Love, Destiny, and Murder

Prologue   Each morning a special group of angels travel to the Well of Souls in Heaven to pick up their quota of new souls to be placed into babies about to be born. Just before I was born an angel pulled out a new soul and paused. He held it up to the Eternal Light and saw a c***k in my soul. This is not supposed to happen. The angel called over to God, “Hey, this one’s got a c***k in it!” God got up from his desk and came over to look. Sure enough, there was a c***k in the soul. He pondered this for a few seconds. “Which baby is this one?” The angel looked at the production file and announced, “Barnett Lay.” “Let me see the file.” The angel handed the file over to God. God scanned it. “Oh,” God said, “he’s the second son of a second son. We have some leeway on the specifications.” “What should I do?” asked the angel. “Well, mankind is about to go through a really rough time. This fellow would make a good test case to see if he can figure out his soul is broken and how to fix it. Go ahead and give him the soul.” As God was handing the file and the soul back to the angel, he had another thought. “Hmm, this guy is going to suffer a lot in life. Give Destiny a call and have her give him an interesting purpose in life, just to cover our bets. I’ll make sure to check later to see how he is doing.” The angel went back to work and later that day I was born, the second son of a second son. My life would be a series of setbacks combined with disasters mounted on an altar of disappointment. I didn’t realize something was wrong with my soul until early adulthood. But I am getting ahead of myself.     1 - The Internal Logic of Fate   A note stuck in the outside door of the apartment: “Mr. Lay, you are three months behind in your rent. I expect payment by Friday. If no payment is received, I shall press legal actions. In the meantime, I am having a dinner Thursday. Please join us.”                                                                                                 Mrs. Philbert   Jose Rizal once wrote that Destiny is a woman. I have confirmed this first-hand. In fact, I can also add that Fate is a man. Fate, for me, was a man who sat down one day and dreamed of being the most famous mass-murderer in history. His plans included developing a new weapon of destruction, then recruiting a team of like-minded people to unleash his new weapon on an unsuspecting world. His name was Iskandar Robinson. The death of his first victim clearly tells the story of Iskandar’s state of mind. The man was clever and very careful. He spent three nights cruising down lonely country roads looking for a random victim. The car he was driving was electric with the tires slightly deflated to reduce its sound profile. He would cruise for a couple of miles with the headlights on, then shut them off near an intersection of dirt roads before donning third-generation Russian night vision goggles. Once the goggles were active, he would make a sharp turn and slowly roll along the next mile or two, searching. He was seeking one person, all alone, that was all he needed. He knew that going this far into the countryside, and being this late at night, that few people would be watching. Eventually, he spotted something in his headlights as the car negotiated a dusty roadbed. There, near the edge of a field was a potential victim leaning against a fence. He drove by. Two miles later off went the headlights. The car swung around and returned as a slower speed to further reduce any noise. A few hundred yards from the sighting he pulled over and turned the interior light switch to off. The driver’s door opened without triggering any interior lighting. He left the door open and slowly walked up to the road. Within minutes he could see his victim still standing by the fence. Iskandar approached as quietly as possible. When he was within arm’s reach, he quickly clamped one hand on the victim to control any movement while the other hand inserted the needle. There was no struggle or scream. For all intents and purposes, his first victim was dead as soon as the needle was withdrawn. The killer backed away slowly with a warm glow of satisfaction. Many years of planning to reach this point were not wasted. The new means of human destruction would work and work quickly. Iskandar had perfect success with this part of the plan. The lack of rain for several days meant no footprints. The random choice of a victim left no motive. Even the means of death would be a mystery. And there would be more victims, many more. Once back at the car, he closed the door, left the headlights off and slipped away into darkness. His plan was very clever indeed. One killing a thousand miles away from my tired soul. I didn’t know the victim or the killer, yet this one event went to change my life forever. If someone didn’t stop him, millions more were about to die. Why wasn’t someone else chosen to stop him?   2 - Joshua and the End of Time   Introduction of our Presenter: “Mr. Barnett Lay holds a graduate degree from the University of Chicago and an Engineering degree from Michigan State University. He is the author of the best-selling book ‘History of the Philips Head Screwdriver.’ And, he is considered one of the world’s best problem-solver for companies like our own. Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome….”   Police Beat Sheet (Grand Rapids Press): “Federal agents today served an arrest warrant on 27-year-old Barnett Lay on charges of hacking into a federally protected computer system…”     On a warm, early summer morning, forty days before I met Destiny, I was released from prison. Contrary to what you might read or watch on television, prison isn’t that bad. I was permitted a k****e, so I could catch up on my reading. The meals were boring until I learned the many uses of Tabasco sauce. My cellmate was a large man named Wiz that didn’t like to talk. However, Wiz did like to get high. He went to great lengths to obtain drugs in prison. To get on his good side, I brought back a piece of bread from lunch, dabbed it in some water, and then set it in a homemade pan of aluminum foil. Within a few days, I had a wild yeast. I explained to Wiz that if we could find some form of fruit juice, we could produce wine. He nodded and went to work. Each day he would end breakfast, lunch, and dinner with a drink of grape juice. This he held in his mouth until he returned to the cell. At that point he would spit it out into a coffee can I had lifted from the cafeteria. Once we had a quart or so of liquid, we used a snitched candle to simmer the juice while we added in sugar. Since an early age, I had snatched up random objects that didn’t belong to me. It was more of a collecting obsession than outright stealing. Just one of my many mental health flaws, but valuable in my current situation. Using the flame of a candle, I reformed the empty barrel of an ink pen into a twisted tube. I put one end of the tube into the plastic cap in the coffee can and sealed it with freshly chewed bubble gum. The other end went into one of our tin cups for drinking water. The cup was filled near the top with water. The juice now had my yeast mixed in. Now, all we needed was time. For two weeks Wiz lay on his bunk each night listening to the gentle bubbling of the prison still. Then, one night, he popped the lid off and sampled the results. He indicated by happy sounding grunts that the wine was of excellent quality. And, because he never did kill me in my sleep, I assumed that he also found me acceptable as a cellmate. But, alas, the fun of stealing and improvising various contraband had to come to an end. My case was overturned on appeal. I was to be released as soon as possible. Rotated back into my civilian dress of khakis, Oxford shirt, and Puma brand running shoes, I was ready to go back to work. My long-time personal assistant Wendy picked me up from prison in my car, a 1990 Lexus LS 400 that a client had used as payment for my services six years earlier. I spent several summer days rubbing leather treatment into the seats before they transformed from a dried out concrete back to supple leather. It took almost a year to remove the smoking lawyer smell from the interior. The V-8 engine ran like a swiss watch and most of the internal controls still functioned normally. The ride was second only to a cloud. It was the first comfort I had felt in a long time. The buzzing of Wendy going through all the latest gossip was music to my ears. Wendy was middle-aged, the owner of many designer purses, and mother of three grown children, Wendy was the perfect assistant. She could drive for hours without rest, thrived in an environment of chaos, and was endlessly amused by all my troubles. Give her a cup of coffee and a romantic novel and she was good for the day. When salespeople called the office, she would play with their minds to see how long she could keep them on the line. “Do I make the purchasing decisions? Now that you mention it, I don’t. What’s with that? I’ve been working here for years, but does anyone give me any sort of responsibility? No. No, they don’t. Let me tell you….” We stopped at a place called Just Breakfast. Upscale and trendy, it featured overdone black and red accents in its decorating and organic in its ingredients. By counting the number of tattoos and piercings on our waiter it was clear the food would be good. You had to pay with cash because the owners didn’t believe in credit. On the other hand, people were free to Vape. I scarfed down four scrambled eggs, hash browns, and two pancakes. Real food again. No tin trays just oddly shaped black plates and napkins made from free-trade fibers. I had Wendy hide the bottle of Tabasco sauce. Two blackberry jam packets mysterious vanished from our table to only reappear later in our office.                 # A single victim was dead. Time to test the new weapon on a crowd. Iskandar Robinson drove with his companions to a new site. This time he was looking for a group that lived close together, but, isolated from witnesses. If the weapon succeeded, then his team had ten days to carry out the full attack. He didn’t want the alarm to sound too soon. Hopefully, it would be a couple of days before the victims were discovered. In ten days, a small ship would leave the port of New Orleans. If the team was not killed, then that ship was their means of escape. Iskandar knew their chances of making the escape were slim. However, he also knew that if they survived seven days, millions of American lives would be lost, making him one of the most famous men in history.                 # While I was on my vacation, my partner, Harris Harrison, kept the office running while searching for new contract work. Our engineering consulting firm was in the People’s Building in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan often called the city that never wakes up. Most social activity in town, if any, ends by eight o’clock each night. The People’s Building was constructed in the 1920s when socialism and communism were the trendy fashion of the time. The owner built the first two floors for capitalism, in the form of a local bank, and upper ten stories as affordable offices for the small businesses of the common folk. With low rents, many startup companies, lawyers, accountants, and salespeople signed leases. When the Great Depression hit, politics took a back seat to the economy. Most of the tenants, including the bank, went broke or moved on. The building fell into neglect until it was purchased in the 1940s. Cleaned up it prospered through the 1950s and 1960s. By 1970 it was home to mostly small government agencies and other seedy businesses. The building was always a breath away from bankruptcy. When I signed my lease, the rent was cheap, and the offices were well worn. We got a third-floor suite with windows that offered no barrier to strong winter winds and a single bathroom for the entire floor. The original owner’s idea was a communal setting where men and women would share equally in their suffering. At least the elevator worked, and you could eat your lunch in a break room made from the former bank vault. Upon entering the lobby of our offices, I was greeted by a coffin-sized box. “That’s our new contract,” said Harris as he nodded his head in the direction of the box. “I would advise you to open it in your office.” “What is it?” I asked. “A s*x doll from our newest client. He’s got a lot of venture capital riding on making these things a success. Problem is they just aren’t selling. He wants us to figure out why not and fix the problem.” “s*x doll?” “Yeah, fully robotized, a lifelike sugar substitute for those discreet men that can’t cope with an actual woman.” “Charming.” “I ordered the Asian model for you.” “Um, thank you?” “Hey, no charge. Grab the other end of the box.” With a bit of effort, we were able to carry the coffin into my office.  # My trusted assistant, Wendy, had a six-month stack of telephone messages waiting for me. Specifically, a grand total of five messages. One firm wanted me to audit their computer systems. Apparently, being an infamous hacker is just as good as being a famous consultant. A school system wanted to know why one-third of their students failed the state exams. That’s a management problem, I will address later. A homeless shelter wanted to know how to keep control of their charges and get them into the treatment programs. The short answer is you pay them to attend. There was a group of socialites that needed a solution to the “straw problem.” I won’t be calling them back. And finally, we had a request for translating work instructions at a restaurant into pictures so the staff that didn’t speak English could follow the procedures. Wendy quickly broke the spell. “Some government guy called yesterday.” “What did he want?” I asked. “Something about m*********r. Oh, and lunch. I set it up for tomorrow.” I thanked her, and she went back to the romance novel she had been reading. # After answering my phone messages, I interviewed a young woman named Alisha for the job as our second assistant in the office. If successful, our staff count would rise to four. Harris, my partner, had insisted that he have an assistant. He pointed out that I had Wendy to drive me around and fetch me whatever I needed. I pointed out that we are short on funds and desperate for more contracts. The discussion went back and forth several times until it was clear that I had to find him a relatively inexpensive assistant. Alisha was also the only person to answer the Craigslist ad. This was not an easy task. It was no problem to find somebody willing to work at lower wages and do menial tasks. The trick was to get them to stay. Alisha was our newest candidate, a young woman in her early 20s, tall and thin. The type of physique you would describe as a successful starvation camp survivor. Her arms were decorated with numerous tattoos and her ears and nose with piercings. Her hair was a color unknown to nature. But she was breathing and seemed to be able to finish sentences. That was the extent of the qualifications we were seeking. After reviewing the tasks, she would be expected to complete, I informed her that the average time a person held this job was currently about 3 ½ weeks. At that point, I had to explain to her the basic nature of my partner. “Harris is an angry man,” I said. “He likes to swear and curse and throw small objects. However, he is a perfect gentleman and will not harm you or cause you any distress. His only daily requirements are a fresh pot of coffee and one drink of whiskey per day. If he tries to get more than one drink, let me know.” At that point Mr. Harris Harrison made his appearance, sweeping into the office, knocking a chair out of his way, dropping several F-bombs, and then vanishing into his office. Alisha’s eyes had locked onto and followed him all the way to the office door, even though he had vanished into the office, she remained to stare at the door with a blank expression. “Is that him?” she asked. “Yep,” I confirmed. “Uh-huh.” She acknowledged. “Would you like to try a day in the office and see if you like the position?” I asked. “Why not,” she answered. And just like that, we had the seventh person to try to successfully work with Harris Harrison.                 # At the end of the day, Harris and I were in my office studying the robot. We had unboxed the life-sized doll and had her sitting in a chair in the corner. At first, we felt we should give her a name. “I suppose Suzy, Blossom, or Jasmine is a bit too obvious,” observed Harris. “How about Nancy?” I suggested. “Nancy works for me.” And with that, we proceeded to analyze Nancy. Nancy came with a 125-page User’s Guide. That would have to go. No user would take the time to read that much material. We will need to develop a quick setup guide. “Do these things come with a warranty?” I asked. “One year, parts and labor.” “Can I take it to the Geek Squad after that?” “Maybe.” We discovered that you must plug Nancy into 120 volts for thirty minutes for the skin temperature to rise to that of an actual human. Also, her batteries needed to charge. The extension cord plugged into the center of her back. “Odd place to put an outlet,” I commented. “You get choices of a location at the time of ordering.” “Do you mean to say you get to choose where the cord plugs in?” “Yep. Several possible locations to avoid interference during use.” By pressing INFO twice on the remote control, Nancy comes alive. She raises her head and flutters her eyes as if waking from a nap. She looks at Harris first and smiles, then turns her head towards me and talks. “Hello. Thank you for your purchase. Would you like me to describe my capabilities?” Without thinking, I say, “sure.” Nancy began to discuss the many ways you could use her for satisfying your various needs. As she talked, her mouth, head, and body moved in a surprisingly human-like fashion. She even brushed a bit of hair out of her eyes as she described a few precautions we should practice before trying her full capabilities. I could hear the squeaking of Wendy’s chair in the next room as she leaned back to listen more closely to the conversation going on in my office. “Hmm, I am not sure this is the way to market Nancy,” I muttered. “What do you mean?” asked Harris. “Something is just not right. Hey, Wendy. Can you step in here a minute?” Wendy appeared at the doorway and immediately focused on Nancy in the corner. “What’s your first reaction to Nancy here?” I asked. “That’s really creepy,” she responded. “That’s it. It’s creepy and made for creepy people. How many creepy people can afford Nancy? Harris, you have brothel experience.” “More than three years’ worth.” “What’s a hooker go for these days?” “Well, the type of guy that would like Nancy would be referred to a specialist in the house. The kink chick.” Wendy slowly backed out of the doorway. “You’re not leaving that thing here, are you?” “No, I should probably take it home. Thanks, Wendy.” Harris continued. “A kink specialist runs about $500 to $700 an hour.” “That’s what I thought. So, our client is marketing these to the wrong people.” “Who else would buy one of these?” Nancy turned towards me, smiled, and asked if I was ready to begin. I fumbled with the remote control and found the PAUSE button. Nancy responded by saying that she could wait, and then she started adjusting her silk blouse, undoing one button. “These guys are being way too obvious and direct. We will need to redo the programming and focus more on delighting the customer, not just meeting their basic needs,” I said. “Agreed. Want me to take a c***k at it? I can tone down the s*x and increase her level of humanity to something higher than zero.” “Sure, call the company tomorrow and get the base code.” Nancy looked at Harris and gave him a knowing look. She winked. “Oh, and find the off switch. She’s kind of distracting.”