Steal the Stars

by Mac Rogers

  “I want to be useful, Dak! It’s my last day, my last day!” Tears threatened to spill out over his bottom lids. “I want to do something that at least resembles doing my duty!”

  DING! The doors to the elevator slid open.

  We stared at each other for several beats, before he said, proudly and almost soberly, “You can find me downstairs.” He began to sidle his way into the car. I grabbed him by the arm and held him in the car’s threshold.

  “You know what, Mike?” I wanted to squeeze his arm until it burst. I wanted my voice to give him secondhand steam burns. “You failed to do your duty back when you decided to drink at work.” I’d never called him by his first name before. I’ve never called him on his drinking habits before. I’ve never even shown him much anger before. “So what you’re gonna do right now, Mike, is get back to your office and start prepping for top-to-bottom debrief. What you’re not gonna do is get in the way of professionals in a crisis situation because you’re looking for some half-assed victory lap. Step back from that elevator. Go to your office, look at that painting on your wall, and realize: you’re not some sailor bravely facing down a storm. Now you’re a man who owns a picture.”

  As I loosened my grip he pulled his arm away petulantly. He stumbled on his feet.

  “Dakota.” He mumbled, unsure of just how to respond.

  “I will see you there in about half an hour, all right?”

  “Yeah.” He broke eye contact, looked down. I began to relax. He seemed chastened enough. “Yeah.”

  I took just a fucking moment to exhale. Just a moment to stretch away the unbearable tension that had gripped the back of my neck, to turn and look at you and Lauren. Harrison slipped into the elevator, stabbed the button, and the doors closed. The last thing I saw were his eyes, glinting with an almost gleeful rage, staring back at me.

  Holy living Christ.

  As soon as my brain could process sight again, I saw that you were standing by the box, which you’d already begun to push down the hall. You’d passed.

  The short way back to you I was screaming in my head: don’t run, don’t run, don’t run.

  “We’ve got to hustle,” I said to you, low.

  * * *

  I’D NEVER in my life been more grateful for how the Turndown box killed Rosh’s sense of humor. He saw the box, sensed our harried energy immediately, and, without a word, gestured to the seat in front of his scan. After the first glance, it seemed like he was doing his best to not even look in the box’s direction.

  I sat down, calculating. The Gnome would hold the elevator; Harrison looked sketchy as hell right now. That would give us, what, five minutes to—

  “I’m very disappointed in you, Dak.”

  Rosh’s voice hit me like a slap.

  “What? What are you—”

  “You blinked,” he said, kind but firm. Apologetic. “I have to run it again.”

  “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!” The shout was out of my mouth before I even knew it was coming. Rosh jumped and flinched. He started to stammer.

  “I-I-I—”

  I tried to fight it, but the anger was boiling over. I did not have time to babysit this fucking—

  You hopped in. “Sorry, Rosh, hey, it’s all good, you’re doing your job, it’s just, you know, second Turndown Service in a month—”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s—” Rosh’s face was growing a shade of red that seemed to indicate he might physically explode.

  I managed to keep a lid on whatever the hell was happening inside me. I wasn’t calm, but I started to at least remember what it felt like. I bit down and kept my jaw closed. “Just … run it again, Rosh. I’m … all set.”

  “I didn’t mean to, to—”

  “I know. Come on. I’m a crazy person you don’t recognize, right? Rosh? How did I get in?”

  He laughed weakly, something more like an exhale than an expression of mirth. “Hah, yes. Yes. A, a person I don’t recognize! Right. Identify thyself!”

  He ran the scan. I kept my eyes open.

  “Did I say I didn’t recognize you? Well, shut my mouth, for thou art—”

  I stood up and waved at you to sit.

  “I’m a stranger, Rosh, what’re you gonna do about it?” You settled your chin and stared into the machine.

  “Truly, it is a banner day for strangers!” Rosh exclaimed as he ran the scan, still pointedly not looking near the box.

  * * *

  I WAS so clammy, so close to overheating from the nerves and the not-very-breathable suit, that hitting the fresh air was like diving into cool water. Not just a temperature change but the very texture of the air felt like a different substance than whatever the hell we’d been trudging through indoors.

  I could see the garish Turndown van trundling up ahead outside the front gate.

  Was it always this far away? Was the parking lot always so long?

  “Why did you make them park outside?” you asked.

  “Because we wanna be on the other side of that gate when they see us throw the Turndown guys out of the van.”

  We pushed the box toward Parker’s booth at the gate. I radioed him as we moved.

  “Parker, you there?”

  “Chief,” he responded.

  “Get the gates open. We got Turndown. Hurry.”

  “Hurry? Everything okay—”

  “I’LL EXPLAIN LATER.” I was starting to panic. Not good. We were so close. We were so fucking close.

  “Copy. Hey, was there an unscheduled Power-Up?”

  “Open the goddamn gate, Parker!”

  “Okay. Sorry,” he chuffed and the gate began to creak and squeal open.

  “Can we go faster,” you asked me out of the side of your mouth, “or will that get the Harp—”

  “Yeah, faster.” I nodded. “Faster.”

  We broke into a trot, pushing the container down the parking lot toward the excruciatingly slowly opening gate. I could see the dickhead driver they always sent, opening the side door and probably thinking of a shitty joke. Another fifty yards and—

  We’re gonna make it

  We’re—

  A klaxon began blaring, compound-wide, like an air-raid drill, like the bellow of some angry god poised to stomp out existence. It tore through our heads.

  The gate paused, then started to close itself back up.

  “PARKER. WHY IS THE GATE CLOSING?”

  “Sorry, Dak!” I heard Parker shouting over the noise. “It’s lockdown!”

  “KEEP THE FUCKING GATE OPEN!” I screamed.

  And just like that, just like they were trained, a whole squad of my perimeter guards fanned out between the Turndown van and the road. I saw the driver jump at the sight of all the rifles.

  The klaxon continued winding, shrieking, tearing the world to shreds. But there was another noise, too. Coming from inside the box.

  The Harp was powering up again.

  “Open it up,” I heard myself yelling to you.

  “WHAT?”

  “PUT YOUR HELMET ON AND OPEN THE BOX UP.”

  The guards were shouting orders too—lie down, hands over your head, step away—we had a scant few seconds before they disintegrated us with bullets. Parker kicked open the door to his booth and sprinted for cover. As Parker ran, I noticed with absurd clarity that Lloyd was driving up the road. He pulled his car over behind the van and got out to see what was happening.

  “Seal me,” I called to you.

  “Stop what you are doing or we will open fire!” one of the guards intoned over a bullhorn. The klaxon continued blaring. The Harp noise got louder. “Take off your helmets and look at me so I know you hear me!”

  Your hands flew over me—we knew this protocol almost as surely as we knew the map of each other’s bodies.

  “Please, Dak!” the guard begged over his bullhorn. His name was Erikson. He was a good guy. Fought with mobile infantry. I trained him about three years ago. These were all my people. Their trust in me was about to be their downfa
ll. If I’d been anyone else they would have ripped us to shreds already. “You have five fucking seconds!”

  “Sealed … sealed … sealed,” you itemized.

  “FIVE!”

  “Arms up.” You complied.

  “FOUR!”

  Sealed … sealed …

  “THREE!”

  … and sealed.

  “TWO!”

  The nanosecond I knew you were safe, I reached down and unzipped the bag. I had the briefest moment to see Lloyd, standing at the gate (which had already frozen in place), realizing what was inside our container, before I held up the Harp and ducked down behind the crate.

  The Harp’s hum grew insistent, the klaxon continued blaring, and I braced myself for a few rounds to head our way … but there were no gunshots. Only the clatter of dozens of human bodies and automatic weapons dropping to the hard ground, unmistakable even under all the din.

  I stood up to confirm. Not a man standing.

  “Close it, they’re down!” I heard you say. I waited. I wanted to make sure everybody stayed down for a while. “Dak! We don’t wanna kill—”

  “I know what I’m doing!” I snapped. After another beat, I quickly dropped the Harp back into the bag and zipped it up. A few moments later, the sound of the Harp reached its peak. The alarm cut off. The world was quiet beyond the baseline post-climactic hum of the Harp. Not even a bird.

  We pushed the crate forward and through the gate. Thankfully it had stopped just wide enough to let us through. Finally a lucky break.

  The driver of the van and his partner were both slumped inside. We tipped them unceremoniously out onto the asphalt, then lifted the container into the van and closed the door. Still operating against the clock, we ran to both sides of the cab. I let you take the driver’s seat.

  “Keys still in?”

  “Yeah, but, I just realized—”

  “Fucking drive!”

  “Dak—”

  “GO! Please!” I almost choked on the desperation in my voice. We were there now, right at the threshold of getting away. You put a hand on my leg.

  “The Harp, Dak. Cars use electricity. We have to wait for it to power down.”

  I could have screamed. Maybe I did, I don’t know.

  “Everybody’s down,” you said. “Everybody’s down. We can wait.”

  “I—”

  “We can wait.”

  I tried to match my breath to the rhythm of your hand on my thigh. I tried to still my heart—it had been beating so slowly before, now it felt like it was going to mimic the Harp: ramp up to a climax and burst through. Thudthudthudthudthud—

  Outside the passenger-side window, I noticed Lloyd. He was crumpled on the ground, just like everybody else.

  I’ve hurt everyone I’ve ever remotely cared about today.

  No. Not everyone.

  I opened the door and got out. You cried my name in surprise but, like you said, we could wait.

  Lloyd was trying to say something but his throat didn’t want to comply. I put my ear close to his lips.

  “… me … with … you.” I think he was begging.

  “I’m sorry, Lloyd,” I whispered back to him. I stood up and looked at him with what I now understood to be love. How easy a concept that was to grapple with on this side of inflicting trauma. “I’m sorry.”

  I ran back to the van and slammed the door. As soon as we were able to, we got the fuck out of there.

  22

  WE’D MADE it about ten minutes—thankfully all we needed to reach the van I’d stashed under the bridge—when the Harp started to go off again.

  Some realizations are a fist: different aspects of the problem curl in like fingers until the unit is complete and ready to sock you right in the fucking gut.

  Because, of course:

  Keep moving the Harp and it goes off.

  If it keeps going off we can only drive so far at a time.

  If we can only drive so far at a time they’ll catch up with us.

  Even if they don’t catch us right away we’ll leave them a trail of blackouts.

  If that weren’t enough, if we wanted to at least keep using it as a weapon, we’d have to stay in our Lloyd Suits and stick out like fucking spacemen.

  Wham. All the air rushed out of me.

  I hadn’t thought of this.

  Of course, if we kept the Harp in its bag no one was in any direct danger. But until we figured this shit out, the danger we were in was clear and present. To put it another way: we were completely, utterly, resolutely, mercilessly fucked.

  I’m not someone prone to hyperventilating. But this blow was too sharp, too unexpected. I couldn’t catch my breath. We transferred our cargo from one useless van to the other, and then I sank to the ground.

  “Can we dump it?” You put your hand on my back. The Harp hummed insistently inside the duffel.

  “No.” My voice was a husk, a whistle, a death rattle. “I promised them.”

  “Promised who? You still haven’t told me—”

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do.” I had to think. Every time I tried, wham, there was that fist.

  “Okay,” you said. “Okay. Where’s the nearest hardware store? I have an idea.”

  * * *

  WE’D JUST made it to the closest Home Depot when the Harp spun up again. The van sputtered and stopped dead right as we pulled into the parking lot.

  “Let’s wait until everything comes back on. It’ll be a tomb in there.”

  I pulled out the bag of clothes I got from the airport. “I guess we should change before we go in.”

  You looked at the options I handed you—something close to distaste crossed your face.

  “Trust me,” I muttered, sliding out of my suit, “there wasn’t much to choose from.”

  “Right…,” you said. I suppose I should have recognized there was something more going on than your unenthusiasm at wearing board shorts and a Myrtle Beach T-shirt, but I was too busy trying to rub away the stress headache grinding under my skull.

  “We’re giving Sierra a map right to us.”

  “How big’s the radius of the Harp’s blast, you think?”

  “Against tech? At least the distance from Object E to the perimeter of Quill Marine. But the effect never reached anything in town, so…”

  “And against people?”

  “I mean, once we got it out of the engine room, we insulated the Hangar, remember? So we never really got to find out. I guess let’s try to keep it that way.” I looked at my watch. “We gotta be fast. I figure we’ve got about an hour or two before they’re more or less able to eat us alive again.”

  * * *

  THE STORE was full of nervous chatter—people’s voices leapfrogging over each other to see who could express the greatest surprise over the blackout. They weren’t even actively shopping anymore, just babbling wide-eyed with their hands on their chests, like they’d just seen Godzilla tramp through the city in a wedding dress.

  “We should split up so we can get stuff faster,” you said. “Can you get the bungee cords?”

  I sighed, nodding, looking around. “We don’t even know if this’ll work.”

  “We definitely can’t dump the Harp?”

  “They won’t take us without it.”

  “You still haven’t told me who.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could say anything a giant in an orange apron approached us. The kid was well over 6′5″ and head-to-toe red: a red, curly mop of hair, a red beard, skin pixelated with red freckles.

  “Can I help you guys find anything?”

  Of course, we both knew not to leave behind a trail of “seemed-like-they-were-in-a-hurry” eyewitnesses. We switched over to a casual, suburban frequency like two synchronized swimmers.

  “Oh, hey, thanks. We’re looking for towel racks. Like, really quality ones. Stainless steel, maybe. And they’ve gotta have the bar that goes through.”

  He pointed us to aisle fifteen. “D
id you guys miss the excitement?”

  You and I turned to each other, dumb and innocent.

  “This weird power outage,” he filled us in, “freaked everybody out. Flashlights, lanterns, even emergency lights didn’t work. Crazy.”

  “Wow.”

  You turned to me. “Maybe that’s what made our car konk out, too!” You turned to the kid. “All of a sudden, our car’s battery just ttbbplt. We figured it was just us!”

  “Nobody got hurt?” I gasped.

  “You’d think, right?” the kid laughed. “Total darkness plus power saws. But it was only for a minute. Still.” He shuddered.

  “Speaking of sharp stuff: drills.”

  “Aha! Follow me!” Like some great, easily sunburned wizard about to lead you on an epic adventure. I had a moment to think of Rosh—then immediately shook him from my head.

  You turned to me. “Catch you up front, babe.”

  “But don’t forget—” I gestured to my wrist. Tick tick.

  “I know, I know.” You rolled your eyes and gave me a quick peck on the lips, then we headed in opposite directions.

  It was our first kiss in a week, and without a doubt the lightest and driest of our entire career, but it was like looking into the future: you and me, together for years, for decades, just going to the store.

  I hustled to aisle fifteen, feeling in my pocket to make sure we could pay in cash, somehow smiling to myself.

  * * *

  AFTER FORTY agonizing minutes of waiting in the sweltering van for you to charge the cordless drill’s battery at a coffee shop, we went about implementing your scheme. It was dark and hot and the prospect of Sierra’s inevitable approach seemed to be squeezing the air out of everything millimeter by millimeter.

  We were crouched in back. There was barely any light—and certainly none of that otherworldly glow we’d become so used to—but we didn’t dare open the doors of the van. Both Moss and the Harp had to come out of the Turndown box.

  We leaned Moss against the wall. He watched, unimpressed, while we worked.

  “Okay, so, I’m trying to think like Lloyd, right? Hold it steady.” I held the rim of the now-empty Turndown box as you climbed inside it. “Thanks. You can unseal the Harp bag, too. So. We know if we pick up and carry the Harp, it flips out. We now know if we put it in a vehicle and drive with it, it flips out. So it’s almost like you just can’t move it at all. Except…”