“The Fool.”
“Whatever.”
His phone began to play the stuttering guitar of Steppenwolf’s Magic Carpet Ride.
Ace looked at the phone disgustedly. “Doesn’t that thing know any songs from this century?”
The phone instantly switched to B.o.B.’s rap version of Magic.
Steve shuddered. “Now look at what you’ve done.” Looking at the screen, he saw a picture of the Rolling Stones’ iconic lolling tongue. He showed it to Ace. “I think this is for you.”
She snorted and returned to stripping and examining her pistol.
Steve put the phone to his ear. Aloud, he said, “Well, that was an unusual experiment.” Then, in a strangled whisper, he continued. “Please don’t ever suggest anything that stupid again!”
“Noted,” Barnaby said. “However, we’ve gotten much closer to what that anomaly is and, more importantly, what changes it’s going to bring.”
“I’m making a command decision.” Steve said sternly. “Next time, we do it with less risk to my most precious possession.”
“What’s that? Your reputation?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. My life.”
“Noted.” The phone vibrated briefly. “Now, could both of you go over to the tables and look at the rift through the phone’s camera?”
Ace came over and stood beside Steve as he pointed the phone at the empty space between the tables. The voice switched itself into speaker mode. “All right. First, Master Chief, tell me what you see.”
Ace looked at the area between the tables. “An empty parking space.”
“That’s it? On the phone as well?” She glanced at the screen. “Yes, sir.”
“And you, Mr. Rowan?”
“Well, things have changed. Before, I could only see the purple goo through the phone.” He sighed. “However, apparently I have problems, whether visual or mental remains to be seen, because now, even without the phone, I’m beginning to see the six- inch bloody gash hanging in the air, the slimy goo leaking out of it, and the cloud of vapor that’s filling this little hidey-hole. It’s like the weird is being overlaid on the real.” He looked around the enclosed area again. “Oh, and I guess I should mention that the holes in the walls and ceiling–which were fairly small before–are now gigantic and quite a lot of the purple smoky stuff is escaping.”
“Hmm. We’ll get to that in a moment.” Barnaby said. “So, you’ve gained the ability to see Other Than Normal events without the phone.”
“What?” Steve was shocked. “You mean that I can see spooky stuff that normal people can’t?”
“Yes.”
“What if I swear that I can’t see anything unusual?”
“Like a pistol shooting blue lightning bolts?”
“Exactly.”
“Sadly, you just blew that one.” The phone said. “We know that you have the ability to see the magical reality that coexists with the real reality that we’ve become used to.”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Steve said. “‘Magical reality’ and ‘real reality’. I’d say that you’re reaching for the record in redundant oxymorons.”
“You mean like the intense apathy inspired by a short briefing from military intelligence?”
“Ow.” Steve pulled the phone away, stuck his forefinger in his ear, and twisted it. “That actually hurt.” He switched the speaker back on.
“Let’s get back to the job at hand.” Barnaby said. “We’ve established that you are perceiving the unreal real world at an increasing rate.”
“I told you to cut that out.” Steve warned.
The phone made a muttering noise that sounded a little like a chuckle. “How about you, Master Chief?”
“Nope, not on the device or with the Standard Issue Mark One eyeball. I seem to have utterly lost what little juice I ever had.”
Steve said. “I just know that I’m going to hate myself for asking, but what is this purple stuff?”
Barnaby’s voice sounded surprised. “You just got shot with a blue lightning bolt and you haven’t figured that out yet? It’s Magic.”
“Bull.”
“You’ve fallen to your death and didn’t die, a rather large creature smashed through your metal apartment door, and now you’ve raised a shield to protect yourself from a blast of blue destruction, and you’re still not convinced that there is something strange going on?”
“Well...”
“It’s magic and, just as Madge says in the old dishwashing commercial, you’re soaking in it.”
Steve thought about jumping up on the closest table, but they were all filled with scientific equipment and he was probably about as soaked in purple goo as he could get. He pointed towards Ace. “Why isn’t any sticking to Ace here?”
“When the Change occurred, we believe that those few people who could perceive and control magic in the pre-Change world immediately lost all their power and, possibly, are immune or resistant to its effects.”
“Immune?” A smile came over Steve’s face. “Can I test that on the Master Chief with one of those blue lightning bolts?”
Ace’s face immediately froze into a scowl.
Barnaby said hastily. “No, I don’t think that’s necessary and it certainly wouldn’t be safe.”
“What if I only shoot to wound?” Steve attempted to sound innocent and failed miserably.
“I meant that you would be in tremendous danger if you tried to shoot the Master Chief whether there was magic involved or not, so it wouldn’t prove anything.” Barnaby was firm and Ace relaxed slightly. Steve snapped his fingers in regret.
Barnaby continued. “OK, we’ve established the known knowns and the known unknowns, and it’s time to move on to the unknown unknowns.”
“Don Rumsfeld lost a war we didn’t need to fight and did a pretty good job of wrecking the US military with that sort of reasoning,” Steve said. “Why don’t you shut off whichever memory bank that holds that sad remnant and let’s move on?”
“OK,” Barnaby said, and Steve could hear a few mechanical clicks and a muffled scream in the background. “We need to look ahead. Since this was clearly a planned event, we should assume a post-action plan.”
Ace broke in. “Wait a minute. The Incident wasn’t natural? It was caused by someone–”
“Three someones.” Steve interrupted.
She looked up from the phone to stare at him. “How do you know...?”
“I could not-hear them on the plane that wasn’t there and didn’t crash,” Steve explained.
“How long is this sort of conversation going to continue? I may have to put in for hazard pay.” Ace shook her head as if to clear it. “OK, if the crash and the Change were a caused event and not an accident, shouldn’t it be considered an attack on the United States?”
“Yes, we’re fairly sure that that’s exactly what it is,” Barnaby said. “And while natural talents such as yourself have lost their powers, we believe that the planners have worked out a way to maintain their ability to control OTN events and, in fact, can control magical powers at a higher level than before. First, as a hypothesis, it makes sense, and second, we are receiving reports of increased and more clearly defined magical activity.”
“Great,” Steve said. “So, we’re being attacked by wizards. How many wizards do we have on our side?”
“I believe the Master Chief already told you that.” Barnaby paused. “We have...you.”
Steve could feel anger welling up inside. “Well, that’s ridiculous. You guys over in that black glass building have been reading everyone’s mail, tapping phones, and fingering through the Internet for decades. Now that you have a clear and present danger to the United States, not only do you seem to know nothing about it, but, what’s worse, your only resource is a worn-out hack who has managed to perform two magical party tricks so far?” His voice rose. “Am I going to have face violent death or injury every time you need a little magic done?”
“We do think you’ll i
mprove–”
“Improve?” Steve was shouting. “I’d better freaking improve or these tarot-card-carrying terrorists are going to turn me into a freaking rabbit and stick me in a hat!”
“Well, probably not a rabbit.”
“What then?”
“From all indications, you’ll just be killed.” Ace said. “They won’t go through the trouble to transform you.”
Steve threw the phone at the SEAL, who caught it smoothly. “That’s it. You hired me to come here and do a bit of reporting and now it turns out that I’ve been drafted as an Army of One. You have no idea what’s happening and I’m supposed to be the expert as well as the grunt on the front lines? This makes no freaking sense. I quit.”
“It’s only been an hour since this happened.” Barnaby sounded petulant. “You’ll have to be satisfied–”
“Want to bet?” Steve interrupted.
“Um. No. I don’t like the odds.” Barnaby said. “Please reconsider. Your nation needs you.”
“Find someone else.”
“There is no one else.”
“Get out there and search every sideshow, run down every water dowser with a crooked stick, and ransack those towns in Florida where all the circus acts retire. I am not doing this.”
Barnaby began to speak, but Ace put her hand over the speaker, muffling his voice. “Listen up, Rowan; you are going to do this.”
Anger had the blood rising in Steve’s neck until he felt like his head was about to burst. He started to shout but the Master Chief made a cutting motion across her throat and he stopped. He was surprised at his reaction but then realized that Ace was simply the sort of person where a threat to cut your neck might just not be intimidation but something with more of the aspects of a promise.
“Now shut up and listen.” Ace spoke calmly, but somehow it had all the visceral impact of Hitler’s speeches to the Nuremberg Rallies in Triumph of the Will. “Whoever ordered that plane destroyed is determined to find you and kill you. They clearly enjoy killing or, at best, just don’t have any reservations about it and you are simply too dangerous to let live.”
“I could join them–”
“Like they’d take you.” Ace snorted. “You just said it: you suck at this. Face it–you really just have to answer a very simple question.”
“What?”
“Do you want to go off and die–probably within hours, at best days–cowering all alone in some lame hiding place, or do you want to face this with me, Barnaby, and all the other resources of the US government?”
Steve thought. “Is the government really a resource–”
“Shut up.” Ace interrupted. “You’ll probably get killed either way, but with us at least you’ll have company.”
At that, Steve nodded.
CHAPTER NINE
Steve took the cell phone back and said without a great deal of enthusiasm, “OK, Barnaby. I’m in.”
“Do we have any more intel on the alleged perpetrators?” Ace asked. “Who are they? What do they want? Why use magic? And why hit an empty parking lot at Fort Meade?”
The picture on the phone rotated to the horizontal and Barnaby said, “Watch the screen. This is what we’ve been able to construct from combining about a thousand of our best digital surveillance systems with a little guesswork. It’s a kludge but it may answer some questions.”
Steve could have sworn he heard Barnaby say at a much lower volume, “Although it’s more likely to raise questions than answer them.”
A video of an American International 747 flying low over a leafy suburb appeared on the smartphone’s screen. It was silent and Steve checked to see if the audio was muted.
It turned out that the audio level was fine; when he turned it up, he could hear car horns, lawnmowers, and leaf blowers–just not the jet.
In this eerie silence, glowing red flames shot yards out of the engines as more fuel than could be burned was dumped into the straining jets. The strut that held one of the engines snapped under the pressure and dropped–flames and electrical arcs spraying out like a Fourth of July sparkler.
Like one of those optical illusions where the real picture suddenly jumps out at you, Steve realized that the aircraft was flying only yards above his apartment complex. No other apartments he’d ever seen had that particularly nauseous combination of ochre and green. “That explains my car,” he thought. The engine disappeared behind one of the buildings and the viewpoint of the video changed to a shot that appeared to be next to the jet. Steve assumed it was some type of composite image.
The nose of the jet began to pull right and the plane’s wings lifted into a steep bank only to snap back into a straight and level descent again. It moved faster than Steve thought an airplane that large could–it was as if it had run into a rubbery wall in the air and bounced off.
This was repeated several times–the airplane attempting to vector to the right and being forced back. The camera pulled back a bit so that it appeared to be slightly behind the jet and Steve could see the black monoliths and glass blocks of the NSA appearing ahead of it. Now its dive was steepening, and Steve felt an echo of the human terror he’d experienced this morning. His hands balled into fists, he couldn’t breathe, and tears began to stream down his cheeks.
The big jet was heading for the ground completely nose down. Steve could see that the impact point would be the same parking lot where they were standing.
Then it disappeared. No smoke.
No flames.
“There should have been a complete freaking fireball mushroom cloud,” Steve thought.
“OK, here’s that last part again.” Steve jerked as Barnaby’s voice shocked him out of the powerful memory of the fear and terror he’d experienced in those moments. He began to gasp for breath–bending over with his hands on his knees.
“Wait one second,” Ace said. Steve was surprised to feel Ace’s arm around his shoulders, bringing a feeling of calm and unwavering support. It took a few minutes, but his breathing became more regular, and he straightened up.
Ace returned to examining her pistol. Steve didn’t thank her for the momentary comfort. He wiped some of the combined tears and sweat off his cheeks and raised the phone again.
“If I may ask, what did you feel?” Barnaby’s voice had the level and emotionally stable tone of people who answer a suicide hotline. “Not now, but earlier, when it happened.”
“Feel? I felt all of them. The pilots cursing steadily as they kept trying to pull out. Children screaming, last phone calls, a final kiss, and a lot of trying to hold the plane up by pulling on the armrests.” Steve paused in thought. “There were a couple–no, three–who were happy. No, triumphant.”
He looked at the phone. “So, someone did do this on purpose.
It was an attack.”
“Yes.”
“Who? Al-Qaeda? Jihadists?”
“I’d like you to watch the final moments again before I answer.”
On the little screen, Steve could see the same scene. However, this was a freeze-frame showing an unbelievable picture–the big airplane with its nose only yards from the ground. Then it began to creep closer.
A part of Steve’s brain, working on automatic pilot, wondered how this camera–or any video camera–could capture enough frames to create this sequence; it was at a level of slow motion he’d never seen, not even at the Olympics.
He realized that Barnaby had never said it was from a camera. It had to be some secret technology–a computer image built from multiple sources. No one could have held a camera pointed so precisely at a disaster the exact instant it happened.
All that vanished from his mind.
Slender black rods appeared in front of the jet–short at first and then lengthening. Steve bent over the small screen, but he still couldn’t tell where they came from; they were growing from a point in the air close to the striped asphalt of the parking lot. He glanced over at the oozing gash hanging in the air between the tables.
His ey
es flicked back to the screen. The rods were thickening, growing longer and gaining bumps and bends.
Suddenly, the picture snapped like an optical illusion and he realized that he was looking at enormous claws with black talons. His mind instantly matched their size to the known size of the parking spaces and then he blinked furiously as his mind absolutely refused to accept it.
Each of those damn things would have been able to pick up a pair of semis. They were emerging from nowhere and pulling apart–what? The air was being molded and stretched like transparent Silly Putty; he could see the distortions it was causing in the buildings and trees in the background.
The rip quickly widened under the pressure of those massive talons. Steve couldn’t see anything but blackness inside the hole. On the screen, the jet was now only feet away from the ground and inching downward slowly, although Steve knew that at the real speed, it had to be moving; the entire event had to have been far too fast for the eye to see.
The claws made a final colossal effort–Steve could see gargantuan muscles on the forelegs ripple and bulge as they ripped the fissure to the full extent of their reach. A snout appeared–as black as the claws–and began to open. Steve could see the creased, metallic skin. Jaws filled with jagged and irregular fangs–each as long as a city bus. Finally, a glittering yellow eye with a vertical pupil shining with terrible golden light.
The jaws gaped wide and then impossibly wider–unhinging the way a snake’s does when it prepares to swallow a rabbit. The jet with its 418 passengers disappeared into the terrible gullet. The tips of the wings didn’t even touch the sides. The jaws snapped shut–a quick movement even on the slow-motion video.
Steve had no doubt that he’d just seen a dragon. Even the best Hollywood animation couldn’t produce the texture, the details, and the horrible brutality of that terrible eye.
Then the jaws, the claws, and American International Flight 1143 disappeared into the rip. Somehow, the viewpoint zoomed in so they could see as the edges of the gap smoothly closed like some kind of cosmic zip-lock bag.
In the end, there was only a small six-inch gap left. Very slowly, reddish-purple goo began to drip out of it.
The Last American Wizard Page 6