METAtropolis:The Wings We Dare Aspire

by Jay Lake

  “Leo’s son says they were riddled with bugs,” another of the older men said.

  “I’m certain of it,” Billy said. “But notice that they haven’t come rushing in to rescue him.” He gave George a hard look. “Tossed aside, Brother. Used and discarded.”

  George said nothing.

  “And that tells me,” Frost continued, “that they already know what they need to know and it’s just a matter of time. So: What do we do with my friend here, meanwhile?”

  “I could call my nephew,” said one of the men. “We could stash him in the solitary at County for a few days.”

  Frost shook his head. “Frank’s with us and so are a bunch of the others but not everyone is. Last thing we need is more curiosity from Johnny Law.”

  Wilkes looked up and George saw his eyes were cold and far away. “I still think you should’ve put him in the river, Brother Bill.”

  Billy smiled. “I know you do. But that’s a permanent solution for a temporary problem. And he can’t learn if he’s dead.” He put a hand on George’s shoulder. George flinched from the touch. If Frost noticed, he hid it well. “George here is a good man. Of that I have no doubt. And it was unfair of us to involve him and his flock in our little venture without discussing it with him first though that would’ve been a bit … impractical. And frankly, if our boys hadn’t blown themselves up it would’ve never been an issue.”

  George sat and listened to them go back and forth for another twenty minutes and as he did, he realized that though he was afraid, another emotion was kindled alongside that fear. He was angry. He felt it build and finally, he looked up.

  “I’d like to say something,” he said.

  Frost stopped mid-sentence and George felt all eyes upon him. The room was quiet and he took a deep breath. Then, he looked at each of the dozen men slowly. “What you’re doing here,” he finally said, “is wrong.”

  One of the men started to protest and Frost quieted him with a glance before sitting down. “You have the floor, Brother George.”

  George stood and felt his legs shaking beneath him. “You all can do what you want with me,” he said. “But hear me: What you’re doing is against everything Christianity teaches. You’re killing people to make your point. You’re sending young men out—” here, he looked at Wilkes, “—two by two with their bombs and your agenda. This is not the way to change the world. Find a better path.”

  The words fell from his mouth awkwardly, all the anger burning itself out before it had a chance to blaze. He looked around again and sat.

  “Actually,” Frost said, “way I see it, we’re actually quite right, George. The Lord brought a sword, not peace. The Good Book says he fashioned a whip—a whip, mind you—and chased the moneylenders out of his Father’s house. The Good Book says beat your swords into ploughshares, but also says beat your ploughshares into swords. ‘The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force.’”

  Then the Good Book is wrong. Clarity dawned from the fog of doubt. “Look,” George finally said, “there’s no way I can convince you you’re wrong any more than you can convince me that you’re right. So make up your minds and do what you want with me.”

  The rest of the meeting moved quickly. In the end, George left the same way he came, riding next to Billy in his old pickup truck. They took the long way around the island and they didn’t talk. When they reached the parsonage, one of Frost’s elders was leaving with a toolbox in hand. He handed Billy a set of keys. “It should hold just fine,” he said on his way out.

  George went straight to the room and sat on the bed. Frost followed, placing a Bible on the bed beside him. He looked at the book but instead of finding comfort, he found violence and bloodshed, a fascination with Armageddon with no regard for Eden.

  “I’m truly sorry about this, George,” Frost told him, patting his jacket pocket. “Three days, tops. I’ll bring up some food later.”

  George said nothing. When Frost left, he heard the padlocks snapping shut in their hasps and he realized that despite the locks and the man with the pistol outside, he had a sense of freedom he’d not possessed before.

  * * *

  The sky was growing dark when Charity and Molly wheeled the last load of donations into the pharmacy. They quickly stacked the items and then stood back to admire their handiwork. Tomorrow was Friday. They’d spend the day putting finishing touches on the space and then enlist other volunteers to help carry folding chairs from the County boardroom and the library. Then, Molly would cook up her casseroles in the Bradley House’s oven—an arrangement Charity had helped broker—and the Wahkiakum Community Center would hold its first event.

  Charity wondered what they might expect in the way of a turnout. She also wondered about Frost and his fundamentalist friends. She’d not liked the cold, calculating look in his eye and it wouldn’t surprise her if he himself appeared or at the very least sent some of his men to keep an eye on things.

  Or close them down.

  She pushed the thought away and turned to the girl. “So … how about dinner?”

  Molly smiled. “Rain check?”

  Charity nodded. “Sure. What time do you want me back tomorrow?”

  Molly looked surprised. “You’re coming back for more?”

  She grinned. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  The girl looked thoughtful for a moment, as if she were working out a math equation, and walked quickly to her pack. “You’ve been really helpful today. I want to give you something.” She reached into her backpack and drew out a plain book, which she handed to Charity. “It’s what I believe,” she said. “It’s why I’m here.”

  Charity took the book and looked at it. A Symmetry Framed. She’d never heard of the author—a one-word name. Bashar.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Then, they hugged and she headed to Rosie’s for a quick meal—meatloaf, mashed potatoes and rich, dark gravy that she soaked up with fresh rolls and chased with ice-cold milk. She looked over the book while she ate. It was a collection of stories about a man she’d never heard of who’d showed up unexpectedly at the mythical city of Cascadiapolis, supposedly hidden in the Cascades somewhere near Portland. It followed his brief time there and included bits of cobbled together information about his earlier life, the anecdotes and fables he told and the songs he sang, his famous stews and soups. And it chronicled his death at the hands of violent men who did not comprehend his message.

  The man who’d written it all down—this Bashar—had been head of security for Cascadiapolis. Other than his first person narrative, though, any other details about the man were absent from the book. If he still lived he had to be past eighty by now.

  Curious, Charity opened the book to the copyright page. It had been published last year, from a surprising source.

  The J. Appleseed Foundation. Neither Hunter nor Molly had mentioned the name of the foundation before. Now, the symbolism in the name made Charity smile.

  Closing the book, she finished her dinner, paid up, and walked across the street to the bed and breakfast.

  Mrs. Cooper was having tea in the dining room with two other guests when she arrived. “Miss Jensen?”

  Charity nearly kept walking, her mind not registering the name as the one she’d registered under. She stopped, midway up the stairs. “Yes?”

  “You’ve a message, dear.” The woman stood and bustled off to her desk to recover a slip of paper. “It was family.” She studied the note. “Your Aunt Abigail. She wanted you to call right away.”

  Why is she calling the bed and breakfast?

  She used the house’s single landline phone.

  “Charity,” Abigail Hunter said, “it’s good to hear your voice. How’s your vacation?”

  Charity played along. “It’s going very well. I’ve been helping out at the local community center.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Hunter said. “Now, do you remember I told you we had family there in town? His name is George. I thin
k he’s out on that island there. We’ve fallen out of touch. I’m hoping you can look in on him for me.”

  George. The man with Frost earlier, who had looked so uncomfortable. “I think I might’ve met him today.”

  “Well, I’d love for you to look him up for me. I’m sure he’d appreciate a friendly face.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. Hunter’s meaning was clear and Charity only hoped any listening ears weren’t clever enough to follow the subtext of the conversation. Their man in Cathlamet had been found out and was likely in trouble. She sighed.

  Back in her room, she sat on the bed and watched the darkness fall outside. There’d been no point in showering or changing her clothes. Not with another night run coming up.

  So instead, she read more of the book Molly gave her and waited for the middle of the night.

  * * *

  George lay still in the bed and collected himself, ignoring both the book and the food Frost had brought him hours earlier. Outside, he could hear the rain against his window. Downstairs, he could hear Billy’s voice again. Something about Sam’s blankets nearly being ready for delivery. More coded conversation, he suspected, spread over several calls received over an old-fashioned landline with a shrill ring.

  The longer he lay there, the more he thought. And the more he thought, the more his head hurt.

  Two by two. If it meant what he thought, then more teams were going out into the world to carry the message of Frost’s twisted faith.

  George stood slowly and went back to the window. They’d been bolted shut, the wood shavings left on the sill in the deacon’s hurry. The window itself would be easy enough to break, but not without alerting Frost. And it would take more time to climb down from the second story than it would for Billy and his pistol to reach the back door.

  Still, it was either climb or try to overpower Billy.

  Or do nothing. But doing nothing, he realized, meant people could die.

  George sighed and returned to the bed. He glanced to the clock radio to check the time and then blinked. He reached for it, slid the lever to radio and heard the static. Feeling along the side of it with his fingers, George found the volume dial, and slid it down and then up. Then, he glanced at the wooden chair at the small desk.

  It might work. He could use the radio to lure Frost upstairs, maybe even drown out some of the sound of breaking glass and buy him a few extra precious minutes to climb down and make his escape.

  He could feel his heartbeat in his temples, keeping time with the throbbing of his head as he turned on the radio and spun the AM dial. When he reached Frost’s own voice, he stopped and smiled. He was shouting, impassioned, about the Shekinah glory of Christ and it must have been a live recording played on the airwaves by some small local station.

  Turning the volume as loud as it would go, he stood and lifted the chair. He heard Billy below.

  “What are you up to, George?”

  He heard the creaking of the stairs as Billy approached. George waited until he heard the footsteps in the hall. Then, he shoved the chair through the glass. He crawled out of the window, slipped, slid and caught himself on the gutter before falling into the yard below.

  The air went out of him and he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder as he rolled into a ball.

  “George!” He could hear the anger in Billy’s voice. “Goddammit, I told you.” George looked up and saw him leaning from the window of his room. “It was only three days.” He turned away, moving quickly.

  George climbed to his feet and lurched into a clumsy run. He had to get into the scrub by the side of the road if he was going to have any chance of getting away.

  And he had to hope that Frost would find it harder to kill someone with the gun in his own hand instead of through one of his young disciples.

  George pushed himself and heard Billy behind him somewhere now, shouting for him to stop. He didn’t and he flinched when he heard Billy’s first shot ring out. He heard a cry—something too low for a scream and too high for a shout—then realized he was the one who made the sound. He cut to the left.

  “This is pointless, George,” Billy yelled, his own breath ragged. “There’s no place for you to go.”

  He kept running and heard another shot behind him. Almost simultaneously, he heard the bullet tearing up gravel as it nipped the ground just ahead of him. He reached the brush and crouched, changing direction again, running parallel to the road.

  Suddenly, a dark shape leaped up ahead of him from the ground and strong hands grabbed his shoulders. He was pulled in and down and he felt hot breath at his ear. “Get down,” a woman’s voice whispered.

  He let her force him to the ground and he lay prone, trying to slow his heavy breathing. His side ached and he only now became aware of just how badly his shoulder hurt.

  Whoever had pulled him down had moved off quietly and all he could hear now was the sound of Frost approaching. He rolled onto his back in time to see the man striding toward him through the brush, the pistol raised from an extended arm. As frightening as the gun, the look on his face was one of dangerous rage. When he spoke, his voice trembled and spittle flew from his lower lip. “Goddamn you, George. God fucking damn you.”

  He’s going to shoot me.

  But suddenly, Frost’s head rocked to the side and George heard the sound of something cracking. The pistol dropped and the man went down hard in the dirt. The woman scooped up the pistol. He couldn’t make out her features in the dark but when she spoke, the voice was familiar.

  “Hi, George,” she said, holding the pistol in a way that told him she knew how to use it. “Aunt Abigail says hello.”

  * * *

  Frost was coming to just as Charity finished duct-taping him to the chair. She’d sent Applebaum upstairs to find darker clothing and better shoes and now she could hear him clattering around up there. Frost’s eyes were fluttering and she dropped the pillowcase over his head. He and the dining room chair barely fit in the small ground-floor restroom but he’d be less likely tip the chair over.

  When he spoke, his voice was heavily distorted by the broken jaw. “You’re declaring war on the Most High God,” he said. “And His angels will smite you for raising your hand to His people.”

  Charity ignored him, turning away from the bathroom to find the phone lines and cut them with the rusty old Leatherman she’d found in a kitchen drawer along with a handful of .38 rounds and the tape.

  Then, she checked the house quickly again, whistling loudly for George. When he came down the stairs, he was dressed in a dark tracksuit and a pair of sneakers.

  She nodded toward the door and he moved to it. She closed the bathroom door and followed him outside. Charity wasn’t sure how much time this would give her, but she doubted it would be much. By morning, when they couldn’t find their pastor, they’d come looking. By then, she needed to be leaving with Matthew Rodriguez. And George, too, it seemed.

  She studied him. He was a large man with dark circles under his eyes. He was going to slow her down. Still, she could hide him with Molly for a few hours and then track down Matthew. But what then? Extricate him by force? She had maybe ten shots and these antique revolvers were painfully slow to reload. Still, it was better than nothing.

  She pulled Frost’s keys from her pocket and pointed to the truck. “Get in.”

  He climbed into the cab and once he was in, she looked back at the house, now dark, for one final check. Then, she climbed behind the wheel, turned the engine over, and backed down the driveway with her lights off, letting the feel of the tires on the gravel guide her.

  “You work with Patriot then,” he said as the surface beneath them changed to blacktop.

  “Not really,” she said. “But Hunter told me to come find you. I’m looking for one of Frost’s followers. Matthew Rodriguez. Do you know him?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t.”

  She turned the truck toward town. “He came in to the church on a bus with about twenty other
men.”

  She heard the man swallow. “They’re the ones staying at the church. Billy is sending them out soon.”

  Not to preach or pass out leaflets, she thought. To build more bombs. “Not if I can help it,” she said.

  Charity knew Hunter would not be happy about this, but she was the one who sent her in for George. And Charity was the soldier on the ground. They took several turns and when the bridge was in sight, she switched on the lights.

  “You remember Molly?” she asked.

  George nodded.

  “I’m going to leave you with her. Stay out of sight until I get back. Then we’ll find a phone and get Hunter down here.”

  He nodded again. They pulled up to the pharmacy and she left the truck running as she jumped out and ran to the door. Molly opened it on the third knock, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

  “Charity, what are you—”

  “I need you to keep an eye on him,” she interrupted, nodding at George. “I’ll be back in an hour, two tops.”

  She could see the confusion on the girl’s face. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  She looked at George. “He can fill you in on some of it; I’ll explain the rest later. Just keep him here until I get back.”

  The girl nodded slowly, reluctance fighting with trust. “Okay.”

  Charity climbed back into the truck, pulled the pistol from her pocket, and placed it on the seat behind her. She saw them vanish into the building and close the door, then backed into the street and sped to Puget Island.

  She turned out the truck’s lights as she approached the church and parked near the door marked “Office.” There were no other cars in the lot other than the white bus, and none of the buildings were lit.

  She didn’t bother concealing the pistol. Charity jogged along the sidewalk toward the building she assumed was a barracks … the long low building where she’d heard them reciting scripture the night before. There were doors at either end and she tried the one facing the street first. It was locked.

  Charity moved around to the back of the building, listening for any sound of them. It was nearly two o’clock and if they were keeping to a three o’clock run they’d be waking up soon.