Bedtime Stories For The Awakened
E Wolf
Nick Barnes strode into the QR bar like he owned the place. His navy blue suit, crisp white dress shirt, and Rolex watch added to the effect. As usual: heads turned. Some of them noticed the BMW M8 that he'd driven in and parked in a conspicuous place out front.
It was Friday night, the start of an early summer weekend and Nick had come right from the office because someone had recommended this place.
Without a recommendation of someone at Brixton LLC, where he worked, he'd never have stopped. It's location was off a poverty stricken area with a soup kitchen a block over, and an allnight diner that share the same parking lot. He pulled up to a brick strip mall, whose storefronts were repurposed. The two on the end belonged to the QR bar.
Nick took a seat at the bar, beside someone who was clearly struggling to get by. The man wore an old denim jacket, a faded t-shirt, and he had a smudge of grease on his forehead. Before Nick even knew his name, he learned that the poor guy was struggling so much that he wasn't even able to afford a "reinstatement of his suspension," which is why he claimed that tonight was his "last chance."
Not certain if he heard the poor guy right, Nick quickly got deep into a discussion with him about money and success. Then he took a sip of his bourbon, swirling it around in his glass.
"What if," Nick mused, "you were rich, my friend? Imagine that."
"Are you serious?" the poor guy asked, with a forced grin.
"Sure. Could you tell me what kind of car you'd drive if you were rich?"
The man smirked. "I'd probably drive a BMW M8 for work during the week and a Hummer on the weekends."
"Those are what I drive," Nick pointed out, not at all distur by the eerie coincidence. That was the last thing Nick remembered saying.
When Nick regained consciousness, he woke to the sound of a car alarm, with his head pounding.
He groaned, blinking as he became aware that he'd been on the ground between cars on the oily pavement of a parking lot.
Nick's first instinct was to check his Rolex for the accurate time. But it wasn’t there. His suit too, was gone and replaced with a wrinkled, oversized flannel shirt and jeans that had clearly seen better days.
"What happened to you?" said a beautiful brunet in her early twenties, who happened to appear when she was most needed.
Nick didn't answer right away. He was too busy getting over the shock of the abrupt change, so she extended her hand to help him up.
"I'm Chance," Nick thought he heard her say. She picked up a cowboy hat from the pavement beside him and put it on. It was black, a little darker than her hair and looked good on Chance.
Chance was at that age where she had no wrinkles and hadn't lost her thin figure.
Nick almost stumbled and fell when he turned to look for his BMW M8 and found a rusted-out Crown-Vic in it's place. The car had paint peeling, dents and scratches along it's side, and at least twenty five years of unrelieved rust.
"Is this a gag? If so, where are the hidden cameras?" Nick muttered, disoriented.
"You were assaulted and knocked out," Chance suggested, with the good sense of a caring nurse.
She asked how he felt: clearly a relevant question for someone who was not all there. Nick didn't answer, but dug into his pocket and came out with a set of keys. There wasn't a remote on this keychain so he tried the key itself and it fit in the driver's side door lock for the old Crown Vic parked beside him.
Nick slid into the ragged front seat and started the old car. But then pulled the key out of the ignition and regarded it for a moment.
"If the key fits," the girl said, with a knowing smile.
"That doesn't mean it's mine," Nick snapped. She'd admitted herself that he'd been mugged.
"It looks like you got a bad bump on your head."
"I'm not quite sure what happened," he mumbled, realizing then that a headache was only part of it.
Nick reached into his pocket for his smartphone but all he found was an old small cracked one and it was dead.
He tried to recover his composure as he followed this helpful stranger right into a diner with a flickering sign, that shared the same parking lot.
As they entered, heads turned. People were curious about this sloppily dressed beaten looking man.
A waitress with a name tag reading “Tammy” gave Nick a long judgmental glance.
“Excuse me but we do have a dress code,” she insisted, staring with disapproval at his wrinkled and torn clothes.
"I think someone mugged him in the parking lot," Chance quickly explained to the dubious waitress.
"Likely," Tammy the waitress said, rolling her eyes.
“Coffee. Black. Please. And, uh -” Chance said, glancing at Nick. “Put it on his tab. He has an account here."
Chance then proceeded to help Tammy the waitress understand that Nick was an assault victim and not a drunk. If he gave off bad vibes, Chance explained that it was because he worked at a place called Brixton Bitcoin, a known predatory company. That announcement caused a bit of a reaction from the waitress, who then said: "Whatever," and turned her back.
Chance sat with Nick in the diner while he tried to sort things out. Who was he, though? He'd given the name Nick Barnes. But what kind of life did he really have, one where the money came easy but not friends?
Nick vowed then to get back his car, his home and get back his identity, especially since there were nice people like Chance in his world.
When it got late, she suggested staying at her place for the night.
Within the last six months, Nick Barnes had finally been able to afford a high end luxury condo on the twentieth floor at the Diamond Towers, a place so money-centric that there was very little time for socializing.
At the Diamond Towers, a half mile away downtown, he knew no one and no one knew him. There was a facial recognition camera at the entrance but it had been reprogrammed for an imposter version of Nick Barnes. So the real Nick was shut out of his own home, a fact which he shared with his new good samaritan friend Chance. For now, she was letting him stay with her.
She'd provided him with a place to stay for the night: just a single bed in a tiny room but it turned out to be the right place to be able to sort out the mess he'd gotten into.
"Why me?" Nick asked several times as he sat beside this beautiful woman.
"Because you flaunted your wealth in the wrong neighborhood," she said, adding that he might need to sleep on it.
"But who would do such a thing?" Nick asked, to which she answered: "Skull and Bones."
She explained it as a fraternity that sometimes plays pranks on outsiders who grab their interest.
"Why me though?" he asked.
"A dare?" she guessed and then transitioned into: "Do you like your room?"
"Not as much as my luxury condo."
"At least you've got something until we sort this out," she said. Nick's room at Chance's place was locked off from her living area, which is why she felt comfortable having a stranger stay with her. There was a common visiting room but her private area was locked off.
She hung with him for about an hour, telling him a few stories about the cameraderie of Skull and Bones, while the news was on television about the "No Kings" violence. Students were out in the streets and at least one car was on fire.
"Did the thief leave a wallet and did you find an ID in it for someone named Logan James?" she asked, leveling her gaze.
Nick reached into his pants pocket and came up with a weathered old wallet.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have Logan's ID," he said, pulling out the license and displaying a photo of Logan James, who looked similar to me, neatly shaved and wide eyed.
"Is that old Crown Vic that you're driving registered in his name?" she asked.
"Yes again," Nick said. He knew that because he'd checked the car over before driving it.
"There's your proof. Do you recall who recommended the QR Bar to you?"
"Not exactly. It's someone who I don't know by name but who works at my company," he said.
"That could be Ellis. Do yourself a favor and get some rest while I'm gone," she said.
With that, the woman who he knew of as Chance, brushed past him to start her late night hospital shift with what appeared to be a full gym bag over her shoulder.
Nick had met Logan James - the man whose identification he now carried - when he'd sat down beside him at the QR Bar. He'd seemed agreeable enough to Nick, until he regained consciousness and realized Logan had put something in his drink that had knocked him out.
Less than ten minutes after Chance left for her night shift at the hospital, Nick got a call from a lawyer who sounded like his suit and tie were on too tight. Finestein the lawyer, started by explaining what an honor it would be for Nick to have a complimentary membership in the Skull and Bones Fraternity, explaining that he'd see the value later.
With influence as his objective, Finestein explained that the first step for membership, would be a dinner with a Dr. Bryan, who would decide if he was "eligible for that valuable membership in Skull and Bones." Nick didn't want it. They wanted it for him.
The fraternity was located in an elegant old Gilded Age mansion at the Upsula campus in East Orange, not far from Thomas Edison's workshop. Nick drove the old Crown Vic over there, looking like a bad storm with the old car and worn out clothes. Dr. Bryan was Amy Bryan, an elegant old woman who looked as tough as nails. As a seasoned professor, she'd also taken on the duties of "House Mom" for a specialized frat house that took unruly to the next level.
Since all his good wear clothes had been stolen, Nick wore only the dirty old work clothes he'd been left with, which badly needed a wash.
"Club membership can be beneficial when you're in trouble, since we try to take care of our own first without alerting the authorities," Dr. Bryan told Nick, explaining the rules.
"Are you trying keep me from going to the police?" he asked, suspiciously.
"For your own good, there's someone I want you to meet," she said, deferring his attention in a way that worried Nick.
She then told him all about Phil Ellis, who she said was "a meek man with a position where he had to lie a little to convince buyers to take a risk." She asked if Nick if he knew him.
Nick said no, so she mentioned also that he worked at Brixton, and that "his work kept him so busy, he had no time to interrupt his wife's television viewing habits. When she was in her recliner watching television, she couldn't hear what Phil was saying anyway. She constantly texted her "boyfriend" in East Orange instead.
Ellis went with her to hear Logan James repeat his words about "putting all your money into bitcoin," claiming that it was "the quickest way to get to get rich." But what she really wanted was "Logan and his big dick energy."
"This story sounds familiar. Why are you telling me it?" Nick asked, interrupting Dr. Bryan's long stream of thought monologue and for good reason.
"You're going to meet him soon enough, so I wanted to give you a heads up," she said.
"Why haven't you called the police?" he asked, with a sobering seriousness.
"It's complicated. Everything kind of just happened and you're in about as much trouble as them," she explained, casually.
"They stole my identity. How am I in trouble?" Nick asked, with even more determination.
"When Logan lost all his money, he needed to put a face to the devil. It was you. Can you at least give him back his wallet?"
"Uh oh," Nick muttered. "Logan had a reason for stealing my identity?"
"Yes. You sold him bitcoin that crashed a week later, leaving him with nothing," she said, without elaborating any further.
He'd been carrying Logan's wallet and keys in the pocket of the old denim pants that he'd been left with when everything was taken from him.
"Bitcoin is speculative. I always give them a disclaimer at the beginning. You can make a lot or lose a lot," he said, trying to provide a definitive statement as he gave her back Logan's old wallet. There were a few crumpled bills in it, totalling maybe as much as eleven dollars.
In exchange, she handed him back his real wallet. He checked to make sure that the couple of credit cards, his identification as Nick Barnes and close to fifty dollars in small bills were there. He was noticeably relieved.
"It was just a fraternity prank," she admitted, with a sheepish grin.
"That's nice. But what if someone can't take a joke like that?" Nick asked.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," she said hastily. "It is the wife, Becka, who I’m worried about. She put all of Ellis' money into bitcoin."
"And lost it all?" Nick asked, after a long sigh. "It sounds so familiar."
"And she went crazy. Didn't you see the news? Brixton Bitcoin was raided last night. It's been shut down," she said.
"So Logan's identity theft is a blessing in disguise?"
"For you maybe. But Logan got rounded up with the others and brought to county lockup," Nick admitted and she nodded.
"Logan is pre-med. He will potentially save lives when he finishes school. You, on the other hand, Mr. Barnes, are a common con-artist," she said, unkindly.
"Please! I sell bitcoin to speculators. They know the risks."
Nick was trying weakly, to defend himself but she forged on, uninterupted.
"No sir. They don't know the risks. But Skull and Bones promises to intervene when things get out of hand," she said, like it was a legal disclaimer.
Nick was rendered speechless for a moment, wondering what he'd gotten himself into.
"Please. I'm sorry, but you're already neck deep in it. Like it or not. Give us a chance to tell you the whole story. Stay with us until we sort this out."
"Have I got a choice?" Nick asked, because he figured that he was already deep in and only sinking deeper.
"You really only have one choice: to cooperate," she said, forcing a smile in a way that didn't sit well with him.
Nick mumbled something that was partly a curse.
"Why don't you stay for our member's dinner? It will be served in ten minutes," she said.
"What's on the menu?"
"I'm not sure but we have a gourmet chef. Have dinner and afterwards we'll give you instructions."
"Instructions for what?" Nick asked, wondering about the pretty woman who'd helped him up after he'd been mugged. He gave her name as Chance.
"For dealing with Logan. He's already gone after Chance, pretending to be you," she said. That was the point at which Nick felt he'd finally been pushed too far.
"That's it! I'm calling the police myself to report this," he said, outraged. Dr. Bryan grabbed his arm in desperation.
"I know where you can find her and Logan. Maybe you should confront them yourself," she said.
Almost breathless, Nick replied: "I'll do that."
"I'll drive you there," she said, quickly.
"Can I get my car?" he asked, reminding her that the ninety eight Crown Vic that he was now driving, wasn't his.
"Do you mean your BMW? Logan is driving it."
Nick sighed.
Dr. Bryan, then took a deep breath and said: "I don't think you'll want it back right away."
"Isn't that why we should get the police involved. You returned my wallet with my id in it but Logan is still driving around in my car."
"For your own safety, let me tell you more about Ellis' wife. She's our biggest worry."
The story about Ellis' wife was more than just a story: it was a warning.
Dr. Amy Bryan explained. “How many lost all their money in that bitcoin crash?” she asked. “It's viral now, what car you drove: the BMW with the custom plates BBB Win, your address and the millions you supposedly have stashed away."
“Should I be worried then?” Nick muttered.
“Yes,” she assured him, after taking a deep breath. “You’re in big trouble and you know it. You got them to trust you and then they lost everything.”
“We were all surprised when the market crashed,” Nick said defensively but she didn't believe me.
“Do you know what noise is, like in signal-to-noise ratio?” she asked.
Nick shook his head.
“Noise is uninvited. It disrupts. And when there’s too much of it, our barriers drop after a while.”
Dr. Bryan glanced at Nick, as if checking whether he understood. “Top salesmen sell noise by pulling heartstrings along the way.”
She paused. “Do you remember Phil Ellis from Brixton?”
Again, Nick shook my head.
“Phil Ellis wasn’t successful,” she said. “But he was honest. After working at Brixton, he’d come home to find his wife Becka sprawled across the couch, laughing on speakerphone with someone named Logan.”
That name dropped uncomfortably for Nick like an unpleasant accident. He recalled a fellow who'd been too friendly when he'd sat beside him at the QR bar.
“It seems like all the ladies love Logan," Dr. Bryan said. "He makes them feel good for awhile, but I doubt his judgement with investing because he's influenced by you."
He hadn't noticed the twitch that had started in her left eye.
"One night, Phil's wife had left her phone face-up and fell asleep. The screen lit up with a message: “Still thinking about what you said about moving in together.” It was from Logan," Amy explained. "As Phil read her texts, he realized that it appeared she wanted Logan to move in and take his place. Becka wanted Logan to put something in his coffee. It would be a tasteless and hard-to-trace poison.”"
“You’re serious?” Nick asked in disbelief.
“I’m so beyond serious,” Amy replied. “She said to Ellis that if Logan couldn’t do it, she’d just find someone else to sleep with and get him to do it.”
Dr. Bryan was almost whispering as her voice broke with emotion.“I asked him: do you want a new place to stay, just long enough to get past this danger?”
"What did he say to that?" Nick asked. "He didn't want to be a bother."
When Nick got back to his car, he realized there was a lot more going on than he could handle. He slid into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition but before he could shift into drive, two cars whipped in front of him and slammed on their brakes.
Sirens pierced the air.
Then came the sound of feet. Hundreds of them. A mob of college students, some masked, some barefaced, rushed past him in waves. Fires flared along the sidewalks. Someone leapt onto a hood. Another screamed.
A palm slapped Ellis’ windshield.
“No Kings!” protester yelled.
Nick froze. “I don’t know any kings!”
He didn’t get it. He had his own problems. But behind him, fire licked the sky. Three cars were ablaze.
His Civic was boxed in. No room to reverse. No side street to turn down. Just the increasing chaos around him.
A woman banged on his window, tears smeared across her cheeks. “Please, he needs a ride! He’s bleeding!” Nick kept the doors locked. He glanced again at the business card Dr. Amy Bryan had given him and decided then and there he was probably going to have to go back to the frat house.
One kid pulled a flare from his coat and tossed it into the car behind him. The flare hissed, then erupted. Boom. Shattered glass. Screaming. Everyone had become delerious.
The two cars ahead finally inched forward. Nick punched the gas, darting around them through a half-broken fence. His tires skidded on wet cement. The car bumped and jolted.
For a while he hoped it would be possible he'd be out of the jam soon. Then he saw how blocked the road was ahead. He thought of Dr. Bryan and looked again at the business card aware that he had more questions for her as his hands trembled on the wheel.
Nick made it back to the frat house without any fights or damage and by the time he'd been sitting for ten minutes across from Dr. Amy Bryan, he recognized that the elegance of the house suggested old money.
"It's a private club for use by our members."
The entryway had a ceiling that went up three floors, at the top covered with a portrait of the gods of love in a heavenly setting, with a giant chandelier covering from the ceiling to the second floor.
His first question for her was: "What happened to Ellis?"
“He's in the hospital in intensive care. And his wife is the suspect," she said.
"What happened?" Nick asked, because he thought Ellis was staying with her.
"Looks like poison but they got to him on time. Authorities haven't caught up with his wife yet."
"Was it the old poison in the coffee trick?" Nick asked.
"Yes. Her next target could be you or Logan,” Dr. Bryan explained.
She went on to explain who Logan really was.
"By his early twenties, when Logan came to realize that he could get anyone - man or woman - to bed, he thought he could do anything a god could accomplish on Earth. He intended to prove that theory again when he put all his money into your bitcoin after your lecture, doubling it within a six months. All his friends took his lead, and many were crushed when it bottomed out."
As Dr. Bryan explained: "Logan could portray himself as wealthy, likable, and someone people trusted without knowing why. He was the kind of person who jumped in without ever understanding the darkness he danced with."
Dr. Bryan studied Nick carefully, letting the silence stretch out between them before she continued. She could see he wasn't up to all this, with arms crossed because nothing for him had come too too easily.
“People take risks. Investments tank sometimes. That’s the game. Everyone knows that," Nick offered.
"But your odds were unfair, Nick. You've got to admit it," Dr. Bryan asserted, keeping her tone even and distant. “Logan and his friends who trusted your recommendations, lost a lot.”
Nick managed a short, bitter laugh.
“You make it sound like I have real influence here with a god among men," Nick said.
"You did, but you used it for bad," she muttered.
"I gave a couple of guest lectures at the student center. They were recorded and placed on YouTube," Nick reminded her.
Dr. Bryan folded her hands in her lap, her voice still calm. Her gaze was sharp though.
“Can people really double their money? You weren’t just a guest speaker. You told them that was their future.”
Nick shrugged, with nothing to contribute.
She leaned forward slightly. “Do you know what Logan saw when he looked at you for the first time?”
“I have no idea,” Nick grunted.
“He saw safety. He saw the man everyone believed without question. No one thought Nick Barnes would mislead them. That’s what made it so easy to take advantage of him as you did. You were untouchable. And he needed someone like that. Someone he could trust enough with a way of paying his mounting student debt.”
“Misplaced trust,” Nick said, just before he was joined by other discontents.
"We didn't see it that way," said one of Logan’s friends: Mark. There was also Lianne, Terrence, and Val. Some still were clawing their way through odd jobs and mounting debt after the Brixton Bitcoin collapse.
Mark moved in from the front, as the others surrounded Nick.
“The name we all heard in that damn promo video was ‘Nick Barnes: Honest Investment Visionary.’”
Nick dropped the smile and started on a denial act.
The room pulsed with a dangerous stillness. Nick realized he was in a trap he couldn't get out of easily.
“You once said you could manipulate the current of a room,” Lianne said. “Let’s see if you can manipulate your way out of this.”
They hadn’t decided yet what revenge would look like. But they had decided who was going to pay.
It was way past regular dinner hours when Nick followed the others out past the rusted iron gates that served as the entrance to the ominous Skull and Bones mansion.
Inside, shadows had flickered from special lamps mounted on the walls, that cast the moving light across the polished marble floors. It was a place that smelled of woodsmoke, aged leather, and historic parchment, where their leader Collin Vance, with his sunken cheeks and manic grin, stood before Nick in a tailored black coat with a velvet collar. His eyes glinted with something other than delight, but madness. It was hard to tell the difference.
“We call it the Rite of Passage for our brothers,” Vance said. Five others stood in a semi-circle behind Nick, silent and watchful. Mark, Val, Terrence, Andrew and Charlie.
Nick bounced on his heels uneasily. “What do you want from me?”
“What we expected from you, Nick,” Vance replied smoothly, stepping closer. "Honesty."
"What will I have to do to prove myself?"
“The rules are simple: try to keep up and survive.”
Nick swallowed and stepped back. He didn't want them to see how afraid he was.
Vance’s smile widened. “Sometimes a brother makes an agreement with fear. Fear teaches and protects, sometimes.”
Vance’s tone deepened. “The real Nick Barnes would walk in and shake hands like he’s expecting a positive outcome. So smile like you've got something to prove or else we won't believe that you really need to survive.”
Nick didn’t reply. He hadn’t chosen this. He was a captive audience in Skull and Bones’ inner sanctum. All he knew was that he was now in the center of it, and they wanted him to "make it right."
Conversation, laughter, and clinking glasses that had filled the main room, stopped as Collin Vance shoved Nick Barnes through to the other side of a curtain, with a smirk. “Your stage awaits.”
From that elevated platform, Nick scanned the crowd until he saw them - Logan James in a designer jacket, arm draped around Chance, the mysterious dark haired girl who had rescued Nick and even let him stay with her while he was sorting things out.
Now Logan and Chance looked like a dangerous couple: with Logan sipping his drink, with the smirk of a man who still thought he owned Nick’s name.
Nick felt a headache coming on as he composed his thoughts and prepared to speak.
“The spoiler,” Nick began, speaking into the microphone in front of the audience so that everyone could hear, “is someone who is willing to do or say anything to get ahead."
Nick turned directly to Logan. "What is clear: now it's part of a game we're playing by your rules. I have a question. Are any of you interested in having a good time?
A few hands went up halfway and halfheartedly.
Nick's fingers curled around the microphone in front of him, the une
ase growing.
Logan grinned, an almost predatory smile.
“I learned that you can’t outrun your own recklessness. And I’m just standing here wondering how long it’s going to take for you to figure out my next move,” Nick continued.
His pulse quickened slightly. He felt like something was about to crack open. He could feel the tension in the air, but couldn’t quite figure where it was leading.
“I think it’s time I introduce you to my friends,” Logan said, coming forward suddenly and taking the microphone.
Soon Nick found himself shaking hands with the group of young men who'd surrounded him on stage, a combination of impatience and amusement in their eyes.
They started small. They had Nick dance on a table in front of those who most disliked him. They dared him to eat something they picked up off the floor. But then the dares escalated to the lake. They said it was symbolic and that it would be cleansing. They said it would show how he could be reborn.
They tied ropes around his wrists, handed him a key, and pushed him off a dock with a hood over his head. The water was unforgiving and cloudy. The key was to the shackles they put on him. If he wanted to come up, he'd have to unlock them myself.
Underwater, he fumbled blindly, desperate to keep his mouth closed and not suck in the suffocating water. He clawed at the lock, panic slamming through him. He turned the key. It jammed again and again. It wouldn’t open and he was running out of time. Then silence and stillness. But the surface was disturbed as someone dove in.
“Take it!” came a woman’s voice and it was familiar. But I was disoriented, having been forced into a world where nothing made sense. Was this real?
"Are you going to take this life preserver?" Chance asked and this time he didn’t hesitate. He reached for it, then held on while she helped pull me out. I thanked her with a shaky and shivering voice.
"I think we need to get you some care," she said, getting a warm bathrobe for him.
He was shivering as he asked her to clarify how she'd just been able to bring him back from the abyss.
“I wasn't sure if you'd ever get away from them,” Chance said. She was grim. "You have to die to be reborn."
Nick never forgot that, because just like that, his new reality began.