Chapter 40

He could hear the bell. It rang softly from the next room as it had twenty times before. However, this dinner had gone on much longer than he had ever anticipated and Arnold Cavenstein felt little motivation left inside. His limbs began to move out of habit; directing him towards the stove to retrieve the final course for his guests.
Each course had lasted two hours bringing the affair to a staggering forty hour siege. He had managed to sleep one half-hour at a time between courses, but became troubled in his rest by the distinct possibility that the bell would ring and that he would miss his window to introduce the next meal. His guests were not entirely forgiving and Mr. Cavenstein envisioned their castigation for such an oversight would be swift and horrifyingly permanent.
He stood, rather haggard and wobbly, over the stove preparing the petit four that had been keeping warm inside the lightly heated oven. As he moved the small cakes into an aesthetically pleasing pattern his mind wandered to the events of the evening. For the past several hours his guests had become very quiet, keeping their conversational volume to a whisper tone and spending most of their time in silence. The only aspect remotely reassuring to Arnold Cavenstein was that it seemed the events of the evening had been as taxing on his guests as they were on him. They were becoming restless. It was as if they were waiting for something, a phone call or a telegram, but nothing had come. Nothing had come.
Mr. Cavenstein, as he had done so many times in the past two days, checked himself in the mirror before making his entrance. Finally, ready to serve, he opened the door, armed with the vast array of miniature deserts. His guests occupied their very familiar positions in front of empty plates. As he gathered their dirty receptacles they broke their collective silence.
“Well,” began Roland, “it seems that Jehovah is finding his match with our escapee.”
“You should have let me after him in the first place,” whispered Simon with his head bowed towards the table.
Roland turned his head sharply and glared at the giant hunched over the small table.
“With how you handled the last delicate job you were assigned you should be thankful that you’re even sitting at this table.”
Simon kicked the chair out from under him and stood up swiftly, towering only inches from the ceiling. He turned towards Roland, raising his arm to strike.
“Simon, please,” hissed the lone woman at the end of the table, “your theatrics might be entertaining to the company you keep outside these walls, but in here it’s ultimately pointless. You know as well as the rest of us the consequences of engaging a fellow Party member. Your death would benefit no one.”
Simon took a step to the side and regained his composure, sliding his meaty hands through his hair. After a moment he replaced the chair he had kicked out to its original position and resumed his place at the table, falling into the seat with a heavier than normal pressure. As he continued to adjust himself Ms. J produced a small compact from her purse and began to check her complexion in its faint reflection. She lightly powdered her nose and placed the compact neatly back into her petite bag.
“Now, as Roland was proposing, we may need to contact an alternate source in locating our man. Jehovah is reliable, but he may be working on a larger timetable than was recommended. I believe we should consider notifying the authorities in the immediate area, warning them of a significant threat on the loose. With the proper description we could have this issue tackled within a matter of hours.”
“That is hasty decision-making,” wheezed the old man, “The release to the general public will threaten the isolation of information. The dreamer has undoubtedly infected enough citizens already. His capture by civilian authorities could result in much larger implications than you realize.”
“Yes,” answered Ms. J, “but our legs are being cut out from under us. As you say, he is infecting more people with every passing hour and he isn’t even aware of his condition. Imagine if he finds out.”

*~~*

Thirty years earlier…

A man and woman sit in a dim and crowded restaurant. They are surrounded by dining parties of a considerably higher social standing, complete with top hats and evening gowns. The nearby tables are boisterous and carefree, spectacles of excessive wealth and privilege.
The man and woman stand out in the restaurant not by appearance, but by their cold and silent demeanor. They pick at their food sparingly and only rarely glance at one another, quickly turning their attention back to the table top. They are a sore thumb, a burning building in a neighborhood of fine townhouses.
“So, when are you leaving to play house?” asks the woman sharply.
The man looks up from his plate, places his silverware on the plate, and reclines against the back of his chair.
“You know I don’t know,” responds the man begrudgingly. “I don’t understand why you’re acting as if this was never going to happen. I always told you that if I was called I would have to leave. You used to say that it added ‘spice’ to our exotic lifestyle.”
“I used to say a lot of things that weren’t true,” spits the woman as she pulls out her compact, “and you always spoke of this ‘call’ as some kind of long shot. As if it would never happen.”
“It is happening, Victoria. I can’t stop it and I can’t avoid it.”
The two sit silently again. The woman powders her nose and replaces the compact in her purse. The man sips at his wine as he stares curiously at his dining partner. Laughter erupts from the surrounding tables, highlighting the heightened tension.
“You know,” he says, suddenly standing up from the table, “I’ve explained this too many times already. I’m not sure why I expected you to respond any differently tonight. I’m not waiting until tomorrow. I’m leaving now.”
The man takes his suit jacket from the back of the chair and slings it over his arm.
“Don’t worry about my things. I’ve already packed what I need.”
The man takes a silver ring off his fourth finger and places it next to the plate in front of the woman.
“I hope someday you’ll understand.”
As the man turns to leave the woman puts her hand over the ring left on the plate.
“Brisby,” says the woman, her voice shaking, “at least tell me why."
The woman doesn't mover her focus from the plate on the table, her hand covering the catalyst.
“What mission is so pressing, so urgent, that it need break up a marriage?”
The man turns his face just slightly towards the woman, his features masked by the shadows of the room.
“Do you remember the stories I told you about my childhood? How I would shake and shiver in my sleep? The doctors said it was a stress reaction. A symptom of a larger problem. I never told anyone this, but I saw things then. Visions of other worlds, images of fantastic places in that sleep. They put me on medication and the visions went away, the shaking stopped. I’ve never been sure, even to this day, if I really wanted them to stop. Now they’ve found another case of this shaking and they want to take care of him, to teach him. They want a pure case intact, no medication, just in case. In the event that it might be useful. I have so many questions and this may very well be the only chance I ever get to have any answers. They took something from me and I’m going there to get it back.”
The woman turns herself in the chair to face the man covered in shadows.
“Brisby, just…”
“I’m sorry,” interrupts the man as he turns away, “but I have to do this.”
The man leaves the woman alone in the crowded restaurant. She takes the silver ring left by the man and slides it on her fourth finger. A single tear slides down her face as she sits staring at the silver band, now a mixed symbol of unity and heartbreak.

*~~*

“Yes, we must think of the overall containment,” said Roland, taking a small sip of the wine in front of him. “Notifying all the authorities is a bit risky, but as long as they think he is a common criminal there is less of a threat in there being a leak.”
Arnold Cavenstein had finished putting the deserts in front of his guests and, after topping off each of their glasses with his finest wine, turned back towards the kitchen. Upon reaching the door he half-expected to be stopped by his guests for another request, but, being fully enamored with their fresh assortment of cakes, they were silent again. He pushed through the door into the tiny kitchen and promptly started a fifteen minute timer. He would surely be out to see them again, but not before a moments rest.