by McLay, Craig
“You two can stink things up as much as you like,” Violet said. “But leave me out of it.”
“It’s just a radio code name!” Max protested.
“Then you can call me Isis,” Violet said. “Or Eurydice. I would also accept Hatshepsut.”
Max took his finger off the transmit button and unleashed a growling string of invective through clenched teeth. Then, pressing the button: “Two-two-four to Central. Do. You. Read. Me?”
A sigh. “I suppose ‘Central’ will have to do. Where are you idiots now?”
“Leaving primary embarkation point now,” Max said.
“Okay, so you’re in your backyard. Call me again when you get there.” There was a crunching sound. Was she eating potato chips? “And try not to fuck this one up like last time.”
“Roger that,” Max said, looking like he wanted to say a lot more but was refraining from doing so out of a stalwart sense of professionalism. “Two-two-four out.” Max stuck the walkie-talkie back on his belt and nodded to me. “Let’s move out.”
The electrical box was 3.2 kilometres away. The fastest way to get there without being observed was to cut through Royal City Park. During the day, the place would be crowded with kids on the play equipment or rec teams using the soccer and baseball fields, but as it was midnight, the place was deserted with the exception of a small crowd of university students taking a shortcut to the downtown bars; none of them paid us any attention. Since most of our trip would be off-road, we had decided that our bikes were the most efficient mode of transport. Max had tried to get me to paint mine matte black, but it was only a year and a half old and I had refused. I was pleased to see that he had decided against painting his, too. It was bright red and, although older than mine, it looked newer because he treated it with more care than the Hope Diamond.
He had, however, rubbed what looked like black shoe polish on his cheeks and forehead as some sort of camouflage and strongly encouraged me to do the same.
“What are you gonna say if a cop were to stop you looking like that?” I asked. “That you’re late for a revival performance of The Jazz Singer?”
“If I wear this, no cop will ever actually spot me,” Max said. “It reduces the glare. You can’t argue with science.”
“No, but I can argue with stupid.”
“All right,” he snapped. “Get caught. See if I care.”
We biked through the park without incident and made our way around the woodland path behind the toboggan hill that would lead to the river. We crossed the river on the pedestrian bridge next to the pumping station and made our way between the electrical towers to our final destination, which sat on a hill overlooking the rapidly expanding suburbs of the south end. Most of it had been rolling hills and countryside only five years before. From up here, it looked like a model railway village of empty streets under green lights.
It was a cool night for June and I was glad I had decided to bring my jacket – which, I was happy to point out to Max, was black. I could just make him out up ahead of me, a dark silhouette bobbing up and down as we made our way up the gentle incline. After about 50 yards, the grade got sharply steeper and we decided to climb off our bikes and push them the rest of the way. We leaned our bikes against a tree and walked over to the box. It was an ordinary green box with a yellow ID number stencilled on the side. An infographic warning that looked like a stork dropping a bowling ball was pasted next to that. I guessed that was some sort of warning message designed to keep people from doing what we were just about to do, although I had no idea how this image was supposed to communicate that. I guess the stickers were cheaper than translating the words “Do Not Open” into eight different languages.
Max took a pair of binoculars out of his backpack and peered across the river valley at the Weather Station, about 200 yards away. He stared down at it for a couple of minutes, still breathing heavily from our climb.
“There it is,” he said. “You ready?”
“Yep,” I said, feeling not in the least bit ready. We had gotten lucky with the truck. I couldn’t help but think our chances of getting that lucky again were remote. It was all I could manage to keep myself from dropping the bolt cutters and running back down the hill as fast as I could go.
Max took the walkie-talkie off his belt. “This is two-two-four to Central. Come in, Central.”
He let go of the transmit button and heard only static. He waited a few seconds and then tried the message again.
“Central, this is BO-two-two-four. You there?”
Hissssssssssss.
“Maybe we’re out of range,” I suggested, pointing to the walkie-talkie.
“These are supposed to be good for distances up to five kilometres!” Max said. “I ordered ’em online. I was very careful about checking the specs!”
I was about to suggest that maybe the specs were wrong or they had sent the wrong model when Violet’s voice crackled through the speaker.
“Sorry, guys!” she said. “You gotta go, you gotta go, though. What’s up?”
Max cleared his throat. “Central, this is two-two-four. We have reached the primary objective.”
There was more crunching. “Finally! You guys get lost or something? I’ve watched practically a whole season of The Wire since we last talked.”
Max took a deep breath and muttered something I couldn’t hear. “Repeat, Central. This is two-two-four. We have reached our primary objective.”
“Well, a hearty huzzah to you then, two-two-four,” she said. “Nobody knows you’re up there except for yours truly. Have at ’er.”
Max gave me a puzzled look. “Roger that, Central.” He clipped the walkie-talkie back to his belt. “You ready?”
I nodded. The two of us started walking toward the green box like it was a bull that might decide at any moment to charge us. I pulled out the bolt cutters. The padlock was small – like something a kid would put on a tackle box. I took it in my left hand, extended the cutters, and clipped it in one easy motion. Max opened the lid and pulled out a small Maglite, flicking it on to reveal a rabbit’s warren of cables and switches.
“There it is!” he whispered, pointing. I could see the numbering on the slot: B122A. I took the stick out of my pocket and, after a moment’s hesitation, plugged it into the slot. We both sat and stared at it for a moment as, one by one, the lights on the side of the stick lit up. It looked so much like a bomb arming itself that I felt a powerful urge to run.
Max jumped up and grabbed the walkie-talkie. “The package is delivered, Central! Repeat: the package is delivered!”
Violet’s voice crackled back through the static. This time there was no teasing or joking in her voice. “I can see that, gentlemen. Stand by.”
I ran to watch over Max’s shoulder as he trained his binoculars on the Weather Station. It was close enough that I could see it, although not with the same level of detail. I thought about demanding a turn with the binoculars but knew I’d just be wasting my breath. Max would never give them up and we’d spend the next five minutes arguing over the damn things instead of watching the Station shut down.
Except it didn’t appear to be shutting down – if anything, it was coming to life.
I could see two large panels on the roof tilt open and at least three large satellite dishes rise up into the air on one side while what looked like a large telescope extended from the other. The satellite dishes rotated into place until they were pointing almost straight into the sky. The telescope rose even higher and began to rotate in slow circles. An ominous electric hum started getting louder by the moment.
I knew one thing. This was definitely not what we were expecting would happen.
I grabbed the walkie-talkie and hit the transmit button. “It’s me! The Station is not shutting down!” I yelled. “I repeat – the Station is not shutting down!”
I could barely hear Violet’s voice over the strange, alien humming. “Relax, boys. Just stay right where you are. This won’t take but a minute.”
I tore my eyes away from the Station for a moment and looked up into the sky. The moon and stars were gone, replaced by a monster swirl of black and green clouds.
Where in the hell did that come from? I wondered. The wind was picking up, too. There hadn’t even been a breeze when we rode up here, and now suddenly I was being forced to steady myself against a tree to keep from being blown off my feet.
“What is this?” Max said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it sure as hell doesn’t look like we just turned it off!”
I was reasonably sure of two things at that point: what was happening wasn’t good; and what we had done was in some way responsible for it. I ran back to the box. I was able to see the stick thanks to the glowing lights on the side. I reached in and yanked it out, throwing it on the ground like it was toxic.
Nothing happened.
Or, rather, things suddenly got a whole hell of a lot worse.
Max and I watched in horrified awe as the first of the black funnel clouds descended out of the sky and touched down. Then another. And another. They looked like giant moving skyscrapers of doom. I had never seen an actual tornado before other than on TV and I have to say that watching them on TV is like the difference between playing with a rubber duck in the bathtub and being attacked by a Great White shark in the open ocean. One is mildly entertaining and the other one will kill you so hard that no one will ever find any trace of your body.
The wind was deafening. I could feel the walkie-talkie vibrating as Violet said something, but even if I held it right up to my ear, I couldn’t make out a single word.
Max and I looked at each other in confusion and terror. I pointed at the box and mimed to indicate that I had pulled the stick out, then threw my hands up to show that this experiment had been a failure. Max looked lost for a moment and then his expression suddenly hardened. I saw him reach into his backpack and remove one of his homemade grenades. I’d had no idea that he’d even packed them.
Bending low against the blasting wind, I saw him stride purposefully towards the box, pull the pin on the grenade, toss it in, and then close the lid.
“Run!” he yelled.
The wind was so strong up here that not much running was required. We could barely avoid being lifted off our feet as it carried us across the ridgeline before throwing ourselves behind some trees. I heard a muffled boom and covered my face as a shower of white sparks shot up into the air from the box. We lifted our heads slightly and looked across the valley at the Weather Station, where a similar explosion had knocked two of the three satellite dishes off the roof.
“It must have caused a power surge!” Max yelled.
The second boom took the telescopic device off and started a fire that quickly engulfed the building. As it spread, we noticed the wind starting to die down and the funnel clouds sucked back up into the sky like the last dregs of cola through a straw. A minute after that, the sky was perfectly clear again.
Shortly after that, we were arrested.
-11-
We were charged with a variety of things: destruction of private property; possession of an explosive device; trespassing; detonation of an unlawful explosive device; mischief. There was even talk of charging us under the terrorism statutes, but we hadn’t made any threats or demands and hadn’t hurt anybody, so that was quickly dismissed. There was no way we could have known that a storm was coming, so our blowing up the weather monitoring station could not legally be classified as criminal negligence.
Still, it was enough to shut down BO-224.
“Bunch of ingrates,” Max muttered. “If we hadn’t blown the box, they’d probably all be dead.”
“That storm started pretty much as soon as we plugged in Violet’s device,” I said. “She must have known that was going to happen.” If I’d had any doubts about Max’s notion that the Weather Station actually controlled the weather instead of just reporting on it, they had been blown away along with many parts of the city.
“Yes, it did,” Max said. “I’m starting to think that the whole thing was a setup.”
Setup or not, it didn’t change the fact that we were now in serious trouble. I was desperately trying to think of a way that I could frame this whole incident that wouldn’t result in my father hanging me upside down from a tree when we were informed that our lawyer had arrived. Max and I looked at each other in confusion. We hadn’t called a lawyer. We didn’t even know the name of a lawyer we could call. The only lawyer I had ever met was the one who had handled the closing on my parent’s house, a nearsighted bald man with a lisp who had miscalculated the land transfer tax, which had caused my father to loudly inform him that in the future, he would not hire said lawyer, and to close that fucking door.
The man who entered the interview room was young, probably no more than 30 years old. His suit looked like it probably cost more than my father made in a year. He asked the police officer to leave, removed a couple of sheets of paper from his briefcase and slid them across the table to us.
“Gentlemen,” he said, giving us a quick nod. “Sign those, if you would.”
We leaned forward and looked at the neatly typed documents. “What is this?” I asked. “Who are you?”
“Call me Black,” he said, sitting down across from us. “And as soon as you sign those, I will be your attorney.”
“So is Black your name or is that just what you want us to call you?” I asked.
“That doesn’t matter.”
Max and I looked at each other. “Sorry,” he said. “Did you say you’re our lawyer?”
“We don’t have a lot of time here, gentlemen, so I’m going to explain this quickly,” Mr. Black said. “I have spoken to the private interests whose property you are accused of destroying this evening. Provided you allow me to represent you, they are not going to press any charges against you. If you go with another attorney, that will not be the case. Defending yourselves against the charges placed will probably cost each of you between fifty and one hundred thousand dollars, give or take. Not counting the civil actions that could be taken against you, which could run into the millions.”
“Millions?” Max said.
“Indeed,” Mr. Black said. “There’s not only the property itself, which is quite expensive, I assure you, but business interruption and so forth. I can guarantee you that if I am your representative, no such civil action will be presented.”
I swallowed. “Do you have a pen?”
He smiled and produced a gleaming pen from his pocket. I took it and scrawled an approximation of my signature at the bottom of the sheet. Max did likewise.
“Excellent!” he said, taking a moment to examine the sheets before tucking them back into his briefcase. “Now as I said before, time is of the essence here, so I’ll explain what’s going to happen. First, you will say nothing more to the police or anyone else. No statements to anybody. Understood?”
We nodded blankly.
“The most serious of the charges against you are going to be dropped. In the end, you will plead guilty to a couple of the lesser ones. Mischief and trespassing, most likely. Not enough traces of the explosive device were found to indicate that it even existed, let alone that it was manufactured or possessed by either of you. It’s entirely feasible that the storm caused the box to short out and explode all on its own.”
“Okay,” I said. This was sounding pretty good. Five minutes earlier, I had been convinced that I was going to spend the next 25 years in jail.
“You’re just two bored kids out for a bike ride who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mr. Black said, as if addressing a jury. He did it with such smooth confidence that even I would have believed him, and I knew it wasn’t true. “As far as any unusual activity surrounding the box or the Weather Station, you did not hear or see anything strange.”
The last part was framed more like a command than a question.
“Absolutely,” I said. “Uh, if you don’t mind me asking you, how
much do you charge?”
“Nothing,” he said. For the first time, I noticed that his eyes were the same colour as his name. When he smiled, it didn’t spread to them. “I’m handling this matter on what we might call a…pro bono basis.”
“I thought only civil lawyers did that,” Max said.
“Thought is not a word I want you to use,” he said. “Or an activity I would encourage you to pursue. As for the involvement of anyone else, you know nothing.”
“What about Violet?” I asked.
He examined his nails. “As I said. You don’t know, nor have you met, anyone by the name of Violet Haze. To the best of your knowledge, Miss Haze is a student at your school and you know absolutely nothing about her. The only thing you do know for certain is that she had no involvement whatsoever in any activity that may in any way be connected to the events of this evening.”
I realized that he was right. I really did have no idea who she was. How much of what she had told me about herself was true? Probably nothing. But what was her connection to this guy? I wanted to know, but it would probably be a bad idea to ask.
“So what happens now?” Max asked.
Mr. Black looked at his watch. Like everything else he was wearing, it looked insanely expensive. “In thirty minutes, you will be discharged into the custody of your parents. I will have a word with them first and do my best to explain that, in my legal opinion, you are largely blameless in this situation. Shortly after that we will arrange a deal where you plead guilty on two of the aforementioned lesser charges. The two of you will serve one hundred eighty days of some form of community service, although, if you were to enlist in say, the Junior Defenders, we may be able to cut that time to forty-five. After that, the criminal conviction will disappear on your eighteenth birthday. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another urgent matter to attend to.”
He got up, grabbed his briefcase and walked over to knock on the door.
“Who are you, really?” I asked, unable to hold back.