FutureImperfect (8 page)

He felt a twinge, a strange fear, as the leaves pulsed green with life, then one by one turned brown and fell. At the same moment, the leaves grew smaller, receding into their stems, which flushed from brown to green, then wavered and shrank back into the soil.

What's happening?

He raised his hand to rub his head but felt his fingers still on his lap. He turned but saw his body remain behind. His head didn't hurt anymore. He'd left the pain behind. He wasn't in his body anymore. After knocking over two mugs of pens, scratching a BMW, and ripping his jacket, he saw himself tumble forward from the bench. Just another accident.

But there was nothing he could do about it.

The funny little fear grew. He felt himself pushed forward, as if he were being yanked up the highest hill on a roller coaster. For a moment, Tippicks paused on vertigo's brink, then plunged. Or rather, the world plunged around him, melting into a swirl of hypersaturated colors. Everything—Harry Keller, the plant, the walls, the interns, the tables, the great steel net above them—spread out into elongated trails.

In a flash, Emeril Tippicks stood atop those trails, watching impossible one-eyed beasts root about the land, while flat mandala patterns flitted about, weightless in a rainbow-colored sky. The world he knew had vanished, and with it the ancient doubts that had pressed upon his mind.

Whatever else he was, Jeffrey Tippicks was not
just
insane.

A solid tone filled his ears. Was it Keller's voice, still droning on, tethering him here? He turned about, trying to find the source, finally locating it on a small hill formed by thick trails that were intertwined like a giant's folded fingers. There was something in the air above them, a brightness, a light.

Was it Keller? Was he entering this A-Time, too, despite the drugs? No. Whatever it was, it glowed brighter and brighter, heating his skin in a comfortable, familiar way.

He took a few hesitant steps across the strange ground, trying to get closer, to see the light more clearly. And when he did, he gasped and said, “Dad?”

“Help!”
Harry cried. “I think he's having a heart attack!”

Like a sack of wet leaves, Tippicks's body tumbled forward. He looked like he was going to hit his head on the floor, hard. Unable to move his arms, Harry stuck his legs out to catch him. Tippicks's forehead hit Harry's shin and his chest slumped, his full weight falling on Harry's wobbly calves.

“Help!”

Harry knew what had happened. Tippicks had gone timeless alone. He prayed the guidance counselor would be all right. He had to be.

The two interns, cell phones in hand, raced toward them. They lifted Tippicks from Harry's legs and settled him on his back on the ground. He looked dead, but Harry realized this might be his one chance to escape. Even if Mr. Tippicks believed him, he'd never be able to get Harry out of Windfree so he could save Siara. The best the teacher could probably manage was to get himself fired.

As the interns bent over Tippicks's prone form, Harry bolted for the door. There were confused shouts behind him. Jesus and his friend didn't know who to deal with first, Tippicks or Harry. While they mulled it over, Harry put as much distance between himself and them as he could.

The drugs knocked him for a loop, but he was moving pretty fast for a guy in a straitjacket. Since his encounter with the Fool, nothing seemed to change his mental state much. He even had a brief A-Time flash of Jesus being fired for losing Harry twice. As it turned out, he soon got a better job at an alternative bookstore. After all, you can't keep Jesus down.

As he hit the door, Harry twisted sideways, praying they hadn't locked it. It opened, spilling him into the hall. He ran down the corridor, making turns as if he knew where he was going, a left, two rights, and into a stairwell. It was as if there was a voice in his head, whispering,
No, this way, not that way! Good! Faster! You're almost there!

And there was. It was like the voice of the Quirk-shard, only louder, and decidedly more helpful. Was it the Fool? Harry hadn't told Tippicks about the Fool, because he figured the whole giant-clown thing was just
too
weird. Whatever it was, it took him to the base of the stairs and through an emergency door, all without anyone spotting him.

An alarm shrieked as a blast of cold air hit him. He was facing a tall fence, eight feet at least, topped by barbed wire. Beyond that was a small forest of pines.

Go left!

He did, leaning against the chain-link for balance. The shrill alarm pierced his ears. After rounding a corner of the building, he spotted a section of fence that had been crushed by a fallen tree.

There!

He raced to the gap and nearly cut his face on the dangling coils of fallen barbed wire as he made his way to the other side. Another alarm went off closer, louder, angrier. He heard doors open. The field of tall, thin pines opened up in front of him. Maybe if he made it to the woods, he could find a place to hide.

Wait!

Wait? Wait for what?

Look!

Where?

A pink clown balloon, its string caught in the barbed wire, dangled in the air. A soft wind turned the face, the face of the Fool, toward him. Harry started, expecting the figure to speak, but instead, it graced the razor edge of the coil and popped.

Oh
, he realized.

He turned and pushed the thick cloth of the straitjacket into the barbed wire, moving up and down. The thick cloth of one of the arms of the jacket caught and tore, exposing his flesh. It was the first time air had touched his arm for many, many hours, and the sensation made him shiver. He jammed the torn cloth against the barbed wire and pulled. This time, he managed to extend the rip all the way down his arm, scratching himself badly in the process.

Now, go!

Shredded cloth dangling down his side, he raced for the trees, snapping his hand out from the torn jacket as he moved. With one bare arm free he wasn't afraid of falling anymore, so he ran even faster. It wasn't like running in A-Time, where his breath never seemed to give out. Here the cold air hit his lungs hard, making it hard to breathe very deeply, and he hadn't eaten since he'd been in Windfree. He pushed his weakened body as hard as he could, but after a few minutes his legs went rubbery, and he wondered how long he had before he collapsed.

Already slowing, he came to a concrete drainage ditch, some sort of runoff, which he followed to a small tunnel of corrugated metal. A stream of water flowed in it, carrying bits of silt, twigs, and leaves. Harry knelt, crawled into the tunnel, and sat in the shallow stream. A final surge of energy, its source unknown, hit him, so he twisted, writhed, and tore at what was left of the straitjacket. Ten minutes later, he was out of it completely.

Shaking but satisfied, he lay back in the cool water, letting his arms dangle freely in the air. He rubbed his palms with his thumb, wriggled his fingers, scratched his scalp, and let the little stream roll over his shoulders and down his chest.

And Harry Keller exhaled and closed his eyes.

Alarms and sirens droned in the distance. He didn't hear any footsteps or rustling brush, no hint of danger, just the gurgling water as it flowed around him. He turned his head to look out the far side of the tunnel. Through the twisty curve of the metal's end he caught a glimpse of the nearby town of Billingham.

The horizon was a quiet one, with a ten-story building in the center, but nothing taller. If they didn't catch him, he could sneak into town, snag himself a shirt somewhere, and try to get on a bus back to the city.

But for right now, though the water was sharp and bracing, he had to rest. He closed his eyes, lowered his head and let the shallow coolness slosh around his ears. Then he passed into a long and dreamless sleep.

 

Thump! Thump!

Something hit Harry Keller's forehead. It wasn't hard, it wasn't heavy.

Thump! Thump!

It was hollow, rubbery.

Thump!

Like a balloon?

He opened his eyes, uncertain whether he was awake. The clown balloon was in the tunnel with him, floating over his head, thudding against him. It looked lifeless, like a printed illustration, but these days Harry was perfectly comfortable talking to inanimate objects.

“Did you…did you get me out of there?”

The picture of the clown smiled.

“Thanks,” Harry said. He shuffled to a seated position, icy water running down his back. His pants were soaked. He was shivering. He had a dull headache, but the numbness was missing. At least the cold bath seemed to have shaken some of the effects of the drugs out of him.

Harry looked out at the town. “I've got to stop whatever Jeremy's planning,” he said to the balloon.

But the clown shook its head. “There's one thing you have to take care of first.”

“What's that?”

The printed hand of the clown unfolded itself off the balloon. It swelled to human size and jutted a white-gloved index finger toward Harry's abdomen.

“That,” the Fool said.

“What? You mean the Quirk-sha-ahhhhh!”

As the tip of the finger touched Harry's skin, he felt the shard writhe inside him. Strange, it was usually only in A-time that he felt the thing as a wound. In linear time, the shard manifested as that suicide voice in his head. He sure felt it as a wound now, though, twisting and turning in his cold skin like a piece of molten metal.

The bastard is changing the rules again!

Harry stumbled back, away from the finger, into the water. As he did, a red welt rose on his skin, right where the Quirk's claw had stabbed him. The white finger came forward again. Harry saw his skin sizzle as it touched the mark, and it didn't stop there. It kept pressing, harder and harder, until it went beneath the skin, probing into his gut, deeper and deeper, until finally, it seem to Harry that it touched the shard itself.

As a hot pain seared through his abdomen and into his brain, Harry could think only one thing:
It's going to pull it out! It's going to save me!

But that's not what happened. Reaching the tip of the Quirk's buried claw, the finger didn't grab; it pushed.

The Fool didn't remove the shard. It pushed it further in.

“Ungh!” Harry cried.

Propelled by the white finger, the claw dug deeper into his gut, until it touched the tip of what Harry imagined was his spine.

Everything went black for a moment, then Harry bolted into a seated position, water dripping from his hair onto his shoulders. He looked at the far-off building, saw how high the sun was in the sky. What was it, late morning now? How long would it take him to get to Billingham?

The Fool had helped him. It had helped him indeed. There would be no more ambivalence. He would walk, he would run, he would get to where he needed to be, because now, at long last, Harry Keller knew exactly who he was and what he had to do.

He was a fool, a loser. And what he had to do was walk through the woods, go into town, find the nearest tall building, get to the top…

…and jump off.

So Harry Keller sloshed to his feet, left the tunnel, and started walking. A pink clown balloon followed, all on its own, as if it were a small dog nipping at his heels.

Once Siara stopped thanking Jeremy, the long drive grew quiet. She wanted to ask why he'd changed his mind, why he was doing her this ridiculously wonderful favor, but she was afraid that if she questioned it, it would vanish like a dream. So while he started playing his music, mostly house stuff, gangster rap, and a stray folk song or two, she made idle chat, only really brightening when she saw the white-and-green highway sign indicating they were three miles from Windfree/Billingham.

It was still morning. She could spend a few hours with Harry and be back in time for the demo easily. Things seemed to be going perfectly, until the sudden slowing of the car brought her attention back to Jeremy.

“Why are you stopping?”

“So I don't ram into all the cars in the traffic jam,” he said, nodding toward his windshield.

She looked out as the car came to a halt behind a pickup truck. She could see the distant exit on the road ahead, but the cars were backed up for miles in both lanes. Sparse, bare trees lined the highway, but between them she caught a glimpse of police cars and an ambulance as they careened along the main road. A sudden
whoosh
made her cover her ears. Something low and loud passed directly over them, causing the entire car to vibrate.

Jeremy looked up as a shadow passed across the glass. “That's a police helicopter. Something big's going on.”

A sinking feeling in Siara's heart told her that whatever it was, Harry was probably at the center of it.

“We'll never get there,” she said.

Jeremy flicked on the radio and adjusted the tuner. “There must be a local news station….”

A male voice came through the speakers. Courtesy of Jeremy's sound system it sounded full, lush, more real than any voice that Siara had ever heard.

“…again, it is not known how he escaped, but apparently the patient has reached the roof of the Valis building and is threatening to jump off. The name is being withheld until family…”

Harry
, Siara thought.

“Harry!” Siara screamed.

She knew about the Quirk-shard, but couldn't explain it to Jeremy. “He's tried to kill himself before!”

The town was just a few miles off. She reached for the door handle, planning to run the whole way. But Jeremy's strong hand grabbed her wrist. His grip was cold, like a vise, and there was no crowbar handy this time.

“Jeremy, let me go! Now!”

He smiled. “No, wait. Stay.”

“I can't. I've got to go find—”

His smile grew wider. “I know, I know. But this is a Humvee.”

Before she could respond, he veered the huge car off the road. Soon they were racing past the trees, along farmland, past the traffic, toward the buildings. All the jostling nearly threw her from her seat.

“Are you crazy? They'll arrest us!” Siara shouted, but she had to admit she was excited by the ride.

“Don't think so. They seem busy with whatever else is going on,” he answered, twisting his lips in a smug, boyish smile.

As the Humvee bounced up and down a few grassy hills and exploded onto a single-lane road, she realized it was true. The police cars and ambulances were all headed toward Billingham at top speed, straight toward the tallest thing visible, the ten-story structure she imagined must be the Valis building. Even from here she could make out the huge clock built into its center.

Hang on, Harry!
she thought.
We're coming!

 

Harry Keller was surprised at all the attention. Shirtless and wet, feet covered in the strange little sacks that passed for shoes at Windfree, he'd attracted a small crowd as he walked through the town. A police officer, some security guards, and even several pedestrians seemed to want to stop him, to help him, but every move they made was countered by a wild—one would think impossible—series of coincidences. Oranges flew from people's hands to trip them; cars lurched onto the sidewalk to cut them off.

Even more people began following him as he entered the town's prize centerpiece, the Valis building, and headed for the stairs, but their efforts were similarly thwarted.

Harry was touched. It was nice to know people cared so much about a stranger. But he also knew it was hopeless. The Quirk-shard was in total control of his steps, and the Fool was clearing the path.

And you really can't mess with a god.

Up the stairs, doors mysteriously locked behind him. Sprinklers went off. Alarms misfired, distracting anyone else who might have followed. By the time he reached the observation deck above the tower clock, he was alone.

Out on the street it had been cold. Up here it was freezing. Through the thin cloth on his feet, he soles felt numb, almost frostbitten. He felt a sick relief that soon it would be all over, that he wouldn't feel cold again, or anything else. He marched to the low wall that surrounded the deck and stepped up.

Standing there, on the brink, he felt the world as a rumbling rush above, below, and around him. Police cars screeched to a halt in the distant street. A nice ambulance was parked right in front of the building by a fire hydrant. All sorts of people in all sorts of uniforms rushed into the building. Even the doors to the observation deck flew open behind him.

“Don't do it!” a policeman screamed. He was an older man, white haired but fit, his face filled with genuine concern.

Ignore him!
a voice inside him said.
Don't fear death, Harry! It'll be just like it was before you were born. And nothing hurt then, either, did it?

The Quirk-shard made sense in a way, only there was one problem. Harry didn't really want to know what he felt like before he was born. Much as things had hurt, much as things had been frustrating, literally to the point of madness, he was still fond of living, still fond of the present. Besides which, Siara was out there somewhere, in the clutches of a major psycho, and Harry was the only one who knew.

Well, Mr. Tippicks knew, too, now, but who knew when he'd be back?

The clown balloon, having followed loyally all this time, rolled up the side of his leg and floated up in front of him. Harry wondered if anyone else could see it.

“It's okay, Harry,” the clown on the balloon said. “You can jump.”

Harry raised a single eyebrow, the way he'd seen Siara do a hundred times. It was the first time he'd ever managed it himself. “Easy for you to say. Balloons float.”

The clown chuckled. “True, but you can float, too. Really. You just have to admit things don't make sense. Make the leap of faith your father never could and you'll fly! Points of entry are arbitrary. Let reason go, pick a partner, and dance.”

It sounded good, so Harry raised a foot.

“Please!” the white-haired cop said. “Don't do it. The negotiator will be here in just a second and she'll know just what to say. Just wait a little while…please!”

No! We've waited so long! Just jump!

Tough choice. Who to believe?

Harry looked out at the world, at the tops of the buildings, the little people down below, connected by so many things, disconnected by so few. Subject to disease and war, one hand reaching for the stars, the other slinking back to the darkest cave. And all this time, he'd thought it had somehow all made sense, that he could figure it out.

But he was wrong.

“When you're right, you're right,” he said to himself, to the Fool. “It doesn't make any sense. Not one bit.”

He turned to look at the cop. “I'm really sorry about this,” he said.

The cop lunged forward to grab him, but Harry smiled, shrugged, and let the Quirk-shard move his feet over the ledge.

Briefly, Harry felt weightless, just like he had so many years ago, trapped in his father's arms at the top of an amusement-park ride. There'd be no parachute this time, though. His stomach lurched. Everything spun. He was expecting to fly, but the Fool had lied. He wasn't flying. He was falling. It would all be over in seconds.

Thanks so, so much!
the Quirk-shard said.

“Don't mention it,” Harry answered, falling faster and faster.

Until he stopped.

Ow!

Ow? Ow? Just ow? Shouldn't I be squished or something?

Nope. He seemed to be floating. No parachute had opened above him, but the sidewalk loomed far below him and came no closer. He noticed a terrible pain in his crotch. Something hard and metal had caught the back of his pants and given him a humongous wedgie. A loud, hollow tick registered in his ears. He twisted to see the source.

The clock. His pants had somehow snagged on the minute hand of the tower clock. He was dangling from its center.

No! Not fair!
the Quirk-shard whined.

The balloon floated up to his face and
thupped
him on the nose.

“Ha! Fooled you!” the Fool said.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Good one.”

“So how you doing?”

Harry stared at it. “My gods are hallucinations, my faith insanity. You?”

The Fool shrugged. “Not so bad, really.”

Harry's pants started to rip some more.

“This is only a reprieve, you know. Believe me, I've given you every possible chance. Think you can do it this time?”

“Uh…no. I'd really have to know what it is I'm supposed to do to do it.”

Yay!
the Quirk-shard thought.

The Fool shook its head. “Dummy. The rule of the Quirk is that you have to fall, right? But rules are meant to be bent. They're only masks, like everything else. See if you can figure out the rest.”

The balloon
thupped
Harry one last time on the nose. The clown image smiled widely and vanished bit by bit, until only the twinkle in its eyes remained. Then that floated off among the clouds.

“Can I have another hint?” Harry called after it. It didn't answer. Nothing answered, save for the slight tearing sound as the thin cloth of his pants continued to give.

He felt the Quirk-shard in him, thrilled beyond belief, begging him to shred the last few inches of fabric himself and be done with it. He heard the giant clock behind him, droning out his last few seconds,
tick, tick, tick
, like Siara's poem about Sisyphus.

He looked again at the small city, the clouds, the sky, the buildings. Down below, the little people moved out in trails, ahead to their futures, back to their pasts. He even saw his own trail roll out in front of him, down to the ground, where his future body would go splat.

Funny, this was the first time he'd seen his own future. Maybe because it was so easy to see—after all, it only headed down. But it was still an A-Time vision, which meant the wacky side of his brain was coming back. Sort of. This was a halfway view. He saw the trails, but he saw the present, too, and they were superimposed on each other, looking like what they were, just masks. And masks were made to be removed.

He saw just where he would fall, what he would hit on the way down, and how he would die. He stared at the patterns for a while, sort of enjoying them, the way someone might appreciate a great painting; then he furrowed his brow one last time and said, “Oh. I get it.”

He reached down, ripped his pants…

…and fell.

As the world rushed around him, faster and faster, he thought he heard someone screaming. At first he thought it might be him, but the voice was too high-pitched, too pained.

Siara. It sounded like Siara. Was she here? Was she watching? It didn't matter, really. It was all too late.