Crimson Son

by Russ Linton

  I gun the engine, squeal out of the Qwik Stop parking lot and in minutes, I’m parked in the street out front of Eric’s house. His parents’, really. An earth-toned stucco and tile roof home like most of the houses in the neighborhood, it has a garage and a basement carved out of the steep hillside. His compact shoebox looking car slouches in the driveway. It’s seen better days. A concrete stairway leads up through a weed-choked lawn to his front door, but I’m focused on the wooden fence next to the garage.

  I’ve made the walk through that gate to the basement door a thousand times. When Eric turned thirteen he begged his parents to turn the basement into a game room. By the time I met him, he was sixteen and had moved his bedroom down there, living in his own personal Nerdtopia. I made sure to come over as much as possible.

  His parents both worked long hours to afford a Bay Area lifestyle and were rarely home. Now, midafternoon, they’re probably both gone. But he’ll be home, as always.

  Grabbing my backpack, I hop out and head for the gate. A camera at the corner overlooks the walk. That’s new. I smile and wave before practically face planting into the wooden gate. Locked. That’s new, too. I fire my best W.T.F. face at the camera, then start to climb.

  On the other side, a knee-high labyrinth of electronics awaits. Scattered remains of computers, televisions, radios, cell phones, and miles of spare wire. The front yard was always a mess, mostly because his parents worked so much and Eric was supposed to mow, which never really happened. Back here, the yard consists of a narrow stretch bordered by the house and a concrete retaining wall. There’d always been a few bits and pieces scattered around, but not like this.

  I pick my way through the narrow path to the basement door. The glass inserts have been blacked out with maybe paint or tape, though the weathered wood and rusted handle don’t scream “high-security”. I knock, loud. “Hey, dude! C’mon, it’s me!” A few swift kicks to the base of the door and I shout, “Hurry up! It’s cold out here!” Actually, this is a heat wave compared to what my body chemistry has adjusted to, but I remember these foggy days in the Bay getting chilly.

  A click from the other side is followed by a metallic slide and a five-part series of sharp clacks. “Fuckin’-A, man. What if there’s a fire in there? You’re dead before you get the door open.”

  The door creeps inward and my smug expression disappears down the barrel of a gun.

  Chapter 26

  Eric’s black t-shirt stretches tight across his round belly and absorbs the mid-morning light. A flattened slant of blond hair only emphasizes the jarring contrast between skin tone and dark clothing. His face is more round than I remember too. Somewhere beneath the funhouse mirror is my friend. For maybe the first time ever, I’m worried I’ll say something offensive, or that the look on my face will give away what I’m thinking because, well, he’s got a gun.

  He straightens his glasses with his free hand. I look him dead on and try to smile. He stares back, eyes tinged red and floating above dark circles.

  “Get inside.” He motions with the gun.

  I don’t argue. The basement is lit by a single lamp. Light scatters into a mosaic of white shards on crinkled silvery walls. The whole place reeks of stale body odor and mildew.

  “Are you living in a TV Dinner?”

  “Shut up.” He pushes me toward the center of the room and I put my hands in the air. I can’t help but stare at our old hangout as he fumbles with the locks, keeping the gun trained shakily in my direction.

  Beyond the foil covering every scrap of wall space, not much has changed. I check out Babe first; our pride and joy, she’s a liquid-cooled beast of a computer. A never-ending process of upgrades and attachments, she comes complete with a power supply that could jump-start a truck and enough fans that you’d swear there was a helipad nearby. She sits on the same metal garage-sale desk, but the neon case lights which used to glow Giants orange are dead.

  My eyes trace the bundle of wires snaking out of Babe to the server rack. The rack has been moved to the wall farthest from the door. A giant silver disk rests on top of it. Next to this, his bed occupies the same alcove, but gone are all the trippy techno-rock posters that used to line the walls there. I wander forward, my hand absently reaching out for the Throne, our dilapidated leather chair. I run a finger along a crack where the white backing peeks through the leather.

  The clicking parade of locks stops and I see Eric in the corner of my eye, gun raised. Locked in here with him, this place so unfamiliar to me now, I should be more scared than I am but I’m having trouble processing the image of him pointing the gun at me. Is it even real?

  “Is that a giant magnet on the server rack?” I ask, trying to draw attention somewhere else.

  “Shut up!” he stutters unsteadily. I keep my hands up and nod as he demands, “Who are you?”

  Maybe my looks have changed for him too? But how could getting scrawnier make me look that different? Maybe the do-it-myself haircuts?

  “Relax, man; it’s me, Spencer.”

  “And how can I tell?”

  “Do I honestly look that different?”

  Eric advances and shouts, “That doesn’t mean shit! There have been exactly two Augments documented with the ability to change appearances—Doppelganger and Shifter.” He holds up two fingers. “How do I know you aren’t one of them?”

  I take a chance and ask, “Are they still alive?”

  “No.” He hesitates. “But you could be a different one. A new one!”

  Maybe all the lies have caught up to me. Who am I really? Lost, I cast around for anything to prove I am in fact, Spencer.

  I gesture to empty spots on the wall and start to paint a picture from the past. “Alien Vampires, Pendulum, The Medic Droid—your posters, they’re gone, but they used to be right there.” I walk to the alcove and look up at the ceiling above the bed. “A poster of the UC Supercomputer Center. You hung it there as a joke.” I turn to the cracked leather chair, a faint moldering odor of parmesan cheese still wafting from it after all these years. “The dumpster behind the Pizza Pie. You said I was a dumbass for diving in to drag the Throne out, but you helped. And, and it’s the best seat in the freaking house!” The gun begins to lower and I keep going, “Babe, our rock star, overclocked beast! Named after Babe Ruth… but that’s maybe too obvious, though she was never a guy, a she, like a ship, a pirate ship.” I turn wildly to the server rack, shouting now, “We bought the rack online from a ‘wholesaler’. And, and remember, not long after that we heard about the university computer lab getting broken into? You spent weeks staring out the window calling every car ‘an unmarked cop car’. Remember?” Despite the gun, I round on him. His arms hang limp at his sides. He’s staring at a ghost, and the gun dangles from a fingertip. “C’mon, nobody knows that. We never told a soul!”

  The gun clatters to the tile and I wince.

  “Spencer! Holy shit!” he cries. Eric devours me in a hug and squeezes, tight. As his weight hits, I force the pain of all my bumps and bruises into a constricted laugh. He chuckles nervously, “WTF, man! Did the Feds put you in a concentration camp?” He pushes me to arm’s length and inspects.

  “Look who’s talking!” I say. “That time I said you needed to be behind home plate, you must have misunderstood.”

  He takes in every detail as he shakes his head, his expression pained and excited at the same time. “Spencer Fucking Harrington!” Then his face switches to panic and I tense, not sure what to expect. He shoves me aside and races first for Babe. Then he stops in his tracks and jiggles back and forth between there and the server.

  I rush the server and grab the magnet, grunting under the sheer weight. It fees like it weighs about fifty times more than it should. “What… the?”

  Part of his dilemma solved, he slaps furiously at the keyboard as I chunk the magnet to the floor. He doesn’t answer until he surfaces from the typing frenzy, panting. “Was… scrapping the data… thought you were setting me up.”

  “Wh
y the hell would I do that?”

  “Dude, you were dead, Spence. They came and got you and I knew I was next.”

  “What did you ever do?”

  Eric grins, his eyes twitching. “I’m an Augment, too.”

  Chapter 27

  “What?” I’m not sure I heard him right.

  He turns toward the desk and won’t say a word.

  “Eric?”

  The silence stretches on longer than it should. He stares at the fractal screen saver exploding on Babe’s monitor. I can’t see his face, but I can tell I don’t want to force my way into whatever thought is riveting him to that spot; a place where I, we, were once safe from the craziness that was life. But after what seems like several minutes, I have to say something.

  “So, how’s the Bride of Frankenstein? Damn, I’ve missed her.”

  “Runnin’ smooth. Three gigahertz on four processors. But systems are pushing five to six gigahertz now. Never-ending upgrade, man.”

  Silence returns. I’d rather he said something. Explain this Augment business. Tell me what a shit friend I am even.

  I walk forward with enough noise he can hear me, but cautious—like approaching a wounded animal. It takes everything I have to reach out and touch his shoulder. A weight seems to pull his body into a defeated slouch, and the stale atmosphere in the basement becomes oppressive.

  “What did you mean about being an Augment?”

  Still no response, and I watch his thick knuckles crease as he leans on the computer desk. He glances toward a manila folder under a stack of anti-static bags and technical docs. A photo peeks out, containing a patch of green grass in the corner punctuated by a rough chunk of rubble. The sandy edge of a building sparks vivid memories. I reach over and tug at the edge. Eric grabs my hand.

  “Stop!” he shouts, his face a twisted mask of pain.

  I pull away slowly. “What’s going on?”

  He shuffles the folder deeper into the pile, keeping his eyes down. “That day. Only Mrs. Crumley saw.”

  Mrs. Crumley. She was my old neighbor, not his. A real pain in the ass. Mom always said she was charming. She was like one hundred and fifty years old and probably had stories of growing up trading beads with the Ohlone Indians.

  “The nosy lady,” I say.

  “She came at me with a broom that day.” He glances up to an empty space on the wall. His face forms a distant smile.

  “How much did she see?”

  “Cell service out, power down.” He continues, as though he never heard my question. “I didn’t hear a damn thing about it until my parents got home and let me in on the rumor mill. ‘Old Mrs. Crumley saw Augments running around the neighborhood.’” A huff of disdain escapes his lips. “I tried to call you. Figured you’d get a laugh out of it, but you didn’t answer the phone.”

  I recall Mom’s phone shattered in the rubble. My eyes drift back to the folder.

  He wanders over to a small refrigerator next to the desk, opens the door and crouches, speaking into it. “I waited until the morning, you know, to pick you up for school. I was too damn busy farming shit on Swords of Legend to go see for myself.” He turns empty-handed and lets the refrigerator clamp shut. “Man, they said she saw Augments. That was all. If I knew something happened to you, I’d have been there. I would.”

  “I know. I know. Don’t sweat it.”

  With heavy feet, he makes his way to the Throne and perches on the edge of the armrest.

  “She was gonna attack you with a broom, huh?” I give a half-hearted laugh.

  “Broom, yeah.” He swats at the air trying to shoo away the question. “I showed up to get you for school, like always. I couldn’t believe what the fuck I was looking at. Hole in your house, police tape. Had to talk to Crumley from behind the car door. She was rambling about me stealing the copper or some bullshit.”

  “It isn’t like you haven’t been to my house a million times before. She’d have seen you there, peeking out through her curtains like she did every day. Anyway, you’d steal my Kirk Rueter autographed mitt first.”

  “You can’t joke about this, Spence.” Eric’s eyes meet mine. “She saw it all. The Black Beetle blasting a hole in the wall, taking off with your mom. Crumley didn’t know you were there until your dad showed up. She was too scared to leave her house.”

  I never said Crimson Mask was my Dad.

  Eric either doesn’t notice or ignores my unhinged jaw as he slips off the armrest and wanders toward the desk. “All I could think about was that dumbass voicemail I left the night before. ‘Watch out Spence, Augments invading the ‘hood!’” He returns, staring past me, through me. “What a goddamn thing to be joking about, right?”

  Now that invisible weight is mine and I drop into the Throne. When he finally speaks again, his voice is fast and animated, his fingers flexing repeatedly.

  “I ditched school that day. Day after. The next day. I don’t know, maybe a week, until my parents started getting on my ass and counselors at school started calling. Here you were, gone. And there was absolutely nothing on the news, zip, nada, nothing. Cops, they responded to Crumley’s call, she had to make it from the Qwik Stop—I got the 911 transcript, here,” He whips the folder out of the stack and thumbs through more papers. “Middle of the day, nobody else home. Nobody. I talked to people up and down the street—everyone had been at work, school, one dude said he was home but listening to some dub-step too loud to hear much else. Dumbass thought the explosion was a bass drop. Cops poked around and left, never followed up. They didn’t even care, man, nobody. Everyone thought it was drugs, you know, that’s what the cops started saying. They found drugs in the home, meth lab explosion. Man, I knew that was bull and I was the only one. Your damn parents, always keeping to themselves.” He shoves one of the papers in my face. “See? Drugs. Right there,” he says as he points.

  He’s tapping on a police report that details the crime scene, my old address. All the so-called evidence they found, blood collected, results of a search, and a neighborhood canvas. I take in as much as I can while Eric tears through more pages.

  “Took these when Crumley was away at Bingo,” he mumbles, stuffing photos of the ruined house in my direction. “An FAA Report, no unidentified craft. My own damn report I filed with the police, right here. Missing persons, no information ever surfaced. All of it got sunk to the bottom of a magic pile of bullshit.”

  By the dates, we’re several weeks past when Dad and I left the neighborhood and still, Eric’s pawing through a thick stack of documents.

  “That’s when I started to dig up stuff on you, Spence. Your family. People don’t just disappear. If you moved somewhere else, there’d be a trail. If you were in prison, there’d be a record. If you were dead, a body in the morgue.” He’s speaking as he digs deeper, rattling off scenarios with each paper. Intensity burns in his cheeks and desperation tightens his throat. “Life is digital. There’s always a trail. Always breadcrumbs, always.

  “Then I found these,” he says and rattles a handful of printed webpages. DMV records. They’re the same photos over and over, with names beginning with Sean and Connie, and ending in the lies we’d told over the years. Why wouldn’t he have doubted who I was? “And I’m thinking ‘WTF?’ Federal Witness Protection? Undercover Spies? Aliens, man? Yeah, aliens.” He spins a finger next to his temple but his “isn’t that crazy” expression reads way too true.

  Documents begin flying out of the folder so fast under Eric’s trembling fingers, I barely have time to register he’s handing them to me, let alone read. Dates continue to pile up along with the papers. “But Crumley and her story started to make sense. It fit perfectly, you know?”

  Then the thought drives itself to deep center field. Two years, and he never let go.

  I thought I was in a bad situation being stuck in the Icehole. The whole time, I never thought of what Eric might be going through. I always thought of him here, in the basement, pirating tunes and playing games. At Candlestick Park catching
a game or driving around in his car. Enjoying a life I was whining about not having.

  No, he was going through his own little hell. Because of me.

  I know I need to say something, but no idea what. “Man, I…”

  “You weren’t the first,” he says. Pupils larger than the possibilities, he plows through my attempt to apologize. He gives up on the papers and turns to Babe, backhanding the mouse to wake her. The sudden gale of cooling fans is startling. Madly, he’s opening folders and mining through directory trees. With a click, a program loads, displaying a chaotic scrawl of colored lines and boxes.

  Augments. Names, places, sightings, powers all displayed on a version of Emily’s OCD spreadsheet but on speed, crack, and steroids. Well past obsession, the sheer volume of information veers into mental-case territory.

  “You couldn’t have just kept collecting Pokemon?” I manage to say.

  Eric checks over his shoulder with a knowing grin. “Yeah, isn’t it awesome? I know everything. You. Your dad. Everything. It’s my power.”

  I nod and make sure the gun is lying on the floor by the door.

  Chapter 28

  For hours, Eric drags me through his data that supports his rat’s nest of thoughts and the logical sense he’s made of it all. He’s right on with the information I can confirm, and the stuff I can’t, which is most of it, all sounds plausible. As he speaks, the old Eric starts to come back, so I don’t dare interrupt. He’s talking with the casual excitement of giving a play-by-play of last year’s World Series.

  “So, your theory…”

  “No, dude, this isn’t theory. This is absolute truth. Documented, one hundred percent truth. We find truth here.” He pats the computer and “old Eric” slips away.