The Sovereign Era (Book 1): Brave Men Run

by Matthew Wayne Selznick

  Claire said, “I saw it last weekend already.”

  Fonseca stuck out his chest a little. “With who?”

  “With my sister, Greg!” Claire rolled her eyes. “I’m so sure!”

  “Oh.” Greg went back to the couch. “Okay.”

  Lina said to me, “So, have you seen it yet?”

  “No…”

  “Do you want to see it?”

  “Yeah, uh, I guess.” I took the album from Mel. “Huh. It’s got that kid from The Outsiders.”

  Mel stroked his chin-pubes. “Um, Nate, I don’t think that’s what she meant.”

  I was completely without anything like a clue. It must have been obvious on my face.

  Lina put her fists on her hips and stuck out her chin. “I want to, y’know, see it with you, Nate.” She backed off a touch. “If you want to.”

  “Oh!” I floundered. This beautiful girl with the narcotic scent was asking me out? “You want…” I felt myself starting to redden.

  “I can’t.”

  Lina seemed to deflate. “Oh, okay, that’s cool…”

  Jason’s mouth dropped open. “Dude..!”

  “No, I mean…” I looked at Lina. “I don’t have a car.”

  Mel made a theatrical production out of speaking to me from one side of his mouth. “Nate. She asked you out. She. Asked you.”

  Lina was all smiles again, and eyes only for me. Every time she looked at me, I felt lighter.

  I felt normal.

  “It’s no problem,” she said. “I can drive us.”

  “Oh.” I smiled back. “Okay.”

  Mel spread his arms as if presenting the two of us to the room. “There you go!”

  “Is Saturday okay with you?” Lina asked me.

  “Uh, yeah… yeah!”

  “Good.” She took a pen out of one of the pockets of her flower-print peasant dress and held it ready above the palm of her hand. “What’s your number?”

  Mel shouted, “Oh, shit!”

  Jason gave him a look. “Spaz, much?”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “We’re gonna miss the bus!”

  I looked at my watch. It was way late. Even if we were on school grounds, we wouldn’t make it to the parking lot in time.

  “Crap.”

  Lina had a small smile on her face. “You still take the bus? Oh, you poor dears.”

  Jason dug in the pockets of his stonewashed jeans and counted change. “I’ve got enough for the regular bus, I think.”

  Mel dialed down, but he looked morose. “That’ll take hours.”

  I tried to calculate if public transportation would get me home before my mother. If not, I’d need a story to explain why I wasn’t in the parking lot when the bus came.

  “Hey, boys.”

  We all looked at Lina.

  “I’ll drive you home.”

  “Yeah?” said Jason.

  “That’s capital!” said Mel.

  I smiled at her. “That’s great.”

  “I have ulterior motives. This way, I’ll know how to get to your house Saturday night.”

  Somehow I had forgotten that this gorgeous girl had made a date with me not two minutes ago. “Oh, right…”

  Mel put a chummy arm around Lina. “You’re all right, Ms. Porter.”

  “My adoring public,” she said. She looked right at me.

  Lester Brenhurst – One

  He stood in the open doorway of his mother's room, still and silent, and watched her for five minutes.

  She sat hunched in a chair, her hands in her lap, knobby fingers intertwining and reaching. Her lips moved. Now and then, she shook her head back and forth or breathed papery laughter.

  She didn't know he was there.

  He leaned his shoulder on the door frame.

  In the sixth minute, he stepped into the room and cleared his throat.

  “Hello, mom.”

  His mother waved a hand, dismissing an actor from the rickety stage of her memory, and slowly turned her head.

  “Lester.” Her thin lips pursed critically. “When are we going back to Paris?”

  He unbuttoned his suit coat and crouched next to her. “Paris...? When..?”

  “You promised we'd go back one day. Neither one of us are getting any younger, you know.”

  He placed a hand on her wrist. Her skin was very warm, and very dry. “We never went to Paris, Mom.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don't be a tease.” She slipped her arm back and took his hand. “It wasn't so long ago I'm going to forget it.” When she smiled, a cracked desert of wrinkles spread across her face. “Even so soon after the war, it was... it was...”

  Lester Brenhurst inclined his head as he realized his mother was talking to his father, the elder Doctor Brenhurst.

  “It wasn't so long ago that I would forget,” his mother said again.

  No. It was the present that was disappearing from her mind. Brenhurst very gently squeezed her hand.

  “How do you like it here so far, Mom?”

  She jerked in her chair. Her eyes widened when her gaze found him. Brenhurst could almost see the storm of confusion play across the calcified neural connections in her brain.

  “It's good to be closer to you,” she said. Her awareness found focus, and to Brenhurst, it was as if his mother abruptly took up residence in the body of the befuddled old woman holding his hand.

  “You could visit more often,” she said. “You're not all the way across the country any more.”

  “I'm sorry, mom.” He fought the urge to look at this watch, then fought the shame that chased it. “Things are getting busy at work.”

  “You're always busy at work.” She clicked her tongue. “You're away so often, Lester. I know people depend on you – but your wife and son need you as much as everyone else, you know.”

  Just like that, he was back to being his father in her mind. His mother's lucidity was tidal, rising and falling at the whim of a complex geometry of memory and association. Inexorably, though, the current was shifting, and soon the sea would recede forever.

  “I try to come every week,” he said.

  She smiled and sniffed. “I know. It's important work. I do know.”

  His father had been an engineer involved with the reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War. Lester's lips twitched.

  His work was important, too.

  “I'm glad you understand, mom.”

  His beeper chirped.

  His mother's face collapsed and she shrank back to her slouch. “I hate that thing,” she whispered.

  Brenhurst un-clipped the pager from his belt. The LED display read, “911***”

  He'd been expecting it. He stood up.

  “I have to go now, mother.”

  He had almost delayed his visit until after. But, given what the world was about to become, he doubted he'd have time to spare for weeks. Or months. By then...

  “Let's make the arrangements next time,” his mother said with a resigned sigh. “Let's just call the travel agent and buy the tickets. Please?”

  He bent down and kissed the top of her head. “I'll see you soon, mother.”

  He saw one of the hospice nurses on his way out. Her eyebrows shot up and her mouth turned down.

  “Dr. Brenhurst... you just got here...”

  “Turn on the televisions,” he said, and pushed through the door.

  ~

  He got in the car, started the engine, and picked up the blocky car-phone handset. He dialed without looking.

  Brenhurst listened to one ring. The other party didn't waste time on greetings.

  “It's happened.”

  Brenhurst nodded to himself. “Washington? Donner?”

  “Yes. Where are you?”

  Brenhurst yanked the steering column gear shift into drive. “Santa Ana. I'll be back in twenty minutes.”

  From The Journal Of Nate Charters – Four

  Jason lived all the way over by Lake Abbeque. If you had t
o go by Jason’s ratty, strategically ripped wardrobe, you’d never guess his parents could afford the big house. Mel lived two blocks up from my place in a much more modest neighborhood. For the brief time between his place and mine, Lina and I were alone in her little silver Volkswagen Golf. That was a first for me.

  I mean, I’ve been in cars with girls who are my friends before, like Claire, but none of them ever told me my eyes are nice, or asked me out. I felt a little awkward. The radio saved me from dorky silence for the whole two blocks when Toto Coelo’s “I Eat Cannibals” came on.

  “Ugh!” Lina jabbed at the pre-select buttons on the dashboard radio. “I’m so tired of that stupid song!”

  “I saw the video,” I said. “They look like something out of Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.”

  “Totally.”

  “Totally not Coelo,” I affirmed. I sounded lame to my own ears, but she just grinned.

  The next two stations ran commercials. Finally, Lina found something we both hated enough to laugh about.

  “Oh, man,” I said.

  Lina laughed, and sang along in a ridiculous bass. “I wear my su-hun glasses at night…”

  I picked it up. “So I can so I can…”

  The radio ruined our fun when an announcer cut in with a special bulletin.

  “Aw, man,” Lina turned down the volume.

  “We’re here, anyway,” I said. “Third house on the left.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Lina hooked into the driveway. My mother came out the front door immediately.

  “Oh, hey, I’ll introduce you to my mother,” I said.

  “She looks pissed,” Lina said.

  I got out of the car. My mother couldn’t have been home long; she was still in her work clothes.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  I was startled. “I missed the bus…”

  “I called the school. Ms. Elp looked in all your usual places, and you weren’t there.”

  “Well…” I fought a minor panic that she’d called the school and I wasn’t around, but I was also totally confused. Why did she need to look for me in the first place?

  “I’m not late, or anything…” In fact, with Lina driving us more directly than the bus, I was a little early.

  Lina leaned over and stuck her head out the passenger window and flashed a big smile. “Hello, Mrs. Charters. I’m Lina Porter.”

  My mother glanced at her, then glared at me. “We don’t have time for your friends right now. I need you in the house.”

  “But…”

  “Right now!”

  I looked at Lina, who looked as baffled as me, and a little angry, too. I shrugged emphatically. “I – I guess I have to go…”

  “Can I still call you for Saturday?”

  “Yes!” I pulled a pen out of my jeans pocket, grabbed her hand, and quickly scrawled my number on her palm. Lina beamed like it was the combination to Fort Knox.

  My mother stood by the front door. I could hear the television inside, which was another oddity for a weekday afternoon. “Right now, Nathan!”

  Lina backed her car out of the driveway and onto the street. I could see her watching me in the rear view mirror as she drove away.

  I followed my mother into the house as she said, “Have you heard the news?”

  “About what?”

  She looked at me, her mouth slightly open, and shook her head. “That explains that.” She hustled me into the living room. “Sit down.”

  I sat down on the couch, facing the television. She stood behind me, her hands gripping the back cushions. The adrenaline in her perspiration was a sharp tang in my nostrils.

  On television, a middle aged-man in a business suit floated over the heads of a crowd of reporters. In the background, the Washington Monument gleamed like bone.

  From The Journal Of Nate Charters – Five

  “What is this?”

  My mother’s voice was terse. “They’ll show it all again. It’s all that’s on.”

  The scene switched to the same man standing on solid ground behind a lectern topped with a cluster of microphones. His blue eyes scanned the audience. He put his closed hand in front of his mouth, cleared his throat, and put both hands on the lectern.

  “My name is Dr. William Karl Donner. As many of you know, I made my name as a neurosurgeon. Fewer people know that I haven’t practiced medicine at all in the last few years. Rather, I’ve directed my energies to a research institute located east of Missoula, Montana.

  “The Donner Institute has come under some scrutiny lately. Because of our insistence on privacy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is concerned that we’re organizing some kind of militia up there. I have come to Washington today to meet with Attorney General Meese, and others, to reassure the administration and clarify the purpose of the Institute, and my own mission.

  “Before I meet with them, I wanted to address the American people, and by extension, the people of the world. I appreciate you all coming out here. You were promised something remarkable.

  “Here it is.”

  That’s when he did it: spread his arms and just lifted, right off the ground. The picture on TV went a little crazy-kilter while the cameraman tried to keep Donner in the frame. I guess he was caught off guard. So was everyone else; you could hear gasps and shouts from the crowd.

  The picture fuzzed for a split second. Donner spoke again, a good eight feet above the microphones on the lectern. It didn’t matter; somehow his voice carried.

  “This is not a trick. There are no wires, no rods, and to those of you watching this on television, the photographers and cameramen recording this are not participating in any kind of special effect.”

  Donner turned slowly in the air, as if trying to show us all there wasn’t anything up his sleeve. He slowly settled back behind the lectern.

  The crowd was dead silent.

  “What I’ve just done is an inconsequential parlor trick compared to my full creative ability. I am here today to tell you that I am not the only person who possesses such unusual abilities – indeed, there are several thousand of us across the globe.”

  The reporters finally burst with a flurry of questions. Donner held up his hand.

  “Please. I will take a handful of questions after I finish my statement. There’s not much more. Allow me to continue.” When he spoke, he didn’t raise his voice, but he was somehow loud enough to be heard over the reporters. It made me shiver, and it was more than enough to quiet them.

  “Thank you. As I said, there are thousands of us all over the world. We live among you. While we are different – some may even look different – most are almost the same as you. I can assure you that none have the kind of innate power I possess, or anything like my control… and that’s why I’m here today.

  “Please listen carefully.

  “The major powers of the world have been aware of the existence of my people for some time. I have evidence, which I am prepared to distribute to the major media syndicates, that we are often subjected to human rights abuses such as imprisonment, torture, and even, I’m horrified to say, experimentation. It will be seen, regrettably, that the United States of America is among the participants of these abominations.

  “Therefore, out of desperate necessarily, I appear before you today not only to declare our existence. I stand today before the eyes of the world and declare that my people – all those people who possess unique abilities – are from this day forward sovereign individuals.

  “I’ll explain what I mean by this: If I should learn that one such as myself has encountered misfortune, harassment, or persecution, the party responsible will answer to me, be they individual, agency, or government.

  “By the same token, if one of my people acts in a way contrary to the universal principles of compassion and dignity, they too will answer to me and mine.

  “We are sovereign. We are separate. However, we have no desire other than to live our lives in peace, with you.”

&
nbsp; Donner glanced over his shoulder. In the blink of an eye, the Washington Monument changed color from ivory white to flat black. Later, we would learn that everything in and around the Monument, including every object in the kiosk down to the smallest paper clip, turned black as well.

  Donner nodded, a grim, small smile on his lips. Another blink, and the narrow obelisk returned to normal.

  I shivered. I realized I was breathing shallow and fast.

  “Aggression against my sovereign people will not be tolerated. Please have no doubts as to my ability to enforce these claims. It’s my sincere wish the nations of the world do not find it necessary to put that to the test.”

  The microphones picked up the whine of fighter jets soaring high above the Capitol. Donner cast his gaze across the throng of reporters.

  “I’ll take your questions now.”

  The television coverage broke away from the replay of the press conference. I looked at my mother.

  “Is this guy for real?”

  Her voice was flat. “He’s real. All the networks are carrying this; none of them are claiming any of the others are pulling a hoax. It’s real.” She sighed. “He’s real.”

  “No way…”

  She came around the couch and sat down. I slid off the cushions and sat on the floor, my knees pulled up to my chin. Like the rest of the world, we watched television for a while.

  The White House made a statement decrying Donner as irresponsible and a panic mongerer. Unconfirmed reports from Manhattan about a shadowy, winged monster were breathlessly linked with Donner’s claim that he was not the only one. Channel four brought in a panel of experts, only there were no experts, not yet, so they found Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Ray Bradbury, and Daniel Schor. We were shown Donner’s return to the Watergate Hotel, which was quickly evacuated of all other guests and surrounded by the National Guard. That meant Washington D.C. was in a state of emergency, and that meant that everyone was taking this seriously.

  I suddenly realized my mother was quietly weeping. I was confused, and excitement had expanded in my chest, but I didn’t understand tears. I got back up on the couch next to her. “Hey, mom, it’s all right…”

  “Don’t you see it?” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sobbed a little laugh. “Do you really think they’ll let this happen?”