The Click

The only people Oliver Hitchcock had left were Kathy and Christopher.

Nevertheless, Edna’s memorial service at the cemetery not long after she was buried overflowed with friends and neighbors, not surprising considering she and Oliver lived in the same city, in fact the same house, for over forty years. A number of Hitch’s old colleagues were also in attendance.

Had the Hitchcocks been good Ecclesians and contributing members of the Church, the family and the others in attendance would have been invited there to celebrate Edna’s life with the entire congregation. That was common Ecclesian practice whenever a believer died naturally, that is, according to God’s clicking clock. Hitch and Edna were not good Ecclesians or even believers for that matter. As a result, once the crowd dispersed and Hitch sent his daughter and grandson home, he crouched down before Edna’s headstone and placed fresh flowers into an adjacent vase he had partially buried earlier.

“I promise to do what I can,” were the only words that seemed to be appropriate, as the tears ran down his cheeks. He then turned his attention to OJ’s headstone, wiped his tears, and stared at the engraving: He died too young. He would do better for Christopher, he insisted as the tears returned.

Thinking he was alone, the feel of a hand on his shoulder caused him to recoil. He looked up and saw Rajiv Nadu who had come all the way from Delhi to attend the service. He and Hitch were in India, in the covert service of their respective agencies, forever it seemed to Hitch, and they became inseparable friends.

“All those years together, the three of us. I will miss her deeply,” Rajiv said in his thick Indian accent, standing tall, almost as tall as Hitch but twenty-five years younger. He pulled his old friend up and the two hugged. They spent several days together talking about the old times, about family, about friends, and about their many escapades hiding behind stereotypical trench coats and government supplied aliases. They talked about OJ

and the fact he died a preemie. Rajiv was travelling at the time and couldn’t make it to the States to comfort his good buddy. He was surprised to hear how OJ died. Hitch hadn’t told him and now felt bad. Rajiv’s reaction seemed … cautious, guarded, as if the Click and preemies weren’t topics he wanted to explore.

For many weeks to follow, just about every night, Oliver Hitchcock woke up at some point recalling Edna’s plea, please make Christopher well. It was as if she were in bed next to him whispering in his ear: please make Christopher well. Promise you’ll make Christopher well, promise, promise, promise. It was the echoing of those words, of his promise, and something Rajiv said that drove him to his study at three o’clock one morning. Hitch scrambled for his scud. He held it tight as Rajiv’s voice rose within him. In my country there’s a … an old wive’s tale, I believe you say here. Somewhere, someone knows how to combat God’s death sentence. One just needs to know where to look for it. … If only that were true.

Those words stayed with him as he tapped on his scud in a certain way, then set it down, causing a large holographic screen of scientifically focused light containing a holographic keyboard to project upward in front of him. With two hands he pulled the weightless keyboard to him and began typing. The letters E-R-A-M-V appeared on the hologram after a series of taps and then, as if by magic, the full phrase he was looking for … ERAM Virus. He typed some more and a full page appeared. EARTH’S REVENGE AGAINST MANKIND – THE KILLER VIRUS. Below the title: The Coalition United for Theocratic Oversight races to develop a cure. Will the Cūtocracy succeed? Hitch studied the title, then finger flipped page after page in the same way he had moved the keyboard, studying each page carefully. Just when he thought he was getting nowhere, a link popped up: Properties of the ERAM vaccine. He touched the link wondering what the properties of the vaccine were and whether knowing that might give him a clue where to start. Start what? He couldn’t imagine … but he couldn’t sleep either. Rajiv’s words rang in his ears once again. Then suddenly: This page has no content. His fingers continued to flip the pages. Research. He touched the link. Archives, then Mutations and Cell Divisions, then … then CLASSIFIED – Submit Authorized Code.

Hitch continued seeing the same roadblock time after time until finally he sat back in his chair and merely stared at the hologram in front of him. It gave off enough light for him to easily find the bottle of Bourbon and several empty glasses. He looked at the clock on his desk. It was now approaching four o’clock. He poured himself a drink and quickly downed it. Then began typing once again … and again. “Dissidents claim Click’s a fraud” jumped out from the hologram, as if it had a mind of its own, and grabbed him by the eyeballs. “Higher Clearance required” “Content removed” Each time he returned to the dissidents—the same result: Link Broken, Higher Clearance Required or Content Removed, Content Removed, Content Removed. “What the hell?” Frustrated, he grabbed the empty glass and flung it across the room, through the hologram. SMACK. It shattered against the wall and caused the hologram to flutter, shaking away any feelings of hope.

By seven that morning with at most a few hours of fitful sleep under his belt, he showered, shaved, ate, and was on the way to his old stomping grounds with Dissidents claim Click’s a fraud flashing through his thoughts. He still had certain privileges at the CIA allowing him to easily access the building that housed the library. He hurried up the marble stairs like a man who had a good night’s sleep, two steps at a time, like a man on a quest, a man who thought he was onto something. In no time at all he reached the outside of a frosted glass door with Julian Iscar, Chief CIA Librarian silkscreened across its face.

He stepped quietly into a cozy space thick with carpet and soft amber lighting, a ‘reading room’ not very large but furnished with several comfortable reading sofas, three rectangular tables surrounded by upright chairs, and a half dozen stations overflowing with computation shells lined up along one side of the room. Each station defined a soundproof booth large enough for two plus a holographic screen twice the size produced by a scud. Behind the stations stood an equal number of government issued metal gray steel floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with reading tablets and all types of reading material, audio and visual, for use with portable discs. The shelves were separated by sound insulated listening booths and plugin terminals. Authorized users had access to both the stations and booths and could listen to, watch, and search just about anything from the

Earth’s Spider Room Servers and just about everything ever printed or in digital form anywhere.

Directly across from the entry door and reading room, Hitch eyed a raised counter and the back of a portly looking man bent over in front of it. He was short and bald and wore red suspenders over a long sleeve white shirt. Had Oliver Hitchcock not known that short, bald man, he could well have wondered what a seemingly harmless librarian with but a single arm could be doing in the most powerful library in the world. As he approached the counter, Hitch made a coughing sound causing the librarian to turn around.

Julian Iscar’s face lit up upon seeing his old friend of so many years. His deep blue-green eyes gave him away. He was anything but harmless. Hitch knew that well. They spent more than a day or two in trenches hidden from view, clandestine trenches only visible through classified glasses, and sometimes not even then. Before Hitch left ‘the Company’ as it had always been called, the Special Operations Task Force had been formed and Julian was its leader. From time to time he would turn to Hitch for help in difficult matters. SOTF, or merely Special Ops, knew everything there was to know and how to deal with each and every contingency, and yet, with the exception of the CIA Director and the president of the United States, nobody knew it existed. All of its operatives had other positions within the Company, many were innocuous positions such as Chief Librarian, and Julian reported to the Director.

A few minutes later Julian and Hitch were sitting around a small rectangular table in a private reading room behind the counter. A pot of coffee and a bowl of chocolate covered almonds sat next to a number of CIA LIBRARY mugs, packets of sugar, and a jar of powered dairy creamer on a credenza along one wall.

“Please help yourself,” Julian said pointing to the credenza, “and tell me what brings you to my modest abode? Certainly you have better things to do than continue associating with the likes of us?”

For the next few minutes Hitch explained why he was there … something personal that required some information he couldn’t get elsewhere. He wasn’t ready to divulge the

real reason he was there. He needed to learn as much as he could about the Click, from a scientific standpoint. Why were some people Beaters and other Preemies, and was there a connection between Preemies and Beaters? But again, he wasn’t ready to share all that with Julian … at least not yet.

After several cups of coffee Julian led him through a triple locked door at the back of the reading room into a second reading room containing an ultra-high speed computation shell. He entered several passwords into the shell causing a floor to ceiling holographic screen to appear.

“It’s all yours, my friend. I have things to do but let me know when you’re done.” Forty-five minutes or so passed and Oliver terminated his search. He knew that his

friend could easily check his whereabouts on the shell but probably wouldn’t. In any case, he couldn’t do anything about that and left the room looking for him.

“Well … any luck?” Julian asked.

“Don’t know yet. But somebody sure as hell doesn’t want me to find it.” The it Hitch was referring to had to do with a few links he discovered in his search relating to dissident and outlandish opinions alluding to the idea that the Click might be a fraud.

Outlandish, alluding! Not exactly hopeful links but it didn’t matter, they were removed. Even one of the most powerful search engines in the world could not bring them back. So, who were these dissidents and why were there opinions expunged? Julian might know, Hitch thought, and he might have to ask him … but not yet. With that last thought he found the librarian at his desk. “May need your help later and if I do I’ll fill you in on the details then.”

Julian Iscar merely nodded and smiled. Both men knew about secrets, when to keep them and when to reveal them.