Jury Duty (First Contact)

by Peter Cawdron

“Listen,” she says. “This is going to hit you hard, but that’s okay. It’s all right to feel anger, grief, regret. If anything, it’s bad if you don’t. At the moment, you’re in shock. Everything’s a blur, right?”

  Nick nods.

  Jazz is yet to drink from her cup. She warms her hands around it, saying, “It’s important to understand everyone goes through what you’re feeling right now. You’re going to question what you did and didn’t do. It’s okay to feel numb one moment and pissed off the next. Feeling like shit is a way of mourning the loss.”

  Nick would rather not have this conversation. Jazz, though, is decompressing. She speaks from her heart.

  “For thousands of years, we saw people die all the time. Children, parents, friends, grandparents. Whether it was through disease, old age, or by accident, everyone saw someone die. Most kids were born on the kitchen floor and died a few years later in their own beds. These days, life and death are hidden behind a hospital curtain.

  “Death is never clean. People shun death because it’s unpleasant. It makes us feel uneasy, but that’s precisely why we shouldn’t turn away. If we want to celebrate life, we have to accept death.”

  Nick watches the vapor rising from his coffee.

  “Yep,” he mumbles, feeling he needs to respond in some way.

  Jazz isn’t lecturing him. If anything, she’s talking to herself. Speaking aloud is her way of dealing with Dmitri’s death. Nick’s a priest in a confessional booth. This is her shortcut to acceptance.

  She stares at the floor. “We surround death with lies. We hide death in a nice, polished wooden casket. We send bouquets of pretty flowers. We talk about the dead looking down on us from heaven. Rarely do we face death for what it is—the quiet night that awaits us all.”

  Jazz isn’t saying this merely for his benefit. This is her way of honoring Dmitri’s life. If she were in a bar, she’d be raising a glass of whiskey.

  Nick says, “He admired you, you know. I mean, I know he was Russian and always looking for an angle and all that stuff, but I think he genuinely admired you.”

  “Huh?” she says, sounding surprised.

  “He said you were a hero.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “He told me you saved a lot of people in the Himalayas.”

  “Oh that,” she says, laughing. “You know that’s a joke, right?”

  “A joke?”

  “Yeah, my squad has played loose and hard with that over way too many beers. Yarns like that have a way of growing each time they’re told.”

  Nick’s confused. “Bear told me you snuck behind enemy lines?”

  “I got lost.”

  She pauses, weighing her words. Nick can sense how deeply personal this is for her.

  “It was dumb. I made a mistake. When you’re up high in the mountains, it’s easy for the cloud cover to descend, and all of a sudden, you’re wading through fog.”

  “But,” Nick says, “the Chinese captain or commander or whoever he was?”

  Jazz grins. “He was taking a shit behind a boulder. I came sliding down the slope with my M4, and there he is, crouching over a turd with his pants down around his ankles.”

  Nick chuckles as Jazz continues.

  “Oh, it was a steaming pile of shit, all right. He sees me and freezes. He’s down on his haunches looking up at me with eyes as wide as saucers.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I pointed my M4 at him and signaled with a gloved finger raised to my lips—Be quiet or die. And another squirt hit the rocks behind him.” Jazz laughs. “I stood there stunned for a few seconds. And then I did the only thing I could.”

  “What?”

  “I reached into my pocket and pulled out a packet of biodegradable disposable wipes.”

  “You handed him toilet paper?” Nick asks in disbelief.

  Jazz has tears of laughter in her eyes as she continues. “What else was I going to do?”

  “And what did he do?”

  “He took them. He pulled out a wipe and cleaned his ass.”

  “All while you’re training your gun on him?”

  “Oh, by that time, I’d slipped a 37mm round into the M204 grenade launcher mounted beneath my M4.”

  Nick is laughing so hard he can barely speak. “I have no idea what that means, but I bet he shit himself. Again.”

  “He did,” Jazz says, slapping him on the shoulder as she laughs.

  “Then what happened?”

  “I backed away, keeping my gun on him. Slowly, I disappeared into the mist. I retraced my steps and hightailed it the fuck out of there.”

  “Did they chase you?” Nick asks.

  “I heard a lot of yelling in the fog, but it was in Chinese. I have no idea what was being said. I was expecting a firefight to erupt around me. I figured this was it. This was how I was going to die, but they pulled back.”

  “Oh,” Nick says. “This is even better than the version Bear told me!”

  “When I finally found my troop, they laughed their asses off. Apparently, the guy was a colonel. I saw he had gold shoulder boards, but I had no idea about his rank. Later that night, the Chinese lit up the hillside with mortar rounds and semi-automatic fire. They were zoned into a position neither we nor the Indians had ever held. I think they were saving face. They needed a tale of heroic battle to tell their command group. The unspoken agreement was we’d go our separate ways and never talk of this again.”

  Nick shakes his head, unable to wipe the grin from his face.

  “And the best thing,” Jazz says, “is that I was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action—for leading my troop safely out of an engagement that never actually took place. And for watching the enemy shit themselves!”

  Nick slaps his legs, laughing as he says, “Oh, that is brilliant!”

  “I know, right? All I did was get lost and then retreat from an enemy latrine!”

  “Dmitri said we were lucky to have you on our side.”

  “He would,” Jazz says, smiling.

  Bear comes back over. Jazz gets to her feet. The two of them talk at length about logistics, losing themselves in details Nick doesn’t understand. All he hears is a word-salad of military terms. He sips his coffee, reflecting on his conversation with Jazz. This is what death needs—the laughter and joy of life. Nick can imagine Dmitri joining in the banter. Perhaps that’s the best way to remember him.

  Jazz sits back down as Bear leaves. Her coffee is cold. She knocks it back regardless.

  “What about you?” she asks. “How are you doing?”

  “Me? I’m fine.”

  “You pulled that trigger. That ain’t easy.”

  Nick rubs the back of his hand. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

  “You should,” she says. “In the military, we have after-action reports. It’s important to get people talking about what just happened. Without that, you don’t get closure.”

  “Ah-huh.”

  “It’s crazy, isn’t it?” Jazz says, looking down at her own bloodstained hands. “Squeeze your finger, and Bam! There’s an explosion of violence. It’s a contradiction, yah know. So little effort. So much damage.”

  Nick nods, staring at his boots.

  Jazz says, “Nothing ever really prepares you for that moment. No amount of time on the range. You can pop paper targets all day long. Damn, it is different when there’s a living, breathing human at the other end of the barrel.”

  “Yeah,” is all Nick can say. Thinking about what he did is difficult. He’d rather bury that moment in the dark recesses of his mind. He doesn’t think of it as shooting Hillenbrand, rather protecting everyone else.

  “You did the right thing.”

  Reluctantly, he says, “I know.”

  Jazz says, “They like to tell us video games and movies have desensitized us. I guess they have. I dunno. I think they’ve lessened the act, but not what comes after. It’s one thing to pull the trigger. It’s another to see a life slip away. It
’s yet another to live on with that memory. It changes you.”

  He picks at his nails.

  “I’m glad you didn’t do that to her,” Jazz says.

  Nick turns in a start, looking at Jazz in alarm, unsure what she means. Deep down, he knows. He doesn’t want to, but he does.

  “Dmitri was worried you would,” she says. “That’s why we rushed from the airport with a police escort and sirens blazing. Your profile said, if pushed, you’d lash out. I’m glad you proved him wrong. I’m glad I was wrong. You’re all right, Nick.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jazz looks sideways at him. “Your girlfriend. You pulled back from the brink. Not many people do.”

  “No, no,” Nick says, shaking his head. He points at himself. “She fooled me. The chamber was empty.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jazz asks, squinting as she looks at him.

  “Sandra emptied the magazine. She took the bullets out.”

  “We’re talking about the Glock, right?” she asks. “The one you threw on the lawn?”

  Nick nods.

  Jazz says, “I watched the officers secure the scene. They bagged the magazine. There were at least seven or eight rounds in it. I mean, I didn’t count them, but I could see it wasn’t a full mag.”

  “What?” Nick says.

  “The lead cop was wearing blue disposable gloves. He picked up the Glock and ejected a round from the chamber, being careful where he placed his hands. Dropped it into his palm. I guess he didn’t want to smudge any fingerprints.”

  “I—ah.” Nick tries to speak, but words refuse to pass his lips.

  Jazz says, “It was a jacketed, hollow-point round. Nasty bitch.”

  Nick nods in agreement. His dad prefers bullets with a full metal jacket. In the misplaced bravado of his mind, Nick chose hollow point rounds for his Glock. More stopping power is a euphemism for more heartache and death, but that never mattered to him before now. Jazz talks through the details she observed as though she were recounting a football game. For Nick, her candor is confronting.

  “He put the loose round in the same bag as the mag. The Glock went in a separate evidence bag. Zip-locked. You know, the kind you use for lunch.”

  Nick blinks rapidly, trying to recall what happened that afternoon. He ejected the magazine. He saw it was empty. Sandra had tricked him. He was so angry, but there was nothing he could do. At that moment, he was helpless. As much as he’s ashamed to admit it, he wanted to kill her, but he couldn’t. Was he lying to himself? Deep down, did some part of him want a way out? In that moment, did he cling to the only thing he could to save his ego?

  “You really thought it was empty?” Jazz asks.

  Nick’s silent.

  The magazine was empty. He’s sure of it. But the weight. He remembers the weight of the magazine as a sensation. It was heavy at one end, almost falling from his palm. His Glock holds 17 rounds in a standard magazine. If it only had eight, the magazine would feel top-heavy.

  “I—I guess I saw what I wanted to see.”

  Jazz is quiet.

  “Lies, huh? The lies we tell ourselves.”

  The silence between them doesn’t feel awkward.

  “I was a big man, you know. Big ego. King of the castle and all that crap.” He sighs. “She pissed me off. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to but—”

  “—but you couldn’t.”

  “No,” Nick says, looking away from Jazz. “Crazy, huh? I couldn’t even be honest with myself.”

  “Hey,” Jazz says, tapping his knee and getting his attention. She pulls her lips tight, thinking carefully about what she’s going to say. Nick beats her to it.

  “A lot of people die because someone can’t swallow their stupid, dumbass ego.”

  “They do,” she replies in barely a whisper.

  “Do you know what it all comes down to?” he asks. “Spite. I was acting like a spoiled child. I was so petty. In that moment, I wasn’t thinking.” He shrugs, adding, “I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was me.”

  Jazz starts to speak when Bear comes jogging back into the control room, interrupting them.

  “We’ve found her.”

  “Who?” Jazz asks.

  “Anni Aziz. She’s barricaded herself in the L4 conference room beneath the ice. She said they’re all down there.”

  “The jury?” Jazz asks. “They’re alive?”

  “Most of them,” Bear says. “But they’re catatonic, like the guys were up here.”

  Jazz gets to her feet but not without slapping Nick’s leg. “Time to move on, soldier.”

  Screwdriver

  Jazz sits in the conference room just off the operations center. Adrianna, Bear, and Nick sit opposite her with Mikhail, the Head of Operations.

  With straggly hair and a full beard, Mikhail could be a mad scientist. His demeanor, though, is nothing but professional. Nick has no doubt his stare could melt ice. He talks in hushed tones with Jazz before the meeting begins. A few notes scratched onto a page in a hurried scrawl reveal his temperament.

  A couple of maintenance engineers work on a circulation baffle in a ceiling duct. Their name tags identify them as Phelps and Harris.

  “Won’t be long. Sorry for the interruption.”

  “No problem,” Mikhail replies.

  Harris climbs a stepladder and leans inside the duct. Nick overhears him talking to Phelps, saying, “Hey, that’s crazy!”

  “How do we stop this from happening again?” Mikhail asks the team, ignoring the maintenance crew.

  Jazz points at a schematic diagram of the sub-surface base. “It’s a good question. If we go down there and attempt a rescue, we could trigger whatever took everyone out up here.”

  Nick’s distracted. It’s the constant demand on his mind. He wants to zone out. He needs to. There’s only so much his brain can handle. A mindless comedy on Netflix would be welcome right about now. He stares past Jazz, watching the maintenance crew. The ladder shakes as equipment is passed back and forth.

  Mikhail says. “Okay. So, we have a core drill rig roughly half a mile south of here. It’s little more than a hut on the ice. We use it to compare ice samples at depth, looking for any contamination—whether that’s from us or them.”

  “And?” Jazz asks.

  Mikhail smiles. “And the crew there weren’t affected by the blackout. Whatever we got hit with, it was local.”

  “Nice.”

  “I’ve sent four snowcats out there with emergency supplies. We have in line-of-sight radio comms with them. I’ve got the team checking in every fifteen minutes. If we drop off, they’ll send the cats back one by one to pick up the pieces.”

  “Okay,” Jazz says. “So we have a contingency.”

  Harris backs down the aluminum stepladder, working his way out of the duct. He holds out his screwdriver, showing it to Phelps. Ah, for a bit of workshop banter. Being an electro-mechanic, Nick could lose himself in a powertrain refurb right about now. They’re generally only done on older vehicles and take up to six hours. For him, there’s something soothing about tracing wires and replacing parts. It’s the focus. Nothing else exists anywhere in the world at that point in time. Nick is tempted to ask Harris if he needs any help. Watching the two men is therapeutic. They joke about the screwdriver.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” Jazz asks.

  “During the blackout?” Adrianna replies.

  “Yes, what was it like. What were you aware of?”

  There’s a loose screw hanging from the screwdriver. That’s what Harris was talking about in the vent. He shows it to his partner. Ordinarily, a loose screw would fall from the tip, but this one wobbles around like a drop of water clinging to a straw. It refuses to fall. Nick hears Harris ask, “Did you magnetize this?” To which Phelps replies, “No, not me.”

  “Uh, have you ever been hypnotized?” Adrianna asks Jazz.

  “No.”

  “It’s strange, but I was aware of everything that
was happening. I just didn’t care. The snow outside might as well have been sand at the beach.”

  “You didn’t feel the cold?” Bear asks.

  “No, it was like being at the fairground as a kid, walking around in a daze, looking up at all the lights. I mean, I knew it was wrong, but it didn’t feel wrong. It was like watching a movie. I heard the gunshots and wandered outside expecting, I don’t know? Fireworks?”

  Nick is half-listening to the discussion, half-watching the maintenance crew. Phelps grabs a handful of screws from his toolbox. One by one, he hangs them from the screwdriver, much to Harris’ delight. Two, three, four, and then five screws hang from the tip, forming a delicate chain. Screws dangle from the shaft of the screwdriver. They wobble, threatening to fall. The maintenance crew are like kids with a toy.

  “Do you know what caused the blackout?” Jazz asks Adrianna.

  “Magnets,” Nick says, interrupting them.

  Jazz looks at him in surprise. He points at the seemingly invisible maintenance crew behind her. Bear and Adrianna are confused.

  Nick gets to his feet, saying, “We do this from time to time in my workshop back in South Carolina. If we need to get a loose screw out of a narrow gap, we’ll magnetize a screwdriver.”

  Jazz and Adrianna are puzzled. Being a mechanic, Bear nods.

  “May I?” Nick asks Harris, reaching for the screwdriver.

  “Sure.”

  Nick carries the screwdriver back to the table with five screws dangling in a line from the tip. They’re seemingly joined together by magic.

  “What would it take to magnetize a screwdriver left lying in a toolbox?”

  Mikhail says, “Ah, I’d have to check with one of the engineers, but the toolbox itself should have negated any such effect. The box should have acted as a faraday cage.”

  “Should have?” Jazz asks.

  “Magnets are formed by a specific alignment of the electromagnetic field. For that to happen, it would need to pulse or surge in just the right way. Most iron isn’t magnetic because the charges are chaotic. They cancel each other out.”

  “And this?” Nick asks, pointing at the screwdriver.

  Mikhail asks the maintenance crew, “You didn’t do this?”

  “No.”