Aftermath

by LeVar Burton

  Shaky thought it over, then nodded. The police departments operated on a shoestring budget, those that still operated at all. They didn’t have the funds or the manpower to go chasing down criminals, not unless you could afford to pay them. Since Leon was homeless, they probably wouldn’t even bother to file a report.

  “Can you help me?” Leon asked.

  Shaky looked at him a moment, then handed the disks back. “Sorry. I haven’t seen a working computer in years, especially one new enough to play these.” He made a sweeping gesture of the room. “Now if it’s junk, old clothes or appliance parts you need, you’re in luck.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Leon said, disappointed. He finished his coffee and stood up. As he started to leave, Shaky stopped him.

  “Wait a minute,” the old man called. “I do have something for you. Just got them in yesterday.” He rummaged through a pile of clothes and pulled out a pair of black running shoes. “These should fit you,” he said, tossing Leon the shoes.

  The shoes were almost brand-new, with only one small scuff to show they had ever been worn. Turning them over, Leon saw that they were size ten. His size.

  “I don’t have any money,” Leon said. He started to toss the shoes back, but Shaky put his hands on his hips and shook his head.

  “Damnit, Leon, Who said anything about money?” He pointed at Leon’s feet “I’m tired of hearing you clop around in those oversized gunboats you’re wearing. Make enough noise to wake the dead. I figure the only way I can get you out of them is to give you something else to wear. Besides, I still owe you for that radio you gave me. All it needed was a transistor. Take the shoes; maybe now I can get a little peace and quiet around here.”

  Leon accepted the shoes with a nod, waiting until he stepped outside before slipping them on. They fit perfectly; he didn’t even have to stuff the toes with newspaper. Knowing Shaky could sell just about anything, Leon left his old shoes sitting in front of the tent.

  The young woman with the pretty voice had quit singing by the time he left Shaky’s tent, but Leon didn’t mind. He felt good in his new shoes, his feet springing off the grass and bouncing off the pavement. He felt so good, in fact, that he started to jog. By the time he left Second Chance, his feet had adjusted to the shoes and he was running as fast as he could.

  He ran the remaining five blocks to the alley where he lived. The alley was narrow and almost unnoticeable, a mere crack between two deserted brownstones. Two hundred yards from the street, the alley dead-ended against the side of a third building. Where it terminated, a high fence and a sturdy gate guarded an area once used to store trash cans and building supplies. Leon had sold all but one of the trash cans for scrap years ago, and the building supplies had been used to reinforce the wall of a large wooden crate that sat in the back corner of the fenced area. A wooden crate he now called home.

  Leon preferred a solitary lifestyle to living in one of the street communities. For one thing, he felt safer. The crate he lived in sat in continuous shadows, hidden from view. And since he had the only key to the gate, his home was far more secure than most. But as he entered the alley, his pace going from a jog to a walk, he saw that the gate stood open. Something was wrong.

  Someone had broken into his sanctuary, invading his private world. The broken pieces of the padlock lay on the ground, evidence of the invasion. He tensed. Perhaps that someone was still around.

  Stopping just inside the gate, Leon picked up a board and slowly approached his home. He circled around to the doorway and squatted down, prepared to defend himself if necessary. The piece of plywood that served as a door stood open, further evidence that someone had been there.

  He listened for a moment, heard nothing, then leaned the board against the side of the wooden crate, close enough that he could still grab it if needed. Reaching in his pocket, he removed a pack of matches and lit one. The tiny flame of the match pushed back the darkness enough for him to see that his home was empty. But someone had been there; his simple belongings lay scattered about on the floor.

  “Damn.”

  Leon lit a second match and located one of his candles. The candle’s pale amber glow revealed his worst fears to be true. He had been robbed. Gone were his blankets, his clothing and his meager supply of food: three cans of tuna, a couple packets of dried soup and a half-eaten loaf of bread. Also missing were his books, the homemade shelves they had sat upon empty and bare.

  His heart nearly broke when he saw that the thieves had not been content with just robbing him. Out of meanness, they had destroyed the only thing in life that held any meaning for him. Lying at Leon’s feet were the tattered remains of a photograph of his wife and daughter. The faded picture was the one thing he considered sacred, his most prized possession. But now that too was gone, destroyed, tom into tiny pieces by a nameless, faceless villain.

  There was no one to vent his outrage on. No one he could punch and kick to rid the anger that flooded his heart. He sobbed, his soul tearing, as the sorrow of the situation rushed in on him.

  “Why me, God? Why is it always me?” Leon sat down heavily, his body weak, waiting for his breath to return to normal. When it finally did, he leaned forward and carefully gathered up the pieces of the mutilated photograph. And then, his eyes still blurred with tears, he slowly started to put the picture back together. One tiny piece at a time.

  PART II

  “There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.”

  —Howard Thurman

  Chapter 7

  The sun shone bright and warm, golden in a sky of blue. The air was filled with the delicate scent of peach blossoms and the melodies of a mockingbird. Rene felt the sun upon her face, like the breath of a warm puppy, as she ran through a field of tall flowers. She held a piece of string clasped firmly in her right hand. At the other end of the string a red kite danced with the clouds, carried upon invisible currents of wind. She laughed as the kite bobbed and weaved, happy as only a child of twelve could be, calling for her father to hurry up and not fall behind.

  Leyland Reynolds chased after his daughter and the dancing kite. Smiling, laughing, he ran across the field where the peach trees grew and the mockingbirds sang. Rene turned to watch her father. He was tall and strong, his hair just starting to turn gray at the temples; his smells a mixture of cologne and black cherry pipe tobacco. Behind her father, the city of Atlanta rose like a magical kingdom, stretching mirrored towers and castle walls high into the sky.

  Suddenly, the sky went dark and breathless; the dancing kite fell from the clouds. The string slack in her hands, Rene watched as the kite fell to earth and lay like broken dreams upon the ground. She looked to her father for help, but he was no longer there. The gas had taken him. Thick, yellow, it rolled across the ground, turning the trees into withered skeletons and stealing forever the mockingbird’s song.

  She tried to run from the gas, but the numbness in her legs slowed her. Each step was agony, bringing tears to her eyes.

  The field was no longer empty. Others ran, screaming, from the soldiers with their guns and tanks. They fled from the bullets, the bombs and a thousand other horrors the war brought. Women ran with children in their arms only to be cut down in a hail of bullets, their blood mixing with that of the husbands and fathers who already lay dead on the ground. The blood blended together and ran in rivers across the field, turning the ground into mud. Bloody red mud. The mud sucked at Rene’s feet, slowed her down even more. She called to her father for help, but he did not come. He had gone to Richmond to die in the yellow gas.

  Jet fighters screamed overhead. The ground shook with the explosions of their rockets and bombs. Rene watched as buildings disappeared with a flash and a bang, entire neighborhoods baptized in flames. Schools, where children once played, became charred skeletons, the lau
ghter and happiness gone forever.

  Rene ran from the bombs the jet fighters brought, ran from the gas, but she could not get away. The bloody ground grabbed at her feet and pulled her down, sucking her into a muddy red grave. She tried to struggle, but couldn’t move her arms. She tried to call out, but dirt filled her mouth and choked her. She couldn’t breathe … could not breathe.

  Rene awoke with a start, gasping, struggling to draw breath into starved lungs. Her heart and head pounded as she slowly became fully conscious, realizing with relief that she wasn’t buried beneath the ground. It had been a dream. A nightmare. But as she tried to move, she discovered that her wrists were handcuffed and knew the nightmare was far from over.

  I’ve been kidnapped.

  Everything came rushing back to her: the break-in at the Institute, the men who attacked her, her apparent abduction. She started to panic, but forced herself to remain calm. It would do no good to become upset. Her only hope lay in rationally thinking the situation through.

  Okay, first things first. Where am I?

  She lay on her back in complete darkness, staring up at a ceiling she could not see. Her arms were numb, which meant she had been lying on them for some time, probably for hours. Rolling on her side, she bit her lower lip to keep from crying out as the circulation slowly returned to her arms and hands.

  As she lay with her face to the floor, Rene became aware of two things: first, the floor was made of metal and not wood. Second, the vibrations felt through the metal floor told her she was moving. If that was the case, then she must be in the back of a truck or a van. Listening carefully, she could hear the sound of the vehicle’s tires humming on the road.

  Another thought sprang to mind, sickening her. When the feeling finally returned to her fingers, Rene checked to make sure that she still wore clothes. She did—and she felt okay—so she had probably not been raped while unconscious.

  Thank God.

  So why had she been abducted? If robbery was the motive behind the break-in at the Institute, why hadn’t the thieves just killed her? It would have been simpler. No doubt they knew she was in the building. Rene remembered the man with the mike telling his companion: “She’s in the lobby.” They had probably followed her, or watched her enter the building and knew she was alone. Apparently, they also knew there were no guards.

  What did they want from her? Ransom? What a joke. She had no family, no one to pay the money. The company she worked for couldn’t afford to pay for her return. The Hawkins Neural Institute operated in the red as it was. Surely her kidnappers would know that.

  She thought of the men who grabbed her, trying to picture their faces in her mind. A wave of fear washed over her as she realized that both of them were white.

  Was her kidnapping racially motivated? During the war the groundswell of pent-up anger went on to manifest itself in a purging of all the hate-mongering institutions that the minority population had been subjected to for so many years. Klansmen, neo-Nazis and skinheads had been hunted down and systematically executed. Many were publicly hanged by angry mobs, just as blacks had once been hanged by white-robed assassins.

  But despite all efforts to stamp them out of existence, many hate group members had managed to escape execution or imprisonment. In certain states militant groups were re-forming, wanting nothing more than to stir up the flames of racial tension once again. Still, Rene could not imagine what such organizations would want with her. It had to be something else.

  Whatever the reason for her abduction, she knew her life was in danger. When the circulation finally returned to her arms, Rene struggled and squirmed to work the handcuffs down the back of her legs and over her feet, bringing her hands to the front of her body. Now she would be better able to defend herself. If only she could find a weapon.

  Crawling on her hands and knees, she searched the floor for a wrench, a tool, anything she could use in a fight. Finding nothing on the floor, she stood up and slid along the walls, hoping to find something useful hanging from a hook. Again she found nothing.

  Her frustration mounting, Rene paused when she reached the back doors. There was no handle on the inside of the doors, no latch of any kind. They were locked from the outside and would not budge, not even a little bit. Freedom was only inches away, yet she could do nothing to attain it. Thwarted, she turned away from the doors and walked forward until she reached the front wall. On the other side would be the driver’s cab and the men who abducted her.

  Rene had intended to kick the wall to vent her frustration and let her kidnappers know how angry she was about being a prisoner. But she stopped herself, the mood slowly fading. It would be foolish to advertise the fact that she was awake and moving about. If they thought she was asleep they would be less cautious, maybe even a little careless. Perhaps they would stop soon to check on her. When they opened the doors, she would have a chance to escape—not a great one, but a chance nonetheless.

  In the meantime, she needed to quit wasting energy by moving about. She would wait, mentally and physically prepared, for her chance at freedom.

  With that thought in mind, she sat down with her back against the front wall. Rene placed her ear against the wall to see if she could hear anything. She couldn’t. The thickness of the wall, or a space between the cab and the truck, prevented her from hearing conversation or anything else that could be useful. Disappointed, she closed her eyes and tried to gather her thoughts.

  But as Rene started to relax a face suddenly flashed to mind: the face of the homeless man she had given the Neuro-Enhancer’s code disks to. A faint glimmer of hope entered her heart. The man had witnessed her abduction and would notify the police. She smiled. It was only a matter of time till she was rescued.

  Doubt entered her thoughts. The glimmer of hope faded and died. The police wouldn’t get involved in a simple kidnapping, not when robbery and murder was a way of life on the streets of Atlanta. Even if they did get involved, they had no way of knowing where she had been taken. If only there was a way to tell someone where she was.

  Maybe there was.

  In addition to premonitions, another curious side effect of using the Neuro-Enhancer was the ability to project thoughts from one person to another. So far this mental telepathy had shown up in only two people: Rene and one of her elderly patients. Since she had been experimenting with the Enhancer on a daily basis, Rene’s new-found mental ability was much more advanced than that of her patient. Even so, the phenomenon had only occurred a few times in the carefully controlled atmosphere of the laboratory. Could such a thing be possible now, without the Enhancer? Could she awaken the dormant portion of her brain to reach the same state of awareness needed to project thoughts? One thing for sure, she had nothing to lose by trying.

  Closing her eyes, she willed her mind to grow calm and forced her body to relax. She inhaled deeply to slow her breathing. In through the nostrils; out through the mouth. In and out. Relax. Breathe. Relax.

  Rene thought of how it was when she used the Enhancer: the icy numbness that slowly seeped into her body, starting in the toes and gradually coursing up through her legs; her muscles tingling with energy as the neural regions in her brain went into overdrive. And as she thought about it, she once again felt the numbness in her feet—felt the tingling flow from her shoulders to her fingertips.

  It’s working! She fought her sudden excitement, forcing herself to remain calm. Breathe. In and out. That’s it.

  The numbness turned her legs to lead as it seeped into her calves and crept up her thighs. It moved into her hips and stifled the nervous quivering in her stomach. The numbness and tingling merged; she felt relaxed and yet charged with energy at the same time.

  As her body reached a state of deep relaxation, Rene’s thoughts became focused and crystal clear. Programmed and conditioned by the Neuro-Enhancer, her mind now called upon neural regions normally not used. Thousands of electrical impulses raced through her brain from one neuron to the next.

  Rene did not conc
entrate on what her brain and body were doing. Instead she focused her attention on the man she had given the code disks to, fixing his image firmly in her mind. Straining with such mental exertion that her body shook, she projected her thought toward him. One thought. Only one.

  Help me!

  Chapter 8

  The night is always coldest just before the dawn. Jacob Fire Cloud knew that to be true. He sat shivering on a lonely South Dakota hilltop, with nothing but a thin blanket to keep him warm. And though his naked body was weak from lack of food and water, and numbed by the chill night air, his mind was unaffected, his thoughts clear.

  People who didn’t know any better often thought that the visions experienced on a vision quest were nothing more than hallucinations brought on by starvation, lack of water, intense climate or drugs. They had never experienced the clarity of mind that occurs when the body is deprived of food and cleansed in the sweat lodge. Had they known the truth, or been willing to believe, there might have been more people seeking guidance in the wilderness. Just about every hill would have had someone on it, crying for a vision. But most people didn’t believe in Indian medicine, or visions, so they didn’t come. Jacob was quite alone.

  He sat on the hilltop, his pipe cradled in his lap, facing east, watching the coming rays of dawn. In the valley below the creatures of the night were making their way back to their homes, replaced by the day’s early risers. He saw a rabbit emerge from its burrow, nose twitching, ears upright and alert. The rabbit moved slowly, munching the tender shoots of new grass, mindful of the presence of a redtail hawk circling high overhead.

  Jacob watched as the sun appeared over the hills to the east, painting the gray sky with streaks of pink and orange. It was going to be a beautiful day, but the old medicine man found no happiness in his heart. Three days had already passed and still his vision had not come. He knew he could not hold out much longer; he wasn’t a young man anymore. The emptiness in his stomach filled his mind with thoughts of food and warm drink. Soon the temptations would become too strong to resist and he would give in. Failure was inevitable.