The Dream Widow (36 page)

“We were on a hike and it got dark,” said Jack gruffly, trying to deepen his voice.

“Thought your friend didn’t talk,” said driver Jack.

The car flew around a curve and Wilson felt the contents of his stomach rise.

“Can I ask a question?”

“Ask away. Can’t promise I’ll answer it,” said driver Jack.

“What’s the date?”

“October 28th.”

Wilson cleared his throat. “What about the year?”

Driver Jack slammed on the brakes and the sea-green car skidded to a stop. He took a revolver from the passenger seat and pointed it at Wilson.

“Get out.”

“What?”

“Don’t argue with a man holding a gun,” said Driver Jack.

Jack opened his door and pulled Wilson out his side.

Wilson stared at the receding red lights. “Why did he get so mad?”

“He doesn’t want to deal with a pair of crazies,” said Jack, rubbing his beard. “Especially tonight. I’m surprised he didn’t recognize me.”

“What do you mean––especially tonight?’’

“He’s going to kill someone.”

“That’s all great and everything but it’s none of our business. We have to find Twitch.”

Jack shook his head. “You already met him. He was driving the car.”

WILSON TRUDGED ALONG the dark asphalt while a killdeer chittered and curved through the night.

“You’re Twitch? How is that even possible?”

“I’m not Twitch and Twitch isn’t me,” said Jack. “He just thinks he’s me. Let’s just say it’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

Jack lit another cigarette. “Short version: me and this half-Mexican had a fight back in 2053. He burned down my house and I shot him.”

“Shot him dead?”

“Yep.”

“Just like that?”

“Yep.”

“And now we’re in Twitch’s fake memory of that?”

“Yep.”

“Why would a guy who thinks he’s you have the password, if you don’t know it?”

“Like I said, he thinks he’s me but he’s not. Back in 2053 Twitch was part of the engineering staff for the reactor. Those access codes might be buried deep in his mind, but they have to be there.”

“Killing him in a fake memory isn’t going to solve the problem.”

Jack shrugged. “I didn’t say it would.”

The pair climbed a slow rise covered with rows of towering pines.

“This isn’t natural. It’s like a farm for trees,” said Wilson, and kicked through drifts of needles.

“Exactly.”

A rifle shot cracked loudly and echoed through the hills.

Jack burst into a run. “It’s started!”

Wilson ran after him through the perfect rows of identical trees. Another shot came half a minute later and he stopped to whisper the poem of the sight-trick.

When he opened his eyes the forest was as empty and still as before. Jack was gone. Wilson crept forward and listened to the chattering gossip of squirrels and night birds.

Two more shots boomed––the sound of a different rifle. Wilson ran from tree to tree and saw a clearing covered with wood chips and weeds. The place looked like an abandoned woodcutter’s operation, and the sea-green car had parked beside a stack of huge logs. Several windows in the car were shattered.

He knelt in a tall patch of weeds and almost stepped on a pale hand. A rifle lay in the grass next to the body.

Wilson grabbed it. A bullet zipped through the air next to his head and he instinctively flattened to the ground next to the body. He crawled back through the weeds and scanned the opposite line of trees with the rifle’s scope. A pair of figures wrestled in the darkness.

Wilson bolted across the lumberyard and a dirt road. The pair had dropped to the ground and struggled on the pine needles.

“Stop,” yelled Wilson, pointing the rifle. “Or I’ll shoot.”

The Jack on top, the one who’d driven the car, reached for a silver revolver at his belt. The rifle in Wilson’s hands kicked hard and a bullet smashed into the man’s shoulder.

The other Jack picked up the revolver and aimed it at the wounded Jack’s face.

“I need the reactor code,” he said.

Driver Jack coughed. “What reactor?”

“Konrad Antwarter! Look at my face––I’m Jack Garcia, not you! Your name is Konrad Antwarter.”

“You’re crazy!”

Jack kicked the wounded man in the shoulder. He screamed in pain and flickered like blackbirds across the sun.

“Altmann Research Station,” said Jack. “The admin password for the reactor control system.”

Wounded Jack stared at them like he’d just woken up. His voice deepened and he spoke with a strange accent. “Why do you need the password?”

“The reactor’s overheating, Konrad. We have to shut it down.”

The wounded man nodded. “Whippoorwill.”

Wilson’s entire world flashed white and his forehead burned with pain. He screamed inside a sudden beam of brilliant dust.

TWENTY-ONE

D
arius ripped black cables from the medical equipment and wrapped them around Badger’s neck and ankles. He followed the slime-covered girl through the empty corridors of the support section, a leash of wiring in one hand and pistol in the other.

Badger led him down a stairway deeper into the earth and opened a door. The lightning of the discharge chamber glowed blue over her face.

“It’s over there,” she said with little enthusiasm. She pointed at the narrow platform above the drooping teardrop of the discharge sphere.

Darius jerked the leash. “Keep going.”

Badger shuffled through the axe-wedge of a cavern and across the catwalk to the control platform. Centuries of tiny vibrations and exposure to minute amounts of radiation had left the mesh floor panels dispirited and feeble. Tarnished railings no thicker than a child’s thumb wrapped the circular platform. Every two seconds energy crackled and dropped into the unknown depths of the mountain with a flash of blue. With each step Badger’s moccasins shook flakes of rust into the crackling pit.

She led Darius to the central stem of the discharge sphere and waved listlessly at the control panel.

“That’s the only access to the reactor.”

“Shut it down,” said Darius.

“There’s a password.”

Darius nodded. “Let me guess––you have no idea what it is.”

He dropped the leash and walked slowly around the narrow platform.

“So here we are. Under the business end of a failing reactor that’s ready to kill all of us like a boy squashing a feeble and disgusting pest. That’s according to you and I don’t see any reason for mendacity. For once you and I have something in common. We’re riding a ship of corpses straight to the bottom.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Darius rattled the mesh floor as he shifted weight off his broken foot. “Dear Kira––don’t tell me you have a shred of hope for the future. Think of your child––think of the horrible, fatherless life I’ve planned for it. That I’ve planned for both of you.”

Badger shuffled a few steps to the railing and watched the lightning drop beneath her feet every two seconds.

“Every single thing you love is gone,” said Darius. “Your friends are dead or scarred for life. This village and the secrets beneath it have been exposed like sackcloth ripped from a cowering old woman.” He shook his head. “This place will never be the same.”

“Because of you,” said Badger.

“Me? The germination of this woe, the root of this spiked hawthorn, stands in front of me. The horrible events of the past three months all have one central character––you. The first time I shot Wilson he was trying to save you. David was torched and its villagers either dead or forced to flee to this place. Why? Wilson sacrificed them to save your life, to save this disgusting village. Because you selfishly and in cowardice refused to consider the well-being of others the destruction followed you here. Your leader is dead. Your lover is dead. Your friends are dead. All of this is your fault and yet still you blame others, including me.”

 Badger shook her head. “It’s not true.”

“It’s perfectly and precisely the truth. You, above all people, can see what’s happened. A bloody trail of bodies follows you and Wilson and what did you gain for it? A few months of life? A chance to watch your lover and friends die? Think of all the innocent women and children who suffered when David burned.”

“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” said Badger.

“Of course not, you’re not a monster.”

“Maybe ...”

Darius picked up the cable leash. “You want to slip over that railing, don’t you? You’re holding it so tight that your knuckles are white. Go ahead––a simple, easy motion. Everything will be over and you won’t feel any pain.”

Badger lifted her hip onto the metal tube and swung her legs over. She looked again into the lightning of the discharge pit and felt dizzy as the blood left her eyes for a moment.

Darius allowed the leash to slip through his fingers. “Yes, there you go,” he said. “Even if we make it out of here and back to the capital alive––an uncertain proposition in these gods-damned freezing mountains––you’d be my slave. A plaything of the capital royalty. A dancing pony for masses of people who wouldn’t lift a finger to save your life. Your unborn child will enter the world a slave and leave it no better. Save him from that pain and sorrow.”

Badger rested her feet on the bottom rail and leaned forward, her arms straight behind. A bead of sweat rolled along her nose and fell into the sparkling depths. The railing shivered––Darius leaned on it with both arms.

He tilted his head. “Dear Kira ... I won’t forget you.”

Badger loosened her grip on the railing. The bracelet around her wrist flashed with brilliant light.

“Incoming pair request,” said the Ecophone.

She leaned back against the railing. “What is it?”

“Unknown caller with a local pair request.”

“Do it.”

Wilson’s voice vibrated between her ears. “Where are you, Kira?”

“Discharge chamber.”

Darius backed up with a puzzled look. “Who are you talking to?”

Badger turned and climbed over the railing. Darius had lowered the pistol to his side while she had contemplated suicide. As he began to raise it Badger grabbed the leash around her neck and spun, lashing him with the sharp wire. Darius screamed and dropped the pistol, his hands over his face.

Badger leaped for the weapon but it bounced off the platform into empty space. She watched it tumble into the pit, one arm over the edge and the rusted diamonds of the mesh floor pressing her cheek.

As she got to her knees something clicked behind her, oily and metallic. Darius held a small silver revolver in his right hand. The other hand covered his left eye.

“You don’t think I’d be that stupid,” he said. “Always one step ahead of you, Kira.”

“Don’t say my name,” she whispered. “Ever again.”

“Oh, no, I can’t promise that. There are too many social gatherings, discussion clubs, and royal drinking circles back at the capital. I’m certain to let your name slip once or twice. The beautiful but savage girl who led an underground campaign of terror against the brave Circle warriors. Undone at the end by her own confidence, she turned away from the outstretched hand of peace and leaped heroically to her death.”

“Killing myself doesn’t fix anything,” said Badger, rubbing her still-numb hands and arms.

Darius sighed. “I suppose not. Everyone has to have a dream, though. Since you ripped apart my life I’ve had one, but it wasn’t to kill you. No, I wanted to destroy everything you cared about and suck away all that’s good. I wanted to take away hope and fill you with so much despair that you’d take your own life.”

“Failed again.”

“It looks that way doesn’t it? I’ll just shoot you with this tiny pistol and kick the body into the pit. Even as I say it the words literally bore me to tears. Are you sure you won’t jump? Please?”

Flakes of black rust floated from Badger’s fingers and into the pit. She raised her chin and stared defiantly at Darius as she spoke.

“When I was a child the most beautiful girl in the village was my cousin. She married the chief’s son but only a few days later he was killed in battle. The next morning she slipped out of the village, past the relatives who guarded her and expected this type of thing, and jumped to her death from a nearby peak.”

“What a touching story. I’ll have to write that down. Someday, when I’m out of this mountain and back in civilization. Now climb over the railing.”

Badger didn’t move. The sparkling beams from her bracelet played over the platform and her face, and alternated with the blue flash of the reactor’s lightning.

Darius aimed the silver revolver at her chest. He stuck out his tongue and licked his lips, then hesitated, as if he wanted to say something else.

“Goodbye,” he said.

A thundering boom split the air of the cavern. Darius looked at the unharmed Badger and his pistol in amazement. Another boom and something buzzed past his face.