Magic, Machines and the Awakening of Danny Searle

by John McWilliams

  I went to the window. Out on the frost-covered lawn, a robin hopped a few hops and flew off. The big day. Finally here.

  I stared numbly into the morning’s mist until, some unknown amount of time later, the headlights of a long black car, prowling down the driveway, snapped me out of it.

  “That’s our guy,” my father said, somehow right behind me. “Let’s get this show on the road.” He grabbed his coat and half the bags that were piled up in the foyer and headed out the door.

  “Somebody’s anxious,” Danny said as I helped her on with her coat, an elegant cashmere thing that I could only assume had been a present from David. Danny rewarded me with a kiss. Well, at least I was the one now getting the kisses.

  We followed my father out to the driveway.

  “Good morning,” my father told the limo driver, a shrunken old man with a scruffy beard and an oversized chauffeur’s hat. “Any trouble finding us?”

  “No, sir, not in the least,” the chauffeur replied in a rich Irish brogue, popping the limo’s trunk. “And I can manage that, young man.” My father had taken charge of loading the bags into the trunk.

  “I’ve got it,” my father said. “But you can keep calling me young man all you want.” He then paused to shake the old man’s hand. “Aiden Cipriani.”

  “Jack Jones,” the driver replied. “At your service, sir.”

  “Jack Jones? Sounds like a pirate’s name.”

  “Spent a few years in the IRCG—that’d be Ireland’s Coastguard. No pirating to speak of, however.”

  “No roguish adventures on the high seas?”

  “I suppose I wouldn’t go that far.” Jack’s eyes momentarily brightened.

  “Well, Captain.” My father closed the trunk. “I do believe we’re ready to set sail.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Jack’s thin lips curved into a bristly grin. He saluted.

  Inside the car, a moment later, I somehow ended up seated between Mohamed and Stewart on the driver’s side, while my father, facing us, ended up between Danny and Ishana on the passenger side.

  “Anyone notice,” my father said contentedly, “how I always get to sit next to the pretty girls?”

  “I’ve noticed,” I said.

  “Jack seems like a pretty nice guy.” Stewart snapped his seatbelt together, handing me one end of mine. “Don’t you think?”

  “As long as he doesn’t die before we get there,” Mohamed muttered.

  “He does seem really old,” Stewart said.

  The window between the front and back compartments lowered.

  “Pardon the interruption,” Jack said. “I should apologize. This is my son’s car, but he’s come down with a touch of something. I hope you don’t mind that it’s me driving you in this morning.”

  “You have a license, don’t you?” my father asked.

  “I do indeed. And I’m an excellent driver if I don’t say so myself. I used to drive George Garrity, the actor, back in nineteen—”

  “Jack, sorry, but with the morning traffic and the fog—”

  “Not to worry, sir, I’ll get you there.” Jack rolled up the window, turned the car around and started us down the driveway.

  No one said much for the next forty-five minutes. My father spent most of that time leafing through the three-hundred-page Prometheus A.I. XPRIZE Phase I Report, and the rest of us dozed or gazed bleary-eyed at the sunlit, frosted rear window.

  Before we pulled onto the Southern State Parkway, we made a quick stop at a 7-Eleven.

  “I hope Peter gets that test data amended,” my father said once we were back on the road. He flipped a few pages noisily. The rest of us had already slipped back into our commuter gloom.

  “I spoke to him last night,” Danny said, clearing her throat. “He was at a Staples, making copies. It should be fine.”

  “And what about the AV equipment?”

  “That’s David. Don’t worry about him. Logistics is in that man’s blood.”

  “Aiden has to micromanage everything,” Ishana muttered.

  My father removed his bifocals and glared at her.

  “Well, you do.” Her voice cracked.

  He stared at her a moment, then replaced his glasses and returned to reviewing the Prometheus document.

  Thank God. It was way too early in the morning for one of their spats.

  Not that anyone couldn’t have seen this coming. Some months ago, the analysis side of Prometheus had become too mathematically advanced for Ishana and my mother had stepped in. That made my mother her boss. Need I say more?

  An hour later, we entered the Belt Parkway. Over my shoulder, I could see an airliner coming in for a landing.

  “Would you mind turning the heat down a bit?” my father asked.

  Stewart unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the controls. As he did, the limo swerved, causing him to fall into my father, knocking Danny’s tea out of her hand.

  A red Mustang roared past.

  “You all right?” My father helped Stewart up.

  “That guy had to be doing a hundred,” I said.

  “Sorry folks.” Jack lowered the window. “Everyone all right? I saw that guy coming a ways off—thought he might barrel right into us.”

  “We’re fine,” my father said. “Nice evasive maneuver, Jack.”

  Jack touched his hat and rolled the window up.

  Danny gathered a handful of napkins from one of the 7-Eleven bags and started sopping up the tea, catching a drip as it ran down the center console.

  “I’m sure this car has seen far worse,” my father said.

  “Oh, look.” Danny pointed out the window behind me.

  I turned—or should I say I had the intention of turning, because I’m not sure I did. All I remember is Danny’s eyes and her words: “It’s snowing.”

  The next thing I remember was waking up on my back, looking up at the gray sky, thinking: Yes, it is snowing. Tiny white angels are floating down and stinging my face.

  Where am I? How did I get here?

  I could smell rubber burning… Or is that plastic? No, it’s transmission fluid. Who is that crying?

  Then I heard my father’s voice. I couldn’t tell what he was saying. I rolled my head to the right. What the hell… The limo—what was left of the limo—was upside down, smoke rising from its undercarriage, its front end accordioned up against a tree.

  This has got to be a dream…

  “He’s coming around,” I heard Mohamed say. I looked skyward. Mohamed’s dark, unshaven face hovered over me. His hair was disheveled, his pinstripe shirt bloodstained.

  “Tyler? Can you hear me?”

  I attempted to lift my head, but he pushed me back down.

  “You shouldn’t move. You hit your head.”

  Yes, I hit my head. I could feel it.

  “What happened?” I asked, fighting to regain my bearings. “Is everyone all right? Where’s Danny? Is Danny all right?” I felt the coarse texture of the material draped over me. It was my father’s woolen overcoat.

  “He’s talking!” Mohamed called toward the limo.

  “Is my father still in there? Is he stuck? Where’s Danny?” I lifted my head and set it back down. This time it was a wave of darkness that forced me to lower it.

  “Everyone’s fine,” Mohamed assured me. “Just try not to move.”

  “Who’s that crying?”

  “Ishana—but she’s fine.”

  “And who’s that?” Someone was moaning.

  “Stewart. He has a broken leg.”

  “I thought you said everyone was fine.”

  “Everyone is. Considering. Well, everyone but Jack, the driver. He’s dead.” Mohamed left me to go tend to Stewart.

  Wow, Jack is dead.

  “Hey!” I lifted my head. Mohamed quickly returned. “Why is my father still in the limo?”

  “Because he doesn’t want to move Danny until he gets a backboard. Just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “
In case she injured her spine.”

  “I thought you said everyone was—” Through sheer force of will I sat up and waited for the blackness to recede.

  “Tyler, she’s unconscious. Your dad’s watching her. There’s nothing you can do.”

  Stewart was on the grass to my left, his right pant leg bloody and torn, a waist-length ski jacket draped over him. “Here.” I handed Mohamed my father’s overcoat.

  A little farther away, a black Volkswagen Jetta was parked on the side of the road. Ishana was on the grass in front of it, rocking back and forth, two women comforting her.

  In the other direction, I could just make out my father’s face. He was talking to two men through one of the shattered windows. The men were in bright orange hunting jackets.

  I got to my feet and started walking. Over on the Belt Parkway cars crawled, faces stared. I looked at my hands. They were shaking, but not from the cold.

  “Tyler, what are you doing here?” my father asked, looking like a bear stuck in a rabbit’s burrow. He brushed some of the safety glass away from the window frame. “You should go lie down until the medics get here.”

  I knelt beside the limo, staring at Danny. She was on the torn fabric of the car’s headliner, her eyes closed.

  “Is she hurt?” I asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “We’re fine. Will you at least go put a coat on—you’re freezing.”

  “She’ll be fine. Probably just got a short-term concussion,” one of the hunting-jacketed men said. He had a severe Brooklyn accent.

  “There’s a bump on the side of her head,” my father said. “It probably matches the one on your forehead.”

  I felt around for the bump.

  “We’re not moving her until we have a backboard. Just in case.”

  “You moved me.”

  “You were in and out of consciousness and moving. She hasn’t budged.”

  “But what if there’s a fire?”

  “Don’t worry,” one of the hunters said. “If there’s trouble, we’ll haul ’em both outta there. You want my jacket, kid?” He started to unzip his coat.

  “No—thanks.”

  “How’s Ishana doing?” my father asked.

  “There’re some people taking care of her.” I looked past Mohamed and Stewart toward Ishana. “She seems okay.”

  “Good.”

  I stuffed my trembling hands under my arms and turned toward the highway. It was dusted with snow. Far off, I could hear sirens.

  “Here comes the cavalry,” one of the hunters said.

  Within minutes, the accident scene was swarming with police, paramedics and firemen. I was taken aside and examined while EMTs helped my father with Danny, securing her to a backboard and rushing her off in one of the ambulances. Stewart, the next to leave, went in a second ambulance with Mohamed. My father, Ishana and I went in a third.

  Inside the ambulance, my father and I sat next to a medical technician on the side bench, while Ishana, having been given a strong sedative, slept on the gurney.

  The ambulance lurched as we pulled out onto the highway.

  “How’s he look?” my father asked the technician, referring to me, his hand resting on the pale blue blanket someone had draped over my shoulders.

  “Probably just a grade three concussion. Nothing to worry about. They’ll likely order an MRI at the hospital—standard procedure. And the young woman”—he pointed at Ishana with his pen—“doesn’t appear to have any physical injuries.”

  “Are all the ambulances going to the same place?” my father asked.

  “Yes,” the technician said absently, jotting something down on his clipboard. “Brooklyn Regional Medical Center.”

  “Do you know what happened?” I asked my father. “Why we crashed?”

  “I remember us swerving and the car going airborne, but that’s about it.” He took out his cellphone.

  “Who are you calling?” I asked.

  “Everyone.”

  ****

  My father made several calls on our way to the hospital, including one to David, who, in-flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, told us he would reroute to New York and would arrange for the best neurologist he could find for Danny.

  My mother was just relieved to hear we were all right. She told us she would drive in just as soon as she could make arrangements for the twins.

  At the hospital, we met Mohamed in the emergency room. He informed us that Stewart was in surgery and Danny was in radiology.

  My father went to the desk to request a room for Ishana, presently on a gurney in the hall. When he returned to Mohamed and me, seated on the waiting room’s graffiti-etched chairs, he told us that they would be sending a doctor out to examine us.

  “I’m fine,” Mohamed said.

  “Me too.” I leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling tiles. “When can we see Danny?”

  “Just as soon as we get checked out,” my father said.

  “But we’re fine.”

  “You—you were knocked out. A doctor has to at least give you the once-over.”

  “How’d I get out of the car, by the way?”

  “Mohamed and I dragged you out. Ishana crawled out on her own. Stewart was the tough one.”

  “And what about Jack? I assume you found him. Was he thrown from the car?”

  My father and Mohamed looked at each other.

  “He kind of found us,” my father said. “His head had come through the window between the front and the back of the car. Mohamed covered him up, but not before Ishana got a real eyeful.”

  I glanced over at Ishana’s gurney. Well, that explained that.

  I tried to remember anything about being in the car immediately after the accident, but couldn’t. Deep down I knew I was better off.

  My father’s cellphone rang and he walked out of the emergency room door so he could hear.

  “Gentlemen…” A balding man in scrubs approached Mohamed and me. He had a stethoscope around his neck, a lidded coffee in one hand and several file folders in the other. “My name is Dr. Connolly. I understand one of you was knocked unconscious.”

  “That would be me,” I said.

  Dr. Connolly pointed a penlight in my eyes and asked me about my loss of consciousness (which I assumed couldn’t have been more than a few minutes); if I had ever lost consciousness before; and if I presently had any memory loss or confusion or a headache. I told him I had a stiff neck and a bit of a dull headache, but nothing a Tylenol wouldn’t cure.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Dr. Connolly said. “I think we’ll order you a CT scan just to be on the safe side.”

  “But I’m fine.”

  “You might feel fine at the moment, but—”

  “How about we just keep an eye on him,” my father said, returning from outside. “A CT is a pretty serious dose of radiation.”

  “A fractured skull is a pretty serious thing, too.”

  “We’ll sign whatever legal documents you require and, at the first sign of trouble, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “All right—but anything: confusion, headaches, slurred speech, nausea, anything that seems the least bit unusual.”

  “I understand,” my father said.

  Dr. Connolly looked at me.

  I nodded.

  The doctor then examined Mohamed and my father, both of whom had only minor cuts and bruises.

  “David is still a few hours away,” my father informed Mohamed and me. “But he’s already arranged for one of the country’s leading neurologists to come in from Manhattan.” He looked at Dr. Connolly. “This has to do with another one of our group. She’s in your radiology department at the moment.”

  Dr. Connolly stared at my father. Blinked. Then looked at the chart in his hand. “Cipriani, Aiden. The Aiden Cipriani?”

  After an awkward moment in which Dr. Connolly described just how big of a fan he was, he called the hospital’s administrator, Dr. Harris—a fifty-something-year-old, greenish-blond-haired woman—who
immediately arranged for a private room for Ishana and assigned us a nurse.

  “We’d really just like to see Danny—Ms. Danny Searle,” my father told Dr. Harris, minutes later in Ishana’s room.

  “And we’d like to know about Stewart,” Mohamed said.

  “Yes, Stewart Hamilton—he’s in surgery,” my father added.

  Dr. Harris explained that Stewart was having part of his spleen removed and, following that, they would begin work on his fractured right femur. She told us that Danny was still in radiology and that they had no results as of yet.

  “Can’t we at least see her?” I asked.

  “Excuse me,” a nurse said, entering the room. “Dr. Cipriani, there’s a Dr. Bourilkov on his way up. He insisted on seeing you right away.”

  “This must be the neurologist David got for us,” my father said, turning to Mohamed and me. He glanced at his watch. “Pretty impressive. From Manhattan to here in forty-five minutes. God knows what David must be paying this guy.”

  I imagined David, at that very moment, offering his pilots a million dollars to take his plane supersonic. I didn’t blame him, and I wasn’t jealous. Actually, I was probably a little too confident about the situation because of him. David and my father were people who shaped the world, not the other way around. Danny was going to be perfectly fine.

  I looked at my hands. The jitteriness had stopped.

  “Doing better?” Mohamed asked.

  “I think so. What do you suppose they gave her?” I looked at Ishana, out cold on her bed.

  Mohamed smiled thinly, shrugged.

  At just that moment, a stocky man barreled into the room. He had short grayish hair and a red paisley tie flung over his shoulder.

  “Dr. Cipriani, I presume?” The man had a thick Russian accent. “Dr. Yuri Bourilkov.” He shook my father’s hand. “We must go—immediately.” He paused, as if reconsidering his rudeness. “Dr. Yuri Bourilkov,” he repeated, shaking each of our hands. “Now we must go.”

  “Go where?” my father asked.

  “Is Danny all right?” I felt a chill.

  “These are things of what we are to find out,” Dr. Bourilkov said, charging out the door. We had to jog to keep up. “I need immediate access to my patient, Ms. Daniella Levinson.”