by Edward Aubry
He struggled to his feet. The transport was on its side. It was impossible to say if had suffered any damage. The flier was gone. In its place, far away from its intended victim, from Harrison's frame of reference, behind and off to the left, was a hideous pile of crumpled metal. It bore the colors of Christmas, dipped in black ink, twisted together. Between the transport and the wreck was an enormous divot, a dirt and grass crater.
"What was that?" he coughed.
"That," said Glimmer sadly, "was the right color."
Chapter Twenty-Eight:
Too Much Information
Harrison placed his hand on the rear hatch of the transport, and it popped open. He had needed to step around four corpses to get to the vehicle, and he could feel the tacky weight of blood on the soles of his shoes. One of the dead men was Michael Smith, the sergeant who had been with them since they set out. Harrison estimated that they were about the same age, which made seeing him dead just one degree more horrible. The other three were the reason Mike was lying there.
He swung the door open and peered inside, dreading what he might see. Glimmer had gone off to inspect the wrecked fliers and look for possible survivors. Harrison did not want to think in those terms for what he was doing at the buggy. It took him a few seconds to count, and check the tally against his mental list, before he was satisfied that everyone he thought was in here was still alive. Apryl climbed out first, dropping about two feet to the ground. She put her arms around him, and held him for a few moments. Harrison wasn't sure whether or how to respond. He decided to pat her on the back, gently. She was trembling.
"I thought you were dead," she said quietly. She pulled back to see his face. "I thought you were all dead."
Harrison shook his head. "Alec is unconscious, but alive." He looked into the transport, and saw Claudia curled up in fetal position on a blanket that had been laid across a side wall. Jeannette and Jake were sitting next to her, looking supportive and helpless, respectively. Hadley was standing in the front of the vehicle, trying to read the controls sideways. "I take it you already heard about Louise," said Harrison.
Apryl nodded. "She hasn't been very coherent," she said, indicating Claudia. "Is Louise dead?"
"Yes."
"The sergeant, too," said Apryl.
"I saw."
The comment seemed to surprise her, and she looked out for the first time at the remnants of the violence around her. "Oh!" she said, and looked away.
Glimmer returned. "It was definitely Roland," she said, startling Apryl. "There's not much left of him."
Harrison squeezed his eyes shut. Lt. Anderson had been an unexpected ally when he had badly needed one, and now he was gone, too. It was becoming more than he could handle. "Was anyone with him?"
"No," said Glimmer. "He was alone."
"Well," said Harrison, "there's that, at least. Were there any survivors in the other flier?"
"Nope."
Harrison scratched his head. "Well, not to sound too cold," he muttered, "but that's one less damn thing to worry about." He looked at Glimmer. "You may want to put some clothes on. You're going to distract Jake."
"But not you," she said, deadpan. Her hands were on her hips, as if to flaunt her nudity.
He shrugged. "Maybe a little," he admitted.
"Good," she said, and she was gone.
"She's a piece of work," said Apryl. "How long have you two been together?"
Harrison slapped his forehead and scowled. "Christ, like I don't have enough to worry about right now." Then as patiently as he could, he explained, "We're friends. Nothing romantic. Nothing weird. Friends. Just a guy and a pixie, having a totally platonic relationship."
Apryl looked sheepish. "Um," she said. "Dumb joke. I was, ah, making fun of what you thought about Jake and me."
Harrison was dumbfounded. Apryl was probably the first person he had met to see his relationship with Glimmer for what it was, at least what Harrison thought it was, and he had attacked her for it. "Ah," he said, "I'm a little touchy about it. I've been asked that question before, by people who weren't kidding."
"I'm sorry."
He shook his head. "No, It's my fault. This isn't the time for my stupid hang-ups." He looked out to where Alec was lying on the grass. He was completely vulnerable out there. But then, they all were.
* * *
Harrison insisted that everyone evacuate the transport. They had no idea how badly it was damaged or if it was unsafe to inhabit. They moved Alec onto a cot with a pillow and blanket. Jeannette found a plastic bag in his breast pocket. It contained the red and white mushroom they had been working so hard to collect. Hadley took it eagerly. One less thing, Harrison thought again. Claudia was able to walk, it turned out. Harrison had been afraid that she had gone catatonic, but she had simply been crying inconsolably.
They covered President Hatfield and Sgt. Smith with the same blankets that had been a picnic spread less than an hour earlier. The bodies of the men who had attacked them were left where they lay. The group had a limited number of blankets, and they agreed not to consume them by showing respect for their enemies.
Once everyone was settled, and Jeannette had checked them all for injuries, Harrison gathered them all together to listen to Glimmer. They sat in a circle on the grass.
"Well," she began (now wearing a lime and pink-striped sweater dress), "this isn't how or where or with whom I wanted to address this, but here we are, so here we go." She paused, weighing how to say what she had to say next. "We're in a lot more trouble than we thought we were." She paused again, and Harrison wondered if she was going to be able to say whatever it was.
Jake spoke up. "How do you know?" It was a fair question, Harrison thought, and the pixie nodded.
"There is a word," she said. "A fey word. Your friend said it before he died. Over and over again."
"Rope him?" said Apryl. "That's a fey word?"
Glimmer closed her eyes and nodded slowly. Harrison was afraid that she might start crying again. "Ru'opihm," she whispered, and hearing it coming out of her own mouth made her flinch.
Apryl sat straight up. "That's it! That's the way he said it! I thought he was speaking with some kind of accent. From the delirium."
"What does it mean?" Harrison asked.
Glimmer hesitated. "It means evil," she said. "But it means evil in a way that human languages have never been able to quite do justice to. It is the pure manifestation of hatred and fear and pain and death, and that is the merest fraction of the surface of its meaning."
"May I ask why I am hearing this now for the first time?" asked Hadley. He seemed put out.
Glimmer stared him down. "It is not a word we use anymore. Not for thousands of years."
Not for the first time, Harrison found himself wondering how old this pixie was. He had tried asking her early on, but had been given one of her usual pixyish deflections. He wasn't sure now if he wished he had pressed the point. "Why would the old man say that?" he asked.
Glimmer looked down. "I can't know for sure, but I think this may be the answer we were trying to find in New York. Who did all of this." She looked at Harrison, and he could see traces of the glitter he had seen earlier at the edges of her eyes. "Ru'opihm is sentient," she said. "Ru'opihm is a being, and a mind, and the reason we haven't used the word in thousands of years is that it's been that long since Ru'opihm was free." She turned to look at Apryl. "I think your old man may have been used to open a door that we will have to find a way to shut."
This was bigger than Harrison could ever have guessed. He could see from Glimmer's demeanor that she felt the same way, and it frightened him to the point of vertigo. But he showed none of his fear. "Is it free now?" he asked. "What does it want?"
"It wants power," the pixie said. "And to torment every living thing. And if It were free, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We would be screaming until our throats bled from the strain, begging for a death that would never come."
Glimmer's eyes had gone out
of focus. No one spoke. They all waited silently for her to suggest a solution to this unimaginable problem, to give them the procedure they could follow to ensure that the horror would not come for them. Finally, Claudia, who had been staring at her feet and did not look up, asked, "How do we kill It?"
Glimmer shook her head. "We don't. It can't be killed. The best we can do is to stop It from breaching the walls of Its cage. I think …" She looked like she had something she did not want to say. After a long minute, she went on. "I think It did this to the world to give It a point of entry back into the universe. I think It did this by giving the old man directions and power, somehow, and I think we should do what we were already planning to do. Build this counterbomb."
As Hadley nodded, Harrison blew out a breath. "Okay," he said. He looked around at their faces, and knew that if he did not ground this conversation right now, she was going suck them all into a vortex of despair. "We need to address some nitty-gritty. First off, the hit the buggy took destroyed its antenna. We can't reach the backup team back home to tell them any of this. Glimmer?" He looked at her. "You'll have to fly out there and give them a heads-up."
"No," was all she said.
He stared. "No?"
She shook her head. "There's no point. The only reason I wanted us back there before was to regroup. That's moot now. Without the flier, it'll take us days to get home, and all we'll do is draw attention to the city. I'm sure we were attacked because we were getting close to the truth. The little spies, Scott, the creatures who came here today-they all work for It. For better or worse, we're on our own for now."
That was certainly a setback. He had been looking for some sense of security to give the group, and she had spun it back at him. He tried another tack. "What can you tell us about the creatures we just saw here? That frog thing, or the guy with the hat?" Not everyone had seen those beasts, but Harrison always felt slightly safer after his threats had been defined for him.
She shook her head. "I have no idea what they were." She looked at Hadley, and he also shook his head. "It's breeding monsters, I think," she said. "Inventing them as It goes along."
Aha, he said to himself, these were the second draft of the dinosaurs. It made him long almost nostalgically for the thunder lizards.
Alec sat up on his cot, looked around, and coughed. He was still in a half-awake stupor.
Thank God, Harrison thought. Once Alec was back on his feet, they would at least have some coherent leadership. "Alec!" he said aloud. "You're missing a meeting." The quip went unappreciated by everyone present.
Jeannette got up and felt Alec's forehead. "Are you feeling all right?" she asked. He did not respond. Instead, he got up, walked around the cot, and sat down in the circle between Harrison and Jake. Jeannette made eye contact with Harrison and shrugged.
"How much of this did you hear?" Harrison asked him. When Alec rocked back and forth, throwing his head up and down in a strange, nodding fashion, Harrison took that to mean that he had heard much, if not all of Glimmer's description, and that it had upset him. The Director's silence was starting to unnerve the team.
Alec had a tired, defeated look on his face they had never seen before. He stared at a point on the ground a few feet in front of him as the team waited anxiously for him to give them some instructions. Orders. Guidance. Harrison had never seen him like this before. Alec had always responded to mishap with vitriol, not depression. As much as Harrison disliked him personally, he understood that without leadership the team would never be able to keep going.
"What now, Superspy?" he asked. It was a reach. Alec angry at him had to be better for everyone concerned than Alec moping. His remark did not quite seem to penetrate at first, and he was groping for something truly offensive he could use to jump-start Alec, when the spy leaned to the side. Harrison thought he was getting ready to stand up.
Alec farted.
"I farted," he explained.
No one moved. Alec surveyed their faces and went back to his funk.
"Oh," said Harrison. "Oh, man. Glimmer?" He turned to see the pixie zip past him and zoom straight at Alec.
"I'm on it," she said. She hovered in front of Alec's face, checking both eyes, and snapped her fingers at him.
He looked up shyly. "I've always thought you were so beautiful," he said.
"I know," she said. "Everybody does." She was in her element now. Harrison was almost glad for the distraction, which had snapped her out of her unearthly despair. "Can you stand up?" she asked.
Alec looked at his feet. "I'm not tall enough." Then he looked at her and obeyed her. "If I were taller," he said, "I wouldn't be frightened so much of the time."
"Oh, Jesus," said Harrison. "What happened to him?"
As she rubbed her mouth in thought, Harrison caught a glimpse of her diminished hand. It would never stop upsetting him. "This is bad," she said.
"I can see that." Harrison was sweating.
"What's the matter with him?" Jake asked. He was biting his nails. It seemed possible that he might start crying.
"Might be a TMI curse," Glimmer said after looking closely at him again. "Or a regression spell. If it's the latter, you can expect him to start acting more and more childish until he can't even sit up on his own. Those are usually good for at least a couple of days."
"What's a TMI curse?" asked Jeannette.
"Too much information," said Hadley. He was frowning. "If that's what he has, he won't be able to say or do anything unless it embarrasses him personally, and terribly. Depending on how he feels about his height, that could be what we're looking at."
"I have an erection," said Alec.
Absolutely everyone in the circle failed to prevent themselves from confirming that visually.
"Boy," said Glimmer. "He's not kidding."
Alec made eye contact with every one of them, most of whom tried to look away. "So," said Harrison. "TMI it is, I'd say." He considered laughing, but it was not really funny.
"I get them sometimes for no reason," Alec added.
"Yeah," Harrison sighed. "Me, too." Jeannette and Claudia snapped their eyes at him. "What?" he said indignantly. "I'm trying to be supportive." He turned to Glimmer. "How long can we expect this to go on?"
"Ah," she said. "Well, yes. Well, barring intervention, the spell is, er …" She waited for someone to interrupt her and change the subject. No one did. "Permanent."
Harrison could feel the blood draining out of his head. That was it, then. They were dead. They were leaderless, without a swift mode of transportation, and unlikely to be able to offer the slightest resistance to attack. The entire mission was probably moot now. If half of them managed to make it back to Chicago alive, it would be a bonus. He looked at Jeannette. She was in charge now. Their fate rested on the chance that she would be wise enough to keep them safe as long as possible. He waited for her to begin what would be the most vital pep talk any of them would ever need to hear. She looked around at each team member, then looked directly at Harrison. Her eyes seemed to linger on his longer than anyone else's, but he was sure that was just the quality of the moment.
"So," she began. "What do we do now?" He waited for her to answer the hopefully rhetorical question. Instead of turning to look back to the troops, she focused on him, and her eyes held questions, not answers.
Then he saw that they were all looking at him.
He wanted to curl up in a ball, seal the ball in a box, and bury the box in a deep hole. He also wanted to be the hero who would lead them all to success and glory, to be admired and fawned over by thousands of people when they got home. And he knew damn well that he wasn't that guy.
His face betrayed none of this. Leaders, he told himself, do not show surprise at being followed. They do not show panic, and they do not show reluctance. This crew was now his charge, and he would be up to the responsibility, because he would have to be. He only wished that he hadn't been the very last person to figure that out.
"Glimmer," he said without turning,
"define intervention."
* * *
It took several hours to set up a winch to right the buggy. As it happened, the vehicle was equipped for just such emergencies, and even had instructions, which were relatively easy to find and easy to follow. They used a tree as an anchor, but it promptly broke with a terrifyingly loud crack on their first attempt. The second time they wrapped the cable around several trees as they hauled the transport upright. They succeeded. Only one of the trees was destroyed.
Glimmer had gone to look for help, but she had not been specific about where she was looking or what she was looking for. Alec was told to stay in his cot. Periodically, someone would check on him to see how he was feeling, he would tell them something mortifying, and they would have to get away from him to avoid further embarrassment.
While Jeannette, Apryl, and Jake stayed in the buggy, inventorying their supplies, and Hadley checked their equipment for damage, Harrison paced and waited for Glimmer to come back.
Claudia came back from watching Alec.
"How's he doing?" Harrison asked.
"He just called me his Little Chocolate Princess."
Harrison stopped pacing. "Please be kidding."
She shook her head. "Please kill me now," she said.
"No can do. I need you more now than ever. You may have to be his baby-sitter for a while."
"Asshole!" But she smiled, and he was relieved to see the first trace of the real Claudia climbing up out of the hole she had fallen into.
Apryl emerged from the vehicle, passing Claudia, who was on her way in. She handed Harrison an omni. "Hungry?" she asked.
"Not especially," he said. He looked at it. It was marked chicken salad on a croissant. That did sound good. He took it and opened it. "Do you want a bite?" he said, holding out the sandwich to offer her first refusal.
She smiled and shook her head. "No, thank you." She watched him eat for a minute, then said, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure," he said, wishing she had asked that before his mouth was full.
