Fireworks

by James A. Moore

  George Harding was a bit of a recluse. He'd been a friendly and open boy growing up, but two tours of Viet Nam-courtesy of the United States Marine Corps-had brought him home to Collier a very different man. He'd never really recovered from whatever had happened to him during those years. Not completely. They say a man's home is his castle, and in George's case, the castle bore too many similarities to the owner for that statement to be a lie. His house was slowly disintegrating from years of neglect, and his lawn looked as overgrown as the shaggy beard on George's baggy face. He was a lifelong bachelor at fifty-five, which wasn't too surprising when one considered that he liked his privacy and he liked his peace. He was sometimes rude, almost always unkempt, and often intoxicated. But he was not what most people would call violent. He still got out and he still mingled with the other people around him; he just didn't participate in very many community projects. The only time most people spoke to George was when they ran across him at the Piggly Wiggly. Most of the time he was on the Internet. Somewhere along the way he'd apparently discovered that he liked talking to lines of hastily written text on a computer far more than he liked speaking directly with people. There was a buffer that way.

  No one ever really complained about him, because most people didn't see him often enough to give him much thought. So when the group stopped in front of George's house, Frank didn't expect the situation to be any different than it had elsewhere.

  No one could have been more surprised than the captain of the Collier Police when George Harding came out of his house carrying an automatic rifle. Hell, the only thing old George had registered was a .22 pistol. Frank had about enough time to take in George's wild mane of black hair and the soiled pajamas the man was wearing before the rifle registered in his mind. He didn't even have time to call out to the man before Collier's local drunk opened fire.

  The good news was simply that George was drunk enough to forget to aim first. The bad news was that George managed a few lucky shots. One of the soldiers, sadly not Clipboard, staggered back as three bullets punched him in the chest. The truck behind the soldier let out a whine of protest as a bullet bounced off the hood of the engine and another shattered the windshield. By the time the rest of the men had drawn their weapons, George had disappeared from sight. His front door slammed audibly.

  Frank ran towards the downed soldier just in time to see the man get back to his feet. Three dents in his torso marked where the bullets had impacted. One of the slugs was still stuck against the body armor. Frank had assumed the pads were made of Kevlar, but looking closer he couldn't decide. Like as not, if the armor had been Kevlar, the man wouldn't be moving. He'd be down and out with several broken ribs. Impressive stuff, whatever it was. The light was too poor to make easy detection possible.

  The soldier shrugged off Frank's offered help and moved forward. "Fuck you, too, asshole," Frank muttered. Two of the men moved in unison, returning to the truck. Fifteen seconds later, they pulled the battering ram from the back of the vehicle and moved towards the front door. They moved with machine-like precision, stepping in unison and cocking back the heavy steal tool as casually as most men would pop the top on a beer can. Frank admired the result of the hours of training the men had gone through. There was no way the unit could work that smoothly without endless practice sessions.

  One strike was all that was needed for the men to knock the door from its hinges in a splintering explosion of rotted wood. The decay in the door was not apparent from outside, but was very evident in the way the door collapsed. The two soldiers staggered a bit, apparently not prepared to meet with so little resistance. Several popping noises came from inside the house, and both men staggered back. Holes appeared in the walls of George's house, and flinders of oak flew away from the place.

  Frank started running forward, cursing himself for his stupidity even as he moved. He knew before he took his first step that it was already too late. George was a dead man. He tried just the same.

  By the time he'd covered half the distance to the door, the two men had recovered from George's assault. They were joined by the other three. For the first time, Clipboard was indistinguishable from everyone else. He namesake lay in the thick grass, discarded and replaced by the weapon normally slung over his shoulder. Five muzzles flashed in unison and part of George's house just sort of disappeared. Frank was aware that he made a sound, but for all the world he had no idea what that sound was. It could have been a laugh, a scream or even a sigh of defeat.

  He stopped moving. The soldiers continued on. No new sounds came from inside the building. After a few moments, Frank started towards the house again, resigned to the certain knowledge that George Harding was already dead. He was right. What was left of George painted the walls in crimson and bled across the tan carpet in the man's living room.

  Frank felt his stomach twist itself into knots. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to take careful aim at the eyepiece on Clipboard's mask and fire repeatedly into the glass. He wanted a lot of things. Instead he could only stare at poor George Harding's mortal remains and wonder just what the hell had gone wrong inside the man's head.

  Clipboard moved into his field of vision. Judging by the direction in which his faceplate was pointed, he was wondering the very same thing. Frank noticed the very slight shake that had developed in the man's hands and felt a certain satisfaction: now he didn't feel quite so bad about the way his knees were jitterbugging all over the place. Clipboard spoke. It took Frank a few seconds to realize that the man was talking to him.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't catch that."

  "I said I'm sorry this had to happen. I really hoped we could get this done without any casualties."

  Frank stared at the bug-eyed lenses, searching for even the faintest hint of the eyes behind the mask. In all the time the man had gone without a helmet, he'd never had a chance to study the soldier's face. "Well, I should have expected something like this. I just never expected it from old George."

  "Why would you expect something like this?"

  " 'Cause this is the South. Damn near everybody in this town has a nasty independent streak, and almost everyone of legal age has at least one firearm."

  "That's ridiculous." Clipboard crossed his arms. "Why in the name of God would the people of Collier all need to carry weapons?"

  Frank shrugged. "Like I said, this is the South. Most of the people down this way still hold a grudge about losing the Civil War."

  "That was a hundred and thirty-five years ago. I doubt anyone in this town was alive when that took place."

  "Well, there's one other reason."

  "Yeah? What's that?" The arrogant tone had snuck back into Clipboard's buzzing voice. Frank held off the urge to hit the man.

  "You can never tell when a bunch of jack-booted assholes are gonna come into your town and try to tell you that the Constitution of the United States is worthless." Frank turned and walked out to his car before the man could reply.

  The rest of the night fell into a simple routine. No one else was killed, but Frank arrested 17 more people before they were finished with the collections. He knew all of them, if not by name then certainly by face. Most compared him to the Nazis and some even made comments about his dubious lineage. He ignored the comments. What he could not disregard were the sullen looks and sad expressions that very clearly called out to him. Every last one marked him as a traitor.

  Maybe it wouldn't have bothered him as much if he didn't feel like a turncoat inside. Logic told him that he was doing the right thing. His emotions disagreed.

  He finally made it home just past midnight. When he fell onto the bed he closed his eyes immediately. His sleep was sound, and he did not remember any of his dreams. That was probably for the best. For the first time in his adult life, Frank Osborn cried in his sleep.

  4

  Frank did not wake easily. His alarm clock kept going off and he kept hitting the snooze button in the hopes of getting another precious ten minutes of peace. So, naturally, Buck c
alled him at a quarter past nine to see where he was. "Hey there, Frank. I catch you gettin' in some beauty sleep?"

  "No," he replied testily. "You caught me tryin' to play hooky."

  "You wantin' to stay in today?" Buck's voice was softer than usual. Whenever Frank felt like being ill, Buck's voice changed to that of a mother hen. "I'll take care of things over here, if you need the time off." Frank hated that mother-hen voice; it made him feel guilty, and he suspected that Buck damn well knew it, too.

  "I'll be there in twenty minutes." Frank thought about the situation for a second, then asked, "How the hell did you manage to get me on the phone, anyway?"

  Buck chuckled on the other end of the line. "I'm real good at getting my way, Frank. Haven't you figured that out yet? I can handle things over here, Frank. It ain't like we're gonna get a lot of new stuff going on anyway."

  "Make it forty minutes if that'll make you happier. I've got to go by the lake and talk to Colonel Anderson."

  "Will do. Talk to you then."

  Frank hung up the phone without any attempt at further conversation. He showered quickly, then shaved. The shaving took a little longer, as the minor burns on his face were still sensitive. The skin was peeling away from the area, leaving a fresh pink layer of flesh in its place.

  Inside ten minutes from the time he got off the phone, Frank was on his way out of his house. Seven minutes later he'd reached what had once been Oldman's Lake. There was no water left in the lake's bed. Only dead fish, a lot of junk and the ship that was the cause of Collier's dilemma.

  Once again he felt compelled to stare at the craft, almost mesmerized by the sheer size of the thing. It thrust from the rapidly drying mud like the fin of a shark frozen in time. Deep cracks in the ground around the ship were obvious even past the silt that had settled around the base. The damn thing had broken the earth beneath it even after slicing through the lake proper. From the way the curvature of the vessel ran-a perfect disc shape as far as he could tell-at least half of the saucer was still buried beneath the bottom of the lakebed. Looking right at the thing, Frank felt as if there was more to the shape than could be seen. Hidden dimensions of depth were hinted at in the somehow off-kilter line of the ship's edge. Despite the fact that the surface of the vessel was smooth and seamless, Frank sensed there was more just beneath the surface of the downed ship's metallic hide. A chill ran from his toes to the crown of his head, ignoring the ninety plus degree weather.

  Frank heard the sound of boots behind him, but the voice of Colonel Anderson still gave his heart reason to double its normal pace and made him jump slightly. "It's an amazing sight, isn't it?" His voice buzzed and, without turning, Frank knew he was back in the environmental security of his mask.

  "It doesn't feel real. You know what I mean?"

  "Yes. It doesn't feel like it belongs here."

  "That's exactly it."

  Frank turned and faced the man. He was right; the helmet and breathing apparatus were back in place. Darth Vader Junior lived again. Frank had to squint to see the man completely. The sun was almost directly overhead, but the glare in the overcast sky was nearly blinding. "Is that thing as hot as it looks?"

  Anderson laughed tinnily. "Hotter. If I wasn't breathing compressed air, I'd be melting. The oxygen in the tanks is cold and that makes it a little more tolerable."

  Frank looked back the other way, once again staring at the massive blade cutting into the heart of the now dead lake. "You ought to have a great time when the rain hits. This here is southern Georgia. Like as not the roads'll be steaming after the rain stops."

  "That bad, huh?"

  "Not if you like being soaked through your clothes as soon as you leave your house." The Colonel laughed politely, and Frank screwed up enough courage to ask what he felt he had to ask. "What happens next, Mark?"

  "We do a little analysis, we figure the best way to get this monster out of here, and we leave."

  Yeah, he thought, and my ass bean a powerful resemblance to Mother Teresa. No way in hell is it that easy. "How do you imagine you're gonna get something that big out of here without being seen?"

  "That's the biggest part of the problem. We might have to disassemble it here." Anderson paused for a minute, moving his entire head in a half-circle as he took in the ship without benefit of peripheral vision. "Provided we can find a way in."

  "Tell me you boys didn't forget your saws…"

  The man laughed again. "No. But I'm having doubts about how we're going to cut into anything that can survive the sort of impact that thing suffered when it hit the lake."

  "How tough can it be? I mean, it landed in water."

  "It landed in water, probably somewhere near terminal velocity. And Oldman's Lake isn't more than a hundred feet deep at best, lower in a lot of other parts of the lake. That thing should have blown a crater into the lake that was big enough to save us from draining it. I think it did something to actually absorb a lot of the impact itself. And the scariest thing about it is the structure is still sound from what I can see. An airplane would have been confetti after a wreck like that."

  "When you gonna test it?"

  "What? The ship?"

  Frank nodded.

  "In about three hours, if all goes well."

  "Why so long?"

  Anderson pointed to an area a good ways off, where several trucks were being unloaded. A sizable group of the armored soldiers moved large metal poles from the stacks on the back of the trucks. More of them stood closer to the edge of the lake, placing the beams on large pallets set near a small crane on the back of still another truck.

  "We have to move all of that down into the lakebed. Then we have to build a scaffold."

  "What the hell for?"

  Anderson looked straight at him, and Frank was certain the man wore a stunned expression on the face beneath his respirator. "What for? Hell, Frank. Just how long do you think we have before some asshole in the media decides to break through the barrier we've got around this place?"

  "Gotta hide your prize, hunh?"

  "That, or lock away a stupid cameraman until this whole thing blows over."

  Once again, Frank noticed a hesitation in the Colonel's voice. He'd have bet his life savings the man was lying through his teeth. Frank waved a quick good-bye, then turned towards his Mustang in the distance.

  He felt it necessary to leave, before he could get stupid and ask a question or two that he really didn't want to have answered. Like just how the Colonel expected the people of Collier to keep quiet about everything happening around town, after he and his force of walking tanks took their leave.

  Frank and his trusty old car moved through the streets slowly. He wanted to look around, to see what was going on and where. In less than three days, Collier had become a stranger. For as long as he could remember, Frank had always felt comfortable in his little slice of the world. Now, someone had made a mess of the entire place. The people on the streets, excepting the ominous black guards, all looked like the people he'd known for most of his life. The way they acted, on the other hand, was hardly normal. Nobody waved as he went past. A few people even turned away from him, as if to tell him that he was to blame, and they wanted nothing to do with a traitor to the community.

  Frank went past the office where he worked and drove at a leisurely pace until he reached the true heart of Collier, the Square. The Collier Square was really little more than a shopping arena. Four roads intersecting and leaving a large green patch of grass with a statue of Our Town Founder plopped in the center. Around that statue of Henry Collier a dozen table and bench combinations rested. On almost any given day, the elderly retirees of Collier congregated on those benches, talking about the past and playing any number of games.

  Today the benches were empty. The only people in the Square were wearing black armor and carrying assault rifles. Bobby Carlson was dead, and he'd practically been the leader of the bench-squatters. Without him, they had nothing to come around for, nothing to talk about. Frank
sighed. Hell, he didn't even know how many others of the elderly were dead as a result of the dream-smasher sitting in the lake. Maybe all of them, and that was a sad thought. No old folks to tell stories about Collier to the little ones, like they used to when Frank was growing up.

  His one attempt at a brief break from reality was wasted. He couldn't even watch the old folks and dream of a time when he used to visit them and hear stories about the Civil War and WWI. Now he could only stare at the sentinels who held his town at bay. Stare and hate.

  Frank moved slowly around the square, noticed that almost every store was closed, and finally turned towards the office and the work waiting for him. The parking lot was full, save for the spot reserved for squad cars. He parked illegally, blocking in four of the cars parked in the reserved areas-none of which belonged in those spots-and made his way into the wing of the building reserved for him and his officers.

  The chaos was already in full swing when he pushed past the frosted-glass doors. The waiting area was full of sullen-looking people, all of whom had a bone to pick with him. Oh yes, this would be a fine day indeed.

  Buck Landers was sitting at his desk, a shit-eating grin on his face. He waved cheerily at Frank, and Frank seriously considered just hitting the man in the head on general principles. "Mornin', everybody," he said into the chorus of grumbles that greeted him. "Give me five minutes and I'll speak with you." He pushed past a few dozen people and made his way to his private office. After he closed the door, amidst the rumbles of an unhappy crowd, he checked his blood sugar, cursing himself for taking too large a shot, and ate a Kit Kat candy bar. They tasted worlds better than the glucose wafers ever could, and worked almost as well, so he kept a whole box of them stashed in his filing cabinet.

  He smoked one last cigarette, and then he opened the door. The crowd of familiar faces gone sour was not quite as large as it had first seemed, but there were still a lot of people all crowded into one area. A lot of unhappy people.