Puzzle Master Read online

  I rip it out of my ear and watch it deactivate. A call from my old friend Riemann can only mean one thing, the corps has some sort of puzzle they can’t solve on their own. With the corps the puzzle is always how to crack Christian communication codes that nobody else can crack and find Christian hiding places that nobody else can find.

  And every time I solve a puzzle for the corps, people end up dead.

  ***

  As I step onto the front porch a hover bus glides up the street towards my house. The hover line looks like a large metal plate embedded in the old pavement but when a vehicle is detected the plates will hum to life to provide both lift and propulsion. The contrast between a floating bus and my house is comical because my house has been preserved to look just like it did when it was built in 1967. That’s why I chose to live here, I find a strange comfort in the old-fashioned.

  I let the bus pass. As the public face of the cult hunter corps I avoid the bus system because many people on it will recognize me. A few will treat me with the adoration of a celebrity but most will shrink from me in fear as I force myself to make eye contact with each of them. Although I’m fascinated by looking into my own eyes each morning, I find looking directly into someone else’s eyes disquieting. Unfortunately for me, being The Cult Hunter requires projecting dominance so avoiding eye contact is not allowed. Luckily, walking for enjoyment is a lost art so I can walk to the university and encounter many fewer people. Hopefully the solitude will put me in a better frame of mind to speak with Riemann after I’m done teaching.

  A half a block from my house I wonder if the world is conspiring to remind me that my old-fashioned world ends at my front door. A young couple is having sex against a tree just a meter from the sidewalk. Public sex is a protected form of expression under the First Amendment and since it’s contrary to what we know about Christian doctrines, as The Cult Hunter I’m expected to encourage it.

  The young woman is facing me and our eyes meet. Thankfully she can only meet my gaze for a moment but it’s long enough for me to see what I was expecting. She has what I call “doll eyes”. There’s light shining off the edge of her iris just like everyone else but even if I could stare into them all day I know I’d never see a twinkle. Like a doll, there just isn’t a spark of life to be found. As I pass them the closest I can manage to being encouraging is to nod approvingly at the young man. His doll eyes just stare vacantly at me.

  At the next intersection I approach some kids as they take advantage of the hover system with bikes and boards that hover. By themselves the system will only let them hover a few centimeters off the ground to ensure their safety. Despite the safeguards, kids have figured out that when they enter the wake of a passing hover bus the extra lift will take them well off the ground where they can perform tricks. Some kids even carry a magnetic leash which they stick to the back or side of the hover bus and then “hover ski” along behind for kicks. Trust kids to always find a way to have fun in a system designed to prevent it.

  The kids collect where multiple lines meet because there are more wakes to ride. As I reach a favorite spot a “kid” who’s older than I am recognizes me and yells “The Cult Hunter!” while doing a hover board trick two meters off the ground. I don’t turn my head to acknowledge him.

  “How many fish heads you take down today Cult Hunter?” a boys who looks to be about twelve asks as he waits his turn to enter the next wake.

  Damn it kid, why’d you ask a question? Now I have to respond.

  “It’s been a slow day so far,” I say in the usual monotone I reserve for the public, then stop and rotate my head like it’s on a swivel. I enter cult hunter mode where even the smallest nuance of my appearance will be calculated and controlled.

  “Christians often use such questions as a cover.”

  Start off cold. Lower right eye brow by two millimeters and tilt head down and to the right by one centimeter.

  “Maybe you’re the first fish head of the day?”

  Narrow eyes by one centimeter and stiffen lips. He already believes you know his every thought so let him terrorize himself.

  He goes motionless, like a scared rabbit. Some of the younger boys back away but the older boy who first recognized me comes back and stands behind his terrified friend.

  “Are you silently praying?”

  Raise eyebrows and increase head tilt with slight rotation.

  “What? No! I never.”

  Slowly reverse head tilt.

  “What are those words on the bottom of your board? Christian codes? Don’t deny it. You know I can crack any code.”

  He finally lifts his head to meet my gaze.

  Barely a decade old and already doll eyed.

  “I saw him cult hunter,” the older boy says. “He was praying and making Christian signs with his hands before his last run.”

  Freeze all facial movement. Remove all voice inflection. Stop all blinking.

  “Good work junior cult hunter. What should we do with this little fish?”

  “I’ve seen this type before,” the older boys says. “He’s too far gone for reeducation. There’s no hope really.”

  “There’s hope,” the young boy squeaks.

  “Are you saying you’ll take The Cult Hunter test to prove you’re clean of vile cultic thoughts?”

  “Yes, sir. Anything!”

  “Your test is to do a back flip off the next wake.”

  He stares for a long time before I watch his face melt with relief as he realizes I’ve been putting him on the entire time.

  “And do it without praying first.”

  Curl up left side of lip to display cruel sense of humor.

  As I resume my walk I hear the older boy laughing about the look on his friend’s face. He should know the look, I did the same thing to his doll eyes two years ago.

  The further I’ve gotten from that world the harder it’s been to maintain the persona. I wanted to smile. I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder and laugh with him and look again for a spark of life in his eyes. I should get a private hover car instead of walking just to avoid interacting with people.

  ***

  I arrive at the University studio with plenty of time to spare and see there’s already a dozen or so students in the lecture hall. Most lectures are done to an empty hall because so few professors keep a regular class schedule. There’s no point. Most students would rather watch the replay of lectures at their convenience or can’t attend a live lecture simply because they live halfway around the world. My classes are unconventional in that I encourage a live audience to ask questions and therefore turn the teaching into a discussion instead of a lecture.

  As always, I bound onto the stage rather than using the stairs and feel my face morph from that of The Cult Hunter to being just Cephas Paulson. I wish I could teach all day. When I’m on this stage I feel like a human being again. I expect the lights and cameras to activate automatically when my presence is detected. When nothing happens I realize I forgot to stick my com in my ear again. The instant it enters my ear it registers an incoming call.

  “Switch to teaching mode,” I command the device.

  Teaching mode is a privilege I’ve always enjoyed. As long as I’m standing on the stage it blocks all incoming communication.

  “Teaching mode has been temporarily disabled by order of the cult hunter corps. The incoming call has been given top priority.”

  I close my eyes.

  Even on my stage, I’m never outside their reach.

  Riemann’s image comes up on the screen that’s embedded into the teaching podium.

  “Hello Riemann, what can I do for you?”

  “Leaving your com in your ear would be a good start.”

  His eyes are slightly dilated and there’s a slight shine from sweat on his upper lip. He’s nervous to speak with me. Why?

  “It’s feeling kind of loose, I think it might fall out--”

  “Don’t you dare Cephas.”

  “Two
minutes, my class begins soon.”

  “I need your help chasing down some local fish heads. Can you come to D.C. tomorrow?”

  He spontaneously picks a hair off his shirt.

  Self grooming? He lying about something.

  “I’m retired.”

  I await the customary response.

  “There’s no such thing as a retired cult hunter. You should know, you coined the phrase.”

  His heart rate is increasing. I swear I can see the pressure increasing in the capillaries of his eyes.

  “I’ve been out for three years. I’ll stick to teaching my classes.”

  “I’ve been authorized to offer you four times your usual consulting fee and for the record, you’re still on the active reserve list.”

  And the only way off the list is to die.

  “You do know I don’t need the money, right?”

  We both know the real purpose of the offer is to inflate my curiosity, rather than my bank account.

  In truth money stopped meaning anything to most people two generations ago because the government provides all necessities for free. Food, medical care, transportation, public housing and mindless video entertainment are all free. Throw in free non-addictive government drugs to keep you stoned and there’s no reason why anyone needs to leave their house. Money only means something if you want more out of your life than the basics. Money buys privilege.

  “Six times your usual fee.”

  His entire forehead is shining now. He doesn’t want to say whatever is coming next but if I refuse one more time he’ll have no choice.

  “Still retired.”

  “The boss says you’re not.”

  “The Boss” is Henry Portman, the director of the F.B.I. and therefore king of the cult hunter corps. A century ago the President of the United States was the most powerful man on earth, but in a world without armies, war or poverty, information is now the true currency of power and Henry holds more of it than anyone. He’s the sort of man that has his fingers in everything, yet never leaves a fingerprint unless it’s from his hands closing around your throat. Invoking “The Boss” is as good as skipping to an outright death threat.

  “What’s really going on?” I ask.

  “I wish I knew, I haven’t been briefed.”

  No involuntary eye movements or facial changes. He’s telling the truth.

  “Then it’s big enough to make it eight times the usual fee. I’ll catch the first tube in the morning.”

  As if I have a choice.

  “Thanks Cephas, that makes my day easier. If you didn’t agree when I reached ten I was instructed to send a kill team to bring you in.”

  Chapter Two

  When Riemann releases control my com switches to teaching mode and the stage lights and cameras activate while a congenial computer voice announces “World Religion, lecture number twelve starring Dr. Cephas Paulson will begin in one minute.” My podium screen switches to display relevant information for today’s class. There are hundreds watching worldwide of which twenty-six are sitting before me in the studio audience. There are dozens of offers from both men and women to have sex with me, five of which come from women here in the studio.

  I could cancel class and take all five home with me.

  Instead I hit the delete button on the sex offers and the message is automatically transmitted to all of the eight-hundred or so students who are registered for the class. Tonight I’ll likely dwell on those offers. Maybe tomorrow will finally be the day when I don’t hit the delete button.

  The computer tells me that all twenty-six students seated in front of me are wearing coms to listen to me speak. All they need to do is look up and they can see and hear the real live me but they still prefer to use their devices. I don’t blame them for having and using coms. Your com is your electronic link to the rest of the world. With simple voice commands you can interface with virtually any computer, speak with anyone, display requested information on any nearby screen or even do mundane tasks like turning off a light that’s within your reach when you’re too lazy to do it yourself.

  I wish they’d unplug once and a while and see me.

  I look up to the live audience and find my silent wish has somehow come true. Seated front row and center is a young blonde woman I’ve never seen before. She’s wearing a com but she’s also staring at me intently so I nod to acknowledge her. She doesn’t respond in kind so I look away then use the computer to find out who she is. Her name is Martha McLeod and she’s new to the class as of today. It’s a little unusual to gain new students after the term begins but she and several others joined recently. In each case the new students showed mastery of the material covered in earlier lectures so the system let them join.

  I pull up her records and see she has no high school transcript. Since high school isn’t mandatory the lack of a transcript isn’t unusual but it would be nice if she had one because it would help me guess at her age. With everyone trying to deny their age by getting enhancements, birthdays are strictly protected under privacy laws. Next I look at her admission test scores and find she’s remarkably knowledgeable for someone with no formal education.

  I look up again and find she’s still staring. I’d have to guess that she’s no older than me. Given the bright stage lighting it’s hard to be sure but I feel like she’s trying to bore a hole through me with her eyes.

  I refocus my attention on the class. The truth is the vast majority of students have no thirst for knowledge, they just enroll because they’re bored and are seeking some form of entertainment in addition to sex and drugs. I chance another glance and see that although Martha has a com in one ear I’m clearly her sole focus.

  I begin my lecture.

  “Today we begin the section I like to call ‘the beginning of the end of religion’. Who knows what event I’m talking about?”

  My podium computer lights up to indicate there are people here in the studio and watching remotely who’d like to answer.

  “Okay, Ms. Nikki in Toronto.”

  A live picture of Ms. Nikki comes up on screens that flank the stage. She’s a slender Asian woman viewing the lecture from her bedroom and barely wearing any clothes. There’s a half-naked man visible in the bed behind her.

  “The Final Holy War.”

  “Correct. For those of you who haven’t read the text, the short story is that in the year 2036 a coalition of Middle Eastern nations dropped nuclear weapons on the major cities of Israel. Five years earlier a single missile had been launched and was intercepted before it could do any damage. Somehow, just five years later the attackers had acquired launch detection evasion technologies that should have been well beyond their technical capabilities and the Israeli defense forces were taken completely by surprise. There were about fifteen million people living in Israel the day the bombs started falling. Just two weeks later less than one million remained.”

  I pause to let the class mull the information.

  “Can anyone tell me what was unique about Jerusalem in the attack?”

  I get no volunteers.

  “Jerusalem was the only city that wasn’t targeted. It was considered a Muslim holy site so they chose not to bomb it.”

  I survey the live audience and am happy to see that a few heads are now raised to look at me. They’ve heard the generalities of the Final Holy War countless times since they were children, but they’re here because they know I’ll give them more than the usual government lecture on the evils of religion.

  Deep down, maybe they want me to make them think.

  “When it was clear their homes and loved ones were gone, the Israeli commanders launched a counter-strike against the entire Islamic world. First they hit targets in Asia as far away as Indonesia and The Philippines with nuclear strikes. Then they hit Islamic population centers in both northern and sub-Saharan Africa. Lastly they attacked the cities of the Middle East, but not with nuclear missiles. In the last attack, nearly two-hundred cities includ
ing the capitals of eighteen Islamic nations were targeted by the Israeli submarine fleet but instead of nuclear horror those bombs released little more than gigantic puffs of smoke and dust that seemed to do no damage at all.”

  They know what happened next, but they want to hear it from me.

  “The Islamic world danced and cheered and praised God for saving them but just a few hours later the enormity of what had been done set in. The dust was a genetic toxin targeted specifically at people with certain genetic markers common to those of Middle Eastern descent. Within days those who had been vaporized by a nuclear bomb were considered the lucky ones. The toxin wasn’t designed to kill you quickly, it was designed to make you suffer. The Israelis had named the project “Moses Staff” because it was like a plague of boils, skin lesions, unbearable pain and finally death.”

  The screens show the image of a toxin victim who I hope for his sake was nearing death when the picture was taken. Half of the live audience is now looking up but there’s little expression of empathy. Instead their faces express a vague sense of superiority as if to say nothing like that could ever happen to them in our modern world.

  “Once all the bombs had fallen a more powerful and destructive force that the Israelis hadn’t anticipated took over. Who knows what force I’m talking about? Put your answers up onto the screen.”

  The large screens behind me light up with their guesses which range from hydrogen bombs to flying monkeys. My computer indicates that Martha McLeod hasn’t attempted an answer so I look at her and see she’s staring at me again.

  She knows the answer but she’s refusing to participate.

  “The massive force I’m talking about was nothing more than a gentle breeze. The wind blows wherever it pleases and soon an invisible cloud of toxin was circling the globe. It even turned out the genetic differences between the peoples of the region were very subtle, about sixty percent of Jews worldwide were killed by the very toxins designed to kill their enemies. The toxin didn’t care about a person’s beliefs. No religion, no race, no country was spared.”

  I look at the students in the studio.

  They still don’t get it.

  A few students show the signs that they’ve come to class stoned but even those who are sober know nothing about pain. Once free universal healthcare was declared a basic human right it wasn’t long before freedom from all pain was also considered a right. In our world pain is no longer something to be endured, it’s treated immediately, often to the point of feeling nothing at all.