“There speaks the single woman,” Rob said.
“With these wild things,” Julianne explained, “we wouldn’t get to eat, just chase them around a restaurant.”
They compromised on a gourmet carryout picnic in the park. The blue May
sky was clear as a jewel, and it was too early in the season for the notorious Washington humidity. Julianne and Angie, on their perpetual diets, ate salad stuffed into pita bread, while Rob loaded his pita with chicken dijonnaise. He noticed that Angie didn’t reach for a cigarette, not even at the crucial after-meal moment, and secretly congratulated himself.
Angela and Davey burrowed into the sand area, nominally finished with their food. Every now and then Julianne would go over and pop a grape or a bit of pita into their mouths. “It’s so neat that they’re getting independent,”
Angie marveled. “Only a year ago they were totally helpless, remember? Now they’re eighteen months old, playing by themselves, eating real food—next thing you know they’ll be getting their ears pierced and borrowing the car.”
“God forbid!” Julianne said.
“It’s only temporary, playing by themselves,” Rob said lazily. He lay on his back on the picnic quilt. “In a minute they’ll yell for Mommy or Daddo to help with the shovels.”
At that moment Davey did yell. “Siren!” he shouted. “Momma, siren!”
“It sure is, poopsie!” Julianne picked Davey up to look for the vehicle, and Rob sat up too.
A Jeep careened around the corner on two wheels. Behind it came a police car, sirens howling and lights flashing. “They’re chasing a bad car, just like on TV,” Angie told Angela.
“That guy’s a menace,” Rob exclaimed. Automatically he reached out and scanned the driver. The roiling chaos in his head was dizzying—the kid must be hyped up on drugs. All three adults winced as the Jeep screeched around the minivan parked at the curb.
Rob’s first thought was to wait for the chase to vanish. The police were paid to do this kind of thing. But a deep atavistic instinct rose up in his chest: defend the women and children! And Batman would never have let it go by. Quietly Rob said, “Stop.” For good measure he added, “Foot on the brake, not the accelerator.” The Jeep slowed immediately, and almost got rear-ended by the police car.
Davey squealed with pleasure at the sight so Julianne didn’t notice, but Angie stared at Rob narrowly. “Rob, did you just tell that car to stop?”
Rob was pleased that he didn’t tense up. With his enhanced perception he could strike exactly the right note for his sister. “You think I did it?” he asked smiling. “Superman and Green Lantern ain’t got nothin’ on me.”
“Oh, very funny.” Angie rolled her eyes. “I told you when you were nine that all those comic books would warp your brain. That’s right, baby dumpling, wave at the nice policeman!”
Of course Angie was right—she frequently was. Rob knew that the comic books were a bad precedent to follow. Besides, he was just a little too plump around the middle these days to wear tights with dignity. Any public display would be repugnant, not his style at all. If he was going to dabble in crime-fighting and world-saving he was going to be private about it. The idea of being a secret benefactor was powerfully attractive—all the pleasures of do-gooding without having to cope with the people involved.
He went to work on Monday and got the day off by announcing to several people, “I’m really here.” Anyone looking for him would now be told something like, “Well, I just saw Rob a second ago. Isn’t he in the Xerox room?”
He still only had today to act in. The software would continue to accumulate on the company computer net, and eventually he’d have to debug it. What was the most efficient use of this short time? He got into the minivan and thought about it. What he needed was a large concentration of criminals in one place that he could easily visit. “Of course,” he murmured. “Lorton Reformatory.” He opened the glove compartment and rooted around for a map.
It was in Fairfax County, but due to archaic regional regulations Lorton
Reformatory housed convicts from nearby Washington, D.C., not suburban baddies. The two-lane highway ran incongruously right through the prison complex. One moment Rob was cruising past subdivisions full of six-figure mansions, and then the road was flanked with tall razor-wire fences and guard towers. He turned off onto a side street and unfolded the map, pretending to be lost—no point in exciting the perimeter guards.
He closed his eyes and reached out. How many prisoners were detained here, maybe nine thousand? For a second he wondered if he’d bit off more than he could chew. But when he called on the power it was there, inexhaustible.
There were limits to everything, but not, apparently, to this. Or hadn’t he found the limits yet? This would be an interesting test.
He phrased it carefully. “Decency,” he said aloud. “Honesty. Politeness.”
Should he mention honor? Maybe not—too complicated a concept. “Law-abiding”—there was a useful one. He scribbled the words on the edge of the map, so as not to omit one, and concentrated on broadcasting them, impressing each on the soft clay of the brains around him. Vaguely he realized how vastly his abilities had multiplied in less than a week. First he had just observed, then he could interfere, and now he knew he could impose a mindset on nine thousand people. Amazing. Where would it end?
“Excuse me, sir—do you need help?”
A frowning uniformed cop tapped on Rob’s window. Hastily he powered it down. “I was looking for Occoquan,” Rob said, rustling his map. “But I seem
to have turned myself around.”
The policeman relaxed. A Plymouth Voyager with fake wood paneling on the sides and two child seats in the back was a preposterous vehicle for a prison break. And Rob knew that he looked supremely uncriminal: an out-of-shape white guy in a brown sports jacket and khakis. “You didn’t go far enough south down Route 123,” the cop said, pointing. “Another three-four miles’ll get you there.”
“I get it,” Rob said, nodding at his map. “Thanks a lot!” He started the engine again and, turning in a driveway, returned to 123 and joined the traffic rolling south. Might as well grab a sandwich in Occoquan before heading back to work. Five minutes’ worth of weirdness should be enough. Cruising past the prison again Rob began to laugh. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he said out loud. “It’s like something on TV!” He could imagine himself, in an Armani suit, simpering beside Phil Donahue. “Yes,
Phil, I am indeed personally responsible for the 27 percent drop in the D.C. crime rate …”
CHAPTER 3
Rob took his time driving back after lunch, stopping to raid the ATM machine and fill up on gas. It was a sunny warm day, the kind of afternoon that insidiously encourages idleness. How long has it been, Rob wondered, since I went to Great Falls and sat on the rocks by the river? But he
didn’t feel comfortable playing hooky any longer. He was too conscientious to enjoy the thought of all those software bugs piling up in cyberspace.
Sighing, he turned onto the side street that led to Chasbro’s building.
Lost in thought, he almost side-swiped the fire engine. “Holy mackerel,” he muttered, swerving around it. There was another pumper truck pulled up in the circular driveway at the main door. The air was hazy and foul with smoke. An oily black plume of it streamed from the roof of the building. On the grassy strip beside the parking garage huddled his coworkers, clutching handbags and briefcases.
Rob pulled into a parking space and reached out. A fire? What about the software? But to his horror, when he peeked into the others’ minds, he found them full of images of himself. When he powered down the window the smoke made him cough. He could hear Danny yelling, “We know he’s in there, man! You gotta find him!”
“Damn. Oh, damn.” Rob slouched in his seat so that no one would see him. He had “told” people he was really in the office, and they truly and totally believed it. Everyone could see he was missing, and therefore he must
still be inside. No hope now of slipping out and just joining the group, letting them assume he’d followed everyone out. He’d have to go into the building and allow himself to be rescued—be seen, carried out by a fireman.
Lori was weeping loudly, saying, “And poorJulianne, with the twins! They have to get him out, they just have to!” Rob opened the van door and
stepped out, concentrating hard. Invisible, he thought. I’m not here. I’m wearing a tarnhelm, an invisibility hat, just like in the Norse myth. You don’t see me. He walked past a group of firemen in yellow and brown slickers and stepped over a tangle of canvas hoses to the side door. Nobody saw him. It was a fire door, usually shut but now propped open. Inside, the acrid smoke burned his throat and made his eyes water. I am not Superman, he told himself. The power, whatever it is, will in no way save me from burning to death. I have got to keep my ass safe! Nevertheless it seemed impossibly incorrect to be found standing just inside the door. Coughing, he moved a little farther in.
Everything was chaos, noisy and strange. Under his feet the carpet squelched with water from the hoses. From above came shouts and the crashing of fire axes against doors, and the thump of booted running feet.
Rob thought he couldn’t see anything, but then an orange glow lit the smoky air. The building’s on fire, he noticed idiotically. He found he really hadn’t quite believed it until now. Somehow he was slumping to his knees as the menacing light and glare slowly increased. Cause of death, smoke inhalation. Damn it. What a stupid, stupid way to die.
A dark tornado seemed to whirl down the hallway. It caught Rob up and sent him jostling back out the door into the blessed clean air. He fell onto the grass and stared up at the tornado, which revealed itself to be a fireman in full protective gear and gas mask. Other hands seized him, starting an IV, thrusting a cold stethoscope disc inside his shirt, slipping a mask
over his nose and mouth. He pushed it away to cough, and coughed until he gagged. The shriek of the siren as the ambulance pulled up beside him almost split his head in two.
Then he was in the ambulance, strapped to a wheeled stretcher and covered with a cheap scratchy blanket. Oh boy, now I’m in big trouble, he worried.
They’ll do a CAT scan or something, and discover I’m weird. Scientists from the National Institutes of Health will come and dissect me. And Julianne will be stranded without the car. She’ll hit the ceiling. The constant siren noise filled his skull, making connected thought impossible. He wanted to beg the paramedics to turn the horrible thing off, but couldn’t get the words past the oxygen mask.
Finally it was quiet. Bliss! He opened his eyes. His stretcher stood in a nook curtained all around with green cloth. He was completely alone.
Suppose I was really ill, Rob thought crossly as he sat up. A guy could die in here and nobody would notice.
His shoes had been removed, but nothing else. When he stood up his chest ached from all that coughing, but otherwise he felt okay. He reached out.
The emergency room people were all busy somewhere nearby, on something more important than Rob Lewis. He pulled the curtain aside and shuffled off in his stocking feet to find out what.
All the action seemed to be happening across the room, in another bay of the ER. Nurses scudded towards it pushing laden instrument carts.
Mysterious machines with lots of dials and LED displays beeped and booped. In the center, tense doctors in green scrub suits clustered two deep around a gurney. Rob went to a sink and helped himself to a paper cup of water. A very young nurse said, “Excuse me, sir,” and reached past him to open a drawer.
“What’s happening there?” Rob asked.
“Oh, there was a fire in an office building.”
Rob could feel the blood draining away from his face. “Somebody was hurt?”
“A fireman—he was searching the building, and had some kind of attack.
Heart, I guess.”
The nurse hurried off. Rob leaned against the sink, sweating. My god, the poor devil was searching for me! And I told them I was there, but I wasn’t.
If this guy dies, I will have killed him. Rob’s stomach twisted even worse than before. He retched into the sink, clinging to the chilly stainless-steel rim.
“What are you doing up? You should be lying down!” A passing nurse grabbed him and hustled him back to his own bed.
“Is he going to die?” Rob croaked.
“Who?”
“The fireman …”
“Now you have enough to worry about, with your own self,” she said, firmly tucking the sheet around him. But Rob read the truth easily enough. He lay shivering behind the shelter of his green curtains, his mind racing madly.
I could make them forget, he thought. Everybody, just like at the restaurant. Chasbro, the fire department, the ambulance people, the doctors: everyone would forget this ever happened. But what about the burned building? And, more to the point, what about this fireman? Maybe he has a wife, parents, some kids. Do they forget him too? I could wipe him out utterly from all living memory. It would be like he was never born. But what a shitty thing to do to someone who was only trying to save your life! And—and I would remember, Rob realized. I can’t wipe myself.
If only the weirdness could make the fireman get better! Heal the sick, raise the dead … he tried it. “Get better,” he whispered sternly, glaring at the curtain in the direction of the sick man. But the muted bustle of medical wizardry out there didn’t change in tempo or tone. If it had only been a matter of the guy’s head Rob felt he might have pulled it off. But a physical problem, a heart or pancreas or whatever, didn’t seem to come under his jurisdiction. And suppose the guy died? The thought of being anywhere near made Rob cringe.
From outside came a purposeful tip-tap of high heels. The curtain was jerked aside, and Julianne stared down at him. “Oh my god, Rob!” she exclaimed. “Are you very badly hurt?”
“I’m not hurt at all,” Rob said hoarsely. “Get them to let me out of here,
Jul—please!”
“You poor thing, you’re upset!” Julianne hugged him, feeling his forehead and straightening his shirt collar. She wasn’t taking him seriously, Rob saw, and no wonder. Reflected in her mind better than any mirror he saw how he looked—smoke-begrimed, red-eyed, distraught. I could make her do it, he thought desperately. Really inspire her with a sense that she has to get me away from here. But he winced away from the idea. Lighthearted and casual mental dabbling had generated enough misery for today.
“Jul, the fireman is dying, and it’s all my fault,” he blurted. “I did it.”
“What, get trapped in a burning building? You big silly, what you need is something to calm you down.” With a swish of the curtains she was gone, and then back again with a doctor in tow.
“Not quite ourself, are we?” the doctor said cheerfully. He pressed a stethoscope to Rob’s chest. “Now, breathe! In, out, good!”
“He’s been talking a little disjointedly,” Julianne told the doctor.
“No, I haven’t!” Rob said indignantly. “I’m trying to tell you something important!”
“Breathe again,” the doctor commanded. “Perhaps a mild sedative to take home with him, Mrs. Lewis. It’s probably not necessary to hospitalize him overnight, but he should certainly take it easy the next few days.”
Rob kept his mouth shut. If they were inclined to let him go there was no reason to argue. Let the doctor talk over him as much as he liked. Paperwork still had to get filled out and signed. Julianne and a nurse conferred on it. Rob wanted to hold the pillow over his ears. What did they do in hospitals when somebody died—ring a bell, take off their hats? If they did, he didn’t want to know about it. He couldn’t help straining his ears for bad news about the fireman, but he was damned if he’d trawl in minds. If he could just go home! But the nurse had to take his temperature and blood pressure one more time, and then he had to sign to get his wallet, digital watch, and shoes back. All this time he hadn’t even noticed the wallet was go
ne. He pocketed it again with embarrassment.
He put his shoes on. Then, shod, he felt foolish sitting on the edge of the bed. He stood up. “Just stretching my legs,” he said to no one in particular. But there wasn’t enough space in his curtained alcove, and he didn’t want to jog Julianne’s elbow while she filled out forms. So he found himself unwillingly walking through the ER, drawn back towards the other nook.
He was more collected about it this time, able to tarnhelm himself so that none of the nurses and doctors noticed him. A peek at a clipboard, clutched in a passing hand, showed him the fireman’s name: Vernon Shultz. For the first time it occurred to him to wonder how Vernon Shultz felt about this whole thing. From wondering to finding out was for Rob a step so small now that he hardly noticed it. This close, scarcely three yards away, he could dive right into the sick man’s head.
The first thing he noticed was an ill-fitting, gritty quality, like putting on sneakers after a day at the beach. Rob realized this must be from the heart attack, and all the medicines they were pumping into Vernon Shultz’s system. The real Vernon was safe in a deep inner fortress, beyond the discomforts besieging the outer defenses. Rob walked up to this central keep and knocked politely on the door, which, in contrast to the rest of the castle, looked like an ordinary modern wooden door.
Vernon opened it cautiously to the limit of the door chain. “Not buying any today, man.”
“I’m not selling anything,” Rob assured him. “I’m the guy you were searching for today, in that burning office building off Waples Mill Road.
My name’s Rob. And you’re Vernon, right?”
“Holy shit. It’s Vern, actually. Nice to meetcha.” Unsurprised, Vern undid
the chain and held the door open. “Get a move on, there’s bad shit happenin’ out there.”
Rob stepped inside. The space within was totally uncastlelike. In fact it was a college boy’s room, furnished by a fairly hip early-seventies undergrad. A blacklight Grateful Dead poster was stuck to the wall with poster putty, and brown shag carpet covered the floor. Vern refastened the chain and gestured towards the waterbed. “Have a sit, man. ‘Less you want a floor cushion.”
How Like A God Page 3