by Edward Aubry
"That one doesn't work," said Jake. "It came with the wand she was just playing with." He pointed to Glimmer.
This got Hadley's attention. "You found technology and magic at the same location? Where?"
"Actually, most of this stuff we found out in the wild, but we found both of those two pieces right here."
Hadley stepped forward. "Would you mind if we borrowed those to examine them?" he asked. "They may be important. Even if they don't work."
"Sure. I guess. I should probably ask Apryl. It's her stuff, too."
"Can I see that?" Harrison asked, and Claudia handed him the little machine.
"Hey, Hadley," said Glimmer from the back of the room. "You might want to take a look at this."
Hadley found her looking at a large contraption on the floor. It was about the size of a large chair, and it was constructed from an elaborate network of thin wooden rods, metal hinges, pulleys, and string. Nestled within the construction were items like a peacock feather, a small glass jar full of sand, several bones tied together with twine, a clay bowl filled with some sort of dirt or ash, and similar things. Some of the rods were broken, and the stress points of the breaks were odd, as if they had exploded from within. There was a tar-like residue covering the floor underneath it.
"Oh, my word," Hadley whispered. "Is this a static mayhem bomb?"
"I think it must be," said Glimmer, "but I've never seen one this big before."
Hadley took a pencil out of his pocket and prodded the broken remains of the strange device with it. "Do you think? Is it possible?"
Harrison had to ask. "A what bomb?"
"Maybe," Glimmer said to Hadley. "This might be the find, right here. If this thing was powerful enough, it could turn the whole globe into a scramble zone. Which would explain a lot."
"But," Hadley said, "this still doesn't explain the proliferation of technology. Not to mention that it would have to be trillions of times more powerful than any recorded examples of this type of spell."
Harrison tried again. "A what bomb?"
"Static mayhem," Hadley said. "It's a tool for scrambling magic, usually over a very short range. They're useful weapons for preemptive disruption of an opponent's magical abilities or artifacts, but I've never seen one bigger than a hand grenade. They require a great deal of preparation, and they're very difficult to detonate."
"Where did you find this?" Glimmer asked Jake.
He stared at it. "It's always been in here. I never knew it was anything other than a pile of trash." He gulped. "Are you saying this is some kind of bomb?"
"Relax, Tiger," the pixie said. "It's already been set off." She turned back to Hadley. "We have to take this thing back to the lab. This could be our breakthrough."
They heard the door at the top of the stairs slam open. Apryl came running down. "Are you Glimmer?" she asked the pixie frantically.
"Do I look like a Glimmer?"
"We need you! Come on!"
* * *
When Glimmer and Harrison ran back into the bedroom, the old man was alternately gasping for air and howling in pain. Jeannette was frantic.
Harrison took one look at the old man, then turned on Alec. "What the hell did you do to him?" he yelled. Alec looked shocked at being the target of his anger.
"It wasn't him!" shouted Jeanette. "It was me! Glimmer, I think this man is under a curse. He had a high fever. I gave him acetaminophen to bring it down and help with the pain. I didn't realize it was a curse until too late."
Glimmer's jaw dropped. "You tried to cure a magical illness with a chemical?"
"I wouldn't have if I'd known!" she cried. "What do we do now?"
"Oh, Doc," said the pixie, "I don't know …" Her voice trailed off as she glided down to the bed where the old man was thrashing wildly. As she laid her hands on him, a white glow spread from her hands to his torso. Harrison recognized this light. The old man started to gag. "How long ago did you give him the drug?" she asked Jeannette.
"Almost an hour ago."
"I think I can help him with the pain. Beyond that …" She flew back and forth across him slowly, and he seemed to calm. After a minute or so, his breathing returned to normal, and soon he appeared to be asleep.
"Oh, no," said Apryl.
"I'm so sorry," said Jeannette.
Suddenly the old man sat up. "I didn't know," he said in a calm voice. "I just wanted to make the world safe." He looked directly at Glimmer. "I didn't know," he repeated.
"There, there," Glimmer said, and she touched him again. It seemed like a pointless gesture to Harrison, but her touch appeared to calm the man again.
The old man looked up at Apryl. "You know why I did it, don't you?" he asked. Apryl hesitated, then nodded. Harrison couldn't tell if she was responding honestly or just trying to comfort him. "It didn't work," he said. "We were supposed to be safe. We were all supposed to be safe forever." He looked around the room. Harrison noticed that his eyes were in focus for the first time since they had arrived. "It's all a grave nightmare now," the old man muttered. "Worse than it ever was before." He tried to clear his throat, which threw him into a coughing fit, and he leaned forward and made a horrid gurgling sound. When he raised his head, a glob of what looked like bloody gravel was visible on his shirt. No one said a word. He reached out with one hand. Harrison felt Apryl push past him and take the hand in both of hers.
"I'm so sorry, child," the old man said to her.
"It's all right," she whispered.
He squeezed his eyes shut. "I never meant … never …," he said.
Then he died.
Apryl placed his hand at his side and walked away from the bed, avoiding eye contact with Harrison. Her lower lip was trembling.
As Glimmer and Hadley spent the next hour bringing Louise and Alec up to speed on their discovery of the static mayhem bomb, and Apryl and Jake tried to console each other, Jeannette got to work on the task for which she had been brought on the team, a task she had hoped she would never be needed. While everyone else was thus occupied, Harrison was asked to take some of the artifacts to the buggy. As he complied, he thought about what it must feel like to make a decision-a mistake-that would change the entire world. He wondered how he would react to being put in such a position, if he could live with the consequences if things went awry. As he imagined himself lying on his own deathbed, begging forgiveness, he tucked the nonfunctioning wand and the inert machine in his pack and walked alone back to the buggy.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Big Yellow Taxi
Harrison entered the hut with a tray full of omnis. He had written initials on each purple fruit with a black Sharpie. The first one he had picked up was marked LH. He handed it to Louise, who took it without interrupting herself to thank him.
"How much did he actually tell you about how he built the device?" she was asking Jake and Apryl. Listening to their reply, she began to peel the fruit. The rind came away from a Kaiser roll with lettuce and some kind of meat inside, and she opened it and inspected it carefully before biting into it.
"He didn't tell us anything," Jake said.
Apryl nodded. "Until you people showed up, we didn't even know there was a device."
"Alec?" said Harrison. Alec had been taking notes. He looked up, and Harrison tossed him an omni with AB written on it.
Hadley leaned forward. "Well," he asked impatiently, "just what did you know?"
Looking like she felt she was being accused of something and resented it, Apryl leaned back. "We didn't know much of anything," she protested. "He pretty much told us that he did it. And that he didn't want to talk about it."
Harrison could see that the young woman was upset and needed a moment, so he made a point of breaking up the discussion by handing her an omni.
"Ugh!" Alec suddenly exclaimed. "This isn't what I ordered!" He had torn the top off his omni and was sniffing the contents.
"You said you wanted a steak sarnie, didn't you?" Harrison asked him.
"Yes," A
lec said, "but this looks like some kind of Cornish pasty. It smells like sausage."
"Oh, oops," said Harrison. "That's my stromboli. I must have gotten them mixed up." He looked for the omni with his initials on it, but instead found another marked AB. "I put your initials on two of them," he said. "Sorry." They traded. Alec opened the new one suspiciously, but seemed satisfied with it.
Trying to ignore this interchange, Louise turned back to Apryl. "You were saying?" she asked.
"Look," the young woman said, "you didn't know him. By the time we found him, he was completely broken. He told us he had destroyed the world. But he never told us how."
"Yeah," Jake added. "For a while we didn't even believe him. He was incoherent a lot of the time."
"He talked a lot about voices in his head," Apryl said. "I assumed he was schizophrenic at first, but his other behaviors didn't profile as psychotic, so I wasn't quite sure what to make of it." She opened her fruit, and pulled out a sandwich.
Alec looked at his notes, and frowned. Without looking up, he asked, "Are you qualified to diagnose psychotic behavior?" Apryl looked away.
"Hey, she's not on trial here!" blurted Jake. It was a stupid cliché, and a totally inappropriate thing to say, and Harrison expected him to be lambasted for it. For a moment, everyone looked at him, then the moment passed. Jake had an awkward look to him, like a frightened animal. Harrison wondered if he was seeing bizarre behavior under duress, or if this was the usual Jake.
"My minor was psychology," Apryl muttered.
Alec tapped his pencil on the table. "So," he said, and he finally looked at her. "does that make you qualified to diagnose psychotic behavior?"
Apryl responded with silence and what Harrison perceived as a slight narrowing of her eyes. After a few seconds, she nodded. "Maybe."
Alec shrugged and jotted something down. He picked up his sandwich and took a bite. "Did he say why he did it?" he asked. He was talking with his mouth full, and it took Harrison a second to understand him.
"No," said Jake. He had regained his composure, and seemed eager to say something, anything, remotely helpful. "Wait," he added, frowning. "Yes, he did. I can't remember now." He looked to Apryl. She nodded. She had taken a bite of her own sandwich while Jake was speaking. She waited to speak until she had swallowed.
"He said he wanted to get rid of all the guns," she explained.
"That's right," said Jake.
"What guns?" asked Harrison, handing an omni to Hadley. Louise and Alec gave him looks to suggest that his function at the moment was to feed them, not to ask questions.
"All of them," Apryl replied. "He said he wanted to disarm the world. That's what the voices in his head were all about."
Louise spoke slowly and clearly. "They told him to get rid of the guns?"
Apryl shook her head. "No, that was his idea. He said they told him how to do it." She took another bite of her sandwich, and in doing so totally missed the glances exchanged between Alec, Louise, and Hadley. Harrison caught it, though: the fact that the voices were not controlling the old man, but merely assisting him, was significant, somehow. But he couldn't guess why.
"Well," said Lt. Anderson, "he sure as hell did a good job of it."
"Harrison," said Louise, "would you be so kind as to ask Glimmer to join us for a few minutes?"
Glimmer had been assisting Jeannette with the autopsy of the old man. They had been at it for hours, and all Harrison had heard was that he had had some sort of fungal infection, which had spread to his entire body. According to Jeannette, he should have been long dead by the time they found him. Glimmer had already identified the infection as a curse and had assured everyone that there was no risk of contamination, but the very idea of going near the corpse gave Harrison the willies.
"He was a good person," said Apryl. "You didn't know him." Jake took her hand.
"Harrison?" said Louise.
Harrison snapped out of his daze. He had been feeling very sorry for this woman and her loss. "Yes'm," he said, and left the room. Outside, however, he dawdled. He seriously did not want to go near the tent they had set up for the autopsy. While he was shuffling his feet, Apryl came outside. She was trembling.
"Hey," he said.
She sniffed. "I thought you were getting Glimmer."
"Yeah," he said. "I was just taking a break."
"I know what you mean," she said. "I needed some fresh air."
They stood in silence for a moment until he realized that that he was shirking his task. "I really should get her," he said, pointing at the tent with his thumb. "Then I think I'm going to take a nap. I feel pretty fifth wheel in there."
She nodded. "So long, Harry."
"It's Harrison."
"Oh. I thought I heard Glimmer call you Harry."
He wondered if he had sounded short with her. He hadn't meant to, and it was kind of a trivial thing for him to correct. "She does sometimes," he said, more softly. "I don't make a thing out if it with her … because she's … I don't know. Different."
Apryl's eyebrows went up. "Different how?"
"In every conceivable way, I think."
"Ah." She started to walk away.
"My dad died a couple of years ago," Harrison said, not raising his voice. She stopped and turned, visibly confused. He forged ahead. "It was totally unexpected. We kind of … lacked resolution."
"I'm … uh … sorry to hear that," she said, clearly unsure why he was telling her this or what he expected her to say.
"It's just, well … that's why I go by Harrison."
She tilted her head. "Was that his name, too?"
He shook his head. "My dad's name was Harris. It's the only way left I can think of to honor him. I owe him some honor, I think."
Her face softened. "Oh," she said. "That's very … wow. What a wonderful thing to do."
He shrugged. "I just didn't want you to think I was being a jerk."
She smiled. "I don't. Thanks." She looked over her shoulder at the cabin, then back at him. "I'm going back inside. So long, Harrison."
"So long."
He went to the tent, and stood at the flap without entering. "Glimmer?" he called. "You in there?"
"I'm bu-sy," she sang.
"They need you in-si-ide," he sang back.
She poked her head out the flap. "Are you mocking me?"
"Yes," he said. "Yes, I am."
"It's about time," she said. "Let me finish up here. I'll be right out."
He waited about two minutes. She flew out. Today she was wearing the lab coat she'd had on when he first met her. It seemed apropos. Now it had a stain on the front that he could not identify. And did not ask about. "How's it going?" he asked.
"The guy's a mess," she said. "Worst Spite Spore I've ever seen. He must have really torqued somebody off, but good."
Desperately hoping she would not go into detail, he said, "They're grilling that couple about the device you found."
"Fat lot of good that will do. The only person in the world who could help them is in there in some pails." She nodded toward the tent.
Harrison looked up at the sky. "What's your take?" he asked.
"Wow," she said, "that's a toughie. If he did all this with a static mayhem bomb-and I'm not saying he did, because that's insane-then there's a slim chance it's reversible. I'm guessing that's what Hadley's thinking right now."
"Reversible? How?"
"Build a counterbomb," she said. "Detonate it at the same place. We'll need some pretty different components for that. Could be tricky to find."
"Oh." He did not know what else to say to that. "Well, you better go help them out." She hovered in silence for a moment. Neither of them wanted to discuss the implications of reversing what had happened to the world. Harrison understood that any scenario that could be characterized as "reversed" would not include the two of them sharing the same universe. They were having a hard enough time as it was, and he wasn't ready to broach the topic of what life would be like after they
could never see each other again.
"Yeah," she finally said. "Er. Bye." He watched her flit inside the hut without looking back, then made his way to the transport. Now he was seriously thinking about that nap.
* * *
When Harrison returned to the buggy, however, he found Claudia sitting in one of the seats, listening to music. He admired her foresight. She had anticipated stretches of downtime on this job that Harrison had not even considered. While he had been scooping random gadgets into his pack, she had been organizing her portable entertainment equipment. She had let him borrow her Game Boy for the last few days, and he was up to the fourteenth level of Lemmings. He had not realized that she had brought music as well. He sat down next to her.
"What are you listening to?" he asked.
She looked at him, seeming neither particularly glad nor annoyed to see him, and handed him the headphones. He put them on, in time to catch the last verse of "Big Yellow Taxi," by Joni Mitchell.
He handed the phones back to her. "I love that song."
"Yeah," she said. "It's a kick-ass punch line. You think she's singing about progress rolling over nature and the inherent sadness of change, and then it turns out it's all a big metaphor for her broken heart." She tapped the Walkman. "This thing is amazing. Have you had this the whole time?"
He had no idea what she was talking about. Then he took a closer look at her Walkman. It was the music storage device he had picked up an eternity ago in the Worm station. He had completely forgotten that he had it. "That's mine," he said. "Have you been in my pack?"
"I was looking for my Game Boy," she said, not registering his indignation, "and I found this thing. You have a ton of great stuff on here."
