Bones are Made to be Broken

by Anderson, Paul Michael

Herbowitz was staring at him, his eyes suddenly wary. Maybe Herbowitz wasn’t so shiny new, after all.

  “You finished?” Gregor asked.

  Herbowitz held the card by the corner, as if it might be diseased, and Gregor knew he’d heard what happened, how wild Gregor had been, trying to save a five-years-dead girl; Gregor sent a guard crashing through a glass door and broke the ribs of a supervisor.

  Herbowitz touched a button on his desk. Gregor heard the hiss of air-locks in the Dead Hall’s vault door. “I had to check.” He wouldn’t meet Gregor’s eyes.

  Gregor sighed inwardly and stepped into the cavernous Hall—more metal plating, more recessed lighting, regimented shelves filled with containers. He pulled the door closed behind him.

  Why not just quit? an internal voice asked.

  Gregor snorted—and do what? Memory Coordinators were bred for the People’s History Project. It might not have always been that way—back when MCs existed on the fringes of a society that called them frauds, or insane—but it sure as hell was now. Some MCs could barely read.

  Despair, his friend for the past three months, settled over him like a well-worn coat. He stopped at the third aisle and pulled a long metal container. The placard on the front displayed only one serial number. He started to think how odd that was, then Amelia’s face reappeared to him, and he shuffled to a desk in the corner.

  Then:

  “Looks like a path to Hell,” Jerzyck said, looking at the crater.

  Davis nodded. Massive concrete pillars poked into the gray morning air like the crooked teeth of a semi-buried monster. Metal girders twisted together like spliced wires. From where Davis and Jerzyck stood, two lengths of nylon rope had been staked, outlining a path into the dark center.

  Jerzyck sighed, a roly-poly man whose hardhat looked too big for his head. “It’s safe enough, though. Structural engineers checked it.”

  “There’s nothing left but rubble,” Davis said. “Why aren’t we just clearing the rest of this out?”

  Jerzyck shook his head. “Dunno. Don’t think I wanna know.”

  “Why?”

  Jerzyck studied him, as if trying to determine if he was trustworthy. “Gov’ment was out here Sunday. That’s why we’re here and why the bonus is so fat.”

  “What’d they do?”

  “Marked the path, for one thing. It was four of ‘em—two government types and a business guy.”

  “What about the fourth one?”

  “Wore a fuckin’ purple robe, like a monk from Vegas.”

  Davis’s face twisted. “The hell?”

  “Swear to god. I got here as they was coming out and the monk was, like, ‘I think these will last.’ And everyone was nodding, like it made a lick of sense.”

  Davis lit a cigarette with his Zippo. The snap of the lid was particularly loud. “Shit.” He looked at the rest of the site. Beyond the crater, the bulldozed and cleared remnants of the Martha K. Dixon FBI Building resembled any other jobsite, its border marked by tall, chain-link fencing, where he heard the morning rush hour heading into downtown Hathaway.

  But everything was still and silent in here.

  “Where the hell’s everybody else?” he asked. “Two people can’t do this.”

  “Thompson and Wilson are on their way,” Jerzyck said. “Smith and Glasten, too.” He glanced at Davis. “But I’m not waiting around. I don’t want to mess with this more than I have to. Too many people died here. If any place is haunted, it’s this place. Fuckin’ mass grave.”

  Davis grunted noncommittally. He cared little about death, hadn’t even attended his parents’ funerals. He thought, but didn’t say, You live, you die, everyone else moves on. Even here.

  Jerzyck turned towards the loaded wheelbarrow. He handed Davis a paper air mask, a walkie-talkie and a clutch of canvas sacks. “Just get what you can. Ready?”

  Davis pitched his cigarette and nodded.

  Jerzyck started down the path, Davis following. It was steeper than it looked and the lip of the crater rose quickly. They passed blocks of concrete triple their height, their cracks wedged with wires, broken bricks, busted tiles. They flicked on their headlamps. It didn’t help much. The sky above was a jagged gray line.

  The path split at the end of the staked rope. Jerzyck took the right, which seemed to rise, leaving Davis with the lower path.

  Davis started down, treading carefully over debris. Up ahead, he spied something small and dusty-red. He picked it up—a novelty pair of Minnie Mouse sunglasses. An arm and lens were missing. He glanced behind him. The end of the trail rope was barely ten yards away.

  Maybe this’ll be easy after all.

  He turned back to the grit-covered glasses. He imagined this in someone’s cubicle, a memento from some family trip. A personal touch in an impersonal environment. Maybe the owner had—

  Davis shook his head. The owner was dead and gone.

  He dropped the sunglasses into his sack.

  now:

  Gregor set the sunglasses in the container and pulled the recorder studs away from his temples.

  Just what he’d expected—a flat flash of memory, almost two-dimensional in its unreality: soft screams, black smoke, a faint vibration as the floor lost support. The bright doorway Gregor imagined whenever his mind picked up psychic energy had barely opened. The artifact was too damn old.

  He’d been working for three hours. He should’ve taken a break by now—it was protocol—but to do what? Sit in the corner of the break room while the other MCs ignored him?

  He checked the screen of the memory recorder, a tiny plastic rectangle with rounded edges, and saw that everything had saved to the People’s History’s central data cores. Did anyone bother to check these things? Pondering the question too much was apt to depress him.

  He looked at the single serial number on the container and, curious, pulled the touchscreen from the wall. He tapped the number in and the screen flashed. A file appeared, bearing the title HATHAWAY BOMBING – AUGUST 6, 2018.

  Gregor whistled. That was over two hundred years ago.

  He scrolled through the file, an ancient PDF document: On August 6, 2018, a terrorist bombed a Federal Bureau of Investigation office—central government law enforcement agency, the touchscreen automatically translated—in Hathaway, Pennsylvania—later absorbed into the Sprawl mega-metropolis in 2156. There were 356 people killed. Early members of the People’s History Project scavenged remaining personal items.

  Gregor set the touchscreen back. That many people dying, under such traumatic circumstances—how strong their energies must’ve been. The artifacts would’ve been practically screaming back then—

  Wait. If that many people died, shouldn’t there be more than one container? Something that big should have an entire aisle—

  He stopped himself. They probably had gotten through most of the artifacts, but, as the People’s History Project grew, and the rituals of death became less about cemeteries and funerals and more about creating links in the great chain PHP was forging, the remaining artifacts had gotten lost in the shuffle, winding up down here. The average lapse time between gaining possession of an artifact and when a Memory Coordinator accessed it was five years. Two hundred years ago—

  When was the last time anyone had touched these things?

  He thought of Amelia. How real that girl’s final moments had been; he’d smelled the moist concrete, felt the wet air.

  He couldn’t have been the only MC who felt something when accessing psychic energy—maybe not as extremely as him because it’d been a murder in a time when murders were incredibly rare, but something.

  Gregor shook his head. He knew MCs didn’t feel what he now felt. It was a job—push a button, pull a lever, record the last moment of someone you’ve never met.

  Why me? he thought, putting the temple-studs back on his head. Why do I have to be different?

  Not for the first time, he wished he hadn’t handled Amelia’s artifact, which had been a handful of colorful
barrettes. If he hadn’t handled them, he wouldn’t be here, forgotten in a room full of forgotten things.

  But then he wouldn’t have known Amelia, and that was its own bitter fruit.

  He pulled the next artifact—half of a wooden nameplate and closed his eyes.

  Then:

  The nameplate broke in half when Davis tried pulling it out of a wedge of rock. It toppled to the ground amidst a shower of grit.

  Fuck it, he thought, bending over to pick up the busted nameplate.

  And felt someone rush by behind him.

  Davis jumped and spun. His headlamp picked out sharp and irregular walls and the meandering, rubble-strewn path.

  But he’d felt the passage of air, heard the harsh pant of breath.

  He shook himself. He was alone down here. Jerzyck was in some other portion of the crater—he imagined the supervisor’s path was wide as a freeway and better lit—and no one was stupid enough to think they had the experience to go traipsing around.

  Then why was the hair on the back of his neck standing up?

  A burst of chatter erupted around the corner, like a group of people talking at the same time. It quickly faded away.

  “Goddammit,” he muttered, and climbed around the rubble until he reached the corner. The path was empty, of course. The mound of rubble he was on petered out, became the tilted, busted tile of a sub-basement floor.

  Too many people died here, Jerzyck had said. If any place is haunted, it’s this place.

  Well, you’re a dumb fuckin’ Polack, Davis thought, wiping the sweat from his brow. So I don’t expect much.

  “What I care about is my bonus,” Davis said. “No ghoulies or ghosties or long-leggedy beasties. Just sacks of junk and a nice nut in my account.”

  He waited for more phantom footsteps, more chatter, but nothing came. Because nothing would.

  He continued climbing, ignoring the way his heart pounded.

  Now:

  “Goddammit!” Gregor yelled, and threw the old, cracked wedding photo. It hit the cubby’s back wall and the glass shattered.

  He stared at it, a dull headache throbbing in the center of his skull. His eyes dropped to the MR and he read the screen: NO RECORDING MADE.

  Of course not. Any residual psychic memory had long since faded away. The people behind the photo were long gone, with no one left to notice.

  What was the point if no one remembered or cared? No one looked at the memory cores. Why not just incinerate the belongings like their owners? It was all awful and, what was somehow worse, he hadn’t even been aware of it until recently.

  And look at the reward for my enlightenment.

  On impulse, he reached into the container and pulled out the red sunglasses. He cupped them and closed his eyes, striving to open the mental doorway.

  He remembered the last memory, but got nothing. He had the memory of the memory. The flash was gone. He’d caught the bare residuals just before—pardon the pun—it had given up the ghost. There was no set length of time for how long an artifact’s psychic energy would remain; it mostly depended on how traumatic the death was.

  Two centuries was a long time.

  Like vultures, his thoughts circled Amelia.

  Gregor had no idea who Amelia was when he’d picked up her barrettes; he’d been thinking of upgrading his vidcom plan.

  But all thoughts were wiped away when he’d closed his hands over her barrettes. He hadn’t even had to open his mind. The psychic energy was right there, and—

  (—he feels the slick condensation on the concrete floor. The air is moist, and each hot exhale beads before him. It smells like a monkey house in here. He looks into the corner and there’s Amelia, cowering and shaking. She’s been crying ever since the BADMAN—as she thinks of him, and Gregor knows automatically—took her and she can’t seem to stop. The heavy steel door opens and he and Amelia flinch as one as an oblong rectangle of dirty yellow light falls on the floor. The BADMAN comes in, his work boots clumping, his huge fists swinging at his sides and Gregor, he, he tries—)

  Gregor closed his eyes as they grew wet.

  And was she still there, in those barrettes? He thought so; her death was too brutal, too fresh. Locked in a container in a busier Hall, Amelia’s last moments continued on, ever-so-slowly eroding away. And no one would notice. Since Gregor had pulled the psychic energy, there was no reason for any other MC to touch it.

  He covered his face while the rows of artifacts looked on.

  Then:

  The voices began as a groundswell, rising up along the twists and turns behind him and, before he could stop himself, he was turning, ready to yell—at the phantom voices, at himself. As he did, his right foot plunged into a hole in the rubble.

  Time seemed to hang for an instant, and a single thought shot across his mind—I can’t believe I just did that—before his ankle snapped. Hot, galvanizing pain seized his leg. He screamed and fell.

  He landed hard, bounced, landed again, and another galvanizing bolt exploded, this time in his ribs. His air mask was torn away, and the wind promptly knocked out of him. His temple hit a rock and black stars exploded across his vision.

  He came back slowly, feeling the rough surface of concrete, the cool touch of steel. He raised his head and a sledgehammer of vertigo smashed his skull. His mouth was full of blood.

  He began the slow process of turning himself onto his back, a part of him knowing that was a bad idea and the rest not caring. His helmet was still on, thanks to the chin-strap, but the light was cracked and flickering. He was coated in grit and blood, and his right leg looked like it’d grown two extra joints. A strange form of subdued burning gripped it. Shock.

  He groped for his walkie-talkie, but found only the clip on his belt. It’d been smashed.

  “Fuck,” he said through gritted teeth. He coughed out blood.

  He rested his head back and tried to calm himself. It wouldn’t help to panic. Not at all.

  And that was when he heard approaching footsteps.

  Now:

  C’mon,” Gregor whispered, “c’mon.”

  He hunched forward, holding a set of keys. Sweat coated his face. Veins throbbed at his temples. Other objects—wallets, money clips, and hunks of plastic with words like “Verizon” or “iPhone” imprinted on them—lay scattered around him, their energy gone.

  He opened his mind and focused all his mental faculties at the artifact. There had to be something.

  The bright doorway in the darkness opened slowly, and Gregor launched his mental assault at it, pulling and wrenching and clawing and—

  (—he’s watching a man—Roger Herring, forty-three, a little portly—running down an office hallway filled with black smoke. His shirt was charred, his face burned red, his eyes as empty and terrified as a hunted animal. Gregor can smell his sweat and fear, hear his panting, the slap of his shoes on the tile—)

  —the doorway in Gregor’s mind slammed shut. Vertigo spun through him, rocketing him back into his chair.

  He slumped, panting. His migraine felt like a caged bull slamming its meaty shoulders against the sides of his skull.

  I had it, he thought.

  (and look what it did to you)

  Gregor raised a hand to his upper lip and his fingers came away bloody. His nose was bleeding. Not a lot, but enough that, if things were normal, he’d go to the clinic. If he had a mirror right now, he thought his eyes would appear bloodshot.

  (hemorrhage)

  The word floated up from his years of training in the Academy.

  “Does it matter?” he said. His words were slightly slurred. He set the keys down. Roger Herring. Killed during the Hathaway Bombing, August 6, 2018.

  I remember you. How long had it been since anyone had done that for Roger Herring?

  He pulled the final object from the container—a palm-sized metal rectangle with ZIPPO faintly etched on the side. There was nothing immediately there, no easy flash. This was either almost dead or damn near it.


  I don’t care, Gregor thought, mentally pressing down on the object. Lightheadedness smacked him. Someone needs to see these people.

  (even if it kills you?)

  He ignored the voice and pushed at the artifact, willing it to give up its residual energy. Fresh blood flowed from his nose, leaving its hot, salty taste on his lips.

  Then:

  Davis tried sitting up and his chest burst into fiery agony as his broken ribs moved. He spasmed and retched, spewing blood. His head was full of angry wasps.

  He collapsed, breathing shallowly.

  He couldn’t hear footsteps any longer.

  (there weren’t any)

  He tried looking up the path. It was like looking through a window smeared with Vaseline, bordered with black.

  Wonder if Jerzyck will find me, he thought. Where the hell is that superstitious son of a bitch? It’s all his fault, saying this place is haunted—

  He shook his head, or thought he did. Jerzyck didn’t matter. He was alone and dying.

  The longer he laid still, the more the agony faded. A great lethargy stole over him. His eyelids begged to close, just for a moment.

  I’m dying where a few hundred people did. But those people had done it together. He was alone. He—

  Some remnant of his consciousness rose suddenly and he forced himself to scream. All he managed was a wet gargle, but it awoke the pain in his chest, which made it easier to think.

  Is this how it is? Just confused and stupid and fading away?

  Yes, it is, the interior voice said, somewhat sadly. It was what he’d always thought. It was how his parents had died, his mother from cancer and, not long after, his father from Alzheimer’s. His sister had said neither knew who she was at the end. They hadn’t known each other.

  He saw movement and he strained to see it. They appeared to be people walking, but he couldn’t tell gender or age, just shapes.

  “Ya—” he said with his numb mouth. “Ya … rescue?”

  The walkers paid him no mind.

  ‘Cause they’re not there. Just Jerzyck’s … He tried thinking of the word, and, still thinking—