BZRK (BZRK 1)

Twenty-seven twitchers. And of those, maybe five who could fight half as well as they spun. That’s what the kid didn’t get. Bug Man didn’t understand that twenty-seven was really closer to seven who could fight. And maybe three who could fight and win against the very best.

A waitress appeared. She was carrying a silver tray. She bowed slightly, set the tray down, and backed out of the alcove.

The tray was covered with a thick, white cloth, and on that cloth rested a narrow glass tray of long matches and an ornate, Cloisonné water pipe with a long, bent bronze neck and a tiny bowl.

Burnofsky closed his eyes and smiled. When he opened them again, his worries and troubles were already starting to recede because rescue was at hand.

Troubling visions of failure, discovery, capture followed by twenty years cold turkey in a federal prison, would disappear soon enough.

But not just yet. A sweaty, nervous man was standing in the entrance, pushing aside the drape, diffident, bobbing like he was halfway to a bow.

Burnofsky had forgotten. There was business to be conducted before pleasure was to be savored. He didn’t stand up. He did offer his hand.

“Lord Elfangor?” the man whispered, practically wetting himself. “I’m Aidan Bailey.” The accent was Australian or New Zealand, one of those. A UN employee, of course.

Burnofsky sighed. Of course. This would be One-Up’s work. And as usual she had taken the most dramatic route. He squinted up at the man, trying to recall the exact nature of his wiring. He was a Scientologist, which meant he was already prepared to buy into alien mythology. A bit of a change from the usual giddy idealists churned up by Nexus Humanus and delivered to AFGC.

Burnofsky wondered how One-Up had inserted that “Lord Elfangor” bullshit. Had she actually gone to the trouble of tapping phonemes to invent a name? Unlikely. More likely she’d cauterized some critical thinking—there couldn’t have been much there to begin with—wired the man’s religious indoctrination to some bit of TV trivia or movie lore and come up with the name, then tied it to a pic of Burnofsky.

She tried too hard, One-Up. Occam’s razor: find the simplest solution.

“I am Lord Elfangor,” Burnofsky said. “Thank you for coming.”

“I …” The man laughed, sudden, surprised. “I don’t even know why I’m here, really. I just knew …”

“You knew you had to be here,” Burnofsky said, doing his best not to glance at the pipe, willing himself to play out the role. “As though a force greater than yourself, a mind much deeper than your own—”

“Yes! That’s it!”

“Mr. Bailey, very rare are those who can hear the summons. Rarer still those with the wisdom to heed the words of the Masters.”

He was making it up as he went along. He’d seen One-Up’s report, skimmed it, but hadn’t memorized all the details.

“What you do here today will save the human race,” Burnofsky said solemnly. “You have something for me.”

Bailey nodded. He was believing. But he was troubled that he was believing. He sensed something wrong. A part of him knew. A part of him was fighting it, even as his hand went slowly to the inner pocket of his jacket.

“You are feeling enturbulated. You are concerned that you do not have your ethics in,” Burnofsky said, and held his breath. Had he said it right? He had a near-perfect memory, and he’d read about Scientology—

“Yes,” Bailey said, and laughed with relief.

Burnofsky winked. “When we are done, you will feel clear.” He watched the man closely. It was dangerous to be playing with unfamiliar cult terminology. It was too easy to make a revealing misstep.

Bailey drew his hand from his pocket and placed a flash drive in Burnofsky’s palm.

“Thank you,” Burnofsky said. “You have done well.”

Bailey breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“You can go,” Burnofsky said. “And, oh, um, if you happen to meet a young woman with the unusual name of One-Up, give her a message for me.”

Burnofsky looked him in the eye. He was sure that One-Up’s nanobots were tapping the optic nerve, or perhaps even listening. He scribbled a few words on the pad of paper, tore off a sheet, and held it up so Bailey could see it.

“Make it clean, and far from here,” Bailey read the words aloud. “I don’t understand.”

Burnofsky waved a hand to shoo the doomed man away. The last thing they could afford was this fool talking to his Scientology auditor and sending those loons into a frenzy.

So at a safe distance from the China Bone, an artery in Bailey’s head would burst.