The Fire and the Anvil

by Michael Galloway

  “I brought ‘em back,” he said as he held out the box to Dr. Ferganut.

  “Why didn’t you use them?”

  “I think we did enough sacrificing out there today.”

  Dr. Ferganut accepted the box with a sigh. “Well, they may end up being the only ones I have left now.”

  Captain burst out of the house a moment later. “John! I found something!”

  John groaned inwardly because he knew what was coming next.

  “Hey, nice pants. Did you wear the hood and the top, too? Get this. I think I found out where his hideout is at.”

  “You’re kidding right?” John said. He put his hands on his hips. “We didn’t find it before. What makes you think…?”

  “Hear me out.” Captain brushed the soot off the hood of John’s truck. He then spread out a road map on top. “Look here. Remember the circles you drew on your atlas? I saw where you drew some new marks on it further south of here. Dr. Ferganut sent out a bunch of wireflies on a recon mission while you guys were out on the road. We saw Dr. Minton coming up another bike ramp and out of a hill south of here on the edge of the Wildlife Refuge.”

  “What if it’s another storage shed?” John said as he squeezed the water out of his tee shirt. He hoped Captain would get the hint. He really did not feel like getting back out on the road and Madeline still had not been looked at by a doctor. Besides, he needed a good long shower.

  “No. There was too much activity around there. Dr. Ferganut gave me another box of centipedes. You game to check it out?”

  “Game?” The word hit John like a sledgehammer. His head buzzed as he felt a headache coming on.

  “C’mon. I’ll even drive. It’s worth a shot.”

  “No. We already chased him down. His bike ran off the road near the Merritt Dam. By the time I got to him, he was hanging onto a branch out over the river. Know what his last words were? ‘The game isn’t over yet. There’s always room for one more player at the table.’ Then he let go and dropped into the river.”

  Dr. Ferganut gave John a deeply worried look.

  “Now what is it?” John whined.

  “That’s what he used to say at our game gatherings in college. He’s also a great swimmer,” Dr. Ferganut said.

  “You think he’ll survive?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh and he had one of your robotic hawks strapped to his back. Is there anything we can do about that? Will he reverse engineer it if he survives?”

  “Oh, he might. But he didn’t win the game if that’s what you’re thinking. You see the hawk wasn’t the flag. The flag is the deep learning machine in my basement laboratory. That’s the real brains of the system. The hawks, the bees, the centipedes…they’re just extensions of that.”

  John jabbed a finger at Dr. Ferganut’s chest. “You owe us a tour now. After what we’ve been through.”

  Dr. Ferganut appeared to consider the request. He then said, “Maybe next time.”

  “Oh, come on,” John growled. He spotted several buckets of water on the lawn. “And what are those for?”

  “They were for our visitors,” Dr. Ferganut explained. “While you were out, I anticipated an attack on the property. Turns out I was right. A hundred or more firebugs flew in but my wireflies were already airborne by the time they arrived. Grabbed them in midair and dunked them into the buckets so they couldn’t ignite.”

  High above John could see one of Dr. Ferganut’s copper-colored hawks circling. He squinted to take a look but his eyes burned as if he scrubbed them with hot beach sand. He meandered over to one of the buckets on the lawn and stared inside. There, floating in the water were dozens of disabled firebugs. A wirefly buzzed by his ear and out of instinct he swung at it.

  Dr. Ferganut held out his hand and the wirefly circled high in the air before landing back onto his hand. He put the wirefly into a white plastic box on the grass and closed the lid. He gazed skyward and made several short whistling noises. The circling hawk immediately broke into a dive.

  John staggered up to the front doorstep of the house and sat down. He waved Madeline over. The hawk slowed down a few feet above the ground and landed like a feather at Dr. Ferganut’s feet.

  “That was…” John said.

  “Realistic?” Dr. Ferganut said as he attempted to finish John’s sentence.

  John gave him a smile. “Is that what you had me working on last night?”

  “A little bit. But the big breakthrough for me came with the deep learning algorithm I was working on.”

  The rain stopped and the sky took on a wavy texture as if was composed of reddish-brown ribbons. The light threw eerie orange shadows across the hills and across the neighborhood as if the fire was less than a mile away.

  “Dad, can we go for a walk?” Madeline said with urgency. “I’ve got some things I want to say to you.”

  Dr. Ferganut stepped over next to Madeline. “What happened to your hands?”

  “It’s nothing. Here, come with me.”

  “No, you should put some aloe or burn ointment on those. And John, what’s with your shoes?”

  For the first time in an hour, John gazed down at his feet. His shoes were blackened, caked with mud, and blistered in several places. On the side of his left shoe was a hole and through that hole he could see blisters on his foot. He gave Dr. Ferganut an exhausted look.

  “Here. Take a quick walk with me,” Madeline said to her father. She led him farther down the driveway and out onto the dirt road that ran in front of the house.

  John admired her from afar and hoped she would finally bury her grievances with her father. He stood up, brushed the soot off his aluminized pants, and went inside to take a shower.

  Chapter Sixteen

  In the morning, John peered out the living room window in reflective silence. The orange color of the sky had retreated but there were still strange shadows on the hills around them. The gray-white smoke was still visible but at a great distance. He turned back to see Captain sitting on the couch with a laptop computer propped open. “What’s the latest?”

  “The rain put a big dent in the fire,” Captain began. “But it’s only 43% contained. Still burning on the edge of Valentine, but it looks like most of the town dodged a bullet. But, hey, check this out.” Captain spun the laptop around so John could see what was on the screen.

  John leaned over to take a look. He read a line of text from the news article. “Field surveys are underway to see if two separate tornadoes occurred during the peak of the fire.”

  “Want to know something else? The drive home might get interesting.” Captain pulled the laptop back toward himself and pecked away at the keys. “Potential enhanced risk coming the afternoon from here over to Sioux Falls and down into northwestern Iowa. The dynamics are looking solid for a couple of twisters. Looks like the front that came into the area yesterday is lifting back north. Plus it’ll get a nice shot of energy from a low sweeping in from Colorado. Just sayin’.”

  Madeline entered the living room and set her black suitcase onto the floor next to the front door. She did not look as pale as the night before but the mark on her forehead was still there. Today she wore a pale yellow tee shirt with a pair of light tan pants that stopped just below her knees. Her hair was wound up tight into a bun and she wore the pearl earrings that John thought looked fantastic on her. She caught him staring but suddenly crossed her arms. “Were you thinking of going chasing today?”

  John tried to read her thoughts through her facial expressions and the look in her eyes. Part of him just wanted to go home and spend the afternoon in front of the television with her, but another part of him relished the thought of getting good data with rockets loaded the smaller sensors. “Only if it’s on the way back.”

  “Only? Can I get your word on that?” She teased him.

  He walked over to her side and felt her forehead with his hand. He held out her hands and stared at the backs of them. Her right hand was still red and the blister on he
r ring finger looked only marginally better. It was drenched in green aloe gel. “Sure you don’t want to see a doctor?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He made his way back to the guest bedroom to pack up his belongings for the drive home. He scooped up his clothes from the cot and shoved them inside his suitcase without folding them. Next, he picked up his laptop computer and his Bible. With reluctance he tucked the Bible inside his suitcase and realized he did not take any time out to read it or study it with Dr. Ferganut. The thought saddened him but at least he knew he had obtained an abundance of data and photos to work through.

  John lugged their suitcases out to his truck and shoved them into the backseat. He then moved the rocket launchers from Dr. Ferganut’s garage and put them back into the bed of the truck and sighed. If conditions aligned, perhaps today would be the day they could get more great data, but only if Madeline was up for it. Judging by the look on her face this morning, he did not feel enthusiastic about pressing his odds.

  When John returned to the living room, Captain, Madeline, and Dr. Ferganut were all having a discussion about the day’s weather forecast and who would be making the drive back to Sioux Falls. “What’d I miss?” He said.

  “Captain and Dad are riding together in Dad’s truck,” Madeline said, as if John had much of a say in the matter. “You and I are taking your truck. Are you okay with that?”

  “Don’t you think we should try to salvage your car?” John said.

  “No, but we should stop by and take pictures for the insurance company.”

  “Oh, I think we should pack some of the weather balloons,” Dr. Ferganut said to Captain. He motioned for Captain to go out with him to the garage. Before leaving, he handed John two clear plastic boxes of smaller Ferganut sensors. “Here, let’s use these.”

  “Are you sure? You’ve been burning through a lot of hardware lately,” John said.

  “What good is it if it sits on a shelf? Besides, after Captain showed me the maps, I have a good feeling about today. In the data sense, of course.” He gave John a wink.

  “But what if something happens while we’re gone? Who’s going to watch over the place?”

  Dr. Ferganut pointed to the coffee table. On it stood three robotic hawks ready for duty. “My newest soldiers of course.”

  John laughed but was still confused. “I thought you said you were a pacifist.”

  “Sometimes even pacifists have to go out and fight.”

  John walked over to the hawks and studied one of them. It was the size of a red-tailed hawk with gleaming metallic feathers and coal black eyes. Its nose was jointed and the talons were sharp as kitchen knives. He wanted to see a full demonstration of its abilities but in the interest of time he decided against it.

  * * *

  In two trucks they drove back toward the Sioux Falls area. John watched as a field of agitated cumulus clouds materialized to the north against a backdrop of yellowish-brown haze.

  “Do you think we’ll ever hear from him again?” Madeline said suddenly as they drove north and approached the edge of the burn zone.

  “Who? Dr. Minton? I don’t know,” John said.

  “Maybe Captain was right. Maybe we should have checked out that hideout.”

  “I doubt there was anything to it. It would have been dark by the time we reached it. Besides I was tired and I was too worried about you.” He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  As John reached the edge of the burn zone, he gazed on in awe at the charred hills on both sides of the highway. Black spindly tree trunks jutted into the air against a gray, ash-covered landscape. It was as if the land had been drained of its color. One home they passed was reduced to a pile of smoldering ash with crumpled appliances where the kitchen used to stand. Patches of ground still smoked and a tongue of flame leapt out from a lone hotspot in the ditch.

  He travelled a few more miles and passed a pair of red-and-white wildland fire engines and a bulldozer parked on the side of the road. He passed by one burned-out abandoned truck on the side of the highway and for a moment, he speculated what would have happened to them if they did not escape yesterday. He tried to count off the mile markers to locate the exact spot of Madeline’s car, but many of the street signs were melted or deformed from the heat of the fire.

  “I think this is the area where you left your car,” he said suddenly as he rounded a bend in the highway. “Here, look over to the left.”

  He slowed the truck down and rolled along at half speed until he came upon the ditch where she lost her vehicle. Here the remains of the trees had been mangled as if they were twisted by a strong circular wind. Charred trunks lay in all different directions, as if a tornado passed through.

  “Stop the truck,” Madeline said. She pointed excitedly toward the ditch. “I think this is the spot.”

  John pulled over and Captain, who was driving Dr. Ferganut’s truck, followed. John and Madeline jumped out and scaled down into the ditch. There, at the bottom, was her car. The car appeared to have been rolled several feet and landed on its roof. Crushed and blackened, the frame barely resembled a Volkswagen Beetle.

  Madeline put her hand to her mouth and then wiped back a tear. She pulled out her cell phone and took pictures.

  “Are you sure this is it?” John said in disbelief.

  She pointed to a torched rectangular piece of metal on the ground with numbers and letters on it. “That’s my license plate,” she said with a loud sigh.

  John kicked the plate with his shoe, but felt the heat radiating from it so he did not pick it up. Fortunately he packed two pairs of shoes for this trip but he did not feel burning holes in another pair. He looked over her car, which was nearly unrecognizable, and then walked toward one of the hills. He took pictures with his cell phone, not of the car, but rather the damage path.

  From his estimation, the tornado was probably an EF-2, although it was difficult to sort out which part of the destruction came from the fire and which part came from the winds. The area reeked of burnt wood, fresh mud, and churned-up swamp water. Snapped cattails pressed into the mud in spiral patterns stretched on for hundreds of feet to the north. He reached down and picked up a pinecone out of the mud and held it up for Madeline to see. “Think this area will ever recover?”

  She took the pinecone from him and smiled. “Know what my dad use to say about these? When a fire comes through, the heat opens up the cones and they release their seeds.”

  When he was done taking pictures he returned to the truck. Madeline followed and as he drove off, she phoned her insurance agent. As he approached the southern part of Valentine, it was as if the fire hit a supernatural, if not invisible, wall. Pink fire retardant streaks crisscrossed the highway and the sun disappeared into an amber-brown shield of smoke. Meanwhile, to the west a column of gray-black smoke churned into the sky as if it had just been freshly shelled by artillery.

  “So what’d you and your dad talk about last night?” John said.

  “I forgave him.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He told me he prayed the night he stayed up until dawn. He said he never felt such peace and strength in his life.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  Madeline seemed to consider the thought a moment. “I do, John. I really do.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  As they made their way east on Interstate 90 toward the Sioux Falls area, John stayed in communication with Captain as to the latest weather updates. He determined in his mind not to deviate from their course back home by more than a few miles. If it was meant to be, he reasoned, the opportunity to get good data would present itself. The cumulus cloud field had since filled in and cumulonimbus towers loomed in a line to their right. The bases of the storms darkened until they were nearly jet-black while piercing white anvil heads fanned out high above.

  John’s cell phone rang out. It was Captain.

  �
��It’s lookin’ good, John. But we’re approaching everything wrong. Any chance we could drop south on I-29? Or would Madeline kill you?”

  John glimpsed at Madeline. “Captain says the best action will be south of here. Down 29. I don’t want to…”

  Already, Madeline held John’s beat-up road atlas on her lap. She rolled her eyes and cut him off. “Go ahead. I just don’t want to end up in southern Iowa by the end of the night.”

  John grinned and responded to Captain. “I think we can hit it. If it doesn’t take too long. Just tell us where to set up.”

  “There’s a nasty one approaching Yankton. Looks like it’s about to go tornado-warned. I figure if we drop south on I-29 until about Beresford and then swing west on Highway 46 we might be able to follow it back to the northeast.”

  John leaned over and looked at the atlas on Madeline’s lap. “What if we backtracked first and then dropped south?”

  “No. The cells to the west are back-building. Throw in a couple storm mergers and it’s gonna be a mess any way you drive into it.”

  “Hold it. You said to turn near Beresford? Any chance this storm rolls into the Sioux Falls area?”

  “It could. Or…” Captain’s voice trailed off.

  “Or what?”

  “Roll into Wick.”

  John groaned and looked over at Madeline. He mouthed the name of the town to her.

  The color drained from her features. She clutched the edges of the atlas and stared toward the south. As the storm bases darkened the tempo of the lightning flashes picked up.

  “Okay, I’ll call you in a few minutes again. Keep us updated,” John said as he ended the call. He glanced over at Madeline. “Here we go again. You should call your mom.”

  With a shaking hand, Madeline pulled out her cell phone and dialed her mother. “Hey Mom. It’s Madeline. Turn on the television and check the weather.”

  * * *

  At first, John was uneasy about Captain’s angle of approach. Only after turning south and taking a look at the radar display on his cell phone did he come into agreement with it. It was a dangerous needle to thread since the storm that moved near Yankton remained intact and the tornado stayed on the ground. According to the radio, there were already numerous reports of damage from downed trees to flattened barns to roofs taken off of homes. What John dreaded most was that this storm had the potential to hit Wick from a completely different angle and decimate what last year’s storm did not.