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  He went on for a while, using every minute of the eighteen minutes they gave him and then wrapping it up with a sudden and surprisingly deep bow. Not everyone applauded – some of the people in the audience were either glaring or rolling their eyes – but those who did applaud kept going, giving Vitalius Kohl a protracted send-off any rock star would have envied. He stared out at them all with his benevolent face, a mask of visionary wisdom and broad-minded compassion. Behind the mask, something else stared out too.

  Chapter 7

  “What did you think, Gavin? How was the talk?”

  The presentation complete, Kohl and I were walking to his suite in the conference center.

  “Most of the audience was behind you. The skeptics and the materialists rejected it, of course.”

  “Ah, Gavin. So reserved. You distance yourself from what you experience, my friend. You describe only the objective facts, remaining as ever the detached observer. Where is your self, your passion? What did Gavin Holder think of it?”

  “You didn’t mean any of it. I know more about your ideas than most people, and that wasn’t it,” I said. Not accusing. Mild. The careful disagreement of an employee.

  “You’re so wrong about that. I’m like some fairy tale creature, unable to tell a direct lie. My deceptions are of omission, a matter of arrangement and manipulation. I meant every word.”

  This wasn’t true, and he knew that I knew that. He lied as easily as he breathed. But in a sense he wasn’t lying now, because he wasn’t really trying to convince me of anything. He was only presenting himself as completely dominant, so much in control of the situation that he could lie openly without fear of consequence.

  “So you meant all that about Buddhism and technology?”

  “I am in fact a devoted Buddhist. You must know that, Gavin. Why else would I keep a lama on staff? But here he is! Greetings, your holiness!”

  The man walking down the hall toward us wore the yellow and red robes of a Mongolian Buddhist monk. His head was shaved, and he held a long strand of prayer beads and muttered under his breath as he approached. He was built like a wrestler, which in fact he was. The Ja Lama, Vitalius Kohl’s personal spiritual adviser. Rumored to be the real source of Kohl’s wealth rather than merely a member of his staff, a rumor I gave some credence to as I happened to know that Kohl had lost most of his own fortune before he even started the Quod Corporation. Although I had no idea where the Ja Lama would have found so much money himself, as most Mongolian Buddhist temples were shut down for decades by the Russians.

  “Greetings and blessings, Mr. Kohl. This poor monk was unable to wait for you, due to a regrettable personal weakness. An anxiety to hear how the audience received the Dharma.”

  “Ask my bodyguard Gavin here, your holiness. He’s the expert on how other people feel about things.”

  The Ja Lama looked at me, his face expectant but otherwise expressionless.

  “Most of them were enthusiastic,” I said. “A few were skeptical, mostly those of a materialist mindset.”

  The monk clicked his tongue against his teeth. “How gratifying to hear, and yet how disappointing. Those who refuse to receive the Dharma must not be blamed, as their own bad karma does not allow them to. How unfortunate for them, to squander the chance of a human life. A lowly incarnation awaits them, I fear. Yet for those who actively interfere with the Dharma, divine vengeance! They must be sent directly to one of the hell-worlds by the most expedient means. Is it not so, Mahakala?”

  “Indeed it is,” said Kohl. “Indeed it is.” His eyes gleamed in the light.

  “Mahakala?” I asked.

  “Oh yes!” said the lama. “He whose name means Great Time, the personification of time itself. A fierce god with leering fangs, four-armed and triple-eyed, his skin as black and bright as ten million cremation fires. He wears eight skulls as jewelry, uses five corpses as furniture, and bears the ashes of the dead on his cheeks like face-paint. Jackals and vultures surround him, shrieking constantly for bits of flesh. The ferocious defender of the Dharma!”

  “That’s pretty Metal,” I said, drily.

  Kohl chuckled, and put one hand paternally on my shoulder.

  “It certainly is, Gavin, it certainly is. Forgive Mr. Holder for his flippant tone, your holiness. He is not a believer, but neither is he one of those who interferes with the Dharma. Not anymore.”

  “Like the monsters and demons of the mountain peaks, defeated by the great monks and allowed to survive as defenders of the faith. You shall come to seek refuge, Mr. Holder. This lowly monk foresees great things for you. A mighty flame, a bolt from the heavens like Mahakala’s mighty trident!”

  “Careful,” said Vitalius quietly. “All things in time.”

  “As you say, Mahakala. As you say.”

  The monk bowed to Vitalius Kohl, exactly as if he really believed him to be the earthly avatar of this terrifying Tibetan deity. In the world I now lived in, I was completely surrounded by believers at all times. And I wasn’t even sure I doubted anymore. Vitalius Kohl was Father, a liar and a con artist of epic proportions, a thief and a murderer. Yet there was something special about him. As Andrew Mann, he had for a time been my only friend. It was such a convincing performance that I still missed Andrew, and often forgot that he was the exact same person who now signed my paychecks. Who can do that? Who can deceive so completely and so convincingly? If he wasn’t really Mahakala, he certainly had some points in common with Lucifer.

  The Mongolian fell in beside us, and we walked in silence up to Father’s suite.

  Chapter 8

  The Ja Lama finally left, after a rambling conversation with Kohl about Buddhist doctrines, the elements of Tibetan Buddhism derived from the indigenous Bön religion, and why Tibetan people say hello by sticking their tongues out. Apparently it was originally the Mongols who forced them to do that, to prove they weren’t secretly reciting Bön enchantments against them. The Ja Lama seemed to be amused by this fact, as he kept chuckling quietly while he was talking about it. But finally, Kohl hinted that he should probably go meditate, and the monk departed for his own quarters.

  We were in the suite, a luxurious apartment with every amenity a casino-town Caesar could think to ask for. Kohl was sipping a White Russian, but I was sober because I was on duty. It was time to debrief.

  “David Zinn?” he asked me.

  “Taken care of.”

  “What about his bodyguards?”

  “Well yeah, he had them. But they didn’t amount to much. Amateurs with a handful of expensive weekend courses between them. They knew enough to watch the tree-line, but I just used that against them.”

  “A little knowledge, as Pope says. Where are they now?”

  “Somewhere in the Redwood forest, about six feet down. I took care of it, Vitalius.”

  “You’ll get a bonus. Still, I just don’t know. I’m not fully satisfied with our relationship, Gavin.”

  “What relationship? I got fired by the FBI, basically because of the things you did to me. There was no other way to make a living, so I figured you owed me that much. You pay me to keep you safe, I keep you safe. It’s really quite straightforward.”

  “Jesse Spindrift wants your job.”

  “Jesse Sprindrift is a rank amateur. Much like those bodyguards who failed to keep David Zinn alive.”

  “Jesse Spindrift is a believer,” he said.

  “Jesse Spindrift is an idiot. Are we done saying his name yet? Because it’s making me nauseous.”

  “I don’t know how to trust self-interest, Gavin. I find faith more compelling.”

  “Well, sure. You would. But I have faith in my own way.”

  “What faith is that?”

  “I have faith in the consistent ability of Vitalius Kohl to come out on top. My one and only mission after Jackie ran away with all the money was to find you and kill you for having made her into what she was. Now maybe I shouldn’t have been blaming you for her decisions, but there you have it. A good, old-f
ashioned vendetta. And you were washed up anyway. You were done, with only twenty or thirty guys left, your money all used up or stolen. But look at you now. A tech tycoon, so much money you could use it for scrap paper. And me? I’m nothing. A failed FBI agent with a thousand black marks against his name. You’re a dark star, Father. But I have hitched myself to you.”

  “I don’t call myself Father anymore,” he said. “I am the Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, ever since the success of the Reddening. With your gracious assistance.”

  I had actually done everything within my meager power to stop “the Reddening,” but Father had outmaneuvered me. As always.

  “If you’re the Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, then why did your pet lama refer to you as the Mahakala? How many warlords and Tibetan monster gods can you be reincarnated from at the same time?”

  “Careful, my friend. Like the court jesters of old, there are certain liberties you may be permitted. Yet there is a line as well. Be sure not to cross it.”

  I didn’t say anything, I just waited for him to start talking again – as I knew he would.

  “The fact is, I am both. The thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, officially declared the Baron von Ungern-Sternberg to be the earthly avatar of Mahakala in honor of his glorious victories against both the Chinese and the Bolshevik armies. As the new incarnation of Ungern-Sternberg I am also Mahakala, defender of the Dharma and Lord of Time.”

  “That’s… rather unlike what most people associate with the Dalai Lama. But why would a Tibetan Buddhist leader even concern himself with a Russian warlord in Outer Mongolia?”

  “For two reasons. Ungern-Sternberg was a pan-monarchist, so one of his primary military goals was to restore the Bogd Khan to power in Mongolia, a feat he accomplished. The Bogd Khan is the Mongolian equivalent to the Dalai Lama, so the Tibetan prelate was merely showing professional courtesy by honoring the man who had restored the fortunes of his eminent colleague.”

  “And the second reason?”

  “The Dalai Lamas have been closely associated with Outer Mongolia since their very beginnings, when Sonam Gyatso agreed to recognize the Mongol warlord Altan Khan as a reincarnation of the Great Kublai in exchange for his patronage. Altan Khan bestowed the title Ocean Lama on Sonam Gyatso, who applied it posthumously to his two predecessors. Ocean Lama in Mongolian, not Tibetan, is Dalai Lama. Since the entire lineage of the Dalai Lamas owes its existence to their patronage by a Mongolian warlord, it was only reasonable for the thirteenth Dalai Lama to return the favor, and recognize the Baron von Ungern-Sternberg as the earthly incarnation of Mahakala, the fierce god of Time. As the Ja Lama has now confirmed in my own self.”

  I found myself wondering if most American Buddhists were aware of these shenanigans, which seemed about on par with the maneuverings of the Borgia popes. I guess organized religion is the same everywhere you go.

  “However,” said Vitalius sternly, “I would certainly caution you against repeating any of this to anyone. As the Baron himself said, the name of Ungern-Sternberg is so strongly associated with terror and death that many exaggerated prejudices have grown up against the name. No one knows how much is truth and how much fiction, no one except those who were there themselves – and I myself remember these events only vaguely, as if from a dream. My identity as Ungern-Sternberg is known to few, and anyone indiscreet enough to reveal that information would have to be silenced immediately. As David Zinn was.”

  I didn’t believe for one moment that Vitalius Kohl was actually the reincarnation of either a Russian warlord or a Tibetan deity, so that part was easy. But like I said, he was something. And there were certainly times when he seemed larger than life, if only because he was so eager to consume the lives of others.

  “Enough of this,” said Vitalius. “Go get some sleep. We’re going to go out to the desert tomorrow. I need to check on the scientists and make sure they’re working.”

  “You’re paying them enough, I’m sure they’re working.”

  “When the cat’s away, the mice will play. It’s time they saw the cat.”

  Chapter 9

  The next morning, our little convoy of black SUVs pulled in to the parking lot of our corporate headquarters, a low and sleek structure of futurist design so far out into the desert that most employees commuted in from Reno in the company’s own bus. There were no other buildings for miles around, although the dusty ruins of a long-abandoned ranch could be seen nearby. There was no sign or logo on the building, and anyone driving by would have no way of knowing that this was the headquarters of the famed Quod Corporation.

  I got out of the vehicle, scanned the environment for potential threats, then escorted my employer into the building. From the moment we stepped inside, we might as well have been in a space station or perhaps a generation ship, a place of bright white neon lights and hygienic, sterile hallways leading to any number of different work areas that were completely separated from each other like little pods. Despite the complete separation of the different work areas, employees from different areas had plenty of opportunity to meet and socialize. There was a cafeteria overseen by a three-star chef. There were rooms for Yoga and Tai Chi, along with scheduled meditation classes taught by the Ja Lama – Jesse Spindrift was a regular attendee of these. There were numerous break areas with gourmet sandwich dispensing machines, expensive (yet complimentary) Indonesian coffee, and sometimes a selection of fancy cheeses. Everyone we saw looked happy and fulfilled, if vaguely anxious, with no hint of the gangsterism of Ultima Thule.

  “What should we examine first, Gavin?” Vitalius asked me, perhaps expecting that I would refuse to answer.

  “The robots,” I said. “I like the robots.”

  “Lead the way.”

  We went to the robot room, where the Quod Corporation’s robotics experiments were conducted. The whole idea of the Quod Corporation was to fulfill all the daydreams and fantasies human beings have entertained about technology. People have often dreamed about robot servants, obedient and pleasant domestic companions without any inconvenient desire for autonomy. Of course, we also like to daydream about the same robots rebelling against us someday and annihilating our entire civilization, a masochistic twist on the basic concept. You can’t get the eventual payoff of an apocalyptic robot uprising if you don’t build the robot servants first, so the Quod Corporation was working on that. As the door slid open, we walked in the room and saw a small knot of bearded engineers and a woman carrying a clipboard, leaning intently over a humanoid body made of white plastic. It wasn’t moving.

  “Hello, boss,” said the woman cheerfully, looking up.

  Vitalius smiled at her, all benevolence, and waved his finger vaguely around the place. “Are we making progress?”

  “We’re having the same problems all previous projects of this type have had,” she said. “The robot is fully competent at maneuvering in a controlled environment – what it can do looks quite impressive – yet it is completely incapable of navigating any unfamiliar space, which would make it all but useless as a domestic companion. We’re working hard on solving the problem, but…”.

  “Never fear,” he said airily. “Never fear. Your funding will not be cut. Carry on.”

  “I was hoping our funding might be…”

  We left the room. Not for the first time, I had the distinct impression that Vitalius was completely uninterested in whether they ever got the robot working properly or not.

  It was the same with many of the other areas. The universal recycler could so far recycle only the same items as a regular recycling center. The I-bot room had succeeded in creating a primitive artificial intelligence program on the Internet, but when they cut it loose to learn from its environment, it quickly started posting pornographic inspirational meme chain letters, and had to be shut down for reprogramming. The blockchain development team had discovered a potential hacking vulnerability. All these things were to be expected, because new and emerging technologies have a lot of issues to be overcome before
there is any hope of bringing them to market.

  The strange thing was just this vague sense that Vitalius didn’t really care. His entire public persona was based on the idea that the Quod Corporation was creating miracles, that the great and mysterious Mr. Kohl was hiring the greatest minds in all the world to make the world’s wildest dreams into working realities. He was hiring them, that was true enough. But he had hired so many different teams and set them to work on so many different projects that none of them were really making much progress on any of them. There was even a team working on perpetual motion, with no more danger of discovering the secret than any previous crackpot. It was as if Willy Wonka’s factory didn’t actually produce any candy.

  Vitalius didn’t show any real interest until we reached the virtual reality room, the only room that seemed fully staffed and fully funded for such an ambitious project. The man in charge of this room was a Sikh engineer in a white turban and a lab coat. He didn’t respond when we came in, because he was too absorbed in correcting some errors in a subordinate’s work. He only spoke to us when we were within a few feet of him.

  “Good morning, Mr. Kohl. How did the TED Talk go?”

  “Almost useless, Ujjal, almost useless. I would much rather talk about actual successes. How are the Quod Glasses coming?”

  “We are making progress. Better than progress, truly. We will have a prototype ready soon.”

  “I’m very glad to hear that,” said Vitalius. “If that is the case, then Quod Glasses will be the first product produced and sent to market by the Quod Corporation.”