Terraplane

by Jack Womack

  "Go through the stiles. They'll give when I send warning."

  "They've got the lights on already, Luther-"

  Go.

  As if freed, I fired without cease for a moment or so, aiming not to strike with death but with fear. The gatekeepers scattered into the safety of the fair; those leaving or entering did so more quickly. Raindrops began pelting the car, began washing my face as we crashed through, scraping by. I slid back inside, keeping the Shrogin aimed without and forward.

  "We too late?" Wanda asked, steering us through a curved alley dividing two smooth-sided buildings; a caterpillarlike tram, its passengers sheltered from the rain by a brighthued top, crawled out of our path as we eked through.

  "Don't think so. Go, Wanda. Come on."

  As we pulled onto Constitution Mall, its aligned trees glowing screen green with the lights positioned beneath their branches, its pink-shaded buildings rising from either side, we saw the lights round the fair's centerpiece fade from white and return again as sun yellow; the Trylon gleamed like a golden javelin, the Perisphere glistened like a boiled egg's yolk. Around the iron ring beneath the spire's apex, bolts of artificial lightning crackled, shooting along the metal wires supporting the ring; along the needle's length blue flashes of unimaginable voltage ran wild. Greater applause than previously heard rose from the distance as we headed towards the light.

  "This is it," I said. "Floor it, Wanda. I'll keep us cleared. Aim straight. Stop for nothing."

  Jake's hand appeared from behind; he began dropping his arsenal into the front seat as we rushed forward. On top of all he placed his pocket-player. Why he had chosen such a moment to disarm I couldn't guess and couldn't take time to ask even had I expected answer.

  "I don't believe this shit," Wanda said, her hands tight upon the wheel except when she shifted; by the engine's roar I gathered we'd entered highest gear.

  "Keep driving," I said, firing again to drive any crowd from our onrush. Beyond the trees' long line the Trylon showed as a maypole bedecked with ribbons of lightning swirling round; the Perisphere glowed more brightly, its shine rising from within as if it prepped to blast. Bolts flashed upward into the rain-drenching skies. Without warning a great flash shot from cloud to peak, the real electric meeting the sham; a waterfall of charge cascaded downward, one stream angling to right, coming to ground directly in our path, hundreds of meters distant. When it struck it showed as a high white curtain rising from the earth.

  "Luther-"

  "That's it."

  "Drive into that?" she asked, not slowing. "We'll be cooked."

  "Drive. "

  The curtain's white edges tinged with blue; ozone's scent perfumed the air. On our right I noticed a long reflecting pool lined with statuary; the water seemed aflame with reflected light. Ahead, between us and the curtain, red revolving lights suggested that our progress might be interrupted. I readied to aim again, not noticing pain, not feeling fear, knowing nothing but a feeling exhilarating in its effect, horrifying in its implications as I prepped to kill.

  "Road's blocked, Luther," said Wanda; with my free hand I reached over to assist her guidance of the wheel. Keeping my eyes low to avoid the blinding light ahead, I knew we couldn't stop at this point. Even as we raced forward, the ones officiating surely were trying to shut off the coil and bring this unexpected polytechnic to an end. There'd come no further chance.

  "Aim left. Clip them if needed. I'll keep them down."

  Guns fired our way; with free finger I released the trigger, firing at optimum, uncaring of who or what might be hit, feeling within my hand the warming shake of death as I flung it forward. On the left was room enough to pass, just; the rear of our Terraplane struck the squad car that nearly blocked our path, catching its front bumper. We skidded away from the light, towards the trees. Dropping the Shrogin, its handle burning, I reached across, aimed the wheel towards the glow and pressed Wanda's foot down with my own upon the accelerator.

  "Lord help us," she shouted. "Luther-"

  No sooner had we entered the light than silence surrounded us; the white painted all before and behind. My stomach roiled with nausea; the hair on my neck's nape rose. Knowing that we would experience some location displacement, wondering how far our speed might shoot us through, I hoped that we would not emerge in the Hudson River's midst, or break through full speed into the side of Grand Central.

  As the light faded, the rear door opened.

  "Jake!" I turned; watched them sliding into unoccupied airspace, without sound falling out between worlds, leaping into light.

  "Luther!" Wanda screamed. "Hold tight-"

  At once the white vanished; scenes showed once more. We were airborne, or so it felt. Having landed at bridge's arc and bounding upward, we crashed again onto its slope, striking the Fifty-ninth Street ramp. The rear tires broke away as the axle gave. Sparks flew up from beneath the car as the underpan scraped the longneglected pavement, slowing us but slightly as we skidded towards the wall defending midtown from the Queensboro Bridge's sealed approach, heading straight for the guardpost on First Avenue. The city rose around us, its heights lost in nighttime smog. We slowed before striking the wall, spinning as if loosed by top-string before finally coming to a stop. No sooner had we come to our rest than the guards reacted, firing into the windshield as we ducked, sending glittering shards onto our backs with wind chime's ring. I fumbled for my wallet; finding Valentino's passport, I threw it aside. The bootsteps neared; I held my true ID up on high, hoping they might read it before they termed us; hoping that they could read. A barrel pressed into my temple as my wallet was snatched from my hand. Eyeshut, I wondered if death at home seemed truly preferable, after all.

  "Dryco," I whispered, as if to my lover.

  "Sir," the soldier asked, unaiming, shouldering his toy. "Are you AO, sir?"

  Heaving myself upward, hauling Wanda with me, I smiled, seeing the city as I knew it to look; stared childlike at the soldier's visor mirror, the glass bluffs rising round us, the razorwire cornice topping the graffitied wall, the searchlight's unending slash at the moon and stars. Cityroar resounded round, warning all weakhearted away. Wanda opened her eyes and stared into her new abyss. Her lungs spasmed at first breath; her cough ran for five minutes full as she adjusted to the air. I breathed deep, knowing home.

  "Hospital us," I said, looking back, but Jake was still gone.

  HEARING WATER BEATING GLASS I AWOKE; ROSE, STUMBLED across darkness that I might retrieve my plants from the balcony before the rain killed them. From pelting damp I reentered, scratching blindly at the itch the drops left on my burning skin. Standing in four-A. M. calm, I scanned the nightlit room, knowing without solid reason that another kept near. A wallhanging fell floorways, dropping without weight, lending no sound as it landed.

  Bending, feeling old aches left from bones broken and rebroken, from ill-knit ribs and oft-concussed head, I lifted the frame, ran fingertips along the unbroken wire there attached. Stroking the wall, feeling its coolness, finding the holder still set secure, I rehung the photo and stared at its look while my eyes adjusted to dark. It was an ancient colorshot from a more accessible 1939, showing an evening pose of the Trylon's clean needle; the Perisphere ashine with blue and dabbled white. The picture stayed where I'd hung it; one fall was enough.

  Between worlds Jake wandered yet, I supposed, good arm forever supporting Oktobriana's stillness. Where he walks others must also beat the walls that they might make some sound, there in the space through which panthers leap from Canada into England, crocs from Florida to Boston; the void through which little girls slip without warning from mother's clasp; somewhere in the fence.

  The Flushing Window-its present monicker, as per Dryco's word-remains open, though the guard keeps its surroundings perpetually closed; not so much to keep theirs from entering as ours from leaving, a matter solely of perspective. Little danger exists now from viral transmission, at least of the particular virus; in the initial pandemic DS followed a like pattern
in our world, though since its housebreaking by new-developed vaccines few have been lost to its purges. As Oktobriana feared, when Alekhine returned with his prize his gift brought more than was desired. By word of our informants, Alekhine received definitive treatment for his efforts. Word passed, too, that the Big Boy himself lived into elderly's years, safe from all upon a state-supplied dacha- Skuratov's, I'd like to think. Krasnaya always tried to do the right thing. Even in Russia it was a matter of greatest humor that only the Big Boy could have killed millions of his countryfolk during two different centuries.

  Awakened full now, I stood ready to meet and greet; imagined that as through a windblown drape his hand might reach. Did he, then, still float there, lost beneath the ice, forever seeking the hole through which he'd flung himself? When he screams, who hears? In revenge, does he light the fires of unknown origin; thumb shut night drivers' eyes; scotch the readings as planes ready to land? With incubus charm does he lure those whose bodies never after know grave? Jake never showed; I never knew

  It wasn't night's most rational hour. Needing reality's blow after so long I gazed outward, across Bronx hills and buildings, sighting distant Manhattan's towers through cloud and falling water. All looked so normal as it ever did. I shifted my glance, sizing my holdings. Upon retiring from Dryco after long officebound years and receiving all gratuities forthcoming, I wished to invest as desired, and so gathered timekeepers as my budget allowed, scattering them round me: the photo that had fallen, a tin maple-syrup can in log cabin's guise, a pack of unopened Lucky Strikes, its Christmas colors fresh; a green shirt of radium silk free of harmful isotope, a Terraplane's hubcap-

  Jake. Jake, Jake, twenty years gone.

  I asked Alice once to bring up the city's residential files for the appropriate years so that I might know of our world's Doc. Here, too, Norman Quarles had been a doctor, undoubtedly one of more professional background; his wife's name was Wanda and they lived on Eighth Avenue, just below 133rd, and surely slept as fitfully through the el's all-night rumble. When they died, in the early seventies-Doc first, and then Wanda-they left no survivors; for different reasons, undoubted. I told Wanda of what I found, but she didn't wish to hear of it. Perhaps she feared that if she were to more fully acquaint herself with her counterpart, the half would become whole and she might vanish. Whether this world's Quarleses knew a happier life, I can't say; I hope they had a quieter one.

  Thoughts rushed to me too rapidly as I stood there, awaiting word, seeking omens, watching for signs, listening to hear a code tapped out above the rain's rhythm. As on every night when I awoke before dawn, the old uncertainty crept up. Switching on kitchen light, taking up a jar of pennies, I shook them onto a table and stared at their pile, praying to all unlistening that the kraken within me hadn't yet awakened as one day, still, it might. No numbers glowed as neon within my mind as I looked upon them; I counted, one by one. I counted one hundred and twelve.

  Were there any answers? With two worlds in existence, each following a like trail along a different path, does it follow that an interactive God drew the map for each? Did having to keep eye on two instead of one account for such seeming senselessness, that too much went on for even God to follow? Would this distraction become madness; provide at last the reason for why the beloved are snatched away, why the faintest hopes are dashed, why only waste brings knowledge? If all is predestined, then, does God choose lesser vessels, through which It delivers Its evil so that It might take credit for only the good done in Its name? What does God grant Its killers in return?

  One by one, numbering the count again to reassure, I at last let my fear fall away until the next night's malaise. Rain-wind rattled windowpanes, drummed its beat without cease, sent its tears into darkness. Heading bedways I slipped in where, until November last, Wanda lay. She died of old age; so few do.

  Lying down, inserting phones so that with music's graze I might rub my mind to sleep, I paused to deliberate choice of hands. Leaving Jake's tape boxed as it lay, in no mood for Ives or Penderecki or Lalo, I picked Elgar's Sea Pictures; slept away to lost voice's song singing across long-gone years, carrying comforts penned by one lost longer. In daylight I awoke, rinsed in memory, washed by distance, hearing only time's breakers crashing onto a new day's shore, feeling the beach as it forever slipped from underfoot into tide. I dressed by Johnson's song. The waves broke; the water rushed away.

  JACK WOMACK was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and currently lives in New York City. Terraplane is his second novel, following Ambient.