Behind the Bitmask Read online

  “You can’t spread nightmares through computer cables, Charlotte. At least, not that I know of. The day before that, I overheard Bruce talking about a dream he had about being eaten alive by a horrible monster, although I didn’t hear enough to say whether he thought that was a good dream or a bad one...”

  Why would you assume being eaten alive would be anything other than a bad dream? Sarah quickly picked up on my facial expression and offered an explanation before I even realized my jaw had dropped.

  “It sounds strange, but I’ve heard worse. You know that one crazy guy in Germany, the Rotenberg Cannibal? He found someone who wanted to be killed and ate them. I think they only convicted him a few months ago.”

  “Please don’t tell me this Bruce fellow is interested in that sort of thing.”

  “You never know. Now Anneke, on the other hand... She claims she had a sudden hallucination of being trampled to death by ducks about two hours ago! Anneke’s very level-headed, Charlotte. She always keeps control of her senses, even when we’re casting mind-altering spells. This isn’t normal.”

  Who the hell was Anneke? Do I really care, as long as Sarah knows and can keep things under control?

  “So, people are discontent lately. What should we do? Is it enough of a problem that we should tell Aux?” I asked Sarah.

  “I highly doubt Aux has time for such things as human feelings,” she quipped. Unspoken agreement soon followed.

  “When people around here are feeling down, I usually try to keep the local freezers stocked with extra ice cream and frozen treats. It seems to help,” Sarah added.

  “That sounds like it came straight out of a chick flick.” I paused for a second. “I’m not against it, though.”

  So at the very least, it looked like we’d get some sweet desserts out of this unfortunate string of nightmares. Unless you loathe the world’s confectioners with all your blackened, shriveled heart, you have to admit that’s a good outcome. I quickly finished up my business with Sarah McGeer, making sure to hint that she should make sure to get some chocolate ice cream.

  I budget for an hour or so between when I get off work and when I have to get to the coven. The drive between my offices is maybe ten minutes at most if I go directly from one to the other, but sometimes I like to dash home and touch up my makeup or get an early dinner in (sometimes I don’t end up with much time to nourish myself when Aux’s demands for the day are especially onerous). Besides, you never know what will happen on the roads of Minneapolis.

  The quickest route between mundane work and magic work requires me to take Interstate 94 east for about two miles. Usually, this is easy, although sometimes the traffic near the on and off ramps can be a bit of pain. One day, though, I was merging onto the ramp when I heard a series of nasty crunches and smashing metal in front of me. At first, I thought I’d collided with something; a split second later, when I realized my car was still moving and undamaged, I realized I had to hit the brakes in order to prevent this from becoming the case, as I was about to slam into a big pile of assorted metals. As I screeched to a halt, I heard another crash and feared that whoever was behind me had done about the same, but then the lack of a physical impact to match the terrible sounds made me believe I was going to get through this just fine. I finally exhaled and took a look around to regain my bearings.

  The good news was that I hadn’t been directly involved in some sort of car accident. The bad news was that at least a dozen people both in front of me and back of me had been.

  It looked like someone had critically failed to merge onto the highway and slammed into another car. From there on, it had cascaded, as hapless commuter after commuter had compounded the crash. There were at least fifty cars blocking off the entire highway, in varying states of wreckage. More intact traffic was beginning to pile up behind the wall of mangled cars. What made matters even worse was that a couple of cars had crashed behind me. That I hadn’t lost my vehicle to the carnage was a rare stroke of luck, but I was now completely hemmed in. I couldn’t even try to move around the wreckage in front, as it was blocking every inch of the highway, from barrier to barrier. I was going to be stuck here for hours, if not days.

  There was no getting around it – I would have to make some calls. First, I dialed 911 on my cell phone because the last thing I wanted was for people to think I was a sadist who didn’t care about the carnage and mayhem around me. As I waited for the call to go through, I turned off my car and got outside the vehicle, committing to the belief that I wasn’t going anywhere for a very long time. When I was finally connected to an operator, I heard what appeared to be a multitude of phones ringing and some nebulous level of office chaos.

  “I need to report the mother of all car accidents on Interstate 94,” I explained to the operator.

  “We’re already aware of this, ma’am. Are you in any way hurt or require assistance?” the operator responded.

  “No, I am uninjured. I was merely calling to make a report. Should I disconnect from the line?”

  “Ma’am, do you see anyone who needs assistance?” asked the operator; I’d expected them to hang up on me, but apparently, I was the closest thing they had to a first responder, for better or worse. I was not at all prepared for this.

  “I see a lot of people, but I don’t know who I should help.”

  “Uh... Look for someone who’s bleeding, but not a lot? I’m just a phone operator; I don’t know any triage.” I guess I wasn’t alone in that regard.

  I hung up soon after, and walked away from my vehicle, half hoping to save a life and half expecting that anything I tried to do would make things worse.

  “Please, help! My husband is about to die!” someone shouted. I looked up to see an old woman with tacky hair dyed platinum blonde, except where it’d been stained with an unknown party’s blood. I don’t think this was what the operator had in mind, but at the moment, it seemed like I was the only person who wasn’t incapacitated or traumatized, so I dashed over to see if I could do anything. When I reached the old lady, my first instinct was to assume I was already too late. A man (presumably the husband) had somehow shot through the window of her car and landed on his back, covered in glass shards and more blood, twitching slightly.

  “I think he needs CPR, but I never learned how to give CPR!” the old lady wailed; she buried her face in her hands and sniffled to make it clear just how upset she was.

  If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that I remember how to administer CPR. I occasionally have to do it when a spell backfires at the coven. Sarah made absolutely sure that I picked up the technique, and given that it’s presumably saved us some human resources...well, you know why I’m so in favor of having her around.

  Back to the task at hand – I removed the man’s coat and started compressing. After a few compressions, a trickle of blood erupted from the corner of his mouth. Still no signs of life, and I suspected that trying to mouth-to-mouth on what was almost certainly a corpse wasn’t going to do anything. I looked at his wife and shrugged slightly; this destroyed her.

  “Oh God, Charlie! Please, tell me you’re not dead! You can’t be!” she screamed, before rushing over to sob on his shoulders. I had the vague urge to tell her people that die all the time (true), and that you can’t afford to get too attached to anyone (also true, right?), but that might be too harsh for someone who just lost a loved one mere seconds ago. Maybe the experience would teach her about the fragility of life. Maybe that’s too cold, even for a Minnesota February.

  I looked behind me, and saw a police officer sprinting in our direction, followed by a couple of paramedics waddling towards us with some stretchers. Looks like it was time for them to take over. My hands were suddenly damp; I looked down and saw just how sweaty they’d become. In that brief moment of panic, I’d totally forgotten that I still had obligations to Aux and the coven.

  “Hey, how soon can I get out of here?” I
asked the police officer. He shrugged at me the same way I’d shrugged at that unfortunate old lady. Good thing she didn’t see it; normies usually don’t have a replacement soul or phylactery on hand.

  “Which of these cars is yours?” he asked. I pointed at my intact vehicle.

  “Well, we could give you a ride to the police station if you don’t mind leaving your vehicle to get towed, but I don’t think that’s something you want,” he continued. He was right. I had the vague feeling I’d left some occult tools (surgical knives, a USB flash stick…) in the trunk, and I didn’t want to explain that to anyone if that was indeed the case.

  “Sigh. Guess I’ll just have to wait.”

  Aux was not going to be pleased with my tardiness, but in this case, I felt like I had a pretty good excuse, so I retreated back into my car and dialed into the coven’s landline so they’d know what was going on.

  “The number you are attempting to dial cannot be reached at this moment. At the tone, please leave a message. When you are finished, you may hang up, or press 1 for more options,” my phone told me. The phone operators at the coven had been informed to never immediately pick up the phone, but always to let calls go to the answering machine. If someone was available (and they should be, since Aux always had someone on phone duty; I’d even done it myself a few times in my days as a wide-eyed novice) and you could prove your affiliation with the coven in some fashion, they’d pick up and talk to you.

  “This is Charlotte Metaxas, leader and mistress of the Ancient Mystical Order of Aux or whatever we’re calling ourselves these days. I’m your boss, so you’d better pick up-”

  “Whoa, whoa! Charlotte! What’s going on? I heard there was a huge pileup. Are you okay?” Turns out Sarah McGeer was on phone duty. Most of the time, this was passed to low-ranking members, but Sarah was allegedly a master at handling calls. At the very least, she tended to preside over phone duty training sessions, so the odds were there might be a few underlings there with her, not that it particularly mattered now that she was handling the call.

  “I’m fine, but they’re not going to let me through until they clear the blockage somehow, and that could take hours. Can you make sure Aux knows I haven’t gone rogue or whatever?” I told Sarah. If my hearing was more acute, or the audio quality on the line was better, I would’ve been able to hear her blanch at my request.

  “I’ll tell Aux, but I’m not sure it’s going to understand what’s happening.” A minute of near silence, as Sarah connected me with an explanation of the pileup in terms Aux might, but wouldn’t necessarily understand. Soon, Aux made its presence on the line apparent.

  “Charlotte? This is Aux speaking. What is your situation?” It didn’t sound angry...yet.

  “I’m fine, but I’m basically trapped. I don’t know if I’ll be able to come in tonight,” I responded, bracing myself for the inevitable wrath of Aux.

  “What do you mean, you won’t be able to come in? Surely the fact you are unharmed by this so-called automobile accident means that you can continue your commute?” The first hints of anger were always the hardest.

  “I want to continue, Aux, but you must understand that even though my body and vehicle are intact, the disruption of traffic has been so immense that I can’t just power through the wreckage.” The explanation wasn’t going to go anywhere, but I had to try.

  “What is this foolishness? You have magic and my patronage on your side! Surely, there is a way to clear the debris? I could empower you to blast it out of your path-”

  On one hand, I was not being immediately banished from Aux’s service or somehow punished for my impending tardiness (although how Aux would do such a thing so far from its seat of earthly power is beyond me). Aux’s proposed solution simply wasn’t going to work, though.

  “I can’t just cast magic in public, Aux! Society frowns on such blatant witchcraft, and I’d probably get burned at the stake. Twice if you choose to assist my spellcraft.” Aux made a noise I assumed was a sign of frustration.

  “Your life is nothing compared to the glory of Aux! Don’t let your elevated position and grace go to your head.” I hadn’t heard Aux get this angry since one of my technicians accidentally referred to it as a “he.” Boy, do I miss that technician.

  “I’m not getting myself killed for this, Aux. You do remember that you only gain the benefit of our sacrifices if we perform the correct rituals in the right places, right?” Silence.

  “...Your lieutenant is informing me that for you to risk your life simply to get here faster would not, in fact, be for the greater good,” Aux said after a while. If Sarah had managed to calm Aux’s bloodlust, then she had awe-inspiring powers of persuasion.

  “Aux, humans and titans alike are sometimes inconvenienced in ways that are beyond their control. We can try to reduce the likelihood of such a thing happening, but sometimes, it happens. You need to understand this, and you need to be able to plan around the possibility just like a human could if you want your power and influence in our world to grow. Is that clear?” I really didn’t want to lecture Aux like this, but I was concerned that if I didn’t, it would continue to make this sort of mistake with potentially dreadful consequences for me and my minions. There was no guarantee that it would even heed my warnings, though.

  “Charlotte, are you speaking to me as if I were your subordinate, instead of the other way around?”

  Crap.

  “I acknowledge your supremacy in all things, Aux, but I stand by my point. If you don’t understand where your subordinates are coming from, you will find it exceedingly difficult to recruit new ones to your side.” I did not want Aux to know that I was, in fact, worried about its potential wrath, so there was nothing to do but wait for Aux’s final proclamation; it came about a minute later.

  “I have considered your plea, and due to the extenuating circumstances, I will grant you my clemency,” proclaimed Aux. I held my phone away from my ear for a second so Aux wouldn’t hear my sigh of relief.

  “On the other hand, you and everyone else in my service must do their absolute best to meet our goals otherwise, and inform me if something beyond your control would prevent you from performing your duties. Is that clear?” Aux no longer sounded angry. I think it had given up.

  “Yes, Aux. I thank you for your reasonableness in resolving this situation.”

  “I would return to the duties of my realm. In my generosity, I shall release you from your tasks this evening, so that you may focus on escaping your dread imprisonment.” Aux hung up. I feel like I’d appreciate the boon more if I weren’t going to be spending the rest of the evening waiting on the side of the Interstate for a path to open.

  The next day was free of freak automobile accidents. Another day, another paycheck, another trip to the dungeon to put in a few hours for Aux. Sometimes, things settled into a routine.

  Aux had been preoccupied with security for several weeks now. We’d quickly gotten the message and set up an assembly line to build its new soldier daemons. Aux was still providing empty, inert bodies for us crafted from the raw materials of its personal fiefdom, so human sacrifices were down. I’m not entirely sure how they were transported from Aux’s corner of hell to my corner of Earth, but I suspected it involved a contract with FedEx and exorbitant insurance fees. The bodies usually made it to my office more or less intact, although dealing with the overwhelming amounts of packing peanuts was stretching our resources to the brink. One of the immutable laws of the universe, though, is that routines never last. I’ve been known to break them myself just to make sure.

  I was poring over the “fighting” routine Aux had provided for its soldiers in Emacs. It’d taken a long time to convince Aux to let us read and work on its daemons’ code, and we were still paying for it in blood, sweat, and tears. Mostly the latter. The good news was that Aux’s programming language of choice was C (which enough of my coven understood), but the bad new
s was that Aux was either unable or unwilling to write intelligible code. No documentation, incomprehensible variable names, and absolute contempt for reasonable whitespace makes for one cranky Charlotte.

  Still, I wanted to be helpful, and with much teasing, I discovered the root of a bug Aux had recently demanded we investigate. C has a built-in function to generate random numbers. Aux wanted to randomize the behavior of its soldiers, so naturally it’d instead written a massive, memory-leaking library to produce allegedly random values by performing arithmetic operations on arbitrary numbers ripped from other pieces of the code. I had no idea how important this exact behavior was to Aux, so I simply replaced the relevant bits with stock randomness and was on my way. The soldiers would find a way to thank me someday. I resolved that one day, when I’d performed enough onerous favors for Aux, I would propose a more formal code review process. Aux was still obsessed with the “purity” of its own programming techniques, though, so even on a good day, it was going to be a hard sell.

  It’s probably what happened next that cemented that bit of triviality in my mind. I was seated at a circular table in a side conference room with four of my senior programmers. We had etched a pentagram into the wood, set up laptops at the points, and placed a smoldering incense cone in the middle. The idea was that this would help us spiritually attune ourselves to the concepts of performance optimization; we’d even photocopied pages from The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder, shredded them, and added them to the mix. It worsened the smell, but foul stenches are powerful motivators. Once we’d upgraded the fans on our laptops to account for the heavy, greasy, duct-clogging particles in the air, we’d reached new heights of efficiency.

  Suddenly, the pentagram glowed bright green, and the laptop immediately to my left burst into flames. I’d seen the pentagram turn red, blue, even jet black when things were going as intended, but green was entirely unprecedented. The laptop’s operator shouted something unintelligible and burst from his seat, and I consider it a small triumph that he’d done the right thing.