I returned to my office on that Saturday evening to find the Demon sitting on my desk.
He was lounging around as if he owned the place. His elegantly tailored suit was arranged in a disarray that hinted at careful preparation, and his dark, mirrored sunglasses reflected both the room and the breathtaking vista of space that came in through the porthole-shaped window. His hair was slicked back, and all in all he looked the epitome of the well-dressed young businessman, except for the shades. Those looked out of place, somehow.
I knew why, of course. As I entered the room, I paled as he waved a cheery hello.
"Hi!" he said, hopping down off my desk.
I collapsed into one of my big chairs. "Christ," I said.
The Demon flinched. "Now, there’s no need for that sort of thing."
"You know," I said, "I had half-convinced myself that you were a dream."
"You should know better than that."
I sudden thought struck me. I glanced at the wall clock. It stood at 11:50:32 PM, October 22, 2134.
"It can’t be time yet!" I shouted.
The Demon reached out for a ice-cold cocktail that appeared in his hand with a pop.
"Relax," he said, his casual voice grating on my ears. "I’m just here to make conversation."
I remember the first time I met him. It was back in ’04, not so far from the disastrous Belter wars of the turn of the century. I was a struggling journalist, living on the checks from story to story, covering any assignment I could reach for a shuttle fair of one dollar or less from my apartment on station C-3. As with most journalists, I was waiting for my "big break", but now, at age 21, I was starting to think it would never come.
On the day that it finally did, I was struggling to find nice things to say about some stupid space-jockeys bar that had hocked up a few hundred for a nice write-up in one of the cheesier publications I contributed to. The food had been awful and the drinks had been worse, but the latter were served in such quantity, and the former so slowly, that the management rightly figured you probably wouldn’t notice. So there I was the next night, trying to find something nice to say, some way to entice a few more customers in. I had a headache, and the lateness of the hour wasn’t helping. I blinked at the clock, and it seemed to shimmer in a bleary-eyed haze.
*11:59:47*
*11:59:48*
*11:59:49*
I decided to sit and wait. The clock would give two beeps at midnight, and then I would give up, go to sleep, and write the article in the morning. (Yeah, right, jeered my subconscious.)
*11:59:58*
*11:59:59*
*12:00:00*
*BEEP*
I sat in silence, waiting for the second beep. It didn’t come. Moreover, as the seconds seemed to stretch on, the clock resolutely remained at 12:00:00.
"Hmph." I said, trying to ignore the creeping feeling all over my skin. "Warranty probably ran out right at that second." I stood up, and gave the clock a little whack. Nothing happened.
"Hmph." I turned around to see if I could find a new battery, and there he was.
He looked exactly the same. (Come to think of it, he’s been wearing the same suit every time I’ve seen him. You must save on cleaning bills as a demon.) He sat on my dilapidated couch, in my crummy apartment, and somehow his presence made it a little classier. There was a subtle shift of attention, like when the minor character in a play finishes a speech and the lead strides on. It wasn’t overt, but I got the subtle sensation that this man was the most important one in the room. (At this point, given that the room contained only myself and him, it wasn’t hard.) Furthermore, though, I felt somehow happier as he turned his eyes on me, as if being the center of his attention made my life a little more worthwhile.
I must have stood gaping at him for at least thirty seconds. He stood from my couch and held out his hand.
"John!" he exclaimed, in an open, happy tone.
"Uh…um…" I was dumbfounded. Slowly, I reached out my hand and shook his. The air seemed to crackle.
Thirty minutes later, or so it seemed (the clock never moved from 12:00:00), he and I sat across from each other at my rickety dining-room table. I was struggling to understand what he was saying.
"So…let’s see…You promise that I’ll have wealth, power, success, whatever I want…"
"Yes…" he said eagerly.
"For… how long?"
"Thirty years," he said.
"And then…"
"Well, let’s not quibble with details. There’s a few tests, and a few rules to deal with, but basically, you don’t have to worry about it."
It sounded good. Actually, it sounded perfect. Now that I think about it, that was part of him, to. Anything he said sounded good. Anything.
"I don’t understand what YOU get out of it." I was semi-desperate, but also cautious. Things that seem too good to be true usually are.
"Well…" He leaned back.
I looked him over again. Slick suit, slick hair, perfect face, he was the image of the successful young businessman. The only clashing image were those sunglasses. They were of a single piece, almost like a visor, across his face. They belonged on a surfer or a space-jock, not him. The more I thought about it, the more they seemed to clash.
He leaned forward again. "Well?"
I reached up, pulled off the glasses, and looked into his eyes.
Then I understood who he was, and what he was offering.
And I thought about my sad life, my failed career, my likely future prospects, and I looked into those eyes and said yes anyway.
Then all of a sudden, he vanished. Just like that. All that I heard was a whisper, like a voice dying away on the wind.
"Congratulations…"
*BEEP*
The clock read 12:00:01.
I snapped out of my reminiscing, and back into the present.
"You," I quavered, "You want to make conversation?"
"Sure!" he replied. "I love all the little contraptions you humans busy yourselves with." And he waved an arm, taking in the cabin, its various appliances, and the million-ton luxury space liner.
I fought down a tide of fear, firming my inner resolve. I had dreaded this day, but expected it too, and planned. That’s why I had come all the way to this God(literally)-forsaken corner of space in the first place, wasn’t it?
"Come on," I said, keeping the fear from my voice. "I have something to show you."
Fifteen years after that night, I stood behind a crystal-glass window, staring into the depths of space. As promised, I had achieved success. I had met a struggling physicist the very next day, and guided by an inner instinct, I had formed a partnership with him, a company to manufacture a product based on a crazy idea he had. The next week, the two of us landed support from the biggest aerospace company on the planet. From that day forth, I climbed to ladder of success, all leading to right now. The first large-scale test of the pseudo-hyperluminal velocity engine.
Without turning around, I could feel him on the bridge.
"Hello, Demon." I said.
"Hello, John."
"Come to watch?"
"Of course. I’m just checking up, you understand. Our agreement is only half-run."
He glanced around the high-tech bridge.
"Very nice," he said. "Things have changed since the fourteenth century."
"They have indeed." I said. "Shall I give the order?"
"By all means…"
"Go!" I ordered the engineer over the intercom.
The stars flickered, blurred, and vanished. Just as quickly, they reappeared. Different.
"It works…" I said, almost without emotion.
"Of course," said the Demon. "Would I let you down?" Then he shivered. "Remind me never to do that again."
"Why not?"
"Unlike humans, my kind experience absolute time. The subjective instant for you while in null-space was for me much longer. It was…unpleasant. I think I shall return to Earth, for now…"
Once again, he vanished.
And now I owned the biggest aerospace company in the galaxy. My partner died soon after the launch. I could not be implicated in any way possible in his heart attack, but inside, I knew I was his murderer.
And now, to this dusty corner of space, I had come alone in my private, automated liner for this final reckoning.
I led the way, down into the bowels of the ship. He strode behind me, walking easily, carefree. Perhaps because I knew his nature, I could feel palpable waves of evil emanating from him like heat from a radiator.
Midway there, we were interrupted my a blast of cold steam. As it cleared, I could see the water evaporating in little puffs from his still-perfect suit. Finally, we reached my private observation bay, with its huge, wall to wall windows. It was completely unornamented, except for one thing. I had saved my little clock, from all those years ago. My engineers had restored it to perfect working order.
*11:59:45*
*11:59:46*
"Ah, John, you sentimental old man," he said, examining the clock. "Still keeps perfect time, I see."
"Yes. I thought was fitting that our deal ended as it began, by the beeping of this little thing."
"And now the time is nearly upon us." He swept off his sunglasses, and subjected me once more to the unholy gaze of those eyes.
*11:59:57*
*11:59:58*
I gazed out upon the vista of space. "Goodbye, Demon."
His voice had a touch of gravel to it, now. "Goodbye, John."
*11:59:59*
One hand, now looking almost like a claw, reached for my chest.
INTO my chest.
Through my chest.
*12:00:00*
*BEEP*
The hologram, the hologram I exchanged places with in the steam, flickered and died. Tucked away in the escape pod, I stared at the last image the ship’s camera would ever send, capturing the full fury of the demon unleashed. It is not an image I will ever forget. But as the Demon reached for me, or rather my simulacrum, the ship plunged into a trap of folded space, one of Nature’s deadlier wonders-a black hole. And like a pebble poised on the cusp of a hill, the ship dropped onto the event horizon, and stuck in that wave of frozen time.
I remembered the long-ago words of my partner, my friend, the physicist, as we whiled away the hours with meaningless talk.
"At the event horizon of a black hole, time stops, at least as far as the outside observer is concerned…"
Inside the tiny ship, I chuckled. It would be a long voyage back to civilization, but I giggled, imagining a creature with absolute time, waiting an eternity for a midnight that would never come. I looked out upon the reaches of space, and whispered…
"Beep."
Django Wexler is a writer, role-player, wargamer, and programmer living in Westchester New York. He will be attending Carnegie Mellon University this fall.
E-mail: khaine@mindless.com
URL: http://mercury.tiedrich.com/~django/
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