Last Playground

by Geoff North

  Bertha nodded slowly, returning the sword back to its sheath. She stood up and started down through the rocks without looking at him.

  “Hold on there,” he called after her. “What’s to say you can’t stay here? I’ll need help keepin’ the order. Maybe I could use a deputy or two in the beginning.”

  “Just in the beginning?”

  He grinned. “You’d have to prove yerself.”

  “I don’t have to prove myself to any man.”

  Lowe followed her. His bootless foot slipped and he lurched forward. Bertha caught his hand. It had been the first time he’d touched a woman since Sally. Her green eyes met his steely gray ones, and this time she didn’t look away.

  A knot as big as an apple lodged in the marshal’s throat. Bertha smiled. As rough and tough as she was, Angus couldn’t recall seeing such a beautiful sight.

  From the plains below came awful, monotone singing. The two looked away from each other and saw Reginald rolling along beside Neal Stauch. They were coming towards them from the east, from the wreckage of the farmhouse.

  “There you are,” Neal said as the group met near the rock pile’s base. “We’ve been looking all over.” He noticed Lowe holding the woman’s hand and raised an eyebrow. Reginald stopped singing and flashed pink. They released hands immediately.

  Neal scratched his head. “Uhh…we were just wondering if you were ready to leave yet. It’s gonna take a long time for me to build this place back up, but right now I just wanna go home for awhile. I want you to come with me.” He looked at Bertha. “I don’t know what Brinn has in mind for you other guys.”

  The marshal ruffled the boy’s hair. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere, chum. You kids have given these here lands another chance and I wanna start rebuilding things right away.”

  Neal shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal to him. It was, but he didn’t want Lowe to see him hurting. The marshal may have been his creation, but Neal had always craved his respect.

  Bertha knelt down in front of him. “Tell Brinn I’ve decided to stay here. My world needs me less than Angus needs me in his.”

  Lowe smacked Reginald on what could pass for his shoulder. “Take care of yerself, robot. And go easy on that singin’ voice—maybe rest it up a year or two.”

  Angus and Bertha started away into the west. They stopped after a few dozen steps and looked back. The marshal tipped his hat at the two with one hand and took Bertha’s with the other. They continued on into the setting sun.

  ***

  “What do you mean you’re not coming back?” Neal could accept the fact that Marshal Lowe wouldn’t return back into the twenty-first century with him, but these two as well?

  “I’m a space-exploring scientist, son,” Gunnarson explained. “You didn’t seriously expect me to shack up with your mother and live on a farm for the rest of my days, did you?”

  Neal had only learned his father had passed away an hour before. His bottom lip quivered and tears leaked down his cheeks.

  The commander hugged him. “I’m sorry, Neal. That was damn inconsiderate of me.” He wiped the boy’s tears away with his thumbs. “But you have to consider what people back in your world will say when they see you again. It’s going to be a difficult thing to explain away. Just imagine what they would think if they saw the spitting image of your father from thirty-seven years ago returning as well.”

  Neal looked to Reginald pleadingly. “Do you have to stay here as well?”

  The robot’s mechanical fingers rested on the boy’s shoulder. “I suspect explaining who and what I am would prove an even greater challenge. Do not be sad, Neal. I will remain with the commander and rebuild the transport terminals. Everything will be as you left it, better perhaps. We’ll establish new outposts on unimaginable planets in distant galaxies. You will visit them, I’m sure.”

  Neal nodded his head and set his mouth in a tight line to fight back further tears. “Alright then, I guess it’s time for the rest of us to get going.” They were all waiting in front of the collapsed farmhouse in a loose huddle. All but one.

  “Where’s Pipes?”

  “He left a few minutes ago,” Brinn said. “You know what super-heroes are like. They save the day and fly away before anyone has the chance to thank them.”

  All of his creations had decided to stay in the end. It was more their world than his now. Pipes had given so much of his life to keep Neal alive. Oscar had sacrificed everything. Perhaps they didn’t need a little boy to fix things. Maybe this place deserved to grow back up on its own.

  “So what’s the plan, chief?” Paris asked.

  Neal picked his way through fallen beams and broken two-by-fours. He saw the rounded white metal edge of the refrigerator door in the middle of the mess. “Someone help me move this junk out of the way.”

  They made a trail and removed debris from what had once been a kitchen. The old fridge had some new dents and scratches, but it was the only thing left standing.

  Erin smiled worriedly at him. “I’m afraid this old thing hasn’t held food in it for a very long time, dear.”

  “I’m not hungry, Mom.”

  He pulled the door open and looked inside. He yanked the metal shelving out and reached towards the back. “Yeah, this should work just fine.” His fingers rested on the cooling dial. Neal closed his eyes and imagined it had a new function. He turned the dial and there was a click. The back of the fridge opened up.

  Selma was behind Neal on her hands and knees, peering anxiously ahead of him. “Where does that go?”

  “Home.” He beamed proudly back at her.

  She grabbed the waist of his blue jeans and started to yank the boy back towards them. “Get out of the way! I have to go first.”

  “Take it easy, Selma,” Brinn protested. “What’s your big hurry?”

  She ignored her friend and started scrambling through the refrigerator. Her one hand was still wrapped into Neal’s jeans, dragging the boy back inside.

  Commander Gunnarson saw a wrinkled piece of paper sticking up from her back pocket. He recognized something there. “Stop her! Don’t let her go through!”

  The others looked at the commander uncomprehendingly. Reginald’s squares flashed red and the robot acted. His rubber arms shot out and twisted around the girl’s ankles, pulling her back out. Selma kicked and flailed. The paper worked its way from her pocket and Gunnarson picked it up off the ground.

  “Do you want to explain yourself, young lady?” he asked. “Do you make a habit of stealing other people’s possessions?”

  Brinn pulled at one of Reginald’s arms. “Let go of her! What’s wrong with you guys?”

  Gunnarson handed the paper to Brinn. “Why don’t you ask Selma?”

  Brinn looked at the sheet. It was the commander’s Endless Expansion and Contraction equation. She looked at Selma. “What…what were you doing with this? Why did you take it?”

  “They needed it.” Selma couldn’t meet her eyes. “They sent me with you to find out as much as I could.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “That new Agency,” Reginald cut in, “the ones that took control after the S.S.I.A. had been wiped out.”

  Brinn was mortified. She knelt down in front of Selma. Her best friend. “You’re working for them?”

  Selma laughed. “You’re so dense sometimes…What’s my mother’s first name?” Brinn didn’t know. “And the dad that ran out on me—what was his name?”

  Brinn shook her head. “You never told me. I’ve never even been to your house.”

  “Because it doesn’t exist… What’s the matter with you, Brinn? Can’t you recognize one of your own imaginary friends when they’re sitting right in front of you?”

  “I…I imagined you?”

  “Right after Mom died. I was that part left behind as you struggled to get on with your life. You couldn’t handle all of that emotion—all of that guilt. Instead of bottling it all up, you released it into me. You created someone to
do it all for you.” She started to laugh again. “Even my name—Selma Doudon. That sounds an awful lot like self-doubt, doesn’t it?”

  Brinn could see her eyeing up the paper in her hand. She handed it back to Gunnarson. “Why would you betray us…betray me?”

  “I am you!” Selma shouted. “I’m everything you didn’t want to be. I’m self-doubt, I’m guilt—I’m hate and greed. And more than anything, Brinn…I’m revenge. I wanted so bad to get back at you for making me what I was. The Agency was monitoring the farmhouse for a decade—looking for a way into Neal’s world…waiting. When I was created two years ago it didn’t take them long to make the family connection. And it took us even less time to figure a way over here.”

  Reginald had turned a shade of orange. “And then they went to work—slaughtering those survivors still left in the S.S.I.A. building and beginning their own grisly experiments.”

  Brinn recalled the bloody words smeared onto the cubicle desks—Dreem Killers, Imajination Theefs—poorly spelled words by secret agents and scientists too far gone to fight back and well on their way to becoming wannasee. A final warning to all others of what was happening—what had happened. She stared at the ground, her head swimming. I’m responsible. I created Selma, and Selma helped them into Neal’s world. Oscar’s dead because of me.

  Gunnarson shook the paper in front of them. “And I bet you figured those bastards would want this too, didn’t you? They needed to know how everything worked. They gathered information on all of us—our whereabouts, our weaknesses. They knew we would eventually find a way into the First World looking for Brinn. They were counting on it. It was easy for you to come along for the ride and gather as much information as you could.”

  “Did you ever talk to my mother?” Brinn asked. It seemed petty after all they’d learned but she had to know.

  Selma nodded. “I couldn’t keep her out of my head. She knew who I was, but she still loved me—like a part of you. Like her daughter.” She forced a weak laugh. “I guess she thought there was still hope for me.”

  Brinn wanted to slap the girl. “She never told you Uncle Neal’s creations couldn’t be trusted. That was just more of your crap lies, wasn’t it?”

  “I like to keep you guessing.” Selma had found a piece of broken glass in the rubble. She pulled Neal into her chest and held one sharp end at his throat. “They wanted Neal more than anything. But not even the Agency could get through Pipes. They needed you and all the others to do that for them.” She pushed the glass shard against Neal’s jugular vein, almost breaking the skin. “I’m going through, and I’m taking him with me. I’ll cut him wide open if you try and stop me.”

  Erin made a lunge for her son. Gunnarson held her back. He made eye contact with Neal and the boy nodded at him grimly. The commander nodded back. “She won’t hurt him.”

  Selma backed into the refrigerator. Neal bit down on her thumb when she was halfway through. The glass fell from her fingers and he wrenched free, scrambling back out to the others. Brinn could see directly into the other world Selma had slipped into. It was blacker than the darkest night. A set of red eyes without irises or pupils stared back at her. There was an agonized scream and the door at the back of the refrigerator slammed shut.

  Brinn turned to her uncle. “Where did you send her? What world was that?”

  Neal stared back at her without uttering a word, safe in his mother’s arms.

  Gunnarson shook his head. “Don’t ask, Brinn. There are some places in this universe you don’t want to know about.”

  Esme broke the ominous silence. “Well if it’s alright with the rest of you, I’d like to try that again. Paris and I can’t wait to start our new lives back in Hamden.”

  Neal crawled back in and opened the door again. “Come on. It’s all safe now.”

  Each of them went in turn, back into the kitchen on the other side. The farmhouse was still standing there. Everything was as Brinn remembered when she’d explored through the main floor with Selma, Bertha, and Oscar less than forty-eight hours before.

  They were home.

  Neal looked back through the fridge. The sun had set completely over the Plains of Stauch. The sky was purple and pink and streaked at the bottom with brilliant strips of orange. He waved at Commander Gunnarson and Reginald in the distance.

  “Make sure you keep the front door closed,” he called to them. “We wouldn’t want anything crawling through…from that world, or this one.”

  Reginald rolled up and snaked a rubber arm through both openings. Neal shook the wormy fingers. “Take care of yourself, young man.”

  “You too, Reggie…you too.”

  Reginald shut the front door and Neal shut the back one. He was no longer certain he would revisit the Plains of Stauch, or any other part of his imagined worlds. For now, he was just happy to be back where he belonged.

  Chapter 30

  Esme and Paris became Neal’s official guardians, and the boy took Pureheart as his last name. They moved into a house a block away from Brinn, but Neal spent most of his time at Erin’s. A few of the older folks in Hamden talked. The boy seemed familiar—but even the gossip subsided after a while. Michael Addam was let in on the family secret. It was only fair since he had spent two days worried sick over the disappearance of his son, his daughter, and his mother-in-law. And though there had been no sign of the Agency after Brinn and her uncle, it was wise they all remained aware of their existence.

  They lived in three different homes but Brinn considered them all one family. They spent the rest of the summer together on Saturday evenings—usually in Gramma Erin’s backyard—roasting wieners and toasting marshmallows around a stone-ringed fire pit.

  On an evening like this one.

  It reminded her of other campfires—of one especially happy Christmas. And of a night spent on an asteroid so far away from home with some of the greatest friends she had ever made. The flames weren’t purple this night, but some of the friends remained.

  Her father and grandmother sat to her left, drinking beers and catching up on lost time. Esme and Paris were to her right, talking about the future. Neal and Logan sat across from her, giggling and making rude sounds.

  These were the days and the people Brinn would remember most. As the sun disappeared below the trees and stars lit the skies above, she would recall this special time in her life when so much had gone horribly wrong—and when so much more was put to right. Her mother was gone, but she no longer felt any guilt. That part of Brinn was gone as well. Nancy Addam would live on inside her forever.

  So would the bible-quoting space explorer that looked like her grandfather. Brinn would remember every silly tune Reginald the Robot had ever sung, and she would whisper a little prayer each night for Bertha and Marshal Lowe, somewhere out there in the new Wild West. She would remember Pipes—the greatest super-hero of them all—and hoped he would seek out Emma for a sidekick. Brinn still worried about the little girl, all alone in the tunnels beneath New Hamden.

  Neal saw her looking at him from across the fire. He smiled back at her.

  And she would remember Oscar every time she looked into her young uncle’s eyes. It was impossible to miss. The android had sacrificed his heart so the child could live again. It was something they would all remember as the boy said goodbye to his past and grew up into a man, sealing that last playground into the memories of childhood.

  The End

  Thank you for reading Last Playground. I hope you enjoyed it. A sequel is in the works that brings all the characters back together for a darker, more dangerous adventure. More on that and other book news can be found on my website, www.geoffnorth.com

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