Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven

by Dennis Chamberland

  Serea said nothing more.

  “Join me?” he asked with just a hint of the unconcealed innocence of a boy.

  She walked slowly to his bedside and sat down beside him. Softly, she laced her fingers through his hair, then kissed his forehead.

  “My foster mother used to kiss me like that - but she never once joined me in bed,” he whispered with barely disguised frustration.

  “Your mother did a good job on you, boy,” Serea said, touching her finger to the tip of his nose.

  “Why do I feel like we’re having two different conversations here?” Seven quipped. He could see the faint outlines of a smile spread across her face.

  “Hmmm,” she responded with a maddening standoffishness.

  “We can sleep on the ride out,” he persisted, flipping back the sheets. “Get in.”

  Instead, Serea stood, turned and walked over to look out the wide windows. “Just think, this wonderful place wouldn’t even be here if the world wasn’t coming to an end,” she said. “How do you reconcile the greatest progress and the greatest tragedy as the same human event? And who knows what wonders await us in Pacifica ? But at the same time, who knows if the earth will ever recover; can ever recover? Aaron, it’s too much for me sometimes…”

  Seven arose, stood behind her and wrapped his strong, warm arms around her waist. “Your mind needs some rest. Turn it off. Trust me; the world’s greatest tragedy will still be here when you wake up in the morning.”

  Serea grasped his arms and laid her head back against his shoulder. Her fingers slipped up and down his warm flesh as he held her tightly.

  Seven lay his forehead against her neck. His heart raced as he smelled her natural scent blended with her perfume, now hours old. His pulse pounded as he could discern the fragrance of her breath, slightly sweet, with just a touch of bitterness, in an olfactory fest the Creator specifically designed to drive men insane with desire.

  Serea was dressed in heavily starched coveralls. Seven could feel their stiffness against his naked flesh as she began to slide her fingers up and down the sides of his thighs and hips. He spun her around, embraced her tightly, and kissed her fervently, fully engulfed with more passion than he could ever remember.

  Serea responded with the same passion, her hands reaching behind his head and pulling his mouth down hard against her own as her supple body pressed closely against his.

  With purposeful design, Seven began to draw Serea toward his bed, his fingers fumbling to undo the top buttons and zipper of her coveralls. She followed him to the bed, but as he sat down, she remained standing. He could see her fingers zipping and buttoning her coveralls back in place. He reached out to stop her and she grasped his hand firmly.

  “You know, I thought I was going to miss my father about this time. I really thought I was going to have a hard time with that,” Serea admitted, still squeezing his fingers tightly.

  Suddenly Seven felt like a total, fumbling cad. He sighed deeply. “I’m sorry, I never considered the obvious.”

  Serea laughed lightly. “No, silly, you’re taking me wrong.”

  “Well, I let my hormones get away from me and failed to consider the bigger picture,” he apologized contritely.

  Serea knelt to face him. “Aaron, let me finish. I love your hormones. They’re all about who you are. But I came here to tell you that I love you - like I have loved no other, ever. I came here to tell you that father saw it before I did and he made it possible for me to come with you on purpose. I know him.”

  “No,” Seven responded with some surprise. “That can’t be.”

  “Yes, it is. It’s true.”

  Seven bit his lip as he made out the beautiful lines of her face in the dim light. “Then you’ll stay here till we have to leave? Serea, I need you now, here - right here. I have a feeling that I’m going to need you always,” he said with passionate intensity.

  Serea laughed and kissed him gently. Then she pushed him back onto his bed and sat atop him. She bent over his face and, with the tip of her tongue, began to gently follow the curves and valley of his lips.

  “If you don’t take those coveralls off baby, I’m a dead man,” he admitted truthfully.

  “It’s not my fault that you don’t sleep with jammies. But, long ago, I made a promise to God, and to my mother before she died, Aaron,” she said. “I promised that I wouldn’t sleep with anyone but my husband. She felt that was very important, and so do I. It’s that commitment thing that’s missing in so many lives, but not in mine. I won’t allow it.”

  “Really?” Seven asked in wonderment, a tinge of disappointment in his voice.

  “Really,” Serea responded firmly.

  Seven propped himself up on his elbow and pulled her down beside him. “Well, then that means that you’ve never…that you’re still a...” he said as his eyes explored the ceiling right over her head.

  “Yes…” she admitted.

  “It boggles the mind!” Seven said aloud. “But it also means…” he continued.

  “Yes. It means that I will kiss your face, I will sleep beside you, and I will hold you tightly all night long, but I will not take these coveralls off for you.”

  “But you said you loved me. Did you mean that?” he pressed.

  “Yes. And your point is?” Serea answered with a touch of annoyance, sitting up in the bed.

  “It means, that I love you, too, more deeply than you can ever imagine.”

  “Aaron, I believe I have to go back to my room now,” Serea said, standing up with cold, firm resolve.

  Seven’s mind raced with an apprehension that he had somehow blown his moment. Then he suddenly realized the solution. The Mars in him could be so incredibly stupid sometimes. “One more question before you go,” he persisted with a burst of insight. “Will you accept this engagement ring now?” he asked as he pulled a small box out from behind his pillow. “I was going to save this for Pacifica where you couldn’t run away from me. But this seems like as good a moment as any.”

  Serea sat down beside him and reverently took the box.

  “I’ll turn on a light,” he offered.

  “No. No,” she responded, gently touching his hand. She didn’t open the box, but softly said, “Yes.”

  “Now will you stay?” Seven persisted, kissing her deeply, his passion increased by the knowledge of their mutual love.

  Serea finally drew back, flushed and breathless. “Aaron, don’t try to make this hard for me! Not until you’re my husband. A promise is a promise. If I break a pledge to God and my dear mother - whom I have loved as much as anyone - then who’s to say that I wouldn’t break my vows to you someday? It’s the way people are made.”

  “It’s that commitment thing. I know and I understand, and that’s one of the very reasons I love you so much, my dear,” Seven admitted tenderly. “But, you know, Bark’s an ordained minister. He and Lacey probably wouldn’t mind a little ceremony in the middle of the night,” he said with all sincerity and a hint of urgency in his voice.

  Serea paused for a long moment, considering him intently, then picked up the phone and handed it to Seven without saying a word.

  17

  In the pre-dawn light , the sputtering Winnebago and attached trailer fought the steep incline of the dirt road leading up to the summit of Concharty Mountain just north and west of Haskell, Oklahoma. It rounded one twisting turn after another, bouncing and lurching on the wretched and poorly kept grade.

  Concharty was barely a mountain at all, lifting off of a rolling prairie and forming a rounded mound covered almost exclusively in blackjack oak and temperate elm. The name Concharty in the Creek Indian tongue meant “Marbled Candy.” The name was surprisingly accurate as the coating of trees overlaid a rock base of sandstone that adroitly exchanged subtle browns, tans and ruddy colors exposing its layers in the geologic twists and folds of the bluffs and sheer, curved faces of the mountain. As rocks go, the sandstone of Concharty was soft and pliable, lending itself to constant scouring
and sculpting by the weathering of many eons across its surfaces and many faces. The tribe that named it did so in innocent wonder of its intricate folds of layers and colors reflected under the canopy of its thick and persistent trees.

  Although Concharty was not much of a mountain, it was the biggest thing imposed upon the local prairie. The mount looked positively daunting - the major feature of the plain - its mass rising above the rolling flatness of the grassy flats; a red and white striped television tower perched at its highest point rising yet nearly another thousand feet above its crest.

  The sun was just about to lift above the tree line when Warren saw a barricade in front of him on one loop up the mountain. It was, in fact, a rusty 1948 Chevrolet pickup pulled across to blocking the road ahead. Warren silently swore while Charles slept in the passenger seat. Wattenbarger was still comatose on the rear bed with Marbles curled up just atop his head, looking like an odd, furry black hat.

  “What now?” Warren spat and slowed the Winnebago to a stop. He was seriously concerned that now, having lost any momentum he had, the old RV would not have enough energy to pull itself and its trailer up the steep grade before them. Before him, a farmer opened the door to the old pickup and emerged into the beam of his headlights holding a 12-gauge shotgun in his hands. Warren instantly grabbed his Glock with his right hand as his left touched the door handle. His mind raced and fought the balance between instant rage and a fragment of left-over intelligent forethought. He looked at the farmer, the Glock and his sleeping partner. Then he slid the Glock back into its dash mounted holster, breathed deeply, and pasted on his best professional United States Naval officer smile as he opened his door slowly.

  Warren and the farmer walked cautiously toward one another on the rocky road in the gathering twilight; the mist of the Oklahoma country morning slowly and silently lifting off of the tree tops. Warren held his hands up at waist height, just showing his palms, reflecting his best smile; working his strategy based on having grown up in these parts; feverishly trying to recall and reprogram in his mind the psyche of the local farmers.

  The farmer, dressed in blue jeans, well worn cowboy boots, a blue COOP ball-cap and a hunting jacket, paced toward him slowly but resolutely. “Turn that rig around and get off this mountain, stranger,” he finally said in a thick Oklahoma drawl.

  Warren stopped and lifted his hands to his shoulders and turned on his best, deepest Okienglish. “I’m not armed, sir. I can’t turn the rig around till I get to the top, and I can’t back her down; she’s too big. But I can promise you, the rig won’t be here long.”

  The farmer stopped 20 feet in front of him on the road, the shotgun aimed at Warren ’s chest. “You will back that rig off this road or we’ll blow it off to the side with dynamite,” he replied without hesitation. “Then you can walk back to where you came from, unless you’d like to ride her down when we blow her off the side.”

  “Mister, just one minute of your time; please,” Warren continued, still smiling – sustaining the fine art of rear-kissing he had perfected over a long career in the Navy. “I’m a member of the United States Navy. My team is here to fix a beacon to the television tower on your mountain.” Warren not only knew the right words to say, but he had also lapsed convincingly and purely back into his native Okie tongue. “We’re agents of the government. I have a local member of the county sheriff’s office with me as an escort,” he said, motioning back to the RV where the reclining form of Charles could just be made out through the front window. “If you want to talk to the deputy, I can wake him.”

  A long period of silence followed. Finally, the farmer lowered his gun, looked at Warren without speaking, and then spit a wad of tobacco onto the dirt. “County Deputy , huh?” the farmer asked with some residual skepticism, but obviously starting to bend.

  “Yes sir,” Warren responded crisply. “We won’t be here long.”

  “What beacon?” the farmer asked neutrally.

  “Communications on the old TV tower. For the coming…. to make sure folks around here stay safe,” Warren stuttered. Too late, he caught his mistake as the farmer lifted his shotgun back to the ready.

  “We can take care of ourselves! We don’t need your help. We don’t want your help,” he snapped defensively.

  Warren smiled again. “That’s not what I meant to say, sir. The beacon, you see, is a scientific transponder. It, er, reads solar flux intensity and relays it back to the National Solar Observatory. It’ll tell you and everyone else when it’s safe to come out and when it’s not.”

  The farmer’s gun did not move.

  “Your tower can save millions of lives, sir. We really didn’t wanna have to bring the Marines up here to put it on. I personally told ‘em it wasn’t necessary. Hey, I grew up here – right over there in Haskell where I graduated from! Those Marines - you know those guys - they blow a lot of stuff up, you know; gets real nasty and they leave things in a terrible mess. But I told ‘em you people were patriotic; loved America and’ll fight for the Constitution – the second amendment - hell, all the amendments. I told ‘em I could come up here and, say, put this beacon on in a day or two, with no problems, and you folks would protect my rights – as Americans saving Americans. Let the Marines go out and fix real problems; nothin’ like this. I let ‘em know this project was gonna be a real joy; working with Americans to save Americans.”

  The farmer lowered his gun and spat again. “Sounds like so much horse crap to me,” he said flatly. “But go ahead. If you’re not down by tomorrow noon, we’ll come up there and bring you down by force, Marines or no Marines. Now get this rig off my road. You can turn around at the tower.” With that, the farmer turned around and walked back to his truck. In less than a minute it had been moved aside.

  Warren climbed back into the driver’s seat and started the engine. He shoved the RV into its lowest gear and gunned the engine. The old land-ark and trailer began to move and slowly clawed its way past the farmer who stood aside and let them pass, his shotgun cradled in his arms. Warren saluted sharply as he passed. The farmer did not return the gesture but walked out to the middle of the road and stood, eyeing them until he disappeared out of Warren ’s rearview mirror as they rounded the next corner.

  “What was that all about?” Charles asked in a sleepy voice, eyes still closed.

  “The locals apparently don’t want us on their mountain,” Warren responded, shifting back into a higher gear as the RV almost imperceptibly picked up speed.

  “I wonder why?” Charles asked with dry sarcasm. Then he opened his eyes and looked over to Warren , not moving his body, only turning his head.

  “Dale and I have a secret. We’d like to share it with you,” Warren replied.

  “And what might that be?” Charles asked.

  “Staying alive,” Warren responded and said no more.

  Fifteen minutes later, the road leveled out at the top of the mountain. They rounded a clump of trees and the huge television tower appeared suddenly before them. They drove to its base, passing a brown farm pond on the right. Several cows stood at the edge drinking. Warren continued to drive until he was past the tower.

  “Not stopping to attach a solar beacon?” Charles asked dryly.

  “Yes, I will be; but I have to park the trailer,” Warren replied, his face grim and taut. As they approached the end of the mountain-top road, Warren slowed, then swung a wide arc into the grass. Expertly, he backed the trailer into an opening in the dense scrub oak cut away from the tower confines. He gunned the engine and rammed the trailer deeply back into the scrub, then shut off the engine.

  “We don’t have much time, Charles. I’m gonna need everything you’ve got today,” Warren said, his eyes boring into Charles.

  “No deal,” Charles replied flatly.

  “Why not?” Warren asked, obviously alarmed and supremely annoyed.

  “Because I’m nobody’s boy. Not yours; not the Wagoner county Sheriff’s; no one’s boy. Got it? I may or may not become a part of yo
ur plan; it depends. A plan defined by two words – staying alive – ain’t nearly good enough. Frankly, your attitude is just about to piss me off. Just what’s your big plan anyway?”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Warren replied testily. “Minutes count.”

  “Fine; wake your boy up in the back and have him help you. But me, I’m outta here...”

  “Wait,” Warren replied instantly, squeezing the bridge of his nose. He had never needed anyone else before, but now he did. He was going to have some adjusting to do. Life was already bizarre and about to get even more so. “Okay, here it is,” he began in a rapid-fire explanation of why he had come to Oklahoma .

  Charles listened without changing his expression. As soon as Warren quit talking, he sighed deeply and looked out the window for long minutes. Then he glanced back to Warren .

  “This is your plan? This is all you got?”

  “Yep. You have a better one?” Warren spat defensively.

  Charles looked out the window, then back to Warren and laughed, somewhat embarrassed. “Not really. To be honest, I just planned to go ahead and die, along with everybody else. Just die – that’s it; I mean if they’re right and all. I just couldn’t figure it all out. It was too much. Oh, I had some plans, but every time I thought about ‘em, they just didn’t seem like they’d work. But yours; well, it might just be crazy enough…”

  Warren nodded. “Minutes really count here. We gotta get movin’.”

  Charles rose out of his seat, walked back to the rear of the Winnebago and sat beside Wattenbarger, which sent Marbles scampering under the couch with a growl. “Wake up, little buddy. Wait till you see the ugly freak you woke up next to this time,” he said slapping his sleeping friend gently on the cheek.

  Warren leapt out of the trailer and quickly unhitched it from the ball, cranking it up and away from the hitch. He then pulled a bow saw off the side of his RV and began to saw branches and piled them over the front of the trailer, totally concealing it as the sun rose above the trees. As he walked back to the RV, Charles and Wattenbarger stepped outside. Wattenbarger shielded his eyes against the bright sunlight and looked at Warren .