Fons et Origo
 

LANGLY:

I'm not sure I'm still part of the same planet I was on when I came into this place.

Maybe I really was abducted by aliens and this is just a weird parallel universe.

How can I be sitting across from the table in this place, drinking a beer with one of the living legends in the world of hacking, who also claims to be my brother?

Living might be a bit of a stretch right now. He looks more dead than alive.

"How long you had the cough?" I ask him again.

He glares at me a little. "I'm getting there. Be patient, okay? Not that you were ever very good at it." Then for some reason, he smiles a little bit.

It's my smile. I seen it enough times to know.

"So what did you learn, little brother?"

"About what?" That's kind of a general question.

"I believe we were on the topic of Mom and Dad."

"I don't wanna talk about them."

"Fine. Then listen to me. When Frohike's kid hacked Fort D-"

"How do you know it was Frohike's kid?"

He shrugs, just like me. "I know who he is, for Christ's sake. I'm not stupid."

"Never said you were."

"Yeah, but you thought it, didn't you, little brother?" Now he sounds kind of nasty.

Okay, well, maybe I did. I mean, Scott did real stupid stuff...

Okay, it's not like I haven't...but I'd like to think I did it at a different level.

Always thought mine was the higher level.

Ha.

"I read it," I tell him in this dull voice, like I'm not impressed. Like I don't believe it.

Like I don't know what to believe at this point.

"And? What did it tell you?"

"A lot of shit I'd be happier not thinking about."

"That's nice, George, but guess what?"

"What?"

He just looks at me.

"I suppose you're gonna tell me this is all true," I say, like a grumpy kid.

I think something in me thinks this guy is my brother...I seem to be reverting.

He just nods, and he looks sad, then has another coughing spaz. This time, he brings up some blood-yecch.

"You wanna tell me what the fuck is wrong with you?" I oughta sound a lot more compassionate, but I don't feel real compassionate right now. My world's been rocked, and I don't like it.

"George...what did you learn about Dad's work?"

"I learned he made synthetic viruses, which isn't exactly a big surprise, considering he was a microbiologist, and worked for the military."

"Uh-huh. But what about his experiments?"

"Sounds like he had to do them. If it's true."

"Oh, it's true, little brother. It's true." He gives me this hard look. "Look at me, Ringo. Tell me what you see."

"I see a dude who thinks he's my brother who looks more like a fucking corpse." He asked. You ask, you're gonna find out.

"Uh-huh. You got it. Only I don't think I'm your older brother. I am."

"How do I know that?"

"C'mon, George, get real. Would I drag you here if it wasn't important?"

"I dunno. I got no idea who the fuck you really are and what you want. So start talking. I got a sick wife and a ton of work to do, and you're wasting my time."

He just shakes his head. "Okay, George, you said I looked like a corpse. Well, I am. I'm the result of one of Dad's...projects."

"One of the Operation Playground projects?"

"Yes, one of those. And you know what? Joan was, too."

"You're wrong."

"No, I'm not. Think about it. She comes down with a very rare, very virulent form of leukemia you almost never see in adults. And there's really no good treatment for it. Her oncologist was totally freaked out." He grins. "Of course I hacked her. Don't look shocked. You did, too."

"Scott...you used to kind of be, forgive me for saying it, but kind of the dumb blonde in our family...I mean, I never pictured you to be a class hacker-"

"Yeah, made for a good cover, didn't it? You thought I did what, worked in sales?"

"Well, wasn't it?"

He laughs. "Oh yeah, sure. What was my major in college, George?"

"Some kind of biology, but you flunked out-"

"No, George, I didn't flunk out, not on my own. I did pretty damn good, as a matter of fact..."

"So why'd you quit?"

He gives me a look like I'd give somebody. "I had to."

"Why?"

"Because...they were on to me."

"Who was on to you?" I don't like how cryptic he's being with me. He wants to talk to me, he'd better talk to me.

"George...do you remember reading about how Dad died?"

"Uh-huh. They say Mom did him."

"She did."

"I don't think so."

"Ringo, she did...I was there." He spazzes into coughing again. "I wasn't supposed to be...but my date stood me up..." he smiles a bit at that.

He's barely touched his beer. "You gonna drink that?" I ask him.

"Tell the truth, I'm too nauseous right now...maybe a little weed, though, if you don't mind," he gets up and opens up an end table with a small drawer.

"Only if you're gonna share."

"Whatever." He hands me a ziploc with a few pencil joints in it and a Bic. "Actually, if you wouldn't mind lighting it...I don't do so good lighting up these days...I usually have Anna do it for me."

"Who's Anna?"

"She lives downstairs. She's a curacina."

"A what?"

"In Mexico, curacinas do some herbal medicine, some conventional medicine, some faith healing."

"You think that's gonna make you better?"

"Well, George, I don't think it'll make me better...but I tried a lot of other stuff. Nothing worked."

"Like what?"

"Chemo, radiation, surgery...nothing. I think the rads made me sicker, actually."

"Wouldn't be surprised. You'd think after all this time, they'd get beyond slash, burn and poison."

He laughs, it's harsh. "Are you kidding? Too much money to be made off slash, burn and poison. It's in nobody's interest to come up with something effective. Except, maybe, the people suffering from these illnesses."

"Well, it's like, we can engineer all these weird diseases, doesn't somebody think to come up with some antidotes?"

"Not the point, little brother. Not the point. No, George, this isn't new stuff. This has been going on since before WWII..."

"So what's the point here? You were in one of Dad's projects, you say. And yeah, you look like death warmed over, and I believe you're sick...what I wanna know is, where the fuck were you all this time? Huh?"

"Okay. Let's go back to when Dad died, okay?"

"Whatever."

"And would you mind lighting that?" He points to the ziploc in my hand. I'm still holding it. Jesus, in the past, I'd have had that baby smoked halfway down by now.

I got to remember to do this easy...I haven't done a joint in ages.

Guess you never lose your touch. And I got to say, whoever's rolling these, they rolled 'em good and snug, they'll burn nice.

Since I lit up, I get the first hit...this stuff is nice.

Maybe he is my brother. He sure as hell buys quality dope.

I pass him the joint, and he tries dragging on it but he starts hacking away again, and like he can't even inhale.

"Not gonna do you much good if you can't get it down," I comment uselessly. Well duh!

He tries it again, he keeps coughing away.

I take the joint from him. "C'mere. Open your mouth." I take a long hit off it, hold it in my mouth. I get level with him, which isn't hard, he's about same height as me. I blow the smoke into him, shotgun style. And he's okay with it. He can do it like this.

I do this over and over, till he seems like he's more comfortable.

He closes his eyes. "Thanks. Anna has to do that sometimes these days. I used to be able to do it myself...not anymore."

This is weird. I mean, I'd do this with Ally, sure...but with another guy?

What's even weirder is, I don't feel uncomfortable doing it.

"You got a thing with Anna?"

That makes him laugh but good. "Not hardly. Anna...well, I'll get to that. Back to where we were. George, who came to my funeral?"

"Who d'ya think came?"

"I guarantee none of my kids were there."

"They weren't. Figured you'd blown 'em off by then."

He looks real pained now. "No, I didn't. They were blown off...but not by me."

"What're you talking about?"

"George...I was going to go public. With all this. I was talking to reporters. It was all gonna get blown open. I had the documentation, everything."

"All the Fort D stuff from Dad?"

"That, and more. I had memos...stuff from people way above him."

"And?"

"I was in college. I was pretty good as a student, better than my high school grades would've suggested...and I was doing some work on bacteria with some grad students. Interesting work. They started talking about some of the stuff going on at Fort D." He barks this hard laugh. "Some of 'em even wanted to go to work there eventually. Go figure."

"And?"

"Well...it began to come together...and about that time, I was starting to learn computers...my first one was a Tektronix in the lab that spoke Basic, crude but interesting...and I was curious. I mean, I'd had a parent who worked Fort D. Maybe there was some stuff...I had a lot of questions about why Mom did Dad, what really went down, why there was so much hatred between them..." He coughs again. Hard. But at least no blood this time.

"I pulled my first hack in '72. Simple one. Of course the technology was crude...but there was still stuff you could do. And then another. And another. I got more daring. And then I got cocky. Just like you did, little brother."

"Uh-huh. But you didn't get caught. I did."

"No, little brother, I got caught. Only I wasn't lucky enough to get sent to Lompoc Country Club."

"What, Leavenworth?"

"That might have been preferable. No, I'd started snooping around in college...I had people tailing me, watching everything I did...trying to figure out why our lives got so blown apart. Hell, I was blown apart. So in exchange for not killing me or sticking me in a maximum security prison, I was sent to learn espionage."

"What, you were a spy?"

He laughs. "I always wanted a business card that just said, "Scott Langly. Spy." Nothing else. No, I learned the trade...traveled around a lot...Christ, I had like a dozen passports and all these different names, different occupations..."

"And you were good at knocking up women," I add, not so nicely.

He nods. "Yeah, I wasn't very good in the self-control department, was I? 26 years old, and I'd had four kids already, three different women...I did the spy bit for a few years...and hated it. I was always scared. I wanted to quit. I was told if I quit, I'd be killed...I knew stuff, and I knew stuff people didn't want me to know. I told them I was going to do it anyway. Next thing I know, my kids-and their moms-all get 'liberated.'" He sighs, and I see him wiping tears out of his eyes. "Jesus, George, I was a jerk, but I loved my kids..."

He looks at me miserably. "Light another one, would you, little brother?"

Sure, why not? It's good stuff. I feel a little more mellow, and here I blew most of it in his mouth.

"You were gonna go to the press about all the shit going down at Fort D from way back," I'm trying to recap him, and having kind of a hard time following. He's not very linear.

"The press, politicians...anybody that would listen. And I'd found somebody who'd listen. A freshman congressman named Matheson."

I've heard that name before...where?

"I think he was the one that turned on me." He looks majorly bummed. "Christ, I was a kid, George! I was 20 years old. I was totally undone...I was trying to put my life together...and the more I tried, the more undone it became...I was learning stuff about Dad's work...I'd knocked up my girlfriend-that was my first boy, Jordan..." this is really getting him down. Time for a little sunshine.

I light up, do another shotgun. More this time. We smoke the joint all the way down, and we don't say much while we're doing it. This time, I make sure I inhale some.

It helps. I'm getting more willing to kick back and hear him out.

"So like Scott? You think if you didn't think with your dick all the time, you might not've gotten in so much trouble?"

He laughs. "I don't know...I always needed money, true...and I was always scrambling for it...I loved my kids, and no way was I gonna let 'em starve, that's for certain. No, instead, I end up getting most of them killed." His mouth is hard, but then just sad. Like no number of joints in the world is gonna get rid of this for him.

"Most of 'em? Which one survived?"

"Well...none of the ones I had before my 'death,' quote en quote."

"Don't tell me...you got more." Christ. I can't even get one, my brother goes around knocking up half the planet.

"I have...one more."

"You never give up, do you?"

"Sex, you mean? Only recently...I can't, you know..." he blushes.

I think that was more than I needed to know.

"Where's this one? Or haven't you got a clue?"

"I know very well where he is."

"A boy."

"Uh-huh."

"How old?"

"Three. Almost four. Four in a few weeks, in fact. Born on your birthday, July 12."

"So who'd you leave holding the bag this time?" I don't think I respect the way my brother has carried on his life with women...I mean, I'm not perfect, but it's like, he's totally got no control...

"I didn't leave anybody holding the bag, as you say..." he seems kind of annoyed with me. "I was involved with a...much younger woman, shall we say..."

"Like 16?" I know I'm being a nasty snip, but still...

"George, I never did anyone under the age of consent. I may have been horny, but statutory rape isn't something I practice."

"Okay, so you were involved with this woman..."

"You've spoken with her. Maybe even met her in the flesh. TrickTurner?"

"Hey, I know Tricky. What the hell happened to her? She just sort of dropped out of sight."

"Ringo, you remember when you got sick?"

Like I could forget. "Uh-huh."

"She got sick a few months after Black Hat, just like you did..."

"She was at our engagement party." I remember seeing her there. Shit.

At least my brother has some taste. Tricky was a good looking babe.

"Tricky didn't make it." He looks bummed again. "Light another one, would you, little brother?"

Sure, I can do that.

"Man, I'm sorry about that. But what about the kid?"

"Well, Tricky and me, we didn't last all that long...but we stayed friends. And she decided when she found out she was pregnant to keep the kid. And I promised I'd help her out...and I did...he's a great kid, you know. I've been taking care of him since she died by myself, and with Krista, guess you'd call her our housekeeper."

"So where is your DNA offshoot?" I ask.

"With Krista."

"So do I get to meet the kid, or what?"

"Oh, you'll meet him, George. Actually, he's the reason I called you."

Huh?

"George, look at me. I'm dying. I know it, and so do you. I got to have somebody to take care of him when I'm gone...and Krista's good, but she's not, you know, family."

You don't ask for much, do you, Scott?

"Let me see if I'm too stoned to figure this one out, Scott. You called me because, after 22 years of no contact-"

"We've had contact for years. Just not in a way that could compromise either of us. It was as much for you as for me, little brother." His light eyes turn real cold. "And I sure as hell wouldn't ask you for something frivolous."

"So you call me, you want me to meet you, and you're like sick as hell from something our dad did, and you want me to take care of your kid."

"Not bad for the short version." He shrugs. "Look, George, if anybody knows about being an unwanted kid...it ought to be you."

Well, there's hitting it right between the eyes.

"I always got the feeling my being there wasn't the high point of your life," I say to him.

"It wasn't. But we had some fun times, too. Remember one day, you were about four, just about the age my boy is now, and Joan was supposed to watch you, but she had to do something, and I got stuck watching you? Well, let's face it, when you're fifteen, watching your kid brother isn't exactly what you dream about. But we got kites, and we went to the park-"

"Hey, I remember that!" I do. It was a great day!

"Know what? I was really surprised. I had a lot of fun. I decided that you weren't always such a shit all the time. Just most of the time." He laughs, but then launches into this huge coughing fit. A bloody one this time.

I'm just not that good with that sort of thing. Sorry.

I wait for him to get quiet again. I think that last one beat the shit out of him. He looks exhausted.

"Remember I taught you to swim?" he asks.

I do.

"You almost drowned me."

"Well, I thought about it..." he looks kind of evil..."but you picked it up pretty good. And then, once you got it down, you couldn't get enough, and mostly, you couldn't shut up. Basically, George, I thought I'd go deaf from you...I don't think you ever shut up...and my kid's the same way."

"Talks your ear off?"

"Only constantly."

"Joanie used to say I never shut up."

"She wasn't kidding."

"So like what's this kid's name? Does he have one?"

"Oh, he's got one."

We're interrupted by a loud bang on the stairs, a woman's voice scolding a bit, and then this kid-like yell.

I think the words the kid was yelling were something to the effect, "Don't wanna!"

Déjà vu.

"So Scott? What's your kid's name?"

He coughs a little more. "Patrick."

Say it ain't so.

END OF PART 42