Space Magic

by Levine, David D.

  “They get transferred out,” he repeated, more thoughtfully. “At least, that’s what they say.”

  “You can never trust them. They said they’d keep Cherry and me together, but when space got tight in the orphanage they transferred me to another facility. I had to kick and scream to get us together again. As soon as I turned eighteen I got us both out of there.”

  “That must have been hard. Supporting two people at eighteen.”

  “It was. But somehow we survived. I gave up a lot to keep her safe.” She closed her eyes. “I’d give up anything to bring her back. But I know that’s not going to happen, so I work to bring down the system that killed her. I’d give my life for that.”

  “You came damn close back there. And at the hospital. If you don’t take a little more care, you’ll wind up an angel for real.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She slumped in her seat. “But ever since Cherry died, I don’t really care a lot about me.”

  “You should,” he said. “You’re worth caring about.”

  “Thanks.”

  But she didn’t seem convinced.

  -o0o-

  They reached the rendezvous point—an abandoned gas station near Ellensburg—just after sunset. There they found a couple of men who identified themselves as Dusty and Wolf.

  Dusty was a round man with a gray beard and a black leather cap and jacket. “We’ve done some checking on Thatcher’s story,” he said to Angel, “and it seems to check out, but we need to interrogate him.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” said Thatcher.

  “Sorry, but we have to take precautions,” said Wolf, a large muscular man in jeans and a flannel shirt. “With the ambush day before yesterday, we think there may be a mole in the Committee. We’re not going to torture you or anything, just ask you some questions.”

  Wolf had a key to the empty gas station, and they went inside and sat around a table in what had been the repair area. The windows in the garage doors were covered with newspaper; the space was illuminated by a hissing gas lantern. Angel, Wolf, and Dusty became faces floating in the darkness.

  They asked him a lot of questions, some of them over and over. Thatcher explained about the Knights, about Duke, about why he’d left. When he told them about the girl he’d seen Duke kill, Angel’s eyes went wide and she put her hand on his.

  “Couldn’t you just transfer out?” asked Dusty.

  “With what I’d learned about Duke, I didn’t want to be anywhere in the same Army with him. Anyway, I don’t think he would have let me go in one piece.” Poor Mackenzie.

  Some of the questions they asked about the Knights’ technology were very perceptive. They seemed to know a lot about the system already, seemed to be probing to see how much he was willing to reveal.

  He told them everything. Classified, Top Secret, Maximum Secret—he let them all go.

  The other Knights seemed to be standing in the darkness behind Wolf, staring at him with disapproval. He knew them all—their names, their faces, their voices, their habits—and their scorn burned him. But behind Angel stood her sister Cherry, the girl Duke had killed, and Duncan Mackenzie, their eyes pleading for mercy. The girl had no name, and Cherry no face—but somehow those three were more important to him than all the Knights put together.

  There was one other presence in the darkness. Duke. He seemed to stand behind Thatcher. His stare made the hairs rise on the back of Thatcher’s neck.

  “One last question,” said Dusty. “How can you kill a Knight in combat?”

  Even after all the secrets he’d betrayed, this was the hardest. It took him a long time to form the words. “You have to shoot him in the head, and it has to be a surprise. If you can kill him before he can bite down, his system can’t save him.” In the darkness, the Knights shook their heads, turned, and walked away.

  Wolf and Dusty looked at each other. Dusty nodded. Wolf said “All right. We’re going to take you to a safe house a few miles from here. We have another defector there. I hope that you and he together can give us a weapon we can use to overthrow the government. Any questions?”

  “Can we get something to eat first? I’m starving.”

  They hid Angel’s car under a tarp behind the gas station and all got into a van. They drove to a little mom-and-pop diner, where Wolf called the safe house from a pay phone. Thatcher ate a huge meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits, and two slices of apple pie à la mode. The conversation was pleasant and trivial.

  It was 11:03 when they came to a farm: a house and a barn and a couple of outbuildings surrounding a dirt courtyard. Moths fluttered in the cone of mercury light coming from a fixture near the peak of the barn.

  Dusty was driving, and Thatcher could see his brow furrow in the cold blue light. “What’s wrong?”

  “Where’s Booter?”

  “Probably in the barn,” said Wolf.

  “Who’s Booter?” said Angel.

  “The dog,” said Dusty. “He’s kind of our chief of security. Whenever a car comes by, he’s out here barking his head off.”

  “He’s probably just asleep somewhere.”

  “I don’t know.” Dusty stopped the van. “I’m inclined to be a little paranoid right now. I think I’d like to back off and reconnoiter.” He put the van into reverse.

  Machine gun fire rang out of the darkness; Thatcher couldn’t see from where. Steam spurted from under the van’s hood, and the engine coughed and died.

  “Shit!” said Wolf.

  “I think we’re in trouble,” said Dusty.

  Thatcher’s system was at eighty percent. “Give me the gun,” he said, meaning the rifle they’d brought with them from Angel’s car. “I can hold them down while you make a run for it. We’ll go out the back door.”

  “Why should we trust you?” said Wolf.

  “We can trust him,” said Angel. Dusty nodded. “Good luck,” said Angel, handing him the rifle and a spare clip of ammunition.

  “I’ll go off to the left. Give me half a minute, then go right. Good luck.”

  Thatcher checked the rifle over—safety off, seven rounds in the clip plus one in the chamber—then clambered over boxes and tarps to the back door. He eased the latch open, then quickly threw the door open and jumped out.

  The van sat in a rutted driveway between fields of winter wheat, a sketch in silver and black in the mercury light from the farm and the beams of a full moon. Thatcher kept low, hurried into rustling wheat. He dropped to one knee and examined the barnyard through the rifle’s telescopic sight. Nothing moved. Finally he sighted on the light that illuminated the scene, shattered it with one shot.

  There was an immediate response, shots flashing from the darkness in the vicinity of the barn. He ducked and ran, moving to the left, forcing his way through the rough rattling stalks.

  Thatcher poked his head up above the wheat, eyes beginning to adapt to the moonlit dark. He saw a heavy figure—Dusty—emerge from the van and run into the wheat to his right. Then two more figures. But instead of running away, they headed toward the farm!

  Wolf was nearly carrying Angel, who struggled to no effect. Thatcher cursed and raised his rifle, but their jerky movements and the darkness prevented a clear shot at the traitor Wolf. He hurried after them, but the van was closer to the barn than to him and they reached the barnyard before he did. They vanished into the black square of the open barn door. A moment later, gunfire flashed out of that square at him, and he ducked back into the field.

  Thatcher considered his options. He could run, hide out in the fields, try to make his way to safety on foot. It was what he’d advised the others to do. But now the situation was different.

  He scurried back to the shelter of the van. At least it would block some of the bullets. A few shots rang out as he emerged from the field, but as he reached the van he heard a voice on a bullhorn. “Hold your fire!” It was Duke! “Sergeant Thatcher, listen to me. We have your co-conspirators. We have your girlfriend. Surrender, and
they will live.”

  Faintly, he heard Angel protest: “I’m not his fucking girlfrien...” The sentence ended with the smack of hard plastic against flesh.

  Thatcher panted against the van door for a moment, then poked his rifle out from behind the bumper. He put five shots into the barn doorway, was rewarded with screams and an answering hail of flashes. He ducked back, hearing a bullet slam into the van’s tire.

  He leaned out again and fired two more shots, then pulled back and inserted the second clip. Deep breath, then he charged out from behind the van. He would take as many of them down as he could. Then he stopped short.

  Duke was standing in the middle of the courtyard, plain as anything. His face was cool and pale in the cold moonlight, features sharp and unperturbed, though he held the struggling Angel to his chest with a pistol to her head. Even his fatigues were crisp.

  “Let’s not drag this out,” he said, not shouting—speaking just loud enough to be heard. “It’s quite simple. Deactivate your system, throw down your weapon, and the woman lives. Otherwise, she dies.”

  In response Thatcher raised his rifle, sighted between Duke’s eyes, and fired. But even as he squeezed the trigger Duke ducked out of the way. He tried again; same result. Even a head shot was no good in this situation, when Duke was ready for him and looking right at him.

  Duke ducked down behind Angel, putting her head between him and Thatcher. “Nice try, Sergeant,” he said, panting a little. “But I’m losing patience.” His finger tightened on the trigger. “You have five seconds to surrender. Four. Three.”

  “Don’t let him use me against you!” Angel shouted, and threw back her head into his nose. He ate the pain—did not rewind—but he was distracted for a moment.

  Angel’s face filled the gunsight. Her eyes were hard, looking right at him. She knew that the head shot was the only way to kill a Knight. I’d give up my life to bring down the government, she’d said. “Do it!” she said through clenched teeth.

  He couldn’t do it. He dropped the gun, held up his hands. “You win.”

  “Excellent choice. Deactivate your system.”

  He bit down on his tongue. “Done,” he lied.

  “Come forward. Private Keene, bring the syringe.”

  “No!” said Angel, and elbowed Duke hard in the ribs. His grip relaxed and she twisted, caught him in the groin with a heel.

  “You little bitch.” Duke’s finger tightened on the trigger and Angel’s head exploded.

  Thatcher growled, a fierce animal sound, as he bit down hard.

  Rewind.

  “You have five seconds to surrender. Four. Three.”

  “Don’t let him use me against you!” Angel shouted, and threw back her head into his nose. Her face filled the gunsight. “Do it!”

  Thatcher pulled the trigger. Watched as the bullet slammed into Angel’s face, and through it. Into Duke’s face behind hers. Into the brain behind that face.

  Stopping that brain before it could rewind.

  Thatcher ran as hard as he could toward the courtyard even as the two bodies buckled. There was a stunned pause, then bullets flashed from the barn toward him. One caught him in the shoulder—he ignored the pain and kept running. He reached Angel, scooped her up, held her tight against his chest, and bit down hard.

  Rewind.

  “You have five seconds to surrender. Four. Three.”

  It hadn’t worked. Angel was still in Duke’s arms.

  He had to kill her again.

  “Do it!”

  He did it. Again. Then he stayed where he was, turned and fired shot after shot into the barn door before those inside could react. Blinking away tears.

  In the end, he killed enough of them that the CLU members in the barn could overpower the rest. He took two bullets doing it, but neither of them hurt him as much as the ones he’d fired into Angel’s head.

  -o0o-

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” Dusty said.

  “I do have to,” Thatcher replied. “I owe it to Angel.”

  He lay on a couch in the farmhouse’s living room. An ATP/glucose mixture dripped cold into his left arm, and a power cord was alligator-clipped to wires that emerged from a bandaged incision at the base of his neck. His blood seemed to be fizzing.

  “We could really use you right here and now.”

  “If this works, you won’t need me here and now. It’ll be a whole new world.” He turned to the defector, Dr. Collins. He was a former K Division scientist; Thatcher had been told that he’d been killed in a terrorist attack. Somehow he was not surprised to find him here. “How many seconds again?”

  “Seven hundred million. That’ll put you in early April of 1978, give you six months to find Fessler and stop him.”

  “Someone else might discover the same thing,” said Dusty, “and it’d be all the same.”

  “Maybe,” said Collins. “But I’ve been all over the theory. Fessler’s discovery was a complete fluke.”

  Dusty held out his hands, supplicating. “We don’t even know if a six-year-old brain can handle a twenty-eight-year-old mind! And even if it works, what can a kid do?”

  “I was a tough kid.” Thatcher bit down, and the green digits appeared—digits only he could see. Seven hundred million seconds. Jesus. One more bite would activate the sequence. “Let’s do it.”

  “Good luck.” Collins flipped a switch, and Thatcher’s blood felt like it was boiling.

  He bit down, and it all vanished.

  Fear of Widths

  When they got off the plane at Mitchell Field, there was nobody there to meet them. That’s when it really sank in.

  He had to sit down in the waiting area until the sobs stopped coming. His wife held him, awkward in the hard airport chairs; passing strangers looked concerned but did not stop, intent on their own business. After only a little while of this he blew his nose and joined the crowd. He was already pretty much cried out. But his heart sat in the hollow of his chest like a lonely farmhouse on the vast prairie.

  So many times I’ve flown to this airport, he thought as they walked to the baggage carousel, and now I barely recognize it. Every time before, his parents had met him at the gate. Smaller and smaller, grayer and grayer. After the heart attack Dad lost weight (finally, after years of nagging) but it didn’t make him look healthy; instead he looked shriveled, like all the juice had been squeezed out of him. Mom just got smaller and rounder every year, and moved more and more slowly.

  And now they were gone. Run down in a crosswalk by a drunk who ran a red light. The funeral was tomorrow.

  The rent-a-car place wanted to give him some American tuna boat instead of the Japanese compact he’d reserved. When he received the news, he felt for a brief unreal moment that he stood on a vast whistling plain, cold and alone—but the feeling passed as his wife began to protest. He touched her arm to quiet her and said to the agent, “We’ll take it.”

  He didn’t realize until later that the car was a Plymouth, like the one his folks had when he was in sixth grade.

  The airport interchange was under construction. The Billy Mitchell bomber that had once stood triumphantly at the entrance to the airport was now stuck on a pedestal like some drab and awkward butterfly, tiny and barely visible to the speeding traffic. Nothing was familiar. But when the car pulled onto the freeway, he saw the hotel where he’d attended a high school job fair. The gas station where he’d tanked up on the way out of town, returning to college after Christmas break. Billboards for a bank whose logo had changed, but whose name brought a thirty-year-old jingle ringing into his head.

  And the horizon.

  How could he have forgotten the horizon?

  In Portland there was no horizon. Not like this. In Portland there was always something between you and the edge of the planet: trees, or mountains, or clouds. Even in those places where there was a bit of horizon, there was something to draw the eye away from it. Something important and grandiose, like Mount Hood.

  H
ere there was nothing bigger than the horizon itself. Oh, there were stands of trees here and there, but they were funny little round things, just beginning to bud—a bare wisp of greenery like a teenager’s underfunded beard. They didn’t have a chance against the line that went all the way around.

  The horizon was a lariat whirling around his head at eye level. A shimmering, dangerous line. But who was twirling it?

  The blare of a horn and his wife’s gasp brought his attention back to the road, and he braked hard. The red lights ahead got much too close much too fast, but the squeal of tires did not end in a crunch, and a few minutes later he was back up to highway speed.

  He gripped the steering wheel harder to still the trembling in his hands, to maintain his focus.

  It was difficult to watch the road when the infinite horizon sucked at his attention. It was so very flat here. Even the tiny rise of a freeway overpass was enough to give a view for miles. A panorama of factories and churches, standing out from a background of boxy little houses: tiny square things, brick and clapboard, with pointed roofs against the snows. So simple, like a child’s drawing of a house. Each with a little concrete stoop, just two or three steps high, and a simple, flat lawn of green grass. Perhaps a bush or two. Not like the overhanging roofs, deep porches, and sprawling rhododendrons of his neighborhood in Portland.

  How could a cartoon of a house keep you safe from the vast open spaces? Portland houses had solidity; those overhanging Craftsman roofs enclosed, protected, defended. Just in case Mount Hood decided to blow off its lid like Mount St. Helens, revealing the horizon beyond, they were ready. Milwaukee houses were naive, defenseless. They clung to the flat landscape like lumps of chewed gum; their only strategy was to be too inoffensive to bother with.