Firestorm

by David Klass

  They could definitely shoot me down but they don’t, so I guess they want to take me alive. Find out what I know. The old neural flay. And I have no way to escape.

  Except one.

  I accelerate and head south, toward the Capitol steps.

  What are you doing, Jack?

  Taking the only way out.

  You’ll kill us.

  Ours not to reason why. Ours but to do and die.

  Have you gone mad?

  Stiff upper lip, juicy jowls.

  We plunge over the edge of the terrace. Motorcycle and side car career down endless steps. Bumpita-thumpita-bumpita. Bones shaking. Teeth rattling.

  Old motorcycle somehow stays upright. Sidecar stays attached.

  Gisco lying flat, covering eyes with paws. O GREAT DOG GOD, SAVE YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT.

  I murmur similarly desperate prayer, although not directed at Great Dog God.

  We accelerate. No more thumping and bumping. Now it’s a concussive BAM, BAM, BAM. We are slamming our way down Capitol steps at more than fifty miles an hour. Old motorcycle can’t possible hang together. Antique sidecar can’t possibly endure this punishment. But they do, and we make it down, and then suddenly we’re on the National Mall, speeding away across the grass.

  Gisco uncovers eyes. Peers between paws over edge of sidecar. We made it! We’re alive! I knew you could do it!

  You weren’t exactly full of encouragement. But I guess it’s hard to be plucky when you’re cowering in fear.

  For your information, I was just lying flat to cut down on wind resistance.

  Ah. I see.

  But since we’re away free and clear, let’s put some distance between them and us.

  Not a bad idea.

  We zigzag our way out of D.C. at high speed.

  17

  Outskirts of city. I lie down on grass. Gisco inspects my hip. Probes gently with paw. Not a bad bedside manner for a dog. It’s not too serious.

  It’s completely numb. I can’t move my leg.

  Temporary synaptic paralysis. You’ll be fine.

  I sit up on grass. Great. But there’s something I don’t get. How could they possibly have found us and set up an ambush? They couldn’t have known where we jumped off the train. They couldn’t have figured out we bought a motorcycle from that gang, or spotted us on local roads. So how could they have guessed we’d come here?

  Psychological profiling. Do you know why you wanted to come to Washington, D.C.?

  Curiosity. I’d never seen it.

  That’s not the reason. Not the underlying reason. You’ve been trained to act that way.

  What way? What are you talking about?

  It’s epoch-appropriate behavior. Children of your generation were taught in school to trust authority. If something bad happens, tell your parents. Tell your teacher. Tell the police. Right?

  Yes, that’s what they teach us.

  So, given everything that’s happened to you, it’s natural that you felt the need to alert a higher authority. They thought you might try to reach out to your congressman or senator or even the President. So they were waiting for us. But we won’t make that mistake again, right?

  Right, I agree. Something about Gisco’s response is troubling me. More than troubling me. It’s giving me an answer to something that’s been nagging at me for a long time. Right, I repeat, we won’t make that mistake again because you’re going to tell me what’s going on.

  Where?

  Here. Now. It’s time for the truth. Where do the guys who just ambushed us come from? Which is also, I suspect, where you come from.

  I can’t answer that question. You can’t handle it.

  I’m not looking for an answer. Just for confirmation. I’ve figured it out.

  Dog eyes studying me. I truly doubt that.

  You say you’re from here yet not from here. You speak of my generation not being telepathic. The technologies that you use—laser guns, paralysis darts, and plasma nets—are beyond anything I think the government is working on, even in secret programs. And you use the past tense when describing the present.

  Grammar was never my strong point.

  Sometimes I catch you looking at this world wistfully, the way I think I’d look at the Garden of Eden if I could go back there. I don’t think you’re from the Twilight Zone. You’re clearly not of this world. Yet at the same time, you seem to fit here very naturally. So … I know where you must be from.

  Dog eyes watching me. Waiting. I look back into them and finish the thought. The future. This planet’s future. My future. That’s why you fit and yet you don’t fit. You belong and yet you don’t belong. And all those people who are trying to kill me are also from the future.

  Gisco doesn’t deny it.

  You’ve all come back in time, I would guess hundreds if not thousands of years, and now you’re fighting it out in my world. You want to do one thing. They want the opposite. I’m in the middle of it, even though I don’t know what you’re fighting over. But my guess is that something must be awfully screwed up in your future world for you to have come back here. Is that right? Tell me!

  Gisco hesitates. Droopy ears quiver beneath red bandanna. Finally he nods. Yes, Jack, you figured it out, he admits. You’re right, but you’re also wrong.

  About what? Don’t talk in riddles.

  It’s not just that I’m from the future. It’s that we’re from the future. You and me both, kid. Stop accusing me of coming back to your world. This ain’t your world any more than it is mine. We were both born almost a thousand years from now.

  I feel dizzy, but he goes on.

  As for the future being screwed up, you’re also wrong about that. It is but it’s not. Or at least it doesn’t have to be. That’s sort of where you come in. You have to find Firestorm. You are the beacon of hope. I really can’t tell you more till we get to Kitty Hawk and have time to noodle this around and figure our next step. Jack? You okay?

  But I’m not okay. Fainting. Or at least swooning. My tie to consciousness dwindles to a silver thread. I’m lost in my own mind. Because I know that what Gisco just said must be true. I’ve had a hunch ever since the Gorm called me the Prince. I just never admitted it to myself before.

  Didn’t want to. Couldn’t face it.

  It’s not that they’re interlopers while I belong here. That was a feeble attempt on my part to cling to some semblance of the familiar. The truth is I am not of this place and time either. I AM OF THEIR PLACE AND TIME! I am of them. Yet at the same time I know nothing of it or of them.

  My ignorance of self crashes over me like a wave and I feel myself drowning. I come from a future that is blank to me, yet the only thing I know is a present that I am not truly a part of. I was put here for a purpose I do not know, and am being chased by enemies who want to kill me for reasons no one will explain.

  The only thing I know for sure as I lie on the grass is that a big dog is licking my face to keep me conscious, and sending me not very comforting telepathic messages: There, there. It will probably all come out right in the end. After all, we’ve avoided the neural flay so far.

  How will it come out right? My parents are dead. And they weren’t really my parents. All my friends are gone. I have nothing tying me to anything.

  At least you’re still alive. There’s an old dog saying: Better a dog without a leash than a leash without a dog.

  Is that supposed to be comforting?

  You’re doing great, Jack. I didn’t think you could handle the truth, but you’re tougher than you look, dear boy. We’d better get going now. Because the more you find out about yourself, the more you’re going to realize how important it is for them not just to catch you or torture you but to obliterate you from the face of the earth.

  18

  Happy Halloween. The spooky predawn hours. Moon a goblin’s yellow jaw, chewing through mist. Rural Virginia, dark and quiet. Trick-or-treaters still asleep. I don’t need a mask this year. Got something better. Boo. I’m from the fu
ture. Boo, bat creatures. Boo, telepathic dogs. Want a real scare? Boo, Gorms and neural flay.

  Wide-open blacktop, heading south. Old Harley rocketing forward, making occasional hacking and retching sounds. Way over speed limit but who cares? Wind trying its best to uproot my straw-colored hair from scalp. Dust turning blue eyes into tear geysers. Leaning forward. Gripping handlebars. Let’s go faster. VROOOM.

  Here’s the weird part: telepathic dog riding next to me is from the future. My future. Except that apparently I’m from that future, too. In fact, I was born into it. So in a way he’s really from my past. Boo. Happy Halloween. I’m as Gormy as a Gorm. As batty as a bat creature.

  You okay, kid?

  Uh-oh. You’re not reading anything, are you? I had my screens up.

  Just a tickle. Knew you were thinking about me. Couldn’t tell what. You’re getting much better at this.

  Kind of a necessity, actually. Cranial privacy is underrated. Wonder if everyone in the future world is telepathic. Must make for a pretty messed-up situation.

  Odd thing is I can’t seem to stop thinking about that future world. Not at first, mind you. First hundred miles out of D.C. I was too numb to think of anything except the white line on the highway. Now it’s broken. Now it’s solid.

  Maybe it was the synaptic paralysis dart. Or my meltdown discombobulation on learning the truth.

  But paralysis is wearing off. Discombobulation lessening. I find myself pondering that future world. Mind you, I’m still horrified by the idea that it’s my true world. Still don’t feel like one of them. Yet how could a fellow not be a bit curious?

  What is it like, that far future time I was sent here from? Are my birth parents there now? If I ever meet them, they better have a pretty damn compelling reason for sending me away, and getting me into this mess.

  I try not to stew on it. What’s to be gained? But my questions will not go away. As Dorothy said, there’s no place like home. So if you don’t know your home, it’s probably normal to speculate about it. Do they have schools? Varsity sports? Hard to believe guys are still running around football fields ten centuries hence.

  If not, what have they replaced them with? What do they care about? Do they still believe in love? Family?

  If I’m some kind of Prince, that must make my parents royalty. King and Queen? Of what? Do they live in a palace? If I ever make it back, will strangers bow and curtsy to me? Or will they just try to kill me, as they all seem so intent on doing now?

  A thousand years! The scale of it! They are to me and this world what I am to Charlemagne and the Crusades!

  Yet they have come back here and are battling over something in this world. How they must look down on it, and all the ignorant, backward people who populate it!

  Stoplight towns and one-horse burgs flash past as we roll through southern Virginia and into North Carolina. Great names for small places. Littleton. Boykins. Scotland Neck. Hobgood.

  Restaurants and chain stores I’ve never seen before. Stuckey’s. Hardee’s. Signs advertising real southern pit barbecue. Two-story plastic statue of a hog.

  Never been in the South before. Always been intrigued by it. Love the accent. Especially when ringing off the lips of a southern belle. Love the writers. Faulkner. Flannery O’Connor. Tennessee Williams. Find the history fascinating. Larger-than-life figures. John C. Calhoun. Frederick Douglass. Robert E. Lee. Martin Luther King.

  Yet all of it is steeped in blood and ghosts. Flannery O’Connor’s good men who are hard to find because they always turn out to be psychotic. Blanche DuBois with her Tarantula Arms and Laura Wingfield with the glass menagerie. Lee at Gettysburg, sending his men charging into rifle fire. There go the flower of the South, borne off in a tide of bullets. King lying in blood on the balcony of a motel in Memphis.

  Be careful, Jack. Nice people here, but there’s also lots of hidden pain.

  Rain starts to fall. Hard to drive a motorcycle at night in the rain. Hey, cymbal ears. Maybe we should find shelter and wait for it to stop.

  No. We’re almost there. And it’s not going to stop.

  What are you, a weatherman?

  Weather dog. Trust me. Dogs know about these things.

  Fine. I don’t mind getting sopping wet. You’ve been pretty quiet the last few hours.

  Just remembering all we’ve been through together. That Gorm in New York would have sold me for a neural flay if you hadn’t come along. I’ll never forget that you got me out.

  You repaid the favor. Saved me in D.C. We’re even.

  Fair enough. But if anything should ever happen between us, I want you to know … Dog literally can’t finish the thought. Choking up telepathically.

  You don’t have to say it. Or think it. I know you’ll always be there for me, Gisco. You’re my only friend.

  A rainy dawn breaks as we cross Roanoke Sound to the barrier islands of the Outer Banks. Pass through Kill Devil Hills. Wonder what devil was killed there. Right nearby is Kitty Hawk. Signs for the Wright Brothers Museum. Other signs pointing to great dunes.

  Drumroll of thunder. Sky opening up. We should pull into a motel. We have the cash.

  No. We’d have to check in. Show I.D. The whole point of coming here was to lie low.

  True, but lying low won’t help us if we drown.

  There!

  Where?

  An old barn. Exactly what we need!

  I still don’t see it.

  You missed the turnoff. It looked perfect.

  Careful U-turn on wet highway. Back the way we came. Driveway leading between sandy dunes and stubbly pines to shadowy structure. Jagged flash of lightning. There it is, sure enough, an old barn.

  No lights on. No signs of life. Impressive that Gisco could have spotted it in this downpour as we sped past. Good eyes, snaggle tail. Must be those herding genes.

  My ancestors didn’t herd. It was beneath them.

  Fine. Whatever. Let’s go get warm. Think we can break in? Hope the horses inside don’t mind company.

  Don’t smell horses. Barn must be vacant.

  Vacant but secure. No way in. Maybe I can climb through the second story …

  Wait. Here’s a door.

  Thank God. This is like the biblical flood. Uh-oh, locked.

  Let’s give it a good push.

  Dog charges forward. Hits it low. At the same second, I give it a stiff shoulder high. Old wooden door doesn’t stand a chance. Bursts inward.

  Ta da! We’re in.

  Nice and dry. Warm, too. Here’s a light switch. What do you know, it works! Clean for a barn, huh? Just a bit odd that this perfect barn should have been sitting here among the dunes, waiting for us to stumble on it. But we’ve had enough bad luck. Time something good happened. You were right about horses not being here. Doesn’t look like this place has been used for animals in years.

  Want some free advice, old bean?

  If you’re handing it out.

  You’re too trusting. It may be the death of you.

  What?

  Au revoir. Or should I say adieu. Big dog turns and gallops back out of door, which swings shut behind him.

  I don’t know what’s happening but I don’t like it.

  What are you doing, carrion breath? Is this some kind of dog practical joke? Get back here. Where are you going?

  Suddenly I’m spooked. I run after Gisco. Wooden door is flimsy. No problem breaking it in, no problem busting it out. I lower shoulder. WHAM! It’s like running into a brick wall. Something has reinforced it from the outside.

  I fly back through barn and end up on my rear end. Get shakily to my feet. Look the place over in a new way.

  BECAUSE I WAS BROUGHT HERE. No other windows or doors visible. Just one light, a bare bulb hanging by a wire from the high ceiling. Swinging slightly, back and forth.

  As I watch it swing, the light goes out.

  Pitch darkness.

  I stand there and shiver, even though the barn is warm.

  Happy Halloween.

/>   Trick or treat.

  Jack, you were just tricked by man’s best friend.

  19

  Dark barn. Near ocean. I can hear surf.

  Never felt this betrayed. Different from feeling alone. Felt alone when I sailed down the Hudson, away from Hadley and P.J. and my parents. Terrible empty feeling.

  Now I pace from one side of barn to the other. Damn dog. Saved him from Gorm. Joked around with him. Thought he was my only friend. Opened my heart to him and showed him my deepest fears. All the time he was playing me. Using me. Entrapping me.

  The old chicken-and-egg game my ass. Looking back on it now, I see that I was literally taken for a ride. Gisco must have seen the plane flying overhead. Given me some kind of telepathic prompt or hypnotic suggestion to look up at it. And then that nonsense about reversing causality.

  He chose Kitty Hawk.

  Brought me here.

  To this empty barn.

  Why? I don’t know. But it couldn’t have been for an honorable reason or he wouldn’t have run away.

  Man’s best friend. Hah! Twenty thousand years of partnership! Hah! Just let me at that flabby fur ball again for five minutes. That’s all I ask.

  Calm down, Jack. Try to focus. Dangerous situation. Safe to assume you’re in the hands of your enemies. They’re going to show up any second. Try to find out what you know. By causing you pain. Also, very possibly try to kill you. So let go of your anger and figure out your next move.

  I stop pacing. Start circling. Feel walls of barn inch by inch. No cracks, no windows, no ledges.

  Just a secure box with me in the center of it.

  Flecks of light in roof, three stories up. Sun rising outside.

  Me starting to crack inside. Minutes passing. Hours dragging by. Waiting for interrogator. Or executioner. Nothing to do and nowhere to go but just stay put. Which is excruciating. Stress rises. Fear begins to take over.

  Maybe this is a form of psychological warfare. They’re softening me up. When they’re ready to hurt me, they’ll come in and bang me around.

  Either that or they’re watching me. Studying my reactions like a boy studying a spider caught in a jar.