The Crashers

by Cubed, Magen

  On the weekends, Adam drove to the farmers market in Merseyside for produce and stopped off at the organic supermarket for groceries. Bridger came along this time to inspect the labels of local artisans and mom-and-pops before tossing anything of interest into the cart. Adam followed behind with the list and checked off the week’s supply of milk, cheese, eggs, and bread.

  At the dairy case, Adam piped up while comparing brands of Greek yogurt.

  “How long were you and your wife married?”

  Prodding at a six-pack of hypoallergenic vanilla pudding, Bridger shrugged. “Twenty-five years.”

  “How’d you guys meet?”

  “In college. I was nineteen. She was twenty. We eloped three months later.”

  Placing a week’s worth of assorted yogurt flavors into the cart, Adam chuckled at the answer. “Wow. That’s kind of intense.”

  “Intense is kind of my default.” Bridger dropped his selection of pudding atop his growing pile of personal items. “What’s with the Twenty Questions?”

  “This is my non-confrontational way of telling you that your wife came by the shop.”

  That brought Bridger up short. “What? When?”

  “I don’t know.” Adam shrugged as he pushed the cart toward the tea aisle. “A few days ago. After you had your meeting with your lawyer.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “Hey, I work forty hours a week,” Adam said. “I’ve had to sleep since then.”

  Bridger walked ahead and inspected a box of coconut sleepytime tea. He shook and tossed it into the cart. “What did she say? Did she look all right?”

  “She misses you. She’s worried...”

  Bridger didn’t notice his hesitance. Adam hadn’t told Bridger about the money, the implications of her offer, or what she was accusing him of. There was no room for that information in their otherwise easy living arrangement.

  “And apparently she thinks I’m your floozy on the side. And I think she wants to eat me. Just so you know.”

  Bridger sighed. “Don’t take it personally.”

  “The eating thing?”

  “No. And she doesn’t want to eat you. Jesus. She means well, she just—she’s very direct. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Being accused of stealing someone’s husband feels kind of personal, though.”

  “Yeah, well. She knows you’re not really my type.”

  Adam smirked. “So you’re not into blonds?”

  “No, just not jocks. You look like every guy that ever shoved me into a locker in high school.”

  “Well, don’t worry. You’re not my type, either.”

  “What, financially secure? Good-looking? Intellectual?”

  “Old enough to be my father.”

  “Cute.”

  At the checkout counter, Adam emptied the cart onto the conveyor belt and pulled out his wallet. Before he could pay, Bridger was ready with his card to swipe across the debit reader. Adam made a face.

  Bridger ignored it. “What? Put your money away. I’ve been eating all your food and living on your couch. Let me do something useful.”

  “You know you don’t have to,” Adam insisted. “I make good money.”

  Bridger smiled at the seventeen-year-old cashier with her clear braces and blue eyeliner. “It isn’t charity, kid. Even if it was, I can afford it.”

  “Says the guy living on my couch.”

  Adam easily gathered the bags to leave and lead Bridger across the parking lot. He fiddled with his keys in the trunk lock and popped the back hatch to put the bags away. At the passenger door, Bridger waited for Adam to unlock the car.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Yes?” answered Adam from the hatch as he arranged the bags inside the trunk.

  Before Bridger could finish his thought, he dropped to the ground. Blood trickled from his nose and his limbs locked in a fit. He seized as his eyes rolled behind his fluttering lids. Adam ran around the car to scoop Bridger up. His fight-or-flight response made Adam forget his strength, cradling the frailer man like a wounded animal until the fit passed. Bridger gripped his arm with unfocused eyes as Adam wiped the blood away from his face.

  “What is it?” Adam asked.

  “H-hospital,” Bridger gritted out. “Now.”

  “Of course.” Adam nodded, shuffling Bridger in his arms to get him to his feet. “Of course, we’ll go right now.”

  “No, it’s not me. It’s him. He’s going to hit the hospital next.”

  III.

  The messages from Ben were still open on Kyle’s laptop, sent from Ben’s personal account. His employers at Kyrios Securities didn’t need to know about his extracurricular activities. Kyle appreciated Ben’s understanding, respecting his need for discretion.

  To: Kyle Jeong

  From: Ben Holmes

  Subject: Re: Favor

  Hey,

  I checked with a friend of mine to see if he could find this “Snow” guy. He gave me the only names that popped up. Hope this helps. What do you need this for, anyway?

  Kyle texted Ben his thanks and avoided answering his question entirely. The search returned twenty-three Snows who fit the criteria Kyle had outlined. The list included corporate pharmacologists, civic engineers, and the occasional militia member flagged for their military histories or criminal records. He put their flattened jpegs across his corkboard in neat rows in the corner of his city map and stared into the places where his strings crisscrossed. None of these Snows quite fit. After a while, he gave up looking at it and opened the barred hotel window to look out over the EBC’s vast concrete skyline.

  At 2:31, his phone beeped in his back pocket. He pulled it out and found a new message from Amanda.

  “I’m off the case.”

  Kyle scowled at his phone. “What happened?”

  “An accident at Percy Bridge. I had to fire my gun. Some kid decided to do us all a favor by shooting up brown people.”

  “Was it a clean shoot?”

  “Of course. But I’m the same shade of brown, so my expertise is better served elsewhere.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Tell it to the captain.”

  After a moment, he sighed and typed, “Sorry.”

  “Thanks.” Before he could thumb his response, his phone beeped again. “Are you free tonight?”

  Kyle didn’t get the message. Instead, the chime broke into a ring, an unfamiliar number on the caller ID. Expecting the worst, he bristled and pushed the END button. The number called back. This time, he answered.

  “Who is this?”

  “Kyle?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Adam. I’m at St. Bart’s Hospital. Bridger had another fit—a vision. He said that the hospital’s next.”

  “When?”

  “Today,” Adam answered. “What do I do?”

  “Stay put. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll be right there.”

  Kyle was already out the door before he hung up.

  IV.

  Norah’s tiny apartment on Nolde Street looked tinier and tinier with every box she carried out. Its bare walls were shockingly white without the framed photos in the hallway and above the sofa she no longer had use for. Wiping the salt from her brow, Norah looked around her nearly empty living room and let out an anxious breath.

  “How’s it going out there?” Clara asked from the kitchen.

  She had been dropping canned goods into fabric tote bags for the last half hour, boxing Norah’s cupboards and sealing them off with tape. Norah wiped her dusty hands on her sweatpants and stood. Poking her head around the corner, she pointed her thumb at the door.

  “It’s coming along, but I think I’ve hit a wall. You want something to eat? Preferably cheap and greasy, so I don’t have to cook anything.”

  “Yes,” Clara replied eagerly. “I’m dying in here.”

  Abandoning their work, they toed their shoes back on and locked up the apartment to begin their trek down the block for f
ood. Norah didn’t even look at it or the fresh cracks in the plaster that crawled one full flight toward her apartment.

  “Are the guys coming to help?” Clara asked at the stoplight on Carter, waiting for the signal to turn.

  “Yeah,” Norah answered. “Adam texted me this morning to say he’d come over after running some errands.”

  “Cool.”

  The light flicked to green. They navigated the midday foot traffic across the intersection to Broodthaer’s Deli.

  “Thanks again for coming to help,” Norah said for the twelfth time since Clara arrived that morning. “I really appreciate it. I know we don’t know each other that well or anything, and you’re probably really busy with school, I imagine.”

  Clara shrugged. “Not really. Ever since the accident, school’s kind of taken a backseat, which is weird for me. I don’t know how I feel about that yet.”

  “Ah,” Norah said. “Let me guess. You’re the straight-A student, right? Voted most likely to leap tall buildings and cure cancer?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Yeah, I used to be one of those girls.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, first I smoked a lot of weed. Then, I met a guy and decided to have a baby. What’s your major, anyway?”

  “I’m going for my doctorate in theoretical physics. Well, my first doctorate. I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do for my second.”

  “Wow. That’s really impressive. I can’t even do division.”

  Clara laughed. “Nobody actually does. That’s why we have calculators on our phones.”

  “Are you going to teach?”

  “Maybe? I don’t know.” Clara stuck her hands into her jacket pockets. “I thought I wanted to teach, but I guess we’ll see how it goes.”

  “There’s no rush,” Norah said. “I got my certification to teach English K-12. I always wanted to go back for my masters and doctorate so I could teach at the university level, but my kid and divorce kind of put the kibosh on that.”

  “You teach?” Clara asked. “That’s so awesome.”

  “Yeah, not really. It doesn’t pay what I need to cover Hannah’s medical bills. Waiting tables barely covered the deductible. Now, I’m completely screwed.”

  “You’ll figure it out. Hey, you could always apply for a Pell grant and go back to school. The government loves single moms. That’s how my mom went back to school to be a surgical technician.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I’m just taking this one day at a time, you know?”

  Norah’s phone vibrated in her bag. Clara’s dinged in her jacket pocket. Adam had texted them in all caps, “AT ST. BART’S HOSPITAL. BRIDGER HAD A VISION. GET HERE NOW.”

  They looked at each other.

  “That’s clear across town,” Norah said. “It’ll take forever.”

  “How much do you weigh?”

  “What?”

  “What, like, 150?”

  “I guess so, probably. Why?”

  “I can get us there, but you’ll have to have to hang on tight,” Clara said. “And promise not to throw up on me.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “Can you teleport?”

  “No—I mean, I don’t think so.”

  “Then, you’re getting a piggyback ride. Climb on.”

  Sputtering, Norah shook her head and did what she was told. She wrapped her arms around Clara’s shoulders and hugged the thinner girl as tightly as she could. Clara bent to a starting position, took a deep breath and gave Norah enough time to close her eyes. The world narrowed into a tunnel of flattened shapes and colors, and they were off.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I.

  The old penny smell of blood had passed by the time Adam drove them to the hospital. A handful of napkins from the glove compartment held to Bridger’s face stopped his gushing nosebleed. Adam pulled into the parking lot outside the emergency room on the north side of the complex and killed the engine. He tipped Bridger’s head back to exchange the bloodied tissues for clean ones.

  “Tell me again,” Adam said. “Walk me through it so I understand.”

  Bridger rubbed a hand across his throbbing temple and closed his eyes. “I see blueprints on a table with today’s date written in the corner. There’s a hallway... like a basement level or something, because it’s cold and there are no windows. It’s dark, but there’s machines—like a wall of machines. It’s just this hum right there behind my eyes.”

  “What else? Focus on whatever seems most important.”

  “Down the elevator, away from people, keep going down the hallway. It’s big—it’s huge, like a fireball. He’s going to take the basement out and let the whole building fall so everybody can see it. He wants everybody to see it. He’s fucking proud of this shit, like a trophy.”

  The throbbing rattled in Bridger’s teeth. He pounded his fist on the dashboard and squeezed his eyes tighter. Adam put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  “Hey, hey, hey—just relax. The others will be here soon.”

  “Nope, he’s close. I can feel it,” Bridger spat. “Fucker’s here. He wants to watch this one.”

  “Don’t push yourself, okay? Breathe. We’ll get it done.”

  Bridger took a deep breath and wadded the used tissues. “Hey.”

  “Hey what?”

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “That’s what I was trying to say before I spazzed out in the parking lot. So, thanks.”

  “Oh.” Adam shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

  The sudden clap of thunder signaled Clara’s arrival as she appeared beside Adam’s car. Norah slid off from her desperate cling at Clara’s back. She reached for the hood of the car to steady herself on watery legs. Adam got out to hold her up.

  “I told you not to throw up,” Clara said, popping her neck and rolling her shoulders. “You’re so lucky it hit that car and not me.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t think you’d try to break the sound barrier with me attached,” Norah barked. “So, what’s the plan? After I throw up again, I mean.”

  “Bridger saw the bomb. It’s in the basement, maybe a utility room or something,” Adam said. “It’s surrounded by machines or something making a humming noise. It’s supposed to happen today.”

  “When?” asked Clara.

  “Sorry.” Bridger rolled down the window to spit blood. “I wasn’t looking for a timestamp.”

  Norah straightened and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “How’re you holding up?”

  “Well, I’m not dead yet. So, pretty good.”

  “I called Kyle,” said Adam. “He’s on his way right now.”

  “There’s no time for that,” Clara said. “We can’t just wait for him. We need to go in now.”

  “Are you sure?” Adam asked. “We have no idea what we’re doing.”

  “We’re running out of time,” Bridger said from the car, covering his eyes with his hands. “Kyle’s not going to have a better idea, either. I’m like, eighty percent sure he won’t.”

  “Fine. I can search the basement—”

  “We can search the basement,” Norah butted in. She fished an elastic band out of her bag and pulled her hair back in a ponytail. “Continue.”

  “But we’ll still need to get these people out of the hospital in case something goes wrong.”

  “I’ll go in first to pull the fire alarms,” said Clara. “Open all the emergency exits, get people moving.”

  “Okay.” Adam nodded. “Clara, you clear a path and keep security busy. Norah, you and I will go in behind her to search the basement. I’ll get us past any locked doors.”

  “And I’ll just sit here and try not to pass out,” Bridger offered as he slumped against the dashboard. “Have fun, kids.”

  “All right, I’ll see you guys on the other side.” Clara got into her starting position and took a deep breath. “Good luck.”

  Clara disappeared from sight as loudly as she had arrived. Ad
am looked to Norah. She nodded. He tugged at his dog tags.

  “Right. We can do this,” she said assuredly. “Worst case scenario—we die. Best case scenario—we save the day.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Okay. We can do this.”

  Live or die, they didn’t have a choice.

  II.

  “Where are you now?” Kyle asked from the backseat of the cab speeding down Pendleton Avenue.

  On the other end of the line, Amanda juggled an armful of case files. “I’m stuck overseeing the tip hotline until further notice. Why?”

  “I’m on my way to St. Bart’s. I have reason to believe it’s the target of your next bombing.”

  “What?” She nearly dropped the phone and changed her grip to compensate for the burden in her arms. “Where are you getting this intel?”

  “Can’t say, but trust me. The lead’s solid. I just wanted to do you the professional courtesy of calling it in first.”

  “Wait, what’re you planning?”

  “Me and a few friends are running our own investigation. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “Whoa. You need to slow down on this one.” She ducked around a corner, looked around, and lowered her voice. “You just got picked up by our friends at the FBI. If I catch you running around a potential target site, I can’t help you.”

  “It won’t come to that,” he told her. “Just call it in. I’ll figure out the rest.”