by Steven John
“Where are we going, Kirk?”
“You’ll find out soon enough, Vale,” muttered the other man. I noted that he too had put on a jacket—a simple Windbreaker—over his white button-down shirt.
“And you are?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Callahan.”
“Am I a dead man walking, Callahan?”
He snorted. “Nothing like that, Vale. Just stop asking questions, huh? It’s too hard to explain to you, anyway.”
I drew precious little comfort from his words. The guard pulled open the large iron door, and we passed through into the opulent lobby. Several men sat around the room on the various couches and chairs. All of them wore rich suits and had perfectly manicured haircuts, close shaves, shined shoes. I recognized one of them immediately.
“Hey, John!” I called out with a bright smile and a wave. Several heads turned from their conversations. Watley’s eyes widened when he saw me.
“Thomas Vale. So there you are,” he said coolly, eyeing me and then glancing over at Kirk.
“Here I am. What brings you here, Watley?”
“Questions, questions, questions! Come on, Vale.” Callahan clapped a hand on my shoulder and urged me toward the elevators.
“He’s quite inquisitive, isn’t he?” John Watley said quietly before turning back to his colleagues. They spoke in hushed tones, glancing at me now and then. They in their suits and ties, me with my jail cell five-o’clock shadow. All of them looked quite at home in the lavish room. Quite comfortable.
“Prick,” I heard Callahan mutter as he jammed his stubby index finger into the elevator button repeatedly.
The elevator arrived and all four of us stepped on. The guard reached past me and pressed the button for number fourteen: the top floor. As the doors closed, Watley looked over at me once more, his face an emotionless mask.
“How do you know Watley?” Callahan asked, eyes forward.
“I … I was hired by a guy he worked for. I guess.”
“He worked for?” Callahan asked with emphasis on the for, looking over at me.
“That’s what I thought, at least. I don’t know anymore, but if you asked me a couple days ago, I would have said he worked for a guy who hired me.”
“That’s … sort of accurate,” Kirk said quietly. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
“Well, that doesn’t make sense. Asshole’s an administrator!” Callahan obtusely pressed on, despite Kirk’s clear attempt to end the conversation.
“One of the organizations that was deemed undesirable … Mr. Watley handled the assessment personally, Callahan.”
“Why would he—?”
“Mr. Watley likes to do that kind of thing,” Kirk interrupted.
I turned 180 degrees so my face was very close to Kirk’s when I spoke. “What was it about Eddie’s warehouse that you deemed undesirable, Anthony?”
He said nothing, looking past me. The elevator stopped moving and the doors opened. Kirk sidestepped me and exited the elevator with a curt “We’re here.”
Callahan followed him off, his face lighting up. “So, Tony, is that why…” He turned and pointed at me.
Kirk stood just beyond the doors in a simple white-walled room and glared at the short, thick man, his eyes ablaze. Callahan persisted, still pointing at me and shaking his head in disbelief and amusement. “That’s why Vale’s here, huh? Just happened to happen that way?”
“More or less. Enough,” Kirk said icily.
Callahan laughed silently to himself as the guard led us to the only door in the room and opened it. My heart was beating quickly and my head was spinning.
“Hey, Callahan,” I whispered, tugging at his shirtsleeve as Kirk passed through the door. “What does an administrator do?”
He looked askance at me, then turned and walked through the door while answering. “What do you think, Vale? City administrator? They run the city. Run everything. Make decisions, allocate shit around. That stuff. Like mayors, I guess you could say.”
“How many of them are there?” I followed them through the doorway and could now see we were in a stairwell. A metal staircase led upward. We followed Kirk up as Callahan began to answer.
“Four, sometimes five if any special needs arise that—”
“Callahan! Just stop talking!” Kirk barked from above, leaning over the railing to look down at him.
Callahan raised his hands in sarcastic deference and trudged up the stairs, breathing heavily as we neared the last few steps. Kirk waited with his hand on the door.
“This can get disorienting. Just stay calm, and don’t move too much.” He pulled wide the door, and tendrils of fog rolled into the stairwell. Kirk stepped out into the gray, and Callahan bade me follow.
The wind whipped at my hair and face, and the mist swirled and danced more violently than I’d ever seen. “Are we on the roof?” I called above the howling wind.
Kirk nodded, and pointed toward the floor. There were two rows of orbs, not on posts, but rather set down on the concrete, leading off into the haze. It was daytime, but in the churning air, I could scarcely see more than three of the glowing orbs even though they were placed hardly four feet apart. “Stay between them!” Kirk shouted. He turned and set off walking along the glowing path, his shoulders hunched and head bent against the blowing fog. I followed him, looking back to see Callahan and the soldier behind me.
My steps were halting, uncertain, and soon I lost sight of Kirk. I inched forward half-blind, until suddenly his hazy figure was standing still before me. I took a few more steps and began to see the outline of something behind him. Something very big. I squinted as I drew up near Kirk, and then took a step past him. I could scarcely believe my eyes. A helicopter.
“Beauty, isn’t she?” Callahan said, walking up beside me.
Quietly, my voice sounding like it came from somewhere far away, I replied, “I can’t tell. I can’t see much of it.”
“Well, we’ll take care of that. Trust me, she’s a goddamn beauty. Great bird.” He clapped me on the shoulder and pulled open both the rear and forward doors. Callahan gestured for me to climb in the back, and then he pulled himself into the front, sliding behind the stick. The soldier climbed into the other seat beside Callahan, and Kirk got in after me, pulling the door to the small cabin shut.
It was quieter inside, but much fog had swirled in and I could barely make out Callahan fiddling with the controls. Kirk took one of the two rear-facing seats, and I settled in diagonally across from him. The engine turned over several times and then roared to life. The craft shuddered and whined as the power came up. Callahan reached back past Kirk’s shoulder and flipped a few switches on the ceiling. A new whirring noise filled that cabin. The fog dissipated, sucked out by a series of small fans I could now see placed around the aircraft.
“You all locked in back there?” Callahan called to us.
I said nothing. Kirk reached forward and clapped Callahan’s burly shoulder and he nodded, adjusted a few controls, and then took the stick in his hand. The helicopter pulsed with life and trembled a bit, and then I felt it begin to rise, the engine roaring above my head.
Slowly at first, we ascended. My mouth grew dry. Fear tinged with anticipation. Maybe confusion more than anything else. As the craft lifted ever faster and higher, the fog seemed to be growing thinner and paler. Higher still, and it was just a fine mist and a very light gray.
Then we rose out of the fog, and above me was the bright blue sky.
“Oh my God.” I whispered, “Oh my God … oh Christ … oh God … blue … blue … Jesus Christ…” Tears filled my eyes, and I began shaking. Callahan craned his neck around and looked at me. He started to laugh. I was barely aware of his laughter; hardly heard him turn to the soldier and mock me. Kirk silenced them with a sharp wave of his hand. I saw them all as if in a fading dream. For me, there was nothing but the sky. Oh beautiful deep azure sky. Soft clouds drifting here and there. Pure milk white—no trace of gray. The g
lorious sun. Blinding and beautiful brilliant sun. I stared right at it, squinting, overjoyed. Warming shining sun. Caressing my skin. And oh deep blue I knew only from flickering memories. And the lazy lovely clouds. I may have been speaking aloud, maybe babbling. I don’t know. I didn’t care.
I looked at Kirk with the joy of a child on Christmas. He awkwardly returned my smile. There was something in his eyes before he broke my gaze, and my thrill faded. In those moments of euphoria, I had not thought to look down. Slowly, suddenly terrified, I leaned over toward the curved glass of the window and pressed my face against it.
Fields! Rolling hills and trees! The winding river! Houses and roads and the familiar patchwork of perfect, everyday life. There was just so much color: white walls and green grass and black roofs and streets and bursts of orange and red from autumn trees. It was perfect, sylvan, suburban bliss. My joy returned. Briefly. At the same time, a small ember within me began to glow, began to burn hotter and grow larger.
“Where … have I been … all this time…,” I said very quietly, to myself. I was staring down at the land below me, but now turned to face Kirk. My voice wavering, I repeated myself more loudly. “Where have I been? Where have I been for all these years?”
Kirk sighed, his shoulders sagging. His face was grim as he looked toward the opposite window. I followed his gaze, looked back at him once more, and then hurriedly slid across the seat.
It was like one giant storm cloud nesting on the ground. The city. My city. My home of all these years. My prison all these years. One swirling mass of gray, pierced here and there by the tallest buildings. A massive bowl of gray turned upside down and placed over us all. Miles of swirling fog.
“Take me around it,” I said, wheeling to face Kirk.
“What?”
“I want to circle the fucking city!” I screamed, lunging forward to lean past Kirk and getting right in Callahan’s face. Kirk wrapped an arm around me and pushed me back into my seat. The soldier wheeled, his rifle up and trained on me.
“Calm down!” Kirk snapped at the man. He turned back to me, his eyes fiery. “I don’t want to sedate you, Vale, but I will. Callahan, go ahead. Circle the city.”
The pilot shrugged and nodded. He pushed the stick right, and we banked into a wide turn back toward home. As the helicopter straightened out, I could see the mist-enshrouded city more clearly through the cockpit. I leaned forward again, my knees resting on the seat by Kirk, head craned forward.
As we drew nearer, I began to recognize some of the buildings’ profiles. Once these skyscrapers had towered above the entire city; now they barely crested the fog. Callahan drew us into a long, slow arc clockwise around the city. At regular intervals, tall, thin columns of steel stuck up through the hazy canopy. Hundred of little rods protruded from them.
I was about to ask Kirk what they were when something caught my eye. “The cathedral,” I said aloud. I could just barely see the top two spires of the brilliant structure. They disappeared and reappeared several times in the swirling mist. Then we were past them. I was amazed to see that several of the bridges leading across the river into town were intact. I couldn’t be sure if the one I had been assigned to destroy as a soldier was gone or rebuilt.
The more I looked down at the blanket of fog that for years had wrapped around my life, the more my confusion turned to numbness. Eventually I slid back into my seat and looked out the other window, up at the sky. Kirk said something to Callahan, and we made a sharp turn, heading away from the city.
I was silent for a long time, maybe ten full minutes. Then I turned to Kirk. He was gazing out the window.
“Kirk.” My voice was even, strong. He looked at me. “What were those tall columns of metal?”
“It’s what makes the fog.” That’s what I feared he would say, knew he would say.
“Why?”
“Wait a while longer.” He turned back to the window. I was suddenly too overwhelmed to press the issue. A great weight had lowered itself onto my soul, crushing any fight I had in me. A long while passed during which my mind was all but blank. Every few minutes, I repeated silently to myself: What the fuck? You goddamn bastards. How could you?
I looked out the window again. There were no more houses below us—only green fields and swaths of woodland. Had we been flying that long—or that fast—to be already out in the country? Craning my neck to look in the direction we were traveling, I spotted a massive dam. Easily two hundred yards across, built into the side of a hill. The reservoir behind it was several miles wide. It was entirely new to me.
“Beautiful, isn’t she? That’s my baby.” Kirk’s voice was full of innocent excitement. “It was my first major design job with Research. Better part of two decades ago.”
“Few years too late for nostalgia, Tony!” Callahan called from up front. Kirk ignored him. I was deeply unnerved. This place looked so familiar. The rise of the hills and the patches of forest—it was like something I’d seen in a dream.
“That’s what generates all the power for the city. Every time you flicked on a light switch, it was power from that dam.”
“It powers the vents too, I’ll bet,” I said quietly.
“Yes. Them too. Should have tried it when we had the chance. I should have pushed harder for it. It might have changed everything,” he muttered, easing back into his seat and looking down at his hands. “But nothing would have changed.” Kirk snapped out of his reverie, glancing at me and then out the window beside him. “It probably wouldn’t have generated enough wattage for all the suburbs. So there it sat, a dam on paper.”
“Why did you make the fog?”
He looked over at me. “I didn’t.”
“We’ll be setting down in less than five, boys.” Callahan called over his shoulder, “May want to buckle up before we do.”
9
The helicopter touched down in a large field, rocking back and forth a bit as the heavy skids dug into the soft grass. Callahan powered down the engine, and with a dying whine all was silent. I sat staring out the window at the lush green grass. It was over a foot high and bent that length again back down to the ground under its own weight. Wild flowers dotted the verdant carpet in millions of places along the miles of sun-drenched, gentle hills.
The clicking of harnesses and an opening door snapped me back to the moment. Kirk was waiting expectantly by the open door. I crouched and slid past him and out of the helicopter. The land beneath my feet … the air crisp but the sun in my eyes and on my shoulders … it was surreal. The smell of the moist grass washed over me, and I was assailed by countless memories. Rolling in it at one age, using a lawn mower at another, crawling along with a rifle on my back still later … I took a few halting steps toward nowhere, overwhelmed.
“Should we cuff him?” I heard the soldier ask. I turned and faced the three men.
“No need for that, I’m sure. Right, Vale?” Kirk asked me.
“Where am I going to go?” I shrugged.
“Now that we’re here, I suppose I can answer that, in fact.” He took me by the arm and led me around to the front of the helicopter, pointing up a small hill. Among a stand of trees painted bright by autumn sat a charming home. White bricks and a wraparound porch and dark green shutters. About halfway up the hill, the grass was cut short and there were manicured hedges and bright flower beds. It was beautiful. Norman Rockwell perfect. A postcard from the past.
“I’m going to explain this very directly because I feel you deserve that much, but I don’t want you to ask questions or protest or anything. Just listen and then comply, okay? It’s a bad lot, Tom. I’m sorry. We’re going into that house. You are going to touch what we tell you, and then we’re going to leave. That’s it.”
“You’re framing me.” I said it matter-of-factly at first. “You’re fucking framing me, Kirk? Is that Ayers’s house? Tell me, goddammit!” I shouted, taking hold of his lapels.
“Yes,” he said, knocking my hands away from his jacket.
“I won’t do it. I refuse.”
Callahan walked up behind me. “Hey. Tom. If you put up a fight, we can always just cut your hands off and use them anyway.” He sounded more serious than before. So I kept silent.
“Come on.” Kirk turned and walked up the hill. I glanced back as I began to slowly follow him. Callahan trailed a few paces behind me while the soldier stood attentively by the chopper, a rifle slung across his back.
At the crest of the hill, I could see a gravel driveway leading down to a narrow road. The pavement did not pass the driveway; it started right at its bottom and then continued across the fields and out of sight.
“Pretty private out here, huh?” I muttered.
“Wasn’t always. They cleared the land years ago,” said Callahan, wheezing behind me after the short walk uphill. “This was a suburb at one point. Been a while, though.”
I stopped walking and turned to face Callahan. His face, flushed red, rose and fell with each heaving breath. “What did you do pre-fog, Callahan?”
“Me? Ha! I was a soldier. A sergeant for years.”
“I was a soldier too. Why have you been out here and me in there?”
“I don’t know, Vale.” He looked off across the meadow. “I guess I was a good soldier. I never asked too many questions, I can tell you that. I kept my head down—still do.” He nodded to himself as if in confirmation.
“What’s going to happen to me after you smear my prints all over this dead man’s house?”
“Not my business. I have no idea. I just flew you here.”
“Thomas!” Kirk called out from behind us. I turned to find him standing on the porch, the front door wide open behind him. Aside from his dark overcoat and suit, one might have thought he was welcoming in neighbors for a Sunday supper. “Come on in,” he said, turning and walking inside and out of view.
The interior of the house was dimly lit, but it smelled clean, fresh. From the foyer, I could see furnished rooms and pictures hung on walls and shoes on a little rack by the door; it felt like no one had lived in the house for some time, though. Rather, it seemed as if someone had been maintaining it for something. For my arrival, I guess.