Etiquette for the End of the World

chapter 3:

Encounters of the Weird Kind: Rules of (Dis)engagement



What to Do When You Come Across Another Human Being:

It will be necessary to go about in the world, to forage for food, gather information about the world situation, or look for a mate. It is inevitable that in this now chaotic world you will come in contact with strangers, alone or in a group, during your travels. Some you will be seeking help from; some will be seeking help from you. Some will be friends; some will be foes. Keep in mind that to some, you will be the foe.



How to Rob Someone with Style:

PERFECT PILFERING

When forced to permanently borrow a stranger’s food when they are elsewhere engaged, do leave a handwritten note. A handwritten note says, “I care about your feelings.”

THE WELL-MANNERED MUGGING

Step One: Approach subject from behind. Make sure you have privacy. This is not only for your safety and for the success of the operation but to save the subject any embarrassment.

Step Two: Brandish weapon(s). Smile apologetically. (Remember Etiquette Rule # 1: Always pretend to be asking even when you are taking something away from someone by force.)

Step Three: Your petition for any food, water, or batteries should be more of a firm request than a harsh demand. Be sure to leave them with your signed I.O.U.



“You okay? Need anything?” she heard Patrick ask her. Tess stopped typing so she could respond to him. She had come to the Scrub-a-Dub-Pub right from the library, rattled by her experience with Betty Phoenix. The woman had been so freaked out at the disappearance of the old book and the mysterious document that she had practically vaulted out of her chair to hustle Tess out of the office and, with a brusque apology and good-bye, had locked up the office again and run away down the hall, heels clacking loudly.

Tess had been praying that Richie would be on the bar. All she needed was one of his warm smiles and one of his two-word sentences to make her feel normal. Unfortunately, he was not there; the arrogant-as-ever Patrick was. “No, thanks a lot, Patrick, still working on my beer… . Actually, do you have a dish towel or a bunch of napkins I could put under my computer? I can’t afford to have anything happen to it, and someone might spill a Muddy Sock or something, you never know.”

“I think I might be able to manage that for you, darlin’.” Patrick’s face was constantly flushed. He had a lopsided smile, with large spaces between his teeth, which were pointy, like a rat’s. He leaned over toward her, placing both his gnarly hands on the bar, one on either side of her laptop. “But this is not the greatest place to write, you know, Virginia.” (He always called her Virginia. This was Patrick’s idea of wit—Virginia Woolf being, apparently, the only female writer he knew of. Plus, Tess suspected he liked it because it had the word “virgin” in it.) It was almost six and getting crowded, but there was still plenty of room at the bar. Richie never had any issue with her working here. As a neighborhood bar, the pub always had weekday customers who came by themselves after work, and read or sat quietly.

“It will have to do for the moment, I’m afraid. You don’t mind?” She smiled sweetly at him, which she did not find easy to do at all. When he came back with a handful of paper napkins, she piled them evenly under her laptop, making a kind of place-mat effect. “Thanks,” she said. “So is Richie coming in?”

“Richie is off tonight,” Patrick said with a smirk, reaching up to get glasses out of the overhead rack. Patrick Callahan was the kind of guy whose mouth was always hanging half open. “It’s Friday night. Every weekend the same boy toy has been coming into the city to stay with him. He won’t come up for air again until Sunday.” Tess wondered if that could be the Jason whose name she would sometimes see on the display of Richie’s cell. In any case, Patrick should not be telling customers about Richie’s love life.

Tess went back to her manuscript. Even though she officially had the job now (Peter had put the contract through), she was still not confident about what she was getting down on paper. But she knew she had to just keep going.

Her concentration was interrupted by the loud, swaggering voice of a man seated down the bar to her left.

“What this country really needs is …” Then he lowered his voice and she could not hear the rest. Then there were loud shouts of laughter, issuing from the man who spoke, another man who sat next to him, and Patrick, who had his elbows on the bar and was deep in conversation with them. Tess didn’t need to hear the end of “What this country needs.” As far as Tess was concerned, the phrase “What this country needs” was the mating call of the American Boor.

She should not be trying to work here tonight. The bar was not like this when Richie was bartending; it was Patrick who tended to attract this kind of crowd. And lately, there seemed to be more and more of this type of clientele in here. She would finish her drink and then go home. Tess took a sip of her beer and willed herself to refocus. Block out the blockheads, Tess, she told herself.



Techniques for Traveling among Terror-Stricken (or Terrorist) Tribes:

It’s a good idea to avoid groups if you are traveling alone. Sometimes you may come across a tribe who is showing outward signs of being wild or primitive. Give this group a wide berth. It’s important to stay out of the way and out of sight. Not to beat a dead horse (though there are certainly now plenty of them lying around), there are a lot of very scared ex-citizens out there. Most people express fear with anger.



Okay, this was not funny at all, and it was also probably not helpful. Tess gave up, shutting down her computer. One of the problems was that half of her mind was still back in the little dark office with Betty Phoenix, watching her put the order for Fix Your Silk Stockings with a Wyoming Walking Beetle into the pneumatic tube and send it shooting off, down into the invisible bowels of the library. Tess could not forget the stunned and horrified look on the librarian’s face when she realized the book was gone. What could have been in that document?

Suddenly the two goons to her left were talking loudly again.

“It’s Pakistan we should obliterate,” blustered one of them. “And Iran! One fell swoop!” He hit the bar hard with his fist.

The other man hooted and said, “While we are at it, we should take out North Korea. Finish what we started in 1950.” God. Richie would definitely have thrown these guys out of the bar by now.

The first guy leaned back, his hands behind his neck. “I have a cousin in the Pentagon. He says it’s all going to hit the fan sooner that anybody thinks.”

Maybe the end of the world was not such an abstract notion. Tess knew these bozos were just ignorant drunks, but this was a bar on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the liberal center of the Universe, and if these guys felt comfortable spouting these views here, what was being talked about in Iowa and Nebraska and Utah? She remembered the way Ms. Phoenix said, “I made up my mind I can’t keep this to myself any longer … . I admit I did not put it together before … .” Suddenly Tess felt it was imperative she go back to the library to try to talk to her again. She could not shake the idea that the librarian had important information of some kind. Of course, there was also the distinct possibility that Betty Phoenix could simply be bonkers. I mean, Wyoming walking beetles?



***



“John, I need a favor,” Tess said.

Tess had not spoken to John Penniman in months, but she knew he was the one person who could help her. She had gone back to the library two Fridays in a row, and after not being able to find Betty Phoenix, had finally asked a supervisor about her. All she could get out of the hostile man was that Ms. Phoenix was on “unspecified leave of absence.” Tess had gone home and searched online for her phone number, without success. Then she remembered: Samson-Gold was one of the New York Public Library’s major contributors. And John Penniman was their contact.

John had been her favorite person at Samson-Gold. He was, for a guy who came from obscene wealth, unbelievably nice. For a while after she left SG she and Matt had gotten together with John and his wife for dinner parties, until his wife had gotten pregnant with twins and dinner parties fell by the wayside.

John did not ask why Tess wanted the home phone number of a librarian at the main branch. He was like that: he did not require nonessential information. He was peculiarly uncurious.

He had called her back in less than an hour with the unlisted number.

“Thanks, how did you do it?” Tess asked him.

“I just called the head of development and requested it.”

“And they didn’t even ask you why?”

“Well, yeah, they did, but I just told them I couldn’t say.”

As Tess thanked John again and hung up, she thought, There it is, corporate power in action. And I gave it all up only to end up as a ghostwriter for a fringe group of fanatics. Nice move, Tess.



***



Except for one winter she had traveled to Chicago, Tess had never been anywhere as cold as it was right now, in mid-December on Manhattan’s Riverside Drive. The freezing wind was galing at about forty miles an hour. It was beyond unpleasant; it was sadistic. She was supposed to meet Betty Phoenix here on the corner of Riverside and 95th, but she hoped she did not have to wait long. Thank god she had her mother’s mink hat. She hardly ever wore it—she was always afraid of getting yelled at by a PETA person. Today was the kind of day she couldn’t care less. Let them yell. It was sure as hell too windy for throwing paint.

Tess had been worried the librarian would hang up on her when she called. But after a brief pause, Ms. Phoenix had asked her tersely what she wanted.

“I am so sorry to call you at home,” Tess said. “But I have not been able to forget about that missing book of yours. It seemed so important. It’s haunting me, frankly. I know you are not at the library anymore, but I’m hoping you might be willing to meet with me. Can I buy you a cup of coffee somewhere?”

The librarian paused for a moment, then said sharply, “Let me have your number and I’ll call you back.”

Tess figured that was that, so she was more than a little surprised when Betty Phoenix actually did return her call. She had told Tess she did not want to explain further on the phone, that she wanted to meet in person.

In person was fine, but here on the coldest corner of the city? “What ever happened to meeting at Starbucks?” Tess muttered under her breath, turning her back to the wind and holding her hat on with both hands.

“Ms. Eliot?”

Tess turned and saw her, swathed head to toe in a dark green velvet coat with a fur-lined hood. Just like Julie Christie in Doctor Zhivago, Tess thought. I can barely see her face. Betty Phoenix beckoned to her and without a word crossed Riverside Drive toward the entrance to the park.

In the summer, Tess ran, rode her bike, and walked in this park, fighting for every inch of space with the hordes of other recreating New Yorkers. But on a cold winter day like this one, the park was utterly deserted. Tess caught up with the woman and asked where they were going. Ms. Phoenix, clutching the neck of her coat closed, yelled out over the wind, “To see a friend of mine!”

Tess was thinking that this meeting had not been such a good idea, as they worked their way south on the path. They passed the 91 Street garden, now barren, and headed down the promenade. It was weird to be walking for so long without talking. When they got to the turnoff that led to the river, Tess became even more anxious. “Ms. Phoenix? Betty? Where exactly are we going?” The librarian stopped and turned around, putting both her arms on Tess’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, it’s okay. We’re almost there.” Now Tess could see her face had the kind, serene appearance she remembered, and she breathed a little easier.

At the bottom of the long hill, they walked under the highway overpass to the lonely path that ran right alongside the river. They had to hold on to each other to keep from slipping on the ice. The wind was whipping even more fiercely. This was so nuts. She should have asked Peter to come with her—though he would have never understood; he would have just laughed at her. Actually the person she should have asked was Richie. But that would have been weird, since she had never seen him outside the Scrub-a-Dub-Pub. Tess wondered if she had some kind of automatic tracking GPS on her phone. She was suddenly sorry she never listened to Matt when he would insist on explaining things like that to her. At least she had Ginny’s work number on speed dial. She patted the front of her purse to reassure herself her phone was there.

When they arrived at the gate to the 79 Street Boat Basin, Tess finally understood where they were headed. The librarian took a key out of a pocket and unlocked the gate to the marina, then locked it behind her again. (What is it with this woman and keys?) They made their way down the main pier to a narrow walkway—which served as a sidewalk over the water for the two houseboats moored there. One boat looked totally boarded up; the other had lights on inside. It was a rickety, rust-stained two-story structure. The walkway was bobbing up and down wildly with the roiled-up tide. Tess had to hold tightly to the rope handrail. Ms. Phoenix entered the houseboat without knocking, and Tess followed.

When they got inside, it was surprisingly warm and cozy. Tess glanced around and spotted, among the sparse furnishings, space heaters in every corner. It might not be safe, but at least it felt blessedly warm.

There was a tall boy sitting at a small table next to a window, and a pot of something in front of him, and three cups.

“Come in. Hi!” On closer inspection he was not a boy, but a young man in his early twenties, with shoulder-length dirty blond hair. It looked unwashed. But perhaps bathing was a hardship on a houseboat. “I’m Betty’s friend, Gregory Frankstein,” he said, remaining seated and holding up one hand in greeting.

“Frankstein?” She had not meant to sound so incredulous. At least he pronounced it with a long “e.”

“Yes, that’s right.” He smiled tolerantly.

Tess and Betty joined him at the little table. Gregory Frankstein poured out some kind of brown tea from the chipped pot. He was very thin, gaunt even, but he had an intelligent, self-possessed air about him, and sharp eyes.

“Tess, I am sorry to be strange about this whole thing, so enigmatic.” Betty began. “The day after we met, I called in sick at work and never went back. Frankly, I had been uneasy about that document for some time, and somehow when you came in asking about end myths, and then it had disappeared … well, it woke me up.

“You see, Tess … for me this was a long awaited catalyst for a much needed change. A big change. A life change. I am never going back to the library; it no longer feels like a safe place. I went to my astrologist”—here Gregory Frankstein rolled his eyes, but Betty ignored him—“and she convinced me that I needed to alter my whole direction immediately.”

Tess nodded, a polite smile plastered on her face, but inside she was beginning to panic. What was she doing in this deserted marina with two complete strangers, at least one of whom seemed to be having some sort of nervous breakdown? What in god’s name had she been thinking? Who did she think she was, Miss Marple?

“And so you did?” asked Tess, trying not to worry about the violence of the wind outside, which was making her wonder how float-worthy this houseboat was. It was definitely rocking, though it was more of a hammock kind of rocking than a we’re-going-to-capsize rocking.

“Yes,” Betty breathed a shy smile. “I am going to travel. Wander the world. I don’t have a lot of money but I am looking into ways one can travel on a small budget. I want to see everything I can … just in case.”

”In case? … Um … . In case what?”

“Tess, it’s time to tell you about the contents of the document.” Here we go, thought Tess. Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Missing Library Book. Betty took a sip of the brown tea, put her cup back down, and then clasped her hands together, the way she had in the little library office. “One day I was attending a meeting in our second-floor conference room. I was the first to arrive, and when I was sitting down I saw some papers on the floor, underneath me, halfway under the table. Naturally I picked them up, thinking I would return them if it was something important, or dispose of it if it was not. I was rather shocked to see the stationery. It was an NSA document.”

“NSA? Like, the actual NSA? The National Security Agency?”

”Yes.”

“And no one knows how it got there?” asked Tess.

Betty shook her head. “No … but I can’t say that I ever asked anyone about it in a direct fashion. I was too nervous. As I said, this was an official-looking NSA document, with a raised seal and everything. It was about ten pages long. I became more and more frightened as I started to read it … . That is, I was unable to understand all the science … there were detailed, complicated blueprints—drawings of molecules that certainly looked convincing, mathematical formulas and diagrams that I could not begin to decipher. But there was a summary at the top.”

“Well?” Tess prodded her, as Betty had paused. Gregory calmly sipped his tea, waiting. Tess wanted to be polite but was squeamish about what the murky brown tea would taste like, so she brought the cup up to her lips and tipped it, without drinking. It smelled like the water left over after steaming broccoli.

Betty sat up very straight and placed both her hands in her lap. “It was for … a deadly computer virus.”

“A computer virus?” Tess repeated, feeling at once relieved and oddly let down. “I don’t mean to be cavalier, Betty, but, as far as I know, there are computer viruses created—and nullified—every day.” Smiling, she looked over at the young man for confirmation.

“No, no, you don’t understand,” said Betty.

“How could she?” interjected Gregory, running a hand through his greasy hair. His fingernails were dirty also. He turned to Tess. “When she read the material, Betty was so unsettled—”

“I was afraid to turn the papers in to anyone, afraid that then the Powers That Be would know I had seen them,” Betty said.

“So she brought the thing to me to have a look.” Gregory went on. “I happen to have a background in a very experimental field of nanotechnology. Though it may not look like it, from my living conditions … ” With the hand that was holding the teacup, he made a quick sweeping motion indicating the interior of the boathouse. Tess was amazed that none of the liquid spilled out. Living on the water must have given him a special sense of balance. “I have a PhD from Dartmouth. I was in fact briefly employed by the Pentagon. But that’s neither here nor there.” Tess noticed his lip curled slightly when he mentioned the Pentagon.

Betty set down her cup and looked intently at Tess. “It’s a real bug, an actual insect. You know, with legs.”

“Pardon?” Tess felt the gears in her brain trying to catch hold.

“Gregory?” Betty turned back to him.

He got up from his chair, his head almost touching the low ceiling, to turn the stove on for more hot water. His oversize olive-green sweater had holes at the elbows. “What it is, in essence, is a microscopic, super-reproducing living organism that consumes all computer circuits, telephone lines—anything that carries an electromagnetic pulse—at super-speed. And it would, hypothetically, multiply even faster than it eats.”

“But … but,” stammered Tess. “So everyone’s computer would crash?”

Gregory smiled sardonically. “This kind of techno-bug? Theoretically, that is, if it worked the way it is designed to—and were deployed effectively—all electricity, all travel, all communications all over the world, could be gone in a matter of a few days. Let me put it this way,” he continued, sitting down again. “Say several governments unleashed smallpox, Ebola, plague, and tularemia all at once. Then the U.S., Korea and China and the Russians and the Iranians all send up nukes.” He leaned forward and peered intensely at Tess, as though he were trying to shoot his conviction to her through his eyes. “This bug would be faster.”

A sudden gust of wind caused the boat to lurch and creak. Tess was experiencing a weird buzzing in her head. She wished with all her heart that she had not come. She did not want to believe what she was hearing, and yet Gregory Frankstein spoke with such authority; he really sounded as if he knew what he was talking about. Somehow he seemed credible. But of course the idea was totally insane. Why was she even listening to this? Perhaps they had put something hallucinogenic in her tea. Then she remembered she had not drunk any of the tea.

“Until you walked into the library that day,” Betty said, “it never really occurred to me that anyone would actually manufacture and use such a thing. I thought of it like other types of biological warfare and plans for weaponry that the government has stashed away in their top-secret closets. You know, they don’t really mean to use it; it’s just to threaten with, to frighten the enemy. In fact, I picked the silly beetle book to hide the papers in to try to make myself feel the whole thing was not real, that it was like a game.”

They all sat in silence for a minute while the wind wailed against the plastic windows of the houseboat.

“But now you’re saying someone—and who knows who it is—has obtained these plans.” Tess said slowly. She felt as if she were in a nightmare and could not wake herself up.

Tess looked at Betty. Betty looked at Gregory. Gregory looked at Tess. Then they all took a sip of tea at the same time (Tess having momentarily forgotten her resolve not to have any). It tasted bitter and a little rusty.

Then it hit her. All the predictions, all the rational and irrational fears people were having about the end of the world, the things she had been researching for weeks—nothing she had come across had ever seemed to be a viable, imminent possibility. As in something that could happen fast. It was all just interesting supposition, or scary fairy tales. But this: This might be real. This was something that could be engineered.

Not a prophecy fulfilled, but a self-fulfilling prophecy.