Tomorrow never knows, p.1
Tomorrow Never Knows, page 1
BOOKS BY THEO CAGE
THE DAREDEVIL’S DAUGHTER
GHOST OF A GIRL
ON THE BLACK
BERZERKER
ON THE BLACK: AFRICA
ON THE BLACK: ANARCHY
SPLICER
BUZZWORM
SATAN’S ROAD
CRISPY CRITTERS
THE WOMAN IN THE TRUNK
TOMORROW NEVER
KNOWS
AN ADVENTURE IN TIME AND SPACE
THEO CAGE
Copyright © 2019 Russell E. Smith
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, companies, and incidents are purely the product of the author's imagination
or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 9781705613894
TOMORROW
NEVER KNOWS
Dedicated to all those astonishing human beings I believed as a child could not possibly be from this planet. I've included the list at the back of the book.
And a special thanks to Heartland International Travel and music writer, John Einarson, for a once in a lifetime visit to Liverpool and London, the birthplace of The Beatles phenomena, where I did much of the research for this novel.
“Jai Guru Deva”
(Thanks to the teacher!)
John Lennon
The glyph used throughout this book to divide sections is the Greek symbol for Alpha, Beta, Omega: the past, present and future.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PRELUDE
MONDAY – Day One
TUESDAY – Day Two
THALATHA – Day Three
ZINGUISI – Day Four
HATHORDAY – Day Five
SATURN’S DAY – Day Six
SOLDAY – Day Seven
DAY WITHOUT A NAME
TERRADAY – Day Eight
WHERE ARE THEY NOW
TECHNICAL NOTES
THE LIST
PRELUDE
There are nights you don't go out.
You hide under the blankets when the killer storms come: the wind rising, the temperature plummeting, ice crystals cutting away at exposed flesh like millions of vicious little buzz saws. The storm waits for you, taunts you, taps on the windowpane begging you to go outside. Don't listen.
I was part of a winter search party when I was seventeen. A neighbor, Monica Roman, had an argument with her boyfriend and stormed out of their rented bungalow around midnight. She was in a hurry, had drunk more than a few beers and in her haste grabbed only a spring coat. She was wearing a pair of stylish short suede boots, hardly something winter appropriate. When I saw the shoes later, they looked like something a woman might wear to a dance: ankle high and pointy toed. No insulation. What was she thinking?
But what did I know; I was just a kid. I knew about Monica only from a distance. She was my first crush—a cliché: the older girl who didn't know I existed.
She stumbled down her front street for several blocks that night, then took a shortcut across an empty lot that bordered an open field. This is where she probably lost her sense of direction. The wind that night was from the north, gusting to sixty miles an hour, the temperature around minus twenty. Visibility was NFW.
I knew what she was going through from personal experience because I got lost once in a storm: first you lose the feeling in your hands, then your toes. When I say 'lose the feeling' I am not talking about a pleasant numbness. All your life your fingers have been alive, under your control, allies. At twenty below they're not. They quickly become icy useless strangers, sending sharp stabs of agony up into your palms and wrists. Then the feeling spreads. Maybe Monica was using her fingers to hold her jacket tight around her throat when suddenly she realized they were useless for that task, traitors. She could no longer feel anything beyond her wrists or control her grip. Then she might have stumbled, having lost all sensation in her toes and heels, the ground distant and uncertain, but suddenly coming up at her like a solid white wall.
Monica fell face first into the hard ground, her useless hands unable to stop her momentum. She would have tried to pick herself up, but . . . where were her fingers, her arms, her knees? Where did they go? She would be sucking in the snow that was swirling across the empty lot, stinging her breathing passages, blinding her vision, freezing the fresh tears off her eyelashes. If I was there, I could have saved her, could have put my arms around her, carried her home.
She probably decided to rest for a moment. They say you feel sleepy when you freeze to death. Just want to close your eyes for a few seconds, gather your thoughts.
When I found her, her eyes were open, the pupils clouded with ice crystals, like two frozen grapes, her mouth open in surprise.
I reached down to shake her shoulder. Under her thin jacket her arm felt like it was carved from stone.
She was frozen solid.
It was surreal. She was alive a few hours ago, her lips soft, her eyes bright as diamonds. I felt like I had slipped into another universe. She was a statue now. How could that be?
But like I said, there are nights you don't go out.
“Eleanor Rigby”
MONDAY
Minneapolis, Minnesota
WHERE TO BEGIN . . .
Let's not start on what my old man used to call the sharp edge of Monday, that paralyzing time in the morning when your eyelids first stutter open and the harsh realization of another work week hits you directly in the chops like a polar vortex. Not then.
Because Monday has always been the day for me when the chains go back on.
You may have the greatest job on earth; if you're incredibly lucky you may love every minute of the work you do. But you still have to crawl back into those uncomfortable and noisy slave chains at the start of every work week.
Monday is the day you prove, despite your best impulses, that you really have no control over your fate, that you're a worker bee in a massive hive and that nothing you can do will ever change that fact.
At least that's what you think.
So instead of dwelling on these thoughts for too long, let's fast forward twenty minutes. At that point I'm just getting out of the shower, my overpriced Android phone vibrating on the bathroom countertop. I swipe the screen out of habit, without even thinking.
It's a text from Daisy.
Terrible migraine. Sorry. Will call you later if I am feeling better.
I swear under my breath. Daisy's the best person I have working for me. It looks like she'll be MIA today. Missing in action. I had mixed feelings: I know she suffers terribly from these sporadic headaches, but I'm going to miss her today. More work for me, too.
I texted her back, standing there naked in the bathroom, the phone screen covered in a thin film of moisture, thinking the dedicated executive of today clearly needs a waterproof phone to truly stay in touch with their team.
Take care of yourself. I'll interview the candidates.
The candidates I'm referring to are applying for a recent job opening in our company, a role I am under a lot of pressure to fill. I'm the Human Resources Director for MediTech, a company that designs and builds MRI machines and Daisy is one of my best recruiters. She is cursed with recurring headaches that routinely make her unable to do what she is singularly gifted at: interviewing. She can read people better than anyone I know. Daisy can tell more about a candidate by staring at them for fifteen seconds than most people can tell by living with someone for a year. But I understand intimately how migraines can affect people; they can be ruthlessly debilitating. I've suffered from them myself for the past few years. Not sure why. Probably the stress.
Brushing my teeth in the mirror, I wonder how I ever came to be a Human Resources manager. That's not something you dream about when you’re a kid. I wanted to be an astronaut. Or a deep-sea diver. Now I sit across from strangers and ask them impossible questions designed to eke out the truth about their personality and experiences. I watch them sweat, stumble over words, sometimes break into tears.
If someone asks me at a party what I do for a living, I always hesitate. Most people see HR as a necessary evil in a company, the political correctness police. I know what it really is: I'm paid to deal everyday with people problems. No matter what the circumstances or environment: cubicle farm or the primitive African savannah, people always find ways to have issues with each other. The other guy is too loud, they smell wrong, makes more money than they should, someone is always after their wife or husband, they're late for no good reason, they say the wrong things, they’re insensitive, drink too much, smoke too much, spend too much time on social media or in the bathroom, cook strange foods in the staff microwave that smells up the workspace.
There is no end to this. But that's my job.
I grinned into the mirror like a chimpanzee. They say smiling makes us feel better even when all the facts point in another direction. I tried it every chance I got. It's not working. It's Monday, after all. And that's painful not just because it's the start of another work week, a spoke in the wheel of an endless cycle of other work weeks, spinning off like a giant tilt-a-whirl into the misty unseeable future — it's painful because I have to do the work of two today, I can't just sit at my desk and pretend.
And there's something else: a vague foreboding.
Not that the feeling is something new; I feel it most Mondays.
I ARRIVED AT WORK LATE, the traffic a nightmare.
I picked up my usual Starbucks coffee in the l obby, staring too long at the barista who was making my usual Pike’s Place grande. His apron was the wrong color; it was burnt orange. Wasn’t the Starbucks lady on the signage with the long curly hair always green? And didn’t she have a star above her head? This one had a diamond. I didn’t ask, though. I was in a hurry.
I shook my head and took one of the elevators to the thirty-ninth floor. As soon as I got to my desk, I picked up the three resumes that someone in the office had scooped off Daisy’s cubicle and left for me.
The candidates she was reviewing were a big deal for the firm, ‘whales' we call them, not the kind of heavy hitters you want to hand-off to junior recruiters. The lead candidate is a former VP for a Fortune 500 company looking to make a step up. A potential CEO. This is an opportunity that nobody in the company wants to botch up. We need strong leadership. We are a young biotech firm, on the verge of an IPO, going public for the first time. We have geeks running the place right now. That has to change.
Then I got the call; the call that changed everything. From the VP. Not what I expected first thing Monday morning. Or maybe I did.
"Bad news, Will," he sighed.
Great! What a way to start the work week. "What's up?" I asked, guessing it was an unhappy customer or job cuts being announced. Or the IPO being delayed.
"Whetstone's dead."
My throat went bone dry. Dr. Whetstone was young, in his mid-thirties, fit, a vegan non-smoker, never seemed stressed out. He was also key to the company’s success: our founder and CEO, the lab's key researcher and major patent holder.
"He killed himself last night. In the lab."
I was gob smacked. Whetstone was the cheeriest person I knew: A relentless promoter of the company and the medical technology he advanced. Everyone loved him. Especially the media.
"It had to be some kind of freak accident," I offered, not sure what to think. Could the company even survive without him?
"It was freaky all right. He fed the liquid helium line into the core of our main MRI, crawled inside and opened the line."
Our company manufactures high-end MRI machines. Liquid helium keeps the super powerful magnets inside from overheating. The coolant's 452 degrees below freezing. What a way to go.
"Any idea why?" I asked, my voice betraying my shock.
"It's dicked up. Our President got a call last night from one of our maintenance people. They called the police in right away, contacted his family before word got out. No one has any idea why he would do this. The police will do their thing. Maybe find a note. Maybe we'll learn something."
"What do I tell my team?"
"We have our company counseling service in place. They're ready to talk to team members. Anyone who wishes can contact them 24/7. The story should hit the news in the next few hours."
I stared at my coffee. I'd instantly lost my appetite. What would Facebook do if Zukerberg offed himself a week before going public? The company was populated with scientists and researchers and technical types. They saw the world in a different way than most of us. I wasn't sure how they would take the news.
They’d be shocked, of course. I’m not saying they’re insensitive. They just deal with these things in other ways.
"Hey, Will," said the VP. "Stay the course. I heard you're interviewing for our new CFO. Business as usual." Stay the course was one of his favorite expressions.
"Really?"
"Will, you of all people should know how important this is. We're going public in 30 days. If we mishandle the launch, it could cost us all millions." I had stock options, held them since I started. We all did. "We need someone at the helm of this company that will give investors confidence now that Whetstone is out of the picture." Out of the picture. Interesting euphemism for ‘dead'.
Dr. Whetstone went into the magnet and never came out.
I know suicide is often the result of clinical depression: a form of mental illness. He was a deep thinker, a philosopher type. But liquid nitrogen? Who wants to go out that way?
What a strange morning! The VP wants me to stay the course. That meant interviewing candidates. Pretend nothing's changed. The first, according to Daisy's notes, was due in half an hour.
I stared at the name on the top resume: Eleanor Rigby. Spelled just like The Beatles' song. This was like some kind of premonition. I remember hearing that track for the first time when I was a kid. It was strangely dark and nihilistic, about lonely people with hopeless lives that die alone. Yet they played this on Top 40 radio because, of course, it was The Beatles. And it was a hit.
I promised myself I wouldn't make a big deal of Eleanor's name, after all she's lived with that handle her whole life. It's not like I'll be the first person to make the connection with the famous song by one of the world's most beloved bands. But maybe there's an interesting story behind her name: parents who shared a love for The Beatles. Or maybe it's just a coincidence, a fluke no one in her family realized until later.
Thirty minutes went by and Rigby appeared at my office door, right on time. She was tall, mid-forties, expensive dress suit, serious shoes. We talked for over an hour and a half. I could tell she felt good knowing she was dealing with a recruiter that spoke her language, someone with a working knowledge of the software and artificial intelligence she had worked with in the past, a keen interest of mine.
She was disarmingly frank and self-deprecating; smart as anyone I have interviewed in the past year.
"So, what's the next step?" she asked, sitting slightly forward, her long legs crossed.
"I write up a brief note on our meeting and with your permission, forward that to the BOD." I'm talking about our Board of Directors who will review the candidates and decide what comes next. I always call interviews 'meetings' in front of candidates. The word ‘interview' generally makes people nervous. Although this candidate didn't look like she was fazed by much.
"Then what?" I know she is angling to meet directly with the President or CEO of the company, but our company has a tradition of hiring slow.
We went over some of the basics on interviewing with the President of the company, things we've learned in the past, ideas that will make her interview chain less stressful. And yes, it is a chain. At least three, maybe five high-level interviews are ahead of her with various C-level folks.
"Anything else?" I asked.
"No, so far so good."
"Great." I stood and extended my hand. She took it and shook mine with confidence. "Of course, I have to ask," I added, “Even though I know you get this all the time, but how did you get your name?"
Eleanor smiled vaguely and cocked her head to one side. "You mean Eleanor? I know it’s a bit old fashioned, but that was my grandmother's name."
That wasn't the answer I expected. How many times in her life has she been probed about the obvious connection to one of The Beatles' most iconic compositions?
"You know, you're right. I should have known better than to ask a question you must have heard a thousand times. I apologize for being so predictable."
This time Eleanor's smile faltered slightly. They call them micro expressions, facial signals that flash so quickly most of us miss them. She was puzzled.
"Are you familiar with another Rigby?" she asked, standing at the door.
"No, you're the first Rigby I have ever met. Other than the one in the song."
"The song?" She looked truly nonplussed. She had to be pulling my leg.
I hummed the tune. She shook her head slowly. "Eleanor Rigby is a song by The Beatles. You've never heard it?" I couldn't believe what I was saying, but the expression of confusion on her face was so genuine. She swallowed. "Did you say beetles?" she asked.
That original look of mild misunderstanding had now melted into vague disgust. She clearly wasn't a fan of insects. She had no idea what I was talking about. Maybe she thought this was some kind of new interview technique: just as they are walking out the door ask the candidate about creepy crawlies.
