Relic

by Steve Whibley

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you,” Archer said. “I just said I wouldn’t be taking care of it for you. I’m here to help you. That’s my job.”

  The three of us sighed with relief, and Colin slapped a hand on my shoulder.

  “But this one’s easy,” Archer continued. “You know the security guard works at the museum, and you can be pretty sure the man in black is a thief. You know the when, the where, and the what.” He looked at us expectantly. “So what do you think you should do?”

  “Tie up the monk,” Colin said.

  Archer’s mouth twisted. “Yeah…maybe we should come back to that option.” He gave me a worried look and added, “Since you’re not even sure it was this monk—what did you say his name was again?”

  “Sok,” Lisa said. “Sok Pram.”

  Archer nodded. “Right. Well, Sok might not be the thief.” His eyebrows rose. “This is simple. Forget Dean’s gift. You know the when and where of a crime that’s going to be committed so…”

  “The police?” I asked.

  “We can’t go to the police,” Colin said. “They’ll think we’re nuts.”

  Archer shrugged. “They might. But if you can convince them there is a sliver of truth to your story, they’ll check into it. And even an increased police presence can be effective at stopping crime.”

  “But if we can’t tell them about Dean’s vision,” Lisa said, “then we…what? Lie?”

  Archer blew out a breath and rubbed his chin. “There are some people in the Society who don’t lie on principle. I have a slightly different moral compass. A lie to save a life? I wouldn’t lose sleep over that. But it’s something you’ll have to decide on your own.”

  I’d lied to my parents dozens of times since I got the gift…and to so many other people along the way too. I wondered when I’d gotten so comfortable lying, and why I didn’t feel worse about it. The only thing I could come up with was that, like Archer said, a lie to save a life hardly seemed wrong. “I guess I don’t have too much of a problem lying,” I said finally.

  “A quick piece of advice then,” Archer said. “The best lies are the simplest lies. Don’t make them complicated. Just short and simple. You don’t want to give them something to poke holes in.”

  “Tips on how to lie,” Lisa said. “What’s next, lock-picking lessons?”

  “If you like,” Archer said without a hint of sarcasm.

  “Cool,” Colin said.

  I took a deep breath. We didn’t have a fully formed plan, but we had something, and the knot in my stomach relaxed some. Archer was right. If the police drove around the block a few times, or swung by a few minutes before the break-in, the burglars would either be arrested or they’d just change their minds and leave. Sok’s image suddenly popped into my head. If he was the burglar, I hoped he’d see the police and leave. For some reason, I didn’t want him to get caught, which was a bit strange since I hardly knew the guy.

  Thunder cracked, and a single raindrop struck my cheek, pulling me back to the moment at hand. “Okay,” I said. “I think we can handle it.”

  “I think you can too,” Archer agreed. “But if something happens and you need my help, call me.”

  More raindrops hit my face, and I glanced up at the dark sky.

  “We have other questions,” Colin said.

  “I thought you would,” Archer said. “Ask away.”

  Chapter 17

  “Is there a secret lair somewhere?” Colin asked excitedly. “Like Batman’s cave, the X-Men’s mansion, or Justice League’s Watchtower, or—”

  “He watches a lot of movies,” I explained as Archer’s eyes widened.

  “I see,” Archer said with a grin. “That’s not a bad question, Colin. I’ve often thought that the Society needed some kind of secret hideout. Like maybe a command centre in an abandoned subway tunnel—retrofitted of course.”

  “That would be so cool,” Colin said dreamily.

  “We have a place we meet,” Archer said, “but I think you’ll find it’s not quite up to the standards of the Bat Cave. It serves its purpose. We work together when the situation requires it, which isn’t often. A chairman is appointed—the current one lives in England—and he and his team run things on a global scale, but there are country leaders, and within the countries are zones and districts. It’s all very boring, I’m afraid. But it’s necessary.”

  “Can we see it?” Colin asked, almost begging. “The meeting place, I mean.”

  “Of course,” Archer said. “There’s a meeting not too far off, actually. You three can come with me if we can think of something to tell your parents.”

  Colin’s grin practically tore his face in half.

  “So I’ll only have visions of people I touch, right?” It was a point I felt needed to be fully understood. If I was going to act like a nut avoiding people, I wanted to make sure it was going to work.

  “And only if he can do something about it,” Lisa added, “right?”

  Archer nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “Pretty much?” I asked. “Does that mean yes?”

  “It’s not quite so cut and dry; even among Society members debates rage about this issue. Here’s how I see it: I imagine that every person I make a connection with—every person I touch—is connected to me by a guitar string. So imagine you’re standing in a field with hundreds of thousands of strings connecting you to hundreds of thousands of people. The better I know that person, or the closer that person is in proximity to me, the more in tune that string is.” He licked his lips. “Then I imagine that when someone I am connected to is going to suffer a deadly—preventable—fate, Death plucks that string of the guitar.”

  “Death?” Lisa asked. “As in hooded figure in a black robe, carries a scythe?”

  “That’s the one,” Archer said. “In the figurative sense, of course. Now that first note, that’s the vision. It’s strong, it’s direct, it’s as if Death himself is sending out a warning. The second warning…” He shook his head. “That one’s tough. If you know the person really well, if your connection to that person is really strong—or you’re in really close proximity—that second note can be just as strong. But if you’re not close, if you’re not that connected, the warning is weak, or often nonexistent.” He looked at us carefully then asked, “Does that make some sense?”

  I remembered the first couple of people I touched and how I had visions of them and then read about their deaths in the paper. There hadn’t been any second warning with them, I hadn’t experienced Death’s second note in those cases. But then I wasn’t anywhere nearby, and I’d never truly met the people before. “Yeah,” I said. “I get it.”

  Archer smiled, then took a breath and continued. “Now let’s say you make a connection with someone ten minutes before they’re going to step out in front of a bus. You won’t get that first warning. Death played that first note before you were connected. But you’ll still get the second warning note.”

  “How will he know who to save?” Colin asked. “It could be anyone, right?”

  “Yeah, Colin, it could. But remember, in those situations where you miss the first warning, it will be someone you met or touched in the last twenty-four hours.” He shook his head. “Can you imagine how rare a situation like that would be? Remember, preventable deaths don’t happen all that often. You won’t be saving people who die of disease or natural causes. You’ll be saving people who would otherwise be killed by their actions or the actions of someone else. I know it sounds confusing right now, but as we get into the history a bit more, you’ll understand it better.

  “For now, know that I’ve touched tens, or even hundreds of thousands of people and I still go days and weeks without visions. Sometimes even months. In those rare instances when there is no vision beforehand, you need to just do the best you can. I won’t lie to you, Dean. Those instances, as uncommon as they are, rarely end well.”

  I swallowed hard. “I think I just need time to let this soak in a bit. It still feels like it’s n
ot real sometimes.”

  Archer smiled. “Don’t expect that feeling to ever fully go away.”

  “Where did the Society come from?” Lisa asked.

  “We don’t have time for a full history lesson,” Archer said, “and even if we did, there is some debate on the topic. What we generally agree on is that it started more than a thousand years ago during a time when kings were quick to war and failed to value human lives the way they should’ve. The Society has had to evolve, but it very much follows the premise it was founded on: life is worth saving.”

  Colin’s eyes widened. “It started in a time when there were kings?”

  “There are still kings today, you idiot,” Lisa said. Their ensuing argument fell into the background and mixed with the patter of rain and traffic sounds from the streets around the park.

  A single question had worked my mind like a jackhammer ever since the mugging that changed my life—ever since I interrupted the back-alley attack on Mr. Vidmar. At first I’d thought about the question with resentment, but not now. My sister would’ve been killed by a BMW, and Mr. Cosler would’ve been killed by his pretzel if we hadn’t intervened. Still, the question remained, but it was with fear that I asked it. Fear that I wouldn’t like the answer, or that it would put terrible pressure on me. My eyes locked with Archer’s, and he lifted an eyebrow. I stepped forward, hesitating for a minute before I spoke.

  “Why me?” I asked finally.

  Lisa and Colin stopped fighting and turned their attention to Archer. They’d probably wondered the same thing.

  Archer contemplated the sky. The rain splattered against the side of the truck. After long seconds, he turned back to me. “I’d like to give you an answer, Dean. But the truth is I really don’t know why you were chosen. We’ve gone back and forth about that at the Society. Everyone has an opinion. Maybe it was because you helped Vidmar. Maybe he saw something in you. Or maybe he’d been so badly beaten that he didn’t realize what he was doing.”

  “You think he made a mistake?” The words fell out of my mouth before I realized I was speaking, and I felt my face warm at having exposed my insecurity.

  “No,” Archer said without pause. “Not at all. You tried to save your neighbor, and you actually saved your sister and that guy at the mall…”

  “Arnold Cosler,” Colin said.

  Archer pointed at Colin and nodded. “Arnold Cosler, right, he’d be dead right now if you three hadn’t intervened.” He shook his head. “No, Dean, there isn’t a person in the Society who won’t welcome you. You’re the right kid to have the gift, but I’ve no idea how Vidmar knew that.” He drummed his fingers in time with the rain.

  “Did he have to give it to me?” I asked. “I mean, did he have to give it to someone before he died? Is that one of the rules or something?”

  Archer shook his head. “It was his gift to give. There aren’t any rules about it. But we have a process for vetting and training people who might be good for the Society. A process that prepares them for what they’ll experience.”

  “Why not just give it to everyone?” Lisa asked. “Wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone had it?”

  Archer shook his head. “Even if that were possible—and it’s not—it wouldn’t be a good idea. People aren’t all the same, Lisa. Some people would use the gift for their own benefit. Others would just go insane with the visions or the failures. It would be cruel to give it to just anyone. It should be a choice.” He looked back at me. “It should’ve been a choice for you too. It was a choice for me, one I almost didn’t make. And I’ve seen dozens of people go through the training only to turn down the gift in the end. It’s not an easy way to live.”

  “Do you ever regret it?” I asked.

  “Accepting the gift?” Archer asked. “There are moments when I feel like maybe I’m not the best person for this. But I’ve saved a lot of people, Dean. I don’t regret accepting it. At least, I haven’t yet.”

  “So no one is going to take it away from him?” Colin asked. “Because he’s too young or something?”

  “They couldn’t even if they wanted to,” Archer answered.

  In a blink, my chest warmed with relief, and at the same time my stomach knotted with fear. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d expected there to be a way to remove the gift if I decided I didn’t want it. But suddenly I realized that I did want it, no matter how hard or strange it would make my life.

  A thunderous boom directly overhead made me jump, and the rain became fat drops. We were getting drenched, and rain was pounding the side of the ice cream truck, soaking Archer and the stuff just inside the opening on the side.

  “Tell the police,” Archer said, raising his voice above the downpour. “Don’t get between the robbers and the guards, just tell the police. Remember, changing one little thing, like increasing patrols in an area, is usually enough.”

  “Wait,” Colin said. “That’s it? We still have questions. When does Dean get his gear?”

  “Gear?”

  “You know, like his grappling hooks, tiny cameras, and exploding pens. That sort of stuff.”

  Archer laughed but ignored the question. “I’d invite you three into the truck, but inviting kids into an ice cream truck is a bit creepier than just leaving them to get soaked.” He lifted a board that would fill the hole in the side of the truck. “Don’t worry, I’ll see you again. Good luck with the police.” He slid the wood in place, and a second later, the truck roared to life and pulled away.

  “He’s a bit weird,” Lisa said.

  “I like him,” Colin said. “He reminds me of James Bond.”

  “Oh yeah, they both drive really hot cars,” Lisa said.

  “Ha, ha.” Colin turned to me. “What do you think, Dean?”

  I blinked twice and wiped rain off my face. “I think we’re about to lie to the police.”

  Chapter 18

  The police station smelled like potpourri, which I wasn’t expecting. I thought it would smell like criminals, and in my mind, criminals smelled like a mixture of smoke, sweat, and booze. Maybe the station smelled like that when the potpourri ran out. Each step I took toward the information counter tightened the knot in my stomach. This has to work, I told myself. It has to.

  The officer behind the desk had a pale, narrow face and brown hair thin enough to see his scalp. He raised his chin when we walked up and said tiredly, “If you kids are just trying to get out of the rain, this isn’t the place.”

  Our soaking clothes stuck to our bodies like colorful second skins. Lisa swiped a few wet strands of hair out of her eyes, and Colin just stood there, dripping. I glanced back at the muddy prints we’d tracked from the door and grimaced. We’d discussed how this was going to work while we walked to the police station: what we had to say, what we’d probably be asked, how we’d respond. I’d been concentrating on not messing it up to the point that I almost forgot how soaked we were. I wished we’d had more time to think things through. Another crack of thunder yanked me from my daze, and I turned back to the officer.

  “We’d like to report a robbery.” I wanted to sound grown-up, but my voice came out several octaves deeper than I was going for and just made me sound like an idiot.

  The officer didn’t seem to notice. “You’ve been robbed?”

  “No,” Lisa said. “We heard someone talking about robbing a place, and we’d like to report it.”

  “I see.” The officer pushed his fingers through what little hair he had and tapped the keys on his computer. Then he snatched up the phone on his right, waited a moment, and said, “Detective Peters? I’ve got a couple kids up here who want to report a robbery. Uh-huh. Okay.” He replaced the phone and gestured to bench. “Take a seat.”

  “But…couldn’t we just tell you what we heard and leave it at that?” I asked. The plan was to keep it simple.

  “That’s not how it works,” the officer said. Colin and Lisa both opened their mouths to speak, but the officer just pointed to the benches aga
in. “Have a seat.”

  “This was supposed to be quick,” Colin muttered as we took our seats. “Just in and out.”

  “We should’ve just called it in,” Lisa whispered.

  I shook my head. “We already discussed this. Cops probably get a million prank calls a day, and this is too important. If they thought we were just kids playing a gag, then what?” I didn’t give them a chance to answer. “Two people will die, that’s what.” I shook my head again. “We have to make sure they believe us. I need to know they’re going to do something. If we made an anonymous call, we wouldn’t know if they took it seriously.”

  Lisa bit her lip. “You’re right.” She lowered her voice and leaned past Colin. “But we could get in a lot of trouble for this.”

  Colin fidgeted with his cell phone, then stuffed it in his pocket and wiped his palms across his jeans. I couldn’t tell if he was excited or scared, but I suspected he was a little of both. He was usually the confident one, but I think he knew as well as I did that this wasn’t some innocent prank we were pulling off. It was serious. Deadly serious.

  We’re saving lives, I reminded myself. Pull it together.

  I’d barely finished my thought when the door to the left of the information counter swung open and a short, slender woman with dark hair and a gun on her hip stepped out. She had dark pants and a blue dress shirt that reminded me of what my mom sometimes wore to work—minus the gun, of course. We stared at her for several long seconds until she glanced at us and then turned to the officer at the information counter, who gave an uninterested flick of his head in our general direction. We stood up as she approached.

  The detective had a face as smooth as polished steel, and she looked at least as tough. She narrowed her dark eyes and tilted her head as she drew near and studied us the way my mom studied abstract paintings. She wore the look of a skeptic, the kind of look you’d expect from someone who has been lied to for most of her life. My high school principal had that same look.

  “I’m Detective Peters,” she said, reaching out her hand.