, what have I done? My duty? No. Something more. There is then something more than duty.

-- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

o – o

1) Thirteen

Maria Laclaire was one of the finest sopranos of the last thirty years. She could wail out an aria and make wolves under full moons jealous. She could fill out an elaborate costume and make supermodels jealous. She could command an audience and make drama-seekers jealous.

Hallelujah God, the woman's Jealousy Personified, Thornton Harris thought to himself. She even makes me feel emasculated.

And, really, that was saying something. At two-ten, three inches above six feet, he was a force up there with Tsunamis and Global Warming. Yet, there he sat, in the middle of the Palladium, in a tuxedo he actually owned and hadn't rented for the occasion, feeling himself shrivelling as though Maria Laclaire looked right at him—right at him with a mesmerising, womanly stare, like sulphur and starlight and Hell, in a uniform gaze.

He didn't even know what he was doing, spending the evening at an opera. Because his boss had asked him to go? Because the boss's wife had pleading, puppy-dog brown eyes that watered on command? Thornton always was a sucker for a woman who could act as well as she could kiss.

Trudy, the boss's wife, wore an evening dress of dangerous blue and an equally dangerous plunging neckline. Her hand, covered in the same royal blue satin, was curved over the forearm of her husband. Thornton noticed their affection through the evening, mostly out the corner of his cynical eye. He disapproved. He was single; naturally he disapproved. No one was allowed to have public affection if he was on the outside looking in. It seemed so desperately unfair, somehow.

Still, being single had its purposes. Its uses. Its fine points.

He politely applauded Maria Laclaire's ending aria along with the rest of the titillated horde, mind never on the opera. He was already drifting from singularity to work. The two ideas were not as far apart as first believed. Initially he'd given up his playboy life for his work. Then it was time to give up a fiancée. And when that still wasn't enough, he gave up all definitions of self, no matter how weak they were, for his work.

Who'd have thought that making software for government robots would be so inclusive? The National Security Agency had come along one dismal afternoon six years ago, and on their way to his front door they'd kindly erased all traces of life in wake.

Shouldn't he be able to blame his parents for something like this, this shoddy deal, this crappy hand that life had dealt him? It was his father's doing, for not hugging him enough, not disciplining him enough, during those awful growing-up years.

Yeah, somewhere back there, his father had done him wrong.

If only he could get that theory to stick, he'd really have something to tell his therapist.

He angled to neatly spy three seats away, to the long, strong features of a man nearing retirement age. His father. The one and only. He seemed to be enjoying the opera's end; he was quite fixed to the stage. But his soft hand poised confidently around the fingers of his flavour-of-the-month tartlet. Thornton leaned into the seat and tried to focus on the operatic fools.

But aside from sopranos that made him feel naked in a crowd, he couldn't get past the fact that this was a bunch of people dancing and singing in ridiculous costumes and getting paid for it. Paid! Money! He'd only gone to appease his boss, the boss's wife and her pleading brown eyes that watered on command, and his emotionally distant and extremely ambiguous father.

He was glad he was single, not attached to a tartlet or an actress—or both, for that matter. He didn't have to pretend to enjoy himself for her sake. When the show ended and the cast appeared for bows and bravos, Thornton didn't have to pretend a thing.

The lobby was still empty when he landed in it. The applause went on behind him, through gilded doors of the ancient Palladium, restored once and restored again in its two hundred year history. What'd it matter to him, any of it? The opera. The Palladium. The boss's wife. His father. Being single, so single that Zero was getting jealous and Two looked on in awe. What'd it matter to him? He worked for the NSA, for crying out loud. What more could a man ask for? He knew things civilians couldn't even imagine, not even in the stupid Hollywood scripts that kept getting produced year after fruitless year. There were greater secrets in the world than the secret of a successful career, a successful marriage; there were secrets that shaped the world in a daily basis. Super secrets. His secrets.

Laughter and idle talk pierced his ears. Patrons filed from the four sets of double doors. Already with his checked hat and dapper cane in hand, he waited for his party to catch him up. It didn't take long for Trudy; she sauntered to his side and at once latched elbows.

'I was sent to find you. And here you are! What's that serious look for? Didn't you like it, Thornton?' Her brown eyes were like charred cedar, widened and brightened by excitement and innate, upper class vanity. She thought she was perfect and charitable, being nice to a single, over-worked scientist like Thornton Harris. He was sick of her phoney niceties. Sick.

'Not a bit,' he answered.

Trudy just giggled and tightened her hold. 'Come on, I see hubby waiting for us.' They headed for the exit along with ladies drowned in expensive perfume and men stinking of rental suits. Trudy was pressed close to him. 'Thornton, have you got a fag? I'm dying for a smoke.'

'Me too. Smoke 'em up while the government still lets us.' They'd barely made it to the door when he handed her a thin cigarette with a long filter. Trudy pressed the filter with her lips, smearing the circle in rose lipstick and spit. He had it lit with a flick of his butane lighter, brass, inscribed with his initials. A gift from his last lover. Butane: the gift that keeps on giving.

Trudy simpered at hubby and coiled smoke into the hot, damp Washington air. Washington. By God, Thornton hated Washington. Full of nothing but lawyers, politicians, journalists; concrete steps to concrete monuments; fundamentalists and radicals, judges and aristocrats, paupers and princes. Give him a home without contradiction, nothing much of anything, now that was life, living. Not this joke. This Washington.

Really, a bloody joke. It was no wonder he spent sixteen hours a day at the office, to avoid this spectacle of human spazz. The NSA had encapsulated him, so that he no longer knew any more of the world than the robots he helped create.

Trudy giggled again as the limousine pulled to the kerb, the first in an inexhaustible line of black limousines and silent chauffeurs. Thornton was expected to join them.

'Aren't you coming, son?' his father asked, already in, but ever ready to antagonise his child to the point of humiliation and beyond. 'We're having drinks, then it's off to a quiet party at Senator—'

'Don't think I will, if it's all the same,' Thornton interrupted. Emasculated by opera singers or not, he wouldn't put up with these Washington bureaucrats longer than necessary and still remain on their good side. They'd talk about him behind his back, anyway; everyone did in Washington. 'Think I'll walk to the office. Guess the opera must've inspired me or something.'

A giggle from Trudy, joined by the Tartlet. What was her name? The tartlet? He couldn't remember. Just couldn't remember. Helen? Hades? Destroyer? Gold-digger? Hell, he couldn't remember.

His father maintained facial impartiality. Gravity seemed to consume his features; he was pinched and flat. Strangely vacuous. His father, the Black Hole. 'Fine, spoil the evening with work. We'll see you later, then.'

Thornton sucked on the cigarette and nodded. 'Yeah. Sure.' He rolled his shoulders away and heard the others murmur farewells. The limousine door shut, the sound of the engine lost in the hum of the gathered after-show crowd. Finery and glitz, he saw it all as he passed. To the very edge of the Palladium the finery and glitz swelled. Finery and glitz, money and champagne, hemmed all of the District of Columbia like a white picket fence.

The cigarette burned bitter against his tongue, where he'd sucked it to the filter. It crunched under the loafer heel. In the quiet of closed businesses just beyond the Palladium, he could hear the crunch as clear as a sparrow chirps in morning. His loafers clicked on. He prowled past darkened window shops, watching the orange street lamps glisten in shallow puddles left over from afternoon rain. Live folk music played from a small club he slowly approached. He didn't care for folk music—he didn't care much for any music at all—but he found the woman's vocals soothing and rather sweet. Outside the club doors, he peeked in among those standing outside to satiate addictions, like his, to the dim inside. But kept walking. Always walking. One never stopped moving in Washington. What would happen if he did? He'd turn into a pillar of salt.

At the corner, two blocks from his office, his mobile danced in his jacket pocket. The call connected when the heat sensors touched his face. 'Harris.'

'Thor, hey, it's Billie.'

'Yeah, I know. The wonder of technology these days.' He looked both ways before crossing the street. It took a second for flashbacks from his childhood to zip and float and die, of his father in a white and black suit, holding his hand to cross the road, on the way to . . . a funeral. Had it been a funeral?

'What's going on, Billie? You never call me anymore.'

'I know, I'm sorry, Thor.' And she really sounded sorry, too. She used to work with him, if work could be the word, back in the same electronics firm when they were both fresh from college and ready—sorta—for the real world. Working with her for three years, dating her for one of those years, being at her wedding the third year, and, well, it created some inextirpable understanding between them. The firm, however, was absorbed into another, jobs redistributed, and they were out of work. She'd gone to the Midwest with her new husband, back to her hometown, and Thornton had gone to the one place he hated, Washington. The theory was that if he lived in a place he hated more than he hated himself, the self-loathing would eventually leave him, and he'd have nothing left but the hate of a city he couldn't change. The theory backfired. He didn't hate himself any less, and now he was just miserable.

'I'm just giving you a hard time. You know how I am. I haven't changed. How's life?' He was now so close to his office that he began to feel around his pockets for the key.

'I can't talk long. Listen, Thor, did you hear what happened in Colorado Springs last month?'

'No idea. Do I get a guess? Something to do with that whacko in charge of Family Faith International? He lives there, doesn't he?'

'Yeah, but it's not about that.'

'I always thought they should change their name to some silly acronym. Like, uh, C.H.R.I.S.T: Christians Heralding the—.'

'Thor, shut it a second. This is important. OK?'

He swore. 'It is, huh? Sorry. I didn't notice the ice in your voice. What is it? What in Colorado Springs could possibly have upset you? You live at least fifteen hundred freaking miles from Colorado Springs, Billie.'

A long silence stung Thornton to stillness. He stopped near the bench under a willow tree, at the front courtyard of the office building. Staring into space, he tried to imagine what was so awful that it'd still send Billie into heaving gasps even a month later . . . What was so tragic?

'Irving Houston is dead.'

Thornton was glad for the bench being so near; he fell into it without thinking. 'Oh.' Irving Houston was dead. Thornton had vague remembrances of the doctor, award-winning scientist, genius . . . Another dead genius. Could the world survive? 'Irving Houston. You know, I haven't said that name aloud in some time. What's the story with it, love? You know?'

'I don't know. Wish I did. I heard about it from Eric Valos. You remember Valos, don't you?'

'Yeah. Sneaky, devilishly handsome, looks like a Adonis, irresistible to women. Except you, of course.'

'That's the guy.'

Valos. Used to work for the NSA. Military. Major or something. Or was it Major-Something? Or Something-Major? Thornton was a paid scientist, not military personnel, and it wasn't in his job description to know ranks, only to respect them.

'Total ass, too, if I may speak indifferently for a moment. How'd the major find out? And why in the hell did he call you?'

'He didn't call me. I ran into him at a meeting today.'

'When did you start meeting with ex-NSA military personnel?'

'You're missing the point, Thor.'

'No, I'm not. Irving Houston is dead. Full stop. Tell me what killed him.'

'Massive coronary—'

'A weak heart? Irving Houston?' His laugh slipped around the courtyard, off the leafy trees and sandstone structure towering above him. 'Yeah, right. The guy crapped out bran muffins for breakfast.' His gaze flickered across the courtyard, noticing the trees had rustled a little longer in the breeze than others. Suddenly, he didn't feel very alone. He rose from the bench and brought out his identification card and entrance key.

'Thor, that's twelve dead.'

'Twelve what dead?' He slid the key into scanner and waited for the green light. The narrow light strip blinked but stayed red. His card was spat out. He swore rather loudly and put the card back in.

'Twelve NSA scientists. In four years. Since the start of the IU programme.'

He laughed uncomfortably. The card spat out again. 'You've called to warn me that some underground, unknown group of anti-government, anti-technology allegiance is killing us off?'

'It's possible. There are a lot of people who think the government making these things is . . . is wrong.'

'Billie, that's ridiculous. Do you realise how ridiculous you sound telling me that? Seriously. Besides, this is the NSA. The government. And the government is never wrong, love.'

'You sound like a loyal kiss ass.'

'I am a loyal kiss ass towards those who pay me. But I'm no ruddy right-wing jingoist.'

Finally, the light turned green. Relieved, Thornton stepped through the sliding door.

A pressure on his arm frightened him stiff. The mobile crashed to the granite. In the inadequate light, Thornton struggled with his assailant. He grunted against the strength and pain in his arm. Between his fast breath he could hear Billie shouting to him . . . The ice in her voice no longer heartless, now full of passion and fear.

It was good to hear her voice again. So rewarding. He'd rather hear her hysteric shrieks than his pounding heart, even as he caught a glint of grey steel and smelled the scent of cordite long before he hit the ground.

Surprisingly, he knew he wasn't dead yet. Somewhere some part of him burned but he wasn't dead yet. He faced the phone, Billie's voice, her sobs. A leather glove came from nowhere above and plucked up the device. Billie's crying stopped. Thornton felt the phone being replaced to the pocket inside his tuxedo coat.

'You were right,' an indescribable tone spoke from an ever increasing distance. 'The government is never wrong.'

Thornton smiled a little.

So it seems . . . And I'm unlucky number thirteen. Lucky . . . Lucky me. Yeah. Lucky me. . . .