Founder, Installment 11

Chapters 21 and 22

Chapter 21

Walk to Work, November 2021

Nearly a week has passed since the black Peugeot followed Hugh—and more than two since Silvia moved out. Dory has texted twice to update him on the gun search. Three-hundred fifty euros cash, he announced, and Hugh will be the owner of a used Glock 19 with 50 rounds of ammunition thrown in for good measure. Dory even texted a photo of the gun, graphite gray with dings and scratches visible on the barrel and grips. Seeing the pistol almost convinced Hugh to back out of the deal because he couldn’t imagine owning something so lethal. But then he recalled the panic that had gripped him in the tobacco shop, and he texted Dory a thumbs up emoji. That was yesterday, and now, for reasons he cannot readily articulate, he’s grown more comfortable with the decision to arm himself. He can’t say if he’ll ever have the nerve to carry the weapon, much less use it. But just the idea of owning a firearm has him feeling a little safer, even, at times, audacious

Now, at just after ten on Monday morning, he is on the hunt for caffeine. Rush-hour in Gloven has largely passed; traffic is light on Stanfield Street, and only a few people are on the sidewalks. Outside Poule Rousse bakery, gray and blue pigeons strut among the roots of a plane tree as they search for bread crusts. As the city warms in the sun, the ionized air from last night’s rain gives way to the smell of dog urine, stale beer, and diesel exhaust. Hugh passes Poule Rousse, briefly eyeballing the chocolate croissants in the window, and goes to The Magic Bean next door. Once inside, he moves past the bulletin board with fliers thumb-tacked, shingle-like, on top of each other, and queues up at the counter. After a brief wait, a barista with jet-black hair and a nose ring greets him. She’s new at The Bean and he can’t remember her name.

“Morning,” says the woman. “Grande Americano, yeah?”

“Yeah, brilliant,” he replies, reaching for his mobile.

“I served you yesterday,” the woman announces with a smile. He can’t tell if she’s flirting or just trying hard; so he smiles and says he remembers her as well. She enters his order on her keypad, then turns the card-reader to face him. He activates his Apple Pay and holds his mobile against the reader.

After a moment, the screen reads, Transaction Declined.

The woman frowns at the card reader. “Try again?” she says. “This thing’s been actin’ up lately.”

Hugh tries a second time and, again, the transaction is declined. Now he feels his cheeks begin to burn. He wants to tell the barista that he got paid recently and has seven or eight hundred bone in his account, but he just stares helplessly at the card reader.

“I’m really sorry,” mutters the barista. “Do you have a card you can use? Or cash is fine…”

“Bollocks,” replies Hugh. “I don’t have my wallet…”

“No worries,” she says. “It’s on the house, yeah?”

She gives him a reassuring smile, then turns to prepare his coffee. A moment later, she hands him his cup.

“I’ll leave you an extra big tip tomorrow,” he promises.

Stepping back out onto the sidewalk, he scans the street for suspicious cars and, seeing none, heads back to his flat. Just a week earlier, he walked around Gloven like he owned the entire district, but now that confidence has all but vanished. He’s even taken to riding the metro more often because being underground makes him feel safer than on the sidewalk, which he realizes makes no sense whatsoever. None of it makes any sense. He’s a fit 27 year-old fellow, not lacking in courage, who can look out for himself just fine. But he can’t shake this new sense of menace that follows him like a shadow at sunset. Looking back, there had been no overt threat of violence when the car followed him, and that’s what made the experience so unnerving: the infinite range of possibilities, from a simple misunderstanding to, in his most paranoid fantasies, a hitman with an AK-47 in his lap. In the days after he was followed, he tried to convince himself there was no connection between the car and Propago, that the Peugeot’s repeated appearances had been an odd coincidence. Gloven is one of Bressen’s smaller districts, after all, and he sometimes sees the same people several times a day. Maybe, he told himself, the Peugeot driver was running errands that afternoon, to the dry cleaner, grocery store, chemist. Maybe the Vorhol registration plate meant nothing, and the silvered windscreen was just some car owner’s idea of stylish.

But that narrative never held water.

Now, as he reconciles himself to the reality of being watched, his outlook has grown dark to the point of paranoia. At work the other night, he caught himself scanning the bar for dodgy-looking characters who might be watching him. Later, on his metro ride home, he convinced himself a man in a green tracksuit was following him, so he hopped off the train just as the doors closed at Renwick Street station—two stops early. Then, with his pulse pounding and his eye clenching, he sprinted up the escalator, through the turnstile, and out onto the sidewalk. Then he walked the rest of the way home. The next morning, feeling sheepish about his Ethan Hunt-style escape from the train, he assessed the situation more calmly and decided he simply noticed the man in the track suit more than other people, and that he hadn’t been followed at all. The experience did, however, remind him that bad guys can take the train just as easily as drive a black Peugeot, which only added to his worries.

Nothing about his life is the same as a week ago, and now he’s running out of CBD tincture, which is enough to bring on a panic attack by itself. The Magic Bean barista must have seen the scared-animal look in his eyes and figured it wasn’t worth having a customer melt down on her shift.

When he arrives back at the flat, he settles on the couch to drink his coffee and regain his equanimity. He leans back, sets his feet on the coffee table, and sips from his coffee. All of Silvia’s furniture is still here. When he asked if she planned to remove it, she said Keep it for now, as if there might be something to anticipate after now. At some point when he was at work, she came by and took many of her personal items: the cluster of amethyst crystals she kept on her bedside table, the Chinoiserie jewelry box her mother gave her, and the photographs she’d hung in the hall. She left her favorite blanket for some reason—maybe because orange doesn’t go with Tommy’s decor. The blanket sits where she always kept it, folded and draped over the arm of the sofa. Stripped of its feminine touches, the flat now looks sparse and unwelcoming.

After a few more sips of his coffee, he picks up his mobile to check his bank balance.

€843.21—as he expected. Which means ApplePay wasn’t working at the Magic Bean, or their wifi was acting up. Good. Reminding himself to take his wallet when he heads out again, he settles in to read the news.

Later that same day, after showering and dressing for work, he slings on his backpack and heads outside for his commute to work. On the stoop, he lights a cigarette, slips on his earphones, and begins walking. The sky is a drab gray now, the sun a thin, white wafer behind the cloud cover. At the western horizon, Tertahar Hill looms above the city like a ruined castle, and on its eastern-facing slopes the first shadow of dusk has settled When he arrives at Mission Gate station ten minutes later, he goes to the turnstile and swipes his metrocard, but the paddle doors don’t open. Irritated, he backs up and checks the card reader.

Add Travel Funds.

Muttering under his breath, he goes to a ticket machine and queues up. After the woman before him completes her transaction, he dips his metro card, then his debit card, and requests a 20-euro increase to his balance.

A second later, the display flashes, Insufficient Funds.

“Ah, come on,” he yells at the machine, then removes his earphones and shoves them in his pocket.

He tries the transaction again, and again his card is rejected. Now he tries his Visa credit card but, after a brief, tantalizing delay, the display reads, Transaction Declined.

“Bugger this thing…” he yells, striking the machine with the ball of his hand.

A man behind him in the queue calls out, “You ‘bout done beatin’ up the machine, jim?”

Hugh shoots the man a surly look, then steps out of the queue and leaves the station. Out on the sidewalk once again, he orders an Uber; seconds later the app requests an alternate form of payment.

Buggerty fuck truck.

All out of options, he resigns himself to walking—which means he’ll be late, and his manager will dress him down yet again. It will take him at least 45 minutes to walk from Gloven through Mistauth and Old Town to Bruka; all that distance visible on the sidewalks. Thinking over his route, he decides to avoid the more crowded thoroughfares, going south through Mistauth until he reaches the river. From there he will follow the right bank, skirting Old Town to the north, until he reaches the Bressen Bridge, then cross into Bruka. Now walking briskly, he texts his manager to explain the situation. Next, he rings his bank to check on his debit card. After several prompts, he reaches a woman on the account security team. Upon hearing his story, the woman asks him to hold, then returns after a few minutes. “There appears to be an administrative hold on your account,” she informs him.

“Administrative hold?” he asks. “What’s that?”

“They’re account freezes, usually related to a law enforcement action or a tax lien.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he exclaims.

“Have you been notified about anything like that?”

“Absolutely not. Nothing. And I use this card for everything.”

The woman asks him to hold again while she speaks with her supervisor. A click. Muzak. “Good news,” she says when she returns. “My supervisor approved a partial override while we look into the hold. It’ll just take her an hour or so to process. After that, you’ll have access to your funds, but the size of any transactions will be limited—no deposits or withdrawals over 500 euros. We’ll let you know what we learn.”

“So I’m not on a terrorist watch list or something?”

“Not that I can see,” she laughs.

By the time Hugh hangs up with the bank, he has crossed into the northern precincts of Mistauth where the elegant limestone townhouses date back to the 18th and 19th centuries; everything here is cleaner and better maintained than in Gloven—no vape shops or convenience stores, no stinking water in the gutters. Even the trees look healthier. At the corner of Milton Avenue and De Gaulle Place Hugh pauses on the curb to ring his Visa card issuer. The agent, this time a man, tells him there’s an administrative hold on this card as well.

“I don’t get this,” complains Hugh. “They can just freeze my payment cards and not explain why?”

“They don’t have to tell us anything,” explains the agent. “They don’t even have to say who flagged the account. But I can tell you it’s usually the Sikstand or Revenue and Customs, and they don’t care if they mess up your life, you know?”

“So what do I do?” asks Hugh, on the move again and slightly out of breath. “I mean, I’m having to walk to work because I couldn’t buy a bloody metro ticket…”

The man tells him he’ll add a notation for the security team to reach out in the next 48 hours, but that’s the best he can do.

At this point, Hugh can see the stone embankment of the Bressen River two blocks to the south, which means he’s still 20 minutes from work. He can save a minute or two by crossing the river at the Vastan Bridge and following the left bank to Bruka. The right bank is much nicer, though, especially near Old Town, and he’s already certain to be late, so he makes for the Bressen Bridge, planning to cross into Bruka there. With nothing left to do but walk, he lights another Gauloises, slips his hands into his coat pockets, and heads for the river.

Book V, Chapter 22

Ubie, November, 2021

Train rides can be strangely soothing, the way the thrum of steel on steel gently jostles the nervous system. That’s a good thing, because Hugh’s nervous system can use some jostling today, after yesterday’s problem with his bank cards. Then, after work last night, he tried to buy a six-pack, and the old lady at the Korean grocery rejected his state-issued ID. She said her computer showed it as invalid. After all that drama, he didn’t sleep well and woke up feeling out of sorts. In fact, he hasn’t slept a full night since Silvia moved out.

Now he’s on his way to West Gursey, where he almost never goes. But Cosa opened a pop-up store there, and he’s been wanting to buy one of their limited edition graphic tees. So after tending to some chores around the flat, he caught the 7 train around half-past noon.

Before he left, he placed a call to the Registration Bureau, which straightened out his ID problem; and his debit card seems to be working again. But his credit card is still frozen, and now he’s braced for some other complication to appear out of the blue. When he told Dory about his bank card trouble, his friend announced, “Oh they’re definitely fucking with you now.” Then, apparently not appreciating how fragile Hugh’s nerves have become, Dory added that Brucie thinks Propago intimidation tactics will escalate until Hugh backs away from his claim.

“Escalate how?” asked Hugh.

“How do you think?” replied Dory, which nearly set off another panic attack.

When, after fifteen minutes, the train pulls into University West Station, Hugh exits the car and makes his way through the turnstiles and up the escalator to the sidewalks. He’s never much cared for this part of the city. The University of Bressen occupies nearly the entire western half of the Gursey district—a sort of city within a city—and has never felt particularly welcoming. Now, as he heads down Abbot Street, a four-block stretch of bistros and coffee shops along the campus’s western edge, he finds himself in a sea of university blue—university placards, signs in the store windows, t-shirts and sweatshirts on the swarms of coeds. Overhead, light-blue banners on the street lights announce the university’s 900th anniversary.

Farther down Abbot Street, he comes to the intersection with High Street, where, just a block to the east, he can see the steep, gray roof of Erdish Hall. He used to pass Erdish Hall with his mum sometimes, on their way to her office on the main quad. In the fall, the quad’s walkways were always littered with chestnuts from the enormous trees. All the buildings there had the names of great thinkers inscribed on their entablatures like a news crawler—Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero.

Back then, Hugh was awe-struck by the campus; now the place just makes him sad.

After walking a few minutes, he checks the directions in Google Maps. He’s only 60 meters away, apparently, so he continues south until the blue dot shows he’s arrived at his destination. There is no Cosa pop-up in sight, though, just an empty storefront with a “Coming Soon” sign for an Adidas store. He looks up and down the street to see if he missed something. The vacant space sits between a shop selling antique botanical prints, and a vegan cafe overgrown with wisteria; nothing to the north or south looks like a Cosa store. He is about to go inside the cafe to ask for directions when a woman calls out to him from behind.

“What’re you doing in Ubie?”

He turns to see Silvia standing a few meters away, squinting in the sunlight. He is not unhappy to run into her, though he is disconcerted and unprepared. The way she is squinting suggests a bemused smile, though he doubts she’s happy to find him here. She’s wearing the tan cardigan he gave her for her birthday last year, with jeans and her favorite Birkenstocks. Her hips are cocked under the weight of a backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Oh, hey,” he says guardedly. “I was just looking for a Cosa pop-up store. It’s supposed to be right here.”

Silvia points at the empty store-front. “It’s gone. They closed a few days ago.”

“Shit,” he mumbles. “Google says it’s still here.”

She shades her eyes from the sun. The ambiguous smile is gone, but she does not appear cross. “How are you?” she asks.

“Alright. You?”

“Busy,” she says, “but fine.” She looks him over, then asks, “I’ve got a little time before my next class. Want to get a coffee?”

“You sure?” he asks.

“It’s fine,” she says. “How much can we argue in 15 minutes?”

With her hand on his arm, Silvia guides Hugh across Abbot Street to a bistro with half a dozen tables outside. They take an open table by the sidewalk and, when the server appears, order espressos. As the server goes back inside, Silvia removes her mobile from her backpack, glances at it, then places the device on the table. Hugh watches her hands as they move, the blue fingernails, chipping in places, the gold rings on her thumbs. He sees the tattoo inside her right wrist, of a red cap flanked by two daggers. She told him once the tattoo symbolizes freedom from tyranny, though it struck him as an unusual choice for a pacifist. He can feel her sizing him up from across the table, but he looks away; sometimes her gaze makes him fumble for words—those green eyes flecked with gold, so intense and unblinking.

After the server has gone, Silvia leans forward and repeats her earlier question, now more emphatically. “How are you?”

Hugh looks down at his silverware.

“Fine,” he replies. “How’s school?”

“Hold on,” she laughs. “What’s up with Tullia and Maggie and the genealogy thing?”

“That’s a lot of ground to cover.”

Silvia leans back from the table and crosses her arms, awaiting his response.

Now he begins fussing with his silverware, nudging his spoon to lie parallel with his knife. “It’s pretty fucked up, actually.”

“What happened?”

As Hugh is preparing to respond, the server brings their espressos and places them on the table. Silvia stirs sugar into her cup and takes a sip, then stares at him expectantly.

Hugh drinks from his espresso, debating how much to tell her. Then, prompted by a sudden and unexpected desire to unburden himself, tells her everything—about the call from Eason Rint, being followed by the black Peugeot, his cards being frozen. She listens raptly.

“Dory showed me a B-Opp post that says Propago’s like a private security force for yazzers,” he tells her, then nudges his knife a centimeter to the right.

Silvia’s expression turns grave. “Oh my god, Hugh. Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

He slumps back in his chair and laughs sullenly. “You didn’t seem so eager to talk.”

This silences her for a time. “I realize I’m not really entitled to an opinion,” she says eventually, “but it doesn’t seem like you should be going through this claim alone. These sound like bad people, Hugh.”

“Dory thinks I should take this to the Arons Institute and maybe get their help.”

Silvia finishes her espresso and places the cup on its saucer. “You could do that if you knew for sure who’s bothering you—and if there’s grounds for a civil case. But you’re just speculating at this point. Plus Arons goes for cases with the potential for a class-action suit or a lot of media attention.” She turns her espresso cup slowly in its saucer. “What about going to the Sikstand and, like, filing a complaint against Propago?”

Hugh laughs. “Not a chance.”

Just as Silvia is about to speak, the college belltower tolls the Westminster Quarters, followed by two resounding bronze clangs. Silvia checks the time on her mobile. “Shoot. I have to get to class. Can we keep talking about this? Can I ring you tonight?”

“I’m working tonight,” he says. “But try me tomorrow if you want.”

When she reaches for her wallet, he tells her he’ll pay for the coffees.

Now she thanks him and rises, her hands lingering on the back of her chair. “Maybe we can talk about our argument, too?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “Of course.”

“Good,” she says, then shoulders her backpack, and walks away.

Hugh watches her go down the sidewalk and disappear around a corner. He wonders if she has a point, that he should go to the Sikstand and hope for the best—but then thinks of his parents and Delia, and decides he’s better off staying away. Besides, anyone with the ability to mess with his ID must have some kind of connection with the government—assuming it isn’t the government itself causing all this trouble.

In no hurry to leave, he finishes his espresso, pays the server, and sets out for the metro station empty-handed.