Yesterday's Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  Boom. The gun kicks. Boom. Again. Die you fucking thing. Just die. Boom, boom, boom. The clot of birds spins and careens, sheds parts of itself. Chunks of bird fly loose, folding in on themselves as they spiral away, folding into nothing, non-events.

  The pigeon slams into Clyde, barrels him over. Regardless of internet connectivity, sonics, or spells. Then it’s over him, storming into the muzzle of my gun. I fire. I fire. I fire. I stare into a thousand beaks stretched wide. Boom. And then, moments before beaks and wings strike, it pulls up and away, keening.

  Click. My gun runs dry. Click, click, click. I keep firing anyway, finger spasming.

  A fresh magazine. I need— I tug one free. I can hear someone sobbing. Devon curled up, fetal, Kayla standing, impotent over her. The old magazine falls away from my gun. There are police sirens in the distance. Too far away.

  “Clyde,” I say. “Clyde I need—” But then I look at him. A tall pale-skinned man lies, face staring empty-eyed up at the sky.

  Where is it? Where’s the goddamn mask?

  The pigeon swoops down. And there. Caught in a jagged tangle of feet. The mask is coming down at me.

  I slam the new magazine home. I aim. I try to think of something that Kurt Russell would say.

  “Oh shit and balls.”

  FORTY

  I close my eyes. It’s coming at me like a storm. Like a bolt from Zeus’s hand. I stretch out my arms, my gun. The once-pigeon is screeching, is screaming, and then the sound of my gun eclipses everything. I fire. Over, and over, and over. Pulling the trigger for as long as I can. Until it’s on me. Until I’m overcome.

  But then, still standing, the screeches crescendo, breach even my pistol’s barrier of sound. And then: a crash, loud and meaty.

  I open my eyes. My finger still twitches. My gun still fires. Bullet after bullet slams into the brickwork of a house.

  The mass of pigeon lies on the floor, convulsing, shedding parts of itself. Clusters of wings, torsos, feet roll away, shrink, twist down into nothingness. Not all parts stay fresh as they go. I see mold bloom in fast-forward in some, flesh flake away, exposed bone blacken and fragment. It’s like watching stop-motion photography. Months of decay in moments.

  I manage to stop firing.

  And still the central mass of the bird shrinks. It becomes something more like a single pigeon. And then it is just a bird. Just one, lying dead in the street, its head mashed by a bullet. My bullet.

  I killed it.

  It takes a moment for that to sink in. It’s over. I took this thing down.

  I’m still breathing hard.

  I took this thing down. Single-handed.

  Well suck on that, Coleman.

  The pigeon is still moving, still twisting and contorting. Not quite dead. Despite the bloody wound that used to be its cerebrum.

  And then I realize, it’s not the last spasms of life, but something else. One of its wings contracts, sheds feathers, becomes a stubby furry thing. A chick’s wing. A leg falls off, and rots away before my eyes.

  Jesus. I’ve never seen anything like this. What the hell happened to it?

  And then… some lateral leap in my head. The bird’s corpse. Parts of it accelerating through time. Parts of it moving backwards. The road. Parts brand-new. Parts so old. Unstuck in time.

  And also—the way the pigeon moved. Existed. A wing here. A wing there. Unstuck in space.

  Space and time.

  Russians.

  More proof. This is more proof.

  I spin to seek out Clyde. He still lies in two parts. His unconscious body lies in the street. His mask lies a few feet away. I seize it. And maybe with too little concern for his health, and too much enthusiasm for his corroborating story, I jam the mask back on his body.

  He arches back, an almost feline contortion of the spine. Beneath the mask I see the jaw muscles stretch, the mouth opening wide. A noise like static blasts from Clyde.

  I reel back. That noise. It’s so… it’s… Jesus. Again. Again that word.

  Inhuman.

  Slowly, the sound becomes something more recognizable, more guttural than electronic. Clyde gasps, collapses, pulls in his legs, folds himself up, and rolls onto his side. He lies that way for a moment.

  “Clyde,” I say, reaching out a hand towards him. “Clyde are you OK?”

  “Oh,” he says, the word small and hurt. “Oh.” He staggers onto his front, coming up on hands and knees, head down, blond hair hanging down around the mask. “Oh that is why they tell you to shut down all the programs before you turn off the machine. Ow.” He shakes his head. “Ow, ow, ow.”

  “Clyde?” I say, as much confused as I am concerned now. He twists, sits. His arm is tremoring hard, I see. “Is everything OK?”

  “Just…” He shakes his head a few times. With his good hand he puts the shaking one between his knees, holds it tight there. “Shouldn’t take the mask off while I’m connected to the web apparently.” His arm is still convulsing despite the pressure of his knees. “Give me a moment.”

  I glance over my shoulder. Kayla is over by Devon, trying to coax her to her feet. Devon is proving resistant to her efforts.

  “Get off me. Get—” Devon shakes, then moans, clutching her arm again. Her clothes hang in tatters. I realize I’m in no better shape.

  The police sirens. I remember them now. They’re becoming more insistent. They are very close, I realize.

  “Quite frankly the last person’s help I want right now is yours!” Devon’s voice booms out of the whispered argument she is having with Kayla. She turns, sees me looking at them.

  “Arthur,” she says, as matter-of-factly as it is possible to say anything when you are streaked with blood, bird shit, and mascara, “please come over here and help me up.”

  To my chagrin, I hesitate. There again, given the look I’m getting from Kayla, I think it’s understandable. All the violence I wished she’d do to the pigeon she appears to now be wishing on me.

  “We have to get out of here,” I tell them. We have to go back and tell people this story. Prove I’m right.

  Devon nods. “As soon as I’m on my feet.”

  I swallow. I just need to remember: Kayla didn’t hurt the bird. Surely I’m less of a threat. I get close enough to extend an arm out for Devon to reach. She heaves herself to her feet. She’s still clutching her arm.

  “Are you OK?”

  She shakes her head. Kayla circles us, on the edge of being predatory.

  “OK,” I say. “Clyde can you—”

  “Team back at the office, all fully appraised.” He’s standing now, still clutching his shaking arm. Something seems off in the way he’s talking. Something less Clyde-like.

  But the sirens sound less than a minute away. We have to leave.

  We have to get back and wipe that bloody smirk off Coleman’s face.

  “Back off!” Devon snaps at Kayla who is still circling us, sword still drawn. “And put that bloody thing away if you’re not going to use it for anything useful. I mean,” she looks at me, “what is the point of carrying around such an absurdly outdated weapon if you just wave it at stuff like a duster? Not the most effective deterrent. Certainly nobody enjoys dusting. Well, maybe yes, someone does I imagine. But, I think if we were to get properly scientific here. P-values and hazard ratios, and all of those marvelous little numbers, well, I believe we’d find that the only people who thought it was an effective defense against physical attack were missing a few of the more critical IQ points. Don’t you think, Arthur?” She grimaces as she reclasps her bad arm.

  I pretend I’m too busy steering her towards another side street to get involved. And thank God, I can see an entrance to the Underground.

  “This way.”

  And even as I herd the cats, my head is spinning. Proof. Proof that they all saw. If I can get them to acknowledge it. To see it the way I’m seeing it.

  Despite it all, I have a grin on my face as we duck out of the rain and beneath the earth.


  FORTY-ONE

  85 Vauxhall Cross—Temporary MI37 headquarters

  In the confines of the conference room it is increasingly obvious that Clyde, Kayla, Devon and I smell very strongly of bird shit.

  “You’re sure it was you that shot it?” Coleman, standing by an open window, sounds incredulous.

  I don’t deign to answer.

  “Yes,” Clyde finally says, still trying to hold his right arm steady. “Yes he did.”

  His responses to queries have been getting shorter and shorter as time goes by. To be honest I’m scared for him. I’m a little scared of him. He is changing…

  And of course there would be changes. He died. He’s a digital copy of a person, but… but… I don’t know what exactly. In some ways he’s the biggest barrier between me and acceptance of my theory. It was his voice that took my argument apart so definitively. It’s his argument that Felicity and Coleman are picking up and running with.

  But he’s a friend. And now, with the proof of the pigeon, I have a chance to win him back onto my side. I just need the right opening.

  “Kayla?” Felicity stands at the door, hands on hips, not providing the opening.

  Kayla works her jaw several times, something between anger and self-loathing. “I used my sword,” she says. “Drove it off.”

  “But did you cut it?” I think Felicity is trying to get to the reason behind Kayla’s non-involvement, but it sounds a little like she’s as unbelieving of my active role in the pigeon’s defeat as Coleman is.

  Kayla says nothing.

  By the window, Coleman is looking smug.

  God, I need this opening to come soon. I need us to unite around this proof. We’re falling apart. Felicity’s team. And she is where our buck stops. Our mistakes become hers. And each time one of us makes her look worse, Coleman looks better.

  Felicity exhales, hard and angry. “And you Clyde?” She wheels on him. “What’s your excuse?”

  “I was just…” Clyde starts. “I was already online. The frequency plan would have worked. I needed more time.”

  “Spells, Clyde.” Felicity’s complaint echoes mine. “Would that have worked quicker?”

  “Perhaps.” Clyde finally gives a shrug, but it seems perfunctory.

  “We are a team.” Felicity looks at us. “You are a team. You have roles. You work because you work together.” I nod along. Neither Clyde nor Kayla move a muscle. “Is that clear?” She asks the room. I nod again. Still nothing from the others. “Is that clear?” She barks it, tendons suddenly stark in her neck, red spots on her cheeks.

  And I want to go to her then. I still do. I want to comfort her. I want that prick Coleman with his Cheshire cat grin to fuck off back where he came from so we can do this right, do this our way, fumbling and stumbling as it may be.

  But Coleman pushes off the wall, like a mustachioed shark smelling blood in the water. “So this bird,” he says, “this terrifying pigeon.” He shakes his head. “Describe it again.”

  “It was…” I look to Clyde. This would sound better coming from someone else. Someone else should say space and time. Because if anyone is going to believe them, they can’t come from my mouth.

  Clyde gives me nothing. I don’t even bother double-checking with Kayla.

  “It grew,” I hedge. “And shrank. Not all of it. Not one giant wing. Bits of it multiplied, divided. A wing made of lots of wings. Of other bits of bird.” It seems ridiculous to be describing such a thing in the confines of such a neat, tidy conference room.

  Coleman nods his head in such a way that it utterly fails to communicate any sort of agreement.

  “And when it died?” he asks.

  “It sort of folded away. Shed bits of itself.” Again I look to Clyde. “Bits of it seemed to rot very fast. Other bits regressed, became chick parts.”

  Coleman works his jaw. “As if bits of it were moving through time, Agent Wallace?” He rolls his eyes. “I’m sensing a tediously familiar theme.”

  Fuck. Shit, and balls, and fuck. The problem with Coleman, well, one of the myriad problems, is he’s not as stupid as he looks.

  I shrug at him. “What can I say? I see a spade. I call it a spade.” I look again to Clyde. Come on. Please. Help me out.

  Nothing. Not even a twitch of the mask. Just his arm.

  And then, “Was a regular bird at first.”

  I start slightly at the voice from behind me. Kayla’s Scottish brogue. Low, mumbling.

  “Went under one of the tarps covering where the lions had been. Saw the wee bugger do it. But when it came out it were… It were like he said.” She nods my way minimally, a look of distaste on her face. “Weren’t as big then. But more bits of it. A pigeon collage. Sort of. And it went up and up, and it got to growing. More bits and bits. And I thought, I thought to myself, that’s a bad thing. And I thought maybe I should kill it. Climb up the pole, slash it while it was still small. And then I thought about that and, well, it’s a life isn’t it? It’s all life. And where does one life stop and another begin? Who gets to weigh those decisions? Why is it always me? And what if the Russians are right? What if it would be better with them in charge? So maybe we should all feckin’ die. Or maybe we should all live. I don’t know. And I thought, well maybe I can just keep one person safe. Maybe I can turn that streak around. If I couldn’t save two girls, maybe just one this time. Just defend her. And I did that. I mean, I shouldn’t have thrown the stone at the bird. Just trying to drive it off. But I did. But then when it came at us, I did save her. I stopped the harm from being too bad. But she doesn’t want that. No one wants just that.” She works her jaw. “Stupid feckin’ idea. All of this.”

  “You threw a rock at it?” I don’t know why that stands out the most from everything she said, indeed this should probably be a moment of pathos for a poor woman lost in her grief, but… a rock? You have to be kidding me.

  Kayla’s eyes flick up at me. She drops her shoulders, her mouth tightens, her knuckles whiten.

  Suddenly I am very afraid. Very afraid indeed.

  And then Kayla slumps. Folds back in herself. “Don’t think this excuses you, you feckin’ waste of space. You still didn’t protect my Ophelia. You’re as feckin’ guilty as me.”

  I close my eyes. The world back—all wrong.

  “Well.” Coleman claps his hands. “That’s just marvellous isn’t it? A swordswoman who refuses to use her sword” He snorts. “A real team of winners you have here, Felicity.” He sneers even harder round the room. Kayla seems to recoil from the gaze. Clyde’s hand drums uncontrollably against the side of the chair.

  God, it’s not just the team that’s falling apart, it’s each of us. This was meant to be my moment of triumph, but everyone’s too locked in their own disaster to stand back and see the big picture.

  “At least she put a team together,” I say, “rather than just pick one apart.” I’ve put up better defenses to accusations, I have to admit, but right now, his argument doesn’t seem too far off.

  Coleman shakes his head. “You’re the big man, is that it now, Wallace?” He looks at me with disdain. “The Russians either got the drop on you and enchanted some bird while you weren’t looking, or they left a booby trap and you wandered straight into it. And just because you didn’t die, you think you’ve redeemed yourself.” He sneers. “Personally I just see more of the same.” He stomps out, even gives us a gratuitous slam of the door.

  Felicity stares around the room. “Thanks, guys,” she says. She doesn’t mean it.

  And what to say to her? What to say to my boss? My girlfriend? I don’t know if I have anything she wants to hear. He’s wrong. You’re wrong. If we follow your plan then the whole of western civilization is doomed to, at best, a life of slavery.

  “Why do you give in to him?” If she could just answer that for me. If she could just give me a reasonable explanation. Maybe I could understand.

  Felicity looks at me, slightly incredulous. “Here?” she asks. “Now?”

 
I just look back at her. There seems to be something that happens to words after they leave my mouth, something lost in translation.

  She waves at the door. “Clyde, Kayla… Just go, and… find something out. Anything. Where that meteorite from the Natural History Museum went. Who the fuck those Russians are. Come back with something other than a beating from a mutant bloody pigeon.” She can’t even look at us as she says the last few words.

  Silently they head for the door. I stand my ground. Felicity watches me. Two gunslingers facing each other at high noon.

  “Right then,” Felicity says as the door slides closed, “you and I need to talk.”

  FORTY-TWO

  “You know what’s at stake, don’t you?” she says. Her eyes are fixed on me, deadly intent. “I know you’re not as stupid as you’ve been acting the past few days.”

  So that’s how we’re going to do this.

  She has her hands on her hips, mouth drawn into a sour line. Her hair is pushed back awkwardly, defying her part. Her suit is rumpled.

  And I feel bad for her. I feel sorry for all she’s going through. The part of me that is boyfriend wants to comfort her. But we’re in the office now. She defined these rules.

  “You know I’m right,” I say. I stand tall and stiff, matching her inch for defiant inch.

  “It doesn’t matter if you’re right!” She throws her hands up like this is the most obvious thing in the world.

  And… what the… “Are you shitting me?” Suddenly I find a vent for my words. “The fate of the western world is at stake. I think a little thing like addressing the correct fucking problem might be important.”

  Maybe I should bite back my bile. Should play this game with a little decorum. But my meditative calm has been somewhat ruffled over the past few days.

  Felicity puts her hands to her head. “You were a police detective. A successful one. Surely you must know something about politics.”

  “Sounds like the sort of thing that got innocent men convicted,” I snap back.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Felicity repeats slowly, enunciating carefully, “if you’re right, if no one’s listening to you.”