Coming of Age: Volume 1: Eternal Life

by Thomas T. Thomas

  She kept to the middle of the sidewalk and alternately scanned the dark spaces between buildings and the gaps between parked cars. Several times she paused on approaching the most densely shadowed areas. But each time she made it through alone and without incident.

  Then her luck ran out. A figure in black detached itself from the side of a building and moved on a line to intercept her. “Hello, little lady!” said a cooing voice.

  She didn’t know whether to speed up or slow down, engage or turn and run away. They hadn’t cover this kind of encounter in karate class, only the moves to make after a fight had actually started.

  She was holding her gi folded and tied together by a loop of her obi belt. It formed a mass that hung about eight inches below her hand and glowed whitely in the darkness.

  As the man came toward her, she swung it up hard, aiming for his face, the side of his head. He batted it away with a chuckle and kept on coming, his hands reaching out for her throat.

  Her fists dropped below navel level.

  She took a short step-slide toward him.

  Fists jammed upward in a double head block.

  When he stepped back, her rear leg came forward.

  Toes arched, struck his groin, and whipped back faster.

  As he doubled over, her hands came down in one-two chops.

  She pushed him away, and he collapsed against the building wall.

  She scooped up her gi and ran off down the street … all the way home.

  Wells didn’t know if she had hurt the man, or whether the chops—which landed somewhere around his neck and upper back—had broken anything. If he was injured, or even dead, then she supposed she bore some legal responsibility. But she didn’t care. She couldn’t identify him, and it was a safe bet he couldn’t identify her.

  But at the back of her mind was the glowing thought: How about that, Wonder Woman? This stuff really works!

  * * *

  Leonard was in the chairman’s suite on the thirty-eighth floor—finally, at last, his office by rights—when Richard called for an emergency meeting. Leonard agreed that his brother could come up, and when he did, Richard was carrying a sheaf of printouts full of numbers.

  “What’s all this?” Leonard asked.

  “We’re going to lose the bid on Hetch-Hetchy restoration.”

  “That’s not been decided yet, so it’s too early to say.”

  “We were third in line, and that’s announced.”

  “So what’s your point?” Leonard said.

  “We’ve lost out on the Seattle flood control, the Beijing airport expansion, and the Stanford accelerator double loop. With Hetch-Hetchy gone, I started running our numbers in earnest.” He spread his papers across Leonard’s nice clean desktop. “Our backlog of projects is down to fifteen percent of where it stood a year ago. Not down by fifteen percent. Down to fifteen percent.” He pointed at another sheet. “Top-line revenues are down to twenty-five percent of year-ago. That’s old jobs being cancelled, including, most recently, the Mile High arts center, which they just took back and sent to our competition.” He pushed the two pieces of paper together. “Old jobs going away. New jobs not coming in.”

  “I know things are tight,” Leonard said.

  “No!” His brother shook his head. “They were tight a year ago.” He picked up a third sheet. “Now—we are not even covering expenses. Forget profits and dividends. Think core staff, office rentals, computer and telecommunications, taxes on this building, heavy equipment in the field, people in the field, even the cash in hand to buy the next brick and pour the next batch of concrete on projects where we’re already committed. It all adds up to more than we can possibly collect. Ten percent, maybe twelve percent more.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing—not unless you can pull a big fat lollipop out of your ass. Find us a sure-fire gigabuck contract, up-front loaded with one hundred percent profit.”

  “There’s no need to be insulting.”

  “I’m trying to make a point, Len.”

  “All right, we’re in trouble.”

  “No, we’re already dead.”

  Leonard stared at him.

  “Start proceedings with Burke today,” his brother told him. “I’ll try to get us twenty or thirty cents on the dollar for any assets that aren’t already in hock. Then we’ll have to cancel our current contracts and pay a slew of penalties. Hopefully, the one will just about balance out the other. We can close the doors next quarter, if not next month.”

  “But … this is a hundred-and-twenty-year-old company!”

  “No, Leonard. It’s a walking shell just bleeding money.”

  “You to have do something. You have to save it!”

  “No, you shoot it and put it out of its misery.”

  * * *

  The final ceremony of the funeral was held at the Praxiteles family plot in Colma, with an open grave prepared and blanketed with bright green turf, right next to John Praxis’s mother, Phoebe. The rosewood coffin sat suspended in a framework of gold-colored posts and rails.

  On its left side stood Praxis and his daughter, along with various friends of the family, including Jeanne Hale, and senior staff from the company, including Ivy Blake. On the right side stood Leonard and Richard with their wives and the five children between them, including the eldest, Brandon. The boy, who had been released on compassionate leave to bury his grandmother, looked good in his dark-blue service uniform.

  They stood in silence while the priest, Father Demetrios from Holy Trinity on Brotherhood Way—his father’s church, not his own, not anymore—chanted the final Trisagion at the graveside: “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us,” and repeated it twice more.

  In addition to the traditional service with its hymns and psalms back at the church, Callie had asked to give a eulogy. She recalled events from her mother’s life, seen through the eyes of an adoring daughter, and told stories that even Praxis had forgotten. When he glanced sideways to where his sons were standing, he saw Leonard blotting his eyes with a handkerchief and Richard nodding his head in remembrance, while their children stood transfixed, solemn as owls, at the thought of their grandmother shooting a lion.

  Now, facing his boys across his wife’s casket as it sank into the ground, he saw only stern frowns and, when they would meet his gaze, hard eyes. He knew they blamed him and Callie for the failure of the company. But the collapse of the dollar and the economy it sustained had already done that. By cashing out his shares, and his daughter taking hers, they might have hastened that end by one or two quarters, but no more. And in doing so they had preserved at least part of a great family fortune that would ultimately have evaporated in claims, lawsuits, and debt service. At least some in the family were now whole.

  When the ceremony was complete, Praxis nodded to his sons, their wives, and his grandchildren, not knowing when he would see any of them again. Callie took his arm, holding it between both hands. Whether his daughter was intending to support him, or his arm was giving her strength, he could not say. Together they walked back to the limousine, sealed themselves inside, and told the hired driver to take them home by way of Highway 280 and 19th Avenue. They sat side by side and did not speak another word.

  * * *

  Because he stood six-foot-four, the problem Brandon Praxis always had with airline seats was the short knee room. Now, however, he also found that his side arm and holster didn’t fit between his hip and the armrest, and he had to tug the weapon around on his web belt until it was covering his stomach and groin before he could even find, let alone fasten, his seat belt.

  The other thing was that his Kevlar PASGT helmet clunked on the low ceiling every time he stood up, and it caught on the seat back when he was sitting down, but Captain Ramsay had ordered all helmets secured on heads for the entire flight. They couldn’t stow them in the overhead bins, because those were jammed with each soldier’s field pack, M4 carbine, and other equipment that had to be read
y to hand and couldn’t ride in the baggage hold. Nobody wanted those rifles loaded and rattling around in the pressurized cabin during the flight, so they went up into the bins with their magazines detached and safeties engaged. “Each man check your teammates on this,” Ramsay had warned.

  Two days earlier, his Bravo Company of the newly formed 1/22nd Combat Infantry Group, California Army National Guard, had been mustered out of Fort Hunter Liggett, boarded a fleet of gray-painted school buses, and transferred to Travis Air Force Base, just outside of Fairfield, California. They bivouacked in temporary lodgings—essentially a two-star hotel on base called the Westwind Inn—but were told not to get too comfortable. This morning before dawn they were bussed out to the flight line and boarded an American Airlines 787—one of seven that were sitting on the pavement nose to tail. Unlike a civilian airport, they boarded by climbing a mobile ramp rather than walking down a jetway.

  As an officer and platoon leader, Brandon had attended a briefing the evening before with about fifty other young men. The officer giving it was a two-star general of the regular army named Beemis. So now Brandon was in a position to know what was going on—even if he didn’t quite believe it.

  Supposedly, all flights throughout the country, in the Federated Republic as well as the old United States, were still coordinated by air traffic controllers who reported up to the Federal Aviation Administration—an arm of the old government. Apparently, the newly seceded country had not had time to appoint all of its own centralized services and their supporting bureaucracy. Working with the Pentagon, on the following morning the FAA was going to quietly divert traffic and clear the air space over Kansas City. Just about the time Bravo Company and other units of the California Army National Guard were going wheels up, teams of rangers with the elite U.S. Army Special Operations Command would be parachuting into the city from high altitude.

  One detachment would land at Kansas City International Airport and secure the tower and field. Others would take over police, fire, and other municipal services. A large detachment, made up of men with former transit experience, would take over the Metro bus yards and commandeer their rolling stock. The SOC headquarters unit would land and secure the city’s Municipal Auditorium, which was the temporary meeting place of the F.R. Congress. Then the California Army National Guard would land without incident, offload onto the Metro buses, and deploy into the city. By noon, the capital of the Federated Republic would be in the hands of the legitimate federal government.

  Similar strikes were being coordinated at key cities throughout the region. At the same time, convoys of light armor and mechanized infantry were starting on the ground from bases on the East and West Coasts to penetrate the heartland and secure military facilities. U.S. Air Force fighter and attack squadrons were going to overfly the air bases in the secessionists’ hands and make sure retaliation strikes never left the ground.

  After the briefing, Brandon had given his platoon leaders details of their assignments.

  “We’re not going to dock at the jetways or anything like that,” he said. “When the plane stops rolling, we open the doors and drop the slides. Everyone goes down feet first, on your butt, with your weapon at port arms. Pick yourself up and get out of the way for the next guy. Right?”

  “Yes, sir!” the men chorused.

  “Then look for white buses with blue and teal stripes.”

  A hand went up. “Teal, sir?”

  “It’s a kind of blue-green.”

  “What if I’m color-blind?”

  “Then follow someone who isn’t,” Brandon snapped. “The buses will cluster at the planes, and Captain Ramsay will give the drivers our assignment. So you just get on the nearest bus and find a seat. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  So on that next morning he was sitting hunched over in this too-narrow seat as the Boeing 787 trundled down to the end of the runway, made its final turn, briefly locked its brakes, ran up its engines, and rolled smoothly forward for takeoff. As the acceleration increased and the expansion joints in the concrete thumped faster and faster under the wheels, the grip of his pistol pressed against the armrest, causing the muzzle to dig into his thighs. The rear lip of his helmet snagged on the top of his seat back and pushed the visor down over his eyes.

  What a ridiculous way to fly into the history books, he thought. But how historic this moment actually was, he did not know. If everything worked out the way General Beemis had described at the briefing last night, they would execute a flawless first strike, paralyze the enemy, and finish up this silly civil war by Friday. Then it would just be a minor incident pursuant to a political misunderstanding—not much different from the National Guard getting called in to stop an urban riot.

  A flight halfway across the country would take two or three hours at least. If this had been a commercial trip, Brandon would have powered up his smartphone, logged onto the plane’s complimentary WIFI service, and done some surfing, or traded texts with friends, or read one of his ebooks. But once again, the operation was under radio silence and all cell phones were ordered turned off under penalty of six months in the stockade and a bad conduct discharge. He checked the pocket of the seat in front of him, but someone had thoughtfully removed the in-flight magazines. With nothing else to do, he pulled the helmet further forward over his eyes and tried to sleep.

  He woke up as soon as the engines changed to a lower pitch and a definite lightness under his butt told him they were descending. Brandon prepared himself to execute his own special set of orders. Throughout the plane, he knew, other second lieutenants were getting ready for similar tasks.

  As soon as the plane’s tires touched the runway and the jets went to reverse thrust, he unbuckled and stood up—letting the hard deceleration pull him forward out of the seat—and clunked his helmet once again on the underside of the overhead. He stepped sideways into the aisle, ran through first class, and prepared to unlatch the forward starboard-side door. Through the oblong view port next to the opening mechanism, he watched patches of grass punctuated by numbered taxiways flow by the fuselage and disappear under the wing. He saw the terminal complex and its central control tower go by, and still the plane continued at brisk taxiing speed. They passed the last of the great circular concourses lined with jetways and kept on going. The plane made a hard right-hand turn at speed and proceeded down another set of runways. The seconds ticked by as if they were minutes. Something about this long parade around the airport didn’t feel right.

  Finally the plane began braking—a weird, hollow wailing that came up from beneath his feet—and slowed almost to a stop. Brandon looked out the port again, trying to identify where in hell they were. Nothing but open field and green grass. Not a bus in sight. Not white with blue and teal or any other color.

  He swung the door’s locking bar over and threw his weight against it. The plane was still rolling, but suddenly its smooth forward motion changed to a sideways lurch and wiggle. The wailing of brakes became the harsh grinding of bare wheel rims on concrete. Somehow the plane had blown all ten of its tires at once. Brandon hung onto the locking bar and managed to stay upright as the fuselage jerked to a stop.

  He pushed hard on the door, and the articulated arm carried it out and away.

  A bullet spanged off the doorframe, missing his head by inches.

  “Son of a bitch!” he shouted, dropping to the carpeted deck. He’d caught the muzzle flash out of the corner of his eye. Over in the tall grass, thirty yards northeast of the plane. He drew his M9 and returned three spaced shots. A pair of combat boots stopped on the carpet beside his head.

  “What is it, son?” Ramsay asked.

  “We’re under fire, sir!”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Ramsay turned and called for the men with light machine guns to set up firing positions on either side of all the cabin exits. Then he told Brandon to pop the inflatable slide. The captain handed him an M4. “Go fast, son!”

&
nbsp; “You’re kidding me, sir!”

  “Make a streak, Lieutenant! You’re holding up the line!”

  Brandon tapped the carbine’s magazine as he’d been trained, pulled the charging handle to chamber a round, held the weapon across his body, and launched himself, feet first and butt down, onto the yellow rubberized cloth. Above his head, the machine guns roared. He could only hope that the people in the weeds now had their heads down or, if they didn’t, then at least that they might not know how to lead a moving target. When he hit the end of the ramp he had to jump to his feet, and his momentum carried him forward into a hard roll across the concrete. There he flattened himself out and started firing short, controlled bursts, just like on the range.

  At the same time, the odd thought floated up into his mind: Whatever this is, it isn’t going to be over by Friday.

  Part 3 – 2028:

  Plumbing Work

  1. In the Ninth Year of War

  John Praxis was building a brick wall. He was doing a favor for a neighbor, Nora Graham, who lived three doors down from the small house he had bought for himself on Balboa Street in the Richmond District. It was the closest he could get to his old home in Sea Cliff, which he had been forced to sell years ago.

  Nora wanted to build a series of low walls at the back of her lot to divide the vegetable patch and the flower garden and both of them from the compost heap. But the cost of a city-licensed contractor was beyond her means. So she had talked it over with Praxis, who had become the neighborhood handyman, and he drew some plans, roughed out the job, and told her how many used bricks to buy and at what price from the local scavenger, or more politely, “unlicensed urban recycler.” That had been a month ago, and since then Nora had set her two boys to sorting the bricks and chipping off old mortar after school. The weekend before, Praxis had dug trenches according to his plan and poured the concrete footings.