Simon entered the conference room of the Lyman, Durst & Isenberg suite to find he was two people short—not counting ‘Wonderboy’ Burreese. Burreese had been irreplaceable since he left last year in a crackpot huff over the fact that The Agency had decided against pursuing an audio blocker in case someone else improbably developed and unleashed a RetroGenesis feed of their own. RetroGenesis was a ridiculously improbable theory to begin with. The thought that it might be developed and weaponized—by a second rate power no less—was beyond rational consideration.

What a nut, Simon thought to himself as he took his seat before his laptop, his back to the bustling street below. Since that screwball genius locked himself away in his mother’s basement this has been like crawling through mud. We should have been paying him more.

Simon leaned back and took a sip of his coffee, opened his hands and quipped to Joseph Lyman and Aaron Isenberg, “What, no Mister Oliphant, and no Miss Jorgenson? Are they getting it on in the garage? Help me out here. We’re not working without our two best analysts today are we?”

As they shook their heads and Aaron began to reply Simon felt a twinge of guilt and apologized to Bill Macy, “Sorry Will, us old guys can’t hope to keep up with the wonderkids. You’re invaluable in your own way—for instance you’re fucking here!” he hissed vehemently as he turned to his partners.

He continued as they winced, “The Agency is sending a solicitor today with parameters for a new project. He should be here any minute. Where the fuck are my—our—analysts?”

Aaron stammered irritably, “Mister Oliphant is taking leave today, to visit his child—you know his boy is autistic—severely—and is—”

“Just our luck—the fucking genius in the room isn’t in the room because his baby’s mother’s egg couldn’t handle the IQ download!”

Joseph—reliable old Joe—tapped his smart phone and droned, “Miss Jorgenson is gracing the staircase with a view of legs unequalled. She has just texted me that the elevator is out.”

“Okay gentlemen,” soothed Simon, as he composed himself after his patented morning outburst, let’s see what The Agency has for us—we should have already been issued the project code.”

With those hopeful words they all four opened their laptops and booted up. As his screensaver appeared there was no need for him to click on the agency icon, for a message awaited him in place of the calming blue mountain screensaver, in plain typewriter stile text, a message that sent a chill into his every bone:

“Oh God—they did it, the bastards did it!” Simon burst out as he stood from his seat and regarded the others.

Joseph Lyman had his hands covering his ear, shaking in disbelief, crying real tears that dripped onto his keyboard as he remained glued to the screen.

Aaron Isenberg had his eyes closed shut so firmly that his upper face affected a painful looking squint as he chanted some yoga bullshit and tore up pieces of tissue and packed them savagely into his ears.

Old Bill Macy, their financial specialist, had gone over the edge. He had slammed his laptop shut, grabbed a pen, and was forcing it into his ear—then blood gushed from his ear. He coughed stoically and reached around his head and stabbed himself in the other ear with a hideous yelping howl as a terrible pain-filled grimace possessed his normally kind face like a demon.

All of a sudden awash with concern for the world Simon Durst walked over to the window and looked down on the rush hour traffic on Pratt Street; four lanes of impatient motorists hurrying to their appointed tasks. Below him by a mere seven stories—how ironic, he thought—was unqualified mayhem. Motorists ploughed into each other, bowled over pedestrians, drove each other off the road, leaped out of their vehicle to scream, shout, fight, and be run over.

Simon Durst felt guilt, felt the weight of the world descend on his shoulders as it might have on an unworthy child god standing before his weeping golem of a world.

“I must go to them,” he heard himself say with conviction, though he felt no such conviction.

He stepped away from the window attempting to clear his head, and said, “I must go to them.” When he said this, he felt a concurrent urge to go make peace among the babbling world.

He wondered, Is this really the prudent course? and his own voice answered with unwavering conviction, “I must go to them!”

Simon walked out of the conference room and down the hall to Mrs. Peachtree’s desk. There, the darling seventy-year-old woman who refused to retire and had been a puritanical prude her entire life, was sprawled across her desk, legs spread, dress hiked up to her withered breast, as she held the back of the bowling ball head of their giant Nigerian security guard with both of her little liver-spotted hands and gave commands like a dominatrix. For his part the giant kneeled like a silently obedient supplicant to some cruel goddess, his bald ebon head wrapped in aged ghost-like legs.

“I must go to them.”

Mrs. Peachtree’s uncharacteristic debauchery might once have elicited some curiosity in Simon’s mind as to the nature of her sexual mantra.

“I must go to them.”

But Simon was now committed to a course that demanded his all and walked on past the sorry scene.

“I must go to them.”

Simon walked through the suite door.

“I must go to them.”

Simon walked out into the hallway, toward the main stair to the lobby.

“I must go to them.”

Simon turned the corner toward the main stair.

“I must go to them.”

Standing before him was a man who had once brought him matters of trivial concern to mull over and solve with his disciples. The man was dressed impeccably in that drab way of his kind, only now he wore a kind of ear protection—like shooters or even avid music listeners wore in pursuit of their hobbies—that was strapped to his chin as well as his head. The man was unapologetically in his way!

“I must go to them!”

The tall man’s eyes were blue but as dark as night as he grabbed Simon by the back of his head. Something pierced his tongue from below, popped through the roof of his mouth, and drove with a searing pain into…