Steal the Lightning

by Tim Lees

  She nodded to the far side of the pond. He had his camera up. I waved but he didn’t see.

  She said, “I’ll get him.”

  She was a runner. She took three strides to reach the bank. It’s an illusion to say people “float” or “glide,” and yet she barely seemed to touch the boards. The noise was tiny—clack, clack, clack—and she vaulted the gate, and I lost sight of her a moment in the shadows. Then there, in a patch of moonlight, and gone, and there again—I had a weird vision of her as a string of stills, these frozen pictures spread among the trees.

  It took a lot longer for Silverman to get to me than for her to get to him.

  “Give Angie the camera. She’ll do you some good shots.”

  She’d have no time for that. I expect he knew it, too, but he handed her the camera anyway. He started down the ladder, but as soon as he set foot in the boat, he panicked. I saw him stiffen up, clinging for a moment.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’ve got you.”

  Once he was down, he was fine. He took the oars and we rowed out to the middle of the pond. I was going to loop the cables back now, into the bank, and I didn’t want to be bothered rowing, too. The pattern was a little tricky here, but I reckoned we’d be good.

  I said, “Not much boating in New York, then?”

  I felt confident. I felt relaxed. A balloon bobbed in my face. I dropped the cable. Only this time round, it didn’t sink. It lay there on the surface of the water, gleaming like a silver snake. The balloon swung back and forth. Happy St. Pat’s! it said. I put my hand into the water. I tried to duck the cable under. There was an odd sensation—I pushed down and then, maybe a half a second later, I felt something pushing back. Resistance. Not strong. The cable sank, then drifted back up, broke the surface.

  Ripples moved across the water. I saw the look on Silverman’s face—the understanding there was something wrong, and we were in the middle of it. I saw a moment’s fear. He pulled on one oar, clumsily, and it jumped out of the water, spraying us both.

  “Relax,” I told him. “We’ve got time.”

  The singing was louder now. If they were going to pull the curtains, they’d do it soon.

  I said, “Take us to your left. We run this back to shore and then we’re done, OK?”

  There was a sound like fish jumping, or raindrops falling, and the water climbed in little steeples, dragging itself up into the air and tumbling back, waves shimmering across the pond. Silverman made mouths at me. “We’re fine,” I said. We weren’t, but I wanted him calm.

  I played out the rest of the cable. It was sinking now, but slowly. Balloons swayed on their strings, fancy colors dimmed to gray and silver in the darkness. Water slid like oil. It piled up, slow and lazy, then slackening and flowing away.

  I said, “Let’s go.”

  Silverman craned round, checking his direction. At the same time, the whole pond seemed to swell. We were slipping down the side of a great hill, smooth and liquid, shining like mercury. A trail of dead leaves slipped by and then plunged beneath the bow. A current spun us round, whirling us for maybe twenty seconds. Silverman swore. But he kept control. He dug the oars in and he pulled. I got to my knees in the bottom of the boat, grabbed the oars with him, pushing as he pulled, matching my strokes to his, trying to guide him.

  We hit the jetty with a bump. I grabbed one of the big supporting timbers, pushing us along. It wasn’t easy. Then we were at the ladder. I shoved Silverman up it. Angel was there. I passed her the cable ends. She made to help me up but I yelled for her to go. There was no more secrecy, no more silence. The boat rocked. I got my feet onto the ladder and I practically crawled onto the boards. I felt like I could barely move.

  And that was when the lights came on.

  Chapter 35

  The Threat of Violence

  The glare sent shadows racing through the water. The back of the tent was open. We were public, now, whatever I’d been hoping. Cold spray lashed my cheek. I dragged myself over the gate, landed on my feet, and ran. She’d put the flask on shore, one side of the jetty. Habit made me stop, check the connections, the locale. She’d done well.

  She was over to the left, four or five yards back, with the control box, mounted on a metal stand. A power lead trailed to the car.

  This was the point I’d wanted to take over. Instead, I told her, “Go!”

  She hit the perimeter.

  A charge shot round the outer wires. I turned in time to see the whole pond rear up like a wall. It held for seconds—a wave, tumbling over and over on itself, foaming, bright. Light whirled through it, patterns like silver veins, and—no. I was looking at the cables. Cables we’d taken so much care to place, and mark.

  “Angie—”

  “I got it.”

  I’d wanted the generator up and running for backup. There was no time now. Someone was shouting. I couldn’t see the revival tent. The water bulged, straining upwards, and the harsh white light set up a nimbus all around it, a glowing outline, flashing colors as this liquid mountain sloshed and slopped, broke up and reformed, blazing with electric power.

  I was with her now. I reached for the control box.

  Again, she said, “I got it,” and she slammed the next charge home.

  There was a hiss like a steam whistle.

  By then, it was too late to stop.

  We were running blind, running on guesswork. “Now,” I told her, “now—” She hit the second of the inner wires, then the third. Her teeth were clamped over her lower lip. Her shoulders hunched. Was she too close? To the flask? To the pond? I wouldn’t have set up there. I’d have moved it all a few feet back. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter. Perhaps we’d be OK. I was going to tell her, “Next,” but again, she hit it. I saw Silverman, down on one knee, the camera on his shoulder. There was water everywhere. It sparkled in the air. Everything glittered. I saw someone running through the trees. Then Angel hit the inner loops.

  A tower of fluid seemed to fall towards us, like somebody had tipped the world on edge. It poised, leaning, roiling, balloons waving and shivering across its surface. We were chasing the god out. We were driving it into the flask. She fired the next line. It was like a mine going off. Curtains of water blew into the air, and the lights sent rainbows shooting through them, colors flaring in the air.

  I heard Silverman’s voice. I couldn’t catch the words but something in it made me turn. Someone was running, straight at Angel. I threw myself between them. He was big. He hurtled into me and sent me flying. I hit the ground and at the same time turned, flailing with my arms, and grabbed the guy’s leg, rolling into him. He went down too. Someone else was standing over me and I kicked at him. People were yelling. There was a flash, a crack like a gunshot—and silence. Stillness.

  I stood up slowly. I took a few steps back, away from the crowd of strangers who had gathered at the pond’s edge. I heard sobbing, wailing. I looked around for Angel.

  She was on the ground. She was ten feet from the control box, and my first thought was that she’d been thrown there, that there had been some kind of blast, which I had somehow missed. I ran across to her. She was conscious, but dazed. I helped her to her feet.

  The big tent was still standing. It dominated the scene, flanked by the lights. One of the rowboats lay upon the grass, its stern up in the air. The pond was as calm as glass. About a dozen helium balloons still wobbled over it. As I watched, something shiny broke the surface. Then another, and another.

  “Oh, shit.”

  I hadn’t even thought about the fish.

  There were dozens of them.

  Dead fish.

  I felt really, really bad about the fish.

  “You OK?”

  She was groggy. I showed her the flask. “You did it,” I said.

  I wasn’t getting a reaction from her.

  “Angel.”

  “Give me—” She raised her hands as if to fend me off. “Give me a minute . . .”

  Richard Cleary, in a white shirt that caug
ht the light, was shouting, jabbing his finger in the air.

  He knew exactly what we’d done.

  Which meant he knew exactly what manner of hokum he’d been perpetrating on his followers.

  And he wasn’t yelling at me. He was yelling at his congregation. Talking about blasphemy. Sacrilege. Ungodliness . . .

  It could have all got very nasty then. He had his heavies there, backed by a bunch of the congregation. There was a lot of talk about the law and the police and still more about settling things right then and there.

  One thing saved us.

  Silverman kept filming. And as long as he kept filming, everyone behaved.

  They say that cameras can inflame a riot, that everyone will play up for the lens. But sometimes, they can calm things down.

  It was a standoff, for the moment. I guided Angel to the car. She was lucid but unsteady. I wanted her out of there. I started to dismantle the equipment. I didn’t answer Cleary’s demands. I didn’t even look at him. When one guy moved towards me, Silverman stepped forward, too, making clear that he was going for a close-up.

  “I will have justice,” Cleary warned. “I’ll find where you live, each every one of you—”

  “I have sound, as well,” said Silverman.

  I started reeling in the cables. We lost some—caught on something in the pond, connections snapped—and I had to walk out on the jetty to reel in the last few lengths.

  I think it was the fastest cleanup that I’ve ever done.

  There were bits of wet, shredded balloon still clinging to the wires, and strands of weed.

  Everything stank of mud.

  I threw it all in the back of the car.

  Far off, I heard a siren.

  I nodded to Silverman. He moved towards us, camera raised.

  As we drove off, someone threw something—a rock, maybe—and it smacked on the rear door and Angel jumped, like a woken sleepwalker.

  “What the hell?” she said.

  By then we were out of the trees, bouncing down onto the street.

  And we were gone.

  The cop car passed us, heading back the way we’d come.

  Chapter 36

  Heading South

  “You’re all right?”

  “I’m good.”

  We’d dropped off Silverman at his van. Now Angel and I were back at the Gemini, collecting our possessions, packing our bags.

  It was time to leave town.

  I watched her from the corner of my eye. She worked fast, efficiently, but now and then she’d pause, and cock her head to one side, like something had distracted her. It probably shouldn’t have bothered me, only it did.

  “You want to see the doc, or something?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You fell. You ought to get a CT, check for concussion.”

  “I’m fine! Besides,” she grinned, “doc’s too busy, dealing with the TB. Right?”

  “That’s a thing I’d definitely like to know some more about,” I said.

  I settled with the night clerk. Told him we were heading for Chicago, which we weren’t, and wanted to make an early start.

  The air outside was fresh and warm. The sky was just starting to lighten, up above the Taco Bell.

  She stood there, one hand on the car door, and her head tipped back.

  “Hear that?” she said. “Like music? Like in church or something?”

  I listened, but I didn’t hear a thing.

  The sun came up as we were driving south. A long, flame-colored contrail cut across the sky, fading to a dappled spatter over the horizon. Fast food’s de rigeur on trips like this; we caught the early morning shift for muffins at McDonald’s, ate it on the move. I drove. She dozed. I was glad to see her get some rest. She’d left her coffee, so I helped myself to that and pushed on through the morning.

  I got a text from Silverman: Clean getaway! We ROCK!!! Then, a moment later, You?

  He was into this. He’d been scared, but now he had the rush and the excitement, knowing that he’d got away with it. I knew what that was like. He’d feel like James Bond, like he’d beaten all the odds—like he was practically immortal.

  Still, he’d handled himself. He’d been frightened in the boat, but he’d done what was needed. And after, the way he’d used the camera—that was special. That was good. I texted back: Thanks, mate. You did well.

  We should have celebrated. Angel’s first retrieval, and a tough one, too. Maybe exhaustion cut the thrill of it. But neither of us felt like partying.

  In a town called Napoleon, east of Defiance, west of Liberty Center, we sat in the parking lot at Pizza Time, a little red-white-and-blue building, and ate pizza, and waited for the Registry’s dispatch rider. He came on time: a sixty-year-old biker with a full white beard, an outlaw Santa Claus.

  He brought papers to be signed. I started working through them, leaning on the car roof to write.

  “Hell of a rigmarole,” he said. “I couriered for Chase Bank, twenty years. Was never this much hassle.”

  “Well,” I said, “that’s only money.”

  I powered up the flask and we each took a photo of the readings, time-and date-stamped, and we each of us, separately, e-mailed them to Central Records, as we were meant to do.

  Then he put the flask into his pannier, padded it around, and locked it down. A little pod of energy. A capsule that could light a town.

  “Know how many of these I done? Three, this month. Month before—oh, five, maybe. Used to be more like one a year, y’know?”

  “All Registry?”

  “Who else?”

  “No one ever asked you for a favor? Wanted a cut of it? Offered you money, or—?”

  He climbed back on his bike.

  “If they did,” he said, “I sure didn’t listen.”

  I watched him as he drove away.

  “You’re getting kind of paranoid here, Chris,” Angel told me. “You can’t go round suspecting everyone.”

  “I don’t, but—”

  “You practically accused him there.”

  “I did not! I just said—”

  “Wasn’t the words,” she said. “It was the tone.”

  “Well. I can’t help . . . yeah, OK.” To break the mood, I said, “Let’s find somewhere. Take a day off. Celebrate, OK?”

  “You mean pizza’s not enough?”

  “Let’s hit somewhere a bit more upscale, first. Shall we? Then, we do the town.”

  Silverman sent me a text, forwarded from Eddie-boy.

  Disappointed, guys, but may b we can talk again. What say?

  “Tell him to go to hell,” said Angel.

  “Actually, I want to talk to him.”

  “You’re the only one who does.”

  “You heard him. Says he’s got a god. I think I’d like to know about that.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be happy to tell you.”

  She slept most of the way south. At one point, she stirred, and I thought she said something, but when I listened, she was singing, softly at first—that weird, disjointed stuff she liked to listen to—Berg, Messiaen, whatever.

  She was singing and her hands moved and her body started shaking and she got so agitated that I leaned across and woke her, and she started up, staring round as if she’d no idea where she was. She sucked in air like she’d been drowning.

  “What’ve you done?” she said.

  Her hands were raised. She pulled at the seat belt.

  “You were having a bad dream,” I said. “I woke you.”

  I heard her breathing, heavily, and then she sank back in her seat.

  “It wasn’t a bad dream,” she said. “Or I don’t think it was . . .”

  There is a wind farm on the plains of Indiana. It runs for miles and miles, long avenues of tall gray towers, each topped with a huge, three-vaned propeller; some turning slowly, others frozen into strange, suggestive attitudes: elegantly beckoning, or fending off, quizzical or curious . . . There is something beautiful and sligh
tly eerie about it all, its size, its silence, and that weird trick of the mind by which these simple shapes resemble giant human effigies—the way a stick man or a smiley-face are instantly identified as human—as one of us.

  They stand there like some primal memory, an army of long-vanished giants, reborn into the modern world.

  The Registry has factions that would sweep aside such installations, blow away the wind farms and the dams for HEP, the coal reactors and the nuclear sites, declare them all irrelevant and obsolete. New Heaven, new Earth: let the gods regain their hold, and run their fingers through the deep veins of the world, while the Registry, as ever, strains to keep them on the leash. In service, and not in control.

  There are factions, like I say.

  I’m not in any of them.

  Chapter 37

  Stella

  Silverman said, “She’ll be at church.”

  I checked my watch. It was nearly noon. Tuesday.

  “Devout,” I said.

  “Just hungry. They run a soup kitchen.”

  Michigan had been warm. Indiana too. But here, the air was thick and hot, and simply stepping from the car, I felt the sweat oozing from my skin. The town was Lexington, Kentucky: “old money and no money,” as somebody described it to me.

  Well, we were about to meet one half of that equation.

  The church hall offered shade and cool air. Silverman got quite a welcome. It surprised me. Some guy high-fived him. Others nodded, waved, said hi. Then someone shouted from across the room, “Hey! Paulie!”

  She didn’t look homeless. Not till you realized it was pushing 90 outside and she wore layer upon layer, a sweater tied around her waist, another draped over her shoulders, a backpack hanging from one hand. She wore a New York Yankees cap pushed up on her head. Her face was dark, no makeup, and the hair that stuck out from beneath the cap had a brittle look from spending too long in the sun. She threw her arms round Silverman and hugged him like a brother. She was tiny—about five-two—but I think she half crushed him to death.