The Flight of the Silvers

by Daniel Price

  “As what?”

  “Commercial illustrator.”

  “Oh. That’s not bad.”

  “I hate it,” he retorted. “By the way, I’m sorry I got pissy with you before. If you had a morning like mine, then you have every right to be freaked out by everything.”

  Hannah nearly cried with bittersweet emotions. Sharing her ordeal made her feel half as crazy as she did five minutes ago, which made the current nightmare twice as real.

  “Thank you. I appreciate that. I’m sorry I went all psycho on you.”

  “No worries,” he said, and then chuckled at his own choice of words. Hannah was too rattled to follow the humor.

  “I’m an actress,” she offered after an uncomfortable silence.

  “Really? Like for a living?”

  “No. I wish. During the day, I work as a traffic coordinator at a medical advertising agency. I run between the creatives and the executives and try to keep them all on schedule while they yell at each other through me.”

  “Huh. Interesting.”

  “Not really.”

  “No, I mean it’s interesting that we both keep talking about this stuff in the present tense.”

  Hannah felt a cold squeeze around her heart. Zack was obviously five steps ahead of her on the road to acceptance. She didn’t enjoy the dog-leash tug.

  He nervously rotated the silver-colored band on his wrist. Despite its airy weight, the bracelet seemed undentable, unscuffable. He couldn’t find the hint of a seam.

  “The money’s blue here,” Zack announced after another silence.

  “What?”

  “I found a coffee stand while I was stumbling around. I tried to pay with one of my tens and the vendor stared at me like I was nuts. So I’m kicked out of line and I see the next guy pay with a shiny blue twenty. It had Theodore Roosevelt on it.”

  Hannah took another swig of her bottled water. She noticed small patches of ash on Zack’s neck and a few more on his shirt and jeans.

  “Where do you live?” she asked him.

  “Brooklyn. I was supposed to fly back tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh. Wow. You have family there?”

  “I do. At least I did. I can’t imagine they’re . . .”

  He stroked his chin with trembling fingers, fixing his glassy stare at faraway shores.

  “Did you notice that all the license plates here say South California? You guys usually refer to it as Southern California, am I right?”

  Hannah sighed. “You are right.”

  “I also noticed that the cars are more rounded. Bubbly. Not like they were in the 1950s but—”

  “I saw a flying ambulance,” she blurted.

  “I saw a flying taxi,” he replied with an uneasy smirk. “I was building up to that.”

  “Zack, what the hell’s going on?”

  In addition to acceptance, Hannah’s new friend was five steps ahead on the road to understanding. From the moment Zack ruled out the Rip van Winkle scenario—thanks to a discarded, date-stamped lottery ticket—the wheels in his mind kept spinning back to the words alternate and parallel. He wasn’t ready to verbalize his hypothesis.

  “I don’t know,” he said, his knees bouncing with anxious energy. “Until I saw you and your bracelet, I was pretty sure I’d lost my mind.”

  “Do you have a history of mental illness?”

  Zack eyed her with furrowed perplexity. “Are you suggesting that I’m hallucinating all this? Because I think that’d be bad news for you.”

  “No. I only asked because I do have a history. I’ve been hospitalized.”

  “For what? Schizophrenia?”

  “No. Just . . . emotional stuff.”

  “Well, that’s a far cry from seeing flying ambulances.”

  “Look, I’m just going by that thing. I forget what it’s called. Where the simplest explanation is usually the right one.”

  “Occam’s razor.”

  “Yeah, Occam’s razor. And right now the simplest explanation is that we’re both having some kind of psychotic breakdown. It’s either that or . . .” She pointed to the latest floating baby stroller to pass their bench. “What do you think’s more likely?”

  Zack pursed his lips, exhaling in frustrated sputters. “Denial.”

  “Who, you or me?”

  “You.”

  “What, you think I want to be crazy?”

  “I think it beats the alternative,” he said. “I’d love to wake up in a rubber room right now. Because that would mean that nobody really died and everything has a chance of going back to normal. Unfortunately, I’ve never done well with rosy scenarios. After twenty-eight years of Jewish conditioning, I’ve come to believe the darkest explanation is usually the right one. Call it Menachem’s razor.”

  Hannah scowled at him. “How can you even joke right now?”

  The cartoonist jerked a listless shrug. “Just how I cope.”

  “If you’re so convinced this is real, Zack, then help me. Tell me what’s happening.”

  “I don’t know!”

  “At least tell me how you got your bracelet.”

  From the edgy look on his face, Hannah realized she was the one tugging the dog leash now. She also realized that Zack wasn’t as nerdy as he first seemed. Up close, she could sense a thin layer of hardness behind his boyish features, the same uptight strength her sister always carried. Hannah would have killed for some of that now.

  “It was pretty insane where I was,” he attested.

  “So a white-haired guy didn’t come to talk to you.”

  “Someone did, but he didn’t say much. I couldn’t tell if he had white hair.”

  “You’d remember him if you saw him.”

  “I barely remember my own name after everything that happened. It was . . .”

  “Insane,” she repeated.

  “Yeah,” he said, with a grim expression. “Word of the day.”

  —

  The opening crowd at Comic-Con had been only half the size of Friday’s, thanks to all the fresh electrical mayhem. By 10 A.M., the exhibition hall once again bustled with thousands.

  Zack manned his rented table in Artist’s Alley, the back-corner mini-bazaar where professionals hawked their works. He’d surpassed his wildest expectations the day before: six sales and ten handshakes from gushing fans of Meldweld. One of his admirers, a statuesque Goth with spiderweb tattoos on her arms, scrawled her hotel information in Zack’s sketchbook. He’d made a note to pin it up on his corkboard when he got home, as collateral against future ego losses.

  Ultimately he’d spent Friday night alone in his hotel, text-messaging into the wee hours with his ex-girlfriend Libby. When she mocked him for passing up the chance to bang his first groupie, Zack merely shrugged and chalked it up to arachnophobia. But by 3 A.M., he’d come around to Libby’s way of thinking, as usual. Another non-experience for the King of Missed Opportunities.

  The next morning, Zack yawned and doodled from behind his table as the local crowd ignored him. Everyone seemed glaringly tense now, hopelessly thrown by their faltering technology.

  Halfway through his latest bored doodle, the convention hall plummeted into darkness.

  Zack shot to his feet as countless conventioneers squawked in blind worry. Dozens, then hundreds of cigarette lighters pierced tiny pinholes in the darkness. Though Zack was relieved to learn that he hadn’t gone blind, the preponderance of flames created a new concern. He looked to the artist next to him, a portly man with a Fu Manchu mustache who waved his Zippo like a torch.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Zack cautioned.

  “What the hell do you want me to do?”

  “There are posters, banners, all sorts of flammable—”

  “I just wanna get out of here in one piece. You want the same, t
hen shut up and follow me.”

  Reluctantly, Zack grabbed his sketchbook and followed. He knew it wasn’t entirely wise to trail the guy with the open flame, but then Zack feared that things were about to get very bad here, very soon.

  A hundred yards away, a new crescendo of screams arose as a publisher’s booth became engulfed in fire. Two shrieking exhibitors emerged from inside, both sporting a fresh coat of flames. They crashed into a neighboring stall, setting it ablaze.

  Panic seized the hall as the fire spread. Every exit was visible now, and every route became choked by throngs of squealing evacuees. Zack joined the thinnest clog and was quickly shoved aside like a coatrack. He huddled into a protective crouch against a folding wall, away from the flames and mobs. Wait it out, his inner strategist demanded. Better late than trampled.

  Soon someone sat down beside him, a tall and slender man in a black T-shirt and slacks. Tucked beneath his New York Yankees cap was a smooth white mask made of some oddly reflective plastic. Zack could spy only a hint of the stranger’s face through the eyeholes. He had fair skin, sandy brows, and the scariest blue eyes Zack had ever seen. They glistened in the firelight, dancing with wild amusement despite the suffering of thousands.

  Before the cartoonist could indulge his flight reflex, the stranger grabbed his arm. Zack couldn’t hear the clacking sound in the din, nor did he register the cool silver bracelet as it sealed around his wrist. All he could process were those ferocious eyes. They weren’t just amused, they were contemptuous. Mocking.

  The man muttered something brief and incomprehensible before jumping to his feet. He waved his hand in a brusque loop. A puddle of radiant white liquid appeared by his shoes, as round as a manhole and as bright as a glowstick. Zack watched, bug-eyed, as the man plunged feet first into the pool’s hidden depths. He disappeared beneath the rippling surface. The portal shrank away to concrete.

  For Rose Trillinger’s second son, this was the end of reason. The end of acceptance. Screaming, Zack rushed to join the stragglers in a fevered dash for the exit. He’d made it all the way to the doors when his new bracelet vibrated and he became sealed inside an egg-shaped prison of light. Within moments—

  Hannah cut him off with a tense wave of the hand. “It’s all right. I . . . know the rest.”

  Zack was all too happy to stop. From the moment the sky came down on the convention center, he’d retreated to his own private cineplex. He watched himself from the front row, confident that the hero would survive and all would be explained by the end of Act I. It wasn’t until he encountered Hannah that the fourth wall crumbled and he fell into the messy reality of his predicament.

  “I don’t know what’s happening,” Zack said. “I don’t know why we were singled out for bracelets. If your guy was as scary as mine, then . . . I don’t know. I don’t think they’re in a hurry to bring us into the loop.” He darkly eyed his silver band. “So to speak.”

  Hannah sucked a sharp breath as she suffered her third and worst attack of hot needle stings. She huddled forward on the bench, wincing. “So what did . . . what did this guy say when he gave you your bracelet?”

  Zack jerked a nervous shrug. “It didn’t make any sense. I don’t even know if I heard it right.”

  “What was it?”

  “He said, ‘Any other weekend, you’d be one of the Golds.’”

  Hannah eyed him in dim bewilderment. “One of the Golds.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Jesus, Zack. What are we going to do?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? I don’t rightly know. I guess sticking together is the first step, if you can tolerate my company a little while longer. We’re going to need cash, or whatever passes for—”

  The world fell abruptly silent as Hannah flinched in agony. Her skin stung like she was covered in firecrackers. Her heart rate doubled. Her vision took on a deep blue shade.

  She pressed her palms to her face. “Oh God. I think I need a doctor.”

  Oddly, Zack didn’t reply. She caught him staring ahead at the ocean, perfectly still and expressionless. He didn’t even blink.

  “Zack, did you hear me? I feel like I’m dying!”

  She jerked his sleeve, tearing a three-inch hole in the shoulder seam. The fabric felt tough somehow, like Zack had over-starched it. And he still didn’t acknowledge her.

  Hannah struggled to her feet and moved directly in front of him. “Zack! Snap out of it! Please! I need you!”

  Now his head tilted upward with all the speed of a sunrise, his eyes blooming wide in bother. A small voice in Hannah’s head insisted that she’d seen all this before as a child—the slowness, the blue haze, the odd taste of burning ash.

  “What . . . who’s doing this?”

  She frantically scanned the area. All over the marina, people moved at an absurdly lethargic pace, as if they all colluded on a silly pantomime. A middle-aged jogger creaked through a bounding stride. An Irish setter charged after a tennis ball with slow-motion pomp. A trio of seagulls spun in the air like a nursery mobile.

  “WHO’S DOING THIS?”

  Hannah turned back to Zack, who now watched her in rigid horror. She wanted to grab him and pull him into the bubble. Maybe he could explain it. Except . . . except . . .

  Except there was no bubble this time, no white-haired man with his finger on the clock. It was just Hannah and the world moving at two different speeds.

  It’s you, her higher functions insisted. You’re the one doing this.

  “No . . .”

  The last working piston in her mind told her to run, and so she ran. She ran over the grass and out of the marina, through the alley and all the way back to the business district. Wherever she went, she couldn’t escape the smoky blue haze. Everywhere she looked, cars moved like pedestrians and pedestrians moved like turtles. Litter scraps fluttered in the wind like lazy bumblebees.

  Suddenly a large shadow enveloped her. She turned around and looked up.

  A massive metal saucer, the size of a Little League field, emerged over the building tops. It floated hundreds of feet above the asphalt, slowly spinning on its own axis.

  Unlike everything else in Hannah’s trudging blue world, the ship moved at a decent pace, at least twenty miles an hour. From below, it looked like a giant metal wagon wheel. Each wedge was filled with a fluorescent white light.

  Once the silver hub came into view, Hannah saw a tableau of man-size letters.

  ALBEE’S AERSTRAUNT

  ALL-AMERICAN CUISINE

  2-HOUR BRUNCH ROUNDS @ 8X

  FOR RESERVATIONS CALL #49-95-ALBEE

  Her last thread of perseverance snapped. A shriek rose up from the core of her being. She ran again, her frantic gaze fixed on the high-flying bistro. Her wind sprint lasted fifteen feet, ending smack at the side of a parked Metro bus. A crunch. A crack. A wall of pain. And then Hannah’s whole crazy world, her terra insana, went from blue to black.

  —

  She opened her eyes to white clouds. The heads of a dozen bystanders formed a popcorn string around the edge of her vision. She could feel the cold, hard sidewalk beneath her aching body. The deep blue madness had ended, thank God. Her onlookers moved and talked at normal speed.

  As soon as Hannah tried to get up, a sharp agony seized her left shoulder. She cried out.

  A new head eclipsed her view—a stout, middle-aged man with beady brown eyes and a thick walrus mustache. He wore an authoritative green uniform that Hannah didn’t recognize. A cop? A guard? A forest ranger?

  “Try not to move,” he told her. “You wrenched yourself pretty good.”

  “It hurts . . .”

  “Yeah. I fig you dislocated your shoulder. I can pop it back in but we have to get you better situated. Just try to stay still, okay? What’s your name?�
��

  “I can’t do this . . .”

  “Yes you can. You’ll be okay. Listen, I couldn’t find cards on you. What’s your name?”

  “H-Hannah.”

  “Hi, Hannah. I’m Martin Salgado. I want you to relax now, all right? I’m here to help.”

  The man directed his voice at someone she couldn’t see. “Turn her on three. Ready? One . . . two . . . three.”

  Hannah sensed three different hands on her body. They tilted her two inches to the right, triggering another sharp jolt in her shoulder. She squealed in agony.

  “Sorry,” said Martin. “No avoiding that. But the good news is that I got an epallay right here with your name on it. Just stay easy.”

  He slid a smooth board beneath her before rolling her flat again. With a soft electric whirr, Hannah rose three feet off the sidewalk.

  Martin stood at her side with an adhesive bandage in his grip—fire-red, with a white “E” in the middle. He peeled it off and pressed it against Hannah’s injured shoulder.

  “What is that? What did you put on me?”

  “That’s the epallay,” he told her. “In a few minutes, you won’t feel the pain.”

  Just outside her view, Martin’s partner gently pushed Hannah forward. She rode with eerie steadiness, like she was riding an oiled track. She thought about the baby stroller and wondered if she now had to add herself to the ever-growing list of things that shouldn’t be floating.

  The wall of bystanders opened up. A middle-aged woman crunched her brow at Hannah’s two handlers.

  “Hey, shouldn’t you fellas wait for the police?”

  “Mind your own,” said Martin.

  Hannah grabbed his wrist. “Wait, you guys aren’t cops?”

  Martin laughed amicably. He hadn’t heard that word in decades. “No, we’re Salgado Security, a private contract firm. I’m the proprietor. The one pushing you is my son Gerry. We’re gonna take good care of you.”

  “No, no. Wait. Stop. Stop. I don’t want this.”

  “Listen, Hannah, I don’t mean to be quick with you, but we’re on a bite here—”

  “No, you don’t understand. I need to wake up. None of this is happening. I need to wake up.”