"Judging by the hole," Ethan framed his thoughts, "I guess whatever it is must have fallen out of the sky. I thought there was some chance it had been hidden here by someone, but that hole's a dead giveaway."
Leo nodded.
Ethan stepped into opening and looked around.
"I don't see anything on the surface. Let me dig down a bit. Be best if you just sit under the shade right there. If you need some water, be sure to drink. You probably need to try, even if you're not thirsty," Ethan told him.
Ethan used the shovel, trying to avoid using full force with it so whatever was down there wouldn't be broken or cracked by it.
"Ethan?" Leo caught his attention.
Ethan stopped digging and looked over at the boy. "Yeah? Are you ok?"
"Yes, I'm fine," Leo reassured him, "I just noticed something."
"What is it?"
Leo pointed at the top of a tree twenty feet behind Ethan. The large tree had full branches covered in green leaves, and looked the same as all the other trees, except for its height. It was much shorter. Ethan said, "That's west. The hole and the broken tree make a perfect line to the west."
They looked at each other, then Ethan continued digging.
29
Taylor sat in his car, parked between the two-lane road and the river's edge as his world unraveled. His eyes darted between random points of focus as he tried to reel his mind back in.
There was a piece of something blue near the base of a tree close to where lapping waves rolled against the coarse sand at the river's edge. Possibly it was a piece of tarp, or a broken fishing lure.
Foamy bubbles curled around in a pool created by the shelter of a large rock.
Flying nymphs flicked around each other in the sunlight as the river flowed over smooth rocks below the surface.
Haze rose from the hood of his car as river-cooled air pulled the heat away.
The yellow legal page with the checklist shook in his hand as he looked back down at it.
What was I doing? It doesn't make any sense. How could I have written this and read it dozens of times and thought that it made sense?
He read the checklist again.
"13. Keep Sowyer calm. He is inclined toward anger and has tendencies toward solving problems with violence – do not argue with him about anything!"
"14. Get artifact from Sowyer. Feel it, hold it in hands make sure it's the real thing. Give him the money. If he balks, give him more money – as much as he needs to make it happen. If there's a problem, kill him and take it." Kill him and take it? Would I have really killed him for this?
Taylor looked at the artifact. He held it in one hand and the checklist in the other. Turning it over in his hand, he had no idea why he'd wanted it so desperately in the first place. From the moment he learned of its existence, it became his ultimate objective. His head went back and forth in disbelief. I was building the company into a revenue engine to support retirement in the Bahamas, socking away a fortune. What made me drop my good plans for this? He remembered reading the checklist he'd developed to blackmail Sowyer into stealing the artifact. He remembered coming back to his list several times a day thinking that maybe there was something he needed to think about, that maybe he was forgetting something. But as he'd read through the tasks, he'd felt relaxed again. He was on track. On track? He wondered now, on track with what? What the hell kind of crazy plan is this? I read this over and over and imagined sitting in a deck chair on the beach with my house in the jungle behind me, as if I was working some kind of plan that was going to pay for everything I wanted. How does that even work? How the hell does this damned artifact tie to paying for an island retirement? It doesn't. It doesn't tie together at all.
It's just a piece of metal, for God's sake. It's nothing remotely useful. Might be a piece of something, maybe, but without the something it doesn't do anything. Maybe I should get rid of it. Maybe if I don't have it the police won't be able to pin it on me. They are going to question anyone who ever touched the thing, to find out who swapped it. They'll probably be looking for me. I should throw it in the river and go straight to the airport before it's too late.
Taylor opened the door and swapped the artifact into his right hand as he prepared to throw it. Its deep enough here, no one would ever find it. He drew his hand back, meaning to throw it far out into the water, and stopped. The image of himself splashing frantically around the river with his arms shoulder deep as he tried to find the artifact amidst the smooth river stones came to his mind. I'll only have to go find it, he realized. He leaned back on the car and stared at the artifact, relieved that he hadn't thrown it. That would have been a big mistake. He'd be able to exchange it for another duffle bag full of cash stacks.
Wait, what? It's happening again, he thought.
Clearly, there's no way I'm going to be able to sell this thing when the NSA is looking everywhere for it. Who would I be selling it to anyway? Where's that part of the plan? Oh God, I'm going crazy.
The checklist was still in his left hand. He snatched it up to read it again for the thousandth time, like a man looking at a watch who couldn't recall the time when asked afterward. He read line #15.
"15. Drive to Bumpas Cove in Tennessee."
He'd driven for seven hours, pulled over on the roadside, parked by the river, and fell asleep listening to the water splashing over and around smooth river stones. The moon was up by then, and the river wound like cold quicksilver from the mountains down to the irrigated fields he'd passed on the way. He'd been exhausted. He wasn't sure how long he'd been up without sleeping. The last hour of the drive, he'd been drifting asleep every few minutes. He was relieved to reach the river.
He awoke with a start, looking around frantically trying to figure out where he was. He hadn't seen detail in the dark, and had fallen asleep so quickly that he had no idea. The checklist was crunched in his hand. He opened it and read.
"15. Drive to Bumpas Cove in Tennessee."
Ok, he'd thought. That's complete. As he read the next line, he remembered switching on the interior light to read it last night. It said…
"16. Wait in the car."
Last night, he'd read it and let himself fall asleep waiting. Something was different this morning though. When he awoke and read "16. Wait in the car." He'd realized that it was the last instruction on the list. There was nothing else. No further instruction. No tie to another list or connection to a greater plan. That's when everything unraveled.
30
Taylor sat by the river looking at the bottom of the checklist, with no other minds nearby to boost his think rate, and realized things were horribly, and possibly irrevocably, off plan. As he tried to figure out some missing logic that would connect his otherwise insane plans, he thought of something else and felt a spike of fear.
What else have I done? I might have done even worse things than this. What if I've already killed someone? Unable to trust his thinking even now, with his mind finally, inexplicably, clear, he searched his memory for the past days. He remembered making arrangements with Sowyer to swap the forged artifact, and enough to decide that his memory wasn't faulty. At least he could remember doing these things, even though looking back he couldn't see any reason to do them. Other than the checklist, he thought. They were on the list and I did them.
He picked up his bound checklists and thumbed from page to page, reliving the past year. Most of the lists dealt with running the business and dealing with clients. The lists seemed to make sense, until the ones after he'd learned of the artifact.
He'd picked knowledge of the artifact from an earlier client. Timeshared memories of a Senator suggested a strange artifact had been found and was being researched by the NSA. After that, he saw checklists focused on human networking with the right people. People who could introduce Timeshare, Inc. to Hack Samuels' chain of command. The planted seed eventually grew into the suggestion that brought Samuels to him. There were still a few checklists after that that dealt with other busi
ness, but as weeks passed, the checklists were all geared toward the artifact.
Sitting in the car, Taylor looked up from the checklist. I have to think of a way out of this. Need more brainpower. Need to drive back to town and look for a group to draw from. He reached for the key, and was about to turn it over when his head exploded.
The explosion was a simultaneous sensory overload of all of his senses. Instead of the river sliding by, he saw a maelstrom of jagged colors, and a Picasso-kaleidoscope of random images from memory, all flash popping in his eyes, or his mind's eye. The sound was a scream of shattering gears and screeching chalkboard. He jumped, impossibly trying to draw back in every direction at once as he felt the shock of skin-scalding heat all over his body.
And then it was over. His hands weren't burned raw, he could hear the river as the sound came back to his awareness, and he saw the morning's sunlight like glass shards on the water. What was that? Taylor already feared it would happen again. He waited pensively, tense. After a moment, an image came to his mind. It was like a memory, like recalling something. That's no memory. I haven't done that. The image was him getting out of the car, and walking to the steep hill across the road. He saw himself begin climbing, gripping trunks and exposed roots of small trees to pull himself up. He craned his head out the car's window to see the top of the hill. There's nothing special up there. Why would I do that?
The sensory flash returned. He screamed into the morning quiet. Frustration seared into him. He was angry and frustrated. No. Wait. I don't feel frustrated. Something else is frustrated, and it's being communicated to me with these mental explosions. Something or someone wants me to keep following orders and if I don't obey, I'm being shown consequences. He looked at the hill again and opened the door. He locked it and walked across the road. Just looking back at the car raised an electric tingle across his shoulders, promising a more painful coercion if he went back. Taylor began climbing.
31
They both looked down into the hole. It wasn't deep, less than two feet. But it was wide. They'd found something larger than the sleeve.
The other sleeve looked the same as the one Leo found, although this one was still covered in dirt. It didn't appear to be broken or cracked, at least in the part Ethan's digging had exposed. It was attached to a very large chest and torso. Ethan sat down on the edge of the hole and rested, with Leo standing behind him. They stared into the hole.
The torso was face-down. Ethan's excavations outlined a shape that would fit a large man. It was smooth, with no visible openings, just a solid glass-metal shell to cover someone's torso, chest and shoulders. Someone with a large chest.
Ethan gripped the neck collar and pulled. Like Leo, he misjudged the force required to move it and when it came free, he fell backward. He sat hard on the tin sheeting making a horrendously loud screech. Ethan looked at Leo sheepishly and grinned.
"I did the same thing," Leo told him, smiling back. "You're ok?"
"Yes, I'm fine," Ethan said, "This thing is huge."
The torso and chest were barrel-sized. Every visible surface was the same glossy white glass-metal. Leo noticed stylized arcs and swirls on the new sleeve like the ones on the left one he wore. Ethan was amazed by how light it was. The thing looked solid and heavy, but it was an optical illusion. He couldn't imagine anything other than plastic that would have a comparable weight. Even aluminum would be heavier. Ethan held the entire frame from his extended arm amazed. Grasping it in both hands, he slowly turned it over to look inside.
"See if there's muck in the sleeve," Leo suggested, "try to dump it out".
Ethan shook the sleeve, emptying a small pile of dry dirt.
Ethan pulled an old handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the chest, looking for markings. The dirt came off easily, leaving a glassy almost wet-looking surface. The trees overhead cast shadows that made it harder to focus, Ethan said, "Let's move over here where we can see it better".
They moved a few feet over and sat on the log remains of the clipped treetop.
"Is it some kind of space suit?" Leo asked.
"Maybe. That's what I would think too, but…" Ethan held the hand with two fingers up to finish his thought.
Ethan continued wiping dust from the suit, looking at the markings.
"Look at how the dirt just falls off of it," Ethan said. "I've never seen anything repel dirt like that. It just falls off. After a few minutes, the suit was clear of dirt and shone in the sunlight. Even the areas Ethan didn't wipe were clear of grime, leaving the suit uniformly clean.
Leo reached over to feel the surface. When his hand touched, they heard a buzzing, almost musical hum. Ethan dropped the suit, snatching back his hands as if he'd been shocked.
The suit dipped when he turned loose, but dropped only inches, bouncing slightly, floating in the air. As it did, Leo almost fell into it as the sleeve he was wearing yanked toward the suit. He rebalanced himself to avoid tipping into it. Even after he'd stabilized himself, the sleeve he wore seemed heavier, pulled by the weight of the floating suit somehow.
They both looked at the suit floating a foot from the ground. It rotated slowly about a foot from Leo. As it moved, Leo felt slight tugs on the sleeve as if he were holding the suit in his arm and moving it himself, although he wasn't touching it at all.
Ethan reached for the suit, meaning to pull it back from Leo. It was unnerving to watch a mechanical thing acting on its own. It felt menacing and dangerous, like an animal acting on instinct in a way that you couldn't predict. As Ethan's fingers tightened on the suit's collar, the musical hum came back with a sharply-rising tone.
Ethan sprang back from the suit, stinging pain in his entire hand and crumbled to the ground with his back against the log. The stinging didn't abate. When he tried to move his fingers, they didn't respond. "My hand is paralyzed."
Even as he said it though he felt the stinging sensation rising up his arm. Forearm, then upper arm felt the stinging fire and his arm dropped paralyzed into his lap. The paralysis reached his chest and shot quickly through the rest of his body, deadening everything below his shoulders and setting his nerves afire. Sweat dripped from his forehead and ran down his scalp. His breathing became heavy and desperate. He had to concentrate to pull enough air in and work to exhale room for more. Ethan realized that if the paralysis continued he could die. He closed his eyes and worked desperately to control himself. Moments passed before he reopened his eyes, first looking at Leo's face and seeing that he was still ok. He then looked down and saw the grass fading from bright green to dust brown. He concentrated on breathing.
He let himself catch up a few breaths, then said "I can't move Leo. It's done something to paralyze my arm and legs." He gasped for air as he finished.
The stinging nerves faded, leaving him unable to move anything below his neck.
He looked up at Leo, who was breathing hard and slumping down to his knees.
Ethan made himself calm down. He took breath after breath, deeper and deeper to calm himself. The grass around them turned brown and dusty dry.
"Are you ok, Leo?" Ethan asked. When Leo didn't respond, he asked louder, "Leo! Are you ok?" Ethan pressed his lungs like heavy bellows.
Leo looked up at Ethan, "Yes," he breathed heavily. "I'm just so tired, all of a sudden, like that thing just really made me tired."
"Its ok, Leo," Ethan told him, trying to reassure him, "It's under control now."
He must be crazy, Leo thought. If he thinks this is under control, he must be crazy. This is the definition of 'not under control'.
Leo felt a tiny quick tug on the sleeve and looked back to the suit. A blue line appeared on left side of the suit, running from the collar to the belt. Leo saw another line on the right side in the same spot.
The blue line flared with a slight neon glow and the front half of the chest floated free of the suit. As it did, Leo had to shift his weight to adjust as the center of gravity changed on the entire floating assembly. It felt like the sleeve was
being tugged as the components moved.
Then the suit came toward him with the chest piece staying in front and the suit circling around behind him. Leo was scared by the suit trying to get behind him and twisted around to keep his position. As he turned, the suit stayed in position relative to him, so even though he turned, it was still moving further around behind him. He was like a dog chasing its tail.
Leo stopped turning and looked back over his shoulder, more afraid now that some of the suit was behind him.
It floated closer.
Unable to move, Ethan watched the horrifying scene. It's putting itself on him.
It was impossible for Ethan not to attribute hostile intentions to the suit. He'd dug up an inactive mechanical thing from the ground, something that had been buried for years. Six years assuming that its impact was what finally brought the old shed down. It lay there for six years, waiting? Now it circled around Leo like a tiger stalking a goat. What does it want?
Leo was breathing quickly, terrified by what was happening. He watched the open collar coming around his neck as the suit floated closer. When suit brushed against the back of his shoulders, he called "Ethan! Help me!"
Ethan could do nothing. He realized that he'd actually been telling himself "it's ok" over and over under his breath when he'd said it loud enough that Leo heard him. Leo just stared back.
The suit settled close against Leo's back and shoulders. He watched as the left sleeve snapped into the suit with a dull "click" followed by a tiny, almost inaudible musical hum. Then nothing happened for a second, and another. The only sound around them was Ethan breathing hard in and out like he'd just run a race.
Leo clutched his right arm tightly to his chest, preventing the suit from sealing. He looked fearfully into the gaping upper arm of the right sleeve trying to see if there was a spike waiting.
I won't put my arm in there. That only makes it more impossible to get it off. There's nothing it can do to make me.
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