Age of Power 1: Legacy (2 page)

I
chuckled at the tone in his words. He looked at me, annoyed for a second before
he laughed himself. It broke the tension, but I couldn’t blame him for his
feelings. His stepmother had been getting increasingly afraid since the
beginning of the year. She had slowly become obsessed about this date. Not even
Mom, Karla’s oldest friend, could get her to drop the idea. Brand’s dad was
patient with it, as long as she didn’t try to pull the same mad stunts, as
others had.

Adding
to a number of insane gun attacks occurring over the last few years, a suicide
cult showed up in a California mall with all guns blazing. Police stopped them,
but not before the cult killed three dozen people. From then on, all the joking
in the Houseman household had stopped. James Houseman had an intervention with
Karla at that point, and while she swore she wasn’t planning to do anything
melodramatic, father and son kept a strong eye on Karla.

But
although Brand had told me about their talking with her, I had just let it go.
I honestly was not thinking about why he’d been tense until now. Still, I was right.
His stepmother did deserve some sympathy. She’d been caught up in a fraud like
millions of others had. And while she should have known that nothing would
happen, Karla, and many people besides herself, still believed that some sort
of doomsday was about to hit the world.

Throughout
the year, there had been numerous television specials on the subject. As far as
I was concerned, it was just another attempt to make money. People watched the
shows and gave the networks a chance to sell more products in the commercials.
They did it for kids with toys, and now this was just the same thing, except
this was using fear and amplifying it with melodramatic scenes of what ‘might’
happen.

It
would’ve likely faded long before now if not for the mall attack. It pushed the
politicians into talking about it. After that happened, Congress and Senate
became involved. To one political party, it didn’t matter. They agreed with the
President’s comments about the situation. The President, while he offered his
deepest condolences to the families of victims in California, said nothing
about the reason that the cult had killed people. Unfortunately, for the other
side of the political spectrum, it became a reason to pray. One Senator called
for a resolution that the predicted date should be a National Day of Prayer. To
many people’s chagrin, the resolution passed.

When
I heard about it, I’d stopped watching the news, and avoided any Internet site
connected to the whole thing. But Brand had to live with the fallout. Once
this 
was all done
 and over with, Brand and
his dad would probably ignore Karla while she quietly shredded the clippings,
dumped the books on the subject, and erased her browser history.

Trying
to be commiserating, I said, “Sorry Brand, but it’s over with. Once dawn comes,
life returns to normal. It passed already in some parts of the world.”

He
just stood there, looking away. I could see the conflict in his eyes, though.
It was obvious that he was still angry about something else. Then it clicked in
my mind that Brand had had his auto shop class today. I know everyone there had
found out about Karla’s obsessions. She didn’t make much of a secret about it.
They probably made fun of him throughout the entire hour of the class.

Seeing
the backpack told me what I could do to help. I reached down and unzipped it.
Ignoring Brand’s surprised look, I pulled a beer out, opened it, and raised it
to the night sky.

I
said, “Hooray for the world! We’re still here, and we missed another disaster.”

I
gulped the beer and winced, it was freezing! I coughed and handed it to Brand.
He gave me a confused look.

I
just said, “Another beer isn’t going to hurt us. Salute the date, man.”

“Doofus!”
 Getting to his feet, Brand finished off
the beer. He then yelled, “Come on universe! Finish us off! We’re bored!”

The
sky split open in a line of bright white-blue fire. I whipped around, staring.
I cringed as the line of fire resolved into a huge burning ball that passed
directly over the town. Thunder from its passage roared throughout the town
until it faded as it passed over the horizon. Darkness had time to return for a
second before a white flash came from the place where it hit the ground. We
covered our eyes from the bright pulse. I could hear Brand swearing. Then the
wild light faded out as the night returned.

Then,
before the spots even faded from my eyesight, the building began
to violently shake
beneath us. It creaked and shuddered hard
enough to make me worry as to whether we might reach the ground in the worst
possible way. Slowly, the rumble passed, leaving the sound of car alarms and
people talking as they came outside to see what had caused this.

Trying
to keep a sense of humor, I said, “Wow, big meteor.”

Brand
said, “Ya think? Christ! We were lucky that it hit outside of town, and not us!
I just hope it was the only one.”

I
was looking up when he’d said that. I said, “Uh, yeah, about that...”

The
show wasn’t over. 
Hundreds, if not thousands of lines of
light flared down to fade away in the sky.
 The meteorite had broken
apart, and its companions now followed it down. Fortunately, they were burning
up before hitting the ground.

In
awe, we watched until last of the trails burned out. Once it was over, I
realized that, before this, the sky had been a beauty of shining stars. Now,
they were only pale points of light, cold in their regard. I felt small and
insignificant, and yet, full of wonder. That’s when I remembered that I had the
camera. And here I wanted to take pictures of pretty lights. I started to say
that I was an idiot when Brand interrupted me.

“Okay,
I’ll never make fun of Karla’s beliefs, ever again! What a great
show! Can we go, now?” he said. There was a tremor in his voice.

Everything
flashed bright white-blue again. A massive crack of thunder burst from above,
turning into a roar that shook us so hard we 
were flung
 down
flat to the roof. A part of me wanted to cover my head and whimper.
Instinctual, my stomach roiled with panic over what was happening.

And
yet, curiosity pushed at me until I finally rolled over to see what was causing
this everlasting roar. It took some moments to comprehend what I was looking
at. And when I did, I wanted to crawl down into a deep dark cave somewhere. It
took everything I had to keep from screaming. My mind threatened to shut down
from the sheer size of that horrible thing ripping apart the night.

At
the edge of the atmosphere, an oblong shape crossed the sky. Engulfed in the
same white and blue fire as the first meteor was, it left sparks and black
clouds exploding out from the edges and trailing into the sky behind. The thing
was a monster, blasting apart the air itself. The sound of its passage shook me
to my very bones. Yet, even in the unending boom, I could hear Brand praying.

The
roar slowly faded to a series of rolling thunderclaps that grew distant and was
finally gone altogether after what felt like hours. My heartbeat relaxed with
the fading sounds and tentatively, I started getting to my feet. Brand soon did
the same, and we looked at the massive smoke and sparking trail that
it had left behind. It dawned on me 
to finally check
 my
cell phone for the time. It was just past three in the morning.

I
said, “Wow, we suffered through the end of the world in less than half an
hour.”

Brand
glared at me. I ignored him and checked the phone for a signal. There wasn’t
one, and the time clock blinked out even as I looked. Ah no, there’d be no
calling the family from here. Showing the phone to Brand, I said, “Signal’s
interrupted; I think we’d better get moving.”

It
wasn’t easy getting down to the ground. Random bursts of the cold, 
hard hitting
 wind nearly cost me my hold on the pipes.
And once we did get down, that wind kept blowing the snow off the ground,
whipping it into our faces in random bursts. At times, it would be clear, but
at other moments, it would become surprisingly like whiteout conditions.

In
spite of the windblown snow, the two of us passed by people standing outside
their homes, wrapped in housecoats, or jackets hastily tossed over pajamas.
Aside from talking about the giant rock in the sky, there was a lot of black
humor about the date and with what just happened. For some reason, that
bothered me. I wanted to tell them they might want to consider how lucky we
were. It may have been because I knew something about space from a friend. I knew
that the second rock was too damn close for comfort. While the first meteor had
hit the ground, the second one—the bigger one—had not. Or if it did, it didn’t
hit anywhere near us. If it had crashed to the Earth, we would have been a
literal part of a crater by now.

With
a shiver, I pushed my focus back to the town. Better that than remembering
scenes of massive destruction from old movies. Surprisingly, I saw that some of
the lights were still working. Inside ones at least, outside, the glass was
shattered from windows and bulbs alike. Fortunately, that didn’t include every
streetlight. Some here and there had made it through the explosive roar of that
second meteor. The bad part was that the lights weren’t the only things
damaged. And not everyone had gotten out of this unscathed.

Brand
pointed that out when he saw two people getting into their car to go for help.
We walked on the side of the road to let them pass, and as we continued up the road,
I saw that there were others bleeding, limping, and panicking. Probably people
had fallen in glass from shattered windows or light bulbs. We watched as a
number of townspeople come out, get in their cars, and drive towards the
hospital. I found myself thankful that I was all right. I was, really. I always
breathed heavily after a quiet walk around town.

But
seeing people hurt as they were, made me wonder how my mom was doing. I checked
my cell phone again. I didn’t even get an active light. I shouldn’t have been
surprised; we were lucky to have the power, much less phone service. I didn't
know whether she was okay, or hurt and bleeding from a fall. Without thinking,
I rushed for home. Snow in the air, people panicking—I ignored it all, as
images crossed my mind’s eye again of my mother in pain, wondering where I was.

Obviously,
I wasn’t watching where I was going. I didn’t know how bad off I was until
Brand grabbed me by the back of my coat, and yelled, “Vaughn, stop!”

How
dare he stop me! Mom might be in trouble! I had to help her! I turned and
yelled, “Brand, look at all this! Mom didn’t know I was out tonight! She could
be hurt! Your parents—”

Brand
turned me around and pointed. He said, “I think they would all ask why you
broke your stupid-ass neck trying to run around in this craziness! Look!”

I
did, and the mental shock worsened when I saw what was right in front of us.
The blowing snow was clear enough on this street to see the very large hole
that I almost ran right into. But that wasn’t all. Brand tapped my arm.

I
followed where he was pointing. There was a long scar in the Earth. People were
standing outside here as well. But it wasn’t to look at the damage done to
their homes and decorations. No, this street 
was smashed
up
 in a different way. The street side of trucks and
cars were all smashed in. Other cars were on their sides, as if a
bomb had gone off right next to them.

Brand
said, “It’s like something played pinball with the cars, but what?”

A
surreal feeling permeated the air. I knelt to look in the hole. It wasn’t very
deep, though I would’ve broken a leg or my neck if I’d fallen into the empty
hole. Wait, something was wrong here. “Where’s the meteor?”

Brand
said, “Who knows, maybe it blew up on impact.”

Glancing
back to him, I waved a hand over the hole, said, “Look, there’s no melted rock.
The asphalt is broken up, but it’s not melted either. And the snow should be
gone, but it 
was only shoved
 aside. Meteors
are hot, Brand. So why is there no melting?”

Brand
touched my shoulder. “Vaughn, dude, you’re babbling. Now, come on, I’m getting
worried about my old man and Karla. I mean, if a rock hit here, then it might
be they were hit too.”

I
just nodded, not listening. I looked eastward to where the snow piled to each
side of the furrow. No melted snow…something was definitely off-kilter here,
but I couldn’t figure it out just then. When I got home, I’d have to…

I
jerked my head around to stare at him. I muttered, “Mom.”

Without
another word we ran southward, splitting off at the street his family lived on.
Running down the road, I quickly reached the end of the street, where I could
take a shortcut across a frozen plot of land that 
was
owned
 by our neighbors. Sitting open between the street and my
place, it gave me a good view of my home. When I saw the shape it was in,
fear uncoiled in my gut, and I found I could relax.

Lights
were on inside the two-story home where I had grown up. And not a single window
was broken. Given the damage that I had seen tonight, I was impressed. The only
thing that gave any hints of having been through the equivalent of a hurricane
was all the Christmas lights and decorations dangling from the back of the
house, and thrown around in the side yards.