The Devil Outside the Details

The room was in the basement of a local VFW. It had no windows, and thin margins between a large faux pine table and the wall; the exceptions were the absolute minimum space required for the door to open, and the front of the room, where most of the available space was given over to David Houston and his presentation. He was addressing the ‘Society for Honorable Initiates of the Tetrad’; among whom the lately arrived Halation 'Hal' Overline IX climbed over, and around, as he navigated one of the chair-chocked arroyos to a seat amidst the glacial regard of his three fellow members.

Houston waited for the sounds of settling to finish before he continued, “…and so, as I was saying, this is a real humdinger of an opportunity. A real doozy of a—” he rifled through a stack of notecards, then gave up “—well, at any rate, it’s a pretty damn big deal.”

Houston’s fashion was hard to categorize but the best description would be ‘19th Century Industry Mogul’. He even had a cane, though he mostly just used it to point at things “Since Hal has finally decided to join us, I’d like to circle back a bit—Hal, as the Chief Information Officer, you should have provided information on—”

“Provide—what? That’s not what my—”

“Provided information on Isabelle Thomson and the artifact. But you did not, so I had to do all the research myself. Explain, please, why you didn’t do your job.”

Hal was a nervous sort of man who generally – though especially today – looked like crap. His brown 2-piece suit was wrinkled like it had sat at the bottom of a laundry basket for a decade, his curly brown hair was frizzy like the very idea of conditioner did not exist – and the sunglasses he wore against the rooms blistering fluorescent lighting was at least a decade out of vogue. Also, he had poor posture. “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that. Explain, I mean, because I don’t know what you’re talking about. Also, the ‘Information’ in my title refers to ‘Information Systems’, like I.T. stuff, which if you recall I’ve questioned the efficacy of because we don’t–”

“I thought Hinton was I.T.—Hinton, aren’t you I.T.?”

Jacob Hinton had good posture and cut a more attractive figure than Hal in his blue/gray suit, his expensive-looking haircut combed over in a left part, and his sunglasses some brand no one had heard of and whose brand anonymity could cut either way on the vogue/out-of-vogue dichotomy, “No, I’m the Chief Investigations Officer.”

“So it would’ve been his job, not mi—”

“Shush. Hinton, I thought your title meant you like, investigated network problems.”

“Nope. But it would’ve been my job to look up information on this Thomson thing which I didn’t do because, like everyone else here, I didn’t know about any of this until today.”

Pradnya Gibson was easily the best dressed of the seated trio and had a haircut similar to Hinton’s, but which framed her face better, “This is why I’ve argued for acronym diversity as well as not having you be the sole designator of roles and titles. For example, I think inclusivity is a noble goal but since you constantly tell us we’re a secret society—”

“We are a secret society!”

“—but having a Chief Inclusion Officer, which the confused look on your face makes me want to clarify that this is the title/role you gave me— having a person focus on inclusion in an organization wherein a large part of its function is exclusion doesn’t make sense. It feels like a one or the other type of thing.”

Houston paused at this with his lips pursed while gears somewhere in his large head turned “I thought you were the Chief Occlusion Officer.”

“That’s a dental term,” said Gibson.

“Yes… but it’s got occult meaning too.”

“If you stretch the definition, maybe, but since ‘occlusion’ isn’t in my title anyway it doesn’t matter.”

“Alright, well, forget all that, and let’s just focus on the presentation.”

Gibson started rubbing her temples in that way people did when they wanted to denote frustration or maybe head off a headache. “All we’ve done is focus on the presentation, you ass. You’ve been pontificating for like two hours and barely said anything that’s mattered and I didn’t bring my sunglasses so the Sirius knock-offs in the ceiling are burning out my eyeballs, thus I'd very much like to get out of this goddamn room.”

“I think occlusion might also be a weather term. And also, doesn’t it mean –”

"Shut up, Hal," Gibson sighed.

“Well since Hal came so late, I’m going to have to cover at least some of this again so...”

“Jesus…” Gibson’s hands relocated to her face as her body slowly assumed the defecatory posture of someone who was either deep in sorrow or deep in thought.

Houston picked up a small remote and turned on the room's ceiling projector which displayed the lumen obscured image of a woman on the wall. “Alright so, approximately 168 hours ago—”

“Just say a week.” Gibson muffled.

“…This person here, Isabelle Thomson, her mother passed away and bequeathed her a statue that she received from her mother—Isabelle’s grandmother—who in turn received it from her mother—and I’m not quite sure how far back this goes but at some point, some generational predecessor dug it out of the ground around… here” the woman’s photo was replaced with a screenshot from Google Maps with a marker on Boeotia.

"After receiving the statue—like right after—her husband mysteriously vanished. Not an important event in itself but it has rendered her single and she has now reentered the dating scene."

“I didn’t know Thomson was a Greek name.”

“Hal, I’ll explain the rare and mysterious custom of ‘marriage’ to you later, but right now I need you to be quiet and pay attention.” A new slide appeared, a poor-quality photo of the statue that looked as though it was taken some distance away through a residential window with a cellphones digital zoom “Now we all know what this is and who it represents et ceter… uh… yes Hal?”

“I don’t know any of those things. And also why doesn't it matter that her husband—”

“Well, then you should've been on time, okay? I'm not– The rest of us know and that's enough.”

Hinton raised his hand as if to be called upon but spoke before Houston even turned in his direction “Yeah but shouldn't Hal know? Given the idol’s liminal purview wouldn’t that pose a challenge to Hal when he goes to steal it?”

Hal knew that a plan was under discussion, but this was the first he had heard of both the plan’s raison and – more importantly – his involvement in it. Before any relevant questions fully formed in his brain, however, a more urgent one popped in and he turned to Gibson “Hey, how did you know how many hours were in a week so fast?”

Houston cleared his throat “That’s not the productive area of discussion, especially not for you. Now, if you would be so kind as to…” and his cane finished his sentence by rapping against the new slide displayed on the wall.

Hal saw a picture of himself in the upper left corner of a profile on what appeared to be a dating website. “What’s this? I don’t have a–”

“Obviously. I made this. I made several, in fact, one for each of us. Each with digitally altered photos and different bios whose interests, likes, and dislikes covered the spectrum of what Thomson might like based on what I could glean from her social media accounts.”

“Even me?” asked Gibson, who seemed suddenly more attentive.

"Well, yes. Though I saw no indication of such I did not believe the lack of proof necessarily indicated Thomson is not bisexual and since you are the only woman in our midst –”

“You’re going to have no women in your midst if you do that again. Unlike the rest of you, I have a girlfriend, and also, unlike the rest of you, I have a large social circle and some of those people might use this site and –”

“Well, it didn’t come to anything and I’ve taken them all down now except Hal’s –”

“You guys know I’m married, right?” Hinton asked.

“Yes, but you and your wife don’t have friends so you don’t have single friends who use dating sites.”

“True, but—"

“Are you done? And fine, I’m sorry. Anyway, the profile of Hal’s that matched with Thomson was the one that was closest to the real version of him. I found this surprising, because, you know, whatever— people like what they like. Which then brings us to –”

“Why does it say I’m into wine? I don’t know anything about wine.”

“Yes, well, I may have jazzed it up a bit to make you seem more… refined. And because I don’t know all that much about you.”

“Yeah, but you got everything else right – video games, Serena Williams, renaissance economics – so like, why the wine thing?”

“That’s what I’m getting to, Hal. Thomson expressed an interest in wine, so it made sense to me to add that to all the profiles – lucky for you, I’m a sommelier.”

“A what?” Hal asked.

“Wine expert,” said Gibson.

“You went to school for that?” asked Hinton.

“I’m self-taught.”

“That means he’s not one” Gibson stage whispered to Hinton.

Houston parried this criticism by ignoring it entirely “Since this will be your first date, we need you to make a good impression so that there will be successive dates so that she will eventually invite you over. I’ve preselected food and wine that will be on the menu so you won’t seem too out of your element.”

“Where and when is this taking place?” asked Hinton.

“Today, early evening, at… let’s see…” Houston rifled through notecards and again gave up “I can’t find the name of the place but it’s one of those annoyingly literal and minimalist named restaurants like ‘Diner’ or ‘Soup Kitchen’ or something. It’s on State Street by the antique store. Anyway…” he changed the slides, “For a glass of wine, you’ll order a merlot. You'll like it. It pairs well with grilled steak or pasta with a tomato-based sauce. Either meal is fine. Also, the—”

“Okay, I’m uh—I’ve never been on a date before.”

“Like, ever?” asked Houston

“Not really, no. Once I uh, told a girl in trig I could snowboard so she would think I was cool but then she invited me to go snowboarding and I couldn’t figure out how to get off the lift thing and…”

“I’ll coach him,” Gibson said to Houston.

“…six weeks in the hospital, which is why my posture is so bad— Is anyone else feeling warm? Oh geez, why is she so pretty? I feel very hot.” Hal had a sort of bovine expression as the reality of his upcoming task sunk in. He began perspiring, then shaking, then hyperventilating – all of which combined with the sudden flush hue of his face to lend him a vaguely ‘wet ham’ complexion.

Gibson slid over and collegially pat his back “You know, I’ve never seen someone produce so much sweat at just the thought of something. We should probably get you out of here." She nodded to Hinton who came around to their side and cleared away chairs so Gibson could get Hal out, "Don’t worry, buddy, we got time; we’ll get you ready.” They each took an arm and helped the noodle legged man out of the room while Houston impotently bade the trio to sit back down.

The lingering words of his entreaties followed them out of the room as the door closed behind them “I haven’t covered all the— wait a minute! At least— he needs to stay away from Thomson and the statue at night or else—" and the sound of Houston falling into cheap office furniture acted as a full stop