by John Hulme
“Becks.” Amy turned to the window, where the city of New Brunswick was going about its day. “Do you think I’ll be okay?”
Now, as then, he wasn’t sure if she meant just surviving this operation or with the leukemia itself. On the day this Moment was frozen, Becker had answered that question by promising, “You’re gonna be fine, Amy. I just know you will,” even though he didn’t know any such thing. The fact that twenty-four hours later the best friend he’d ever had passed away from “unexpected complications” broke his heart in two, and he’d thought of himself as a coward and a bold-faced liar ever since.
“Honestly?” Amy nodded, and this time Becker wasn’t going to make the same mistake. “I kind of have a bad feeling.”
“Me too.”
As Amy began to face the fact that eleven years were all she was going to get on this earth, Becker reached across the bed and tried to hug her fear away.
“If something goes wrong,” she said, “will you make me a promise?”
“Anything.”
Both of them were crying, but it somehow felt okay.
“Promise you’ll never forget me.”
When Fixer Drane hit the ground, it took him quite a while to wipe the tears from his eyes. Though it was a terribly painful experience to relive Amy’s dying day, that guilty feeling in his chest that had been there for so long was gone. It was only when his tears literally froze upon his cheeks that he lifted himself off the ground and took in the surroundings.
He had landed on some kind of frigid tundra, with a mammoth glacier behind him and an endless field of white in front. Wind-driven snow pelted his unprotected face, and his body was immediately sent into shivers—for though he had returned to his original age (and clothes), his Sleeve and Toolkit were back where he left him with Shan Mei-Lin. Wherever she was now . . .
“Briefer Shan?” The only Tools he still had were those that were clipped to his belt, and he shouted above the wind into his Receiver. “Briefer Shan, report!”
Despite the Powers That Be’s approval of multiple new Towers to provide better reception in The World and The Seems, nothing came back over the line. For all Becker knew, Receivers didn’t function inside Frozen Moments, and a quick check of his Blinker said that though its data was still intact, the communication functions were gone.
“Nice work, Einstein.”
He angrily hung up the Receiver and cursed himself for committing a Fixer’s cardinal sin—putting your own needs above those of the Mission. His only hope was that Briefer Shan was still on the trail of the Split Second, and he could somehow reconnect with her when this Moment led to another one and another one after that. His hands and feet were both beginning to go numb, though, so he hoped this one would end sooner rather than later.
“Hello?” Becker shouted into the wild. “Anybody there?”
Surely someone was about to arrive on the scene, for obviously this arctic wasteland had provided them with a peak experience. Any minute now, a cross-country skier or a boat bearing scientists on an arctic expedition would emerge through the snowy haze to have one of the most powerful Moments of their lives, and send Becker happily on his way.
Any minute now . . .
Two hours later, Becker stumbled across the ice, having lost all feeling in his body. The only thing that drove his rapidly clouding mind forward was the possibility that the dark line on the horizon was a forest where he could find shelter, maybe even some wood to start a fire. Not that he had anything to start a fire with.
This was not the first time #37 had been faced with the possibility of his own doom, but never had he been without his Toolkit and stuck in a Frozen Moment that for some reason refused to end. And with each step, he could feel the first stage of hypothermia setting in. Stage two would soon follow— typified by muscle miscoordination and the contraction of surface blood vessels to keep the vital organs warm—concluding with the terminal burrowing and stupor of stage three.
Becker knew none of these medical details as he tripped and fell into a bank of fresh snow. If he could have felt his face, he would have known he was smiling, for he was close enough now to see that those were indeed pine trees he was running toward. Once he got to his feet, Becker could easily cover the remaining ground and finally get the Mission back on track. But first, he just wanted to rest for a while. The cold wasn’t really that bad once you got used to it—it was actually kind of warm—and this bank of snow was as comfortable as his bed back at 12 Grant Avenue.
“Twelve Grant Avenue?” he whispered hoarsely. “I wonder who lives there?”
As Becker curled himself into the fetal position and listened to the soft tones of WDOZ, he couldn’t help but notice something emerging from the tree line. It was covered from head to toe in white fur, like a polar bear or the Abominable Snowman. Becker really hoped it was neither of those things, but the closer it got, the more he started to think it was a person.
“Help!” he tried to yell, but it came out more like, “Uhh-hhh.”
Whatever it was, it was heading straight toward him, moving quickly across the ground with snowshoes on its feet. Moments later, the figure was taking off its jacket and wrapping Becker inside of it.
“Picked a helluva place to take a nap,” said a gruff voice from beneath a frost-covered beard. “Try to stay awake.”
Becker felt himself being thrown over a pair of strong shoulders, which began to carry him back toward the woods.
“Got a name?”
“B . . . B . . .” Becker licked what he thought may have been his lips. “Becker.”
“Nice to meet you, Becker.” The stranger carried the boy as easily as a bag of laundry, and as he turned into the wind, his powerful strides gobbled up the space between the tundra and the tree line.
“Call me Tom.”
15. Used only three times in the history of modern Fixing, this clause allows a Briefer to relieve his or her Fixer of command based on mental incapacity or when their methods become “unsound.”
6
Tom Jackal
When Becker awoke, he was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and his IFR boxers. Heavy blankets covered his body, and as the waking world slowly crept into his mind, it was filled with confusion. The memory of a game of Uno with Amy Lannin came first, followed by the ugly reality of the Time Bomb. For a second, he hoped he was back in Highland Park and this was all a dream about his next Mission in The Seems, but then he realized he was lying in someone else’s bed.
On the ceiling above were the slats of a log cabin, and the rest of his clothes were washed and folded on the dresser across from the bed. Becker looked around for a clock that would tell him how long he’d been sleeping, but the only thing he spotted was a small nightstand, upon which rested a medical kit and a pot of tea.
“Hello?” he called out. “Is anybody here?”
No one answered. Becker vaguely remembered the vast tundra and the figure of the Abominable Snowman, but he couldn’t decide if where he was now was a Dream or a Frozen Moment or a Dream inside a Frozen Moment. Part of him worried that maybe he’d actually frozen to death out there, and now he was in A Better Place—an unpleasant thought that finally motivated him to leave the warm cocoon beneath the blanket.
“Ow!”
The moment his feet touched the floor, pain shot through Becker’s legs and he immediately collapsed to the ground. It was only then that he noticed his hands and feet were heavily bandaged—by what was clearly an expert hand. After a few tentative steps, he found walking somewhat tolerable, and limped over to the table. Even though the chamomile tea had gone cold, the taste of honey and lemon was soothing on his tongue.
“Hellooo . . .”
Becker opened the room’s single door, and found himself on the second floor of a mountain lodge. A quick investigation revealed three more bedrooms next to his—one a master, one with bunk beds and toys, and one with a wooden crib. Their owners, however, were nowhere to be found.
He crept down the woode
n staircase and into a spacious den, where a fire was crackling in the cut stone hearth. Iron tools dangled from hooks on the walls and the fading light outside the diamond-shaped windows told Becker it was late afternoon. The only visual hint as to who called this place home was an oil painting that hung over the hearth. It depicted a young woman of half-Inuit, half-Nordic descent, her long black hair flowing from beneath a wool hat. She was standing in the snow-covered woods, smiling directly at the observer, as if surprised to meet him in such an out-of-the-way place.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
Becker whipped around to see the same bearded man who had pulled him from the snow standing at the door. He was wearing a red thermal shirt, with an ax in one hand, and a bag of freshly chopped wood in the other.
“Doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing.” The man shut the door behind him and tossed the wood on the floor. “But that’s exactly what she looked like on the day we met.”
The man noticed Becker take a few steps back from him, probably due to what he was still holding in his right hand. With a throaty chuckle, he hung the ax upon the wall, next to an old two-handed saw.
“Who are you?” asked Becker, cautiously watching the man sit down and pull off his snow-covered boots. Though “Tom” seemed friendly enough, the Fixer couldn’t resist scanning about for weapons or avenues of escape.
“How are those hands and feet?” The man tossed his wet boots over by the front door. “A couple more minutes out there and you would have been a Popsicle.”
Whoever he was, Becker couldn’t place his accent. It wasn’t quite English—maybe Gaelic or Scottish—but despite its coarseness, there was also a warmth that began to put him at ease.
“They don’t seem so bad,” Becker said, holding up his mummified hands. “But I’m afraid to look underneath.”
“I warn you, they’re a little worse for the wear—but I have a good bit of experience with frostbite, and I think I got to them in time.”
That was a relief. There was already a No-Hands Phil, and Fixer #37 had no desire to become No-Hands Becker.
“Can I offer you anything?” Tom padded into the rustic kitchen, where the only sign of modern convenience, a stainless-steel fridge, was packed with food and drink. “Water? Or something to eat?”
“Got any Mountain Dew?” asked Becker.
“No, but you can have one of these . . .” He reached in and pulled out two brown, unlabeled bottles. “I call it Tom’s Homebrew.”
Becker had been in the presence of alcohol many times before—his dad liked to drink a beer while watching Mets/Jets/ Nets/Rutgers games and his mom enjoyed the occasional glass of Merlot—but he had never tasted anything stronger than a Shirley Temple.16
“I don’t know. Maybe just that glass of wat—”
“Don’t worry, kid. It’ll put some hair on your chest.”
Becker had a hunch that this was the “peer pressure” that all the teachers and TV advertisements were referring to, but when he popped the top of the bottle, the joke was on him.
“Is that root beer?”
“Birch.”
In fact, it was the best birch beer Becker had ever tasted in his life—red and not too bubbly, with just the right hints of juniper and clove.
“Excellent.”
“I’m glad you like it. My children say it’s too minty, but I say if it doesn’t have a little bite, then what’s the point?” While they talked, the man sifted through a wooden chest that looked like it had been salvaged from a shipwreck or something. “What kind of name is Becker, anyway?”
“My real first name is actually Ferdinand—which is why I go by my middle name.”
“I see what you mean.”
As the man continued to dig around in the chest, something about him seemed vaguely familiar. It wasn’t the beard, and it wasn’t the shaggy brown hair either, which was still dripping with snow. It was more just his body language, and the way he carried himself . . .
“You know, it was sheer luck I found you out there.” Tom pulled a well-worn passport and an old rugby ball out of the chest and laid them on the floor to get them out of the way. “It was only because I couldn’t catch a single bloody fish that I happened to look up and see something glinting in the sun.”
He motioned to the mantel, where a small black box otherwise known as a Blinker sat beside an orange telephone Receiver.
“It must have been those,” said Tom, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah that’s my . . . my pager.”
“You decided to bring a pager to Greenland but not a jacket or gloves?”
Uh. That was a good question and Becker didn’t have a good answer. Thankfully, the owner of the house seemed too preoccupied with his search to press the matter further.
“Ah! There you are.” Whatever he had found, it brought a nostalgic twinge to his voice. “Long time, no see.”
When Becker saw what Tom had pulled from the chest, a chill shot down his spine, and all at once he knew why this man seemed so familiar.
In Tom’s calloused hands—dusty and crumpled from being at the bottom of the pile—was a sheepskin bomber’s jacket and a leather aviator helmet. And though it looked like they hadn’t been worn in years, they were just as unforgettable as when Becker had first seen them—on photographs in his instructor’s office or in the simulation of a fateful Mission known as the Day That Time Stood Still.
“You’re . . . you’re Tom Jackal.”
“One and the same.”
“But . . . how?”
Tom fell into in a well-worn recliner and a wry grin moved across his face.
“The Plan works in mysterious ways.”
When Shan Mei-Lin watched Fixer Drane cut the Connective Tissue and leave the waiting room behind, she knew instinctively it was a bad idea. Trying to bury her uneasiness, she examined the white streaks in her hair, which she had to admit looked pleasantly punk. But it wasn’t long before the wobbly sensation came again, the floor cracked apart, and Shan was falling through the Moment-filled stew.
As she bounced from experience to experience, stopping only long enough to witness a buzzer-beating jump shot or the birth of a child, the one thought that repeated itself in her mind was, “How could I have lost another?” If there was one responsibility that Briefers had above all things, it was to stand by their Fixers through thick and thin—especially when a Fixer was under extreme duress. Though a little voice inside her head whispered, “It was their fault, not yours!” a much louder voice shouted, “You blew it!”
The only consolation Shan could muster was the fact that each time she entered another Moment, the path of the Split Second was clear. Be it the shag carpet in a family’s basement or the shattered tiles at the bottom of an empty pool, the telltale burned and perfect circle was easily located and the way the short hairs on her neck were raising, she knew she was getting closer . . .
“If I can just Fix the Split Second on my own,” Shan resolved, “then maybe I can save face and The World at the same time.”
But her search was picking up. When she finally caught a foothold in a Chilean apple orchard, the Briefer barely had time to smell the Jonagolds when the Moment fell apart. Shan once again had the distinct sensation of tumbling down a mighty waterfall, and though she didn’t have the protection of a barrel, at least she was cloaked in her trusty Sleeve. It was a good thing too, for without the protective fabric, she may have been torn asunder by the rough edges of other people’s lives.
Further and further she fell, no longer even stopping in the Moments anymore. She lost all touch with any sensation but the feeling of falling itself, until finally—
Splash!
Two long minutes later, Shan clawed her way to the surface and gasped to fill her lungs with air. The din of rushing water pounded in her ears and the pool she swam in churned with foam, forcing the Briefer to deploy a pair of Water Wings™ to keep herself afloat. Flapping desperately, she raised herself a few inches above the water
and flew to the shore.
It was only when Shan allowed her bruised body to plop onto the black sand that she could see why she’d nearly drowned: there was indeed a waterfall that cascaded down from somewhere above and collected in a pool of swirling experiences. But where exactly she had landed was a mystery . . .
Shan knew she was no longer in a Frozen Moment, for this place lacked the heightened sense of reality and gauzy, romanticized glow. It was colder, bleaker, and only darkness was visible beyond the mist that surrounded the falls. The Briefer pulled the hair from her goggles, rolled down the soaked facemask of her Sleeve, and pondered the sheltered cove that perhaps had never seen a human visitor.
Except for the one whose footsteps were leading off through the sand.
Seemsian history is full of many myths and legends, but the tale of Tom Jackal holds a unique place. The Welsh-born Fixer came to prominence when he caught the Time Bandits on the “Night They Robbed the Memory Bank,” and was one of three Roster members chosen to participate in “Hope Springs Eternal”—the classified Mission where he, Lisa Simms, and Jelani Blaque were sent to the Middle of Nowhere to bring back Hope for The World. But nearly eleven years ago to the day, his career had come to an unceremonious end.
“Ever face a Glitch, Drane?”
Fixers Drane and Jackal sat before the dwindling fire, while outside the snow that had once been flurries was getting heavier.
“In the Department of Sleep, actually,” Becker confessed. “On my very first Mission as a Fixer.”
“Tough way to get your feet wet.”
“Tell me about it.”
Jackal lit himself a corn-cob pipe and deeply inhaled.
“On my last Mission, I faced the mother of all Glitches . . . and it didn’t go so well.” Jackal exhaled a thick plume of smoke, then leaned back in his chair. “They’re probably using it at the IFR as the perfect example of what not to do on a Mission.”
