by Anthology
He wasn’t tall, this man. Maybe five foot six at best. His skin was darker than Henry’s, but not so dark that he could be called a negro. Small, glittery things, like slivers of a shattered mirror, protruded from his tall forehead. He wore dark glasses that obliterated any view of his eyes, quite possibly from any angle. And his hair . . .
His hair was a wild conglomeration of wires, tubes, strings of tiny blinking lights, plastic and metal and maybe even some real hair hidden in there someplace, dark and stringy and matted in bunches under the foreign material. It was, thought Henry, as if this man had embedded his head in a Christmas tree just after a horrible soldering accident.
Upon seeing that Henry was wearing the uniform, the man broke into a huge, unrestrained grin. “Oh, this is so good to see!” said the man, accent unidentifiable but language definitely English, and he danced a few strange steps right there, Christmas lights bobbing in asympathetic rhythm. Then he stopped and saluted Henry, a salute modeled after the style created for that stupid show; right fist to left shoulder, then open palm out, fingers facing left, elbow crooked to keep the arm half extended (didn’t want to look too much like a Nazi thing).
Henry nodded in return, cautious and a little scared, especially now that the booze seemed to have unfortunately deserted his system. “Are you . . .” His voice was scratchy, so he paused to swallow, to breathe and clear some of that shit from his skull. “Are you the guy who was visiting me? From the future?”
“No!” shouted the man, sounding excruciatingly delighted and excited at this riddle. “I’m the man who visited you from the present!” At this he giggled and danced a little more; the blinking lights on his head seemed to take up a more frantic pattern, pants cracking and resetting with each step.
Episode Three:
More thrilling scenes from this week’s episode
Captain Michael Davis, fresh from his heroic encounter with Marcus Heimdal (currently on his way to serving a thirty-year sentence at the Charon Penal Colony—let’s see him bust out of there!) has raced back to Earth with the aid of the newest in space travel technology. Less than a day to get there, as opposed to the two months it used to take, laughing in the face of modern physics.
A quick slingshot around the Moon, using its gravity to slow down rather than speed up (trust us on this), then captured by the Earth’s gravity, sinking into a low orbit that makes parking on a dime after slowing down from 300 miles per hour in only four feet look easy. Private Stern gives him the thumbs-up. Perfect positioning.
A quick check of instruments, and then communicate with headquarters back in good old U.S. of A. Salt Lake City, to be exact, taking over where Hollywood left off after it sank beneath the waves.
“Captain Michael Davis, Sector Seven, to Sector One Headquarters, requesting permission to land.”
A brief pause, and then, “Permission granted, Captain Davis. And congratulations on a job well done.”
The strange man interrupted his equally strange dance to mumble something unintelligible, the Christmas lights blinking ever more fiercely. Then he grinned at Henry. “Come with me, please.”
Henry followed him out of the room, shuffling along nervously. They walked through another room (previously described) and the strange man (whose name was Arnold, although there is no way that Henry could yet know that), bypassed the desk and the mass of wires and opened the door on the far side of that room.
Still following, Henry saw that another man was there, similarly attired and wearing dark and very large goggles, sitting in something like a dentist’s chair, more wires and gimracks protruding from his head, as well as several tubes leading from his arms and one even coming from his belly. The wires led to a receptacle in the wall, the tubes to a metal and plastic and something-else contraption sitting hunched beside the chair, humming along to itself in ever-changing pitches.
Private Stern disappears, replaced by Arnold, all fuzzy and grainy and jerky again, a cheap representation of his real self. Bits of skin slag off and drift for a moment before reattaching themselves; one eyeball drifts away for a moment, before Arnold can capture it with his tongue, all four feet of it.
“Darn it, I wish you wouldn’t do that!”
“He’s here, Michael,” says Arnold, ignoring the admonition. “Time to come on down.”
Arnold reached over and touched a button on the humming machine. “He’s here, Michael. Time to come on down.” The machine shuddered and spit and whistled and belched and even barfed some sort of greyish fluid onto the floor, which was promptly cleaned up by four small cartoonish brooms with arms, each carrying two very real wooden buckets. Henry blinked his eyes, unsure where they had come from, and when he looked again they were gone, as was the barf.
The tubes withdrew, some going from arms to machine and some from machine into the arms, the (slightly larger) one in the belly pulling out from there and being sucked into the machine, accompanied by the sort of slurping noise one associates with a child eating spaghetti. The wires disentangled themselves, and pulled into a slot in the wall or else wrapped themselves around Michael’s skull, a cheerful rainbow of Medusan snakes settling in for a nap.
The space car lands, magnificent Salt Lake City’s towers thrusting into the sky all around it, like fingers reaching for God. Captain Michael Davis reaches out, touches a button, and watches the car and the city dissolve around him, fading to nothing. He turns his head, gazes with fondness and consternation at Arnold, with definite capital-A Awe at Henry. Time to sit up.
Episode Four:
A brief hysterical interlude
(POV Shift: Swing camera in close, closer, closest. Burrow deep into the skull, sneak the camera past the blood-brain barrier, find your way along the neurons, synapses firing and sparking at a savage rate, pretend you have a wondrous device to translate what follows)
—Oh God oh Christ I can’t believe what the fuck is happening to me here. Maybe maybe maybe this is only a dream, maybe I got the fucking DT’s, maybe I’m gonna wake up in a few minutes and laugh at all this. Noise in my head buzzing that’s gotta be it—
—Shit no I’m still here these guys are for real maybe they aren’t even from the future maybe they ’re aliens or something; come to grab me from their flying saucer—
—Calm down, don’t let them see you scared. Maybe they can smell fear like dogs or something—
—Shit—
Episode Five:
Your trip to the outer reaches made easy
Michael stood up, pants cracking to allow him access to the floor, stiffening to keep him up. He hawked and spat on the floor, phlegm and a little bit of blood mixing, but not enough to worry about, cleared his throat a couple of times.
“Tired?” ventured Arnold.
Michael nodded. “Long trip,” he rasped. “Good one, though.” They hugged.
“Mmm,” said Arnold, pulling away after a second. “Michael, I would like you to meet Henry Angel, himself. Mr. Angel, this is Michael Davis, your number one fan, I am sure.”
Henry reached out a hand to shake, stared at empty air for a moment as Michael did not proffer his own. Then he dropped his arm and nodded. “Please. Call me Henry.” What the hell is going on here?
“I am delighted to meet you, Henry,” said Michael. “Your life as Captain Maxwell has been an inspiration to me and to tens of millions of other Americans.”
Henry couldn’t take it any longer. “What are you talking about? I played in that stupid show for one fucking episode! No one saw it except for some jerks at the network who decided that it would cost too much and I was too big a risk!”
Both men smiled. Arnold nodded sagely and said, “Experience is every bit as fluid as time, Henry.” This seemed to greatly amuse both of them. Arnold danced that little dance, and Michael jigged for a brief moment as well, though it seemed to tire him out quite quickly.
Episode Six:
Henry’s life as it otherwise might have been
With the help of two of his few re
maining good friends, Henry was taken to a doctor who saw fit to enroll him in a health spa that specialized in people with Henry’s problem. Three months of intense physical and emotional work paid off, and Henry left the spa drier than he’d ever been since coming to Hollywood.
Rumors stuck like glue, however, and Hollywood would have nothing to do with him, so he left town and moved back home, lived in the basement of his mother’s house on a farm in Sonoma County. By day he did carpentry, working for an old friend of his father’s who built houses. By night, he put together a small community theater, put on some performances that were okay, some that were pretty awful, and a few that were terrific.
In the early seventies some of his roles in some especially atrocious B-grade horror films were rediscovered, and he was invited back to Hollywood to do some work in a few small productions, even some guest spots on some series television. He wanted more, however, and couldn’t attain it.
Resentment of his situation and fear about his true self served to put him back on the downward spiral. Booze showed up again, this time accompanied by cocaine and other drugs.
Henry died of heart failure in 1976, two days after he had begun filming a guest spot in a popular detective series. Seven people attended his funeral.
Henry dried up, got some great parts, ended up copping an Oscar for a supporting role, went on to a life of acclaim as a character actor. A few months after coming out of the closet, he died at age sixty-eight, drowned in a boating accident.
Henry stayed in Sonoma County, got the house when his mother died, married his childhood sweetheart, raised a good family, then, still lost in his past and confused about who he really was, blew his brains out in 1972.
Henry stayed in Sonoma County, got the house, married his childhood sweetheart, raised a good family, then got a divorce. He died at age eighty-five, his two surviving children at his bedside. The construction company he had built with his father’s old friend was worth tens of millions.
Episode Seven:
Why Part Six doesn’t really matter
The explanation is almost more than Henry can bear. He has been flung through time and greeted by people who, while undeniably human, have more than a few weird things counting as strikes against them.
And now he has heard a tale unlike anything he ever expected to hear: Now, in this future, Henry Angel is a hero. Honest to God, bigger than life. Michael and Arnold show him little snippets of television, or at least something very similar to it, shows that concentrate on him, but on a life he never led.
But how could he have led this life? Henry asks this, but the answers are not remotely satisfactory.
It is a fluid life, Arnold says, or a neurologically experiential one. It has been created, says Michael, with the aid of the Net. Michael doesn’t elaborate.
Besides, says Arnold, time is what you make of it. And we are running out of time to make, so we need you here. He pauses, grins, dances a little bit more, and then asks if Henry would like to experience the Net.
Um, delays Henry, does experiencing this net have anything to do with those things in my body and on my head?
Another dance, and then heads nod gleefully, lights and wires bobbing.
Henry turns and runs, not knowing where the hell he’s going, but knowing it has to be away from here.
Episode Eight:
Henry’s visit to the big city and a partial inventory of the things he sees
Buildings. Buildings, buildings, buildings and buildings. Some abandoned machines, look sort of like cars or something. More buildings.
Some streetlights. None of them working, though.
Pavement, cracked and weathered. Weeds growing out of the cracks. No people, no birds, no insects.
The sky, what Henry can see with all the tall buildings (did we mention all the buildings?) in the way, is grey, disturbed, distant and cold.
No sound, aside from a far-off hum, alien and probably unattainable.
Once, maybe, a person, far away down a street, half hidden in shadows. Said person doesn’t respond to shouts, and, exhausted after running and yelling the entire distance, Henry’s arrival at the approximate location reveals nothing.
Except for more buildings.
Episode Nine:
The real world
Henry sat on the cold pavement, leaning against one of the grey buildings that marched down the streets like so many monoliths. Shaking from exhaustion and fear, he leaned his head back and watched the sky for a few moments, wondering at the total absence of blue sky, of clouds.
He may have fallen asleep. The new sound seemed to intrude on his dreams first, unsettled visions of dancing Christmas trees and much-needed bottles of beer. A growl superseded that, distant and dream-like at first, then persistent enough to get his attention.
“Henry.”
He blinked his eyes open, stood up with a start. In front of him, on the street, was a vehicle of some sort.
“Henry,” came the voice again. It was Arnold, inside the vehicle.
“What?”
“Oh, thank goodness, it is you. It took me forever to find this cab, and it isn’t hooked up as well as it might have been a few decades ago. Please climb in.” A side door slid open.
“Why? Why should I go back?”
“You can’t go back, Henry. That’s the problem. We pulled you up, but it was a one way trip. You are stuck now, and you’re going to have to live with it.”
Henry shook his head. “Then why’d you bring me here? This is hell!”
Arnold chuckled, a gentle sound this time. “You were in hell before, Henry. You weren’t going to live for much longer. Please climb in and I’ll explain.”
Perhaps relieved to get away from the oppressive bulk of the buildings and from the all-encompassing greyness that surrounded him, Henry complied. He sat down, the door sliding shut behind him. But there was no one else in the vehicle.
“Where are you?” he asked as it started to move.
“Back where I’ve always been,” said Arnold. “That’s why it took so long to find you. I couldn’t track down a cab that was operable. Most of them have just been sitting and rusting for years, decades, centuries even.”
Henry nodded, not exactly sure of what Arnold was saying but not wanting any more details. “You said you’d explain.”
“I did indeed,” said Arnold, his voice coming from in front as well as to the sides. The vehicle grumbled and complained for a second, and then lurched forward. Peaceful piano music played from somewhere behind Henry’s head.
“We live in tough times, Henry. Very difficult for all of us. The world that you knew came to an end a very long time ago, and our struggles to make do have pretty much been for nothing.” The vehicle turned a corner a little too hard. “Sorry about that,” said Arnold. “These mesh controls are old and rusty, and covered with dust and dead bugs. I’m just surprised they were never cannibalized.”
“You were saying . . .” prompted Henry.
“Oh yes. Your future, my past, we fucked up. I won’t go into a litany of things that went wrong. If you want you can do your own investigating when the time comes. Let’s just say that this isn’t a very pretty world.
“People being people, they want to hide from things when they aren’t very pretty. Hiding in your time meant beer, whiskey, that sort of thing. Right?”
Henry nodded. He’d been good at hiding near the end, there. “Well, these days people have stories, events, whole lives they lead outside of reality. This thing we call the Net—and no, I have no idea why we call it that—takes people into these lives, lets them experience them just like they were real.”
Another corner. The background piano music swelled briefly, then faded back again. Arnold continued.
“Someone, many years ago, got their hands on the pilot you made, the “Space Cops” thing. Turned it into a whole event, this grand series that changed the way America and the world was.” He sighed. “A lovely story, really. There was even a fabulo
us version of you wandering around the Net, interacting with all sorts of people whenever they wanted, although most people were happy being the heroes themselves.
“Not all of us were caught up in the scenario, however, although I must admit even for people like me it is difficult to spend more than a few hours away from it. I myself worked with some others on a device to bring someone through time, a kind of a hobby thing based on some old math one of us found drifting in a file somewhere, which explains how you got here. Not that any of us actually expected it to work.”
“Where are the other people you worked with?” asked Henry. Arnold chuckled. “I don’t know. To tell you the truth, the chances are very good that they don’t exist, or perhaps they did, but now they don’t.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” said Arnold. “I’m just finding it harder and harder to figure out who’s who these days. Maybe because I’m thinking about it now. I don’t know.”
“Why’d you bring me here?” Henry was feeling very confused. “To put it bluntly, Henry, I’m losing Michael. He’s spending more and more time away from me, and I don’t have the energy in me to traipse all the way around a virtual solar system trying to keep up with him. I was kind of hoping your presence would be a nifty gift for him.”
“A gift? You brought me forward in time to be a present?” Henry shook his head, feeling a dull ache beginning to creep up from his shoulders to his skull. Nothing in his life had been as confusing as the way Arnold behaved and spoke.