Masonic Horror

Marla Corvasce is sent by the President of the US on a covert mission to the town of Borgo, where a creature known as Hiram Abiff lives. Little does Marla know that she has been sent to confront a creature that is the most powerful and evil threat mankind has ever faced.

"What do you have for me, Jimmy?"

Jimmy cringed.

Wherever Traverse went, Marla Corvasce was sure to follow. And although Jimmy liked Marla a lot-any man would-he didn't like the idea of her standing behind him. It made him feel uncomfortable. No reason, really. They were both on the same side after all. It was just the little piece of rope with the knot in the middle she always carried around. He'd read what things like that were used for. Made him want to scrunch his head down tight on his shoulders so his throat was safe.

"Jimmy?"

"Sorry, Mr. Nations. I've got nothing. I thought the new program would make sense of the scrambled visual data feed, but it's pretty well useless. It's like the old man just disappeared. I had him right until he was a block away from the Masonic lodge, but as soon as he passed the stop sign, he was just... gone, like usual."

"Shit," said Traverse. "All this money on equipment, all these people, and still nothing."

"Want me to go after him?"

Marla's voice sounded like Marla looked. Lithe. Supple. Provocative.

Traverse flipped an empty Styrofoam coffee cup into a trash can. Took out his phone, looked at the caller ID, and then shoved it back into his pocket. He shook his head.

"No."

"I can take care of myself," she said.

The irritation in her voice caused Jimmy to hunker down over his keyboard.

"What? I'm not talking about you. Too much to lose-as in if we piss him off, it's all over. You're just not in his league."

Ignoring the cold look in Marla's eyes, Traverse stepped back to study the wide array of screens. He studied the feeds from the security cameras across town. Everything from military installed equipment to the ATMs and the optical fibers embedded in the TV's, bedroom walls and even data from the RFIDs in the townspeople's clothing. Too much data. Not enough data.

Borgo, Michigan, USA was a locked-down town.

Traverse felt the need to do something violent.

Most of the main screens were blank or useless. There was more government equipment tied up in his operation than they'd spent in Iraq. Iraq lasted only ten years. Operation Borgo had been going on for seventy years.

The new equipment failures started happening sporadically over the last six months. Something causing it, something they couldn't identify. It wasn't the old man; he didn't think. When he made something go dead, it died spectacularly. None of this fade-out and come back crap. But it bothered Traverse. Maybe it was because, in his experience, strange questions you couldn't answer in Borgo, Michigan, always had really terrible explanations.

"I wish the NSA could see this place," he told Jimmy.

"They still can't see anything, including us. They can't even find this place with their satellites."

"Yeah, I know. Shit. Forget I said it."

A tech called out from the other side of the room.

"All eyes are blind," she said.

"What?" asked Traverse.

"Every visual feed in town is dead. We are completely blind, sir."

"Sure you don't want me to go check on him?" asked Marla.

Traverse Nations thought about it. They were flying blind here. He couldn't afford to make a wrong move. Too much was at stake for too many years. But no, the old man had asked for Marla. Best not to f**k with the old man's new toy.