The Last World (16 page)

Doug nodded and made a quick note. “Alrighty, I’ll see you in a couple of hours. I don’t see a reason not to let your father get some rest before telling him.”

Franklin nodded his agreement and watched as Doug left him to the quiet solitude of his room. When he was sure no one would be coming in, he turned his attention to Tanok. “I hope you don’t intend for me to stay here any longer.”

Tanok shook his head, his face remained locked in its impassive sadness.
“None at all. Our hope lies elsewhere.”

Right.
At least he was sane enough to know better than to take Tanok so literally.

Chapter 20

“Are you screwing with me on this?” Steve stared at him in complete surprise and his voice rose to its customary high pitch when he became excited.

“Will you keep your voice down!” Zach hissed at him and glanced around them to make sure no one heard them. Since they were alone outside, there wasn’t anything to be worried about, but considering how sensitive Zach felt
, he couldn’t help being paranoid.

Steve nodded
. “Sorry.” After looking back and forth around him as well, he leaned closer. “What does it all mean?”

“What does it mean?” Zach looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “It means we’re dealing with something the government doesn’t want us to have. This could be the next big thing that breaks our technology wide open.”

Steve remained quiet for a moment in thought. “What do we do?”

That was a good question that Zach didn’t have an answer for. By all rights
, they should turn over what they found to the government. It was what loyal citizens should do. But something about this didn’t sit well with him and he wasn’t sure what that was. He’d always thought of the government as the greatest in the world, but if they were keeping secrets like this from the people… Zach shook his head.

“There’s too much at stake for us to do anything with it. If we turn it in
, we’ll be praised and told to forget everything we saw but…“ His voice trailed off, causing Steve to reach across the table and grab his arm to shake him like he was a salt and pepper shaker.

“What? It’s good to hand it over, isn’t it?”

“I always thought so, but now I’m not so sure.” Like most things in life, people never know what they will do until such a moment is upon them. Feeling everything he based his life on beginning to crumble, Zach shook his head. “What if…” It pained him to even think about what he was about to say. “What if this is our government’s and they have no intention of sharing the technology?”

Steve sat back
. “That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it? Then the bad guys wouldn’t have the same technology.”

That thought hadn’t occurred to Zach, but he did weigh it against his. “That’s possible, but what if they’re using it to spy on us?”

Steve almost asked why would they do that, but he remembered seeing something similar to it on television about the government conspiracies over the years. At that moment, his fears and thoughts about the bad guys faded into the background. “They could be watching us right now.”

Zach’s eyes widened
, but he shook his head. “They couldn’t. It’d take up space and would leave a shadow or something.”

“What about a camera?”

Not one to be the conspiracy sort, Zach figured if the government was doing that, then they were already busted and he said as much.

“I’m going to jail? Oh shit!”

Despite it all, Zach wanted to burst out laughing. “No, we’re not going to jail, so calm down. I know where all of the cameras in the facility are and we are
not
in trouble.” Steve wished he believed what he was saying, but what could they do about it? If they were being spied upon, it wouldn’t do them any good to try to run and hide. This was the United States and if they wanted to find you, they would.

Zach shook his head to clear out both his own doubts and those created by Steve. This was hard enough without having an anchor trying to drag him down. “Listen, we’re not terrorists or enemies of the state. We are United States citizens that have come across something peculiar. It’s that simple.” He didn’t add that they owned the salvage rights to it. “If they wanted it or knew about it
, they would’ve come for it already. Have you seen any sign of them? No. You can bet your bottom dollar they wouldn‘t want this kind of technology to fall into the wrong hands.”

Steve stared off into space for a moment while his mind worked over the problem laid out before them. If it wasn’t their government’s and they weren’t looking for it, that meant only one thing. When he looked back to Zach
, he believed they shared the same thought. “We need to turn it over.”

For everything they
expected out of that damn meteorite, this was the last thing Zach imagined. His words to Steve a couple of minutes earlier rang in his mind again. If they handed this over as well-intentioned citizens, they wouldn’t be lauded as heroes but possibly detained as spies, or even terrorists. They’d be asked where they found it and, as much as they’d happily tell their interrogator that fact and how the metal had smooth sides without any edges, it wouldn’t prove it couldn’t have crashed there without more physical evidence.

Zach began to feel sick at the thought of being locked away for twenty years for doing nothing more than what was expected of him.
When did I start to think of this as Russia?
He was being paranoid, and so was Steve. They hadn’t committed a single crime; at worst, the metal would be secreted away and they’d be forbidden to speak of it further. After all of their brainstorming over the previous few minutes, it returned to what they should’ve done in the first place. Zach burst into laughter at the thought and the circle their paranoid brains had taken them on.

So sudden was Zach’s outburst that Steve almost fell off the back of the picnic bench he was sitting on. “What’s wrong with you? Now who’s making a scene?”

Zach tried to stop, but he couldn’t as the absurdity of their entire conversation hit him. And to think, it was all started by his own deluded, paranoid thoughts. No wonder they never let his dumb ass into the military, he would’ve been the Rodney Dangerfield of his unit for sure.

After a minute
, his laughter began to slow enough so he could breathe again, but each breath brought a good deal of pain with them. The old joke “It hurts to laugh” came to mind and he began laughing even harder. If he knew whoever came up with that line, he’d kill him. The pain was pure hell!

For his part, Steve
watched his friend and thought he’d gone insane. There wasn’t any other way he could think of to explain it. He’d seen laughing fits before, he’d been the center of more than a few himself, but this was ridiculous. “Zach. Zach, will you stop, damn it?”

That seemed to take some of Zach’s fire away, at least they both hoped so. When he regained control of himself, Zach wiped away the tears. To his surprise
, the front of his shirt was damp from him crying and the sight threatened to set off another fit of laughter. This time, however, he was ready for it and held the laughter back through the pain it caused until it faded away.

When he calmed down enough so that he was sure he wouldn’t have another recurrence and holding his sides with his left arm
, he nodded toward Steve. “I think that would be a good option, only…” His voice trailed off on purpose, trying to bait Steve’s inquisitive nature.

Steve saved him further trouble by taking the offered suggestion without a second thought. “What? Zach, we need to turn it over.”

Zach nodded, then let his eyes fall to the table while he played with a hole in the metallic woven table top as a plan began to form in his mind. “Of course, we do. I’m just thinking about the metal. I’ve worked with some of the most advanced materials on this planet and I’ve never seen anything like it.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Steve began to think along the same lines.

“True.”

“It’s completely smooth, not an edge to it, and it refracts light. By all accounts, it’s an impossibility on this world.”

Steve’s eyes lit up as he caught onto Zach’s thought. “Yeah, it did come from a meteor. I saw it.”

Zach nodded. “It could help us advance to a whole new level of understanding metallurgy.” Steve nodded and Zach continued, “Of course, once our government has it, they’ll lock it away in a vault somewhere and claim to have invented it twenty years from now. That’s after we’re sworn to secrecy about where we found it. If we even act like we know, they’ll lock us away for twenty years at least.”

His last statement gave Steve a reason to rethink what he wanted to do. After a moment
, he looked at Zach. “Would they really do that?”

Zach shrugged
. “I was never one for conspiracy theories, but ever hear of Roswell?” Steve nodded and from the look on his face, Zach knew he had him on his side. Add in what he wanted to show him before they left for the night, and the kid would probably worship him for life. “Tell you what, think about what I said. If, by the time I drop you off tonight, you think we should hand it over, we’ll do it. Although, it’d be tough to give up the fame and fortune we’d have once the press learns about the metal. Hell, they’ll probably name it after us.”

Steve’s face lit up. “Really? You think so?”

Zach had him for sure and shrugged. “Yep, we’ll go down in history.”

Steve’s back straightened. “My nigga!”

The smile froze on Zach’s face.
Christ one of those. I sure know how to pick em.
“Don’t ever call me that again, alright?”

Steve swallowed, realizing what he said
, and apologized with a sheepish look on his face. Maybe Horace was right about the term. It was just so easy to use.

Zach smiled at him, he knew he hadn’t meant anything by it. “Eat up
, buddy, we got a busy day ahead of us.”

Steve smiled, glad he wasn’t going to have anything held against him for what he said
, and unwrapped his sandwich from the vending machine. Egg salad. Not one of his favorites, but if Zach was right, he wouldn’t have to eat things he didn’t like for much longer. He’d even be able to move out on his own and make his father eat his lectures by the fistful.

Steve took a big bite from his sandwich and gazed into the afternoon sky. It was a beautiful day with plenty of sun, only a few clouds overhead, and a slight breeze to cool
one off. It sucked days like those didn’t last forever, especially during fall and with winter right around the corner. Even the trees seemed not to want to lose this weather, for their leaves hadn’t begun to change color yet except for a handful of trees. He’d take the sixty degree days and forty degree nights over any other time of the year.

*****

Yes, the day was perfect and Janice was taking full advantage of it, along with Buster. In another four days, her boss would be back from vacation and she’d be cooped up in the office instead of outside on a day like this, so she intended to fully enjoy herself while she could. Among the many little things the puppy loved, going for walks was one of them. More so, he liked those involving the college campus that was only a couple of streets away from home. College kids were notorious for dropping things such as candy bars, candy bar wrappers, and even the occasional partially eaten bag of chips. To be in college one would think a person needed a brain, and indeed they did, but it seemed they didn’t have common sense or anything else attached to their intelligence. While not being one to judge, he was only a puppy after all, Buster understood they were the most likely to miss the trash cans or to just leave their goodies out for anyone to help themselves.

It was something Buster learned on one of his first walks with Janice and whenever he got the opportunity
, he’d do his best to grab a quick snack before his mommy had the chance to take it away or, worse yet, to pull him away. The latter was the most grueling and infuriating part of the walk. To be so close that he could almost taste the people-y goodness only to be yanked away without the smallest taste was absolute horror.

To combat having to deal with Buster’s growing appetite, size, and strength
—not necessarily in that order—Janice tried to avoid the commons as much as possible. Doing so helped but with trash cans scattered across the large grounds, it also proved difficult to keep her little boy in check. At least she had some help this time in the form of another pair of students that were also walking their dogs. In his own way, Buster helped her to his own detriment. By wanting to stop, meet, and play with the other dogs, he gave her the break Janice needed from pulling him away from the trash to talk to the other pet owners. Two of the three they stopped to chat with were women that were taking advanced courses in preparation for medical school, and the third was a young man pursuing a career as a paralegal.

After talking
to them for several minutes, she got the two women’s numbers to give to her dad for potential internships and wished the young man good luck. She considered herself rather generous after he asked her out following her informing him she had a boyfriend. The look on his face when she told him who Horace was proved to be enough payment for tolerating his advances. Horace had a reputation around campus that she never heard before. It made her sorry she graduated the previous spring; it would’ve been an interesting walk across the school grounds arm in arm with “The Hammer”.

While Janice was having all sorts of fun and Buster was roaming somewhat free, Horace was in his economics class learning about some of the finer points of the stock market and hoping he’d be able to land an internship somewhere. Up until then, the only place remotely interested was the First National Bank of Tarken Heights. When he set his sights on economics, Horace envisioned something grander than the local bank
, but after the first six months they would decide whether or not they’d want to keep him on full time. It was about the same he made as a member of the groundskeeper crew, but the hours were better and more stable. He was scheduled to graduate in the coming May, so the timing would be perfect for him. The only issue being, if Horace left his current position, he’d have to pay the full cost of going to school. If he stayed, he could lose the opportunity.