~o~O~o~
New York, New York
July, 2059

The top floor of the brownstone held only a couple apartments, and Brown made the mistake of going to the wrong one. As he approached, the door’s holo glowed blue, a factory-generic figure looked out at him, and a synthetic voice barked, “Who are you, and what do you want?”

“My name is Brown; I’m meeting Clara Cromwell.”

“Not here you aren’t,” the figure snapped. Then the holo went dark.

Brown was puzzled and checked his portable, at which point he realized that the Cromwell apartment was around the corner. It, too, had a factory-generic holo, but this time he was admitted when he announced himself.

Clara met him at the door. “Please come in, Mr. Brown.”

“Thank you for letting me see his apartment, Ms. Cromwell,” he responded formally. “I know it’s distressing, sometimes, to come back to a place after a loved one has passed.”

As she guided him down a central hallway and into the main living room, she said, “That’s alright. Whenever I was here, Father was the only thing that mattered, you know? The place . . . ? I guess it doesn’t really affect me.”

Brown took it in. The utilitarian seating. The neutral wall colors. Wall-to-wall carpet in an oatmeal shade. Everything was clean.

Generic.

“Could we, perhaps, look around a bit?”

“Of course,” she replied. The dining area and kitchen were at the far end of the living room; the kitchen appliances were standard, well-used, and nearly antiseptic. Back down the hallway, the first door on the right opened to a private study. Sleek, clean. A room for working, not for meeting people; the desk was attached to the paneled wall that held an up-to-date holo projector and AV equipment. The single chair was plain and unremarkable. Brown’s own study, in his house in the distant western desert, looked similar.

Second door on the right – A guest bedroom. Then a guest bath. At the end of the hall, the door into Cromwell’s private bedroom and bathroom.

It could be a hotel room, Brown thought. Interesting. “You’ve had it all cleaned out?”

Clara shook her head. “Cleaned, of course. And hospice took all of their equipment back with them. But like I said, Father tended to live simply. He didn’t have knick-knacks or artwork or anything.”

“Did he spend a lot of time here?”

She shrugged. “The last few years, I’d say yes. I mean, even when he divested from all of his companies, he still kept busy with his philanthropic work, so he had to travel some.”

“He could obviously afford something very different,” Brown ventured.

“He never cared about any of that. Even the Westchester house – the one he bought for us after Mutter died – it wasn’t fancy or anything. And even when we were all living there, he’d spend a couple nights a week back here. It was much closer to his work, and the commutes into the city were pretty bad, those first few years.”

They went back into the living room and Clara offered Brown a drink.

“Some water would be very welcome,” he said.

She hesitated and said, “I hope you don’t mind too much . . . I know alcohol is off-limits to the Congregation, but I’ve just been having a really hard time since Father died.”

“Your conscience is your link to our common Sovereign,” he said softly, quoting the New Apostles’ Fifth Gospel. “Yours – not mine.”

“Thanks.” She smiled nervously. “AIPA, a glass of water for Mr. Brown and a Puget Sound Chardonnay for me.”

“Acknowledged,” said the pleasant voice.

She sat in one of the plain leatherette chairs; Brown took another. She asked him how his work was progressing.

“Well,” he said carefully. “I managed to catch up with your younger sister yesterday, and I spoke with your twin this morning. Beyond family, I think I’ve spoken with the people that I need to speak with.”

She smiled. “I’m guessing Max talked your ear off about Father’s inventions.”

“Indeed. He does seem to be the one most interested in carrying on your father’s most celebrated work.” Brown had been impressed with Max’s depth of knowledge and his determination to advance photovoltaic technologies, but his conversation had provided him few insights that would assist his own task.

“I don’t know whether he’s more of a gear head, or Oskar is.” Clara frowned slightly. “I spoke with Oskar last week; he didn’t say so, but I can tell he wasn’t helpful to you.”

“Don’t let it trouble you. On the whole, your siblings have been generous with their time.”

The autoservitor swept in and quietly distributed their drinks. After she had taken a sip of her wine, Clara said, “I can’t imagine you got much out of any of them. They didn’t really know Father.”

Brown cocked his head. “You mentioned before that you spent more time with him.”

“It’s true. I mean, I’m old enough to remember him in Germany – I was ten when he left. Then, when we were brought over after Mutter died, I was at the Westchester house for five years before I went off to ‘follow my dream’ out in California. But I was back here in New York for the last six years, and I made a point of seeing him pretty often. These last four months or so, I saw him almost every day.”

Brown had covered a lot of this background when he’d met Clara and Max for lunch shortly after accepting the appointment, so he decided to hone in on an area that he hadn’t touched as much. “Towards the end, he must have known that he was dying.”

She nodded. “Even though he wasn’t a doctor, he was a scientist. He’d read enough – including serious medical reviews – to know that the disease was fatal.”

“Did he speak with you about it?”

“Yes . . . but he didn’t seem very troubled by any of it. He dealt with all the estate management issues well before the disease progressed too far. I think this Brownstone was the last thing he left to himself, and it transferred to the tenants, collectively, at his passing.”

“No thoughts of the afterlife? Of being reunited with your mother?”

She took another sip of wine before answering. “Not that he discussed with me. I remember asking him if he wanted me to get a priest, towards the end. You know, for Last Rites. He kind of laughed and said he’d speak to the Lord about his salvation when he could do it face-to-face.”

“An interesting perspective, for a Catholic.”

She crossed her legs. “I guess. I mean, I know he was a believer and all, but he never seemed to take it all that seriously. Not the formal stuff, anyway. He wasn’t much for weekly mass or anything. But he was big on charity, I know that.”

“In the time that you had with him, especially towards the end, did he ever reflect back on his life? On his accomplishments, or the things he’d maybe wished that he’d done?”

“I asked him, once. All he would say was, ‘I kept faith.’”

“Kept faith with what?”

She hesitated for an instant. Took a longer drink, her eyes never leaving his face. She set her wine glass down carefully before responding. “He didn’t say.”

~o~O~o~
The Lodgings, New York, New York
Two Days Later

With the funeral in four days, Brown sat at the desk in his hotel room, finally prepared to pull his remarks together. He was a methodical man, and so — despite having a thesis and a good grasp of the general direction he wanted his remarks to take — he started by organizing what he had.

His personal AIPA interfaced with the hotel AV system, and he pulled his notes up on the wall screen in front of the desk. “AIPA, cross-index interview notes and prepare an annotated timeline of Quentin Cromwell’s activities from 2020 until his death. On a side tab, match the timeline with known facts about Cromwell based on interweb news sites and the biographies by Danton, Peske, Solomon, Tianjin, Salazar, and Schwatzenhoff.” Because Brown thought the Schwartzenhoff biography had been both sloppy and overly hagiographic, he had AIPA use a different color to denote any information gleaned from that source.

Soundlessly, text began to spool across the screen, and within minutes, Brown was absorbed, deep in his research. He continued to prompt the AIPA to make refinements. He added court records and transcripts, minutes from commission meetings. He folded images into the timeline, to absorb the faces. The people he’d spoken to, and others who were either unavailable or long gone. People who had been important to Cromwell’s life. Then he added video and holo clips. In a separate document, he began to prepare an outline.

His work was interrupted by a holocall from Sarah, and he smiled as her image replaced his walls of text and images. “Hello, my love.”

“You’ve got your ‘project’ face on,” she replied with a grin. “How’s the work going?”

“Still organizing.” He leaned back in the standard hotel desk chair, and his surprise at the stiffness in his back and shoulders caused him to grimace.

Sarah shook a finger at him. “Hunched forward, not moving, just barking at your AIPA, right?”

“Guilty as charged,” he chuckled. “But, in my defense, the volume of material is just staggering. While at the same time being maddeningly incomplete. Not much on his childhood, but probably enough. He was a brilliant kid who didn’t have time — or, maybe, interest — for fun and games. It’s the lack of direct sources for his time at Columbia that really bugs me.”

“So, your lead didn’t pan out?”

He shook his head. “No. The colleague I thought I’d located turned out to be someone from California who had the same name.”

“That’s too bad,” she sympathized. “I know how much you were hoping to get a first-hand account.”

“It’ll be alright. I think I’ve got enough to say that the Purge of the Elites was the event that changed Cromwell’s life and set the course for everything that followed. His hatred of tyranny fueled his scientific work and his work at the Constitutional Commission. There are some things that bother me, though.”

“Like?”

“Why did he work for the junta? And, why did he essentially retire after the Second Republic was established? It’s not like the world stopped needing a brilliant inventor.”

“Well, but he was caught by the junta, right? How much choice did he have? As for his later years . . . maybe he just got tired?”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t look convinced.” She smiled. “I’ll leave you to your work, then. But don’t forget to eat!”

“Scout’s honor,” he agreed. They finished the call and his work once more filled the holowall.

At around 7:00 he broke for dinner. He found a Tandoori take-out place that had plastic chairs and acrylic tables, all of which suited his mood. Once his order came up he sat, eating slowly and thinking through his outline. It was coming together. The narrative was definitely coherent.

Walking back to his hotel, he had to work his way around a protest rally. The old-fashioned torches were a giveaway all by themselves, but the huge hologram of Rodrigo Garcia that dominated the crowd eliminated all doubt. “What do we want?” Garcia’s voice boomed from the amplifiers, and his lantern-jawed face glowered over the crowd.

“DECENCY!” they shouted.

“What do we demand?”

“RESPECT!”

Brown made his way through the crowd, unmoved by the emotions swirling around him.

A family group blocked his path, festooned with the black and red ribbons of the Social Conservative Party. As Garcia’s voice rang out the call – “Whose country?” – they rapturously screamed, “OUR country!”

Brown stepped around them and looked for the street on the other side of the square. A solid phalanx of New York State Troopers in full riot gear stood guard, their eyes wary. Vigilant. The officer in charge scrutinized him carefully as he made his way to the entrance of the street, but no one stopped him.

The sounds of the rally faded, until traffic finally drowned it out. Brown stubbornly refused to increase his pace, even as his hotel came in view.

Before he reached it, a ping on his wrist signalled an incoming call. “Who?” he queried his AIPA.

“Incoming call from Clara Cromwell.”

“Audio only.”

“Acknowledged.”

He put a question into his greeting. “Ms. Cromwell?”

“Hello? Mr. Brown?” Her speech was slurred.

“I’m here. Is something wrong?”

“No, but . . . there’s something I need to tell you. Well . . . show you. Can you meet me at the Brownstone?”

“Now?”

“Yeah, yeah. Before I . . . .” She stopped, hickupped, and then said, “Now?”

He checked his chrono. “Probably twenty minutes, Ms. Cromwell. I’ll be there. Will you be alright?”

“Yeah, okay. Good. I’ll, uh . . . I’ll be there. Here.”

Fifteen minutes later, he made his way up the granite stairs of Cromwell’s Brownstone. The building AIPA opened the door for him soundlessly. When he got to the penthouse apartment, however, Clara herself met him at the door. Her eyes were bloodshot, but Brown couldn’t tell whether that came from alcohol or from tears. Maybe both.

“C’mon in,” she said.

He stepped inside and followed her as she walked toward the living room. But when she reached it, she turned around, her movements jerky. “Okay, so . . . I dint . . . I didn’t . . . tell you everything. There’s something I know. Something true.”

Brown felt a deep sense of foreboding. And he worried, momentarily, that he was taking advantage of her. But he also had a job to do, and it’s not like she didn’t know what it was. “What is it that you want to tell me?”

“No.” She shook her head, triggering a spasm of unsteadiness. She braced herself with a hand against the wide doorway into the living room. “I wasn’t sure I could do it . . . whether I’d have the guts. I thought you’d figure it out an’ I wouldn’ need t’do anything.”

Brown put out a hand to prop her up. “Maybe I have,” he offered.

“Nah,” she said, her eyes closing wearily. “You’da asked diff’rnt questions.”

“So, tell me.”

“Down the hall. In the study.”

He was reluctant to leave her, unsteady as she was. “Can we get you sitting down, first?”

She shook her head and pushed away from the wall, coming back upright. “I’m leavin’. You’ll be a while.” Without another word, she walked carefully back the way they had come and let herself out.

He was alone.

“To speak truth, you must first seek truth.” The words from the Truth Speaker’s oath burned in his mind. He took a steadying breath and returned to the study, but when he got there he stopped cold. The desk, and the section of paneled wall behind it, were now on the left side of the room. Behind where the wall section had been, an entrance was now exposed.

What have we here? Brown was drawn to the entrance like a hound to a scent. Softly, soundlessly, he crossed the room and stepped through.

It took a moment for his eyes to take in everything. The soft lighting. The pale lavender of the walls. The warm, golden oak floorboards, finished in a lustrous satin. A pair of wing-backed chairs, upholstered in a brocaded paisley fabric, bracketing a cherry occasional table. Persian throw-rugs in a soft blue and pink.

He walked further into the room and the details continued to bombard his senses. It was not just a single room, but a small suite. There was a kitchenette, kept neat and clean. The cupboard doors were glass, and showcased a set of ceramic plates, bowls, and cups that had a similar look to what he had seen in Delany Bentham’s apartment. A lace-trimmed apron hung on a peg.

There was a bedroom with a large, canopied, bed that was covered with a hand-stitched quilt in a subtle pattern of rose and moss green. A vanity stood against a wall, an artifact from the nineteenth century, with an intricately framed and beveled mirror, coupled with drawers that contained a plethora of small pots and jars, tubes and atomizers.

A bathroom with a deep, claw-footed tub. A walk-in closet, carefully organized. Drawers of delicates. Dresses, sorted by color and length. Skirts. Blouses. Brown ran his fingers across the fabrics. Silks and lace. Tulle. Satin. Nylon. Velvet. On the top shelf, a set of four wigs, brushed and carefully stored.

Had Cromwell kept a secret mistress? If so, was it significant?

Brown retreated from the closet and left the bedroom area. It appeared there was one more room to explore, since he saw light coming from the end of the hallway opposite the study where he had entered.

When he approached, however, he found an entrance similar to the hidden one in Cromwell’s apartment. It, too, had been left in the open position, and once again he could not resist.

The room on the other side looked like it had been borrowed from an old-world Gentleman’s Club in a bygone age. Dark, satiny hardwood floors. Walls painted a deep maroon. Subdued lighting. It looked lived in without being messy. Comfortable leather chairs and a couch directly in front of the opening.

The man sitting on the couch, holding a drink in a twisted hand, met his gaze stonily. “If it isn’t Mr. Brown.”

“Oh, my sweet savior,” Brown said, his voice barely audible. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

– To be continued.

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