Hang Wire

by Adam Christopher

  Powerful. Hungry.

  He could do anything.

  He was a god, and he could rule the world.

  “Dude, we gotta run, man.”

  Bob looked up. Benny was standing in front of him. She had Zanaar’s unconscious body in her arms.

  “You OK?” Benny looked afraid.

  The hunger. The power. So much potential. So much he could do. He could end it all. Now.

  “Bob?”

  Bob blinked, and stood. That was why he couldn’t use power like that.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He rubbed his eyes, and they felt like hot coals burning in his face. “I can’t do it. That was too much. I nearly lost it.” He walked over to Alison and scooped her up. She was breathing softly and didn’t seem to be injured. He hoped she didn’t remember anything of what had happened.

  “Yeah, but you didn’t, did you?”

  Bob looked at Benny. He frowned. “No,” he said. That was true.

  “Which means you can control it, right?”

  “Benny,” said Bob, “you don’t understand. I’m a god. I’m Kanaloa – was Kanaloa. And Kanaloa was an angry son of a bitch.”

  “Dude, of course I understand. I’m Tangun, or at least he’s in here with me now. And you’re not Kanaloa.”

  “I’m not?”

  “No.” Benny grinned. “You’re Bob.”

  You’re Bob.

  He thought on this. Then he smiled. He wasn’t Kanaloa; he was Bob. Benny was right. He laughed.

  “Is that the wisdom of Tangun?”

  Benny shook her head. “Dude, some credit, please.”

  Bob knelt down, holding Alison, and grabbed Tangun’s helmet from the ground.

  Benny shook her head. “I can’t see in that thing.”

  Then the earth shook again. A slow rumble that built and then faded. Out in the main street, a fresh set of car alarms went off.

  Bob and Benny exchanged a look.

  “Clock’s ticking,” said Bob. “Come on.”

  — XXXVIII —

  SAN FRANCISCO

  TODAY

  They took Zanaar and Alison back to Ted’s apartment. It was quiet. Light from San Francisco’s streetlights filtered in through the blinds, filling the space with bands of yellow light. Bob adjusted Alison’s form on the couch so the light didn’t strike her directly in the eyes. He watched the rise and fall of her breathing for a moment, and then turned to Zanaar in the armchair. He was out cold, snoring. Bob searched Zanaar’s pockets and found a wallet. The expired driver’s license inside that said his name was Jonathan Newhaven, and gave an address in St. Albans, Vermont. Bob smiled. He thought he’d guessed the accent. Inside the wallet was a card for his circus. He was the ringmaster.

  Benny disappeared into the bedroom. “Shit,” she called out. “Ted’s gone.”

  Bob raced over, but there was nothing to see. He nodded, rubbed his chin. Benny looked at him, eyebrow cocked.

  “The circus.”

  “Has to be,” said Bob. “Nezha’s been trying to lead us there all along. I think we threw a little spanner in the works – ” he pointed at Newhaven – “but I have a feeling things are already in motion.”

  Benny looked down at Alison, at Newhaven.

  “Will they remember anything?”

  Bob shook his head, nodded at the ringmaster. “No. My guess is that he hasn’t been himself for a while – not since the killings started. He was just being used – he’s not the Hang Wire Killer, not really. I don’t think he’ll remember anything.”

  “And Alison?”

  “Same thing,” said Bob. “But a shorter timespan – from whenever she was grabbed.”

  Benny’s armor clacked together as she folded her arms. “At least they’re safe now.”

  “Yes, but you’re going to have to stay here and look after them.”

  Benny gasped. “What? You’re going to the circus alone? You need Tangun’s help. That’s why he’s here, after all!”

  “Brah, listen up,” said Bob. “The Thing Beneath is being woken up by whatever it was that arrived with the circus. When it moved, it broke Ted’s sleep spell.”

  “Like… feedback?”

  “Right,” said Bob. “Feedback. So someone needs to watch these two. They’re OK, but they’ve shared a connection to the power. I don’t know what will happen at the circus. There might be feedback, or it might be able to reach out and take them over again. If that happens, I need Tangun here. He’s the only one powerful enough to look after them.”

  “If anything, Kanaloa is even more powerful.”

  “Yes. Which is why Kanaloa has to go to the circus, find Ted and the source of the power.”

  “Ted might be dead.”

  Bob frowned. “Kanaloa can fix that.” That was true. He just hoped he didn’t have to use his powers so fully again. It was dangerous enough, the hunger in his mind and in his heart. Power was addictive. And so close to the source, it would be worse. The temptation, the blissful satisfaction.

  But there was a city to save, perhaps a world. And there was Ted, and everyone else at the circus, trapped in the middle of something that had nothing to do with them. They were caught in the web of something ancient and primal.

  Benny nodded. “Go. Tangun will stay here. So will I.” She laughed. Bob smiled and patted his friend on the shoulder.

  “Thanks, brah.”

  “Good luck.”

  — XXXIX —

  SHARON MEADOW, SAN FRANCISCO

  TODAY

  The darkness is a living thing. It surrounds him and he can feel it move, feel it breathe. It envelops him like a blanket. It is not merely dark, an absence of light. It is the shadow of something moving and it is the blackness of space; two primal forces meeting, colliding, drowning in an abyss of nothing.

  The Cold Dark. The Thing Beneath. One fell from the sky. One slept under the earth.

  And now one uses the other. The Cold Dark, a sharp evil from beyond the stars, aware and with purpose, has found a new home, a wonderful world of life and of light. This world it wants. It will consume it, burn it up, and as it does it will send new seeds out into the universe, more falling stars, more pathogenic energy. Grow and spread, grow and spread, the fungus of space.

  The Thing Beneath sleeps, and as it sleeps it slowly draws power, charging itself like a capacitor. And when there is enough power, it wakes, it moves, reshaping the world above it as it turns. But there is never enough power, never enough life. It moves, the earth shakes, and then the power is gone and it sleeps again.

  Until now. Now the Cold Dark feeds it. The Cold Dark has sensed the Thing Beneath, understands its hunger, its needs. It feeds it, and by feeding it controls it, and by controlling, it will be able to use it to grow and spread, grow and spread, like never before.

  Except something is not right. The final sacrifice, the last mote of power, is gone. Has been taken away, the death prevented. The tool, the killer, Newhaven, has been lost, is gone, is no longer one with the powers.

  The Cold Dark grows angry. The Thing Beneath stirs, but is not awake, not yet.

  Almost.

  Then there is a voice. Faint and faraway, a whisper carried on the wind. The voice of someone old and wise, standing just over your shoulder.

  Wake up, Ted.

  Highwire opens his eyes.

  The night is bright, and as Highwire blinks, the world resolves around him. The light is artificial. Red, yellow, green and blue and white. Blinking and flashing, strobing in many directions.

  The carnival. He is at the heart of it all. He raises his head, looks up, sees the carousel in front of him, a Victorian cake tin of painted horses and monsters and soldiers, lit in warm orange. It rocks, back and forth, back and forth, like the gears are jammed. The steam-powered pipe organ at the center wails like mourners at a funeral, like animals in pain.

  Highwire is surrounded by the wooden soldiers. Each is frozen in place, inanimate, oversized children’s toys. Each with a scowl, each wi
th rifle and bayonet pointed at him.

  Highwire sits up, pushing himself off the ground and onto his elbows. In the blink of an eye, the soldiers have changed positions. Their aim is adjusted, the rifles higher. It is the same at the carousel. The animal rides are agitated, some standing back on their hind legs, eyes wide and rolling, lips drawn back in fear. At the center sits a carved monkey, its shining red eyes almost too bright to look at.

  The carnival is alive. Highwire looks to the left, to the right. The machines have all moved, from the big dipper and rocket cars to the little stalls full of rotating open-mouthed clown heads. All elegant and elaborate, carved and crafted out of wood and metal, painted with the stars and planets and a falling star. The machines have moved to form a closed circle, a perimeter surrounding the patch of ground on which Highwire lies. There is no way in or out. He is trapped, and as he watches, each of the machines moves a little. The big dipper bobs and dips. The rocket cars are rotating around their angled hub, slowly, slowly, like they are drifting through space.

  It is night. The darkness feels alive too, like the circus. There is no wind but it feels like the air is moving, something breathing in and out, in and out. There is pressure on his eardrums that follows the same rhythm. Like a heartbeat. The heartbeat of a sleeping monster.

  There is someone standing behind him. He can sense his presence, although the person makes no sound. Highwire’s augmented senses are clouded by the sounds of the carnival and the weird pressure of the atmosphere, but he can feel the man there.

  Highwire stands, turns, expecting there to be no one there once again. But this time there is. The man behind him is not alone. He smiles, his white eye shining with the lights of the carnival. Standing next to him is a woman, her naked body caked in black burned dirt, ash drifting off her like smoke.

  He knows who she is. Her name is Alison. She is connected to him – to the body he wears, the man with the brown jacket, the man from the apartment, the man with the bruise healing above his eye.

  But this isn’t her. It looks like her, is perfect in every detail, but it is not alive, not like the woman called Alison is alive. It is a copy, made from earth and pulled from the hot ground. A tool, a golem, nothing more.

  Highwire listens for the voice in his head, but it is silent.

  The carnival machines twitch and clank as Highwire steps toward the pair. Behind them stands the Ferris wheel, the largest part of the mechanical carnival. The wheel rotates this way and that, this way and that, a few degrees in each direction, no more.

  The man with the shining white eye smiles. He wears a stovepipe hat. His black suit is old. The fingers of one hand he keeps in the fob pocket on the front of his waistcoat.

  Highwire glances over his shoulder. The wooden soldiers have moved again, now arranged in a rank, their rifles raised and aimed. Behind, two soldiers in different uniforms – the officers – are at the carousel, frozen in conversation with the carved monkey perched atop the pipe organ.

  The carnival twitches and turns, the organ wails, the lights flash, but the golem and the man in black do not move.

  Highwire is fast, he knows this. Faster than the wooden soldiers, he thinks, although he doesn’t know how fast they really are with his back turned. The carnival can move, the machines creaking and clanking as they do, but they are large and heavy, animated by a stellar force centered in the monkey. Highwire can sense anger and rage, but while the machines can move they are not built to move.

  The Ferris wheel stands above them all, slowly turning. It is high, thirty feet at least, a collection of pipes, struts and bare framework – not as elegant as the rest of the nineteenth century machines, more functional, but still vintage, still beautiful. From the top you could see the whole city, shining in the night.

  From the top, Highwire could jump. Behind the wheel is a wall of trucks and trailers. Beyond that, the west side of the circus, the open fields of Golden Gate Park. Beyond that, the city. Escape would be easy. If he could move fast enough.

  “You can’t leave, friend,” says the man with the white eye. “You were brought here. Brought to me.”

  He takes his fingers from his pocket. Between them he holds a large coin, gold, heavy. The heartbeat sound in Highwire’s head gets stronger for a moment, and it feels like the ground beneath him is vibrating. Above all of this, the coin appears to crackle like electricity, although it is merely a gold coin being held between the fingers of the man with the white eye.

  “You followed the light, didn’t you?” the man asks. “You followed it like I followed it.”

  Highwire says nothing. The golem next to the man tilts its head, looking at Highwire. It is smiling, its eyes are wide and bright against its black-caked face.

  “I’ve followed it a long time,” said the man. “It told me how to build the machines. Told me what it needed to grow and to spread. And then when others came and interfered, breaking the machine up, it showed me where the pieces were hidden. It shone a light for me, a light I followed, across the country, searching. And then when the machine was complete, it shone the light here. There’s something it wants here. Something deep underground. There’s something down there, friend. A power, sleeping since the planet was made by the hand of God himself.”

  The man stops. He looks excited. He looks like he wants Highwire to tell him that he was right.

  Highwire says nothing. Then he pushes off with his right foot against the soft dirt. He leaps over the man, over the golem, hits the dirt behind them, and sprints for the Ferris wheel.

  The air is thick now with metallic grinding as the carnival jerks into life, every machine, ride, and attraction reacting to the movement. There are no gunshots, but Highwire glances over his shoulder and sees one of the wooden soldiers is calling to the officers while the others aim their rifles, some having dropped to one knee as they prepare to fire.

  Highwire blinks. The officers are running from the carousel. The soldiers screw their eyes along their rifle sights.

  Highwire blinks. Gunshots fill the air, smoke rising thick from the old fashioned rifles. The shots go wide, pinging off the Ferris wheel, sending sparks into the night. The wheel’s motor grinds, roaring like an injured beast. The carousel begins to spin, faster and faster, the moaning of the pipe organ increasing in pitch until it sounds like a siren. Underneath it all, the cacophony of the living circus, Highwire can hear a monkey laugh.

  He jumps, catches a strut on one of the wheel’s spokes that holds the passenger baskets around the rim. He swings, spins around on the strut to get up speed and momentum; then he swings again to the next basket above. Highwire finds his rhythm, leaping up and up, climbing the wheel. The guns fire again, but the soldiers’ aim is poor. The bullets ricochet off the wheel, white-hot sparks flaring around him. Highwire is nearing the top of the wheel.

  The wheel shakes, and shakes some more. Highwire squeezes his grip, his body bouncing against the framework. The carnival is angry and now the machine is trying to shake him off. The wheel turns, faster, but Highwire lets go of the passenger basket and catches a strut of the main superstructure. He begins to pull himself up. If he can stay in the center of the wheel’s frame, clear of the moving parts, he can get close enough to the top to swing himself over the other side, and then jump off onto the trucks.

  Just a few more seconds, a few more feet. The wheel shakes and shakes. Any more and Highwire thinks it will shake itself apart.

  He adjusts his grip, he counts, he jumps.

  Something meets him in the air.

  Something hard, cold, lit in brilliant neon strips and incandescent bulbs. It catches him, closes tightly around his legs. It pulls him back down and then swings out, and Highwire is suddenly upside down. Then it swings back, and Highwire connects with the side of the wheel. Neon tubes and bulbs shatter as his body is dragged through them, burning him, broken glass tearing into his skin.

  Highwire struggles, but he is held in something huge and vice-like. He looks down, sees his leg
s trapped in a mangled framework. It is metal, struts and pipes, but also enameled metal sheeting, painted with stars. A fist, an arm, fashioned out of carnival parts.

  The arm swings out again. Highwire sees the ground fly across his vision, the man and the golem surrounded by the wooden soldiers, the carousel spinning so fast that the animal rides around it are alive and moving, like he’s watching a zoetrope of alien creatures as they twist and turn and stamp in pain and fear.

  The arm swings back. Highwire is slammed against the body of the Ferris wheel. His head hits the frame with enough force to shatter his skull, and the last thing Highwire remembers is that his name is Ted Kane.

  — INTERLUDE —

  MT. DIABLO, CALIFORNIA

  1998

  The man walked out of the woods as slow as you like, one thumb hooked under his belt and his black jacket blowing in the evening breeze. He wasn’t smiling, not quite; the expression was rather a knowing smirk, a curl of the lip of someone stumbling upon something they were expecting to find, but perhaps not quite where they were looking. His black boots kicked up the dust at the edge of the woods before sliding silently onto the grass of the clearing, and as he walked toward the campfire, John watched, fear coursing through his body almost like a physical thing, like his heart was encased in a solid block of cold, dead metal.

  “Can I help you, sir?” was all John managed. He sat in his camping chair in front of his tent, on the other side of the campfire, which crackled and sparked. It wasn’t really necessary, not on a warm Californian night like this, but he had felt the need to build it. And build it he had, and very well at that – the flames enveloped a pyramid of firewood, which stood nearly two feet high in a circle of stones John had picked up from around the edges of the campsite, within the boundary of the woods. The woods from which the stranger had come.

  The man laughed, like he was surprised, and he held one hand up like he was about to swear an oath as he kept his slow pace forward. John gripped the arms of his camping chair, daring not to move just yet, but as the surprise of the man’s arrival faded he began to watch carefully, waiting for the right moment. There was a gun in the tent. The man in black looked dangerous, some kind of hobo who lived on the mountain maybe, in a crumpled suit that looked positively Victorian, like the battered stovepipe hat on his head.