Charisma

by Steven Barnes

  Wow. Just like rappers on MTV.

  “Washington.”

  A nod. A black girl with three gold earrings and cornrowed hair approached. Her badge read Aylana. “Got cousins in D.C.”

  Patrick held up his hands. “No, not east coast. Washington state. Down around Portland.”

  Mathias looked at him suspiciously. “That’s in Oregon.” He pronounced it ory-gone.

  “Yeah, but still just down the block.” Patrick looked around for his mom, who was searching faces, scanning the group, kids and counselors alike, looking for someone in charge. She finally made eye contact with a short blond woman with a HI, MY NAME IS JANIE! name tag and a scarlet ASK ME T-shirt.

  “Excuse me,” Vivian said. “I’m Mrs. Emory. Who’s in charge here?”

  “I’m close enough,” Janie said. She consulted a clipboard. “You must be the last-minute volunteer?”

  Vivian nodded vigorously. “I don’t know who I spoke to, but I’m going to need a place to put my things, and I need to check in. I guess I’m working in the kitchen.”

  “Did I hear ‘volunteer’?” Diane Withers asked, coming up behind them.

  “Sort of, I guess.”

  “Well,” Diane said. “I’ll show you, dear. It’s no secret.” She linked her arm with Vivian’s and took her off toward a long, low, rust-brown building. Pat breathed a sigh of relief: the last thing he needed was Mom hovering over him. Sometimes, adults just needed something to make them feel useful.

  * * *

  There were four bunkhouses: Kiowa, Sioux, Apache and Comanche. Patrick was a Kiowa. He rubbed the walls with his palms as he entered. Real wood! It was crude, splintery, unfinished, but vastly preferable to the quarter–inch fake wood paneling in the trailer he called home. He loved it. Bubbling with contented energy, he threw his bedroll onto a top bunk nearest the door. “Dibs!” he cried.

  “Hell it is—hey!” a beefy red-faced kid labeled CLINT said. “Are they already serving dinner?”

  “Where?” Patrick asked, turning around.

  Clint threw Patrick’s gear out of the bunk, and his own bedroll in. “Should have read the guide,” Clint sneered. “Dinner isn’t for an hour. ‘Pay attention even to little things.’”

  “Yeah, well, ‘Do not think dishonestly,’” Patrick answered automatically, and swept Clint’s stuff off onto the floor. Then Patrick stopped and reconsidered the exchange. What the heck…?

  Clint glared at him, his face growing even redder. He balled his fists, puffing his chest out a bit. Then Clint’s brow wrinkled quizzically, as if the same question had occurred to him. “Where’d you learn that?”

  “What?”

  “‘Do not think dishonestly.’”

  Was this guy pulling his chain? “Five Rings, man.”

  “Musashi,” Clint said.

  Another kid chimed in. “The Way is in Training?”

  And another: “Know the Ways of all professions?”

  There was a general babble of laughter, as they took turns rattling off their favorite epigrams. Patrick sat heavily on his bed, staring at them, dizzy with déjà vu. “Hey, guys,” he finally ventured, “Do any of you hang in the Musashi chat room?”

  Silence, and they craned their heads at him.

  “Damned straight,” Clint said. “I’m Ronin3.”

  Patrick jumped up, the throb in his hip forgotten. “No shit? I’m Marcus9!”

  There was general chatter for another minute, the kids now babbling a mile a minute. Ocean appeared in the doorway, and they swamped him. “Guess what!” Clint said. “We know each other! We’re all in the same AOL chat room!”

  He blinked. “Are you all part of a club?”

  “Not that we knew,” Bucky chimed in. “I just got an e-mail one day, inviting me to join—”

  “Me too!” several others chimed.

  “Well,” Ocean said thoughtfully, “I guess now we know how you guys were chosen for camp. You must have won some kind of Internet raffle or something.”

  Silence. They stared at each other, suddenly understanding the nature and intensity of their connection. “Well, hot damn,” Clint drawled. “We’re all a bunch of goddamn winners!”

  Ocean protested, but the kids drowned him out, chanting, “Winners!” They yelled and laughed and pumped their fists in the air, as if imitating an old Rocky movie.

  “Winners!” Patrick shouted with them, and suddenly felt happier than he had in ages. Perhaps tonight he would be able to sleep without seeing the nightmare under the bridge. Or his father’s dead face. Or hearing the sounds of the sirens as they drove along River View in their fruitless attempt to separate melted flesh from melted metal.

  Perhaps.

  “Winners!”

  57

  PALO ALTO

  Ash and fragments of glass and plaster covered the ground like August’s first fall of dying leaves. The stench of scorched earth and flesh as a hot, wet cloud, hugging the ground in a sticky fog.

  The four fire trucks stood at a safe distance. Exhausted firemen wound up their hoses like old men, displaying none of the urgency shown just two hours earlier. Then again, two hours ago there had been hope that survivors might still be trapped within the blazing ruins of the Advanced Systems building.

  All that remained of A.S. were two charred walls, and a circular spray of gray-black powder projecting two hundred yards from the central building. The explosion had hurled fist-sized chunks of machinery three hundred yards. The charred and melted remains of a goose-necked lamp had shattered a U-Haul storage facility’s office window a quarter mile away.

  No one inside the building had had time to scream, or run. The blast had torn out two walls and blown off two-thirds of the roof. The fire that followed had done the rest.

  The ambulances were carrying away zippered plastic bags. Their contents were lumpy, misshapen, only vaguely recognizable as anything human.

  One of the firemen stopped and picked something up from the grass: a charred, half-melted computer disk. He shook his head, and leaned exhaustedly against the fire engine. “Man, oh man. What in the hell happened here?”

  “I don’t know,” another said. “But at least it was quick.”

  * * *

  A lime-green panel truck pulled up to the outskirts of the crowd. It parked, and a man in white overalls exited. He approached a police officer. He stumbled forward, staring at the crowd, the trucks, and the ruins of Advanced Systems.

  “Shit fire, man,” he said. “What happened here?”

  “It just blew up,” the officer said, still gawking at the ruins. He looked barely twenty, with bullish shoulders and slab-like forearms. Under other circumstances, the officer would have given a square-jawed, crew-cut, nothing-but-the-facts impression. Today he blinked too much, and had a vague, dazed, slack-muscled look about him. “Are you a vender or what?”

  The delivery man nodded, ignoring the officer’s unprofessional demeanor. Perhaps he was considering that if he hadn’t stopped for an early lunch, he would have been in that building when the holocaust struck. Saved by a chiliburger. The delivery man’s carefully cultivated tan paled, and his knees sagged.

  The cop didn’t notice. “Did they store explosives in there or something? Christ. It looks like a bomb went off.”

  “N-no. Not that I ever saw, b-but I was only there two or three times. They were just some kind of think tank. N-nice folks.” He sagged, squatted down to catch his balance, then slowly stood again. “Oh, this is so fucked up I can’t believe it.”

  Two firemen carrying a sagging plastic bag passed, and he shuddered again. “Did anybody make it out alive?”

  “We’re still trying to reckon that.”

  The delivery man blew a lungful of sour air and stood straight. He finally seemed to have cleared his head. “Well,” he said, “what do I do with that?”

  “With what?” the cop said.

  He jerked a thumb back toward his delivery truck. “With their computer. They had a disk crash, and nee
ded a recovery. Brought it to us. We saved their data all right, and the machine. But now … wow. What do I do?”

  The cop looked around, as if trying to find a familiar face. “Listen,” he said finally. “We’re trying to figure out what went on here, and you might be some help…”

  58

  PRESCOTT, ARIZONA, FRIDAY, JUNE 29

  After a long day of orientation (“These are the rules: no fires, no stealing, no wandering off the campsite. These are called ‘airport rules’ because any violation and you go straight to the airport, and home”) and activities (from the sublime—murder-ball—to the ridiculous—Mrs. Withers trying to teach them an achy-breaky line dance with moves like “the chicken” and “the Broadway”), the kids had piled into their bunks, talking the air blue (what movies rocked, what bands sucked, which camp girls looked “easy”) until Ocean (who was taking first rotation sleeping with the boys) finally begged for mercy at three A.M.

  When, too soon, morning arrived, the little angels were all asleep. Soft burring snores and the rustle of blankets were the only sounds as Ocean rose from his bunk and edged the front door open. Sunlight was just creeping across the central yard, and the morning air remained still and crisp. He savored the moment: this was the last bit of peace or quiet he was going to get for about ten days.

  He sucked air and bellowed, “All right! Up and at ’em! First day at camp! No chowderheads allowed!”

  With that call, the genie officially escaped the bottle, and chaos reigned.

  * * *

  Patrick rolled over. His eyes opened, and he was instantly awake. He was here, at Camp Charisma, and everything was just fine. He remembered no nightmares, had not awakened in the night thrashing in a clammy web of guilt. Maybe, just maybe, healing had begun.

  Wonder of wonders, he actually felt happy.

  He started to jump out of bed, remembering he was in the top bunk barely in time to avoid a skull fracture. The other kids emerged from their torpor like half-frozen nightcrawlers thawing in the sun.

  A scramble to identify shoes and shirts and pants followed, then they blindly groped for the door, and prepared to greet the morning.

  * * *

  The shower room was a frenzy of scrubbed teeth and splashing, soapy naked male teenaged bodies. They groaned and shrieked as the water needled them, tiptoed through pools of liquid green soap, and in general dragged their way up to full consciousness kicking and screaming.

  “God!” Clint said. “The water’s freezing!”

  Patrick shrugged, lathering his thin shoulders. “At least you’re gonna wake up.”

  “Anybody got any toothpaste?” Bucky asked.

  “Yeah,” someone said from a closed toilet stall. “But not for you, numbnuts. Whattaya think?”

  “Hey! Frankie!” Patrick called, grateful to hear a familiar voice. “When you get in?”

  “Last night, on the airport bus.” Frankie emerged to the accompaniment of a loud gurgling flush, tugging up his pants. In a graffito scrawl over the porcelain bowl, someone, perhaps Frankie, had immortalized that timeless and universal critique of camp cuisine: Flush twice, it’s a long way to the kitchen. “God,” he moaned, grimacing at Patrick. “First thing in the morning, I got to look at your ugly face? I’m goin’ home.”

  “Your ma’s already rented your room out.” Patrick splashed him, and Frankie turned his head so that the water just dampened his collar.

  “I’ll get you later. When you least expect it, expect it.”

  Patrick chuckled, gaze falling to the tiled floor, where soapy, bubbled water swirled down the drain. For a moment that swirling reminded him of something. A dream. And what was that dream…? Something about water? Nightmares of his dead father grasping at him, or of a screaming, flaming Cappy lumbering after him … those images had drowned out any subtler memories. But now, like a pattern in one of those Magic Eye books, something was struggling to emerge from the caverns of consciousness.

  He wanted to grasp it, had a vague sense that it was something important. But the harder he fought to remember, the more it eluded him, and finally he gave up.

  If it was important, he assured himself, it would return.

  * * *

  Boys and girls were clustered by gender in the mess hall. There were twice as many he’s as she’s. Patrick’s eyes and ears scanned through a dozen different conversations and groupings, until he felt dizzy and overloaded. He looked out and saw Destiny, seated at a corner table with four new friends.

  His attention focused on her, tunneling out the rest of the room. Then she turned and looked at him, and smiled. He felt the impact right down to his toes.

  Frankie slapped his shoulder, breaking the moment of intense contact.

  “You know what we’ve got this afternoon?”

  Patrick wanted to slug him, but remained polite. “What?”

  Frankie made rapid slashing hand gestures. “Kung fu!”

  Clint grabbed himself. “Hey. I got your ‘kung fu,’ punk.”

  Frankie hissed at him, and the two of them indulged in a brief flurry of slap fighting before Janie shut them down.

  “Hey,” she said. “Hey, hey—save it. Guess it’s easy to see who the fighters are.” She raised her voice. “Now listen up! I’m going to read names. There will be colors attached to the names. When I finish, you will have three minutes to find everyone else of your color, form a group, and raise your hands. The last group to form has first cleanup.”

  With that last pronouncement, Janie suddenly had everyone’s complete attention. She rattled the names off so quickly that a lot of people missed theirs and begged for a second read-through. Patrick and Destiny were both Greens when Janie finished. “Go!” she said.

  The kids scrambled, and within forty seconds, everyone was in his proper place.

  “All right. We have four tribes, and by the end of the day, you will have designed your tribal banners. Your tribes are important. You will compete in tribes, and go to activities in tribes.”

  One particularly ripe brunette said, “Do we sleep with our tribes?”

  “Not likely, Courtney,” Janie said primly. “So. Green team report to the rec room for martial arts, Blue team to the field for soccer, Red team to the craft center, and … White team—”

  Hughie groaned aloud. “Why I gotta be in the white tribe?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Clint said amicably.

  “Watch the language,” Janie said. “After this, teams will lose points for bad language or bad attitude. As I was saying, the white team will clean up the mess hall.”

  “Oh, sh—I mean, great!”

  Grumbling, shoving, and stumbling into a gallop, the kids broke up into their tribes as the first full day of camp began.

  59

  In the white quilted dome of the sports complex, the twelve members of the Greens were lined up. Seven boys, five girls, all heights and sizes, ages ranging from twelve to fifteen.

  Ocean stood at the front of the room, cinching a frayed brown belt tightly around his waist. When he was finished he gave a sharp yapping shout, and began to bounce through a series of kicks and punches. He was lanky, loose-jointed. Patrick figured Ocean would probably do all right in a street fight, but wasn’t exactly Jet Li. His long blond hair whipped in a dramatic spray as he twirled and leapt. His gyrations were rewarded by enthusiastic if not exactly worshipful applause.

  “Hi, my name is Ocean,” he panted.

  A couple of campers smirked and Patrick whispered,”Yeah, all wet,” just to hear his neighbors giggle.

  Ocean looked at him suspiciously, wiping his forehead with a white hand towel. “And I’d like you to take your seats. Sit in a circle, would you?” They jostled and found places. “Good. We’re going to practice karate every day, and at the end of the week, you’re going to compete against the other tribes.”

  There were yells and high-fives of approval, as well as estimations of how much, how thoroughly and what variety of posterior was going to be kicked.r />
  Mathias raised his hand and said: “Don’t you have a black belt?”

  “Not yet,” Ocean said. “But I’m working on it.”

  Mathias nodded. “The Way is—”

  And seven or eight of the other kids chimed in: “in training!”

  Ocean looked at them, not fully computing, then finally just shrugged. “Ah, right. At any rate, at the end of the week, you are going to compete. But this competition is going to be a little unusual. You aren’t going to be trying to hurt the other teams—you’re going to be helping each other to learn.”

  “What does that mean?” Patrick asked.

  “You’ll find out pretty soon. So! Let’s get to it.…”

  He got them up, and began to put them through a stretching routine. Patrick was touching his toes, and looked up at Destiny, bending over on the row in front of him. She wore loose blue gym shorts. She grinned back between her bare legs.

  Clint caught the interchange. “Watch it, Emory. You’re gonna bust something.”

  Patrick flushed. “Like maybe your lip?”

  * * *

  In a bungalow across from the dining hall, the craft room looked more like a typical Claremont Junior High schoolroom than anything else. Drawings and sculptures from previous Charisma Lake campers dangled on the walls. There were photos of the surrounding forest, and maps of Arizona and the southwest.

  “We have a special helper at camp this year,” Janie said, addressing the Blues. “We didn’t expect this, but she’s extremely skilled with arts and crafts. Vivian Emory. Let’s give her a hand.”

  The kids applauded. Vivian stepped forward nervously. “Well,” she said, “what Janie asked me to help you do is to make banners for each of your tribes. I’ve looked into the craft larder, and we have some scraps of cloth, a few large pieces. I think that if you each make a contribution, of whatever kind—”

  “Like what?” a delicate girl with a heart-shaped face asked.

  “Sheets, towels, maybe a T-shirt. Whatever you can spare. We can do this if everyone chips in.”

  “Why do we want banners?” the girl asked.

  Vivian searched for the camper’s name badge, grateful for a moment’s pause. Her confidence needed shoring up. “A flag pulls people together, ah … Jessica? By the end of the week, you will all be good friends. Right now you’re still strangers.…”