Reaction

by Seth M. Baker

  He flew over the violent ocean and into the clouds, first into then above them. The sky was blue as he flew away from his home continent for the first time. Strange, he thought, that his family had never traveled abroad. It's not like they couldn't afford it, they just weren't travelers. Amadeus thought that he wasn't either; if he had his way, he would be at home, his real home was in the basement with his father, working and learning. But that was all gone. Now his family was his strange uncle and his reporter wife, a suave hacker, a commando of questionable sanity, a crippled mad scientist, and his lovely, lovely daughter.

  All this time, he hadn't even thought of Lilly, hadn't had enough time. New York was all business until the monster showed up. Crashing in Kansas and having a shotgun shoved in his face didn't lend itself to wistful romantic thoughts. Now, though, with nothing to see under him but the swirling silver clouds, and under that the churning black Atlantic, he thought about what she said about trust. That occupied him for about fifteen minutes, but he still had a long trip ahead. Why hadn't he loaded any movies onto the flight computer? He settled for the radio. The only thing he could pick up was a station from Iceland. The voices sounded to him like people speaking a made-up kid's language, only kids who had put a lot of time into it, but the music made his heart move, he had never heard anything like it; the singers’ voices soared and swirled like the clouds he had seen earlier, the music largo, moving like an ice floe scraping against a giant string. With the sounds of Iceland filling his head, he reached the edges of the old world.

  28

  Several hours later, he flew over green lands, villages, windfarms, and tidy highways. He was happy and relieved to have made it across without problems. He always imagined he would be terrified of visiting a foreign country, but now, in spite of everything that had happened, he found himself excited. Most of his ideas of Europe were formed in childhood, castles and rivers with the occasional fire-breathing dragon eating villagers. He realized the only thing wrong with his idea was the part about the dragons breathing fire. Since he was in Prague, he decided he would visit Prague castle and maybe the Old Town Square. His time was short, but he may never come back. He had heard people say a change of scenery had done them good; maybe it would work for him as well.

  Prague grew closer. He searched for an isolated place to land. He guessed he wouldn't have the luxury of landing directly on top of a building like in Manhattan. In the pictures he had viewed, the buildings had red-tiled, sloped roofs. According to his map, a small forest north of town offered reasonable cover and a short distance to the nearest tram station. Without Czech crowns he’d have to walk to town, but it was only a short walk south along the bending Vltava River. His legs and body demanded exercise.

  The Pachyderm landed without problem, though an inspection of the exterior showed the barn crash and the bullet marks had chipped and scraped away the cloaking paint. From a distance, Amadeus could see streaks and spots of metal that seemed to float above the ground. Fortunately, he still had the cloaking tarp. Amadeus had said to Jones it wouldn't do much good in New York, but Jones had insisted he keep it. Now Amadeus was glad he had.

  The forest was mostly light underbrush under a big canopy of bent oaks and old ashes swaying with late-summer leaves. No obvious trails ran into the clearing, but Amadeus remembered the direction of the river and set off that way, stopping occasionally to leave marks on trees with his knife. One tree he didn’t mark already had an old, almost overgrown carving; Russian letters inside a heart, a Soviet love affair from long ago. Eventually he came to the highway. Cars sped along like darts, leaving a swirling dust trail behind him. He ran across the highway, then across the railroad tracks, and walked to the path that ran along the river. The river was brown, slow, and trash floated atop its waters, but Amadeus found it peaceful anyway. The houses across the river were small and clustered together, not spread out like the ones he was used to back in America. He passed a power substation. A nearby sign read “Roztocka 242.” The language, with all the accent marks, was confusing. He tried sounding out some of the words, but they stumbled along on his tongue. He hoped nobody would notice him as he walked along muttering to himself.

  The houses changed to cramped, sprawling apartment blocks. The streets so far had been empty, but on the sidewalk ahead of him, two men walked, their arms thrown over each other's shoulders. They staggered towards him. Amadeus considered crossing to the other sidewalk, but decided that would look strange, so he just kept his eyes fixed on his feet. They were talking, laughing, but he had no idea what they were saying. To him, their words sounded like a misfiring engine. Not the child-language gibber jabber of the Icelandic music he liked so well, but still not what he thought of as pretty sounds. They passed without incident.

  He checked the map on his phone. Downtown lay across the bridge, but Vesely Gustavius’ apartment was on this side of the river, four more kilometers. His stomach complained about the distance. So far he had found no restaurants or currency exchanges. He ignored his stomach and walked on. An hour later, when the crowds had thickened and brown destination signs listed popular landmarks in several languages, he guessed he had reached Prague proper. Unlike the area outside of town, here the streets were narrow and clean, the buildings freshly painted. At the corner, under a multi-lingual sign showing the direction to the Charles Bridge, a man sat drawing caricatures.

  On down the street that ran along the river, he found a currency exchange. He went inside and exchanged one hundred dollars for about two thousand crowns. Outside, he went to the first restaurant he saw. The restaurant featured a bilingual English and Czech menu. He ordered goulash. His waiter had a curled, upturned mustache. The goulash was rich and salty, and he was full well before he finished. Afterwards, he laid his money out on the table, trying to pick out the right amount. The waiter laughed at him and showed him the bills and coins to use. Amadeus left an adequate tip.

  His belly full, his body limber from the walk, he strolled toward Vesely's apartment. After half an hour, he reached the building. The bank on the first floor had already closed for the day. Going around the side of the building, he found the resident’s entrance open to allow in the warm summer air. A row of steel mailboxes with engraved brass nameplates sat in the wall. Amadeus found Vesely’s name beside 302. The complete lack of security gave Amadeus an apprehensive feeling as he climbed the wide mahogany staircase. He ran his hand along a rail smoothed and oiled by a thousand other hands and was struck by the feeling of being a young man from young country. He’d been to plenty of historic New England towns, but when contrasted with the gothic permanence of even something as utilitarian as the Charles Bridge, they all seemed like rickety shacks thrown together by upstart colonists. And Prague was not only old, but well-preserved, like a taxidermied animal. On the way here, he had read that Prague was spared most of the hell that befell Europe during the last war.

  He reached the third floor and went down the hallway to 302. Amadeus knocked on the door, and it creaked open. He stepped back and called inside. “Mr. Vesely, sir, excuse me.” He received no response. He called again, but still nothing. Glancing over his shoulder then back down the hall, he pushed the door open and slipped inside.

  29

  Through the sun-lit front parlor, with its white couch and elaborate wooden mantle, he walked through to the stainless steel kitchen. The house stank of burnt plastic and sulfur. The smell turned his stomach. His steps were careful, and he took care not to touch anything. “Mr. Vesely, sir, hello? Hello?” Still silence. Down a hallway with black-and-white photos of Mr. Vesely in Rome, Mr. Vesely with a beautiful woman on a boat, and Mr. Vesely with a skinny man standing at the base of a gigantic, three-spire temple. The temple looked vaguely familiar, and when he examined the bottom of the picture he found an inscription that read “Angkor Wat with Laroux.”

  Amadeus felt his heart thumbing against his chest, felt his pulse in his head. This intimate look into a stranger's life was sickeningly thrilling. At any
moment, he expected someone to jump out with him at a blunt object. He looked in two more rooms down the hallway. Both were tidy and minimally furnished. Someone lived here, but barely.

  At the end of the hall, two doors. On the right, he looked into a black-and-white tiled bathroom. He pushed the other door open, peered inside, and recoiled from the scene before him. Involuntarily, he pulled the door shut as he backed away. He wanted to unsee what he had seen, to run screaming out of the apartment and to never look back. Then he thought of his father, his mission, his job. He pushed the door open, turning his head, averting his eyes.

  Behind the glass-topped desk, in front of French doors that led to a balcony, was the headless torso of what had been a large man. The arms were gone. The chest was ripped open, the organs removed. The wall by the window was smeared with blood. An arm lay nearby, chewed and discarded, the tissue from the bicep and forearm gone, leaving only the chubby hand. The room stank of death but not rot.

  Amadeus stood at the threshold, trying not to vomit. He realized a human hadn't done this, couldn’t have done this. A demon had been here. But that would mean someone brought it here, had controlled it. His skin prickled and the hairs on his neck stood up.

  Okay, he decided, get the fingerprint and blood and get out. But what about the other partner? He’d have to search. Vesely was his only hope. Kneeling by the bloody mess of Vesely’s hand, he pulled the phone out and opened the scanner. Wincing, he grabbed the dead hand and placed the thumb against the scanner. He pricked the finger with the lance to get the blood sample. No shortage of blood here, he thought. A dialog box appeared on the screen. “You’ve successfully collected information for Vesely Gustavius. Please press okay.” Amadeus pressed okay.

  Vesely’s hand was only a little stiff. He was freshly dead. Not yet full rigor mortis. Whoever, whatever had killed him, Amadeus had just missed it. What if they were watching his apartment? He shuddered and felt sicker. As if he needed another reason not to stay.

  Stepping over Vesely's entrails, trying to avoid leaving bloody footprints, he searched the desk. The filing cabinet was filled with manila folders, neatly labeled in English. The man had no computer. Gravity would’ve liked him. Amadeus flipped through and pulled out folders marked “investments,” another labeled “partnerships,” and one labeled “Brunmeier.” Each was at least a centimeter thick. Amadeus flipped through the folders again, but nothing caught his interest. In a side drawer, Amadeus found an address book. Just to be safe, he put that in his backpack as well. Now he was a murder suspect and a burglar.

  Just as he unzipped his backpack, he heard a woman’s voice. “Gustavius? Ahoj?” Had he closed the door? Amadeus zipped up the bag. She called again, only louder, closer.

  “Gustavius?” Amadeus could hear doors down the hallway opening and closing. She followed the same pattern he did, checking each room. He hoped she was slower. Could he force his way past her? Surely she would assume he was the murderer, even if his shoes weren't bloody. That wouldn't work. He looked around...the French doors. He opened one and slipped onto the balcony. No fire escape, but like so many other buildings here, this one had plenty of ledges. He hoped they weren't just for decoration.

  He climbed over the railing and onto the ledge. The ledge wasn't quite wide as his foot was long, but he could stand with his feet sideways. The wind ruffled his clothes, but he kept his balance. Once he and his backpack were fully on the ledge, Amadeus reached over, pushed the door closed, then edged sideways along the ledge, hugging the wall, out of view of anyone in the apartment. Just after he closed the door, he heard the woman’s scream cut the day like a razor. On the street, people shuffled about but didn’t look up. He thought of the layout of the apartment and remembered the window in the shared hallway. Yes, it was all the way on the other side of the building, and he was exposed there on the ledge, but if caught climbing on a ledge outside the scene of a murder, what could he say? He was cleaning pigeon shit from the ledge?

  While normally uncoordinated and awkward, he felt agile and focused, unworried about falling. He made his way around the building to the window in the hallway and peered in. The door to Vesely's apartment was closed. He pulled the screen off, set it on the ledge, tossed his backpack in the hallway, and crawled inside. When he took his first step down the stairs, Vesely's door opened. A young woman came out. She grabbed his shirt and spoke to him in blubbery, rapid-fire Czech. She had dark hair.

  Amadeus put up his hands and took a step backwards. The woman kept going. He pointed to his mouth and ears and shook his head, as if to tell her he was a deaf mute. In a move that surprised himself, he pulled her close and hugged her, patting her back, took her arm and led her down the three flights of stairs and out to the street. She hardly looked at him. Outside she seemed to relax. She again tried to talk, but Amadeus just pointed to his ears. People passed by, staring with uncurious eyes. She kept crying, and he stood there beside her, wanting more than anything to run away.

  He tapped her shoulder and made a gesture for telephone. She looked at him, quizzical, then realized that yes, she had a cell phone, and she should probably use it. Nearby, a wooden bench sat under a tree. He guided her over by the elbow and sat her down. She called what he guessed was the Czech equivalent of 911. He stood up and started to inch away from her, slipping away like the daylight, slow and gradual, but she grabbed his shirt and pulled him back down. He looked at her and pointed to an invisible watch. She shook her head.

  She made a slashing motion across her neck. This somehow made her look younger. He shrugged and again started to walk away. This time she held onto his belt and pulled him back. He smacked her forearm, just hard enough to make her let him go. Freed, he found himself running towards the tram. As he ran, some people took pictures of him. Some laughed and pointed. He thought for a moment his fly was unzipped. Without stopping, he looked himself over. Fly zipped. No blood. Nothing, he guessed, but a wild look in his eyes. Just before he reached the tram platform he heard sirens. He ducked into a store selling postcards of the astronomical clock and the Charles Bridge. He pretended to browse but felt like a lurker, felt the eyes of the shopkeeper watching him. At least he didn't look like a gypsy. He had read about gypsies but hadn’t seen any. When the sirens passed, Amadeus bought a bottle of water from the cooler. This time he counted out the price without assistance. The coins felt big and strange in his hand, like play money. At the tram platform, he bought tokens, then sat on a bench. At his feet, broken glass. Other parts of the city had been so clean; this surprised him.

  The tram arrived and took him on a slow tour back through the north of the city along the river, the same way he had walked. The route looked different this time, less threatening, but he guessed that was from familiarity. The tram was half full, and though most people were occupied with books or digital devices, he felt watched, but he reached his stop without incident and crossed the highway. He waited just inside the forest until the road was clear of cars, then pushed through the thick layer of brush along the road and into the stand of towering oaks and alder. A bit of sunlight filtered through the thick canopy.

  He followed his marks and found the winding path that led over the stream and to the tree with the old carving. As he examined it for the last time, he heard yelling and a clanking sound from the direction of the Pachyderm. Fists clenched, he ran towards it and found a man in a faded green sweater attacking the Pachyderm with a tree branch. Little dents and scrapes covered the sides, one of the windows was shattered, and bits of the craft showed through the cloaking paint. The tarp was piled nearby.

  “What the fuck is this?” Amadeus said, spreading his arms out in an involuntary reaction. The man was older, his face covered in grey stubble, his hair cropped short. He sneered at Amadeus, wagged his finger at him, then back at the Pachyderm and said something in Czech, his words a slurred blur. Amadeus thought he looked drunk. As if to confirm this thought, the man staggered then moaned something unintelligible. He used the stick like a cane
, trying to support himself. He spoke again, realized Amadeus couldn't understand him, and went back to his work, slamming his stick against the right front turbofan.

  “No!” Amadeus said. Gravity’s training took over. He ran forward and tackled the man, taking him by surprise. Dried leaves flew up around them. When they hit the ground, the man moaned, his warm, sour breath hitting Amadeus’ face. Amadeus started to punch him. The man went slack, then suddenly freed his arm from under Amadeus' leg and swung. Amadeus leaned back, easily avoiding the clumsy punch.

  The man arched his back and rolled. Amadeus was knocked off. The man got to his feet and ran for his stick. Amadeus pulled himself up and dived after him. Amadeus’ right shoulder rammed into the man's lower back. Again the man fell.

  Amadeus pinned him. The man bellowed. Amadeus thought of a wounded dog. Amadeus wanted to get off him and let him go, but he had no idea what the man would do. Rather than keep punching him, Amadeus held him down, his hand on the man’s forehead. The man struggled, tried to get free, couldn't. He went slack in defeat.

  “Go,” Amadeus said. “Go, go.” Surely the drunken bastard knew go, Amadeus thought. “Go? Okay?”

  “Okay,” the man said. Everyone knew “okay.” He had a cut on his forehead, and blood ran into his eye.

  “I'm gonna let you up now, but you try any stupid stuff, you're going right back down. Okay?” The man said okay again. He wished he could ask him why he would want to beat on the Pachyderm, but he supposed he would never know.

  Slow and careful, like someone balancing an egg on a spoon, Amadeus let the man up. He crawled to his feet, brushing bits of leaves from his pants and sweater. Then he smiled at Amadeus and pointed at the ship, going on a small tirade, about what, Amadeus had no clue. Amadeus took a step forward and pointed to the road, interrupting him, and said “go.” This time he listened, shuffling away with his head low, looking like a beaten dog.