by David Klass
Jack, get down flat! Present less of a target! The pigeon-hearted pooch leads by example, pressing himself to the bottom and flattening his massive belly till he looks like a throw rug covering a bowling ball.
I don’t get down. I’m still merged with the boat, still bathed in the reddish glow.
I am Jack Danielson crouching before the control panel of a souped-up dinghy that is taking evasive action as it’s chased across the Hudson River. “Do something,” I am saying to the dinghy. Or not saying, but rather thinking and feeling.
But I am also the dinghy. I feel the frenetic hopelessness of the chase, the strain of my motor, the quick read of incoming missiles and lasers.
One primary need—to escape. One grim certainty—escape is impossible. The speedboats are drawing closer. We’ll never reach the far bank in time.
A laser weapon slices the stern and I—we—feel it come searing in. The dinghy wants desperately to save us, but it can’t. It’s not fast enough. It’s outgunned. I feel its bitter frustration—our mutual frustration.
Then I feel something I don’t understand. It grows out of that frustration, blossoms incongruously from the grimness of our predicament.
Joy. Elation. Certainty of purpose tinged with nagging regret.
The bond between boy and boat is fractured.
The dinghy swerves wildly and I’m knocked off my feet. I press myself to the bottom next to Gisco, mystified. How can the boat be so jubilant at a time like this?
Another laser strike! I don’t need to be mind-melded with the dinghy to feel this one hit. They’ve got our range now. We’ll be fish food in seconds.
Jack, we’ve got to get off now!
Off the boat? How is that going to help?
No time to explain. Abandon ship!
Gisco has climbed up from his ruglike recline and is now perched at the rail, ready for a dive into the drink.
There’s no way out, I tell him. We might as well go down with our dinghy.
The dog locks his jaws around my shirt and tries to drag me over the side. I fight back. I’d rather be blown up on board a friendly craft than flash-fried in the river.
Gisco is strong, but not strong enough to drag me over the rail. He’s got me half over but I’m resisting.
Then the dinghy bucks like a bronco. It dips and twists, and dog and boy both go flying.
14
We splash down hard into the cold river. I hit face-first. Sink and come up sputtering.
The bank is a hundred yards away.
Come on, we’ve got to swim for it. Gisco sets out for shore in an
Olympic-quality dog paddle.
What’s the point? I ask. We’ll never outrun those speedboats.
Instead of swimming, I tread water and just watch hopelessly as the black speedboats come on, their laser weapons turning the water around us into a sauna.
The mini-tank that is now an amphibious carrier of Dark Army motorcycles is also closing in fast. Even if we did make it to the far bank, those motorcycles would chase us down in seconds. There’s no possible escape.
The yellow dinghy does not stay close to us. It turns in a quick circle and heads directly back, toward the speedboats and the amphibious mini-tank.
Lasers punch holes in the kamikaze dinghy’s sides. A missile just misses it, and nearly capsizes it. But it steams right for them at full speed.
Is it my imagination, or is it starting to glow?
Maybe it’s on fire. The lasers could have ignited it.
But the reddish glow doesn’t seem to be a natural flame. It’s flickering. A cherry nimbus spreads out from the damaged boat and licks the waves in its own wake.
The reddish glow touches me in the water and I feel something strange. Not a telepathic message from a machine. The boat can’t think, the way I can.
Yet for one last second I become part of it. I share its strange mixture of joy and regret, its implacable sense of mission and the sad knowledge that it will never be able to serve again. And even a trace of something akin to a friendship ending, or at least a comradeship cut short.
The bond is broken. I gulp down river water and cough it back up. The dinghy is now far from us—already nearly halfway back to the pursuing boats. The glow that emanates from it changes color, from cheery cherry to savage scarlet smoldering with yellow-black.
And it’s pulsing! What the heck is happening?
It’s going hypercritical! Dive, Jack!
What’s going hypercritical? The dinghy? Where are you? I look for Gisco, but he’s vanished.
Something grabs my left ankle and yanks me under the surface. I thrash wildly and struggle to get away. Open my eyes underwater. See that it’s Gisco who’s dragging me down, my left leg in his jaws.
Then the sky falls in. The explosion is deafening even though I’m under the water.
The clouds catch fire. Flames rake the surface of the river. I feel the sizzling heat. The shriek of water whistling into steam is all around me, as if I’m trapped in a giant teakettle.
I stay down as long as I can. And then I pop back up.
Silence. Wide, empty river. Smoke clearing to reveal that the dinghy is gone. And the speedboats and the mini-tank are gone, too. There’s a board here, a bit of charred motorcycle there, but nothing has survived that blast.
The yellow boat gave its mechanical life for us. It knew that it was destroying itself and would never serve again. But it was the only way to take out our Dark Army pursuers. That was the joy the dinghy felt. One last great act of service.
Come on, the dog demands.
Don’t you understand? It sacrificed itself for us. The dinghy’s final heroic act hits me hard. I flash to my mother, hugging me goodbye for the last time, and my father, shooting off his foot to get me to leave him, and then turning to make a last stand while I fled.
I get it. Now it is for us, the living, to honor its sacrifice by making sure it didn’t die in vain. Let’s go!
It couldn’t die, because it was never really alive, I muse, my mind still reeling.
Good, then if it couldn’t die we don’t need to mourn it, so let’s just vamoose.
Are you really so self-centered that when noble comrades are blowing themselves up for your sake, all you can think about is saving your own stinking skin?
Yes, Gisco admits, that’s exactly the effect that danger in my immediate vicinity has on me. And right now I’m thinking of saving my skin by swimming as fast as possible to the bank and getting the hell away from here before more Dark Army fiends come looking for us.
I have no doubt they’ll come, I tell him, but what’s the point? We run and hide, good people die, and we run again. My mother, my father, the dinghy. What is the point, dog? Enough!
This is a really unfortunate moment for you to become Hamlet and play the “To be or not to be” game, Gisco says. Sure, life sucks sometimes. But you have to keep going till the great boot squashes you. P.J. is still alive, but she’s in mortal danger. I know exactly where she is and who took her, and I even know why. If you don’t save her, she’ll perish for sure. That’s what you have to live for. Do you take it or leave it, that is the question.
I can’t leave it, but I’m not ready to take it yet. I fire off questions: Who took her? Why? Where is she?
She was kidnapped by the leader of the Dark Army, the baddest man of the far future, the dog informs me. Now let’s swim for it. Every second is critical.
Why did he take her? I demand.
For reasons of personal vengeance, Gisco says. He has a score he wants to settle with you.
Where did he take her? Where is she right now?
South, Gisco responds, and starts dog-paddling for shore.
South, where? I follow up. New Jersey? North Carolina again? Are you going to try to trick me to the Outer Banks a second time? How do I know that you didn’t kidnap her yourself? No, I take that back. I don’t think even you would stoop that low. But I know how tricky you are, and that you’ve got your
own agenda. Tell me one thing: if this evil warlord from the far future kidnapped P.J. to even the score with me, how can you be so sure she’s still alive? Give me some concrete proof!
Proof, shmoof. Gisco is twenty yards away, dog-paddling for all he’s worth. The Dark Army will send reconnaissance. It’s swim-or-die time.
I hesitate a second more and strike out after him.
15
Now I know why they call it the crawl. I’m fighting the cold current as I inch my way toward the rocky bank. I must have lost my police cap when I dived off the boat. I reach down and unclasp the gun belt and let it drop.
Gisco is in front of me, setting new swimming speed records for convalescent canines.
We don’t communicate. We’re both too busy trying not to drown. But his words echo in my mind as I stroke on, trying to ignore the ache in my arms and shoulders.
P.J.’s still alive! But she’s in the hands of some fiendish five-star general from the future! And he’s taken her to get back at me! Which means it was my fault that she was targeted. And she’s south, whatever that means.
I’m freezing and utterly exhausted when my toes scrape the river bottom. Soon I’m hip-deep, then knee-deep, and finally I’m completely out of the cold Hudson.
Where to now? I ask Gisco. South to find P.J.? Who is this evil commander who took her? Does he have a name?
No time now for explanations. Let’s just get away.
Where?
Anywhere. The dog shakes out his fur, and water flies.
How?
However.
That’s your plan? Mindless, headlong flight?
You got it, the huffing, puffing dog acknowledges, as we leave the rocks and fight our way through scrub brush. The Dark Army knows where we just were. I guarantee you they’ll come roaring upriver and find us in minutes. The more we run, the more visible we make ourselves.
Then why don’t we just crawl into a hole and hide?
Because the more we hunker down and stay put, the less chance we have of ever getting away.
So we’re screwed? I ask.
Yes, that’s a superb way of putting it, Gisco admits. I don’t see any way out of this. But we have to try. Never give up, as my dear grandfather used to say, before he hoisted the white flag and tried to surrender to a pack of gigantic mutant rats who devoured him alive.
Enough, dog. Here’s a road. Maybe we can flag down a car.
Unlikely. It’s an unpaved path. Even country bumpkins avoid driving down gravel trails in the early morning.
A car swims into view. No, scratch that. It’s a blue pickup truck.
You were saying? I ask Gisco, sticking out my thumb.
You’re wasting your time. Even if some rural rube happens to be out for a morning drive, what are the odds he’ll stop for a sopping wet teenager who needs a haircut, and a shaggy dog who hasn’t had a decent breakfast in days?
The pickup rumbles past us, stops, and backs up.
A family in the front seat. Mother, father, little girl with braces.
“Morning,” the father calls. “A little early for a swim, isn’t it?”
“Good morning,” I shout back cheerfully. “I was walking by the bank and fell in.”
“Are you headed to the fair?” he asks.
“Yes, sir, that’s where we’re headed,” I answer.
What are you saying? Gisco demands. We don’t have time to waste at a fair! The Dark Army is converging on us and you want to eat candied apples and take pony rides?
What we need, I point out, is to get away from the river as fast as possible. Capeesh?
Capeesh. I just hope this truck has decent shock absorbers and leather seats.
“If you don’t mind riding in the back, climb on in,” the man says.
The back? What are we, livestock?
“Thanks,” I tell the man, “that’ll be fine.”
“What’s your dog’s name?” the girl with braces asks. She looks like she’s about nine. Pigtails. Freckles.
“I call him Gisco. It’s a funny name, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, and he’s sure funny-looking.”
You’re not going to win any ribbons at the fair yourself, metal mouth.
“He is a little weird-looking,” I agree with a friendly nod. “But I’m fond of him anyway. Looks aren’t everything.”
“I know what you mean,” the girl says. “We have a butt-ugly cat named Socks, but I still like her.”
“Sally,” the mother says, “that’s not nice language.”
“I just said ‘butt-ugly,’” the girl repeats. “There’s nothing wrong with ‘butt-ugly.’”
“Say it again and I’ll swat you so hard you won’t sit down for a week.”
Lovely family, Gisco remarks. Sweet little girl. Charming mother.
In you go, Mr. Butt-ugly. I give Gisco a boost into the back of the pickup and climb in after him. The truck rumbles away down the winding gravel road at a fast clip, bumping wildly at every turn of the wheel.
16
They’re coming. I sense it.
Gisco feels it, too. I can tell by the way he lies flat in the bed of the pickup, groaning each time we hit a bump. This truck does not have new shock absorbers. It doesn’t seem to have any kind of shock absorbers at all. We’re taking a pulverizing beating.
The gravel path twists like a corkscrew next to the Hudson. Blue water flashes at every bend.
I watch the skies above the river and soon spot jet-black helicopters swooping low. Gisco!
They’ll locate the wreckage from the explosion first, the dog predicts glumly. Then they’ll summon help and sweep both banks, and start searching for us inland.
Sure enough, the helicopters slow in tandem and begin to circle, right above the spot where the dinghy committed nautical hara-kari. In minutes three gray hovercraft glide like wraiths up the Hudson, zeroing in on the patch of rotor-wash-stirred water beneath the copters.
They’ll be after us in minutes, Gisco warns.
It was a big explosion, I point out. Maybe they’ll assume we were blown to bits and give up the chase.
You don’t know who you’re up against, the dog sniffs.
Because you won’t tell me. If he was the leader of the Dark Army, why has he come back in time? What score does he have to settle with me?
You’ll find out soon enough.
He can’t be worse than Dargon, I speculate, remembering the chimeric nightmare of my Firestorm quest.
This guy makes Dargon look like a teddy bear.
Do you have any good news?
We’re about to turn away from the river on a paved road, which may make this primitive vehicle tolerable.
Sure enough, the pickup reaches a turnoff, slows, and veers onto a two-lane road that heads west. We drive smoothly for a few miles, through forest and farmland.
Suddenly I hear music, and bright colors flash through the web of tree branches. Tents with banners! Carnival rides! A spinning red-and-blue Ferris wheel twirls like a giant pinwheel in the morning breeze.
The pickup turns into an enormous parking lot that is filling up fast. This fair is clearly the big local attraction. We chug into an empty space and pull to a stop, and Gisco and I hop out.
“Thanks,” I say to the father.
“Don’t mention it,” he responds. “Come on, Sally. Want to try that Ferris wheel?”
“Ferris wheels make me puke,” the little girl says. “Goodbye, doggy. Sorry I said you were butt-ugly.”
Apology not accepted. Scram, brat.
Off they go, through the gate.
We linger outside. What now, shaggy shanks?
That ride in the truck didn’t buy us much time. They’re close on our heels. I can feel them.
Me too. In fact it feels like they’re already here.
That black van at the far end of the parking lot!
I spot it, a half mile away. It’s got a satellite dish rotating on its roof. Have they spotted us yet?
I
’m not sure, the dog admits, but I do know that inside that van is every cutting-edge search technology the Dark Army has. Heat sensors. DNA scanners. We’re sitting ducks out here in the parking lot.
What do you recommend?
No choice, Gisco says. We’ve got to huddle with the hoi polloi.
Dog using fancy SAT word. You want to go into the fair?
Correct. It’s time to take refuge among the great unwashed, the haughty hound declares, trotting quickly toward the ticket window. I hope you’ve got money for cotton candy.
17
It’s early in the morning, but the fair is already mobbed.
Parents with heads revolving like bobble dolls try to keep track of sugared-up turbo tykes as throngs of older kids run rampant, breaking every rule posted on signs. They’re playing tag and screaming at each other from rides and kung fu kicking and competing to see who can eat the most junk food.
We plunge into the mayhem.
How about the Tilt-a-Whirl, Gisco?
I’m not a fan of tilting. Dogs appreciate stability.
Then I guess the Death Coaster is out of the question?
Perhaps a corn dog, savored slowly in the shade of that giant apple.
I glance over at the two-story wooden apple bearing the legend EMPIRE STATE—PROUD APPLE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, and spot a gaunt seven-foot-tall man wading through the crowd toward us. He’s dressed in an old-fashioned and ill-fitting black suit, and has a protruding Adam’s apple. A boy darts in front of him, and the tall guy shoves the kid fifteen feet out of his way and marches on without breaking stride.
I’ve seen his type before. An identical zombielike man spotted me in the Hadley Diner six months ago, the night all my troubles began. This one may be dressed like Abe Lincoln but he’s a cyborg—part-man, part-machine, and all deadly. Gisco! He’s spotted us!
And he’s got an axon blaster!
That must be the device in his right hand. It looks like an oversize TV remote. He points it at us and a barely visible orange beam shoots out.
Gisco plows into me, knocking me over just in time. The beam ZAPS a fat woman throwing beanbags at a pyramid of bowling pins. She freezes in mid-throw.