by Russ Linton
Clutching my injured arm, cool puddles gather on my eyelashes and I will them not to splash on the panel. I swallow and step through the sequence.
First, I mimic pushing the door seal button so he can continue to watch from the doorway. Next comes the emergency beacon. Sometimes we give this one a full test, but not often because it does transmit a signal. After the band on his wrist beeps, we’ll quickly shut it off. I wait for a few seconds that flow like minutes. There’s no response, so I mime these motions as well, wincing as I raise my arm. On the panel’s opposite side are two flashing orange buttons labeled with a stylized flame.
“Thermite one away. Thermite two away,” I mutter—these never get tested. They let loose localized charges that will melt the server into a silicon cinder. If the facility is compromised and I have to “evac” as he puts it, the information collected here needs to be destroyed. Every time we do this, thoughts of pressing the buttons race through my mind. I never did because of the fear he’d go ballistic. Now, I’m worried about the off chance that he wouldn’t and I’d be condemned to live in the Icehole computer-free.
Finally, I walk to the far corner of the room and stare into the pod, my home away from home. Eyes dry and matted, I steal a glimpse at the doorway. Dad isn’t there. Beyond the library it’s dark and quiet. I climb inside and close the hatch looking out through the thick window, wishing I was anywhere but here, staring at the little red button.
I want to press it. I’m going to press it. But I need to see her one last time.
Sleep overwhelms me. Before long, I’m drowning, gasping for breath in a glass bubble and sinking slowly into murky waters. Nightmares, dreams, they are the same. For two years, always the same.
*
Home. I was seventeen. After years of moving, Mom put her foot down and we’d been in the San Francisco area for three years. She’d found a rental in an older neighborhood overlooking San Pedro Valley Park, one of those stucco homes with a tile roof. Mom loved the place. I did too.
Mom sighs as she tries to feed a page into the fax machine.
“Spencer, honey, do you have any idea how this works? I think I might’ve broken it,” she speaks without looking up and tucks a lock of dark hair behind her ear. She does that when she’s frustrated. That mostly includes any time she’s faced with gears, transistors, chips, batteries or so much as a stray piece of copper wire. She refers to herself as “technologically challenged.” Really, she wants an excuse to get me to help.
I eye the aging fax machine with contempt. “I could figure it out. But, what about your phone?”
She looks puzzled as she asks, “What about it?”
“The phone takes pictures, right? I can take pictures of the papers and send those to Dad.”
She smiles. My favorite part of this dream, nightmare, memory—whatever it is. I always try to stay at this point. Stop time. Freeze her face and burn it into my brain so I can see that expression, always.
“Honey, that’s a great idea. You want to take over here?”
I’ve lived through this so many times, I know what she’s thinking at this very moment. Nothing to do with sending papers, she’s watching me work. She knows I’m happy with a new gadget. She gets me, even if she doesn’t understand what I do. I miss that the most.
“What’s this for?”
“Paperwork for the house.”
“Are we finally going to buy it?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She turns away, busying herself with the fax machine again. The room empties without her smile.
I take the phone and spread the papers on the floor. More rental paperwork.
“I don’t understand why we don’t just buy the place. Didn’t you say the owner wanted to sell?” I ask. She shrugs.
With careful motions I start snapping away, attaching the pictures to an email. I’m not sure where Dad is going to print these, but wherever he found a fax machine, chances are they’ll have what he needs. I hit send. An hourglass pops up, followed by “Connection Lost”.
This part always comes so fast.
I hand the phone back to Mom. “You’ll need to send later, I guess. The signal dropped. Should be in your outbox ready to go.”
As she takes the phone, the wall of the room explodes.
Here. Dream becomes nightmare. For a moment, I feel I can make it stand still, but why would I? Events unfold with the emptiness of the bunker gnawing at my insides. I can identify every stray chunk of plaster and splinter of wood in this time-robbed moment.
Fragments of home spray like a swarm of locusts. Mom screams and the world spins under her protective dive. I struggle to see through a haze of dust. Glimpses of the valley filter past a humanoid silhouette. A long, pincered arm lashes out. The arm clamps tightly around Mom’s waist and retracts, drawing us closer.
“Release the boy and he will live,” the Black Beetle speaks with an unnatural vibration. “He can relay a message for your husband.”
Mom squeezes tighter but her screaming stops.
I search her face, knowing what I’ll find, all the while scrambling to find an anchor as we slide across the room. She’s bleeding from a gash on her forehead and the pincer cinches tighter. Her eyes are full of fear, but focused. She’s calculating, deliberating. A hundred times? A thousand? It always hurts.
“No, Mom, please!” I throw my hands around the leg of a toppled chair which drags uselessly behind us. Countless trips through this nightmare, I know I can’t keep us here, but I reach out anyway. And always, she lets go.
I grab her arm, trying to pull her back, cursing my stunted size, my weak limbs, my feeble grip. Sweaty hands slip as the pincer continues to retract. Her trembling lips form a final smile and she watches me with a sad but determined expression. She mouths the words, “I love you.”
“Mom!” I glance at the lifeless phone, shrouded in dust. The screen is dark and covered in spidery cracks.
“Tell your father it is time to turn himself in,” the Black Beetle says. “Is that clear?”
With a pneumatic hiss the ebony battle armor backs into the afternoon sun. Blinding light floods in. The armor takes flight on a column of flame and the deafening roar rattles our battered home. I rush to the opening. She’s an angel, floating away, the shadowy beast burning behind her. All I can do is stare and cry.
Only this time, the tears don’t come.
Every time this nightmare strikes, I stand there, clinging to that last glimpse as she’s torn away. But this time, on her face, a different expression quivers through the waves of heat and exhaust. All of her fear is erased. Her eyes search mine as though she’s seeing me for the first time.
I continue watching the brilliant rocket flares long after they dissolve into a sunless sky. Then, the points of light burst outward into the bright edges of an eclipsed sun. A ring of light that seems so close, yet so far from home.
Chapter 3
I’ve wanted to escape the pain of that recurring nightmare for so long, but this is somehow worse. Watching the relentless memory of that day drift into an insubstantial dream is like losing a limb.
Burned in my brain, I know every detail. A cloudy day, not clear. The sun was a blinding hole, not eclipsed. And her face always held the mask of bravery, not… something else.
The sweat-dampened sheets of my bunk don’t help with the frigid air. Never have. I ignore the chill and try to clear my head.
Wait. I thought I passed out in the pod. Maybe I really am going crazy.
I look around the room, unsure about reality. The door is closed and the lock still mangled, but the pieces have been picked up. The bunker’s quiet except the distant howling of the unchecked wind outside. Stumbling out of bed, I shamble down the narrow hall.
Dad’s office is quiet and the security pad blinks red. When he’s here, he doesn’t bother with the lock. Light, dark, light, dark, I shuffle to the farthest end of the bunker, past the armory and into the kitchen. I’m pretty sure the island was made to support a bo
dy, or maybe a bunch of test tubes, and the sink wasn’t for scrubbing plates. For me though, it’s the kitchen.
A note hangs under a plain black magnet on the mini-fridge. Used to be, Mom would mediate those rare instances when planets aligned and I shared space with Dad. Now, that job has been relegated to a minibar reject.
Be back soon, went for supplies. For emergencies, today’s code is 4RG677. Outer door is shut and proximity alarm reset. It will stay that way. The pod isn’t a bunk. If you’re in the safe room, you shut it up tight and hit the beacon immediately.
Even after last night, it reads the same as every other note he’s ever left. I’m not sure why he bothers. He could save time by printing one and changing the code. Reading between the lines today is easy: “Failed again, need a breather, almost forgot to feed you and clean the cage.” I swipe the note off the fridge and let the magnet clatter to the floor.
I’m alive another day. I can’t remember the last time I tried to choke down some food. Maybe I’ll celebrate.
Opening the fridge, I’m met by stagnant air and the familiar hum is gone. Compressor’s shot, again. A quart of lukewarm milk is all that’s there anyway. I grab the container and head for the pantry. The cabinet contains mostly empty space and a couple of generic white boxes with even more generic names. They all share an “insert grain” plus “insert shape” theme.
I suppose this is nutrition, but I look like I’m on a hunger strike. At least Dad stopped saying I’d fill out. When I was a kid, he’d say I’d be tossing full-size cars around like Hot Wheels in no time. What bullshit. I pour a bowl of cardboard and get liberal with the room-temp milk.
Powdered milk was my biggest motivation to get the fridge running. Dad wasn’t too happy with it disassembled and strewn across the floor. He kept repeating that the only reason he’d installed the fridge years ago was for a “mission”. When pressed for details, he gave a vague response about antitoxin storage. That’s all he would say.
When I finished, our “unnecessary power drain” was running like a champ.
And figuring out that “mission” wasn’t exactly rocket science. News stations worldwide covered the “Anthrax Kid” incident. Everyone knew how Dad stopped that psycho, Jason Carver, who had filled a mosquito fogger truck full of weaponized anthrax and toured downtown Atlanta.
After Dad caught Carver, he didn’t come home for weeks. My guess was he got quarantined in a bubble somewhere. He never said. Just another hole in his secret life.
Carver cooked up his own Augmentation formula while working at the CDC. He left journals detailing how he thought being immune to any disease, poison, or viral infection the planet had to offer might help him do his job. Other entries mentioned a failed marriage and trouble with his boss. Whatever the cause, he got his homebrew process wrong and went freaking nuts.
Not that he was the only Augment for that to ever happen to. Secret labs funded by governments used to crank them out by the dozens, and even with all those resources, accidents weren’t uncommon. But still, they kept churning them out. By the time people knew the program had gotten out of hand, the Augments knew they held all the cards and started going freelance, for good and bad.
Following Dad’s exploits used to be my favorite pastime. My dad, a freaking Augment. One of the good guys. Every kid wants a dad that cool. Too bad nobody could know.
Telling everyone your dad is an accountant (foreign currency and international markets so, no, he doesn’t do stateside taxes), or an insurance salesman (global corporate insurance so he can’t help you with your car), or an actuary (on-call and strictly does contract work for his employer), or any other profession which assures obscurity gets embarrassing.
But once I understood the truth, I kept up on everything related to the Crimson Mask. The strongest of them all. The best.
That was back when I was a stupid kid. What have those powers done for him? Or me? When they really mattered, they were worthless.
Raising the spoon, my arm throbs again. Maybe Dad’s going off the deep end next? Maybe they all go crazy? For all I know, he knows exactly where she is. If he did, crazy or not, I’m damn sure he wouldn’t tell me. Why else would it take so long? If I had all that power I’d find her.
Mom’s face from the dream claws into my thoughts. No fear or resignation, but the look you might get from your teacher when you accidentally say something smart in class after managing to keep your mouth shut all year. What does it mean?
Before the dream, when I stood up to Dad yesterday, I wanted to float away with her. I’d moved past any kind of pain he or this place could dish out. And then she changed. Why?
I leave my bowl of half-eaten sludge on the island and head into the hall. The milk carton goes with me. I pop open Danger Bay and set the milk in the colder air. The door rumbles shut.
Fine, so the fridge is an unnecessary power drain, whatever. He doesn’t get me like she did. Taking that fridge apart, the keypads, the terminal, the server—it all kept me sane, at least until recently.
I thought I was out of options. But I’m not. As I tinkered, a plan percolated below the surface, born of wiring diagrams and circuit board landscapes.
It’s time to put the secrets to rest. I need to see exactly what he’s hiding. And I need to get the hell out of here before one of us misses the last stop on the crazy train. Might be too late for that, though.
Chapter 4
I pause outside Dad’s office and double-check the lock. Bypassing the door wouldn’t be a challenge. I’ve disassembled and reassembled the keypads around here so often I’m surprised he bothers to lock anything. After last night, though, I don’t know what he’d do if he came home and found me in there, and I’m not ready to die today. Not until I’ve done what he can’t. Not until I’ve found her. Besides, I have a more elegant solution to the problem.
The library lights up that pale fluorescent blue, my sunshine. My own office of sorts. School room, game room, hobby closet. This cramped space contains a desk, computer terminal, and a wall of metal shelves covered in scavenged parts. A worn paperback sits on the shelf, bookended by a box filled with interface cards and a spool of coaxial cable.
I reach for the one item that transforms this room, the book, a copy of The Swiss Family Robinson.
Bullshit family values, a treatise on being resourceful, constant prayers and adulation to a higher power: pure old-school propaganda. Despite that, I used to think it was the best book ever written and I’ve read quite a few. Being lost in an exotic location and left to live on wit and sheer determination sounded fun. Jesus, I was such a dumbass.
I open it to the handwritten note on the inside cover: “Happy Birthday to my adventurous teenager! Love, Mom.”
Mom was a “glass is half full and the faucet is nearby” sort of person. Even her handwriting in the note bubbles on the page. Moving around became our “adventure”; our ever-changing identities, part of some grand quest. By the time she gifted the book, we’d read it together, over and over. I knew the rose-colored interpretation of our life through that book was all an act. Constantly getting shipwrecked sucks ass.
At least then, I was being marooned in the civilized world.
I pull the book close to my face and breathe in deeply. It’s got the scent of a real library. A smell of knowledge and learning. That musty, pulpy odor that speaks to the millions of printed pages filling those brick walls.
When every public library across the U.S. finally seemed to get internet access, my life was complete. We moved so much, we only rarely had our own service at home. The library became a lifeline to my real friends. We’d hook up online in chat rooms and forums, all hosted on hijacked servers, where we’d talk about everything from baseball to the latest tech.
This place is too quiet to be a library.
Goddamn memory lane. Dead end. Who knows, maybe I’ll see a real library again soon?
I flick on the terminal, and underneath the metal floor, the server hums, sparking out of its slee
p cycle. An awkward place to put a server, but heat rises and that dinosaur creates plenty. Of course, crawling around under the floor to do maintenance is a pain in the ass, but it offered challenge and exploration. In one particularly grueling month of boredom, I familiarized myself with every scrap of hardware under the floor and traced every cable to its source.
All the tech here is old-school stuff that’s been repurposed. A lot of the hardware is stamped with Russian characters, another little mystery I have yet to be informed about. I do know there’s absolutely no way Dad assembled this stuff alone. He can’t tell RJ45 from co-ax. Lucky me; he’ll never notice a few modifications.
The entry hall is dark. Through the open safe room door, the monitors stare back, cold and empty. I should have plenty of time—Dad hasn’t exactly raced off to the convenience store. And if he walks in? I could care less.
I lift up an access hatch and shimmy into the crawlspace with one particular cable in mind. My multi-tool, some patch, a switch I cobbled together out of junk parts, and I’m done. As I work in the checkered darkness, Mom’s curious face watches in some corner of my mind.
Sweat clings like droplets of ice as I emerge from the server’s crawlspace. I switch the library terminal over to the new cable and stuff the old through the floor grating, out of sight. The screen flickers, and a login prompt blinks impatiently. No different than the library terminal login where I can access the equivalent of the bunker owner’s manual and chess. However, the top of the screen displays the network address reserved for Dad’s office.
Username:
There’s a code I’ve seen on the pentagon-shaped necklace Dad wears. I try that first.
CM10288
I wish Eric were here. Hacking is not my forte. Sure, downloading programs and tiptoeing through the “how-to’s” of hacking on virus-laden websites, I can do that. But my man, Eric, well, he takes it to a whole new level. He’s Yoda and I’m the whiny farm boy.
