Unusual Events: A Short Story Collection

by Max Florschutz

  “I’m a reporter,” I said, trying to keep my composure cool. “An investigative journalist. I came to interview you.”

  “And how in the hell did you find me, girl?”

  I almost took offense to that. I’d always imagined Wanderer being the heroic type, the kind that was nice and congenial unless you ticked him off. Then again, maybe I’d woken him.

  “Your suit,” I said, trying to twist back so I could get a good look at him. No dice. The grip around my neck was solid. “The cloaking you have … The optical camouflage. It lets off some kind of EM interference that messes with old magnetic tapes while they’re recording.” The grip around my throat loosened, and I kept talking.

  “I tracked you with those,” I said. “I worked out the pattern in your movements—”

  “Pattern?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You’re always moving, but it’s to a very complex shape.” The fingers loosened a little more, though I didn’t dare try to pull free. “I figured it out, set up cameras, realized that you were the reason the cheap ones were going weird.” My voice was coming out faster and faster, though from excitement or panic, I couldn’t tell. Maybe it was both. “Used that to plot your path across the city and to here. I’m a big fan, and I would love to interview you. What do you say?”

  For a moment Wanderer was silent, and then the grip around my back of my neck vanished. I sank a little, my shoulders slumping, only to freeze as Wanderer pushed past me, not even glancing at me as his armored shoulder bumped against mine. For a split second, I was surprised by his height—or more lack of it. Then again, I’d grown about a half-a-foot since the last time I’d seen him. I still wasn’t his height, but I wasn’t short either. I guess the difference had seemed larger when I was a teen.

  He also spoke, though it wasn’t what I’d expected him to say. I’d been expecting a belated “Come in,” or maybe a “This way.” Instead what I got was something a little less welcoming, though looking back, it was a pretty reasonable response.

  “Well, shit.”

  I followed him, trying to keep myself from staring or shaking with excitement. Part of me felt like a little kid again. Wanderer. In the flesh. Well … in the suit. But he was right there. I consider it a testament to my will that I kept myself as calm and composed as I did. My mind was racing, spitting questions at me, but I had to stay collected, had to make it official. After all, this was the big moment.

  I stepped around the opening, following him into the storage unit. It was … less impressive than I had hoped. Most of the room was bland, lit by bright, overhead lights that definitely weren’t part of the original installation. There was some scattered furniture, but it was the kind of stuff that you’d see in a workshop rather than in someone’s living space. In fact, the unit looked like a workshop. A few benches were set up with scattered tools lying across them, and I could see a small wad of cash just sitting atop one, completely exposed.

  But the largest, most attention-grabbing feature of the whole room was the tarpaulin covered … something … in the center. It was large, large enough to be a decent-sized boat, though from the folds in the covering it was sitting with its belly flush to the floor. The shape of the tarp suggested that it was slightly aerodynamic, with a molded cockpit near one end and stubby little fins along the sides. My jaw dropped as my eyes worked their way towards the far end, where the covering had been pulled back just a tad and I could see what looked like a lowered hatch, the kind you’d see on a transport helicopter. I couldn’t see what was inside of it from my angle, but my brain was filling in the details already.

  It was a ship. What kind, I didn’t know, though the science-fiction lover in me immediately screamed “Spaceship!” as loudly as it could. I kept my mouth shut. But it was definitely a ship of some kind, and I took a step forward, eager to see what lay past the hatch.

  It lifted from the ground as Wanderer waved his hand at it, folding shut along the back of the craft. A second later that too was taken from my sight as he tugged the tarp down, flipping it back into place. Whatever lay inside his ship, he didn’t want me seeing it.

  I took a quick look around the rest of the unit as I made my way over to where he was standing. Outside of the benches and the tarpaulin covered craft, there wasn’t much else to the place. Definitely no bed, though it was possible there was one in the ship. There were a couple of oddly shaped objects in the back of the unit, each of them covered in smaller tarps, though from the dust they hadn’t been touched in years.

  I came to a stop in front of Wanderer and stared at him for a moment. He returned the gesture, or at least I thought he did. It was hard to tell since his visor didn’t let me see his face.

  Still, I could see the rest of him, and it was the first time I’d gotten such a close look. His suit looked like it was made of a series of interlocking plates, all of them connected to one another through some strange mechanism I couldn’t see, and somehow completely silent when they moved over one another. It was almost like looking at a robot, but beneath the metal I could see the shape of a human being. It was hidden by the plates, but there were gaps where I could make out what looked like some sort of interior suit made out of … well, I had no idea what, to be honest. But if I’d had to guess at it, the outer part of the suit that everyone saw just rested on that inner part, or was attached to it, and that was what he was actually wearing.

  But how did he get into it? I wanted to know. One more question for the list. But first …

  “Samantha,” I said, holding out my hand. “Samantha—”

  “So?”

  The hostile nature of the query threw me. “Sorry?”

  “I don’t care what your name is. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to interview you,” I said, trying not to look too disappointed. “You’re Wanderer. The superhero of the city. What else would I be here for?”

  There was a pause, his visor tilting down towards my outstretched hand and then back up at my face. I pulled my arm back. I could tell I wasn’t going to get a handshake.

  “And if I don’t?” he asked. “You go and tell everyone where I’m hiding?” He shook his head. “Dirt-rubbing reporters.”

  I blinked. I wasn’t familiar with the phrase.

  “Like scavengers, always digging for a story. And if you can’t get it, you just keep digging, all of you. You don’t think about who you’re after, just the story. Just the glory of the—”

  “You saved me from a mugging once!” I said, my voice echoing across the storage unit. “I’m not just some dirt … dirt … Whatever it was you just said I was. I saw you on the television when I was six years old. I’ve followed your every step. I’ve wanted to meet you for forever. You’re a hero with an untold story.”

  “See?” he asked, as if I was proving his point. “You’re just—”

  “And if you don’t want it to be told, then it won’t!” I said, speaking over him. He quieted. “I’ll walk out of here and never tell a soul what I found. It’ll be a bust. If you don’t want me to talk, I won’t.” It hurt to give voice to words I was so afraid of, but I couldn’t risk getting thrown out. Not now.

  “Really?” There was a dark sense of accusation to the question, and for a moment I wanted to see his eyes, to try and read his expression. Chalk up one more use for the armor, I guess.

  “I promise,” I said. “Meeting you is one of the biggest moments of my life. You’ve done a lot to help people. I respect that … Admire it, really.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, though he seemed to slouch slightly, his muscles easing. “And?”

  “And …” I said, racking my brains. It was hard to think with my hero standing just feet away. “As a show of good faith, I didn’t even bring a video camera. No one knows where you’re hiding, and no one will. I have a vocal recorder.” I popped the device in question out of my pocket. “A spare.” I pulled the second one out. “And a disposable camera. That’s it. All I want is to interview you.”

 
“Why?”

  It wasn’t going at all like I’d expected. “Because you’re a hero!” I said, my volume rising a little. “Our hero! People want to know! People want you to know! We want to know why, and who, and what! We’re curious!” I was letting some of my enthusiasm shine through, but I didn’t mind. In retrospect, it probably blinded me a little to what I was seeing, but no one’s perfect. “And we want to know all about a superhero who’s done a lot for us.”

  “You do, huh? You really want to know?”

  I was too excited to hear the tone in his voice, to see the signs. I should have, but I was high on the moment. I nodded, and Wanderer shook his head.

  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s not wise you meet your heroes?”

  That comment did make it through my shield, and I faltered slightly. “What?”

  “Never mind,” he said, shaking his head as dropped down onto a heavy-looking chair. I could hear the metal creak under the weight of him and his armor. “Fine. I can see there’s no good end to this, so I might as well do it on my terms.” Now I was really confused, but even then I could sense the story brewing. He was going to give me an interview! I tugged over one of the other seats, the heavy metal scratching against the concrete. I could hardly believe my luck. Here I was, meeting with Wanderer, and he was going to grant me the interview I’d always wanted to give!

  “I can’t tell you everything,” he said as I began to configure the recorder. “Legal stuff, though I guess it doesn’t really matter. They can’t prosecute me now. Assholes.”

  I just nodded. Sure, whatever. Anything he said was gold to me.

  “Let’s start with the basics,” I said, unconsciously tucking my hair behind one ear as I started recording. “First of all, thank you for consenting to give this interview. It means a lot to me.”

  “Sure. Whatever.”

  I flinched, but decided not to comment on it. He probably hadn’t meant his comment to seem so biting. He was just … nervous, maybe. “Could you state your name for the record? Not your real name, but the identity you’re known to the city as.”

  Wanderer shrugged, the plates faintly clicking. “Doesn’t matter. My real name won’t exist for a while anyway. It’s Jacard Reiynd. J-A-C-A-R-D-R-E-I-Y-N-D. You know me as Wanderer.”

  “That’s an unusual name, Mr. Reiynd.” I said, forcing my tongue around the unfamiliar pronunciation and hoping I wasn’t butchering it. “Do you mind telling me where it’s from?”

  He chuckled, and I started to feel a bit more at ease.

  “New Faraday,” he said. “You’ve never heard of it.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I haven’t.” Now that he was speaking, I could hear a faint accent to his voice, though I had no idea where it was from. It kind of reminded me of … well, I wasn’t really sure. There was a distortion that I was sure was coming from the suit, a low rumble through the lower tones, but it couldn’t hide the soft pronunciation of his consonants. It was odd, and completely unfamiliar to me.

  “Yeah, well, I can’t say I’m surprised,” he said. “It’s a little early for that yet.”

  Again his comment made me pause. It didn’t make sense. “What do you mean by ‘early?’” I asked, trying to get some clarification.

  He let out another chuckle, but this one had a harsh edge to it. “Exactly what I meant. You figure it out.”

  Right. So he wasn’t going to be cooperative. I could handle it … I hoped. I’d done other interviews before, and I wasn’t about to let this one crack my cool, despite who I was talking to. “Well, then,” I said, trying to settle on a set of questions to ask first. Dozens of them ran through my mind, but I decided to go with the theme we already had going.

  “So, Jacard Reiynd from New Faraday,” I said, repeating everything back at him so that I could make sure I’d gotten the pronunciations right. “You said the name was from there. Were you, originally?”

  “I was born there,” he said. “That was some time … well, some time ago.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, where is that located?” I asked, leaning forward slightly as I made sure that the recorder was centered between us. This was the interview of a lifetime, and I wanted optimum pickup. “Like I said, I’ve never heard of it.”

  I got the impression he was smiling at me beneath his visor as he tilted his head. “About twenty-four light years from here. Gliese Six-Six-Seven system,” he said. “A planet we call C-Square.”

  My heart almost stopped. My mouth and mind certainly did. Twenty-four light years? Another planet? My jaw fell open as I stared at Wanderer for a moment. Was he … I managed to push out a sentence so unsteady it almost creaked. “Are you … alien?”

  So much for journalistic professionalism.

  Thankfully, Wanderer chuckled—a real chuckle this time, and the first sign of human warmth I’d seen from his since entering his small abode. Then he shook his head.

  “No,” he said, the faint accent becoming even more apparent as he spoke. “I’m terran, or human as you people like to call it.”

  “I …” All the questions I’d wanted to ask had fled from my mind in the face of the dominant topic before me. I’d expected a runaway military project, a secretive scientist … I even wouldn’t have been too surprised by some billionaire playboy trying to do some good. But someone from another planet … someone who was claiming that he was human …

  Thankfully, years of training took over, my brain running on autopilot as I nodded and then fired back a question designed to get him to keep talking. “I’m sorry, but I wasn’t aware that there were humans living there. As far as I’m aware, we don’t even have people living on the moon yet. Did I miss something, or …?” I let the question trail off, an open invitation for Wanderer to take the bait and fill in the blanks.

  “You didn’t miss anything,” he said, shaking his head. “At least, you haven’t yet. Mankind didn’t make it to the moon permanently until sometime in the late thirties.”

  “Nineteen-thirties?” I asked, probing for clarification. Maybe Wanderer was just crazy.

  “No,” he said back, his tone flat. “Two-thousand and thirty.”

  “That’s just under fifteen years from now,” I said. “How can you claim that we’ll make it to the moon then when it hasn’t happened yet?”

  “I can’t,” he said, shrugging. “Things are different enough here that maybe it won’t happen. Might be earlier, might be later. Hell, it might not even happen at all. Things sure look different from some of the stuff I learned in the history books. Who knows? Maybe my being here already changed things. Maybe it’ll happen earlier because of me, in which case, my superiors would definitely like to have my ass in a sling if I ever make it back. Which I won’t.”

  “Back … where?” I asked, my forehead furrowing as I tried to parse everything he’d just said. There were statements in there that didn’t make sense, that didn’t follow logical threads of thought. He was talking about future events, but like they’d already happened. Not just to his present, but like they were ancient history.

  There was only one explanation, an explanation so impossible that it couldn’t be true, except Wanderer was sitting right in front of me claiming otherwise. Talking about events that hadn’t happened yet as if they were old and commonplace. It was the stuff of kid’s television shows.

  “You’re a …” Wanderer just stared at me. I almost couldn’t bring myself to say it. It was completely unwarranted speculation, and if it got out and Wanderer was exposed as a fraud, even suggesting that I believed in it, in something so impossible it’d been written off for years, would probably mean a swift consignment to backwater fluff for the rest of my life. I had to voice my response carefully. “Are you claiming to be a time traveler?”

  “Now you’re getting it,” he said, nodding. “Though I can’t claim to be much of a traveler. It was a bit of a one-way trip. More like … Like … a time castaway.” He let out a sigh and leaned back in his seat, metal creaking
once more as the weight of his suit shifted.

  “My name, like I said, is Jacard Reiynd. Born Earth-year two thousand, one hundred and sixty-two in the city of New Faraday, New Nauru province, planet Gliese Six-six-seven C-C, or C-Square. Supply conscript in the United Terra Defense Fleet, Logistics Wing Three-two, operational ground support and resupply.”

  My jaw was hanging open and I knew it. Either Wanderer—or Jacard, as he called himself—was completely crazy and also brilliant enough to build a suit of armor that was decades ahead of anything we’d ever dreamed … or … just maybe he was telling the truth. From his voice, he certainly sounded like he believed it. Either way I had to keep him talking.

  “You were a soldier?” I asked. “In the … what was it?”

  “Conscripted soldier,” he corrected. “United Terra Defense Fleet. The big space navy that keeps all the colony worlds as well as Earth protected—or rather in-line, provided you don’t believe all the bullshit they’re pushing. Star-mad floaters, the lot of them.”

  “And this is in the future?” I prompted. Wanderer nodded.

  “Yeah, it is,” he said. “And they’d execute me in a heart-beat if they ever found out I was telling you all this. We’re not supposed to talk about the past—well, I guess for you it’s the probable future. Maybe. I don’t really know how it all works out. Maybe some of the noble class understand it, but for a rank-and-file supply pilot like me, all we get told is the basics. You become part of a temporal anomaly; you keep your mouth shut.”

  “Have there been problems with it before?” I asked.

  Wanderer shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine—which seeing how little sense all of this probably makes to you says volumes, I think, on how little we know. We know temporal events happen, but there’s no way of telling if any of them affect anything. For all we know, we’re just popping into endless parallel universes where we might as well do what we want.”