Time and Chance

by Jeff Mariotte

  She nodded, smiling, then turned to Caitlin and filled her in on everything she had witnessed.

  "This was something major," Caitlin said. "Who were those guys with the guns? And those others…"

  Roxy nudged her arm. Several police officers were heading their way. "We're not the only ones with questions. Time to fade."

  Caitlin led the group through the wreckage. They avoided the police and were soon several blocks away.

  "I'll have to tell Mr. Lynch to cancel my credit cards," Caitlin said. "I had to toss my purse up on a roof back there. I'll bet someone's found it by now."

  Roxy volunteered to go look for it. Her bag had been reduced to atoms by an I.O. plasma burst.

  Caitlin watched as she stopped and looked back to Grunge. His mood was darker than Caitlin had ever seen it.

  "Hey," Roxy said. "You wanna come with? Maybe we can stop and get some Thai—"

  " 'Nother time," Grunge said. He hung his head and took off on his own.

  Roxy followed him with her impossibly wide purple eyes. Her yearning was apparent to every one of them— except Grunge.

  Sure, she was dating, but it was Grunge she wanted.

  And he didn't have a clue.

  "Who did that to him?" Roxy asked, anger clearly rising up in her. "What happened?"

  Bobby put his hand on Roxy's shoulder and gently massaged it. "I don't have any idea. But I'll try to find out."

  He sighed wistfully.

  "Are you thinking about Sarah?" Caitlin asked as she scanned the street ahead for a cab.

  "Yeah," Bobby said. "I just hope she's having a better night than the rest of us…"

  This isn't a rally, Sarah thought. It's a disaster. It's a farce.

  The organization sponsoring it was called the Coalition for Appropriate Public Lands Use, and the issue at stake was how best to manage the forty to sixty million acres of undeveloped, roadless national forest lands that still remained in the United States. CAPLU wanted the land preserved for wilderness use, while others wanted to build roads into it, log it, use it as a source of wood fiber and motorized recreation. Sarah supported CAPLU's stance.

  But somehow, the rally had started off on the wrong foot and gone downhill from there. Maybe it was the cold—fully half the folding chairs set out in Central Park were unused, and the people who were there sat huddled in little clumps, as if to share body warmth. Speaking to the too-small crowd were too many speakers, each of whom went on too long, and each with his or her own agenda to promote. There were politicians from the local and national stage, none of whom seemed to share common goals. There was the National Director of CAPLU, a charismatic woman from Wyoming, but she had defeated the head of the local New York chapter for the job, and the chapter head aimed a few choice barbs her way during his introductory speech. There was a minor Hollywood celebrity, someone whose sitcom had lasted less than a single season, and he seemed to have been invited purely for the name value as he could barely manage to string a sentence together that wasn't about himself.

  At least, she thought, I was able to drop a few bucks into the fund-raising coffers when I got here. She doubted that anyone who managed to sit through the speeches would feel much like contributing after.

  The media director of a different environmental group was droning on now, and Sarah realized she was barely hearing him. "… furthermore," he droned on, "leaving land stewardship issues to the Wise Use and Sagebrush Rebellion forces of the West is like…"

  Easterner, she thought. Thinks because he's addressing a New York crowd he can lump everyone who lives west of the Mississippi into the same reactionary crowd. She knew people in Arizona and New Mexico and Colorado whose environmental credentials, and policy successes, would make this guy look like a kindergarten student.

  And now I'm doing the same thing the rest of them are, she thought. Making the struggle be about power and influence instead of working together to further the cause. Disgusted with herself and the rally, she got up from the cold metal chair.

  At least the rally took place in the Park—the one spot in Manhattan where she could find any semblance of nature, even though it was a nature that had been shaped and organized by man. It was a far cry from the windswept mesas and still canyons of her youth, but it was as good as she was going to get around here.

  She wandered off into the park, trying to stay on grass and off pavement, as much as possible. Behind her, the amplified voices of the rally's speakers blurred into insignificant buzzing.

  Good thing Bobby didn't come, she thought. It'd just give him more ammunition to complain about me and my social ideals. If he had wanted her to finish the evening in an amorous mood, that clearly wasn't going to happen now—instead, she was angry and frustrated.

  The whole ordeal made her think much more favorably on her experience at the Mary McCardle Shelter. There, at least, she was making a difference. It was on a much smaller scale, but a small scale often meant a human scale. There were real people there whose lives she could improve with a meal, a bed, some meaningful conversation. After a hard shift there, she went home tired but fulfilled, satisfied that she had spent her day making the world a slightly better place.

  Gen13's members believed that they were doing good work—but really, she observed, all they ever seemed to do was fight. Who knows what kind of energy that gives off to the world?

  The crisp, cold air and the day's winds made the Park feel fresh and alive, and with a nearly full moon overhead she could see nearly as well as in full daylight. The moon silvered the autumn leaves, still clinging fearfully to limbs or scattered and whipping into whirlpools on the ground.

  Grass crunched under her feet, so much better than concrete. Somewhere in the dark just ahead of her would be The Lake—already, she thought, she could smell the water on the air. Sarah was tuned into nature more than most people could ever be—weather spoke to her, wind and rain and sunshine whispered in a secret language, a communion of elements that she could share with no one.

  This was where she came to escape the city's crowds— not for solitude, but to reconnect with Mother Earth. It was as spiritual a place as there could be in the middle of nine million souls.

  So when someone screamed there, it was as startling and out of place as a scream in church.

  Sarah didn't hesitate. She ran straight toward the frightened voice she had heard. Female, for sure. Young, sounded like. And very very scared.

  She came over a hill and found them, on the other side.

  They were just kids.

  Her age or younger. Early teens, maybe a couple of them as old as twenty. No one older than that.

  They looked like gangs, to her. She hadn't paid that much attention to inner city gang warfare, but these kids seemed to be wearing what could pass for gang uniforms.

  One bunch of them, the group standing nearest her, was wearing jackets and jerseys with the numbers 21 emblazoned on them, and she seemed to remember hearing something about a gang called the Downtown 21ers. She'd read an article in the Times about them once—the number referred to the twenty-one members of the gang killed in the defense of a particular neighborhood, a few years before.

  The other group, running now, scattering and disappearing into the night, was wearing a wider variety of clothing, but each member had something yellow on—a headband, an armband, shoes, a ski parka. She couldn't remember having heard of a gang that used yellow as its colors, but that didn't mean anything. She was no expert on gangs, and the evidence was right there in front of her.

  Both gangs consisted of boys and girls—more of the former, but more gender-balanced than she'd have expected. An unanticipated side-effect of the feminist revolution, she figured, was that girls now felt it acceptable to fight and die in gangs, as well as the boys.

  She moved a little further down the hill. The 21ers were blocking her view, but there seemed to be something going on behind them. Some of the 21ers were huddled together on the ground. She couldn't see what they were looking at.
But over the muffled conversations taking place, she could hear wet sobbing. Someone's hurt—? she wondered.

  "What's going on?" she demanded. Loud and forceful. Take control of the situation from the outset, she told herself.

  One of the 21ers spun around, a large knife clenched in his fist. "None of your business, lady," he said.

  "I'm making it mine," she replied. She gestured toward him and loosed a tiny lightning bolt, barely visible in the bright moonlight. He jumped back when it hit him, shocked but not injured, and fell to the ground with a sharp yelp.

  "Hey!"

  'The next one will hurt," she warned. "Get out of my way."

  The others were aware of her by now. No one knew quite what she'd done, but her manner was convincing. They parted for her.

  And on the ground before her was a girl, maybe seventeen. Her leather jacket had an embroidered 21 over the heart. She was bleeding from several wounds in her chest and head. She was conscious, in pain, chest heaving as she was racked with sobs.

  Sarah glanced about, but beyond a few knives and a single automatic pistol, saw no weapons that could have done this specific type of damage. The automatic's entry wounds would have been bigger, and the girl would be dead.

  "They did this?" she demanded, nodding toward where the yellow gang had been.

  There was no response at first. Sarah found that odd— she'd have expected that if their enemies had done it, they'd have no problem saying so. She figured that gangs held to a code of silence, but that was to protect their own, wasn't it?

  "Who did this to this girl?" she asked again.

  "Watkins done it," a voice in the crowd said.

  "And who's Watkins?"

  A boy came out of the crowd. He was maybe fifteen or sixteen, tall and gawky, with short dark hair. Big hands and feet and head indicated that he would grow into an imposing figure of a man.

  If Sarah let him.

  He held something in his hands, dark and bulky. He wore a heavy cable-knit sweater, and over the sweater a hockey jersey with a 21 on the chest.

  "You're Watkins? You did this?" Sarah asked.

  "I didn't mean to," Watkins said. "Nat's my girlfriend, man. I never meant to hurt her or nothing."

  The picture started to become clear. "You shot her by accident?"

  "The gun… it just went off," he said, voice quivering. "I didn't know…"

  "Let me see it." Sarah held out a hand, and he put the big weapon in it. She held it to the moonlight.

  She was right. It was an I.O.-issue Stinger, an electrically-operated weapon that fired a rain of sharp, tiny needles at its victim. If he had really been aiming it at her, she would have been dead. Probably he had been fooling around with it, not sure how to operate it. It was a tricky gun. How it got into the hands of a juvenile gang, she couldn't have said.

  She threw it to the ground and blasted it with lightning. There was a sharp crack and the scent of ozone in the air, overwhelmed in a moment by the acrid stench of burning steel and grease.

  "You get any more of those, turn them in," she said. "They're more dangerous than you realize. Trained soldiers take special classes in how to work them. You're lucky she's not dead."

  "It's just a gun," one of the boys said.

  Sarah grabbed his collar in her fist, pulled his face close to hers. "And I'm just a chick," she said. "You wanna take your chances with me?"

  He was silent.

  She let go. The girl needed medical attention. The gang would have to come second.

  There were times, she knew, when having superpowers came in handy. This was one of them.

  She scooped the bleeding girl into her arms and took flight.

  Sarah was nowhere near the flyer that Bobby and Roxy were. She could manage, by creating powerful enough, tightly focused winds that would take her where she wanted to go. But she was somewhat lacking in grace and sophistication next to them.

  And sometimes her landings were a little rough.

  When she brought the girl down in the ambulance bay of the Lenox Hill Hospital, the gust of wind that preceded her was powerful enough to blow over several gurneys. Fortunately, none were occupied at the time.

  And fortunately, this was New York City—the ER doctors on site had seen superheroes plenty of times before.

  "What do you got?" one asked her.

  "Know what a Stinger is?"

  Another doctor broke in. "I used to be an I.O. medic," she said. "I've treated Stinger wounds. How did this one get it? Doesn't look like an enemy agent to me."

  Sarah handed the girl off to the doctor, who laid her on an up-ended gurney. The doctor's name badge identified her as Doctor Lara Koljonen. "Her name's Nat— Natalie, Natasha, something. Her boyfriend accidentally shot her with a Stinger. I destroyed it."

  "Good," the doctor said, fastening the gurney's straps. "Nasty weapons."

  Sarah followed the doctor into the Emergency Room. "If you don't mind, I'd like to stick around, ask her some questions when you've got her stabilized."

  "Fine with me," the doctor said. "Police'll be asking her some as well. We have to report gunshot wounds. Even from Stingers."

  "Or especially," Sarah said.

  "Right. Just have a seat. I'll find you when she can talk."

  Sarah found a molded plastic chair that wasn't facing the waiting room's blaring TV. None of the magazines looked interesting. She leaned her head back on the hard chair, closed her eyes, and tried to take herself out of the building, out of the city.

  "Miss?"

  Strong hands shook her shoulder.

  She opened her eyes, and looked into the kind face of the former I.O. medic.

  "She'll be fine," Doctor Koljonen said. "She's going to hurt for a while, but he didn't hit any vital organs."

  "That's good," Sarah said, stifling a yawn.

  "Would you like to see her?"

  "Yes," Sarah replied. See her, and find out where her boyfriend got an I.O. weapon. Those weren't commonly available on the streets, as far as Sarah knew. The dissolution of International Operations could have meant that some of its weaponry was ending up on the open market, though, and that would be very bad news indeed. Sarah hoped that wasn't the case.

  The doctor led Sarah to a window-enclosed room. Inside, the girl sat up in a bed, a glum expression on her face. Doctor Koljonen opened the door, smiled at her patient. The patient didn't smile back.

  "Natalie, this is Sarah," she said. "Sarah saved your life by bringing you here."

  "I wouldn't've died," Natalie said, her voice flat.

  "You might have," the doctor said. "You were losing a lot of blood, and you were in shock. You stayed out in the cold park much longer, you could easily have died. You owe this young lady a great deal."

  "That doesn't matter," Sarah said. "You don't have to like me. What I would like from you are some answers."

  "What kind of answers?" the girl asked. Her tone was hostile, as if Sarah hadn't done her any favors by saving her life.

  "That gun that Watkins shot you with. It's called a Stinger. It's made for an organization called International Operations. Where did he get it?"

  Natalie stared at a spot on the wall behind Sarah. She didn't speak.

  "Natalie?"

  "Huh?"

  "I asked you a question."

  "I don't talk about stuff like that."

  "I'm not trying to get him in trouble. But if those weapons are hitting the street, people are going to get hurt."

  'That ain't my problem."

  "Yes it is," Sarah argued. "You've already been hurt. What makes you think it won't happen again?"

  "He wouldn't do that."

  "Maybe not. But what if that other gang had some Stingers? Then how many of you would have been hospitalized? How many killed?"

  "Doc, I don't want to talk to her no more," Natalie said.

  "Natalie, listen—"

  "Doc!"

  Doctor Koljonen put a firm hand on Sarah's arm. "We need to respect her wishes,"
the doctor said. "Besides, the police have the legal standing to question her, and they'll do a thorough job of it, I promise."

  "They'd better," Sarah said. "Or it won't be a pretty time to live in New York."

  She left the room, stalked out of the hospital into the street. It was very late. She caught herself wondering briefly if Bobby and Grunge had had a good time at the concert.

  But that curiosity was short-lived, pushed aside by her distaste for the kind of society in which a girl would consider keeping her mouth shut about her gang's illegal weapons purchases more important than human life— even her own. How do you live in a world like that, she wondered. What's up and what's down?

  And she found herself thinking, not for the first time today, that all the superheroes in the world weren't powerful enough to do anything about the real problems they faced. The real problems lay much deeper, inside the human heart and the human soul.

  Places that, sometimes, an individual could reach. But places in which super powers had no impact.

  If anything, those powers created a gulf between the so-called hero and the people—the planet—the hero meant to serve.

  Maybe it was time to hang them up.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The transaction took place in the vast empty parking lot of a factory that had been abandoned for at least a decade. The factory stood on the shore of Jamaica Bay, where once it had taken in vast quantities of steel and turned it into office furniture for the military, olive and brown desks and filing cabinets and chairs. The kind of furnishings that no one admitted to liking, but after a lifetime of sitting in those chairs and working on those desks and filing in those cabinets, every retired military person who looked a table or chair of that color felt a small twinge of nostalgia.

  Carlo Bertolucci felt no such twinge. He had spent most of a year in the Army, before the unpleasant matter of the sergeant with no sense of humor had raised its ugly head, followed by the time in the brig and the court martial and the dishonorable discharge. But that was okay. Carlo had realized the military wasn't really for him anyway, and the military seemed to agree.

  Standing outside the black Lincoln in the cold night, he wouldn't have known what the factory had once made anyway, if Teddy, the driver, hadn't mentioned it. Teddy was from Brooklyn, and, while no one in his family had ever worked for the factory, Teddy had fought with kids whose parents had.