The Return of Triton

  *

  The idea had been to wind someone up and let them go. Pinpointing the whereabouts of Daniel Brinbrot was of tantamount importance, but so was figuring out everything else, along with every else, after and before, and then. There were people in on the whole shebang, working in pairs and trios, groups and committees, and working alone, either fully informed, fully uninformed or totally misinformed.

  For Pete’s sake, he was on a nearly uninformed path. All in all, not the worst place to start or end up. What’s more, knowing what little he did brought him to Danny’s attention, and Danny was nice enough of a guy to give him some pointers. Danny was sort of in that same boat of having no one to talk to about disappearance.

  |the myth of zero|*

  In the laboratories of Hermann Strumm, known as Strumm Laboratories, Dr. Grace Pobbible held dominion. Had held - in the present, her location and dealings were a mystery, especially when they were known. Strumm had retired from teaching at Bossche Bol and wanted to start something new, something random, the next thing, at least be in on it, continuously. It were as if he chose to rewind himself up and let himself go, as often as possible, and the same people behind Pete financed Hermann, minus intent other than to let him keep on going. They liked the idea of knowing what was next, and what the hell.

  First things first, Hermann had hired Grace Pobbible. “Make me smarter,” he instructed.

  “I can do that,” said Grace.

  The alliance between Strumm and Pobbible was a little on the uneasy side, as she had a pre-existing uneasier de-alliance with Mulligan’s, having misused company intellectual property. It was that very same property that brought Strumm and Mulligan’s together - Mulligan’s, the people who financed Strumm Laboratories. It even helped that Strumm had united with Grace creating a situation where she still ably aided the goals of Mulligan’s, if somewhat removed. Stillingly, the questions existed, why did Strumm team up with Pobbible, would Mulligan’s ever let her off the hook for misbehaving, and why did Strumm team up with Mulligan’s, seeing as Hermann was a die hard loner who got along with no one. Hiring Pobbible was one thing, he did that sort of thing, but juggling two relationships at once? Two different types of relationship at once? Unheard of. Distrust abounded, but at least that was something Mulligan’s could understand and sustain productively.

  It probably fortified the whole distrust issue between Strumm and Pobbible when she informed him that the way to make him smarter was to put a hole in his brain. A tiny tiny tiny hole to be sure, but still, there was a trust issue when it came to messing around with explosives and brains.

  But less than one might imagine when the issue was decided by brains. As any brain will tell you, “Oh yeah! Blow me up already.”