by Parker Tiden
AS WORLDS DRIFTED
PARKER TIDEN
Copyright © 2021 Parker Tiden
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover by Mousam Banerjee instagram.com/illus_station
For A, A, and A
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Snow Globe
The Cove
The Rumbling of Jet Engines
Nick
Tristan Casco
Dreams of Dad
Speed Freak
The Noobs
The Good Raid
Broccoli
From Beyond the Grave
Learning to Fly
My Sister, Io
Back to Reality?
There Will Be Blood
Permafrost
The Whistler
Damn Fine Mullet
Boys Will Be Boys
Send in the Clowns - Then Kill Them
The Bad Raid
The Fidget Spinner
Bye-Bye Stanford
Two Girls in a Shower
Off to the Races
Let the Games Begin
Corporate Bastards
Going Rogue
Miata on Highway 1
Master Chief and Star Lord
The Urge
Look Who's Here
Rajeev
Blood Spray
Mosh Pit
Beyond Fear
Ignition
Aftermath
Baby Steps
Thank you
Prologue
If only that streak of light, the one burning across the sky, had been a falling star. I would have called it beautiful. But the fact that it was a rocket heading straight for me and my team, launched by some bastard intent on wiping us off the face of the planet, made me want to use a completely different adjective.
“We’ve got incoming!” Jarno yelled to my left as he scrambled for cover behind a tree—how quaint.
To my right, Girth and Nuffian sprinted towards some boulders. “Come on, Luna!” Girth shouted. “Get the hell down!”
I didn’t move. I stood where I was, feet firmly planted in the dirt, fully exposed to what was coming at me. My trusted MP5 automatic was out of ammo, so I pulled the Magnum out of its holster and raised it in a two-handed stance. The short-barreled weapon’s lack of accuracy was hardly ideal given the situation. I could only hope my skill would make up the difference.
“You’re loco!” Nuffian shouted.
He was right. I was crazy. Not two months ago, I had been in a different world, in a different life. I hadn’t known my team—Nuffian, Jarno, and Girth. I had never even touched a weapon. Then everything changed.
A familiar rage filled me as my jaw tightened in tandem with my grip on the Magnum. I took aim and held steady. Time slowed as the deadly projectile barreled towards us. I inhaled, held the air inside me, and pulled the trigger. There was a blast, and the heavens came raining down on us. Massive chunks of burning shrapnel pounded the earth and split the tree. One particularly irritating piece of shrapnel slammed into my shoulder, spun me around, and landed me face-down in the dirt. I slowly lifted my head and could see my three teammates as they came running towards me—they were alive. I rolled over onto my back and looked up at the evening sky. It was cobalt blue. The last time I had seen that blue, I was on the Pacific with my dad.
Snow Globe
The only thing tethering us to earth was a sliver of carbon fiber. I was perpendicular to the water six feet below me as the wind flung us across the bay at over 25 miles per hour. I hung from the trapeze that connected my waist to the mast, with the tips of my sailing shoes the only part of me touching the hull. I gripped the rudder and felt the boat hum in frequency with the universe. My dad, in his yellow helmet, looked back at me with a wide grin on his face. I couldn't have known that this was the last time we would sail together.
We pulled up the Nacra 17 along the launch and parked the Olympic grade, hydrofoil, and twin trapeze-equipped, catamaran sailing boat in her spot alongside dozens of other sailing boats. I pulled off my helmet. Racing Nacras was no walk in the park. The speeds were so intense that any wipeout or collision could generate massive unpredictable forces. Helmets were mandatory under most racing conditions, as was carrying a knife, and body protection was recommended.
"Looking good out there, Lily,” my sailing coach, Sylvester, greeted us outside the boathouse. "Your tacking was lightning fast."
"Thanks in large part to her crew," my dad laughed.
"The crew," I said, eyeing my dad up and down, "could stand to lose a few pounds."
Dad and I tried to get out on the water every Saturday morning. We’d missed the past few Saturdays because of his work, and now that I looked at him sitting behind the wheel as we drove home, he looked tired. I’d inherited his strong chin and straight nose, mine on and around which discreet freckles had begun to form after hundreds of days on the ocean. I had his chestnut hair—mine was longer, held up in a ponytail. His had started to salt and pepper on the sides like an earlier version of Clooney.
After we got back home, we were in the kitchen making sandwiches for lunch, and my dad had just told my mom that he needed to go to the office. Mom was, in some ways, a counterpoint to my dad's fundamental happiness and positivity. Her considerable beauty was increasingly confounded by bitterness. When she finally did smile, she smiled only with her mouth.
"What's going on?" my mom said as she grabbed the jar of mayo from my dad’s hands. "What are you hiding?" she plunked the jar down on the marble countertop—I didn't know what would crack first, the jar or the countertop. “Are you having an affair?”
“You’re kidding, right?” he said. “Honey, we've talked about this. I will tell you when I can. I promise,” he moved in to hug her. "This is one of the last meetings. We’re at a really sensitive juncture.”
She nudged him off and turned away. As she stormed out of the kitchen, she mumbled, "Who the hell has meetings nowadays anyways? So pathetically archaic."
Dad looked deeply unhappy for a brief moment, before remembering that I was there. "Let's get those sandwiches made before we lose the mayo,” he said.
Dad left for work a half-hour later, but before he left, he hugged me in the entryway. Not uncommon behavior for him, he spent hugs freely, but now he held on longer and squeezed tighter. When he let go, he took a box from the table and handed it to me. "Here, this is for you," he said. "I love you, my Luna." He called me Luna sometimes.
"I love you too, Dad," I said, looking for the tape seam on the box, "but you really don't need to be giving me presents."
"You can open it after I've left." He grabbed the car keys, "I'll be back later. Have fun tonight. I probably won’t be home until you’ve left.” He gave a small wave and a sorrow-tinged smile. Just before disappearing out the door, he stopped and turned back to me. “Luna, baby, don't be too hard on your mother. She's trying." He turned and was gone. I stood alone in the entryway, suddenly cold and small, while outside the summer air thickened.
Back in my bedroom, I shut the door behind me and sunk down onto my bed. The box lay heavy in my hands. I found the seam, sliced the tape with my thumbnail, and lifted the lid. I removed a protective foam and grabbed cold, smooth glass. I pulled the object out and the box fell awa
y. In my hands was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It was a large snow globe. Inside, rather than your typical snowman or dog playing in a winter landscape, was a moon. The moon, seemingly hovering alone in a liquid filled with swirling stars, was graceful in its own melancholy.
The Cove
A little while later, I stood in front of the full-length mirror in my sports bra and body shorts. My days on the water had left their mark on my body. My legs and arms were a golden brown, while the rest of me was milk. The sailing, volleyball, and field hockey had defined my biceps, sculpted my shoulders, and toned my stomach. I looked like I could kick some serious ass.
On Monday, I would be walking up the steps of high school as a sophomore, but today, it was Saturday. Just as I pulled on some shorts, a tank-top, and my Asics, the doorbell rang. “I’ve got it!” I yelled as I bounced down the stairs and pulled open the front door.
“I’ll just drop this here for later,” Sarah said and threw a duffle bag into the entryway. She looked like she’d walked right off a Ralph Lauren shoot, with effortless beauty and grace. “Ready to burn?” she said.
We set off running side-by-side through the winding streets, lined with cypress and pine. As we got closer to the hills, the lots got bigger, as did the houses on them. We came to where the blacktop ended and the dust trails began.
“Fenton will be there tonight,” Sarah said.
“Gee, thanks for that information,” I put in an extra gear and pulled out in front of her as the trail narrowed, “not!”
Sarah was right on my heels, but I could hear on her breath that the afternoon heat was getting to her. “I’m just sayin’,” she exhaled.
“You better not be trying to set me up with that doofus.” The trail kept on getting steeper. My quads were on fire.
Suddenly, Sarah sprinted past me on my right. Like a mountain goat, she pushed off some rocks on the side of the trail and was in front of me. We were almost at the top; I could see the lookout bench in the clearing. I was eating her dust and it was pissing me the hell off. I dug deep, if Courtney Dauwalter can run 240 miles, I can run a measly five. The trail widened its last 200 feet as we sprinted out of the trees. My blood pounded through my temples as I glanced left. We were even with 50 feet to go. Sarah was pushing so hard, she looked like she was crying. Crying? Come on! Give me a break! I pushed ahead with 20 feet left. I wasn’t gonna deviate from my mission to crush.
Then a memory came to me. Sarah waltzes up to me during morning recess, my first day in a new school, in a new town. In her wide-eyed blondness, with unfathomable confidence, she takes my eight-year-old hands in hers and declares that we were now friends forever. She saves me on what had started out as the worst day of my life and ended up being the best.
Sarah hit the bench. When she realized she was first, she forgot that she was supposed to be spitting blood. Instead, she broke out into an obnoxious dance. I was ready to keel over, trying to learn to breathe again with my hands on my knees.
Sarah stopped dancing. She stepped up on the bench and stretched out a hand to me. I joined her. We stood there, next to each other, in silence, our breathing still heavy but our minds light. In front of us stretched San Francisco Bay, framed by mountains, the city, and the Golden Gate in the distance, remnants of morning fog swirling between the towers and through the cables. The bay was glorious. I knew that she could also be treacherous, with her strong currents, unexpected winds, and unpredictable tourist boats.
Sarah turned to me and locked me in with her eyes, “If you ever let me win again on purpose, I’ll kill you.”
A couple of hours later, we were ready—in jeans shorts and tops. Halfway out the door, I shouted, “Mom! We’re heading to the beach!”
“Phone!?” I heard from the upper reaches of the house.
“Duh, Mom!”
We pushed out into the warm evening, leaving the tension behind. Carl and his friend, Fenton, were leaning casually against Carl’s battered car. “Ladies,” Carl, in khaki shorts and a tight short-sleeved shirt with the top two buttons unbuttoned, held the shotgun door open for Sarah. Fenton, similarly but less successfully dressed, opened the backdoor for me. Ever since Sarah and Carl hooked up around Christmas, I’d been in a forced relationship of sorts with Fenton. He was mostly harmless.
Carl turned the key and the engine came to life, rumbling through my thighs. Fenton kept throwing glances my way. Sarah flipped down the makeup mirror. “You better keep your grubby hands off her, you hear me? I’ll be watchin’ you,” she said. Carl turned up the stereo and the summer beats took us all the way to the beach.
The fire sprung to life as someone flicked a match into the pile of twigs and driftwood. The orange sun hung on the horizon as if suspended in disbelief at its own beauty, ready to tuck in for the night and make way for the moon. They were all there, Sarah, Carl, Fenton, and a dozen or so more of the gang. We were far out on a lip of land stretching out into the Pacific, barefoot in still-warm sand.
Music, competing with the waves, pumped out of a Bluetooth speaker stuck in the sand. We danced and laughed, partying like we could make summer last forever if we just wanted it desperately enough. Sarah and Carl were intertwined, and Fenton was still right beside me, where he had been all night. He wasn’t all that bad despite his horrendous white man boogie moves. The fact that he didn’t care what others thought of him was cute—maybe even a smidgeon attractive.
It was dark now, except for the moon and the last of the embers from the campfire, around which we had settled. I looked over at Sarah, sitting on the other side of the fire with her head on Carl’s shoulder. She grinned and gave me a knowing nod. We both got up. “We’ll be back,” she said as we walked away from the fire together. We walked in silence towards some house-sized rocks at the far end of the beach. It couldn’t have been more than a few hundred feet from the fire. As we reached the rocks, a gap revealed itself. “No second thoughts?” Sarah asked.
“Are you kidding!” I said. Sounding more confident than I was, I pushed through the gap first, leaving the beach and our friends behind. On the other side, calm enveloped us. We’d been here before, but never at night. The cove was surrounded by rocks with an opening at the bottom connecting it to the ocean, and one upwards, letting the light from the gibbous moon pass through and bounce off the silky black water. The water was heaving with the ocean swell, like the slow breathing of some prehistoric creature.
Without saying another word, we took off our sweaters and tops, then pulled off our shorts. We were standing together in our underwear at the water’s edge. We held hands, and together, we counted, “Three! Two! One!” and jumped. The Pacific in this part of the world is cold, water barreling down from the Arctic with the California current. I knew this, and still, as I broke the surface and plunged into the water, my lungs shrink-wrapped and my brain froze as my heart stopped and I sank into darkness. As the ocean tugged at me like a magnet, I opened my eyes, salt met salt, and I saw the moon above me recede—a blurry pale dot. My hand held nothing… Sarah was gone. I kicked upwards towards the surface and got nowhere.
I’m only 12 on the day I almost die. I've just graduated from dinghies to catamarans. It’s late October, whitecaps stretch across the bay. I have a wetsuit on under my sailing gear against the cold, my fingers are stiff under my gloves. A second of inattention, a failure to release the boom at the right moment, and I flip. The catamaran’s mast slams into the water and I catapult off. I hit the water and go under. For a second, I don’t know where I am, then I see the light of day above me and swim towards it. I’m almost at the surface, ready to fill my lungs with air, when I’m yanked back. I try again but get yanked back even harder. I look down, a rope from the mast, which is pointing straight down into the depths, is wrapped around my ankle. The harder I tug, the more the rope tightens around me. I start to panic, my lungs about to explode, the surface just out of reach. I can’t think straight. I’m all instincts, and they’re just making things worse. My field of visio
n narrows, my world going dark. Then I see from above, something red breaks the surface and I feel someone grab me under my arms and pull me. Finally, I break the surface and gasp. Cold air and life rush into me. I’m pulled up out of the water into a boat and I lie on the deck on my side and cough up half the Pacific.
Sylvester saved my life that day. He’d been on the water in the chase boat, and he dived right in when he saw me go under. He cut the rope with a knife. After the incident, the school upped its act and contracted with a former navy diver to teach us to hold our breaths for more than four minutes and to use a knife underwater. Of course, Sarah had none of that training.
I broke the surface and air rushed into my lungs. I was alone. I looked down into the dark water, and just below me, so close I could almost touch her with my feet, was Sarah. Her blond hair fanned out in the water like the always beautiful, young, female murder victims on crime shows. I dove down. When I got to her, I could see only the white of her eyes, wide with fear. I gave her a thumbs-up, a vain attempt to calm her, circled back around, and wrapped an arm around her from behind.
Seconds later, we lay next to each other on the smooth wet rock in the dark, shivering, desperately filling our lungs. For a second, I thought Sarah was crying, but then I heard it for what it was—laughter. I couldn’t resist her, and we lay there for way too long in hysterical laughter at the joy of being alive, at the triumph of sticking it to the man of all men—death. My body sang, like a pitchfork in tune with what all that there is, and ever will be. It could never get any better than this.
A figure came running towards us on the beach as Sarah and I, huddled together for warmth, emerged from the gap. It was too dark to see who it was. The figure stopped, turned back towards the campfire, and shouted, “They’re here! I’ve found them!” I recognized the voice, it was Fenton. “Where were you guys?”