The Prophet of Queens

by Glenn Kleier

  “I’m a prophet, for chrissakes. Let me in!”

  She undid the chain and he rushed inside, straight to her bedroom.

  “The lamp,” he said, pointing to her nightstand. “The cord.”

  Moving past him, Kassandra seized the lamp, causing the drawer to open and expose a frayed crimp of wire. It sparked, and she jumped. “Oh my God,” she gasped, unplugging it, thrusting it into Scotty’s hands like it was a bomb. “Oh my God.”

  Scotty wound the cord around it and exhaled. “All safe now,” he said, and turned to go.

  Kassandra stopped him, taking his hand. “I, I don’t know what to say,” she replied, sheepish. “I haven’t been avoiding you, just busy with the election, you know? But I could use a break, if you’d like to stay for a drink.”

  “Another time,” he told her.

  She looked surprised, and he pulled away and hurried off.

  Ivy was still at the computer when he returned, as glum as he’d left her. She regarded the lamp with relief, and he set it on his desk and headed to the coatrack, grabbing her backpack and jacket, bringing them to her.

  “Get the rest of your stuff,” he said, “you’re going home.”

  She darkened. “What? Now?”

  “We’re not taking any chances. If the Lord can renege on Thornton, I don’t trust a thing He says. I want you far from here. You’re going back to school, anyway.”

  Looking stunned, she skulked to the bedroom while he called a cab, reappearing minutes later in tears. He helped her into her jacket, stuffing cash in her pocket.

  She asked, “Are you gonna obey the Lord’s last command?”

  “I haven’t decided, I need time to think.” He sighed and took her hands. “Listen, Ivy, I know you’re upset, too. I want you to go home and get a good night’s sleep. Call me tomorrow from school when you can, and we’ll talk.”

  “Pop took my phone.”

  “Then borrow one.”

  Giving her a hug, he pushed her into the hall, and shut the door.

  Scotty paced while Homer observed from the couch. No matter how he looked at it, Scotty couldn’t square the Lord’s decision to cheat Thornton. How could God welsh on a deal? Then relegate to Scotty the shame of announcing the treachery? On national TV, for God’s sake?

  From the very beginning of this insanity, the tone of the Lord’s demands always struck Scotty as insensitive. And Ariel’s angelic attributes aside, she exhibited un-angelic traits. Human-like responses, emotional and physical. Confusing. Troubling.

  Scotty’s eyes fell on the photo of Mom on the wall behind his desk, and he went to stand in front of it. His favorite picture of her, pretty and glowing, taken just before her fatal pregnancy. Once again, he relived the anguish of witnessing an intelligent, vibrant young woman sacrifice herself to her God. A God Who continued to push His inscrutable Will on the Butterfield family.

  Hearing a noise behind, Scotty turned to see Homer sitting on the desk, staring at him.

  Whaddya gonna do, dude?

  Scotty frowned. “I can’t risk upsetting such a fickle God. I’ll go on the news, one last time.”

  The cat cocked its head at him. Or maybe you could try showing some balls for once.

  Scotty cocked his head, feeling it would explode. “Christ, it’s not like I’m dealing with Pop, here! You wanna get me zapped by a lightning bolt?”

  Interesting you should mention lightning.

  “What?”

  Homer licked a paw and began cleaning his ears. Used to be, people thought lightning was the finger of God. Smiting the wicked, and all that. Except, church steeples got struck all the time.”

  Scotty knew. “Until Ben Franklin invented the lightning rod.”

  Even then, churches wouldn’t use ‘em at first.

  Scotty knew that, too. “People thought lightning was God’s judgment, and thwarting Him would only anger Him more.”

  Until finally science beat out superstition, and now all steeples have lightning rods.

  Scotty exhaled. “Your point?”

  Point is, Mom had a lightning rod, too, so to speak. But she shunned it, and lightning struck.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Birth control. Her lightning rod was The Pill. If she’d used it after you, she’d still be here.

  Albeit, Ivy wouldn’t. The knot in Scotty’s gut tightened. “What’s Mom got to do with this?”

  Everything. You blame God for her death. Pop blames you. Bullshit. Doncha see? It was all Mom’s call. She put her faith ahead of you and Pop. And to this day, it haunts you both, still. Neither of you ever came to grips with it.

  Blinking, Scotty collapsed into his chair. How could he blame Mom for following her faith? He buried his head in his arms and sobbed, and Homer placed a paw on his shoulder…

  After a time, Scotty dried his eyes on his sleeve, lifted up, and checked the clock. To drop the Lord’s bombshell on the evening news, he had to leave now.

  Homer paid him another sideways look.

  Come on, bro, give it a rest. Let’s watch the Jets.

  Reflecting, Scotty finally set his teeth, grabbed the cat, and went to the couch.

  If the Lord had no conscience, Scotty did. And sliding in with Homer, he turned on the game.

  Chapter 119

  November 3, 8:00 am, Talawanda

  After breakfast, Ariel sat in the living room with the team discussing developments. Or rather, the lack thereof. With less than twenty-four hours till the first polls opened, they’d seen no news in the archives that the Prophet of Queens had thrown his support to Ellen Shackleton and the Democrats. Nor even word of a pending announcement.

  It seemed Butterfield had ignored the Lord’s orders. Max was furious, but Ariel and Tia were frantic. In order to save Tia’s mom, they’d need Butterfield’s cooperation. And they’d no way to know how the man’s sudden defiance would impact their plan.

  Tia snapped at Max, “You pushed him too far, demanding that damned endorsement!”

  Max said nothing, and Stan tried to lighten the mood by pointing out, “At least we’ve seen no trace of the Shackleton video, and the archive polls now show her ahead in the swing states.” But then he darkened, too. “On the other hand, we had another quake last night. Big. Six point six.”

  Was the quake triggered by the video vanishing from history? With the rabbit’s foot now lost in the hole, Ariel felt afraid to speculate about anything. Despite a frantic search of the houseplant last session, Stan was unable to locate the flashdrive and its archival data. The team no longer had the means to determine if a Timewave altered their reality, or memories. Ariel didn’t trust her reasoning now, and her heart leapt when Max suddenly announced, “We can’t wait any longer, we’ve got to move operations out to the tent and gird for the Big One.”

  The room went quiet. While the Trapping Horizon offered no protection from the final Timequake, it could shield the team and their memories from its subsequent Time-tsunami.

  Hopefully.

  Ariel could feel Fate closing in, squeezing them into their bunker. So, they flee to the tent, then what? Even if they made it past the Big One and its Tsunami, they couldn’t hide inside the bubble forever. Sooner or later, they’d have to brave the new world beyond.

  Ariel rubbed her weary temples. She’d mulled this quandary before. But now faced with the certainty of uncertainty, she was gripped with panic. At some point during or after the election tomorrow, their world would change, past, present—and future. And no telling to what extent.

  Max said, “We may weather what’s coming, we may not. But I want to survive long enough, at least, to know we stuck our moon landing.”

  He rose, Stan followed, and the two left to prepare the tent for their last stand.

  Ariel could hold back no more. Grasping Tia’s wrist tight, she said in a quavering voice, “When the wave hits, all we’ve shared here could vanish. We may never have met, and never will.” Her heart trembled. “If you hadn’t
taken me under your wing that first year, I wouldn’t have made it.” She burst into tears. “I’m lost without you.”

  Tia grabbed Ariel by the shoulders. “Listen to me,” she said, eyes glistening, but voice firm. “You will make it. You’re a butterfly, mi corazón. You’ve always been a butterfly. Whatever the future holds, wherever you find yourself, it’s only a matter of time before you break out of your cocoon and fly. And regardless, there’s something I haven’t told you.”

  Ariel wiped her eyes, and Tia leaned close. “That email I’m sending myself? I wrote about us in it, too. It’s all there—everything that happened here. Our friendship, our hopes. When this is over, wherever we end up, I’ll find you, I swear. And that bastard stepfather of yours, I included his files in my email, too. Together, you and I are gonna take that bastard down!”

  She’d given Ariel something to cling to, and Ariel hugged her with all her might.

  Whatever it took this next session, Butterfield had to forward Tia’s email.

  As the 10:00 AM hour loomed, Ariel assumed her place at the table in the tent, in angel mode for the last time. Again. The tent was now packed with bedding and other personal items for their sequester tonight. To ensure the clutter was out of Butterfields’ view, Ariel zoomed her laptop camera tighter on herself.

  Max was still fuming over the Prophet’s failure to endorse Shackleton and her Democratic slate. And with the race tightening just as it had four years ago, he was hellbent on trying again.

  He pressed Ariel, “It’s not too late to influence the vote. Bat your eyes at Butterfield, work your magic. Get him on the air with that endorsement.”

  Tia countered, “My email.”

  Tia’s email sat waiting in Ariel’s outbox. Depending on how receptive Butterfield was to that, Ariel would consider broaching Max’s request. If, that is, Butterfield showed this morning. A worry, seeing how he blew off his orders to appear on TV last night.

  Soon the noises came and went, the vortex appeared, the hole opened, and Stan inserted the antenna. Max and Tia hovered near Ariel like helicopter parents, just out of camera range.

  Ariel was relieved to see Scott emerge on screen. But he was not happy. Coiled in a chair with a frown. Alone save for a big, orange cat in his lap, which also appeared to be frowning.

  He failed to return Ariel’s greeting. She asked, “Where’s Ivy?”

  “I sent her home. Not taking any chances after the fire alarm.”

  “But you found the threat and removed it, yes?”

  “Yes,” he spit. “And now I want to know what other threats the Lord has in store.”

  Ariel bit her lip. She’d never seen him so surly.

  “No more threats,” she assured. “You have the Lord’s Word.”

  “Like His Word on the Covenant?”

  This did not bode well for pushing a new task on him. But Ariel had no choice.

  “I’ve a small favor to ask of you. A personal favor.”

  His frown deepened.

  “I’ve something to send you. An epistle for you to forward to another party.”

  Out the corner of her eye, Ariel saw Max mouthing, Shackleton.

  She continued, “All I ask is that you not open it, and you pass it on right away. Nothing more. It’s the last I’ll ever ask of you. Will you do that for me, Scott?” And she batted her eyes.

  Max was livid, but she ignored him, and Scott ignored her, failing to respond.

  Ariel pressed, “I’m sending it now. Please forward it, unopened, to the cc address—”

  But as she moved to hit “send,” Max reached to block her, Tia tried to block him, and they both struck the laptop, knocking it off the table. It hit the ground and its screen went black.

  Ariel met Tia’s frantic eyes to answer the question in them.

  “I don’t know if it went through.”

  Chapter 120

  Monday, November 3, 12:47 pm, Queens

  Scotty paced his living room with the cat on his heals, still in shock, disbelief and anger over what he’d seen during the morning session with Ariel.

  Abruptly he veered for his computer, dropped into his chair, and replayed the ending for the umpteenth time. The video was blurry at normal speed, but in slomo, Scotty saw the heavens move to expose the corner of a cluttered tent sectioned off by white sheets and bright lights.

  A movie set.

  He could make out two people struggling with Ariel—a dark-haired man and a purple-haired woman. No one he recognized.

  Homer leaped into Scotty’s lap. You got hosed, dude.

  Yes. The qualms he’d wrestled these past weeks had proven out in devastating fashion. All very clear now. The angel he’d come to trust and admire, and her Lord, were frauds. Ariel, if her real name, and her co-conspirators had somehow, impossibly, found a way to forecast the future. Then abused the ability to manipulate Scotty in an attempt to throw the presidential election.

  “Why me?” he spit. Had Ariel scoured the Internet for the most gullible pigeon she could find? He knew what Pop would say. What comes a living in a fantasy world.

  He was interrupted by a text. An unknown phone number—a heads-up from Ivy that she was about to call from a friend’s cell. She was the only person Scotty could talk to about this insane turn of events, and he badly wanted her input.

  Taking the call, he found her upset.

  “What happened last night?” she cried. “Why weren’t you on the news?”

  “Because it’s all a huge scam.”

  “What do you mean? What’s going on?”

  He inhaled and rolled out the story, beginning with his decision last night not to renege on the Covenant—damned glad he hadn’t now—and ending with his devastating discovery that Ariel and her “Lord” were no more than elaborate con artists.

  When he finished, there was silence on the other end. Then, “Holy, holy crap! But I don’t get it. How’d they pull it off? The prophecies, I mean.”

  “A Magic 8 Ball, for all I know. I still can’t believe Ariel would do this. She lied to me.”

  A pause, and Ivy said, “I lied to you too, Scotty.” He heard guilt in her voice. “There’s something I gotta tell you. You’re gonna be mad. Yesterday, while you were out looking for a fire extinguisher, I, uh, I sorta watched the tape.”

  He felt only a flash of irritation in the scheme of things.

  “I’ll skip the yucky stuff. Enough to say, those stories about Shackleton’s past? They’re true. She’s as much a fraud as Ariel and her Lord. Probably colluding with ‘em, too, I’ll bet. That’s why they wanted that tape, it would be a slam-dunk for Filby if it got out.”

  “And if I’d made that endorsement last night, I’d have played right into their hands.”

  “Well, I say that’s exactly what you should do. Go ahead, endorse Shackleton.”

  He stared at his phone. “What!”

  “I had all night to think about it, hear me out. Yes, Shackleton’s a phony and a liar. But so’s Filby. I mean, they’re politicians, after all. Are Shackleton’s flaws any worse than his? At least she’s got the right agenda. Those people outside your window, they’re hurting, and there are millions of ‘em across the country. You think Filby cares? He’ll drag us back to the Dark Ages.”

  Scotty was floored. “That’s election-tampering. It’s criminal!”

  “Look, we don’t understand how she does it, but Ariel knows things we don’t. For heaven’s sake, she knows the future, and she’s desperate to change it. What’s that tell us?”

  “I can’t believe you advocate cheating.”

  “What if you knew Filby would turn out to be another Hitler, and you could do something about it? You always said you felt helpless and hopeless and voting was a waste. Well, here’s your chance to make a difference. Whatever you think of Ariel now, you gotta admit there’s something about her. Maybe her tactics are wrong, but I believe her heart’s in the right place.”

  In fact, Scotty couldn’t reconcile his former
feelings for the woman. All the same, to subvert a presidential election, sway the course of the nation by feigning the Will of God?

  “It’s moot,” he said. “Shackleton’s up in the polls, she doesn’t need my help.”

  “Haven’t you seen? It’s narrowing in the swing states. Thornton’s army is making headway, the electoral count’s gonna be cl—”

  She broke off, someone interrupting her, then said, “Crap, the T.O.’s looking for me. Listen, the way you’ve handled the madness these past weeks, I have faith in you. I know you’ll sort it out and make the right call. Please, just promise me you’ll think about it. Please.”

  He promised, she told him she loved him, and was gone.

  His wounds felt raw, but Ivy’s words weighed on him. Twenty hours till the polls opened.

  Suddenly a blinking icon on his computer screen caught his eye.

  An epistle.

  Chapter 121

  November 3, 1:45 pm, Talawanda

  Stan, Max, Ariel, and Tia sat side-by-side at the table in the tent, anxiously awaiting the afternoon run. Their last shot at Butterfield before the election.

  The morning session had ended abruptly with Max and Tia knocking Ariel’s laptop to the floor. While the computer survived, its signal to Butterfield had been cut just as Ariel attempted to send Tia’s email. A copy of the message showed up in Ariel’s “sent” file garbled and unreadable, and there was no way to know if Butterfield had received the same gibberish. Or how much of the incident he’d seen, possibly endangering their credibility with him.

  Tia demanded a redo, but Max was hellbent on Butterfield endorsing Shackleton, and though they’d given Ariel and Stan their solemn oaths not to interfere with the next run, they were still pointing fingers at each other. Ariel was caught in the middle, as usual, shrinking in her chair as she felt her moonshot slipping away.

  On the table next to Ariel sat Tia’s laptop, open to the Omaha World-Herald archives. An obit of Tia’s mom. A kind-looking, gray-haired lady with Tia’s complexion and eyes. Tia was convinced that if Butterfield had in fact forwarded a legible email to her younger self, Past Tia would have been persuaded by it and moved to save her mom. In which case, the obit would vanish, like with little Teddy. But hours had passed, and the obit remained.