Toy Soldiers

by Keith LaHue

  "I swear, no more lying. And no more magic. If that's what you want. I love you. I can't imagine my life without you and Dave. And when Davey becomes a wizard, I know that if you can accept me, if you can, you'll accept him too."

  "Do you mean to tell me he's a wizard too? Oh, I just can't believe this. It just keeps getting better. What's next, you're screwing around on me too? To be honest I think that would be easier to take. I just...." She collapsed into the armchair in the corner.

  "Mary. Come here and hold me. Our marriage can survive this. No more lies. Never again."

  "Why did you think I wouldn't love you? I've always loved you." She wiped her nose with a Kleenex. "I still love you. I just don't know how to go on like this."

  "The same way we always have. Together."

  "But what about Davey? He doesn't know yet about his abilities right?"

  "He doesn't even get them for some time."

  "And these beings you've created? They're alive now right? Truly alive?"

  "No. Not in the sense that we are. I used a piece of me - a shell - to create the illusion of life, not the reality. Tomorrow when we get back from the doctor I'll go down and undo everything. Whatever you want."

  "I don't want you to give up magic." The words stunned both of them. "At the same time, I don't think you should let the inhabitants of the model to remain alive, or sort-of alive, whatever you call it. That must end. It's not fair to them. How much do they know?"

  "I'm not sure. I'll know more when I tend to the spell."

  Mary sat on the edge of the bed, squishing up against Dave. "No more lies? And you'll tell me when you do use magic? Can you...can you show me some?"

  "Of course." Dave smiled and tuned into the ether-all, reaching for the one thing that might make it all better. He plucked the red rose from the endless bed it was growing in. He removed the thorns, and then it was in his hand. He held it out to Mary. When she took it, he waved his hand over it.

  The rose opened, Marigold smelled it. "It's so real. But it's not is it?"

  "It's real. I took it from the florist's ample supply. He'll get the better of it; I left the beginnings of ten more in its place."

  Mary started crying again, her husband's love fell all around her whenever she smelled the rose. "But no more model spells right!"

  "I love you, Mary. Can you forgive me?"

  A smile broke through her tears. It was all Dave needed to know. He squeezed her hand. "I guess you need to send Davey in. His turn."

  "He already knows everything, I can guarantee that. He's smart Dave. He won't be surprised. He'll be overjoyed. I'll send him in." She got to her feet and bent over to kiss her husband. "Of course I still love you. It's not every woman that marries a wizard."

  Davey came in. Despite defying his father and attempting to listen at the door, he hadn't heard a thing. He instinctively sat on the side of the bed, eschewing the chair. He looked into the suddenly old eyes of his father, unsure of what he was going to say. His mother had been disturbed, he had been able to tell.

  "What is it, dad? Why did mommy cry?"

  "She cried because there was something about me that I had kept from her. It concerns the model. You know it's not ordinary, don't you?"

  "I know there are people living there. And it builds itself. It doesn't need either one of us. I can show you pictures -"

  "I already looked at them on your phone."

  "Yeah, I figured that was why you wanted it that time."

  "Davey, I can use magic. And one day, you'll be able to as well. Not for many years, but you'll be able to do it. You see, I hadn't told you or your mother about this, and when I told your mother, she wasn't happy at first. You know, not many wizards exist anymore. It's not like the time of Merlin, who was one of the greatest wizards ever."

  "I'm going to be better! I'm going to be a wizard!"

  “Davey quiet! Not everyone knows about magic and for good reasons. It can be misused." He bowed his head in shame. "Like I misused it. I never should have created that diorama."

  "I like the model. It has its own magic now doesn't it?"

  "It has some of my magic. It doesn't have its own. And tomorrow, after I get out of the cast, I'm going to put a stop to it. It will go back to the way it was before..."

  "Before the people knew about...you?"

  "They don't know about me, of that I'm certain. But they mustn't be allowed to continue to live, so to speak. No magician can truly create life. Only the illusion of it. It must end."

  "I don't think the people down there are going to want to die. They must sort of be alive. They're almost done fixing the parts of the model that Karl hit."

  "Davey, there aren't really any people there. They are simply parts of me that I... loaned out."

  "I guess they can't die then, " said Davey. Dave Sr. laughed.

  "No, they can't." This stirred something deep inside of Dave. They couldn't die, could they? They were all there by proxy of others. He dreaded that he was probably going to have to explain to some of the more evolved of them that they were going to cease having consciousness. They would revert to what there were. Clay. Like Prometheus? He thought now. Still, it saddened him. "They won't know anything about what they went through when they were building and fixing the construct."

  "The construct?" asked Davey.

  "It's just a term son. For what I created. I'm already in trouble with the leaders of the order of wizards that I'm a part of. I have to undo it all."

  "Can't you leave some of the people?"

  "No. I can't. It would be wrong. Those that think they are alive are wrong. Well in a sense. It's complicated Davey."

  "I don't want the people to die or stop going. Jeeze dad, if we just let them keep on going...."

  "No. That is not going to happen. Understand? From now on anything that gets built will be built by us. Got it?

  "Got it, dad. Tell me about when I get to be a wizard."

  "I promise I will. When it's time. But that time is not now. We'll both know when the time comes. But for now you're just an ordinary kid, okay? And don't even think of telling anyone about magic! You'd get me in an even bigger heap of trouble. Understood?"

  "Can I talk to mom about it?"

  "If you must. But I'd wait a few days. This is all new to her too. She was quite upset when she found out that I had been a wizard all these years. She is right to be mad. I should have told her. So wait, please."

  "Alright, dad. Can I go say goodbye to the people in the model?"

  "Absolutely not. Enough. It's almost your bedtime. Did you get your homework done?"

  "I'll get to it now. Can I go with you to the basement when it comes time to undo everything tomorrow?"

  "I'm sorry, but no. I must be alone."

  Davey left the room, his mind ablaze, and troubled. He had suspected some of what his dad had told him, but he hadn't been prepared. He gathered his school books and went to his room to study.

  48

  "Long Beach has changed," mused James as they drove through the endless suburbs of the Los Angeles basin.

  "Cynthia has a penchant for roses," said Merlin.

  "They're everywhere." Said Donna.

  "She built the Spire of Long Beach somehow. That building doesn't exist in the creator's world. But it will. She can see the future." They all looked at the new tower; it looked to be well over one hundred stories tall. It was smack down in the middle of downtown Long Beach, on the beach.

  They came to the edge of the constructed area of Long Beach and got out of the car. Merlin felt the change just as they entered the unfinished area. He knew that the time of creation was coming to an end. Soon none of them would be sentient. It was all coming to an end. Merlin wasn't sure just how he knew it, he just did. Ah well, he thought. Might as well make the best of what time we have left he thought. Still, it broke his heart and sent his consciousness into an existential horror. He'd have to hide it from Donna and James. Neither one of them were magic users, and he felt sur
e that the knowledge-bomb that had just asserted itself into his head was confined to the mages.

  "Well," said Merlin. "I guess I could build Disney. We could -"

  "Oh please no," said Donna. "I can't bear the thought of all of those half-formed creatures riding the Matterhorn. It hurts me to think of it."

  "Me too," said James.

  "What did you want me to build?"

  "Start with the San Gabriel River. Then keep on going with what's supposed to be there," said James.

  "You really want me to create Orange County?"

  "Yes." Said James and Donna in tandem.

  "Well. All right then."

  Merlin began speaking low, unintelligible words. His tone was musical in the phrasing, he gestured wildly as he continued. First, the river, which was nothing more than a drainage ditch made of concrete phased into being, along with the freeway that ran alongside. James and Donna climbed up on the top of the car in order to better see the unfolding of the world.

  Houses came next, and fast food places, and everything you'd expect to find in Orange County. Donna and James got down from the car. James shook Merlin by the shoulder in an attempt to tell him they wanted to drive into the new area. Merlin was concentrating so hard that he could only nod, then continue with the building.

  Donna and James got into the car and drove under the new freeway, entering into the newly created area. James was driving, and the flowers in front of one of the new houses made him stop. There was something different about them. Different even from the roses the Mage Cynthia had made. He got out of the car, Donna followed.

  James approached the house and knelt down at the flowerbed. He reached into the earth and found that it was real dirt or as real as he could determine. The flowers were real as well. He let the rich topsoil fall through his fingers.

  "This is real," he said to Donna. "It's not fake, like so much of what we've encountered. Hollywood is all plaster and plastic, a little asphalt was thrown in for good measure, whatever Merlin is doing, he's doing it better than...the creator." He stood and looked at Donna. It was the first time he had referred to "The Creator".

  James looked shaken up. Donna put her arm around him and pulled him close. "Do you want to see more?" He rested his head on her shoulder. "I think I've seen enough. Part of me wants to know what comes next; the rest of me is scared. Remember how you came back to life after you plunged off the cliff? If we can't die...then can we truly live? We've found out that all, or most, of our memories, are false, it's just some made-up bullshit to get us to keep living the same day over and over. To what end? What purpose?"

  "I bet that party is still on at my house." Donna sighed. "I don't know anything either. I don't think even Merlin or one of the other Mage's knows. I do know that I want to keep on living, or non-living, whatever you want to call it. I love you now, and I think you love me too? Am I right? And wouldn't that alone make us real? I mean, if it's possible for us to love..."

  "I love you too Donna. But I'm scared. I don't want all of this to fade, and we all go back to the loops that we were designed for. I don't think that whoever - whatever - created us intended for this to happen. I think we're like this by accident."

  "Like I already said, if we can love...then what else matters?"

  Jane sat in the porch swing of her adopted home. The knowledge of the demise of civilization as she knew it came to her at the same time it hit all of the Mages. She thought that it was likely the non-magic users knew nothing. Artimus was exploring the suburbs, having just left her. He seemed overjoyed at the clean, well-lit spaces of Jane's suburb.

  She loved it too. It was hard to grasp that it was all coming to an end so soon. They had only been here for the blink of an eye, and now it was all going to come down. She knew there was no fight possible. Whatever had created them was going to un-create them very soon. She swung softy, and alone in the swing. Presently she started to wonder. How would she tell the others? How could she even believe it herself? Yet she was sure. Like the half-formed carrying signs in Time Square. The end was nigh.

  Jimmy the Quick was barreling along the strip of land near where Tom had jumped off. He was well on his way to entering the area on the other side of the Canyon. The Canyon stopped in a dead end, allowing for passage to the other side. He wondered what he would find there, another city perhaps? Who knew anymore? So much had happened in such a short period of time.

  Suddenly there was someone dead ahead of him! He was doing nearly eighty according to the speedometer, he slammed on the brakes. He came to a stop right before hitting Tom. Tom who had killed himself just a little while ago. Or had it been days? Time was blurring the lines of reality, his very being was malleable.

  He looked straight ahead at Tom. Tom who was not dead.

  "We can't die," said Tom as he got in the passenger side. "I have no recollection of what happened after I jumped; there was no interval between when I jumped and when I found myself back in the desert. I knew you'd be coming along, but I'm not sure how I knew." In the back of Tom's mind was the dim knowledge that this was all coming to an end soon. He wasn't a powerful mage, but he had some abilities. He was glad that he'd soon be dead. He had made a conscious decision not to tell Jimmy this. Jimmy leaned toward the happy side, and Tom didn't want to spoil the man's last moments.

  "Jesus, I almost hit you."

  "I don't think it would have mattered. I would have reappeared soon enough. Like I said, we can't die."

  "What do you want to do now?" Tom could see that Jimmy was on the brink of tears. "I mean you wanted to die, so what now? Do you want to live now?"

  "Tell you what, we'll stick together until we reach the next...the next city, or whatever it is we'll find. Okay? Cheer up, my death wasn't aimed at you as a weapon."

  "I care for you, Tom. I care for all of us. Even Jerome. He was a junkie back when I first met him, and so was I really. In my loop, I did coke every night. Dizzy did heroin. What's the difference? Them when we broke out of it..." He faltered in his speech, and the tears came. "None of this can be real. I don't know why we continue."

  "We continue because that is what we do. I was wrong to jump. I caved in when I should have been strong. We must persevere. It is our nature. Just that fact alone makes us alive, and worthy.

  Jimmy composed himself.

  "Then we drive on."

  Jerome and Camilla arrived in Central Park, unprepared for what they saw. People, not half-formed, but all the way into life people, were gathering. All sorts of people, people from Staten Island, the Bronx, Brooklyn. The homeless people that for some reason had been a part of this world were there too, carrying the signs they always had, saying the end of the world was near.

  Camilla knew of course. She hadn't the heart to tell Jerome, and she wasn't sure it mattered. Now here in Central Park, she wondered if maybe she should tell him. It was obvious that the rally was some sort of protest against...what? The creator that was about to send them back to the mindless automaton they had been? Prior to enlightenment, she'd been nothing. She liked being someone. But how were they to protest against what they could not see? They had zero empirical comprehension of what had created them. What she did know is that none of this was ever meant to be. They'd all been stuck in their respective loops, none of them at all aware that they were stuck. Now a great many of them knew. She wondered what percentages of the population were Mages. Obviously, some of them had told the non-magic users of the impending collapse of their world. Or maybe not. Maybe they were all magic users, with only some of them as developed as her. She wasn't even that developed. Jane was way ahead of her, with the creation of functioning subways and the like. A taxi passed by on Central Park West. She looked at the driver and saw he was fully formed. None of the cabs had been staffed by fully formed before.

  They all knew now that they were going back to what they were. And they were pissed. Camilla told Jerome. He looked at her with his sad brown eyes that told her he knew already. She pulled him close, press
ing her face into his narrow chest.

  She needed to talk to Jane. Jane would know what to do.

  49

  "You're going to need the cane for at least six months. Maybe longer," said Dr. Hanson, the man who had released Dave from his encasement of plaster in a mere fifteen minutes. "And take it easy on the stairs. You'll have to be careful."

  "I will be doctor. I'm cleared to go back to work though, right?"

  "Yes, as long as you do the rehab assignments you should be fine. Do the stretches."

  "Thank you."

  With that, it was over, and Dave could go about his normal - or abnormal as some might put it - life. He thought about the task that lay ahead of him as Marigold threaded the car through downtown traffic. He was going to have to undo everything he had done, rather, what had been done as a result of his trifling. He tried to hide his anxiety from his wife. He was failing.

  "It'll all go back to the way it was, right? No more beings casting spells and God knows what in the basement of our house?"

  "Yes. It was all be the way it was before the car crash."

  "Will those...people die?"

  "They won't die as much as cease to have ever existed."

  "Somehow that's even less reassuring."

  "I don't know what to tell you, honey. I'll make it all okay."

  They drove the rest of the way home in silence. Davey would be home from school about the time they got home. Mary and Davey had wanted to witness the decompilation of the construct, but Dave had said no. It was important that the mechanics of what he had to do remain hidden from Davey. As far as Marigold was concerned, he just didn't want her there. He had no reason, just a gut reaction. He had set these events in motion alone, and he would finish it alone as well.

  When they arrived home, Dave had waved his wife off as she moved to help him get out of the car. He was still a little unsteady on his feet, but he managed. The hard part was coming. Part of him loved what he had created - it really had been a labor of love so to speak. He wondered just how far the beings, originally created as little more than worker drones, had come.