The Dream Widow

by Stephen Colegrove

  A high-pitched whine arrowed across the night sky. Wilson saw red and green lights blink high above the pine branches.

  He pointed at Jack. “Why did you pull me in here? You don’t have a clue how to find Twitch, do you?”

  “O ye of little faith,” said Jack, sitting up. “That was a Sparrow that just flew overhead, so we’re in the late 2040’s at the earliest.”

  “How can you know that?”

  Jack stood and brushed needles from his overcoat. “Because that’s when they came out.”

  Wilson looked up at him. “You’re not real––you know that, right? The real Jack is dead. A pickled corpse in one of the controller domes.”

  Jack shrugged. “Nobody believes in Santa Claus either but they still want presents on Christmas. The important thing is that I can find Twitch for you.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Jack sighed. “Look at the stars. Those are North American constellations. That tree over there is a yellow aspen. This memory is somewhere in the Rockies. We’ll find a stream and head toward a road. Once we get oriented I know where Twitch lives, what he looks like, and how he’s going to react.”

  “React to what?”

  Jack ran his tongue over his teeth and spit onto the pine needles.

  “Me snapping his neck,” he said.

  THEY FOLLOWED A BROOK through the forest to a larger creek that gurgled as it gathered speed in the cold moonlight. The trees became sparse and Wilson pointed at a dark ribbon that slashed across the open grassland in front of them.

  “That’s a road,” said Jack. “There’ll be cars unless we’re really out in BFE.”

  Even after they trudged to the road the night remained as black and quiet as before. Jack searched his pockets for a cigarette and lit it with a tiny sparker.

  “Might have a long wait, kid.”

  Wilson dropped to one knee and rubbed the hard asphalt with his palm. The road was smooth and clean with a line of yellow dashes pointing to the hills. He stood and dusted off his hands.

  “What about the flying thing?”

  Jack blew a cloud of smoke. “Wouldn’t stop even if you hit it with a rock. Shooting at it gets the wrong kind of attention.”

  Wilson sniffed and listened to the nightjars as they buzzed across the fields.

  “I don’t understand how Parvati can just wave her hands and send us wherever this is,” he said.

  “She’s smarter than you or me,” said Jack. “Parvati wore Army blues but she was really just an engineer on contract. The engineered simulation for people in cold-sleep, she was part of that team. A great girl and lots of fun when I knew her.”

  “When you knew her? You mean she’s changed?”

  Jack spat across the asphalt. “Yeah ... who’d have thought being bottled up for three hundred years would do that? Maybe she was too smart and fooled around with the code too much, tinkering with her own memories. What does it matter? To you I’m just a software bug or some kind of imaginary friend.”

  A faint mechanical drone came from the far hills and light glowed on the horizon.

  Jack dropped his cigarette and ground the ashes into the road. “Stand on the yellow line and raise your arms.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Over here. I look too suspicious.”

  Wilson pointed at his yellow outfit and red robes. “I don’t?”

  “Just do what I say.”

  The approaching light blinded Wilson and he turned his head. He heard the vehicle slow to a stop but the lights didn’t go away. The car clicked and breathed like a machined monster.

  “Got a breakdown?” called a man’s voice from the car.

  “No. We’re lost.”

  “Dressed like that, I believe it. Where you going?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  The man had a brief fit of coughing. “Then how do you figure you’re lost?”

  “Because wherever this is, I’m not supposed to be here,” said Wilson.

  “Fine by me. I can take you to 24 at least. Bring your friend hiding in the dark.”

  Wilson and Jack walked up to the lights. The sea-green vehicle had smooth lines, flashy chrome trim, and wide glass windows.

  Jack froze once he saw the car and Wilson had to pull him forward. Wilson struggled with the silver handle until Jack pushed him aside. He opened the door and slid inside after Wilson, then pulled his fur hat down around his ears.

  The driver wore a black woolen cap and a jacket covered with random green and brown squares. He turned to look at Wilson.

  “Jack!”

  The driver glared at him with eyes like ball bearings. “How do you know my name?”

  “I ... uh ... I saw you at Padre’s a long time ago.”

  “I’m so happy to be a celebrity. What about your friend? Is he stalking me too?”

  “He doesn’t talk much,” said Wilson.

  “Good.”

  The driver pulled something from his jacket and laid it on the seat where Wilson couldn’t see. He put the car into gear and accelerated. In the car’s headlights the yellow dashes blurred into a single line.

  “A pair of simpletons dressed like clowns in the middle of nowhere,” said the driver. “Somebody dump you two kittens or was it a smack deal gone horribly wrong?”

  “We were on a hike and it got dark,” said Jack gruffly, trying to deepen his voice.

  “Thought your friend didn’t talk,” said driver Jack.

  The car flew around a curve and Wilson felt the contents of his stomach rise.

  “Can I ask a question?”

  “Ask away. Can’t promise I’ll answer it,” said driver Jack.

  “What’s the date?”

  “October 28th.”

  Wilson cleared his throat. “What about the year?”

  Driver Jack slammed on the brakes and the sea-green car skidded to a stop. He took a revolver from the passenger seat and pointed it at Wilson.

  “Get out.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t argue with a man holding a gun,” said Driver Jack.

  Jack opened his door and pulled Wilson out his side.

  Wilson stared at the receding red lights. “Why did he get so mad?”

  “He doesn’t want to deal with a pair of crazies,” said Jack, rubbing his beard. “Especially tonight. I’m surprised he didn’t recognize me.”

  “What do you mean––especially tonight?’’

  “He’s going to kill someone.”

  “That’s all great and everything but it’s none of our business. We have to find Twitch.”

  Jack shook his head. “You already met him. He was driving the car.”

  WILSON TRUDGED ALONG the dark asphalt while a killdeer chittered and curved through the night.

  “You’re Twitch? How is that even possible?”

  “I’m not Twitch and Twitch isn’t me,” said Jack. “He just thinks he’s me. Let’s just say it’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got time.”

  Jack lit another cigarette. “Short version: me and this half-Mexican had a fight back in 2053. He burned down my house and I shot him.”

  “Shot him dead?”

  “Yep.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yep.”

  “And now we’re in Twitch’s fake memory of that?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why would a guy who thinks he’s you have the password, if you don’t know it?”

  “Like I said, he thinks he’s me but he’s not. Back in 2053 Twitch was part of the engineering staff for the reactor. Those access codes might be buried deep in his mind, but they have to be there.”

  “Killing him in a fake memory isn’t going to solve the problem.”

  Jack shrugged. “I didn’t say it would.”

  The pair climbed a slow rise covered with rows of towering pines.

  “This isn’t natural. It’s like a farm for trees,” said Wilson, and kicked through drifts of needl
es.

  “Exactly.”

  A rifle shot cracked loudly and echoed through the hills.

  Jack burst into a run. “It’s started!”

  Wilson ran after him through the perfect rows of identical trees. Another shot came half a minute later and he stopped to whisper the poem of the sight-trick.

  When he opened his eyes the forest was as empty and still as before. Jack was gone. Wilson crept forward and listened to the chattering gossip of squirrels and night birds.

  Two more shots boomed––the sound of a different rifle. Wilson ran from tree to tree and saw a clearing covered with wood chips and weeds. The place looked like an abandoned woodcutter’s operation, and the sea-green car had parked beside a stack of huge logs. Several windows in the car were shattered.

  He knelt in a tall patch of weeds and almost stepped on a pale hand. A rifle lay in the grass next to the body.

  Wilson grabbed it. A bullet zipped through the air next to his head and he instinctively flattened to the ground next to the body. He crawled back through the weeds and scanned the opposite line of trees with the rifle’s scope. A pair of figures wrestled in the darkness.

  Wilson bolted across the lumberyard and a dirt road. The pair had dropped to the ground and struggled on the pine needles.

  “Stop,” yelled Wilson, pointing the rifle. “Or I’ll shoot.”

  The Jack on top, the one who’d driven the car, reached for a silver revolver at his belt. The rifle in Wilson’s hands kicked hard and a bullet smashed into the man’s shoulder.

  The other Jack picked up the revolver and aimed it at the wounded Jack’s face.

  “I need the reactor code,” he said.

  Driver Jack coughed. “What reactor?”

  “Konrad Antwarter! Look at my face––I’m Jack Garcia, not you! Your name is Konrad Antwarter.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  Jack kicked the wounded man in the shoulder. He screamed in pain and flickered like blackbirds across the sun.

  “Altmann Research Station,” said Jack. “The admin password for the reactor control system.”

  Wounded Jack stared at them like he’d just woken up. His voice deepened and he spoke with a strange accent. “Why do you need the password?”

  “The reactor’s overheating, Konrad. We have to shut it down.”

  The wounded man nodded. “Whippoorwill.”

  Wilson’s entire world flashed white and his forehead burned with pain. He screamed inside a sudden beam of brilliant dust.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Darius ripped black cables from the medical equipment and wrapped them around Badger’s neck and ankles. He followed the slime-covered girl through the empty corridors of the support section, a leash of wiring in one hand and pistol in the other.

  Badger led him down a stairway deeper into the earth and opened a door. The lightning of the discharge chamber glowed blue over her face.

  “It’s over there,” she said with little enthusiasm. She pointed at the narrow platform above the drooping teardrop of the discharge sphere.

  Darius jerked the leash. “Keep going.”

  Badger shuffled through the axe-wedge of a cavern and across the catwalk to the control platform. Centuries of tiny vibrations and exposure to minute amounts of radiation had left the mesh floor panels dispirited and feeble. Tarnished railings no thicker than a child’s thumb wrapped the circular platform. Every two seconds energy crackled and dropped into the unknown depths of the mountain with a flash of blue. With each step Badger’s moccasins shook flakes of rust into the crackling pit.

  She led Darius to the central stem of the discharge sphere and waved listlessly at the control panel.

  “That’s the only access to the reactor.”

  “Shut it down,” said Darius.

  “There’s a password.”

  Darius nodded. “Let me guess––you have no idea what it is.”

  He dropped the leash and walked slowly around the narrow platform.

  “So here we are. Under the business end of a failing reactor that’s ready to kill all of us like a boy squashing a feeble and disgusting pest. That’s according to you and I don’t see any reason for mendacity. For once you and I have something in common. We’re riding a ship of corpses straight to the bottom.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  Darius rattled the mesh floor as he shifted weight off his broken foot. “Dear Kira––don’t tell me you have a shred of hope for the future. Think of your child––think of the horrible, fatherless life I’ve planned for it. That I’ve planned for both of you.”

  Badger shuffled a few steps to the railing and watched the lightning drop beneath her feet every two seconds.

  “Every single thing you love is gone,” said Darius. “Your friends are dead or scarred for life. This village and the secrets beneath it have been exposed like sackcloth ripped from a cowering old woman.” He shook his head. “This place will never be the same.”

  “Because of you,” said Badger.

  “Me? The germination of this woe, the root of this spiked hawthorn, stands in front of me. The horrible events of the past three months all have one central character––you. The first time I shot Wilson he was trying to save you. David was torched and its villagers either dead or forced to flee to this place. Why? Wilson sacrificed them to save your life, to save this disgusting village. Because you selfishly and in cowardice refused to consider the well-being of others the destruction followed you here. Your leader is dead. Your lover is dead. Your friends are dead. All of this is your fault and yet still you blame others, including me.”

  Badger shook her head. “It’s not true.”

  “It’s perfectly and precisely the truth. You, above all people, can see what’s happened. A bloody trail of bodies follows you and Wilson and what did you gain for it? A few months of life? A chance to watch your lover and friends die? Think of all the innocent women and children who suffered when David burned.”

  “I didn’t mean for that to happen,” said Badger.

  “Of course not, you’re not a monster.”

  “Maybe ...”

  Darius picked up the cable leash. “You want to slip over that railing, don’t you? You’re holding it so tight that your knuckles are white. Go ahead––a simple, easy motion. Everything will be over and you won’t feel any pain.”

  Badger lifted her hip onto the metal tube and swung her legs over. She looked again into the lightning of the discharge pit and felt dizzy as the blood left her eyes for a moment.

  Darius allowed the leash to slip through his fingers. “Yes, there you go,” he said. “Even if we make it out of here and back to the capital alive––an uncertain proposition in these gods-damned freezing mountains––you’d be my slave. A plaything of the capital royalty. A dancing pony for masses of people who wouldn’t lift a finger to save your life. Your unborn child will enter the world a slave and leave it no better. Save him from that pain and sorrow.”

  Badger rested her feet on the bottom rail and leaned forward, her arms straight behind. A bead of sweat rolled along her nose and fell into the sparkling depths. The railing shivered––Darius leaned on it with both arms.

  He tilted his head. “Dear Kira ... I won’t forget you.”

  Badger loosened her grip on the railing. The bracelet around her wrist flashed with brilliant light.

  “Incoming pair request,” said the Ecophone.

  She leaned back against the railing. “What is it?”

  “Unknown caller with a local pair request.”

  “Do it.”

  Wilson’s voice vibrated between her ears. “Where are you, Kira?”

  “Discharge chamber.”

  Darius backed up with a puzzled look. “Who are you talking to?”

  Badger turned and climbed over the railing. Darius had lowered the pistol to his side while she had contemplated suicide. As he began to raise it Badger grabbed the leash around her neck and spun, lashing him with the sharp wire. Darius
screamed and dropped the pistol, his hands over his face.

  Badger leaped for the weapon but it bounced off the platform into empty space. She watched it tumble into the pit, one arm over the edge and the rusted diamonds of the mesh floor pressing her cheek.

  As she got to her knees something clicked behind her, oily and metallic. Darius held a small silver revolver in his right hand. The other hand covered his left eye.

  “You don’t think I’d be that stupid,” he said. “Always one step ahead of you, Kira.”

  “Don’t say my name,” she whispered. “Ever again.”

  “Oh, no, I can’t promise that. There are too many social gatherings, discussion clubs, and royal drinking circles back at the capital. I’m certain to let your name slip once or twice. The beautiful but savage girl who led an underground campaign of terror against the brave Circle warriors. Undone at the end by her own confidence, she turned away from the outstretched hand of peace and leaped heroically to her death.”

  “Killing myself doesn’t fix anything,” said Badger, rubbing her still-numb hands and arms.

  Darius sighed. “I suppose not. Everyone has to have a dream, though. Since you ripped apart my life I’ve had one, but it wasn’t to kill you. No, I wanted to destroy everything you cared about and suck away all that’s good. I wanted to take away hope and fill you with so much despair that you’d take your own life.”

  “Failed again.”

  “It looks that way doesn’t it? I’ll just shoot you with this tiny pistol and kick the body into the pit. Even as I say it the words literally bore me to tears. Are you sure you won’t jump? Please?”

  Flakes of black rust floated from Badger’s fingers and into the pit. She raised her chin and stared defiantly at Darius as she spoke.

  “When I was a child the most beautiful girl in the village was my cousin. She married the chief’s son but only a few days later he was killed in battle. The next morning she slipped out of the village, past the relatives who guarded her and expected this type of thing, and jumped to her death from a nearby peak.”

  “What a touching story. I’ll have to write that down. Someday, when I’m out of this mountain and back in civilization. Now climb over the railing.”

  Badger didn’t move. The sparkling beams from her bracelet played over the platform and her face, and alternated with the blue flash of the reactor’s lightning.