by Edward Aubry
"You're beautiful!" said Claudia. "I love the wings!"
Glimmer beamed. "Thank you for noticing," she said. "I like this one," she whispered to Harrison.
He smirked. He was childishly eager to see the expression on Glimmer's face when she found out who Claudia was. The pixie had been less than encouraging regarding Harrison's quest to meet this girl. But before he could address that issue, he had some other, unfinished business.
"Hey," he said to Claudia in a friendly voice, "I just want to say I'm sorry about the other day. I know I didn't come off too well, but I think I'm settling in here."
Claudia gave him a quizzical look, as if seeing him for the first time. Then the light went out of her face. "Oh, Christ," she said through a mouthful of sponge. "You're that creepy guy from the drug store."
Harrison's bubble burst. She hadn't recognized him at all. He thought she was inviting him to sit, letting their wretched first impression slide on by. But he had completely forgotten about the shave, the haircut, the shower, the tie. Everything about him looked entirely different. Of course she didn't know who he was.
"Um, yeah," he said. "Except for the creepy part."
The other people at the table stopped talking.
"So," she said before Harrison could regain his bearings, "I hear you're the fourth."
What little cool Harrison had left thawed. She knew already. But, then, that would make sense. This girl was the voice of New Chicago. She was on a first-name basis with their security head honcho. She probably knew everything.
"That's what they tell me," he said, grasping for something to hold on to. Glimmer stood by, confused, perhaps trying to decide if she should help Harrison fence his way through this discussion.
"I didn't realize they'd let you out already," Claudia said. "Things must be more desperate than I thought. But, then, I guess there was no point trying to keep you locked up, anyway." She looked at her watch. "I have to get to work." She stood up. "I'll see you at tomorrow's meeting." She left.
"Well," said Glimmer. "She was nice."
"That was Claudia."
Glimmer's jaw dropped. "That was Claudia?" It was the first time Harrison could recall saying something that truly shocked her, and he regretted that he was not in a mood to fully enjoy it. As she pulled herself back together, the remaining few people at the table all conveniently finished their meals and left in a group. Harrison was relieved that they had taken from him the decision as to whether to introduce himself. He had come in looking for an empty table and had managed to create one.
"I don't think you're quite her type," Glimmer remarked, trying to get back into the game. Harrison wasn't having any.
"That's really not the issue," he said, "and I seriously don't want to talk about it."
"What the hell happened at the drug store?" asked Glimmer. "Creepy guy?"
"I said I don't want to talk about it." He had been hoping to mend fences and had sincerely hoped that he and Claudia would be friends. In the worst of all possible outcomes, it now appeared that not only did she dislike him, but that they were going to be, at least in some capacity, working together. He would have a constant reminder that he had, at least from one small perspective, come all the way out here for nothing.
"Hey," Glimmer said, taking the hint a trifle too late. "I didn't mean …" She faltered. "Listen, I, uh … I hear there's a camp of centaurs close to the lake, and I wanted to, you know, check it out? Mingle?"
He could tell that she was giving him an out if he wanted to be alone. Really, all he wanted to do was catch up. He didn't want to push her, though. Something had happened since that awful night on the Worm, and already she was withholding it.
"What happened to your hand?" he blurted out. And immediately wished he hadn't, that he had waited for a better moment, or a better way, to ask.
She looked away. He thought she wasn't going to answer, but after a few seconds she said, "I hurt it."
That was all he was going to get, he knew, and he let it go. "Go ahead and meet your centaurs," he said. "I think I might crash early, anyway. It'll be nice to sleep on a real bed."
She smiled. It was a polite smile, an awkward smile.
"Glimmer?" he said. "I missed you."
Her smile warmed up, but it retained a trace of sadness. "Right back at you, Sweetie," she said, and then she was gone. He watched the trail of sparks until every one had completely dissolved. As soon as she was out of sight, he regretted letting her go. He wished he knew what he was supposed to say to her. Then he sighed and got down to the business of eating his sponge.
A man sat down next to him. He was older, a little overweight, and had about two days worth of beard on his face. Harrison merely nodded a greeting. He was not in the mood to socialize.
"You're Independence," said the man. He was smiling nervously. "Aren't you?"
Harrison was already uncomfortable. "I'm not sure I understand," he replied.
"You know," said the man. "Bicentennial Boy?" His tone was hushed, conspiratorial.
Harrison gritted his teeth. "Does everybody in the whole city know who I am?" he asked.
"Naw," said the man, "it's cool." He held out his hand for Harrison to shake. "I'm Dallas."
"I'm Harrison," said Harrison, reluctantly taking Dallas's hand.
Dallas shook his head. "Naw, Dallas," he said. "You know, November twenty-second? Nineteen sixty-three?"
The Kennedy assassination. Harrison got it. "You're one of the four."
"Yeah, man! Hey, it's good to meet you. Have they told you much?"
Harrison had no idea what would constitute "much" to this man, so he took a guess. "They told me a bunch of stuff, but it all came pretty quickly, and I don't remember all of it. There's a team meeting tomorrow, and I'm going to take some notes."
"Those meetings suck," Dallas said. "You should pretty much expect to be bored off your ass for two hours. Mostly, it's a lot of 'what if' stuff." His eyes brightened for a moment. "Except maybe now that you're here, they'll let us go do something. You're the first one with a decent spy power, if you ask me."
Harrison had been told that of the four, two had unimpressive variations on the telekinesis field. Dallas must be one of those, he thought, then he caught himself already experiencing some snobbery about it. "What can you do?" he asked, knowing that Dallas wanted to be asked. He tried to sound interested.
"Check this out," the man said. He pulled a pair of dice out of a pocket. "Give 'em a roll," he said, handing them to Harrison. Harrison rolled a three and a five. "Again." He rolled double fours. "Again." He rolled a five and a one.
"I don't get it," he said.
"Gimme." Dallas took them from Harrison and rolled. Snake eyes. He rolled again. Snake eyes. He rolled five more times, and every single time he got double ones.
"Wow." Harrison was desperately trying to sound impressed. "Can you control that?"
"Nope. Always comes up snake eyes. Coins always come up tails, too. Damnedest thing."
Harrison tried to imagine a use for this gift. He came up blank. He decided not to comment on it. "What about the other two?"
"Well," Dallas began, "There's Eagle." Harrison stared, waiting for the explanation. "You know? July 20? Nineteen sixty-nine?" He held his hand over his mouth and spoke slowly. "That's one giant leap for mankind!" He put his hand down and grinned. "Heh-heh. Anyway, she has a really dumb power. She stops clocks. That's it. Funny thing is, she's really good-looking, but, you know, 'the face that can stop a clock.'" He laughed. Harrison guessed that "Eagle" didn't think it was all that funny. "And you've already met Tiananmen," Dallas added.
Harrison expected him to go on, but he didn't. "Tiananmen?" he prompted.
"You know. June 4? Nineteen eighty-nine? You were just talking to her."
Claudia. He was talking about Claudia. She was one of the four. She had some sort of mind power, but it hadn't come up in conversation. They would be working together much more closely than he thought. And the birth date! Tia
nanmen Square. He was old enough to remember that day. It had been a Sunday. His sister had wept while she told him about the student uprising in China. "They killed them all," she said over and over. Just the day before, she had been explaining how beautiful it was that China was on the verge of a totally peaceful revolution, that the Chinese would soon be free, just like he was. It was his first memory of true political awareness, swiftly followed by his first memory of true political disillusionment. What a burden for Claudia to carry! Had she even been aware, growing up, what an infamous day her birthday had been? All of these thoughts raced through Harrison's mind in a fraction of a second, but they were all beaten up to the surface by one overwhelming realization.
"She's fourteen? My God! She's just a kid!"
"I know!" said Dallas. "Sucks, don't it? The youngest one gets the biggest power. It's just plain unjust, is what it is."
"Excuse me." Harrison stood up. "It was nice meeting you. I'll see you at the meeting tomorrow. We'll talk."
Then he fled. He had to find the radio station.
Chapter Sixteen
Home
Finding the radio station proved more difficult than Harrison imagined. By the time he made it to the street, Claudia was obviously long gone, so he could not follow her. Worse, this was only his first day in New Chicago (excluding the days spent locked up without a window), and the layout of the reborn city was completely random. What little remained of the original infrastructure was scattered and widely spaced, with a vast array of log cabins and occasional futuristic towers mixed in. The roads were so far nothing more than paths of beaten dirt. Given the arbitrary state of current technology, there was no way to be sure the radio station would even have an antenna tower or bear any resemblance to an old radio station. Even if he knew where he was looking, he might not see it right in front of him.
Fifteen minutes into following a trail that apparently led everywhere, he gave in to his emotional and physical exhaustion and collapsed on a nearby wooden bench. Claudia was just going to have to hate him for the time being.
The late autumn weather had grown milder during his incarceration. Alone, and unable to complete his self-imposed mission, Harrison took the moment to enjoy the fresh air. From his vantage point, he could see hundreds of people milling about, wrapped up in the business of rebuilding human civilization nearly from scratch. Odd vehicles passed by sporadically, but most of the people were on foot, trekking from one part of the makeshift city to another.
A woman came along the path, pushing an umbrella stroller with a sleeping toddler in it. She pulled the stroller up to the edge of the bench and parked it. "Do you mind if I sit down?" she asked.
She seemed to be in her early twenties. She had remarkably fair skin, and peeking out from a wool cap was hair so blonde as to be nearly white.
"Not at all," said Harrison. He scooted aside to give her ample room on the bench. As she sat, he leaned forward to look at the child. The toddler's gender was uncertain underneath layers of protection from the cold, but he immediately noticed that what little skin he could see peeking out between scarf and hat was dramatically dark. "And who is this?" he cordially asked the woman.
She smiled and adjusted the child's clothing, though to no obvious effect. "This is Celia."
"Is she yours?" he asked. Too late, he wondered if the question sounded crass.
The woman seemed to be not at all offended. "She sure is."
"How old is she?"
The woman turned to look at him. "I'm guessing three," she said, "but we'll never really know. Are you new here?"
Harrison wondered at the sudden change of subject. The question struck him as more complex than she probably thought it was. He chose to keep it simple. "Just got in this week. My name's Harrison." He extended a hand. She took it.
"Thought so," she said. "Elaine. You're going to meet a lot of children like Celia here. Every one adopted. The youngest ones don't have much in the way of history, unfortunately. Celia was lucky. She at least knew her name."
"I've got two kids," he said.
"Two!" Elaine exclaimed. "Then I guess you don't need the tutorial on blended families." She laughed. "Sorry about that. Celia and I were two of the earliest settlers here. I feel like I've had to do so much explaining about her that it's reflex now. How far did you come?"
"Well," said Harrison, "Massachusetts, first. I picked up my son in New York, my daughter, in Wisconsin." Again, he was testing his own waters with his words. They came easily.
Elaine offered him a quizzical look. "That's pretty roundabout."
"You have no idea." For a moment, neither of them spoke, then he added, "Someone tried to kill me on the way here."
Elaine gasped. "What?"
"No lie." He was staring off in the distance now. "Sabotaged a train to do it. Damn near killed my best friend in the process. For a while there, I thought she was dead."
They were both silent. Harrison figured she was waiting for him to go on, but he had nothing else to say about the Worm.
"Why?" she finally asked.
He turned to look at her, and saw an odd sort of awe in her eyes. "I have no idea," he said. She stared at him curiously, but said nothing. "Can I ask you a question?" he said after a few beats.
"Sure."
He cleared his throat. "Back in May, when everything went … well, when everything went. Did you wonder what happened?"
"Of course," she said. "Didn't you?"
"Honestly?" He gave his head a shake. "Not really. Not at first, anyway. At the time, it just seemed like one more damn thing. I got to quit my job, so that was an upside."
He waited a moment for her to voice surprise, or disgust, but all she said was, "Go on."
"It's just different now," he said. "It's not just me anymore. It all matters now. I have to know. Someday." He shook his head again. "Maybe not today. But at some point, I'm going to have to know." He frowned. "Am I making any sense at all?"
"Probably more than you think," she said, though she did not elaborate.
He sighed and looked away. "Meanwhile, I have another albatross. Do you know where the radio station is?"
She rolled her eyes. "If you're looking to meet Claudia, you're in for a surprise."
He gave a half-smile. "It's not like that. We've already met. I think I owe her an apology."
"For what?" Elaine asked, raising an eyebrow.
Harrison thought about it. "I'm not sure, actually," he said. "Probably not whatever you're thinking, though."
"I'll take your word for it. So, what do you plan to tell her, to apologize for not-whatever-I'm-thinking?"
He threw his arms up in defeat. "I don't know. It just … it turns out we're going to be working together. She and I are like mutant freaks or something."
She gave him a new, appraising look. "Are you that guy they arrested at the CVS?"
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yeah." Pause. "Anyway, we didn't exactly start on the right foot. I just … Uhh, I want to apologize for not thanking her the moment I first saw her. I want to explain to her that this whole trip out here for me, it was all about her." Another pause. "And everything I keep running through my head to tell her sounds fake, even to me."
"I bet I know why," Elaine said, and when Harrison looked up from his wallowing, she offered him a sympathetic smile.
"What? Everybody went through this?" he said. "She's probably so sick of hearing it, it won't mean a damn thing, coming from me. Right? I mean, you had the same experience, didn't you? You came all this way for her, didn't you?"
"Actually, my journey was about someone else entirely."
Harrison waited for her to drop the other shoe. In the silence, he heard Celia yawn and watched her open her intense brown toddler's eyes. He shook his head with a soft, tired laugh. "I'm completely stupid, aren't I?"
"I don't know," said Elaine. "I just met you."
"First impression?" He was genuinely curious.
She thought for
a moment. "I think you're confused."
He shook his head again, this time with certainty and confidence. "Not anymore, I'm not. Forget the radio station. Can you point me to the lake?"
* * *
The centaur camp was surprisingly vast. They had staked out a stretch of lakefront property that amounted to a hamlet, at least. Harrison expected some sort of exclusive centaur club there, so he was surprised by the large number of humans he saw taking in the sights, swimming, and generally interacting with the half-horses. He watched in amusement as a large bearded centaur unselfconsciously took a dump in the middle of a discussion he was having with two teenage boys. Living in this community was going to be an entirely new level of culture shock.
Having no idea where to start, he chose to wave down a passing centaur. "Excuse me!" he called to a small group (herd, he couldn't help thinking). They all turned to look at him, and one galloped right up to him. It was a female, and Harrison had to push himself not to be startled by her state of undress. Of course centaurs would be a top-free people, he thought. No, he corrected himself, she's not wearing pants, either. Not top-free, stark naked.
"What can I do for you?" she asked.
He suddenly felt like a tourist. "Have you seen a pixie come through here?" he asked.
"Glimmer? Sure. Need me to take you to her?"
He marveled at her friendliness, having hoped only for directions. "That would be great. Thanks!"
She bent all four knees and lowered herself to the ground. Harrison was startled for a moment as he realized just what that offer meant. "I've never ridden a horse before," he said.
"Well, I'm no horse," she shot back, "so hop on."
Harrison put his hand on her back, then shied away. "I don't know," he said. "It just feels like I should buy you dinner first or something."
"Ha!" She laughed and stood up. "All right, little boy. Just keep up." With that, she made a show of trotting off. Harrison had to jog the whole way. By the time they reached Glimmer, his heart was pounding.
