by Jack Lothian
“You saw what they had done at the camp. To those children.” His voice had that strange timbre of justification to it. He shook his head, and there was a hint of anger and frustration in there. “Sometimes I don’t understand you people.” He looked at me, as if I could explain it. I didn’t know what to say. I’d seen the refugee camp. I didn’t understand either.
He stared at me for a long beat and then nodded, his voice soft. “Best you report back to base, Tom. Tell them the targets have been dealt with. Tell them I’ll handle the clean-up.”
He offered his hand and I took it, and as he helped me up I found myself nodding back, trying to ignore that rising panic, that urge to get as far away from him as possible. I moved out, glancing back once. He was still standing there, his back to me, the cape fluttering in the gentle breeze, staring into the darkness of that paint factory.
I didn’t tell a single person about what I’d seen. He was right. They were bad people. They deserved to die. But most of all I remember thinking that I was glad he was on our side, one of us.
And then three months later Paris happened.
* * *
Strike Team Alpha has entered the ice fortress. In doing so I feel like we’ve stepped from our reality into his. He took on the costume of a comic book character, and it’s like we’re walking through the pulpy pages of a two-fisted adventure. I want to start laughing at the absurdity of it all, but I’m scared I wouldn’t be able to stop.
Eighty percent of the world’s population is gone. It’s a number that Diane wrote down for me, but I could barely comprehend. I imagine the survivors, huddled into camps, desperately struggling to stay alive, never knowing when he might appear over them. It’s down to us. It’s down to us and we’re just as scared and weak as the people out there.
Mason moves in first, taking point. Sergeant O'Reilly is tight on his back, with Hernandez to the right. I’m on the rear, Eriksson ahead of me, gazing up at the frozen archways over his head.
He’ll let you come to him. Diane wrote it down on the white-board, during our final debriefing, as they handed out our modified painted weapons, our single piece of ammo. They’d arrested Diane straight away, once it had become clear what he was doing.
Maybe they thought by holding her hostage they’d convince him to stop, although it turned out she’d more or less been living apart from him for a few months by this point. She was open about it, said she had noted a change in him, he seemed distant, restless. He had been spending more and more time out in the wild, building some kind of fortress.
He said he needed a place to think, to be alone. To try and shut out the world. The last time she saw him she said that it felt like things had gone back to normal. Whatever had been troubling him had passed, although in light of recent events she said maybe it was more like a decision had been made, that he was free from the worries that had been plaguing him.
They had dinner, they made love and when she woke he was gone. She didn’t hear from him for twenty-three days. The next time she saw him was with the rest of the world, breaking news, on every channel, in every country.
She was his wife, though, and she knew his secrets. His weaknesses. He had tested himself against every chemical, alloy and substance, and found only two had any affect. There was lead, which caused a unique layer of protection against his electromagnetic vision. And there was tellurium, a rare silver metalloid, which did something much much worse.
It would be our magic bullet. Our one chance to harm him.
We all remembered the footage from the late night talk-show where the host had fired a loaded gun at him and he’d not only caught the bullet in his teeth, but ejected it back toward a target, hitting the bullseye as the audience roared and cheered. With his eyes closed and blindfolded of course.
He’d hear the shift of the trigger before we’d even pulled it. We were marching to our deaths because we had lost so much and there was nothing else to do. The last thing I ever told my ex-wife was to go screw herself. We were fighting over the house we’d shared, trying to sell it, trying to work out who was owed what. Like that mattered. We’re so fragile and small, yet we spend so much of our lives being hurt and trying to hurt each other, unaware of how quickly things can break.
Diane wrote down one more thing. A single phrase. A few words that she believed would be even more powerful than the bullets we carried. All we had to do was be in the same room as him.
With every step up the ice covered stairs, we are getting closer and closer. Moving along crystal walkways, pepper potting our way to the top. We’re covering corners and inching forward as if this was a normal reconnaissance op, going through the motions. He’s letting us come to him. We might as well just stroll in, blowing whistles and trumpets. It’s like we’re in some warped charade, everyone playing their part. The fantastical tower. The magic bullets. The monster at the center of the maze.
His is floating a few feet off the ground, his back to us, staring out at the blanket of stars over the darkened valleys and forests. Even now, even at the end of it all, there is a sense of theater. The cape. The costume. The insignia still on his chest as he turns round, looking down at us with that perfectly sculpted face.
“So obviously I’ve been listening,” he says, as if it’s part of a continued discussion we’ve been having with him. “This conversation of yours, the back and forth, about how I’m some sort of coward…” He pauses for a moment as if to consider the significance of the word for the first time. “This was all Diane’s idea, right?”
Captain Mason doesn’t break eye contact with him. “It was. Yes.”
“It felt like something she would come up with. How is she?”
“She’s wonderful. She’s seen most of the world burnt and destroyed by the man she loved.” In moments like these I would follow Mason off the edge of the earth. He knows he could be destroyed in a heartbeat, yet he won’t give the bastard a single inch.
But the world’s most powerful man just smiles at us, like a tolerant parent looking down at her naughty children. “You’ve coated your guns in lead. Which makes me think you’re hiding something.”
We hadn’t planned for this contingency. We knew the lead would protect the barrel from his vision, but we never discussed the possibility that the act of concealment would give us away. Mason was meant to keep him talking, draw him in, deliver that one final piece of dialogue from Diane. Then Eriksson would open up with the first shot. A chain reaction–O’Reilly, Hernandez, and finally me further back—the last bullet, the last hope. Confuse and overwhelm him.
Within seconds it all goes wrong.
Eriksson jumps the gun. He’s been increasingly erratic on the journey up. Maybe he believed in the hero more than the rest of us. The flag. The symbol of truth and justice. Whatever it is, something has snapped and he raises his weapon to fire, even though he’s meant to wait for Mason’s signal.
There’s a crackle in the air, a blur of movement, and Eriksson stumbles forward, guts spilling out from a cavity in his stomach. O’Reilly and Hernandez have taken their cue from Eriksson and both try to get their shots off. They disintegrate before my eyes.
I can’t even move. I am like a statue, frozen in this kingdom of ice.
“Elevated heart beats,” he says, his costume flecked with blood. “I could hear them all the way up the mountain. And then a sudden escalation before action, well…it’s something of a giveaway. Was this the plan?”
“Some of the plan,” says Mason and he’s angled his weapon so it’s facing the enemy, but his M16 has started to glow red and it’s burning into his hands and even then he still tries to pull the trigger, but then he’s gone as well. The air is heavy with the iron scent of metal and blood. I still haven’t moved. There’s a thousand thoughts screaming in my head, but I can’t seem to grasp any of them.
I’m the last hope of humanity and I can’t even raise my weapon.
Maybe he senses this turmoil, looking toward me, brow furrowed, as if he’s ge
nuinely concerned for my well-being. “How have you been, Tom?”
Everyone I know is dead. There is no fresh start, no rewind, no coming back from this. He destroyed our world because he could. How have I been? I don’t even know what that means anymore.
“…I’ve started smoking again.”
“I know. I can smell it off you.”
I pull out a crumpled pack, placing a cigarette into my mouth with shaking hands.
“Do you want me to light that for you, Tom?”
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
I’m surprised at how cool I sound, even though my voice breaks a little a bit when I speak. My lighter catches on the third attempt, and there is the welcome inhalation of warm smoke and cold air.
“I’m guessing you still have your bullet,” he says, nodding to my M16. “‘One in the pipe’ as you boys say.”
I nod. It seems pointless to try and lie to him at this stage. Like Mason said, if he wanted us dead, we’d be dead already.
“So I guess I have to ask…what happens now, Tom?”
“Why did you do it?”
He gives me an uncertain smile, shrugs. “Remember that shadow on your lung, Tom?”
Of course I remember. His hands on my chest. The heat and the cold.
“You’re smoking again, though. Even though I did my best to stop you. To help you.”
We’re quiet for a while. I inhale, exhale. There doesn’t seem like much else to say, but I say it anyway. I tell him that I’m going to finish my cigarette and then I’m going to shoot him. I tell him how the tellurium bullet will rip into his flesh, causing the cells around it to blacken and decay as it continues on its path to his heart.
I explain how within moments his vital organs will vesicate. His legs will give way. He will collapse to his knees, those perfect blue eyes wide open in horror as he clutches at his chest, his hand over that famous insignia, his muscles convulsing as his body shuts down. It will be quick. It will be painful. It will be a better end than he deserves.
“It’s possible, Tom. I am rather fast, though.”
I drop my cigarette to the frosted ground, grinding it out under my boot. And then I tell him one more thing.
There is a moment of silence and then he asks me to repeat what I just told him. This is a man who can hear your heartbeat from a thousand miles away, yet he needs to hear me say those words one more time, to fully understand them.
“She’s pregnant.”
This was the last thing Diane wrote down for us, the last piece of dialogue, the true secret weapon. After everything, all the death and devastation, she still believed there was some good in him. Some sense of hope, no matter how buried it had become. Some piece of learned humanity. She believed that moment of hesitation would be enough.
He will know you’re telling the truth, she wrote. He will hear it in your voice. She stood there, in the base at Anchorage, her hands over the gentle curve of her stomach, their unborn child within. She was broken and tired, and yet she still had faith. She was the best of us.
I am raising my M16. This moment is frozen in the time it takes for a bullet to leave the barrel and reach its target. Or for a man who fell from the sky to reach out and end my life and humanity’s last chance alongside it. He goes to say something, to speak. I think it might even be the word stop.
But I am already pulling the trigger and hoping for the best.
Dry Leaves
Christine Stabile
My silver-haired neighbor stands alone on his son’s front porch, his suitcase sitting beside him like a faithful dog. He turns toward the whisper of dry leaves rustling across asphalt. I can barely hear the sound as I watch and listen from the open window of my daughter’s house. He picks up his suitcase and begins his short journey to the curb.
A shuttle van pulls to a stop in front of him. Its strange headlights glow like jackal eyes in the night.
When the shuttle’s door opens, I can hear the driver growl, “Speed it up, Dino, I don’t have all night.”
My neighbor disappears inside and the van drives off into the darkness.
I’m a Dino, too—short for dinosaur. Lately the media refers to us as “Deadwood.” Neither name is meant to be kind.
Returning to my makeshift bed on the living room couch, I’m thankful to have shelter, food, and my family. After watching my neighbor leave for his Relocation tonight, fear rages inside me like a cornered panther.
Early the next morning, as I’m fixing breakfast for everyone, my grandchildren rush in to give me morning hugs. Amy is five. She has her father’s Greek coloring and her mother’s sweet nature. Joel is nine and loves sports. Mark is seven and thrilled that his two front teeth have gone missing. Both boys resemble my side of the family with their light brown hair and blue eyes. My grandchildren are the joy of my life.
Their father follows them into the kitchen. Thomas works for a collection agency, which is perfect for him. He looks like a thick-necked professional bouncer.
“So, Jill, how long have you been here?” Thomas asks as he pours himself a cup of coffee.
“Eighteen months,” I say, keeping my eyes on the frying eggs.
“And how old are you now?”
I break two yokes slapping the eggs over. “Fifty-nine in two weeks. How old are you, Thomas?”
My daughter walks into the room. “Let’s go! We’re all going to be late if we don’t start moving.”
Within seconds, Gloria and I are the only people in the kitchen.
“I’m sorry, Mom, he’s cranky this morning. Thomas loves his job, but hates his boss. He has an interview this afternoon. If he gets this promotion, he can work from home.”
My hands ball into fists, “You’re going to miss your bus again, Gloria.”
After everyone is gone, I find a flyer from their local chapter of the national organization NIOT—Now It’s Our Turn—of young people who blame anyone over fifty-five for everything.
Thomas left it on the coffee table in front of the couch—by accident, I’m sure.
The flyer’s headline reads: How Long Are We Going to Support the Deadwood in Our Society?
I read the first two paragraphs before ripping the flyer into confetti.
* * *
Amy and I are coloring and watching cartoons later that afternoon. My book is filled with African animals while Amy colors princesses, fairies, and unicorns.
A government commercial starring much-loved actor Mark Reny appears on the screen. The man is everywhere: radio, television, and even children’s programs.
“Seniors still living with family, when you receive your Relocation letter, you will be taken to a safe haven where comfortable housing, nourishing food, and jobs are waiting for each and every one of you.”
“Grandma, why does Daddy keep saying that some people just don’t know when to get on the shuttle?”
“Your daddy is being silly,” I tell her. “Look, your cartoons are back on.”
Two cartoons later, Mark’s face appears on the screen.
“Our new government program, ‘Hope for the Lost’, provides a private shower area. The homeless are then given clean clothes, basic hygiene items, and a nourishing breakfast before boarding buses that will take them to a sanctuary.“
Before the next cartoon begins, Amy tells me, “Grandma, you’re hogging all the red and purple crayons.”
* * *
After dinner, Thomas turns on his favorite news program. The newscaster, Patti Snow, is young, beautiful, and articulate.
“Our three-digit heat wave will continue for the next seven days here in Los Angeles County. But flooding in some areas of the country, and drought conditions in others, continue to seriously impact farmlands and crops.
“Food rationing will continue through the remainder of this year.
“Now let’s check our global situation. Another 8.6 earthquake struck Japan early this morning. Tsunamis are expected to destroy more rice and soybean fields.”
Film clip
s of the disaster flash behind Patti.
Thomas snickers. “Like I say, Gloria, Japan always gets the really big breaks.”
Patti continues:
“Video filmed this morning in Pasadena shows our homeless seniors happily entering air-conditioned buses ready to take them to a secure refuge.”
The screen shows older men and women shuffling toward brown buses.
The scene quickly switches to single and two-parent families racing to green buses. A helicopter camera follows as their three buses park outside a former retirement community campus.
“It’s about time the government put those vacant buildings to good use,” Thomas says.
Gloria speaks up. “I’m glad those children will have a place to live, but I wonder where the brown buses went?”
Thomas never takes his eyes from the TV. “Who cares,” he snaps at his wife.
I bite my lip and stay silent, but I care very much where those homeless seniors went.
After a commercial touting a miracle cure for sleep disorders, Patti Snow returns.
“This news should be encouraging to our seniors. The Mohave Sanctuary was completed yesterday. Here is video of our nation’s 180th self-sufficient site.”
Mohave Sanctuary looks like a five-story stone swastika rising from the desert floor. We see an aerial view of smaller multi-shaped buildings surrounding the main building, scattered Joshua trees, and a vast windmill farm.
“Now that is one hell of a building!” Thomas says.
Patti continues:
“Remember to guard your monthly gas and food rationing cards. If lost, they will no longer be replaced.
“We care about our faithful viewers and remind you that the government-mandated eight p.m. curfew is for your safety. Stay well, and I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
* * *
On Wednesday evening, before we’re done eating, Thomas makes the announcement. “I got the promotion! Starting next Monday I’ll be working from home. Won’t that be great, kids?”