The Beautiful Land
Page 30
• • •
the boy in the suit coat and the girl in the yellow sundress encounter each other in the airport terminal. The noise of the crowd rings loud as people move gently around the pair. Occasionally, a traveler will glance at the couple out of the corner of their eye, see them exchange frantic words, and smile at the power of young love. Finally, a uniformed woman announces the final boarding call and the couple parts. The boy with the suit coat raises one hand, waves the tips of his fingers, and moves down the jetway. The girl continues to stand in place, tears rolling down her face, as if she might simply wait there for the rest of her life.
• • •
samira opens her eyes and sees a cloudless sky of blue. As her ears begin to function again, she hears the distant throb of large metal blades cutting through the air. Grass stalks, long and green, press close like a comforting blanket. She contents herself to lie there and wait, allowing her senses to return in their own time. Finally, she pulls herself to a sitting position and gazes out to the ocean beyond. The rumble of the surf pounding against rocks is a good sound—old and strong and regular—and like everything else in this place, it makes her indescribably happy. She looks down at her ragged, bitten fingertips and knows they will heal. She stares at her swollen knuckles and knows they will never be cracked again. Such things simply cannot survive in this beautiful land.
As she stands, Samira feels the final remnants of her past life drain away, replaced instead by a calm, pure joy. But it’s not quite complete; there is a small hole that comes from knowing Tak will never find his way into this world. And while she understands the rest of her pain will eventually fade, she wonders if she will ever overcome his loss.
But she intends to try.
chapter thirty-eight
The birds are gathering atop the large glass dome over the Machine. Tak isn’t sure what genius thought to protect the most amazing scientific discovery in history with a roof made of glass, but he’s sure there’s a reason for it. Maybe it collects solar power, he thinks as he watches more and more creatures land on the dome. Or maybe it focuses the Machine somehow. Like, cosmic rays or whatever?…Hell, maybe they were just tired of everything being underground all the time.
Tak is leaning against the side of the Machine with a contented smile on his face. The device is nearly cycled to full power, and the angelic chord it’s emitting is loud enough to shake his bones. There’s something almost relaxing about being this close to the thing; it’s like sidling up next to God during the creation of the world.
His mind wanders to Samira as he reaches inside his pocket and pops a single butterscotch into his mouth. I hope she made it. I hope she made it and she’s happy. That’s really all I ever wanted.
His musings are interrupted by a shadowy figure in the corner of his eye. Tak raises his gaze to examine the newcomer and has to suppress a chuckle when he sees who it is. “Well, hi there!” he says, waving his hand back and forth over his head. “I thought you’d never come!”
The thing that Yates has become opens its mouth and screams. The transformation, which was hardly going well the last time they met, has taken a turn for the worse. The pale white skin seems to be losing cohesion and now drips off the muscle in goopy wet chunks. The arms are even tinier than before, little more than nubs poking from the chest. And the face, which had recently looked almost completely birdlike, has now transformed into something twisted and horrible.
“Shit, buddy,” says Tak. “You look like ten pounds of crap in a five-pound sack.”
Yates takes a step forward and dislodges a claw from his foot. The curved black bit goes spinning across the room and lands, point-side up, against one of the wires snaking across the floor. Tak laughs at this, actually points and laughs, which only causes Yates to quicken his pace. Just before the creature reaches him, Tak feels a giddy joy flood through his system. Then he finds himself flying through the air like a rag doll before crashing into the side of the Machine’s control panel.
“You’re too late, man,” groans Tak. Blood begins to seep from somewhere in the lower regions, and he’s pretty sure his leg just snapped. “Waaaay too fucking late. Shit’s rollin’ now, Yates, and I don’t think you’re gonna stop it.”
Yates screams again as a pair of shabby wings burst from his back and send feathers flying in all directions; the light from the Machine bounces off them as they slowly settle to the ground. As Yates flaps the wings and begins hobbling toward him, Tak only grins wider.
“Yeah, you remember the fail-safe? Remember that? Well, we found it, and we plugged it in, and we turned it all the way on. We’re gonna Control-Alt-Delete this bitch, only when we go back, you’re not gonna have me. I’ll be swinging free and easy from a rope while you fuck around with a machine you never learn how to turn on. How’s that for irony, huh? All your smarts, and you get screwed by a stupid son of a bitch like me.”
Yates reaches the spot where Tak is lying and kicks at him angrily. The sharpened claws tear into his stomach, and he suddenly feels the lower half of his body grow cold. Staring down, Tak is amazed to see a large, ragged hole where his belly button should be.
“Aw, come on, man,” mumbles Tak. “At least you coulda kissed me first.”
The Machine makes an incredible sound as bright light suddenly pours out of it. Yates screams once more, then shuffles away from Tak and over to the control panel. Despite Tak’s fading vision, he can see Yates trying and failing to input commands with the stubby remains of his arms. “Oh, yeah, no.” He chuckles. “I think you’re gonna need more manual dexterity to shut this thing down.”
Tak slumps farther down the side of the control panel, leaving a red smear behind him. He suddenly finds it very hard to hold his head up, so he lets it roll off to the side. Soon, his entire body loses strength and slides to the floor, where he ends up on his back, staring at the dome. His eyes move in and out of focus a few times, but when he finally gets them under control, he can see that the birds have begun slamming themselves against the glass.
“Hey, Chuck,” he whispers. “Your friends do not look happy.”
Small cracks begin to spill out across the glass as the birds batter themselves against it. The entire thing has become a mass of crawling feathers and wormy, translucent skin. At one point, a bird smashes its face into the glass with such force that one eye explodes in a burst of black goo; another bird simply pushes the corpse out of the way and resumes hammering.
“Yeah, real pissed,” says Tak. The room is cold now, and his mind is beginning to stretch. He can see the lights from the Machine, he can see the birds, but he’s not really sure what’s real and what’s not anymore. Behind him, Yates pounds on the control panel, frantically trying to input something that will stop the timeline from resetting. But his arms are too far gone—he can’t even type on the keyboard without mashing half the keys at once. Finally, he utters a high-pitched scream and begins ripping at the wires. Sparks fly from the control panel as the lights flicker, and for a horrible moment, Tak thinks that Yates has somehow done it. But then the Machine springs back to life with a triumphant roar, and even through the writing mass of birds, Tak sees a purple hole begin to tear open the sky.
“There we go,” says Tak. “There we fucking go.”
Small chunks of glass begin to fall from the dome and shatter. These are followed by larger chunks, then small pieces of steel, then a veritable hailstorm of fuzzy black feathers. Behind him, flames start to lick out from the side of the control panel, but Tak knows this doesn’t matter. The Machine has done its job; it can’t be stopped now.
Yates seems to sense that the turning point has been reached, and he turns his attention back to Tak. “S-s-suffer…” he manages to say. “You…”
He moves back toward Tak, clearly intent on making his final moments terribly unpleasant ones, but before he can get close, the overhead dome finally gives way. Uncountable birds pour into the room, their screams and caws melding into the sound of a single, terribl
e beast. Tak is sure that they are coming for him, but they soar through the opening and head straight for Yates instead.
“N-no…” croaks Yates. “No. NO!”
The birds descend on Yates like a cloud, tearing and thrashing at him with abandon. Tak hears him scream—a real, human scream—before the cloud slowly moves up and out toward the giant hole in the sky. Somewhere in the center of the mass, Tak can just make out the face of an old man in a tattered white lab coat. His expression is one of pure terror as he finally realizes there will be no reset button for him; the birds exist as an eternal, unrelenting force, and he will be with them for all time. And then the cloud enters the hole and vanishes as if it was never there.
“So long, asshat,” says Tak with a cough. “When you get to hell, tell ’em Tak sent you.”
A smile creeps across his face as his vision begins to go. He can’t feel his legs anymore. He can’t feel his body. And as the final darkness descends, his mind settles on Samira one last time. We did it, Sam. We did it. We made amends…. I think everything’s gonna be all right.
Seconds later, a purple hole roars out and swallows the sky.
chapter thirty-nine
Across the shattered remains of the world, what few people remain climb out of their holes, stare at the giant purple wound above, and wonder what fresh hell has come for them now. Those who have banded with other survivors find comfort in one another’s arms; those who are going it alone simply sit down in the dirt and wait for this new terror to arrive. At least it’s not the birds, they all muse in a shared moment of common thought. Whatever this is, it’s got to be better than the birds.
When the hole explodes into a dazzling ball of white, they throw their hands over their eyes and turn away, unable to face whatever terrible fate is befalling them. But then they look around and notice something completely unexpected: the world is beginning to change. Smoking wrecks of buildings warble out of existence only to be replaced by structures standing proud and tall. Ghosts of people, billions of them, slowly fade back to life, their chatter spreading out across the planet like a wave. The few survivors wonder if this is the afterlife—if they have somehow made it to heaven to see their friends and relatives once again—only to discover that their own memories are becoming unstable. The events of the past week begin to fade, turning from something real to something that feels like the thread of a nightmare.
One by one, all across the world, survivors begin to forget. They forget the birds. They forget the hole in the sky. They forget the pain and the death and the heartache and instead begin to worry about small things. Will I be able to pay the mortgage? Where did I leave my car keys? Why won’t that guy from the bar ever call me back?
People who died horrible deaths in the other timeline find themselves walking down streets without a care in the world. Women who threw themselves screaming from the tops of buildings put pencils behind their ears and gossip by the watercooler. Men who attacked each other with chain saws and railroad spikes and a thousand other instruments of death drink beers and watch baseball teams struggle for victory. The world repairs itself. The world rebuilds. A timeline that never should have been is gradually replaced by one where all is as it should be. And as the final piece of the fail-safe clicks into place, the world moves on—with no one imagining that all of existence had just been saved in the most unlikely of ways.
But there are exceptions. There always are.
• • •
deep in the heart of Australia, a crew of forty begins to disassemble a massive silver machine. The parts that can be salvaged will be sold for scrap, while the rest will be trucked out of the desert and hauled to landfills. As the crew buzzes around, a man named Hsu stands nearby with his arms folded and his mind deep in thought. I have a memory of this working. I know it did. But now I can’t even recall who came up with the idea in the first place…. A time machine? Dear God. What an absurd waste of money this proved to be.
• • •
in a penthouse apartment somewhere on the East Coast, a man named Dennis opens the front door and embraces his daughters in a massive hug. They squeal and squirm as he reaches around their sides and tickles them with glee. As he notices his wife standing in the doorway with a smile on her face, he has a sudden thought that things are out of place. I was in Nebraska. I was driving a truck and there was a kid who told me…No, that’s not possible. I’m an accountant, for God’s sakes. I don’t even know how to drive a truck.
He puts the thought out of his mind, rises to his feet, and goes to greet the woman he loves.
• • •
in butte, montana, a young man named Percy Davenport wakes from a dream where he had been protecting the entirety of creation before a young man with spiky hair shot and killed him. He rolls this thought around in his mind for a long moment before turning to look at the beautiful young woman sleeping beside him. Dude, that was weird. I gotta quit smoking weed before I go to bed.
• • •
in seattle, a young scientist named Judith Halford walks out of a conference and into the grey drizzle of a miserable Northwest afternoon. Engaged in thought, with uncountable equations floating around her head, she doesn’t notice the man walking toward her with a basket of fresh tomatoes until they collide, fruit spilling in one direction, notebooks flying in the other.
“Aw, crap,” says the man. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”
“No, it’s my fault,” replies Judith as she drops down to gather her books. “I was…I just wasn’t paying attention.”
She goes to grab the last book and finds he has already picked it up for her. Reaching for it, she notices for the first time that the man is wearing a white chef’s coat and a pair of wire-rim glasses. He’s kinda cute, she thinks to herself in a surprising moment of honesty. Actually, he’s really cute.
“You a chef?” she asks, taking the notebook from his hand.
“Sous chef,” he says. “Working on the real thing though. You a scientist?”
“Theoretical physicist,” she says. “How did you know?”
He points down at her name tag, which reads judith halford, mit. She chuckles and pulls it off before stuffing it into her pocket. “Guess that’s obvious, huh?”
“Well, you know. The name tag, plus the glasses, plus all the notebooks. I mean, I didn’t go to MIT, but I can put two and two together.”
“Oh. Well, thanks. Sorry about your tomatoes.”
She stands, dusts off her skirt, and turns to leave. Half a dozen steps later, she hears the man call out her name and turns around.
“What is it?” she asks.
“Hey, look. This may sound weird, but I’ve got a lot of tomatoes here and it’s actually my night off, so, um…You wanna have dinner?”
She feels the word “no” on the tip of her tongue as her mind clicks into gear. Judith, tomorrow morning you have to make a presentation on string theory. Plus, you haven’t been on a date in years. You wouldn’t even know what to do.
“Yeah, but I’d learn,” she whispers. “I’ve always been a real fast learner.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” begins the man. “I mean, you’re clearly busy, so—”
“Yes,” she says, as a rare smile begins to emerge on her face. “Yes. I would love to have dinner with you.”
• • •
and in new York City, in the middle of a squalid hotel room where the carpet smells of piss and the sheets smell worse, a young man named Takahiro O’Leary can’t answer the phone because the noose is too tight. His plan, ill conceived though it might have been, was to spend the last few seconds of his life dangling from a two-foot length of rope while Kind of Blue played in the background. He figured that—
The phone stops.
At first, Tak is sure he can still hear it braying. But then the clock moves again, and the mournful sounds of a trumpet emerge from the battered boom box at the foot of the dresser.
“…Oh,” says Tak. “Guess it was a wrong number.”
“Yeah, wrong number. Just a…Just a wrong number, is all. Now are you gonna do this thing or what?”
Suddenly he remembers a girl with long curly hair. He’s not sure how he knows her, but he does. And he also knows she is supposed to be dead, but has instead made a new world for herself in a place beyond imagining. I saved her life, he thinks to himself, the thought clear in his otherwise addled brain. I saved her life because I sent her somewhere outside of time.
The image of the girl fills him with peace. For a moment, he considers abandoning his plan, but something in his mind stops him. I have to go through with this. If I don’t, something terrible will happen. A company will come looking for me, and before I know it, I’ll be doing things I can’t imagine. This is a different world now. It’s a different world, and a better one, and I’m not supposed to be here.
Tak smiles. He thinks about the girl with the curly black hair and smiles again.
Then he jumps.
the things i want to tell you
chapter forty
“You remember our last night here? Remember how I said that people you know are really just memories? I wanted to explain it better, but then you said something funny and I started giggling and that was kind of the end of it. But I didn’t forget that conversation. I mean, not really. We moved on, and a lot of crazy stuff happened, but I still think about it…. I think about it all the time.”