All the World Is A Stage, Sometimes

In school I loved to act. It was a side passion to be in front of people as they watched you intently bring something to life. Anything that had to do with Shakespeare or Broadway was always something to get me exited to do. Even though I ended up in the logical world for my profession, my love for the performing arts had never died.

Street lights passed over and over, more and more slowly, as my left eye opened. The car I was in started to come to a stop and was turning left. Opening the other eye I started to sit up when I realized my jaw was in excruciating pain. Yelling out in pain my left hand went to my jaw.

"Ouch! Shit!" Bob looked back from the driver's seat. "What the hell happened? I feel like I got nailed in the face with a sledge hammer."

"Yeah, well, that hammer was my fist." He laughed a bit at the thought. "I had to knock your ass out!"

I was trying to remember everything that had happened. It was all fuzzy and the pain wasn't helping me remember at all.

"Where are we?" I couldn't tell by looking.

"We're almost to the Stage." The stage was another one of my completely hidden places. Bob had been to this one before. "How long was I out?"

"About five to ten minutes." He was still grinning from the hammer comment.

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up." Bob hitting anyone was difficult to envision. Knowing it was in him was one thing, but he's always been so genuinely nice. He must have had a good reason.

We passed through the garage door of a rundown building in mid Manhattan. It was dark as Bob pushed the some digits into his phone and hit send. The garage door went back down. Then he punch in some more and hit send. The floor started to move downward with us in the Escalade. We hit the bottom and Bob drove off the platform which immediately started back to the top.

Pulling into a parking spot next to a yellow car that looked just like a Yellowcab taxi, we parked. He jumped out and opened my door helping me out of the car. I had a headache to go along with the pain in my jaw.

Walking over to the wall, Bob put his hand on the concrete and a door opened. We walked in and Bob did the same on the other side and we waited for the door to close. I walked ahead of him and put my hand on the wall at the other end of the mirrored hallway. The door opened up into a room you would have thought was an old theater.

The entire room was dome shaped with gold leaf decoration on the buttresses and dark red velvet all over. In the front of the room was a giant stage. Where the seats of a theater would normally be was furniture. I had couches of red velvet all in the classical style and all different types with coffee tables to match the different sets. They were scattered all over the room. It was the feel of living room comfort at the theater.

Where the balcony of an old theater would be was dressed like a balcony but had a staircase from the theater. The balcony was the walkway to the other rooms in the house. To the left was a kitchen which was through the only door on that side. To the right was the den, his and her bathrooms and a billiard room. My office was a little Batman in this place. In the den was an Egyptian Sarcophagus that stood up against the far wall. When you got in and closed the top you had to put your hand on the right side. The biometric scanner would lower the lift down to where my office was. It was about the size of the Playhouse in L.A. and more modern in style.

The door closed of the hallway behind us. "Will you get me some aspirin please?" Walking over and sitting down on a couch, I put my head in my hands and rubbed my temples. A few moments later Bob came back from the den.

"Here you go." I reached out and caught his toss without looking. He stopped, "How'd…"

"Don't ask," I cut him off. My head was in no shape to start trying to figure out my abnormality. "I wouldn't mind having you explain to me why you punched me, though." I gave him a nice little smile.

"You don't remember the alley? At all?" I shook my head. "The black cloud calling out your name in a whisper and you going Ape Shit?!" He was very descriptive of my craziness.

"Wait," my head hurt pretty bad but I was starting to remember the whisper of a voice that was so tranquil and inviting. "Black cloud?" I remember a hand coming out of the cloud, a pale white arm.

Popping the top off the Excedrin I threw three of them in my mouth and swallowed. I remembered feeling like I was supposed to be in the middle of the arms of a woman whose voice infected my head with euphoric feelings.

"Pale white arm? Black swirling mist?" I looked up at him.

"Ding ding ding! We have a winner Johnny!" Bob started to laugh. "I thought I could be obsessive compulsive but that little spell took the cake, bud."

"Could you hear the voice inside your head?" trying to figure out why I was so obsessed with her at the time.

"No. Just like a normal voice, well as normal as it could be in that situation." That explained some things, who or whatever it was either only wanted me or was only able to focus on me. It also could have been that whatever was happening to me had opened something up where my mind could hear her/it.

Flopping myself backward onto the couch I looked up at the beautifully crafted ceiling. It was a rundown theater in the Broadway area. It was much smaller then and didn't have the balcony when I found it. Sinking it further into the ground allowed me to make it into what it has become. Looking at the old architecture of the ceiling was astonishingly beautiful. It was all original and then I had the rest of it copied around the house.

"Bob, would you mind making me a drink, please?" I figured the alcohol would thin out my blood enough to keep the headache from becoming a migraine.

"Sure. Martini?" he was walking toward the billiard room where the bar was.

"Yes, please," the pounding was excruciating.

Matt not being there did worry me. He should have made it there before us. It's not that I had to worry, really. He had his own bodyguard with him. Needing to know how the meeting went and what Cal said was tops on my mind.

Bob came back with two drinks in his hand, a Jack and Coke for him and a Dirty Martini for me. "To not getting sucked up by black clouds with strange voices in them," our glasses clinked and we sipped.

"Has Matt called?" figuring Bob might know an ETA.

"No, but I talked to Richard. They are on the way and Matt is driving so Richard doesn't know how to get here. He's blind folded." That actually seemed a bit excessive to me and I was the paranoid one.

"Okay. Whatever you think is best." I smiled. "Freak." I gave a bit of a chuckle as I took a sip.

Taking my drink with me, I headed for the stage. Climbing the step I went around the corner hitting the buttons for the curtain. They pulled back and the giant stage was completely open and dimly lit.

"All the world is a stage and every person a player," I bowed. "I'd like to thank the Academy and my family for this wonderful award. It's not easy to be the craziest person on the planet." Bob chuckled as he watched. "And now I would like to do a portion of Henry V."

"Yeah," Bob was being entertained at least.

At the end of the stage I took a bow, "Thank you." Bob laughed. I walked around the stage really just pacing and sipping on my martini. That voice was still inside my head running around in the back play with me. A torment more than anything else.

What was it really trying to get out of me? Why was it me and not Bob? How was that black cloud staying put on the ground?

Just as I sat down with my legs hanging over the stage, Matt walked in followed by Richard. He had a huge smile on his face. Richard, well he looked solemn and overwhelmed.

"I need a drink!" he declared throwing his hands in the air.

"I'll get it and show Richard where it is. What do you want?" Bob asked.

"Whatever Michael's having," as if he didn't know Matt was more of a vodka fiend than I was.

"Right. Come on. Let's chat." Bob walked over into the billiard room while Richard followed looking around. He was still emotionless as far as his expression.

I took a sip, "So, how did the meeting go?"

"It went great except I had to skip all the parts where I ask you question," Bob walk in with his drink delivery and walked back to the billiard room. "They bought in. We start production next week. They all seemed excited."

"What did Cal have to say?" which was the other thing on my mind.

"Not much. Since you stopped the board from trying to sell off the company it's been quiet." Matt took a huge swig off the drink, "He even said Jasper has been one of the biggest advocates of the company creating technology and growing. Of course, that was the entire point of your little insurrection wasn't it?"

I smiled, "Not the entire reason. I wanted to help him and his family. You know how I am."

"Yes I do!" He chugged the drink, "What the hell happened to you two?"

"Yeah," I wanted to try not to alarm him too much, "Bob's buddy in the NSA said they created a new department."

"So, who gives a shit? Don't they do that every day." The guy thought just like me.

"My name's been going around." He dropped the glass on the floor.

"Oh shit!" His face really said it all. Shock, fear, and even a little bit of terror.

"I thought that at first, too." I had been thinking that ever since but no reason to scare him by me being scared. "When you think about it though, it was inevitable."

"How the hell do you figure that?!" He was uneasy about the government involvement.

"Look at what's happening to me," I slammed the drink and hopped off the stage. "I can't be the only one this has happened to, Matt. Just like everything else, the government has probably known about this for a very long time. In fact, I wouldn't put it past them that they somehow did this to me." We looked at each other and smiled. "Okay, maybe not."

It was an interesting thought, though. Could it have been some kind of strange experiment with the government that made me this way? The orphanage could have been a cover up along with the story about my parent's death.

"What's next, mate?" he was hoping for the cut and run answer which was all over his expression. It was surprising he wasn't rolling his eyes at the door and throwing his head that way, too.

"I want to get a good night's sleep and then head home in the morning. Hopefully, Jax will know something by then." It was a slim chance that Jax would be able to hack into the NSA so quickly, but there was always hope.

Bob walked out of the billiard room with Richard. "Did he tell you about the black cloud and the woman's voice."

"Shit! I was hoping to avoid that." I didn't want to get into it with my head still hurting a bit.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Matt looked at Bob like he was nuts.

"Well, on our way over here something drove him to jump out of the car, puke up some blood and then run down an alley." Matt looked over at me with surprised shock on his face. "Then this black cloud formed at the back of an alley with some woman's voice calling to him when a woman's arm reached out of the cloud and tried to pull him in. He went ape shit and frantic so I had to knock him out."

"Damn! Wish I was there to see that. The punch I mean." Bob, Richard and Matt all laughed.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever," I wanted to laugh with them but held it back.

"What the hell was that all about?" Matt walked up to me.

"I don't know. I've been trying to figure that out all night. Something new, though." New was becoming a bad word.

"Great! As if there isn't enough going on right now," he chugged the rest of his drink.

"Look, everyone just relax. Let's get some downtime. Do whatever you feel like doing and just chill out for awhile. Watch some TV or something. I'm going downstairs to see if Jax has got anywhere with the NSA." It was hard to calm them down without any answers. It would be awhile before any of them relaxed. "Bob, show Richard to one of the guest rooms. Better show him the emergency exits as well."

Each one of the hidden houses was build with emergency exits out of each room. They, like everything else about them, were hidden and kind of movie like. I figured if I was going to build something crazy I might as well do it right, full craziness.

Everyone split up as I headed into the den. I walked over to the sarcophagus and pulled it open. Getting in, I put my hand on the panel and the lift went down into my office. The office was just the way I left it. I walked up to the desk and put my hand on the scanner to the left. All the screens came up. Clicking the IM icon, Jax immediately started chatting.

"Man. Waiting 4 u"

"Yeah, what is it?"

"NSA is a bitch"

"Can you do it?"

"Go'n 2 take while"

"Okay. Keep working at it. See if you can track down a Deputy Directory with the name S. McCoy"

"K. L8r"

Damn text lingo. I had really hoped it wouldn't catch on. Hackers were always ahead of the game to what was trendy. If it was cool with them now in a few years this would be one of the hottest things going on.

Leaning back in my chair I listened to the voice ringing in my head, over and over. She was so seductive. There was no body to go with the voice, but my imagination was running wild with what she might look like.

Focusing on the problem at hand, I realized I needed to buy up as much property around the country as I could in order to throw off the new department in the NSA. I needed to setup more companies overseas. A lot needed to be done in a short period of time.

Popping open the web search icon, I typed in 'Myth of Black Cloud woman's voice' and hit the search button. I got all kinds of results, but nothing that looked useful. Scrolling through the text that was there I looked for anything interesting at all. There was something that looked interesting. "Sirens: Myths and Legends". I clicked on the link.

"In Greek Mythology the three Sirens were seductive bird women. Strangely enough, they have also been linked to the bible as demon women or possessed women. The birdlike wings of myth could have easily been the wings of a fallen angel. The most studied of the biblical Siren, if you will, is that of the Revelations with the Whore of Babylon."

I stopped reading there. That didn't make a lot of sense. Mixing Greek and Biblical beliefs was more on the fantasy side than the reality, even in the world of religion. What a bizarre concept some student in college, no doubt, came up with as some kind of term paper. I looked at who the author was at the bottom of the five page paper.

"Written by Professor A. Lansing, Cornell department of Mythology"

Well, it had some reputable legs to it. It still didn't make any sense, but I hit the print button anyway. Might as well read the entire thing anyway, it would provide some amusement. I typed in 'ESP mind reading' and hit search. It came back with so many links to choose from I didn't know where to start. Hitting the print button, I left the page.

"Well….." My heart jumped and I spun around in startled fear. Matt started laughing hysterically. "Sorry, mate. Didn't me to scare you."

I grabbed at my chest breathing heavy, "How long have you been there?"

"Long enough to see you looking up some disturbing shit," he wagged his finger at me as if had done something wrong.

"Come on. I had to look some of this up to see if anyone had it happen before." The fact that it was all I could think about all day long never came up.

"Michael, the fact the government knew enough to setup a department dedicated to whatever this is should be enough to tell you it had to have happened to someone else." I hadn't thought of that at all. Sometimes the simplest answers are the right ones and that made a lot of sense.

"Yeah, you're right." Looking off over his shoulder, my mind started to drift off to that voice inside my head, again.

"Hey, let's go play some pool and have a beer or two," he was trying to be cheerful and get my mind off of things.

"Okay. Let's go." I threw my jacket and tie on the couch as we took the lift to the main floor one at a time.

We walked into the Billiard room and I suddenly remembered something. "Matt, do me a favor?"

"Sure. What is it?" he stopped.

"Please, let's keep it low key tonight." Right after I said it I knew it was a terrible idea. Just to bring it up.

"No problem, mate. We'll just drink and shoot pool. How much trouble can we get into?" he said with an innocent look and a sheepish growl to his tone. I rolled my eyes.

We walked over to the pool cue rack on the wall. Matt pushed down the second chalk cube from the right and then pulled out the third cue stick. The rack pulled out revealing a small elevator. It was the escape for this room. We both got in and he put his hand on the pad next to the wall.

In an alley at the top of the street, the elevator came up to a brick wall. Matt put his hand on the wall for the scanner and the wall opened out into the alley. As we stepped out into the alley the doors closed and behind the wall the elevator was returning to the Billiard room.

Walking to the street and turning right, I remembered the first time Matt and I used that exit. It was a night similar that we wanted to go out on the town and find women. The drinking was just part of it. We ended up in a cab being dropped off at a club. Matt paid the door guy $2000 to let us in and then paid an enormous amount to section off part of the club and have women paraded over to us by the bouncers. Each bouncer got a bottle of champagne and some kind of tip.

As we sat in the club talking to every girl that came over and drank with them, never letting a glass get empty, we didn't notice the men in the club getting agitated more and more by the second. The club had two levels but the first was open all the way up to the glass ceiling. The darkness of the club was offset by the lights dancing with the beat of the DJ spinning. It was enough to make me dizzy.

We drank champagne and enjoyed ourselves until a group of very large New York men came up to the table and started to complain. There was about seven of them and they were so drunk I could smell the alcohol from the couch I was sitting on. It was obvious they had worked themselves into a drunk rage and were ready to get into a fight.

Matt always had a way of being so involved with what he wanted when he wanted it that he didn't pay much attention to the things going on around him and with other people. That night was no exception and I didn't notice either. In the middle of the yelling coming from the designated leader of the group, Matt politely stopped him and apologized for taking up so much of the women's time. He stood up and helped four of the girls up that were sitting with us.

He looked at the girls and 'Vanna White' displayed them to the men with his hand, "Ladies, would you like to stay here with my friend and I drinking champagne for free and having polite intelligent conversation or would you like to leave us and go somewhere out there," he flailed his hand out toward the crowd, "where you can buy these men a beer and let them try to fondle you all night while burping in your ear and using there one syllable words? How about it ladies?" The women crowded around Matt and the ones that weren't standing were crowding around me on the couch. "Well, gentlemen, there you have it, brain over brawn!"

Then the leader made a huge mistake, he whipped out a gun on Matt. Matt had been taking Aikido and Kempo all his life. I tried not to blink because I knew what was coming next. Matt had the gun out of the guys hand with some kind of hand hold that eventually flipped him onto his back with a huge thud. Matt held the grip on the guy and his own gun to his head. Before the guys buddies could jump him, or I could even get up off the couch, the entire team of bouncers that Matt had been paying all night had jumped the entire group, about fifteen bouncers. Matt pulled the magazine then the slide and then the firing pin from the gun. It was in parts on our table. Carrying the guys out one at a time, the head bouncers stopped and gave Matt his card.

"Let me know if you ever want a job here." That wasn't the first time he received that offer.

We walked three blocks up and two blocks over until we found a bar to Matt's liking. It was a small semi-dive bar with six pool tables and about thirty people inside. Matt walked up to the bar right away and nudged me.

"Hey, look at the blonde and brunette down there." Halfway down the bar were two girls getting drinks. They were both about 21 or 22 and looking over at us talking to themselves with giggles in-between comments. They grabbed their drinks and headed for the pool tables.

"I know, I'll get a pitcher and you go get the pool table, right?" His plan was obvious from the moment he nudged me.

"You know me all too well." He was right. I knew him well enough to know he let his second head lead his way through life. He followed behind the girls at a safe distance.

The bartender walked up to me, "What can I get you?" He was a very large man. My first thought was he had been a linebacker and after failing to do anything with it had too many cheeseburgers and fries.

"I'll take a pitcher of Hefeweizen and better make it 4 glasses, just in case." He gave me a grin and shook his head. "Before this goes any further, do you know if they are here with anyone?"

"Yeah, those two guys that look like body builders in the tight black T-shirts," he was laughing a little when he said it.

"Just fucking great!" As he poured the pitcher I turned to see who they were. He didn't lie a single bit. Both of them looked like they were taking steroids and working out about 8 hours a day. On top of that, they were playing pool with something resembling Roid Rage.

I was staring when my right arm started to twitch and I could see a haze. "Not now," closing my eyes and a rush of images of Terrance and Stan flashed through my head at lightening fast speed. I saw both of them injecting each other with needles, right into their asses, in a locker room. Both were wearing some type of padding as they passed the lockers and picked up hockey sticks.

Then I saw a barrage of images in slow motion of them slamming people into the walls on an ice hockey rink and fist fights on the ice. Like hitting fast forward on a DVD player I moved to the taller one, Terrance, sitting in a room with an older woman hooked up to a bunch of machines. He was crying next to her as he sat in a chair by the bed she was in.

"Mom, don't go! Not yet!" he was yelling out.

Fast forward, I saw Stan getting hit over and over again by an older man. The man pulled his belt and started to hit him with the buckle end of it. He was crying out in pain for the man to stop.

"No son of mine is going to play anything but football. You hear me now you ungrateful shit!" the tall thin man's voice was raspy and deep. Stan was almost the size he was in the bar. Rage crossed his face and he wound back his fist and hit his father square in the bottom of the jaw coming up from the floor. The old man flew back into the old style console television, knocking the back of his head on the corner. Blood was flowing out everywhere as Stan was crying and picking him off the carpet.

"Dad? Dad?! No!" Stan scooped him up in his arms like a rag doll and ran out the front door yelling, "Help! Help me!"

I could hear a faint voice getting louder in the back of my head. "I said, is that all." I shook a bit and opened my eyes.

"Yes, sorry. How much for pool?" I asked trying to distract him from how I must have looked.

"$10 an hour and its $12 for the pitcher," he didn't seem to notice what happened. In the room, someone else did notice and had been watching me very closely since I'd walked in. Someone hiding and watching while taking notes of every little thing they saw.

Out of my pocket I threw up $100, "Give us another pitcher in 10 minutes and then however much for 2 hours of pool. The rest is yours."

His eyes opened wide, "Thanks!"

Sweat was rolling down my face as I carried the pitcher and glasses to the table. Matt was setting up the table and saying this and that to the girls in little whispers. He was flirting and women weren't the only thing he was flirting with. Trouble was standing next to our table.

The bar was pretty dark and had an odd feel to it at that moment. It wasn't the dank smell of dive bar or the hanging smoke from cigarettes. A vide in the room was making me feel off. Since I'd lived by my feelings for so long, I didn't like the way this was going.

Pouring out two glasses from the pitcher I grabbed a cue. Sitting on a tall bar chair that went with the high bar tables, I waited for Matt to break. He was flirting with the blonde girl and Stan was noticing. It would only be a matter of time and I knew it. This was heading to the inevitable outcome.

"I can see where this is going," I thought to myself and my right hand was twitching again. I sat on it to hide it from everyone and closed my eyes before my vision gave me problems. My head hung down so it looked like I was staring at the floor.

"Fuck you, you British piece of shit," Stan threw a punch at Matt and he ducked, but Terrance hit him with the pool cue right over his head. Spraying blood flew all over the blonde girl as Matt's head split open. Then Stan jumped on top of him swinging away with all the rage that was built up from the steroids and the pain of his father's death at his own hands. He cried and screamed as he pummeled Matt while he was on the ground. Rage was starting to fill me up watching Matt get pounded like that.

Voices were coming back to me, fading in slowly. Bantering going on in the background. I opened my eyes and heard Matt saying something sternly to someone else.

"Hey, just stop talking to her. We don't want any trouble either," Stan said in a pretty calm voice or at least calm compared to what I had seen and heard from him in my mind.

Not wanting it to get bad, I hopped off the chair and headed for the bar. In the room notes were being taken, very detailed notes.

Reaching in my pocket as I got to the bartender, I pulled out about $600 in cash and handed it to the bartender. "I'm sorry about this," my eyes twitched and rolled and rolled back as images of people's thoughts passed through my mind, "Bobbie. I'm sorry, Bobbie."

"How'd you know my name?" I was already on my way back to the tables and the scene that had already been started. At this point everyone in the bar was staring. Some more than others.

The closer I got the more my heart started to beat and it was separate beats. My left hand was shaking and my eyes twitched as I got closer. My eyes hazed over and fogged everything. Sounds faded into the background as I closed my eyes just enough to hear the words.

"Fuck you, you British piece of shit," just as Matt ducked I grabbed Terrance's forearm. A rage was pulsing through me and my heart was pounding enough I could feel it in my eyes as I opened them. Terrance looked at my face and a look of terrified horror came over him. It wasn't enough to make him just stop, though.

My fingers sunk into his skin, but there was no blood. Inside his arm I could feel bone and muscle tissue. I squeezed and Terrance screamed out in pain as his radius bone snapped in half. My eyes twitched and I could see Stan's fist flying at the back of my head.

Spinning around I grabbed his fist in mine. My jaw was clenched so tight with rage I could feel and hear my teeth cracking under the pressure. Letting Terrance fall to the floor I focused on Stan. Every emotion I had in my body was focused on Stan's fist in my hand. He looked up in pain and then terror splashed over his face when he looked into my eyes. He slowly kneeled down in agonizing pain as I could feel the bones in his hand bending under my fingers as they moved through his skin.

Then, out of nowhere, the sound of a shot gun being cocked bounced off the walls. My eyes twitched and rolled and then came back as I saw Robbie heading my way with a shotgun in his hands. Not taking the pressure any longer, Stan's bones broke and he screamed out in terrifying pain. As he did, I whirled around and grabbed Robbie's shotgun pointing it into the ceiling as he pulled the trigger.

He looked me dead in the eyes and fell backward on the floor leaving the shotgun in my hands. Scooting away, "No. Don't hurt me, please." I'd never seen anyone so frightened before. I pulled the pump off the gun and threw them in separate directions.

A hand was on my shoulder behind me. Grabbing it and turning I looked into Matt's eyes as he leapt backward onto the green felt of the pool table. His face that day forever haunts me. Matt looked at me as if he had seen Satan in the flesh that night.

My mind started to race in circles and I could hear a voice in the back of my mind calling out to me. "Michael, I need you. Come to me, Michael. Come to me." Hypnotically entrancing, I wanted to find the voice and be with it forever.

I put my hands on my head and started to shake it back and forth falling to my knees. "Get out of my head! Get out! NOOOO!" As I yelled all the windows, the mirror behind the bar, the glasses, and the bottles all exploded. Glass flew everywhere in the bar causing everyone to duck and hit the ground.

My eyes opened and I saw a pair of black tactical boots standing in glass as I fell backward onto the floor with a thud. Matt's voice was in the background, fading, "Bob, you better get over to..."