Scifi Motherlode

by Robert Jeschonek

  Like my son.

  And though I had hated myself for as long as I could remember, hated myself for a million different reasons, now I had one more. I hated myself for what had happened to him.

  I hated myself so much I never wanted to smoke crack again...and I hated myself so much I wanted to get high immediately and never come back.

  That was where my head was when Mike the Future Man came along.

  *****

  The thing about people from the future is you can’t tell they’re from the future by looking at them. When I first met Mike, I had no reason not to believe that he was who he said he was.

  Mike the F.B.I. Man.

  He was standing outside the door of my apartment when I opened it on my way out to get stoned...or not...just standing there, and he caught me off guard, and I jumped.

  My first thought was that he was trouble, showing up like that in the middle of the night, and I should duck back in my apartment and slam the door shut. Before I could do that, though, he shouldered himself between me and the door and shoved a badge in my face.

  "F.B.I.," he said softly, like he didn’t want to wake the neighbors. "Mike Rafferty. Can I come in? I’m here about your son."

  I had the feeling I didn’t have much choice about letting him in, but I was still worried enough about the guy’s intentions to try to blow him off. "It’s pretty late," I said. "How ‘bout you come back tomorrow?"

  "Sorry about the late hour," he said, but I didn’t think he looked too sorry. "I just need five minutes."

  I took a long look at his face, wondering if it was the last face I’d ever see. His eyes were crystal blue like ice, but bloodshot and sad as a sleepless junkie’s. He looked like he hadn’t shaved for days. His lips were tight and barely moved when he spoke, like he was always grinding his teeth.

  He looked like he had a lot on his mind. He looked like he didn’t like me. I thought it was possible the badge was fake and one of the things on his mind was to hurt me or worse.

  But I let him in. Partly, I was glad for an excuse not to give in to the crack again. Partly, I didn’t care what the hell happened to me anymore.

  "I’m looking for your son," he said. "Do you have an article of clothing he’s worn?"

  "He’s been gone for like a week," I said. "How come you’re just showin’ up now?"

  "I’m a specialist," said Mike. "Late stage missing persons recovery. I need something your son wore often. It would be better if you haven’t washed it since the last time he had it on."

  That wouldn’t be a problem, since I hardly ever washed anything. "You want it for the dogs to sniff?" I said, rummaging through a pile of dirty clothes on the couch. "Bloodhounds or whatever?"

  "Something like that," said Mike as I handed him one of Sean’s T-shirts.

  Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out something that looked like a little silver cell phone. He flipped up the cover, then tapped a fingertip on the tiny keypad and pointed the phone’s antenna at the shirt.

  I walked over to look over his shoulder, but all I got was a quick glance at the flashing blue screen before he turned away to block my view. The flickering numbers and images on the screen looked like gobbledygook to me.

  Without looking up from his phone, Mike handed back Sean’s T-shirt. "What about the dogs?" I said.

  "No dogs," said Mike. "We’re high-tech these days."

  Staring at the screen, he turned in a slow circle, then stopped. The phone chirped a couple times, then gave off a high, steady hum like the tone that comes on over the color bars on TV stations late at night.

  "Okay," said Mike, lowering the phone but not closing the cover. "That’ll do it. Thanks for your help."

  He headed for the door, and I hurried around to cut him off. "Wait a minute," I said. "You can track him with that thing?"

  "I’ll notify you if we have any new information," said Mike, trying to angle around me.

  "Just hold on," I said, staying between him and the door. "If that thing you’ve got there can follow his trail, why didn’t somebody use it to find him on day one?"

  "It’s a prototype," said Mike, staring at me with his crystal blue, bloodshot eyes. "One of a kind. This is its first field test."

  "Oh," I said, looking down at the device. "So is it working?"

  "I’ll let you know," said Mike, and then he pushed past me and opened the door. "Goodnight now."

  As I watched him start off down the hall, I figured he was too glued to his one-of-a-kind cell phone for it not to be working. He was moving off fast, like his toy had caught the scent and he was following my boy’s trail.

  Though I’d never heard of a machine that could track someone like that, I was willing to believe that the F.B.I. had one...which meant that there might be a chance that Mike could find Sean. Maybe he could already tell if Sean was dead or alive.

  A few days earlier, I never would have considered doing anything at that moment other than hitting the street to score some crack. Burn out some more brain cells and sooner or later I’d get rid of the ones containing my memories of Sean and eventually the memories of myself. I think that had been my goal all along: forgetting I existed, disappearing even from my own mind, the ultimate escape. Disappearing like my father.

  But now...

  But now, I wanted to go with Mike. I wanted to find my son.

  Ducking back into my apartment, I grabbed my switchblade and stuffed it in the pocket of my jeans. Then, I hustled back out into the hallway and down the stairs after the F.B.I. man.

  I left the apartment door wide open because there was nothing inside worth taking, not anymore. Even if there had been, it wouldn’t have mattered, because the way things turned out, I would never set foot in the place again.

  *****

  When I caught up with him out on the street, Mike told me to leave him alone, he couldn’t take a civilian along on an investigation. When I insisted on going with him, he got tougher, telling me he’d make a call and have me taken away.

  When I still wouldn’t back down, Mike the F.B.I. man got downright nasty.

  "Listen," he said. "You’re not part of this anymore. You’re a filthy, drug-addicted, loathsome piece of garbage, and if it wasn’t for you, this child wouldn’t be in danger right now."

  "Tell me something I don’t know," I said.

  "It makes me sick, seeing someone like you with a child. There are people out there who want a child more than anything and can’t have one, and someone like you is lucky enough to have one and treats him like an animal. Less than an animal."

  "Then what do you care if you find him?" I said.

  "I care about the child," said Mike. "Not you."

  "That’s cool," I said, pulling my switchblade and popping out the knife. "But I’m going with you."

  Mike didn’t smile very often, but he did then. "You realize you’re threatening a federal agent, right? You realize you’ll go away forever for that."

  "Whatever," I said, wishing I had a lot of crack at that particular moment. "The way I’ve been living, it’ll be an improvement."

  "No joke," said Mike. "And if you pull that thing on me again, I’ll just flat out kill you on the spot."

  "Just find my boy first," I said. "Take me with you."

  Mike shook his head and snort-laughed. "How can I say no to such a model parent?" he said with a sneer.

  So we went on together, and I kept a close eye on him, and I know he kept a close eye on me.

  *****

  As we stood in front of the dumpster, lit by the headlights of Mike’s car, my stomach twisted the way it always did when I needed a fix, only it wasn’t because I needed a fix this time.

  Mike’s cell phone thing was pinging like a pinball machine. We had followed its signal halfway across town, followed it to an alley behind a warehouse, and now it was going crazy.

  Which meant that maybe we had found him.

  As Mike threw open the lid, I felt like I was back in the morgue with the cop pe
eling back the sheet. Mike looked over the rim, but I stayed back and looked away, thinking I should have stayed home after all, thinking I should have stayed stoned and oblivious.

  Living the way I did, I had seen a lot of terrible things in my life. If Sean was in that dumpster, I could imagine what might have been done to him and what he might look like. I knew what could be done to a child or to anyone on a dark night without a friendly face around.

  Even though I had cared so little about him for his whole life, and even at that moment, let’s face it, I hadn’t changed all that much deep down, I was afraid of seeing him the way I imagined he might look.

  "There’s something in here, all right," said Mike, aiming the cell phone’s antenna into the dumpster. Stepping back, he found a crate and pushed it over so he could stand on it.

  Mike touched a control on his phone, and the signal stopped in mid-ping. He dropped the phone in the pocket of his windbreaker, then leaned over the rim of the dumpster and fished around inside.

  "Okay," he said finally, stretching down to reach for something. "Got it."

  I held my breath. My stomach twisted harder. I’d insisted on coming along, had pulled a knife on an F.B.I. agent to get there, but I couldn’t force myself to look in the direction of the dumpster.

  Mike grunted. "Here we go," he said. "Good news and bad news."

  I tried to say something, but I couldn’t. My mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton.

  "Good news is, your son isn’t here," said Mike.

  Turning, I saw him swing a brown paper bag over the edge of the dumpster. Opening the bag, he pulled out a child-size red T-shirt and bluejeans.

  A Sean-size T-shirt and bluejeans.

  "Tracker picked up the DNA on the clothes," said Mike. "This was what he was wearing when he was taken."

  "What’s the bad news?" I said.

  "There’s some blood," said Mike. "Some of Sean’s blood on the clothes."

  "How much is some?" I said. "A lot?"

  Mike shook his head. "Not a lot, but it isn’t a good sign."

  I nodded. I was just glad he hadn’t found Sean’s body in the dumpster. "So what’s next?" I said.

  "Scan the clothes," said Mike. "Get a reading on Sean’s abductor from any DNA traces he left on them. Pick up the trail again."

  "Good," I said, wondering where Sean was at that moment, wondering if I’d still end up seeing him looking the way I’d imagined him in the dumpster. "That sounds good."

  "Yeah," Mike said sarcastically. "Thanks for the stamp of approval."

  *****

  Hours later, in the bathroom of a gas station on the Interstate, Mike waved the cell phone’s antenna at the floor behind a filthy toilet. This time, with no possibility of my boy’s dead body being found, I was able to watch as he worked.

  The phone pinged and whistled, and Mike watched the screen. "They were here," he said. "Days ago."

  Mike wet the tips of his fingers with his tongue, then dabbed them on the floor behind the base of the toilet. He raised his hand toward me so I could see the tiny dark curls stuck to his fingertips.

  "The abductor cut Sean’s hair," said Mike. "Changed his clothes and cut his hair to make him harder to recognize."

  I looked around the bathroom, wondering what had gone through Sean’s mind while he was in there. Fear, maybe? Confusion?

  Relief? Maybe he had been glad to get the hell away from me. Maybe, the day he got taken was the best day of his life.

  At first, anyway.

  "How many days ago?" I said. "Can you tell?"

  Mike got up and slipped the phone in his pocket. "Four days," he said, brushing the clippings of Sean’s hair from his fingers. "Give or take a couple hours."

  "So how’re we ever going to catch up to them?" I said, feeling nervous. "If they’re four days ahead of us, I mean."

  "They’ve stopped," said Mike as he washed his hands. "I’ve got a fix on them, and they aren’t moving."

  "Where?" I said. "How far?"

  "West Virginia," said Mike, drying his hands on the loop of cloth towel that sagged out of the dispenser on the wall. "Nine hours, maybe ten."

  I pointed at the pocket he’d put the phone in. "And does that thing tell you anything else? Anything about Sean?"

  Mike shrugged. "He’s alive. That’s all I know."

  "Good," I said. "That’s good."

  "Maybe not," said Mike.

  "Maybe not what?" I said. "Not alive?"

  "Maybe not good," said Mike. "A lot can happen in four days. You still want to go with me?"

  I thought about it for a minute, then nodded.

  "Not the answer I was going for," said Mike. "But okay." Then, he pushed out the door and I followed him, blinking against the glaring sunlight.

  *****

  I couldn’t tear my eyes from the motor home’s windows, watching shadows move in the light from behind the curtains.

  Watching for a glimpse of my boy, because Mike said he was inside.

  Inside and alive.

  We sat in Mike’s car with the lights and engine off, parked on a campsite across the dirt road and catty-corner from the motor home. We had driven twelve hours to get there, stopping only to take fresh scans at diners and gas stations where the cell phone told us Sean and his kidnapper had been.

  Mike said we were lucky that they hadn’t traveled further, and at a service station in a town in Pennsylvania, we understood why. The motor home had broken down there, and a mechanic told us it had taken two days to fix. The cell phone led us to traces of Sean and his kidnapper all around town—at a restaurant, a playground, a movie house, a motel. Unfortunately, it couldn’t tell us anything about what condition Sean was in while he was there.

  Or fortunately.

  And now, in a deserted campground in the backwoods mountains of West Virginia, we had found him. He was maybe thirty yards away, separated from us only by the windows and thin metal walls of the motor home.

  "You stay here," said Mike, pulling some kind of doodad out of his windbreaker pocket. It had grips that fit over his fingers like brass knuckles and a glassy red lens that curved from pinky to forefinger. "Don’t move until I give you the all-clear."

  I didn’t think it would be a problem staying put. Now that I was this close to Sean, I was having doubts about seeing him again.

  As Mike slipped out of the car and quietly closed the door, I wondered how it would be coming face to face with my boy. I wondered if he would be happy to see me after the way I’d treated him all his life.

  If I was him, I thought, I wouldn’t be too happy.

  Then there was the matter of what he had to look forward to. I’d finally realized he deserved better than how I’d treated him...but I couldn’t say for sure that things would be any better for him with me than they’d been before.

  I knew I’d changed—the fact that I was thinking about him at all was proof of that—but I also knew I was on thin ice and could change right back in a heartbeat. I just knew it. Back in the same crappy apartment and the same crappy life with the same crappy people and drugs around, it might not take very much for me to slide back down the hill.

  If that happened, I thought, about the only improvement for Sean from where he was now was that I wasn’t a child molester...if the guy who had taken him was even that.

  Maybe, the best thing I could do for Sean was to stay away from him. Maybe, it would be better for him if I just ran off into the woods and let Mike find him a new home.

  If I just disappeared from his life like my father had from mine.

  Then again, look how I turned out.

  *****

  I think, if Mike had been sitting there beside me, and I had asked him if I should disappear into the woods, he would have told me without hesitation to get lost. No question. He hadn’t wanted me along to begin with.

  The funny thing was, if I hadn’t been there, he would have ended up dead. Stayed dead, I guess I should say.

  I’m not sure wh
at tipped off the kidnapper that Mike was out there, but he knew. Maybe he heard the gravel crunch under Mike’s feet, or maybe he happened to peek out through a gap in the curtains at just the right moment to see Mike sneaking up.

  All I know is I didn’t have any warning about what was going to happen. I didn’t see any movement inside the motor home to make me think the guy was about to kick open the door and blow a hole in Mike’s chest.

  One minute, Mike was creeping along the side of the motor home, about to reach for the door handle. The next minute, the door flew open and the guy jumped out, blasting Mike dead on with a sawed-off shotgun.

  I saw the flash from the muzzle and heard the shot crack like a thunderclap. By the light from inside the motor home, I could see pieces of Mike explode from his back.

  His body seemed to fall in slow motion. The guy in the doorway looked around, then bolted back inside and swung the door shut.

  The motor home’s tail lights flicked on as he started the engine.

  For a moment, as the motor home lurched out of its parking space, hoses and cables tearing free of the campsite’s hookups, I thought about driving after it. My son was in there; the least I could do was follow him and try to figure out a way to help him.

  Then, I remembered: Mike had the keys.

  So I sat there and watched as the motor home lumbered away, carrying Sean away from me for what could have been the last time.

  *****

  As the motor home’s tail lights rolled off into the night, I got out of the car and hurried over to Mike. I was sure he was dead, but I thought he might still do me some good...or his cell phone might, anyway.

  When I got to him, he looked about as bad as I’d thought he would, though I couldn’t see everything in the darkness. Most of his chest had been blown away, exposing blood and bone and meat in a mangled mess.

  I can’t say I felt bad for the guy, because I hardly knew him and he had hated my guts...but I wished he hadn’t gotten killed. I couldn’t fool myself that I had much chance of helping Sean on my own, even if I had the super cell phone and even if I could figure out how to use it.