Charlie’s brows furrowed as he looked up at her aquiline features. What the hell was she on about? How could she know what he’d written four pages before what she saw? Had he even written that? He opened the book to his bookmark, then turned back four pages. This is the most important code ever in the history of codes and/or humanity.
Charlie looked up from the notebook to Jade. “I was probably drunk when I wrote that.”
Jade shrugged.
“Wait, how did you know that was there?” Charlie asked slowly. “Did Nate tell you about this? Did he send you? This is all a joke, isn’t it?” He motioned at the city, where he knew his co-worker Nate was probably off in the middle of some cosplay heaven. “Well played, sir.”
“Where I come from,” Jade spoke quietly in the dark evening air, “universities and hospitals are named after you.” A small smile warmed Charlie as she looked at him. “You know, there’s even a fish and chip restaurant on the corner of the street I grew up on named after you. Weird, right? Charlie’s F&C it’s called.”
“That’s my favorite food.”
“Everybody knows that.”
Charlie frowned but grabbed onto something that made sense. “I don’t think you’re from Kansas.”
“I need your help, Charlie.”
“Sure. But if it’s for a ride we should probably get an Uber. I’ve had a bit to drink.”
Jade grabbed Charlie by the shoulders and her left eye distorted while her dark right eye watched him closely.
Her left eye was clear as glass.
Charlie jumped back. He could see through her eye! He could see the blood vessels and mechanical parts behind it.
“Take a second to process this,” Charlie muttered. “Blood vessels and mechanical parts … What the hell?”
“You invented my race, Charlie.”
Charlie wasn’t quite freaking out, but it was safe to say he was on the edge of a cliff and ready to tumble. “A race to…?”
“To three centuries from now, Charlie,” Jade said. “Where we need your help.”
Good, Charlie thought. She’s just insane. That’s not so bad. “So, you’re from the future,” he smiled.
Jade ignored him. “You’re the only one who can help. The code linking genetics and computers, your code, needs you.”
Varooosh.
The roaring rumble returned with a vengeance. Charlie stumbled around as it shook the ground. Then two and a half blocks over, a white burning light shot into the air. It wasn’t just light though, it was full of energy and fire. It was unlike anything Charlie had ever seen. Silhouetted in the light stood a giant figure. Its proportions were not human. It was like a mechanical Hercules.
Jade closed her eyes and touched her temples again. He could see the glass eye moving around under the lid. When she opened her eyes, there was a strain running through them. “I have to go, Charlie.”
“Um, yeah.” Charlie stammered. “You’re right, it is getting late and I really should be going-”
“Charlie.” The twinkle in Jade’s eyes dimmed. Her charming smile faded. Her eyes grew dark and serious, her lips strong yet desperate. “Charlie. You created us Charlie. And we’re dying.”
“Enough,” Charlie’s speech slurred and he reached towards Jade. He sucked with women and he was going to try and at least suck with this one, too. He was a little shocked when he let her catch him.
“It’s the code, Charlie,” she said looking down at him. “It’s evolved. It’s changing us.”
“Shhhhh,” he murmured, reaching up to place a hand over her lips. Damn she was tall.
“We need someone who knows the code and can restore it. We need you. I need you!” Jade moved in for a passionate kiss. Charlie had to stand on his toes to kiss her. It made him wobbly and it made the brush of his lips just as much a fail as every other female encounter he’d had: epic. His pursed mouth stumbled across her cheek before they tripped on her lips and fell off.
She looked at him kindly but stepped away, her eyes looking warily at the light blowing up the sky. “Meet me here tomorrow night with all your research. Someone’s followed us. I have to take care of that before we can go back.”
Before the words were even completely out of her mouth, Jade was gone into the night, rushing in the direction where the strange white light had been blowing up the horizon. Charlie stared after her, his fingers pressed against his lower lip. Then he did what any drunk loser would do… he puked all over his white sneakers.
Chapter 3
Charlie arrived at the family-owned rancher on MacVicar Avenue, full of tumultuous emotions. There was a gallon of elation, a pint of doubt, a dash of fear, and all sorts of anxiousness. Stirred with ice, it culminated in a general sense of bewilderment. It was unfathomable that the night had actually happened the way he was remembering it.
His brain stumbled over bits and pieces he didn’t understand, selectively discarding them so he didn’t have to check himself into a crazy ward. It started with everything Jade had said. He discounted those as crazy rantings. Forget the part where a giant white beam from some future world shot into the air and shook the ground. Doubly forget the lurking futuristic figure. The mind needed to focus on what was important; a very attractive woman threw away (literally) Sal Thompson and came over to him, HIM, and said he was important and she needed him. Focus on that, Charlie. Forget the crazy stuff.
“Well don’t you have just the biggest smile on your face.”
Charlie’s mother sat on the couch watching Jeopardy and, more importantly, the love of her life, Jeopardy’s host Sir Alex Trebeck (while not officially knighted by the King of Canada, Sir Alex should have been by now and thus deserved to be addressed with the appropriate title of honor.) This wasn’t just Jeopardy airing after the evening news. Charlie’s mother, Marie, had all four thousand hours of every single episode on tape. It was the only thing she ever watched, twelve hours a day. The entire run of the show ran on a 334-day loop. Ask the woman anything about a State Park or a Potent Potable and Charlie would bet all the money in his pockets she would know the answer.
“It’s been an interesting night,” Charlie said, chucking his notebook on the counter.
“How much did you drink?” Marie asked, muting the television.
“I dunno, a few?” He shrugged. “Seven?”
Marie shook her head. “We agreed, two beers at the most. You have a very delicate system.”
Charlie rolled his eyes. “Yes, mom.”
“What’s got you drinking like a fish? It’s only seven o’clock!”
“Well, I met this woman-”
Marie was up on her feet in a flash. She wasn’t old, early sixties and in good shape despite all the Jeopardy watching, and quite nimble. Any signs of her being upset with Charlie vanished into thick air. “A woman?” She asked the question with glee.
“Settle down.” Charlie waved his hands. But clearly, he didn’t want her to settle down. He was enjoying seeing her excited. As excited as he was. Since he had already mentally blocked the craziness, leaving behind a kiss, he was already pondering where they would buy their house with the white picket fence. “I just met her.” He smiled knowingly. “So, we’ll see.”
“Well, I think it’s just great,” Marie said wrapping an arm around him in approval. “But” she wagged a finger at him, “you shouldn’t be drinking so much around a lady.”
“Alright, alright.”
The doorbell rang and they both turned to look at the door and then at each other. They had few visitors here, mostly just one, and that one was who Charlie feared had just rung the bell.
“Who is that?” Charlie asked hesitantly.
“Your sister. Invited the family over for dinner.” Marie said, bounding to the door.
Charlie sank into the stool by the kitchen island, lowered his head to the marble, and began to pound his head on it. This night had been going so well.
The dinner table was set with an ample-sized ham and steaming side dishes
of peas and green beans and butternut squash. When it was just Charlie and his mom, dinners generally consisted of anything microwaved under three minutes. There was, after all, Jeopardy to be watched. But when his sister’s family came over, Mom went all out to impress.
Charlie sat next to his ten-year-old nephew, Alex, and across from his teenage niece, Autumn.
Autumn clicked away on her phone, clearly wishing she was somewhere else. At one end of the table sat Charlie’s mom facing an empty chair at the other end. This is because Charlie’s sister, Tabitha, was pacing in circles in the kitchen yelling into her cell phone. No doubt some assistant of hers was getting an earful over some minor infraction. Tabitha was the C.E.O. at Tradigital Blazer, the most successful, and profitable, marketing agency in Topeka. The city’s famous “To peek into Topeka is to peek into heaven” tagline was all her doing. The city had loved it. It made her the favored child of the whole damn town.
Charlie despised it.
Alex fidgeted in his seat, clearly uneasy about the yelling, but Autumn just tapped away at her phone, clearly a well-adjusted-to-chaos teenager. Conversation wasn’t going to be easy, but Charlie was going to attempt it.
“So, school’s almost out.” He nodded towards Autumn, even though she didn’t look up. “What are you doing for the summer, Autumn?”
She startled when he said her name and gave a half-shrug. Her eyes quickly flitted to her uncle before returning like a boomerang to her phone. “I dunno. Probably go to south of France or somewhere else boring like we always do.”
Oh, the humanity. “Poor thing,” Charlie muttered. “I hope you can survive the dreadful crepes and baguettes you’ll be forced to live off.” His sarcasm fell on deaf ears. Autumn was already deep into some random flicking of Snapchat.
“Uncle Charlie?” Alex tugged on Charlie’s shirt. “Did you hear how Taborlin did at Robofest?” Taborlin was Alex’s robot he’d been working on for years. He took it to all sorts of competitions. Taborlin was already a legendary robot on the youth robotic competition circuit. Taborlin was so great Alex had to compete with high school kids. “He won three golds and a silver. He even broke the Kansas record for clearing the Mount Doom course!”
“Whoa!” Charlie was genuinely impressed. “That course is nearly impossible!”
“I know!” Alex was beaming with pride. “The programming you helped me with was amazing. I even got my photo with the mayor!”
Charlie’s mom gave a proud gasp. “The mayor, Alex? Where’s the photo? I need to have the picture on the fridge.”
Tabitha finished her call and sat down with an audible sigh. “Seriously, I can’t believe building robots is part of the school curriculum. Whatever happened to getting a scholarship the old-fashioned way; throwing a football well.”
Alex sagged visibly and ran his fork through his mashed potatoes. Charlie looked from one to the other. Tabitha was oblivious to Alex’s dejection. He was obviously smart, but his sensitivity must be a trait he got from his dad. He just needed one person’s approval, and she was already back to checking work emails on her phone.
“Well, I think it’s amazing.” Charlie reassured Alex, who gave a weak smile.
“Humph.” Tabitha snorted. “You would think that,” she said.
Here we go again, Charlie thought. “It’s good to see you, sis. How’s work?”
Tabitha did not compute the sarcasm. She liked nothing more to go on about how important her job was. “Deadlines. So many deadlines. I’ve got three Fortune 500 companies who need material stat-” Charlie zoned her out for a while. She would talk all night about her work and her company. She was a C.E.O., which mean she was a chief, which meant responsibility, which meant she was important, which meant what she was saying was important. On and on it would go until it was time to leave. There was never a conversation with Tabitha. There was only ever listening. And Charlie would always let her. He never had anything to say. But Charlie was feeling different today. It had been an interesting night. He had met a girl unlike any he had ever met. There had been sparks, and energy shooting into the sky. Not real? He wasn’t sure. What Charlie Richards was sure about right now is he was tired of listening about his sister’s work.
“Hey Tabitha?”
She ignored him.
“Tabitha.”
She kept right on talking.
“Tabitha!” Charlie slammed his palm down on the table and everything stopped. Tabitha cut off mid-sentence, his mother took the glass away from her lips, Alex’s eyes grew wide and Autumn even looked up from her phone and stopped her incessant tapping. “Why don’t we let someone else talk tonight, shall we?”
All eyes turned to Tabitha. She was white hot with anger.
“Really, Charlie? You want to take over this meeting?” She asked.
“This is a family dinner.” Charlie pointed to the people and food on the table.
“You have some important experiences to bring to the table? Please, by all means, let’s hear them.” She threw out her hands widely, a classic boardroom meeting technique. “Let us all hear it. Did you, perhaps, go to work, stare at a screen, go to a bar, come home to eat dinner with your mother? Hopefully, if you play your card rights, later tonight you can watch Jeopardy and sneak in a few more beers? I mean, unless you’re drunk right now?”
Charlie gritted his teeth. This is why he never spoke up to her. It never went well. And, well, he was still a little drunk.
“Do tell, Charlie.” Tabitha continued. “I’m sure it was quite different then every other day for the last fifteen years.”
“Oh, shut up.” Charlie snapped. It was a snap. Not a great wood splintering rip, just a snap of a twig. But for Charlie Richards and the people in this room, it was loud. Tabitha’s faced danced between anger and amusement. “Nice balls, Charlie,” she drawled.
“Actually,” Charlie’s mom interrupted. “Charlie met a girl!” His mom beamed with pride.
Charlie did not beam with pride. Charlie cringed and sighed. This was not what he wanted brought up at this table. His sister would seize her greedy talons into this topic. His mom beamed with pride.
Tabitha’s face creased in glee. Well, this was going to be entertaining. “Realllly?” The word drawled out of Tabitha’s mouth with laughter. “Do tell.”
Charlie had been waiting for something to brag about to his younger sister since he was six years old. The then three-year-old Tabitha had already grasped a stronghold on the titles of Cutest, Most Worthy of Attention, and Consistent Overachiever. They were titles she went on to hold for the next thirty-one years. No one could deny, then or now, Charlie was the smarter one. It was the only title Charlie held over his sister (at least, the only positive one.) But that’s not to say his sister wasn’t extremely smart. This fact grated on Charlie’s nerves.
To add further insult, she always seemed to use every iota of her intelligence to get ahead in life. Charlie used his gifts to become very good at video games, both playing and making them. She was a born marketer, and even in childhood knew how to play the game. Charlie could solve the same puzzle Tabitha did in less time and it wouldn’t matter. Praise was lavished on her because of how charmingly she did it. Blasted marketing.
Except for his mom. She would always point out to Charlie how special he was and how he would change the world one day. She was the only one, though.
So, he had been looking forward to any chance to brag to his sister, and a hot girl on his arm fit the bill nicely. Problem was, the girl believed she was from the future and he could save the world. By legal definition, Statute 153B, that was grounds to declare her certifiable insane.
“Charlie?” Tabitha’s shrill voice cut through Charlie’s thoughts.
“Huh?”
“You’re staring into space again. I’ve asked you three times, what’s her name?”
He couldn’t let his sister get hold of the narrative. “It’s nothing, really.” He stared into his plate hoping the subject would be dropped.
&
nbsp; “You don’t have to be embarrassed, Charlie.” Tabitha’s tone was as sincere as the day was long. “I’m sure she’s very nice.”
Trap! Charlie knew that tone. Marketing. Tabitha knew how to get what she wanted.
Trap!
Just don’t say anything.
“Her name is Jade!” Charlie blurted it out unnaturally loud. It startled the entire table.
“Jade’s a nice name,” Charlie’s mom chirped in.
Tabitha smiled just slightly. To others it surely looked charming. Charlie knew it was full of danger. “Where is Jade from?”
Charlie had to think. Where was she from? Oh, right, she was from the future! Of course, she was. That’s exactly what he should say. Oh sis, she’s quite nice. She from hundreds of years from now.
“Iowa,” Charlie mumbled instead. Charlie Richards was a smart man, but Tabitha always got to him and he had trouble thinking straight. It was hard to think straight and avoid verbal land mines at the same time. Where the hell did Iowa come from?
“Iowa?” Tabitha said, intrigued. “Interesting. What’s she doing in Topeka?”
Charlie knew he needed to stop lying. It never went well. A slippery slope, and all. “She’s hear to attend a convention.”
Whoops.
“What kind of convention?”
“Sci-fi.” Charlie chuckled at his own little lie. Good, if they ever did meet Charlie could just say she was role playing. Point Charlie.
“Charlie.” Tabitha paused dramatically, as if deciding what to say. “She sounds nice. I hope we get to meet her. You know, before she has to go home to Iowa.”
“Me too.” Charlie let out a deep sigh of relief. It could have gone worse. He lurched up from the table so fast a glass rattled against his plate. “I’ll get the dishes,” he muttered, reaching forward a trembling hand to steady the platter.
Tabitha Richards-Dunkin was one hell of a good younger sister.
Myths & Magic: A Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection Page 97