Joe stares at me. This is my fourth drink. I usually order three. “Things rough for your Mama, kid?” He always calls me kid and I always call him Pop.
“Yeah, Pop. She’s going fast. I’m scheduled for another Jump tomorrow and I don’t know if she’ll be here when I get back.”
“Christ sake kid, you Jumping tomorrow and drinking like a fish? If I known, I wouldn’t a give you that last drink. I don’t want the SYSTEM down on me cause one of they Jumpers get sick. Gimme that,” he says with that street slang crack-wide smile of his and pulls the whiskey away from me. I lunge for it, but he’s faster and he pours it down the sink. “What you thinking? Huh?”
I shrug. “Don’t yell at me. Listen, Pop, I hate my job. When I get home all I hear is my Ma crying because she hurts so bad. If I give her the pills she wants, they’ll lock me up because you know she’ll take them all. If I don’t, she hurts.”
Joe leans across the counter. He takes my chin in his hand and gently bops my nose. “Lisa, you a good girl. Your mama, she understands. Her hurting ain’t against you. The pain, it eating away her body. She die soon and be out of it. Don’ louse up you life just to speed up what come naturally.”
“I want a drink, Pop.”
“Nah.” He presses a card in my hand. “Go play a game. Good VR shoot-em-ups over in the corner. Take out your stress.”
“I don’t feel like hooking myself up to another electronic monster.”
Gaming is too much like Jumping. I drop the card on the counter and wander over to the tables where they’re playing penny-card poker and dimesy-craps. Nobody has much spare change. The poor are very, very poor and the rich...they live out in the country. I’m one of the few left in the middle class. But the real money in Jumping will come when I pension-out. Then I’ll move to a tropical island and sleep on the beach.
Meanwhile, I toy with wagering, but before I can make up my mind, I hear a soft voice behind me. I turn around and there is a beautiful, (I mean, exquisite) woman. She has hair so black it makes me shiver. Coiling down her back in long, long ringlets, it ends right above her thighs. She’s ethereal and earthy, round and graceful in a way I could never be. Her eyes draw me in. They’re the brown of the soil, the brown of reality.
“You’re a Jumper, aren’t you?” Her words hang breathless in my ear.
I wonder how she knows, then I realize that the implants on my head are visible. My own hair had to go when I joined Algor. I nod. “Yes, I’ve been in almost a year.” I realize that I’m responding to her. I want to sleep with her. I want to feel her cream-colored skin under my wandering fingers.
She leans closer. Her breath tickles me, butterflies fluttering near my ear. “Tell me about the stars, Jumper woman. Come back to my place and tell me what it’s like to walk through the universe.”
We spend three hours in bed before I realize that I have to get home. I have to get up early, and the nurse will be waiting for me. I kiss Patrice on the eyes, the lips, the breasts, the stomach...I pull myself away and head for the door. She sits up, covered only by a thin sheet. “You will be back, won’t you? I don’t want you to walk out on me.” I realize she means it.
“I’ll be back,” I say, and realize I mean it.
I am almost home when a man leaps out from behind a blue Ford and starts beating on me. He hits my head against the side of a brick building and I can feel a sheen of blood dripping down my cheek. “Money, if you got any you’d better give it over.”
Dazed, I point to my pockets and he rips them open and a splatter of coins falls to the ground.
“That all you got?” I nod.
He doesn’t believe me because the next thing I know, he has smacked me against the wall again. I’m going to die. I know it. His fingers close over my hand and something breaks, then a snap echoes in my wrist where he’s got hold of me and I step out of my body.
I’ve heard other Jumpers talk about it. Once you’ve been plugged into the SYSTEM for awhile, whenever pain gets real bad or sometimes just for no reason at all, you’ll spontaneously slip out. It seems that once you trigger the brain enough, it can do it on its own.
Anyway, I am floating in a white fog and musing on whether I’m already dead and then it hits me that perhaps the SYSTEM has proved that there’s some sort of an afterlife when a jolt knocks me sideways and I’m back in my body and hurting bad.
Patrice is bending over the prone body of my attacker. He’s dead, that much is obvious. She silently helps me up and we get out of the area before the cops come. She takes me back to her place and cleans me up and then she takes me to a hospital. I don’t ask how she knew I needed help. I don’t ask what she did to the man. I don’t want to know. I do call the nurse to tell her I’ll be late and she says my mother died less than an hour before. That night, I move in with Patrice.
The Rift scintillates and I snap out of my fugue. A presence draws near. I’ve never felt anything like it before. I look around, hoping it’s Jorge but it isn’t and I stumble back, (it is possible to stumble over your own thoughts—this I have proved many times). There, peering over the edge of the Rift, is the gaseous form from which the life force emanates. And it’s hungry.
I spin and head out into open space. If I can get far enough away, fast enough, I can trigger the emergency code that will translate through the SYSTEM and warn them to get me the hell away from here.
The creature, or whatever it is, follows. I have never seen anything quite so beautiful. It is brilliant and vibrant and shimmering and part of the Rift itself. It drifts closer, like some ethereal cloud, but before it can reach me, the SYSTEM’s code kicks in and I am suddenly snapped back, like when you stretch out a rubber-band until it almost breaks and then you let go. The jolt as I hit back into my body hurts.
I have been out for seven hours. Margaret quietly unlocks the restraints. She puts me through a battery of tests but I don’t want to take them. I want to talk about the creature.
“Listen, that thing ate Jorge’s mind. I know it. Why are you wasting time examining me when you should be talking to OpCom and deciding what to do about the Rift Zone? If you want my opinion, it should be scrapped. Way too dangerous.”
She nods quietly. “OpCom has already been informed.” There’s something she’s not telling me.
I push away the fourth needle she’s poked me with in the last hour. “No more blood, no more EEG’s, no more anything until you tell me what you’re hiding. You know more about this than you’re letting on.”
Margaret’s lips twist and I can tell she’s deciding whether or not to confide in me. And then I know. At least, I know part of it.
“You knew,” I whisper. “You knew that thing was out there and yet you sent me out anyway. I could have been killed—”
“Shut up.” She locks the door and makes sure the intercom and recorder are silent. “All right, we knew. We’ve known about the creature for seven months. It didn’t eat Jorge’s mind, or any of the rest of them, for your information. They all walked. I’m telling you the truth,” she adds when I stare at her.
“How many Jumpers did you lose after you knew about it?” I want answers.
“Only two. Yin Lee and Jorge.”
“Why did you send me out there?”
She sighs, then drops into a nearby chair. She looks exhausted. “You don’t want to know.”
I slide off the table. I’ve never been a violent person but now a rage so white, so hot filters through my fingers and before I know what’s happened, I find her throat in my hand. I slam her against the wall. I’m stronger than she is.
“Are you going to tell me the truth, bitch?”
Margaret gurgles and nods. She knows I’ve got her. She rubs her neck where finger-marks bruise the pale skin. “You win, but I guarantee you, you aren’t going to like it. And if you ever try that again, I’ll kill you. I’m wired with Methoclide, and I’m immune. One whiff and you’re dead. Do you understand?”
I back up now, horrified by what I just did.
“Yeah.” I’ve never hurt anybody in my life.
Margaret motions for me to hop back on the table. “We’ve been trying new drugs that affect the brain. We were hoping that one of them would give you control over the creature. Can you imagine what a weapon something like that would mean to the government if we could control it? The creature could seduce an army into laying down their weapons.”
“Telepathic war,” I whisper.
“Psionic control,” she counters.
It’s too quiet as I think about what she said. Finally, I gather my courage. “It doesn’t look like your drugs are working. So what side effects can I expect?”
“Up until now, they’ve produced only mild side effects, within acceptable limits.”
“I’d like to know who decides what those limits are.”
Margaret gives me a bitter grin. “I’m violating the rules even telling you this. But I like you, Lisa. And I like Patrice. I don’t want to see anything happen to either one of you.”
“I don’t understand.”
She clears her throat. “You just saw one of the side effects. Today, after you Jumped, I injected you with a new formula, one that was supposed to give you the strength to take over that creature. It’s the same formula I gave to Jorge the last two times he Jumped. In between, he managed to beat up his wife so bad that she needed seventy stitches to repair her face. He also killed the neighbor’s dog for barking too loud. This is a man who has never been violent in his life. As soon as the seizure stopped, he was back to normal. When he realized what he’d done, he walked out.”
I stare at her blankly. “Did he know it was the drug that pushed him over the line?”
She shakes her head. “No. I wasn’t allowed to tell any of you. The drug is a neural-aggressor. It permanently affects the brain. We haven’t been able to develop a counter for it. Yet. We’re trying our best.”
“And that’s what you gave me this morning?”
Margaret lowers her gaze. She cannot look me directly in the face. “I was under orders to try it again. There will be more tests on more Jumpers...we can’t discount the possibility that it takes time to build up in the system.”
I do not know what to say. This goes beyond mere words. Finally I look at her helplessly and ask, “What should I do?”
“Watch your temper. If it starts getting too bad, send Patrice away for awhile. As I said, we’re working on a counter to it.”
“How lovely of you.” The sarcasm drips from my tongue.
“I’m just doing my job.”
“Isn’t that what the SS soldiers said?”
When she winces, I smile. I want my words to hurt her.
Two weeks later I’m back in the chair. A long scratch trails down my left cheek.
Margaret fingers it gently. “Patrice?”
I close my eyes against her touch and Patrice’s face flashes before my eyes. Beautiful emerald eyes surrounded by black bruises, faint purple streak down the cheek where my knuckles caressed her soft skin. Stood with the razor over my wrists for an hour after that until she came in and took it out of my hands. I told her what they did to me. Next morning she packed. I watched her go in silence.
“She’s staying in New York with a friend for awhile.” I don’t tell her that I told Patrice what they did to me. They’d hunt her down and silence her.
“You’re bitter.” Margaret scribbles a note down on her pad.
“Bitter? What makes you think I’m bitter?” An acrid taste sizzles in my mouth. “No shit, I’m bitter.” I’m antsy, I want whiskey...I want to go to Joe’s and drink until I pass out. But they’d find me. The SYSTEM doesn’t let go of Jumpers that easily. “Christ, I had one year left, Margaret. Why me?”
Margaret shrugs. She’s resumed her doctor-patient stance and whatever friendship we had is gone. She looks at me clinically and smiles. I want to wipe that fucking grin off her face but I remember what she said about the Methoclide.
“You’re one of our best. Every year of experience gives you a better chance to control the drugs. You’re heading towards fifth year.”
I see a syringe on her tray. Long needle with a very sharp tip, and there is one drop of fluid leaking out the end. “My insurance is up-to-date, isn’t it?”
She nods then the mask slides away and she grabs my hands in hers. “Don’t walk. Please don’t walk out. We can’t afford to lose another Jumper.”
“Why is it so important to control that creature?” I squeeze her hand so hard that she winces, but she doesn’t pull away. I hear a snap. Her index finger starts to swell.
Margaret is shaking now. I don’t know whether it’s from the pain or the fear that I’ll walk. I don’t really care.
“Lisa, we know that one of those creatures followed a Jumper back from the Rift Zone. They can travel through the Rift—we were right about it being a shortcut. Now, it’s out there, waiting. We don’t know what we’re up against and we need a defense.”
“But because of its nature, we have no way to fight it.”
She nods. “Exactly. None of our weapons have done any good. The military is breathing down Algor’s neck. I’m begging you, please don’t walk. You owe Algor your allegiance. In less than nine months, you’ll be free.”
Free...and violent. Without Patrice. “Answer me one question. You said it didn’t swallow up any of the Jumpers?”
“We’re pretty sure that they all walked willingly. Williams initially came back from the Rift and told us about it...told us how seductive the energy was. The second time we sent him out, he didn’t return. And Jorge, poor Jorge resisted the first time. But when he beat up Maria it pushed him over the line. He walked after that.”
“Plug me in.”
She gives me this helpless look but hooks me up.
the jump and the chasm is growing I try to remember try to decide what to do but the dance of pure thought is too lovely
And then I come back to my mind and I see the Rift Zone up ahead. The creature is there. It sings its siren song and I want to lose myself in that oceanic beauty but then I remember Patrice...the welt on her jaw, the bruise under her eye...the cold fear in her face when I pounded into her. I can’t walk out on her. She saved my life once. I owe her one.
The rage wells inside. It’s white hot, the color of the stars.
Minor deaths, they call these Jumps.
Minor deaths.
The rage wells inside. I turn to face the creature.
Willowborn
Born out of nowhere, the Devil’s Wind was, and it rustled through town, scouring back yards, and into the sewers where it frightened the rats and sent them into the streets. It shimmied through the water system and rattled the pipes so loud during the night that when Bethany Ann woke up to get a glass of water, the wind poured right out of the faucet and through her house. The noise sent her flying into her parents’ room, where she woke them out of their dreams. They followed her into the kitchen to listen to the roaring, rushing force set free from the taps.
Bethany Ann and her folks sat up all night listening to the wind. It pounded the walls and shook the glasses in the pecan china hutch, and great-grandma’s rocker squeaked back and forth in the corner, even though no one had sat in it for twenty years. Come early dawn, two steps before morning and a hop after midnight, the Devil’s Wind gathered for one final push. It raged from one side of the town to the other, sweeping through locked doors, oozing under windows, a wall of wind that left broken glass and popped eardrums in its wake...and then—
It was gone.
People edged out onto their porches and extended their arms in the now-still air, trying to figure out what had happened but the silence weighed heavy. The Devil’s Wind had brought a hunter to town—a shadow panther racing through the village.
Mary saw it first and hid behind her mother’s knees. But the panther passed by her house. Next came Timothy’s house, but it passed by him too and he was safe. And Heather, and on and on the shadow went, hunting for its prey. A
s it streaked by their homes, the inhabitants of Painter’s Peak breathed a sigh of relief, not even understanding why they felt like they’d just escaped some sort of tragedy.
But then, the panther came to Bethany Ann’s house.
The shadow cat climbed the steps, a silhouette against the approaching dawn, and with its front claws, scratched a deep mark on her door. Then, turning tail, it leapt off the porch and vanished. The town returned to bed and Bethany Ann dreamed of the wind and what it might be whispering to her.
Over the top of Painter’s Peak, the sun was rising. Dew still lingered, beading on the grass, as the sky glittered an amber-tinged blue that stretched a hundred miles beyond the mountain village.
Things got back to normal after that. A group of men rode out towards Bucola in Sammy D’s pickup truck to see if the folks had noticed anything strange there, but the police laughed them out of town and said the whole damn village of Painter’s Peak must have been stone drunk the night before. So the men returned with newspapers from all around and they pored through them, front to back, but there was no mention of the Devil’s Wind.
A few days later, Bethany Ann was sitting on her porch when Joseph ran over and grabbed her by the arm. He hustled her around back, excited and out of breath. As he flopped on the grass and she joined him, the breeze picked up her scent. She smelled like wildflowers and honey.
“What do you want, Joey?” She smiled, her eyes twinkling.
“I told you, my name is Joseph.” Suddenly shy, he stared at his feet. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. He was fourteen now, but Bethany Ann still treated him like he was ten. At first he hadn’t cared, but somewhere, over the summer, Bethany Ann’s opinion had begun to matter.