The guy who interviewed me had warned me about the dirt road, so it came as no surprise. I turned my Camry onto it without any great trepidation. I couldn’t see my destination, but I assumed it wouldn’t be much longer now, and I was more focused on what was ahead.
I remembered the advertisement that had started all this.
“Must have experience developing software. Must be willing to relocate. Open to new challenges. Housing provided, 4000+ square feet. Scarletdale, Inc, Scarletdale, Massachusetts.”
It wasn’t a lot to focus on, because it was so damn vague. I assumed I’d be helping them write some kind of application. The name Scarletdale had a medieval fantasy feel to me, so I hoped I’d be developing a game, but I doubted it. Googling had turned up nothing, and lots of people dreamed of being game developers. If game development was what an employer wanted, they’d say so.
At the first interview I asked if the interviewer, who looked like any corporate dude in IT, if they were subcontracting for the government, and he said no, but I didn’t get anything more out of them than that and didn’t know if I could trust his answer. He wouldn’t tell me what they actually did until I got started, because they didn’t want it leaking out. Or so he said.
Scarletdale, Massachusetts wasn’t even on the map. What I did know was that the pay they offered was excellent, more than twice what I was making now, and they’d already deposited twenty-five thousand dollars in my account before I’d worked an hour. That was more than enough to have me willing to drive out to their secret headquarters or whatever it was for the followup interview. I’d been told to be ready to start work right away, and to bring everything I needed to be there for a while, but not to bring my own electronics.
I was at a point in my career where I didn’t have to do anything that felt unethical to make a living. On the other hand, I really liked the idea of relocating. I was currently living in a house I’d once shared with my ex-wife. Even just staying in the area meant I was confronted with reminders of our fifteen years together, but the house was haunted by the ghost of our relationship. I don’t need to dish about the details; we both made mistakes. I dealt with the problems by going inward; she dealt with them by losing her temper. Neither were right, and if I ever ended up in another relationship, I had resolved to do better.
It was two years on from the initial separation, over a year from the divorce. I’d had a couple of hookups, but nothing that had a spark of romance. That would be easier in a new place, where I wasn’t thinking about some dinner I had with Stacy at the same restaurant.
Although, it would be easier in a place with actual people. I was already in the middle of nowhere when I’d turned onto the dirt road. The last town had been six miles back, a sleepy old New England village. The next was, according to Google Maps, several miles ahead. I was used to city life and being able to walk to the grocery store. Here, it looked like it would be miles to drive to anything.
The dirt road was longer than I expected. It was mostly smooth enough, with only the occasional undercarriage rattling bump. But it didn’t inspire me. I certainly didn’t want to drive on this road every day, and I didn’t know what exactly I would do if a car came the other way.
It was getting darker, even though it was two in the afternoon, because of the trees, full and leafy as trees should be in late June. A healthy forest, I told myself, taking small comfort in the thought.
The road turned slightly, and I slowed down. I was alert for any spot where the road widened, knowing I’d need to memorize it in case another car came. And what, back up down the narrow road? Driving forward was bad enough.
I thought I heard a growl come from the woods. Were there bears around here? I’d always thought of Massachusetts, and the entire east coast really, as long since tamed, but right then it was hard to see it. This was definitely not Boston. Or even Springfield.
Bears didn’t matter if I stayed in the car.
The road, and I, rambled on. For a moment, I considered turning around, but there was no way to turn around. I could back up for what now must be half a mile, or I could keep going forward. Nice metaphor for life. I’d been stalled for a while, that was why I was here. But life had choices; forks in the road, places to turn. My life back home had come to feel like a narrow track, but it wasn’t, really. I had choices that would come alive to me if I could see through the forest of my memories.
Going forward was better than going back.
The road required all my attention, so I came to a stop before I fiddled with my phone. I wanted to see where I was, and get an idea of how much longer the road could possibly go on.
No signal.
Great.
No one would pay 25K just to kidnap me. Except possibly Stacy, but from what I’d heard, she’d moved on quite nicely, with a new rich boyfriend and everything.
I took my foot off the brake and kept going. The speedometer hovered around 10 miles per hour. Any more than that seemed reckless.
I turned the headlights on, which helped. The dirt track was a harmless tan, with little black, gray, and white rocks in it. The trees were no longer black, but brown. The leaves were green. New England in spring. It was beautiful, in a way. Quiet. Serene. I’d been spooking myself out over nothing.
No bear could get into my car, and certainly not an east coast bear. My biggest concern right then was whether I had to drive on that damned road every time I wanted groceries or a book from the library.
It kept going. I slowed down to five miles an hour, although I really wanted to just gun it. I wanted to get to the end and find out what this was all about, but there was no way I could drive safely any faster. My curiosity made me reckless.
And then, suddenly, there was sunlight. The road widened. It felt like the trees parted, although of course they didn’t move. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath, but I let it out now.
There was a whole village here. Not an office with a few outbuildings, but a town, with houses, and narrow little alleys. Very quaint, from what I could see. The alleys were narrower even then than the road I’d been on, so I couldn’t drive into town.
I couldn’t, anyway. My car sputtered and died, and the instrumentation went dead. I steered it onto some grass, and managed to park. Great. Just what I needed. I looked at my phone again, but it was dead too. Well, I’d walk the rest of the way. Might as well see what this was all about. I could understand them not having 5G out here, although that was weird for a tech firm, but there was something a little too coincidental about my car and phone dying at the same time. I had a half-tank of gas, and I thought I had a good charge on the phone, too. Still, if coincidences didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have a word for it.
The houses were Tudor style, mostly one story or two, although toward the center there was a very tall structure that might have been ten stories high. It was round, and not very wide, like a grain silo maybe, but at the top of it was a sharply peaked roof.
My directions were to find the second tallest building “on campus” and go talk to the CEO. I’d found the tallest, anyway. But this place wasn’t a “campus,” it was a village.
I looked at my phone again out of habit, because that’s what I did when I was lost, but it still refused to even turn on.
The first people I encountered were a middle-aged man and a woman. The man was dressed in a doublet and hose, and I suspected a codpiece. The woman had a long flowing skirt, and a corset that pushed her breasts upward into colossal mounds. They looked like they’d escaped from a renaissance faire.
I glanced up at the buildings, and no, they hadn’t escaped. They were still there, although this looked like a permanent settlement. Things were getting stranger. A smart person would turn around and go, but after the drive through the woods, this weirdness was positively refreshing.
Careful to keep my eyes off the breasts that threatened to burst free of their confinement, I asked for directions. “I’m supposed to meet with someone named Goodlappe? In the second tallest building in town.”
The woman giggled and jiggled, and then she answered. “That’ll be the Mayor,” she said. “And City Hall. Go straight, then left at the turn. It’s just to the left of the big tower.” She had an accent that I couldn’t place, but it wasn’t the affected speech one sometimes hears when people are trying to sound medieval, and it wasn’t rural Massachusetts, either.
“Thanks,” I said. “So just head for the tower, and I should see it?”
“Sure, that’ll work,” the woman said.
“You here for the job?” the man asked.
“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t sure I was going to stay. Six months in a place only accessible via a narrow road, versus a hell of a lot of money. “Say,” I said. “Can you buy groceries here in town? It is a town, isn’t it?”
“Of course it’s a town. And I buy all my food local, although maybe you have more exotic tastes, being what you are and all. I’m Joe Brown, by the way.” The man stuck out his hand.
I shook it, wondering what I was.
He gestured to the woman. “And this is Mrs. Brown.”
“Isolde,” Mrs. Brown told me, putting her hand out, back side up.
I took it, leaned over it, and air-kissed it. She giggled. I looked at Joe, even though he was less easy on the eyes, because I didn’t want him thinking I was flirting with his wife, and said, “Pleased to meet you both. My name is Jerry Kenner.”
“What do you ken?” asked Isolde.
It took me a moment. Ken, meaning to know. What did I know? Not much, right then.
“Nice to meet you, too, Kenner,” Joe said, sparing me the need to answer. “See you around. Welcome aboard.”
“I haven’t taken the job yet,” I said. I sort of had, since I had that money in the bank. But I could return it.
Joe and Isolde exchanged nervous glances, and then finally Joe turned back to me. “Well,” he drawled. “I hope to see you around.”
I smiled a friendly smile, and said, “Well, I guess I better get going. Don’t want to be late.”
“Nope,” Joe said. “I expect not. Although we don’t keep too careful a watch on time here. You’ll get used to it.” He paused. “Assuming you stay. But you’re needed, don’t doubt that.”
“Needed why?” I asked.
“Bran will explain,” Isolde said. “We really hope you stay.”
“Bran?”
“Mayor Goodlappe.”
“Ah. Well, we’ll see.”
I waved and kept going. I heard them whispering behind me but couldn’t make out the words. They sounded anxious, like the voices of people who just drove down miles of a dark dirt road with looming trees. Okay, that was maybe too specific.
I walked past some other people in town. Some had ren faire costumes on. Others were dressed perfectly normally. There was a middle-aged woman doing some kind of cosplay with cat ears, although the ears were all the effort she was making, and a curvy dark-skinned girl with purple hair who was wearing cutoffs and a very snug white T-shirt would have fit in at any college in the country, except maybe the ones with a dress code.
I admit, seeing a pretty girl did a lot to lift my mood, although she could have been anywhere from 18 to 35. There were some other cute women, too, but that one particularly caught my eye. In fact, in general, these were good-looking townsfolk.
The big tower was even more impressive from up close. The walls were smooth stone, and it had little arched windows all the way up it. It had over ten stories, and the top one had bigger windows than the others.
The second tallest building was a more modest place, three stories tall, but with a tiny tower that made it taller than the tallest houses, and had a cupola with a bell. It made me think of Independence Hall. I walked up four steps and tried the door. It opened easily into a large open space with several dozen wooden chairs up against the wall. There were a couple of doors off it. One of them said, “Mayor’s Office.”
I knocked.
The man who greeted me was about four feet tall, had very little hair on top of his head but made up for it with a bushy red beard. “Aye?” he asked.
“I am Gerald Kenner,” I said.
“Ah. Bran Goodlappe.” It was halfway between brawn and bran, the way he pronounced it. He stuck out a meaty fist. He was thickly built, and when I shook his hand I found out that he had quite a grip. “So, the job. I want to apologize for a certain amount of, er, obfuscation.”
“That’s one word for it,” I allowed. He didn’t ask me to sit down, or even come further in, and I didn’t intend to be in the dark for one moment longer.
“So,” I asked. “What’s the job entail?”