THE STORY SO FAR: Fabian Rourke and Robert River, old high school buddies, have reunited because Fabian wants Robert to work for him at Council Corps, a mysterious company that has a hand in world and national affairs.
"Let me show you your office," Fabian said to Robert, as they walked the halls of Council Corps' main headquarters.
Robert's office was bare, except for a desk and a computer set-up. Robert had a view of the mountains, which was something he never expected to ever have in his entire life. He was always resigned to have the kinds of jobs that sheltered his eyes from viewing the outside world.
"Now, let me show you what you'll be doing," Fabian said.
They entered a huge room filled with all sorts of electronic equipment, in various states of undress: abundant wires strewn about; metallic casings pried open; circuit boards askew; stacks upon stacks of VCRs, DVD players, amplifiers, receivers, radio tuners, speaker cabinets, cathode ray tubes, TV monitors, and any manner of electrical doo-dads...
Robert's eyes almost glossed over. "Holy fuck!" he exclaimed. "What's all of this?"
"This is the Tech Room, and this is where you'll be most of the time," Fabian said, smiling somewhat.
"But... but... what is it exactly that I'lll be doing?"
Fabian sat down on a chair. "You'll be getting paid to play with all of this stuff."
"Play with it? What do you mean, 'play with it'?"
"I mean, whatever your imagination comes up with. You can rummage through all of these devices, and if you can come up with a cool application for something... well, we might use it."
"Use it for what? And what kind of applications do you have in mind?"
"Have you ever heard of a theremin, Robert?"
Robert paused. He'd heard the term before. "I think my dad had one. It's an instrument, right?'
"Yes," Fabian said, lighting a cigarette.
"We can smoke in here?"
"You can do whatever you want in here."
"Cool!" Robert opened up his own pack of cigarettes and lit one up.
"Anyway," Fabian continued, "you're right-- the theremin is an instrument. Primarily used in old sci-fi UFO flicks and horror movies... that eerie sound you always hear, that high-pitched alien squeal? That's the theremin. The Beach Boys used it on "Good Vibrations". Lots of bands have used it, in fact. It sounds like a saw or a piece of sheet metal being tapped."
"Okay, then, yeah, I've heard of it."
"Do you know who invented the theremin?"
"Uh, some guy named Theremin?"
"As a matter of fact, it was invented by a guy named Theremin! Did you know that, or did you just guess?"
Robert laughed. "I just guessed."
Fabian smiled. "I knew you'd be the right man for this position, Robert. You have amazing intuitiveness. But anyway, so yeah, Leon Theremin was a Russian engineer. Big thinker, way ahead of his time. He came up with the theremin, but it wasn't intended to be used as a musical instrument. He was working with radio tubes and shit like that. The theremin worked off of vibrations that fluctuated capacitance-- you don't need to touch the instrument to generate or transmit sound. This made him valuable to the Russian intelligence community, who were originally going to kill him for being a defector. They got smart and realized that they were killing off too many of their finest minds, so they put him to work for the spy agencies. Theremin figured out how to make bugs for the KGB that required no traditional battery power sources. He figured out how to use the vibrations from glass to eavesdrop on U.S. agents. After a while, these developments led to innovative means of spying on the Cold War enemy, at a fraction of the cost the U.S. was paying to upgrade their technology. They made bricks of concrete into bugs. Can you imagine an entire skyscraper constructed to function as a gigantic microphone?"
"Fuckin' crazy," Robert said, dragging on his cigarette.
"Nowadays, the intelligence community has graduated to using laser beams to transmit and receive sound. But here at Council Corps, we are taking our cues from the KGB spy book: instead of spending vast amounts of money on the latest technology, we're sticking with cost-effective, old-fashioned methods, deeply rooted in applied science. You know, when the Berlin Wall came down, the United States was shocked to learn, among other things, that while we were way ahead of the Russians in terms of advanced technology, they had expanded their limiuted field to such an extent that they were almost equal to us. In other words, while we were going digital with microchips and looking down upon radio tubes as quaint, the Russians-- out of necessity --had explored realms of traditional radio tubes that we neither had the time nor inclination to bother with..."
"The Russians worked with what they had to work with," Robert said.
"Exactly. A fine mind can do wonders. Of course, money helps, but if you're low on funds, as the Russians evidently were, you improvise. You find other ways around the problem." Fabian exhaled, and stopped speaking, in order to calculate Robert's reaction.
Robert paused and then he finally spoke. "So, what are you telling me, Fabian? That you're a spy? Council Corps is just a spy agency?"
Fabian laughed. "Not exactly. The Cold War has been over for some time. We have no real enemies out there anymore. But we still have to keep our eyes open for the next threat. Council Corps is a private entity, so we don't work directly for the government. But we have federal status anyway, because our work is so important. And we do a lot of stuff for the military and the U.S. intelligence community, so we are sort of involved with that. But we don't take orders from the President. We are our own corporation. We're for hire, really, but we don't go looking aggressively for other clients."
"So, what is the next threat, Fabian?"
"Well, there's two threats, really. You'll be working on one of them-- the Arabs."
"The Arabs? What's the threat there? We took care of Iraq in the Gulf War. No one else out there is going to try us. Iran? Libya? I may not be a political analyst, but I know that we've got the Middle East under control."
"Terrorism, Robert. The guys hijacking planes, taking hostages, shit like that. We need to worry about that. We need to infiltrate their ranks more effectively."
"But they're more of a nuisance than a real threat," Robert said. "Look at that attempt to blow up the World Trade Center. They couldn't even get that one right! If you ask me, we have more to fear from domestic terrorism than foreigners."
"Well, that's the second threat, Robert. We're spying on our own people as well."
"What?" Robert couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Yes. We're spying on Americans. It's been going on for decades. But it started to accelerate after Oklahoma and Timothy McVeigh. The militias, things like that... it's got Uncle Sam scared. The nation's biggest worry is that there is some collusion between the McVeighs of this country and the Osama bin Ladens of the world..."
Robert got up and began to walk around the room.
"Fuck, Fabian," Robert said. "What the hell have you been doing all these years? You're into some deep shit here!"
"Oh, another thing, Robert. Never ever refer to me around here by my real name, okay? Everyone here thinks my name is Sexton Seamus McGinty. Just call me Mr. McGinty and we'll be fine."
"Sex McGinty?" Robert laughed. He got the joke. It was an old one, that dated back to their years as high school delinquents in Wholesome, California. "Sex McGinty" was a fictional name they devised to fool their classmates into thinking there was some presence in the neighborhood who was responsible for their juvenile pranks. Much like the character Keyser Soze in the movie The Usual Suspects, it was a made-up cipher designed to mislead and redirect people's attention from the two of them.
"You promise not to fuck up on that one? It's real important that you never call me Fabian Rourke. If you ever do, on accident, you'd better have some type of explanation in your head, on the ready, because otherwise... well, I'd have to let you go. And I don't want to do that, Robert. One, you're my friend-- always have been, always will be. Two, I think you have what it takes to work here."
"What do you mean, man? I'm just a board-op for a cheesy talk radio station! What do I know about all this sophisticated spy shit?"
"It's not spy shit. And it's not sophisticated, Robert. And I said it before-- your instincts are right on. You have intuition. All my life, I've noticed that you had a predilection for electronics. You, of course, are an underachiever as well, but luckily the last few years have seen you amass some critical knowledge of sound and audio."
"Fa--uh, I mean, McGinty..."
"Please, call me Mac."
Robert shook his head incredulously. "Okay, Mac... we haven't spoken in years. Are you telling me that you've been spying on me all this time?"
"Let me put it this way, Robert: in my office, I have a surveillance tape collection of every radio show you ever boarded, from the time they had you as an assistant to recently, when Daniel Lazarus was filling in for Mark Rayburn. And not only do I have the on-air audio, but I also have the off-air feeds, the ones that no one outside of the station ever gets to hear... Would you like to hear it sometime?"
"Shit," Robert said. "And I suppose that whole studio is just one big microphone as well, eh?"
"Do you remember when they overhauled Studio G?"
"How did you know about that?"
"Council Corps supplied the contractors for that job, per my request."
"No fuckin' way!"
"Way."
"Dude, you're blowing my fucking mind! I-- I need to sit down or something."
Robert crushed his cigarette butt and sat down in the chair that moments earlier Fabian Rourke had been occupying. He was having a hrad time breathing.
Fabian patted Robert onthe shoulder and said, "There there, old buddy. Don't freak out. You haven't even met your crew yet. They're some mighty fine guys, Robert. They know their shit. I handpicked them myself."
CHAPTER SEVEN comes whenever I get inspired to work on it...
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