Perpetual Motion (29 page)

If he had the chance, he would tell Desmond
that, even if he had inadvertently alerted the government to the
invention, he hadn’t been responsible for unleashing Black Starr on
his friends. While, in a weak moment, he had been disloyal to
Michael, he had probably ended up doing more good than harm by
getting the Feds involved.

It surprised him how often he thought of
Michael and Karen, and found himself worrying for their safety like
a mother hen. While he would have loved to have known what they
were up to, more than anything, he wanted to tell them that Mancuso
was the real enemy and warn them to stay away. But, like Desmond,
they had vanished so completely; it was almost as if they had never
existed.

And then, one night, while he was going
through emails, his finger paused over the delete button. The
message in his inbox rang a bell from the not too distant past; it
was from someone named “Pascal.” Recalling Michael’s code name for
himself at the Mirage, he quickly clicked on the message.

There was no text or photos; only a link to
an audio file…Having gone this far, he hit ‘play’ and waited as a
short clip downloaded onto his computer. A moment later, an old,
familiar song came on, picking up somewhere in the middle:

“I left a good job in the city
Working for the man every night and day
And I never lost one minute of sleeping
Worrying 'bout the way things might have been
Big wheel keep on turning
Proud Mary keep on burning
And we're rolling, rolling
Rolling on the river”

As the song faded out on Ike and Tina, he
re-played it, again and again. Cynical continued listening to the
snippet until a smile creased his face.

The interpretation of the cryptic message
that came to him was that Michael and Karen had left “the man” or
Mancuso. Hopefully, they knew how dangerous he was; at the very
least, they were moving on… The wheel was still turning and “MARI”
was still burning. And they might, or might not, be living near a
river.

Excited by the prospect of re-establishing
communication, he immediately replied. Not too surprisingly, his
email bounced back with a permanent failure message.

Even if it was just a one-way communiqué, he
was grateful for it none-the-less. It told him what he needed to
know; his young friends were alive, and so was their idea.

He felt sure Michael was working on the next
generation of MARI. If he knew where to find him, he would send him
the rest of the money he’d made from Mancuso. Maybe it would buy a
few magnets. But Michael was resourceful. He would find a way to
reinvent his wheel – and when he did, he wouldn’t try to sell it.
This time, he would put it out on the internet for the world to
see.

Perhaps the internet was the river… the river
of information. It was the one place where even tyrants couldn’t
stop the flow of 1s and Os. Once an idea was alive and moving, it
would be impossible to slow it down. And, if an idea was good
enough, it would keep building momentum, spreading out and
encircling the original perpetual motion machine, planet Earth.

Cynical hoped to be around to see that day… a
brighter day for the planet and everyone who called it home.

The End

I hope you enjoyed reading Perpetual Motion.
If you liked the story, feel free to tell others. A review wherever
you found the book is always appreciated too. You can contact me
through the book’s website,
www.perpetualmotionbook.com
or
Facebook
.

All characters, names, and dialogue contained
in this novel are purely products of my imagination. If there is
any resemble to actual people of institutions, it is entirely
coincidental. While this is a work of fiction, there is no telling
what the future holds.

Perhaps, someday…