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Display a printable version The Sound of Gears
"We need someone who understands just how delicate things are," they said. "Someone discreet. Someone who won't be distracted by all the money." "I want the car that killed her," Herbert said. "We can do that," they replied, eagerly. "This is all very new to us, mind you." "I want it back the way it was," Herbert continued. "Before the accident. I want it patched back into pristine condition - but don't replace a thing. It has to have all the original parts. And once you've done that, I want a month to set up my office." "Done," they said, and a week after that Herbert started receiving ludicrously large checks, courtesy of a bottomless black book budget from the CIA and the best accountant's tricks that could siphon money from the coffers of Detroit. Money didn't interest him when he'd been a pastor two weeks ago, and it certainly didn't interest him now - a fact which made his bosses very happy. He quietly deposited the checks into mutual fund IRAs, and rode a bike to his office every day, arriving promptly at nine. But whenever any of his twenty employees tried to ask him about business, he held up a hand to silence them. "The Oldsmobile first," he said, his face freshly gaunt. A week later, they towed the car into the parking lot - a 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass, gleaming and polished new, the overhanging lip of its front grill reshaped so perfectly you'd never know it had taken Janette's head off. He took a sledgehammer and electric saw to it. His new secretary didn't bat an eye when, after he'd yanked loose the muffler, he dragged it across the plush carpet, leaving a furred streak of oil stains, and then pounded it with iron spikes into the finely-carved mahogany paneling of his office. Bit by bit, he took apart his wife's murderer, hammering the cracked windshield behind his desk like a strange map, tacking the rubber hoses in snakelike trails around the room, carefully nailing every gear and fanblade to each of the four walls until he sat at his desk, surrounded by the guts of a dead car. He took the key out of the ignition and kissed it, then hung it on a silver chain around his neck. "Now," he said. "I am ready to begin." *** Thirty years later, and Herbert had kept up with the times. He had three people monitoring Wikipedia round the clock, paid to edit dangerous entries the instant they popped up. He had ten salaried employees, each with carefully-established sockpuppet identities in a hundred forums, ready to propagate disinformation at a moment's notice. And he had informants working at the patent office, their palms itching with the hope of fresh bribes as they stamped the paperwork on new inventions. Dealing with them was the second worst part of Herbert's job. He hated having to laugh along with them when they phoned up. But it was necessary to save the worthy souls. His informants were distasteful, ratty little folks who'd stuff their grandmother in a bathtub and cut out her kidneys if there was a buck in it. Because Herbert signed their paychecks, they assumed he too was in it for the money. And they all thought it was hysterical, the way they conned the public. Herbert didn't chuckle when they called. Whenever some new fish said, "I got another sucker for ya," he'd respond with a glacial wall of silence, then asked softly just what kind of information they had. But quietly, he'd dock them a thousand dollars for each joke. They got the message. Most of them were quiet now. They found his seriousness off-putting, and those rare souls who made it as far as his office found the rusty stink of old engine parts overwhelming. But sometimes - infuriated by the childish, selfish glee they took at fooling the public - he flung his cell phone at the rusted muffler, still nailed to the wall. His secretary picked it up, brought it back across the tastefully-carpeted floor of his office, asked Herbert if he needed anything. She meant, quite literally, anything. In the beginning, he'd tested the limits of his power - and had gotten three ounces of the finest Peruvian cocaine, a still-hot pizza flown here in two hours from Los Angeles, a sheet of stamps with a plane flying upside down, and three amputee prostitutes. All had gone unused. "Just the printer's proof from the latest Popular Mechanics," he said, feeling the pinch of ulcers in his gut. "And a glass of warm milk." "All right," she smiled and walked away. She was attractive in a way that Janette had never been, and he idly wondered whether she would be included in "anything," if he asked - and concluded that yes, they'd make her offers until she would be. The thought made his stomach churn, working with an endless stream of whores.. But what could you expect? God was dead. He fingered the key around his neck and said a prayer. She returned with a neat stack of laser-printed papers and a glass of cream-skimmed Holstein milk, all on a silver tray. Herbert held his breath as he put on his bifocals, hoping that his sources had been wrong. But no. There it was, just as his informant had promised - a new ad buried in page 104, deep in the classifieds: TAPWATER ENGINE! INVESTORS WANTED! Herbert studied the paper, repressing the urge to crumple it and pretend he'd never seen it. He had hoped this was just another con job, but he'd done this too many times; con men made promises of hundreds of miles to the gallon. These words smacked of earnestness and hard work. The man was dedicated, but not technologically savvy, or else he'd have built a Web site. He didn't have the clout to get the local papers to look at his invention. And the sparseness with which he'd chosen his words meant that he was poor. But he was clever, clever enough to build it. Herbert had taken his job to save this sort of man. But gears had been set into motion. How long did he have? Days? Hours? "Get me to the Bronx by 3:00," he said, rising and straightening his tie. "And have the local constabulary find out what address P.O. Box 163298 maps to." *** Herbert never drove unless he had no other option; getting inside a car felt like some beast was swallowing him whole. But he had no other options, so he pulled his rental car into a run-down neighborhood on the corner of Belmont. The local residents, mostly Hispanics and blacks, sat on their brownstone stoops with nothing better to do, eyeing him with distrust. Herbert wished it was more run-down. The folks on the steps were unemployed, but they weren't drinking fortified wine from bottles in paper sacks; the sidewalks were freshly swept. This neighborhood had gone to seed, but it still had pride. He disliked pride. It got in the way. He looked across the street. There was Carlton's Car Repair, a small, two-car garage with heavy pull-down doors locked into the "up" position, a tow truck in a small, fenced-off area, and a line of dented cars parked outside, patiently waiting for their turn to be fixed. A couple of skinny kids ran through the spray from an open hydrant, cooling down from the hot summer sun. They stopped splashing and peered at him curiously, admiring the clean lines of his bespoke suit. He'd dressed to impress, but that was probably an error here - he had to be believable, but also invisible. Still, there was nothing to be done now. He squared his shoulders and poked his head into the shop. It was full of tools and pneumatic equipment, each one stored carefully in its proper location and wiped clean. A sign said "RING BELL FOR SERVICE," but a pair of feet in worn sneakers poked out from underneath a Chevrolet. A muscular, thirty-something black man in a white wifebeater shirt crawled out from underneath the car. He had a broad, friendly face and a flat nose; his military buzz-cut was already starting to pepper. He smiled, wiping his hands off on a clean cloth. "Can I help you?" he asked. Herbert swallowed back a surge of anxiety; this was the difficult bit. "Are you Michael R. Carlton?" "Yeah," he said warily, his smile wilting. "My name is Herbert Jacobsen. A reporter friend of mine told me that you had an engine I might like to see?" Michael chuckled, and his relief was so palpable Herbert couldn't help but laugh along with him. "Oh, man," he said. "Way you were dressed, I thought you were from the bank. What'd he tell you?" Herbert looked around theatrically, then whispered. "Water," he said. It was the right move. Michael bobbed his head in satisfaction, rubbing the sweat off of his face with a cloth. "Yeah, I got it. Nobody believes me, but I got it. And once I show 'em it works, I'm gonna make a better life for my kids. For everyone. You wanna see the next big thing, my friend?" He forced a smile to his face, feigning enthusiasm. "Show me the miracle." Michael disappeared into a back office, then returned with a tiny contraption about the size of a shoebox. It bristled with pistons, as he'd expected, but Herbert had to bite back his surprise when he realized how advanced Michael's design was. A crude version of an aerosol filtration unit stuck out of the back end, and bolted on to the chassis - obviously a late addition - was a siphoning reblower. "You're gonna think it's fake," he said, tilting the engine in various directions to show it from all sides. "It's not. But I can't show you the internals without getting a contract first. Mind you, it's not as efficient as a gas engine, and you still need oil to keep the friction down on the moving parts. But..." He got a pitcher - a nice touch - and theatrically poured it in. He pressed a button, and it chugged to life with a rush of ozone. He looked expectantly at Herbert, and Herbert remembered with a blush that he was supposed to be awed. "That's amazing," he said. "It's actually pretty simple once you figure it out," Michael shrugged. "So who are you from? That's a mighty nice suit you got there." "I'm from." He had a variety of cover stories to choose from, but this time honesty seemed the best tactic. "I work for Detroit." Michael whistled. "The big boys." "Yes. And assuming you can do what you claim, we're willing to pay you quite a bit for your invention." "How much?" Herbert suppressed a wince; he had a near-infinite budget, but practically none of it was earmarked for buyout offers. Why bother, his superiors argued, when the problems solved themselves? Spend the money on cleanup instead. Their reasoning was shortsighted, and stupid, and it would cost them grievously someday - but, he thought, that callous way they tossed away good men's lives was why he'd signed up in the first place. If he'd been in charge forty years ago, Janette would still be alive and they would have been blissfully, ignorantly, rich. Then again, he thought, you aren't really in charge, are you? "Twenty-five thousand to start," he said crisply, shaking it off. "That goes up to a hundred thousand if the engine does what you say it does. But that's for exclusive rights." Michael snorted. "I can get more than that from the lottery," he said. "Can you win the lottery?" "Lottery's a tax on fools who can't do math. That's what I tell my boy. And I'd be a fool to take twenty-five grand when this will cut Saudi Arabia off at the goddamn knees. I need at least half a million, Herbert." "We can talk money, Mister Carlton. But there's one thing we need to be clear on: if we buy it, you won't be working for us. The check we cut is for the whole technology - after that, it's ours, lock, stock, and barrel. We have our own men." Michael's smile turned into a scowl. "That ain't happening," he said, low and serious. "You can ask around, but I assure you: That's the deal." Michael leaned against a counter, crossing his arms, looking out the doorway. "You see that kid out there? One in the Nike basketball jersey, splashin' in the hydrant with the others?" Herbert followed his gaze. A wiry kid played tag in the spray. He had his father's generous smile. But the other kids seemed crueler, bigger. "That's my boy. Michael Carlton, Jr. He's a good boy. But that trash he's playin' with? They're ten years old, and already they're takin' about drug dealin', pimpin', all that shit. They want to skip school and play basketball. They make fun of me for having a job, Mister Jacobsen." Herbert didn't know what to say. He just stared at his shoes. But Michael kept staring straight at him. "I tell him that hard work pays off. I say, you put in the time, that's a way better way of gettin' rich. But all he's seen is me scraping for money, going into debt, skippin' bills. He's startin' to think I'm a fool. "Maybe this is some deal to you, Mister Jacobsen. But to me? This is how I can show my boy that America works." "You'll still be rich," Herbert objected. "Tell your boy you sold an engine for..." He made a snap decision, going way overbudget because he liked Michael, wanted to see him raise his boy right. "...for half a million. You can't tell him what you sold, but you can tell him that you made it happen." Michael looked up at the fluorescent lights. And when he looked back, his gaze was unflinching. "No," he said. "It's gotta have my name on it somewhere." "That's not your boy talking," Herbert said. "That's pride, one of the worst sins mankind possesses. You can lose more than money by giving into that, Michael." Michael shook his head. "You sound like a preacher." "That's no coincidence. I used to be one." "What happened?" "I got a different offer." "Interesting," Michael shrugged, lifting a socket wrench out of a hook on the wall and turning back to the car. "Well, Mister Jacobsen, I thank you for your time. Lemme think about it." He started to slide underneath the car, and Herbert felt the panic burst through his heart. He couldn't let Michael go there; he just couldn't. So, he grabbed Michael by the arm, feeling the hard muscle under his fingers. "Don't," he urged. "Take the money. Just be done with it. You'll be rich, and you'll be safe." Michael whirled around to face him, and Herbert realized just how tall Michael was. "Don't threaten me," he snapped, working hard to keep the courtesy in his voice. "I'm not stupid. You Detroit boys? You're afraid of the competition. You wanna buy this and bury it. That's shit. This right here is an invention that can change the world. It's gonna make this -" he thumped the door of the Chevrolet as Herbert's heart raced "-completely obsolete." Herbert was as surprised as Michael to find his hand around Michael's wrist, yanking it back. "You should not," he said seriously, "Touch the car like that." Though Michael was at least fifty pounds heavier and thirty years younger than Herbert, there was something in the old man's eyes that made him flinch. For a moment, Herbert thought Michael was going to haul off and deck him. But instead, he shook off Herbert's grip, rubbing his wrist sullenly. "You think you can scare me off?" Michael said, grabbing a wrench off his table. "I got guns, Herb. There's gangs everywhere here. And I sleep with my engine by my bedside." "It's not that way," Herbert said, tasting the dryness in his mouth. "I'm gonna find someone with backing, and build a company just like Henry Ford did, and I'm gonna bury your whole damn company. In fact, I'm gonna bury you. Get outta here," Michael said, vanishing from sight underneath the hood of the car. "You got nothin' I want." Herbert walked out of the garage slowly, backing away, eyeing the line of cars pointed at the boys, playing in the water. Michael Jr. looked so much smaller than the other children. When he saw the boy, he almost started back into the garage, ready to take the beating if he could just get through to the boy's father. But Michael Sr. was already swallowed underneath the bulk of the Chevrolet, his worn sneakers sticking out. Herbert sighed. Once again, thugs and pimps would triumph. As always. *** Herbert slept fitfully that night, waiting for the blinding light. And sure enough, as soon as he slipped into dreams, a bright halogen glare spread across the insides of his eyelids, blotting out everything until there was nothing but the harsh beams of high headlights in Herbert's vision. Parts dimmed and blackened, revealing the streets of the Bronx, sliding by underneath, lit by headlights. Something prowling. There was Michael, walking home in his clean blue overalls, his son tagging behind him, enveloped in the wash of headlights. The lights zoomed closer, then lurched; Michael turned around to see and screamed, his mouth a comically large O as he shoved his son to one side - Harold was grateful for that - and then there was the crunch of something heavy and steel smashing into a brick wall. The headlights shattered. Blackness. And then, in the blackness arose an all-devouring sound, rough and throaty and purring with satisfaction ? the sound of a finely-tuned engine just before it shifted gears down into a rumbling idle, almost inaudible but unmistakably there. Herbert awoke, sweating. When he touched his fingers the ignition key around his neck, the thrumming matched up with his heartbeat, as it always did. It wasn't even dawn but he bicycled into his office, pedaling through darkness - no car could hit him anyway - needing to know for sure. And sure enough, one of his employees had left a red folder on his desk; the sign of a cleanup operation. He opened it up to reveal a faxed-in police blotter: ACCIDENT: A vehicle was involved in a fatal pedestrian accident at 9:14 p.m. Tuesday in Belmont. Jane Susitna, 24, of 895 E. Kercher Ave., ran into Michael R. Carlton, 36, of 199 City Island Avenue. Carlton was taken to Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, where he died of his injuries. Susitna was not charged; preliminary evidence suggests that her brakes failed. Herbert put his head in his hands. The father was dead, the boy doubtlessly doomed without his father's love to guide him. He wished he could have told Michael what he was playing with. But honestly, Michael had probably been dead the moment he first made his engine, surrounded by husks of the old, antiquated model. Michael had believed the urban legends - and Herbert had encouraged him. He thought that Detroit and the big oil companies knew all about the thousand-mile-a-gallon engine, and worked to suppress all knowledge of it. The legend was half right. At least ten people a month did develop a better motor. Ten people a month. Each creating their version of the perfect engine, one that ran on tapwater or olive oil or maybe starlight. An engine forty times as efficient and twice as environmentally friendly as the old gasoline-powered motors. Ten people outdating the old gasoline engine every single month - mostly good, decent people with dreams of a better future. Herbert had met most of them. But ten people an hour died in car accidents. At least ten thousand animals were crushed by autos every day. That was one of the little funny facts about the cosmos, thought Herbert. He'd believed in a Christian God once, but as it turned out the Incas and the Machupichus had been closer to the truth. If you gave something enough blood, steadily and relentlessly offering up scores of lives to something - anything - it didn't matter whether it was a rock or a cloud or a river. Eventually, it would grow. And, perhaps, learn how to protect itself. He chewed a Tums and buzzed his secretary, waking her at home. "Get our best Ops team out there," he said. "Tell them to find the engine and sabotage it." Then he thought of Michael Jr., and how he'd react when it turned out his father's Great American dream was fuelled by lunacy. "Make it subtle," he added. "Make it close to working." He leaned back in his seat, feeling old. Herbert had been one of the first to feel the tremors of the new God rising when Janette had perfected her engine; he'd begged her to dismantle it. She'd called him superstitious, told him it was ridiculous to be scared off by a dream - and Herbert, blinded by years of devotion to a delusion, had ignored his best instincts and listened to her. Stupid. So stupid. Back then, he'd thought that God loved him. But the tales of older Gods had held the truth of things: the powers above were like the weather, impetuous and uncaring, and the best you could do was kiss their ass and beg them for mercy. Harold was the high priest of this new God, and his job was to keep humanity as far from it as possible. Right now, this strange, oil-fueled thing defended itself sleepily, idly quashing the occasional pretender with a set of snipped brakes here, an airplane crash there. But if knowledge of the alternatives made it out to the public, and they tried to dispose of their old God, well..It would fight back. And what would they battle it when it controlled the cars, the tanks, the freighters - the nuclear bombs? He slumped in his chair, looking forlornly at the guts of the old car nailed to his wall. His employees thought it was his act of rebellion, crucifying the thing that had killed his wife. But as he sat underneath his ceiling of crushed spark plugs and pistons and flapping valves, Herbert felt small and powerless, just as he'd intended. The thing that killed his wife was around him, always around him, and this never let him forget that there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it - except to kill its competition and curry its favor. Herbert began to weep, low and long. He wished for his old, dead, imaginary God, a God that was filled with love - something that rewarded hard work and punished avarice. Something that would reward men and women like Michael, and Janette, and all the others for their cleverness. But this new God didn't care a thing about cleverness. All it wanted was for you go out and drive. That wasn't much of a sacrifice. Not much at all. END
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A week after his wife died, the organization that had clumsily tried to save Janette offered Herbert a secret job.
Ferrett Steinmetz is a 2008 graduate of the Clarion Workshop, which completely destroyed his existing fiction and built him back up again into a new writer. Since graduating in August, he's been writing three short stories a month; one has been already accepted by Asimov's Science Fiction.