The Ferryman Institute (45 page)

Cartwright looked around the table. “With that in mind, I suggest he be allowed to transfer out of the Institute.”

There was a collective surprise from the other members of the Council, but most quickly moved on to disagreement. Charon
eventually summed up the feelings succinctly: “I'm sorry, but that's unacceptable. There has to be an alternative.”

Cartwright was about to speak when an off-screen voice interrupted. “I may be able to help with that.”

All the heads at the table looked in the direction of the female voice, which was clearly coming from an off-screen source.

“Madam President. How nice of you to join us,” Charon said. “I was beginning to worry.”

“Duty called,” replied the president. “Now, about that plan. I have an idea I'd like to present to you. While I understand that transferring him out seems ludicrous now, what if we had a way to first test Virgil's hypothesis . . .”

CHARLIE LOOKED UP
from the video in such shock that he didn't even realize it had ended. “Wait,” he said, his brain reworking through the conclusion it'd just drawn. “I know that voice.” He was staring at Cartwright, who, for the first time since they'd sat down, returned the favor. Though he seemed extraordinarily tired, a small grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. Charlie barely even noticed. His brain was already taxed trying to comprehend his situation—the Council, Charon, the questions, this video—but now . . .

Tapping heels announced themselves on the hard floor of the Council's chambers. It was a march Charlie had heard countless times before. Yet it was the voice that gave it away, well and truly.

Charlie turned slowly, almost carefully, to see the approaching form of Melissa Johnson.

She smiled. “Hi, Charlie.”

F
rom over his shoulder, Charlie could hear Cartwright chuckling softly. “Your timing, Madam President, is, unsurprisingly, perfect.”

She inclined her head briefly in his direction. “I see everyone's here, including our guest of honor.” She stopped several feet in front of Charlie, folding her hands together. If there was anything different about the Melissa standing in front of him from the one he'd worked with for several years, it wasn't obviously apparent. Her outfit—skirt, blouse, heels—matched her usual attire, while the bag she had slung over her shoulder was one Charlie had seen before.

Charon spoke up then, and even without looking, Charlie could very much tell he found a nugget of humor in the reveal. “Charlie, please allow me to introduce you to the president of the Ferryman Institute.”

Charlie let out a quick, unceremonious laugh. “We're acquainted,” he said flatly. Melissa kept silent, though he thought there was a hint of apology in her eyes.

Charlie looked at her, his eyes inspecting her from head to toe, searching for something unique about this woman relative
to the one he'd gotten to know over the past several years. Try as he might, he continued to arrive at the same conclusion: the president of the Institute was his team manager. The same team manager he'd fought with, laughed with, dropped his towel in front of—

Wonderful
, he thought.
The president of the Institute has seen my penis.
This was getting better by the second.

“Before I say anything else, I just want to say, please, Charlie—don't take this personally,” she said before continuing her walk over. As she approached, a young woman entered from a different door—apparently there were hidden ones all over the room—than Cartwright and Charlie had. She was carrying an extra chair, which she placed next to Charon. Melissa whispered something to her that Charlie didn't catch, to which the girl dutifully nodded and walked out. Melissa took the new seat.

Charlie looked across at her. “I'm sorry if this is a somewhat tacky question to ask the president of this Institute in front of the legendary Ferryman Council,” he began, “but what in the holy hell is going on here?”

Melissa pulled out a folder from her bag and opened it on the table. “I figured you might have some questions,” she said. The young woman returned with a glass of water and placed it on the table in front of the president. Melissa quietly thanked her and took a long drink before setting it back down.

“If by
some
you mean several hundred, then yes, I have some questions,” Charlie replied.

“I'm glad to see your recent adventures haven't put much of a dent in your sense of humor,” Melissa said. “All right, fire away.”

The truth of it was that Charlie didn't even know where to start. So, he went with the first question that popped into his head: “I thought you were my manager?”

“I was and still am, in fact. I've been serving in both capacities for several years.”

“Is that even possible?” Charlie asked.

“Sometimes it pays to be a good multitasker. I know it seems slightly disingenuous now, but I promise you that I have acted in my full ability as your manager. The résumé that I gave you when I applied to the position was completely accurate, aside from leaving
President
off of it, obviously. If I'm perfectly honest, yes, there were times you drove me crazy, but I was and am proud to manage our team. Cross my heart.”

Charlie sat back in his chair. “But why? You're the president. Why take the position as my manager?”

Melissa paused for a moment, lips pursed. Then she said, “Because of you, actually. Virgil was becoming increasingly concerned about your change in behavior. He was able to keep tabs on you outside of the Institute, but he had no way of seeing how you were behaving during assignments. After listening to that for a year, I decided to do something about it. Management of all Ferrymen falls under the jurisdiction of the president, so it's not like it was a totally outrageous thing to do.”

“Just mostly outrageous,” Michael chimed in.

The remark earned a shrug from Melissa. “You'd become something of a legend in your own right. I'd interviewed a few of your former managers and they all hit on the same thing: great guy, amazing Ferryman, but distant and kind of worrying to be around. So, I decided to see for myself what you were really like. Besides, it was my first big act as president. I mean, I've only been at this a year longer than I've been your manager, so there you go.”

Charlie wasn't really sure he was processing any of what was being said. It was more like he was just storing the information in his brain so he could go through it another time when his cognitive
functionality wasn't doing the mental equivalent of weeping in the corner.

“And the Presidential Assignment I was given . . . ?” he asked.

“Yes, it was actually a Presidential Assignment,” she said. “The story I told surrounding it was a bit made-up, though I do have somebody working for me named Gabriel. The assignment was actually the culmination of the video you were just watching.”

“Allow me to cut in here.” Without missing a beat, Charon was speaking. “Though President Johnson wasn't able to provide any substantial evidence to corroborate Virgil's conjectures about you, she did feel strongly enough about it from a circumstantial standpoint to support his hypothesis that we were losing you. Other members of this Council, however, weren't as readily accepting of that conclusion. I won't mince words with you, Charlie—your importance to this organization can't be understated. You've seen the video. You're a hot topic around this table. That being the case, it would have been . . . imprudent, on our part, to squander such an asset if we didn't need to. We needed to be sure about you.”

Melissa took over the conversation again. “So, we proposed a litmus test, of sorts, to see how you would react in a situation that called for an instinctive response.”

The words from the letter resurfaced, and for a brief moment, it was like Charlie was standing in Alice's room all over again. “In other words,
Be a Ferryman or save the girl
,” he said.

“That's exactly right,” Melissa replied.

“But why that choice?” Charlie asked.

“That was my doing.” Cartwright still looked drawn and more than a little haggard, but there was a familiar twinkle in his eye. “We created an artificially short time frame so as to force you into a reaction, and we opted for a very polarizing choice. You'd been
perfect as a Ferryman for two hundred and fifty years, Charles. Why would you throw that away? If all you cared about was the job and nothing more, the logical answer that followed was you wouldn't. That's what I wanted to demonstrate—that you weren't just some automaton programmed to successfully complete Ferryman cases. You had other thoughts, other goals you wanted to achieve, other dreams that you would pursue even in the face of harrowing consequences. And I was convinced all you needed was a choice.”

That moment in Alice's room washed back over Charlie, and his mind relived the decision he'd made. The next question then was easy enough. “If that assignment was all part of your plan, why send Javrouche after me?”

Melissa flipped through the papers sitting in front of her, shaking her head. “We didn't,” she said. “You were meant to make your choice and then report back here, where we would have this very same meeting. Even though he had never gone so far as to formally charge you in the past, Javrouche had been warned on numerous occasions to cease and desist all actions against you. He didn't, obviously, and eventually invoked a PCO without informing anyone. It was his way of skirting what he believed to be an unfair bureaucracy protecting you. I had the authorization to stop it, but if you remember, I was, uh, incapacitated, let's say, by one of those godforsaken capture rifles before I had the chance.” She involuntarily shuddered at the thought. “Ugh. That was painful. Anyway, the Council is unfortunately not allowed to directly interfere with the Institute per the bylaws outlined in our original charter. Only the president can affect the day-to-day operations of the Institute. Gives the system a nice set of checks and balances. With me incapacitated, they were helpless to do anything. They are a secret, after all. After that, Dirkley and I were taken in to be
interrogated, at which point it was pretty much impossible for me to do anything. By the time Virgil's second-in-command, Mr. Begemot Koroviev, was able to get us free, even a presidential order wasn't enough to get Javrouche to stand down.”

“Wait,” Charlie said. “Koroviev is Javrouche's second-in-command, not Virgil's.” He blinked. “Please tell me Koroviev is Javrouche's second-in-command.”

“He is,” Melissa said. “He's both, actually. Are you familiar with the term
double agent
?”

Charlie cradled his head in his hands. “Jesus, Mary, and . . . Can you guys stop screwing with my head for like two seconds?” He lifted his head up and inhaled. “So Koroviev is a double agent. That is . . . You know, I don't even know what to think about that right now. Let's move on. If you knew Javrouche was trying to come after me,” Charlie asked, “why keep him as the head of Ferryman Affairs? Judicator Dales seemed to think I was under your care, or something like that.”

This time, Michael leaned forward and addressed him. “Simple: Javrouche was remarkably effective in his position, something I'm sure you can relate to, Mr. Dawson. As your manager mentioned, until now, he hadn't formally come after you, merely pushed back. He was warned off of you, and we believed him to be a professional enough individual to continue respecting that. We were aware you two had history, but up until this recent madness, we had little reason to believe he'd act so recklessly.”

“By the time we got word from Koroviev that Javrouche was issuing a PCO,” Melissa added, “he'd already confronted you and incapacitated me. Whether he intended it or not, his timing was perfect.”

Charlie briefly wondered what would have happened if Dirkley hadn't pushed him through Alice's door. How differently
would this all have played out? Would this have been sorted out sooner with less drama? Would Javrouche have made good on his promise to end Alice's life? The near misses and secret machinations made his head hurt.

He scratched the back of his head. “I have to admit . . . there's one thing I particularly don't understand.” His eyes swept the table, noting that everyone was staring back at him. “Why all the secrecy? I just don't see the upside of keeping yourselves hidden.” And truthfully, he didn't. If he hadn't been feeling quite so overwhelmed at the moment, Charlie suspected he'd be more than a little aggrieved by the Council's clandestine agenda.

“Ah, yes. I had a feeling we'd come to this one,” Charon said slowly. “Let me ask you something, Charlie. If you were average Joe Ferryman, would you rather believe that the Ferryman Institute ran itself by some naturally occurring magic, or that a group of eight men and women, along with the president, controlled it and by extension the fate of humanity?”