Screaming Eagles

IMPACT EARTH SAMPLE

Yuri Novitskiy awoke to pounding.

He tried to roll over, but remembered he was stuck in a cocoon that was Velcroed to a wall. Or, as Sheppard liked to call it, being mummified for eight hours. One of the hardest parts about living in zero-g was that it didn’t matter which direction you faced. There was no gravity to tell you which way was up and which way was down.

The familiar machine shop smell of the space station came back to him: a combination of oil, recycled air, and ionization particles. Then there were the constant noises of moving air and machinery humming away as the space station kept its occupants alive.

His thin door threatened to buckle as someone beat on it.

“Go away, zombie. I just closed my eyes,” he muttered, and tried to bury his face in the confines of his sleeping bag.

“Yuri. We need you, man, there’s an emergency.”

“Tell Oleg to take care of it. I am sleeping.”

The pounding ceased, and the door pushed open. Light flooded into his tiny space, illuminating his laptop, the floating paperback of a Tolstoy classic, and a package that had contained a Snickers—the greatest invention in the known world, as far as Yuri was concerned.

He looked at his watch, which was set to UTC, and shook his head. Why couldn’t the Americans take care of their own problem? It was always Yuri, we need this. Yuri, we need that. Yuri, you’re the only one who knows this system.

“Sheppard, what is so important that you must have Russia’s greatest mind awoken at…” He looked at his watch again. “It’s not even eleven. I’ve had less than an hour of sleep.”

“I’d tell you, bud, but you wouldn’t believe me. Trust me, Yuri, if this weren’t an emergency I’d be sound asleep too. You just gotta see this shit.” Sheppard’s lined face was split by a cocky smile.

“If this is another spore breakthrough, I am going to be very angry. You know what happened last time I got angry?”

“It’s not like that, Yuri. I promise. No prank this time.”

The prank war had begun with Sheppard appearing naked—with the exception of a well-placed cowboy hat over his genitals—riding an imaginary bull through the science pod.

Yuri had come back by playing a female voice that described how to perform a breast inspection for cancer into Sheppard’s radio while the man was on a space walk.

Ever the over-achiever, Sheppard had retaliated by breaking into a call Yuri made to his family back on earth, and had piped in a recording of how to do a proper testicle inspection.

There were the usual pranks after that, like switching the liquid salt with liquid pepper. One thing that wasn’t allowed in space was little particles of spice.

Yuri had ended the escalating war by crafting a little alien head out of PVC and a chunk of freeze-dried steak that hadn’t properly sealed before the trip to the space station. A few minutes with a knife had given it shape.

With liberal use of ketchup, he’d scared Sheppard half to death with his Alien movie imitation. The only downside had been cleaning up the little red drops that had drifted in zero gravity.

Yuri sighed and unzipped his sleeping bag. He caught a glimpse of his unshaven face and the wild, curly hair that rose about his head like a Jewish afro.

He could shave it like Sheppard’s, but he liked how it brought character to the station. Six people living 330 km above the earth on a vessel that orbited the earth every ninety minutes needed to have fun. He considered his clown hair fun, because it did not match his very Slavic and downturned features.

“We have to get to Cupola to see it.”

“It’s shuttered for the night.”

“Not now, it ain’t,” Sheppard said. “Bring a camera. The boys back home might take issue, so snap ’em while you can.”

“Such a rebel,” Yuri said, but he grabbed his compact anyway, just in case this was actually something interesting.

They zipped through habitation, hit a node, and then slid up toward Cupola. The other astronauts would all be asleep, except for Ryu. He enjoyed his all-night research, but really he just didn’t need as much sleep as the others. As a fisherman’s son, he hadn’t slept more than six hours a night as a kid. Now, nearly thirty years later, he was functional on four, but he could be downright wired on five.

Yuri nearly bashed his head on another laptop, and pushed the computer back on its rotating joint so it wouldn’t catch one of the other astronauts.

“I was working on that,” Ryu said from the corner of the space. He had a white blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and had blended right in with one of the spacesuits they’d had to store temporarily while he pulled out and went over a computer system.

Suzie had reported some anomalies on a spacewalk to secure a loose solar panel two days ago, and Yuri had spent two days going over the systems before realizing it was simply a miscalculation he’d made. Instead of explaining the mix-up, he’d informed the rest of the crew that he had fixed some code.

“Sorry. I almost hit it.”

“My apologies,” Ryu said. “You go to see it?”

“It?” Yuri asked.

“He doesn’t know,” Sheppard interjected.

“Better to sleep. Bad news can wait.”

“What does that mean?” Yuri asked.

“He’s just being melodramatic. Come on,” said Sheppard, tugging at Yuri’s shirt.

Ryu’s eyes held something like sadness. He showed occasional bouts of humor though he was normally very serious, but now was most certainly not one of those times. The Japanese man turned his gaze away and focused on the circuit board he’d pulled out of a spacesuit.

He moved along another corridor and caught a handgrip with the top of his foot, which was well calloused thanks to living on the ISS. Ironically, the harden skin on the bottom of his feet had fallen off.

They floated up the narrow passageway until they were in the nearly three-meter diameter portal that looked into space. Just as Sheppard had said, the shutters were open, which was indeed against protocol. It was important to maintain a standard nighttime environment, so the astronauts were on a regular sleep schedule.

They were over the Sahara, with the sun’s glare shining on their home below. The huge desert extended in every direction, but would soon give way to vegetated land, then ocean as they spun around Earth’s low orbit.

“There,” Sheppard said, and pointed to three o’clock.

Yuri sucked in his breath when he saw… it.

From their viewpoint, space had ceased to exist in the direction of the moon. Something blotted it out as wide as they could see.

“Chinese?”

“Not on your life. According to Houston it’s not theirs, and we know it’s not yours.”

“Ah, comrade, it’s been many years since the Soviet Union launch secret craft.” Yuri tried to think of an English word equivalent to what he was seeing, but could only come up with one thing. “It’s fucking huge.”

“What’s that?”

Another shape moved behind the anomaly, this one shimmering in and out like it was caught in a haze. The craft was black, with long, grey, pulsing lines like veins. It was elongated, and had to be at least sixty or seventy kilometers in length. It spun along one axis, but the rotation was slowing.

Then something ejected from its side.

“What in the—” Sheppard didn’t finish his sentence, because the smaller object emitted beams of light that swept over the first craft, the sun’s radiance reflecting off earth’s atmosphere causing a confusion of refracted images.

“It’s above us, but moving. How can it move like this?” Yuri wondered out loud. Remaining in apogee was an art. Sliding in and out was the stuff of science fiction.

An explosion lit their view. Yuri looked away, because the flash had been bright enough to remind him of catching a glimpse of the sun without a spacesuit’s visor down—something that could ruin your vision for good.

“Well, goodnight!” Sheppard exclaimed.

Ryu slid into the Cupola and didn’t utter a word.

Pieces leapt away from each object. Some accelerated the short distance to make impact with explosive effect, while beams leapt out and obliterated others. The ISS was rocked by one shockwave after another.

“This is no good,” Yuri said. He had the overriding desire to rush off and do a full systems inspection. The solar panels maintained a very tenuous grip on the space station due to the nature of zero-g, and shockwaves were not the kind of thing they were built to withstand.

Lights erupted in space behind them, and for the first time they got a look at the larger object.

Sleek: that was the best way to describe it. The object was oblong with rounded ends, like a giant cigar. There were no discernible lines except for the random veins. Ports snapped open to emit jagged objects that raced away, with points of light glowing from their rears.

The other craft was much smaller, but danced circles around the first. Its signature was not as smooth, but rounder, and there were a number of protrusions like blisters along the hull.

“India and Pakistan?” Yuri said, and knew immediately how silly it sounded. If those two nations ever got craft into space, he doubted they’d start a war up there. They were more likely to start nuking each other back on good old Earth. So what did that leave?

“That is some shit right there,” Sheppard said.

Yuri closed his mouth, raised his camera and took pictures as fast as the device could ready itself.

A massive shock raced along the smaller craft’s hull and it fell away suddenly, but not before a pod the size of a sports stadium broke away and became invisible. The larger craft hovered in place for a few seconds before withdrawing over the horizon of the space station until it could be seen no longer.

Another wave hit the ISS, and something snapped. Yuri didn’t hear it, but he felt it. The station thrummed and shook with something that was wrong.

“Not good,” Ryu said, and dove through the hatch.

Sheppard was next, and Yuri was right behind him. Alarms echoed up and down the passageways.

Yuri slid out of the lab and went to the Russian side of the space station. He floated in front of his computer and stared at the readout. His radio crackled to life, and a voice from home requested an immediate sitrep.

Yuri paused to collect his thoughts, then said something that they would never believe back home. When he was done he rejoined Sheppard and Ryu.

“Something else is moving. It’s that big round thing,” Yuri observed.

A second explosion occurred half a minute later, in the direction the first ship had departed from.

“What was that?” Sheppard yelled.

“I believe it is called revenge. Now both objects have gone,” Yuri replied. “No, not gone. They are in pieces.”

He stood stock still as he considered the implications. The planet Earth may have just been visited by aliens, but instead of coming in peace or for conquest, the two had eliminated each other from space.

He took a deep breath, and prepared to issue an order to evacuate the space station.

Victor was already having a bad day, thanks to the noisy downstairs neighbors who’d kept him and Laura up half the night. Then the sky opened up and tried to kill him.

Rain pelted the overhang in a steady rhythm that washed away the sounds of cars racing along 1st Avenue. The downfall came so fast and heavy that at times Victor wondered if a marching band had taken up residence above and decided to use the shelter’s roof as practice for a college football game.

He dared not look up, because his rain jacket had seen better days, and if a hint of wind caught his hood, he would likely end up with a face full of water. He wished he could have stayed in bed with Laura and ridden out the storm.

A woman hustled to the overhang. Her hood was black, and her face was barely visible in the dark confines. She carried a silver-colored coffee mug in one hand and a closed umbrella in the other. Tucked up under her arm, her purse displayed some kind of designer label—probably something Laura would like, if he could afford it.

She pressed herself next to Victor and looked up, like she’d never seen so much rain in her life. The woman pushed back, to the dismay of those jammed inside the tiny space. She ignored their sighs and curses and sipped her coffee while staring straight ahead.

If this kept up, Victor was sure to catch a cold, and that would mean fighting for a day off from work, which he could not afford. Victor’s boss Jacob didn’t believe in sick days, even if his employees were dead on their feet. No sense in arguing that it was a good idea to keep everyone else from coming down with the same thing.

To take his mind off his misery, he imagined sitting in his warm apartment, a cup of coffee in one hand, the other on his wife’s leg. They’d be sitting on the couch while a fire roared away in the fireplace ten feet away. Maybe the brats would even sleep late, and let them enjoy an hour of silence. Maybe he’d ask Laura to join him in bed for an intimate break, her legs wrapped around his waist while he stared into her jade-hued eyes.

A 4X4 barreled down the avenue and shattered his little daydream. It swerved near the curb and hit a puddle the size of Lake Michigan. Water flew in a wave and pelted everyone under the bus shelter.

A guy wearing a black pea coat and hustling down the street managed to turn his head and get his umbrella into the path of destruction, but it was too late, and he ended up wearing a gallon.

“Son of a bitch!”

He glared after the car, shook water off his now-soaking pants, and stalked toward the truck as it stopped at a red light.

What was the man going to do about the guy in the truck, anyway? Pull him out and beat the shit out of him? The truck spun hard to the right and was gone before the man was remotely close. He shook his fist, middle finger extended, and screamed profanity.

Victor’s already crappy day became worse, because his own pants were now completely soaked, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. That was exactly how his luck had gone from the moment he’d stepped out of the apartment.

His days always started early, but today he’d had to hustle a half hour early, thanks to a bus schedule change… that, and he couldn’t sleep, thanks to the assholes downstairs.

He knew Laura was right. He couldn’t stand his job much longer, but the market was dry right now, so he’d have to continue his construction job for the time being. Why even bother applying for something else? His inquiries had gone unanswered.

She’d harped on him for quitting school, reminding him over and over that he’d be somewhere right now if he hadn’t, and they wouldn’t be living paycheck to paycheck.

When he’d tried to leave the apartment this morning, he’d found himself blocked in.

The jerk on the first floor spent his days smoking weed. In the summer, when the back door had to be open to keep the upstairs apartment cool, the smell wafted up and filled Victor’s living room on an hourly basis. Even though it was improbably early, it seemed that the downstairs neighbor’s buddy had shown up, probably to sell him more pot, and in the process had impeded Victor’s car.

That had led to a near-fight, when the Cubans visiting the apartment had told him to go get fucked. The only thing had that stopped him from storming into the apartment and probably getting beaten to a pulp was the fact that Laura had been upstairs with the brats.

So this morning, he’d had to walk to the bus stop instead of driving to a park and ride, just to avoid a confrontation. Of course the bus had been late, packed to the gills, and had gotten him to Seattle just in time to miss his connecting ride.

September had a mean streak this year that didn’t want to let up. As the month marched toward October, it brought nothing but vicious storms, clouds, and cold, and Vic wanted nothing more than to stay in bed until June.

Seattle weather was notoriously wet. Ask someone about living in the state of Washington, and they inevitably mentioned that it rained all of the time, which wasn’t much of an exaggeration.

A bus finally moved through the intersection and came into view. The bright numbers displayed on the side display told him that it wouldn’t get him anywhere near his job.

How could both be so late on a Wednesday morning?

An angry man who’d been shaking his fist stormed toward the bus, was cut off by a pair of teenage girls in bright rain slickers, and sighed loud enough for even the bus driver to hear. The girls leaned close together as they ran up the bus’s stairs, oblivious to the dude’s anger.

The bus pulled away, and Victor was left with a dozen other miserable commuters, who checked their watches or phones while they waited. None of them moved an inch to let him into the bus shelter, so he stood and waited. Stood and waited. Christ on a crutch, was he sick of standing and waiting.

Another bus made the turn from 5th Avenue, and for a split second he thought it was his, but the numbers changed to TERMINAL and it sped away toward home base.

Miserable, Victor turned his attention back to the crossroad. Any second now, any second, and his bus would come around the corner.

His cell phone buzzed against his leg. Shifting his backpack around, he reached beneath his jacket and dug out the device. As he lifted the phone, his wet fingers lost their grip and the device clattered across the ground.

Even through the sound of the heavy rain, he knew what that cracking noise meant. He leaned over to pick his phone up, and nearly fell straight into the deluge. Water staccatoed across his back and hood, but he stood up, otherwise none the worse for wear.

The same could not be said for his phone.

Victor got a look at his shattered screen and lack of power, and found he was no longer in the mood to be a nice guy. He backed into his old spot, oblivious to the cries of indignation from the woman he pushed out of his way.

“That was rude,” she said.

Victor ignored her and stared straight ahead, just as she had done a moment ago. He could passive-aggressive with the best of them.

Whoever had called would have to wait until Victor arrived at the work site and could get to a working phone. Assuming he could see the number on his broken phone screen.

As another bus came into view, he realized it was his and moved back into the rain, but not before the angry woman with the fancy purse could dash around Victor and cut him off. She seemed to delight in stepping in front of him, judging by the way she straightened her back.

His phone buzzed again. He stared at the dead screen and realized there was a little bit of life left in the device. After trying several times to push the answer icon, the phone finally relented.

“Hello?” He pressed the phone to his ear. “Laura?”

“Victor? Did you see it?”

“Laura? What’s wrong?”

“It’s all over the news, baby. Please…”

“Oh hon, you wouldn’t believe the morning I’m having… Hello?”

The call cut off. He tried to call her back, but the remains of his screen refused to cooperate with his fingers.

The bus windows were completely fogged over from condensate. It rolled to a stop, tires kissing the curb, and the door shot open, letting out a blessedly warm blast of air.

People streamed out, but just when he thought his line was going to move, a mother with two small children moved to the front and asked the bus driver a question while the little ones—no older than three and four—tried to go in two different directions.

She got her hands on them, but her bag fell off her shoulder, items spilling across the floor. She yelled at her kids, apologized to the bus driver, and shoved things back into her purse as quickly as possible. An older gentleman grabbed a tube of lipstick off the floor and offered it to her.

Rain continued to pour into Victor’s jacket, and he decided that he was never getting on this damn bus; he was going to stand here, trapped in purgatory until the day was done. He was concerned about Laura’s call, but whatever she been talking about probably wasn’t going to effect him in the city. He’d just call her as soon as he was on his lunch break.

The busy woman with two children managed to catch both kids’ hands and help them down the two stairs. The pair were dressed in miniature, colorful rain gear, complete with knee-length yellow slickers.

The woman who’d cut him off stepped onto the bus and—of course—had to pause to find her bus pass.

Victor’s considerable patience came to an end as he groaned out loud, “Oh, come on.”

What came on wasn’t the lady moving her ass, though; it was a massive boom that thundered around them.

“What was that?” she said, and actually took a step back down the stairs.

He didn’t make it on the bus.

Instead, the impossible happened: the dark sky opened, pushing fat grey clouds out of the way. Bright light replaced the haze, casting the city in bright hues of yellow and orange. Oddly, rain continued to strike his jacket and hood in a rapid-fire pattern.

Victor raised his head. His hood was blown back, and rain hit his face and rolled down his neck, but it didn’t matter now.

As the clouds were shoved aside, a section of sky revealed itself, now bright red. The rain faded to a mist, and then was completely gone.

Around him, the city was silent… until a driver ran a red light and was promptly crushed by a semi that had the right of way. The car screeched across the asphalt until both vehicles rammed into a concrete divider.

Brake lights lit up as cars slammed to a halt. Accidents all around him as heads gawked upward.

The rude woman who’d cut him off leaned her head back and almost tripped off the first step. For all his earlier anger, Victor reached out mechanically and got his hand in the middle of her back. She stumbled into him, didn’t acknowledge his action, and took a step to the side while still staring upward.

Voices rose in alarm from every direction as the shapes crossed the sky. Hands frantically wiped across bus windows as the occupants struggled to look out and up. One of the passengers wore a pair of oversized headphones, and nodded, eyes closed, oblivious to the madness that was occurring.

Victor panicked, grabbing his phone and beating it against his palm. Laura! He had to reach her and tell her that he loved her, just one more time. When was the last time he’d even said the words out loud instead of shooting a “Back atcha” or “Me too” whenever she said that she loved him? Too long; far too long, was his guess.

But his phone was barely responsive beneath a spider web of shattered glass.

The woman who had seemed intent on making his day terrible had her phone out, and he nearly ripped it from her, but she dashed away, her travel mug sloshing coffee.

“What do I do now?” he muttered, and looked at the bus. The driver stared back at him in shock.

“What’s going on out there?”

“I don’t know, man. Something in the sky. Look up,” Victor yelled.

The bus driver slipped out of his seat and then down the stairs. He craned his neck back and gasped.

A roar built, then intensified until Victor had to slap his hands against his ears. The driver did the same, and staggered back onto his bus.

Victor opened his mouth to cry out in terror, but if any sound came out, it was washed away by the screaming horror above. Day became brighter still as the object continued its march across the sky. It was so large, it defied thought. As it ripped the morning apart, it did so on a trail of fire that scorched the atmosphere.

The sound reached a crescendo and then started to fade. Victor made for the bus, but the driver was having none of that. He panicked, dove into his seat and slammed the door closed. The bus lurched forward, rolled onto the curb and then rumbled off with a trail of smoke belching from its exhaust.

The departing bus left the curb with a crunch, sped through a red light and smashed into another bus that had been forced to stop in the middle of an intersection.

Whatever the object in the sky was, Victor had to find somewhere to hide. He looked around in a dread and found a few concrete barricades that were being used to keep cars from cheating a parking lot out of money. He rushed to one and crouched behind it. Another man followed him and did the same. Victor looked into the guy’s eyes and they exchanged an unspoken glance filled with fear and revulsion.

The sky was still as bright as a summer day, and across it roared the object, until a shadow passed over the entire city. Smaller balls of flame followed behind, but veered until they were aimed at the ground below.

Victor screamed as a flaming object the size of a small car bombarded the city.

He should run, but what if he ran into wherever the thing struck? He was terrified, stuck in place. Every ounce of willpower was trying to convince him to haul ass to anywhere but here.

“This is not fucking good!” the man next to him yelled.

A small object fell like a lead weight and smashed into the building they were cowering in front of.

Victor thanked his luck and God.

Then something punched him in the back, and he was propelled into the concrete barrier. He didn’t have time to question what had struck him before he fell, limply. Just like that, consciousness was gone.

Victor came to, and regretted it.

The world rumbled around him, but along with the noise came a sensation like he was on a slide and about to fall off the edge of the world. His shoulder hurt like crazy! He reached for it and found blood, and an object protruding from the wound.

Rain pelted him in the face, so it became a struggle to keep his elbow over his eyes while feeling at the damage. He gave up soon enough, because touching the protrusion caused pain to race up and down his arm, neck, and chest.

“You okay, buddy?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

Where was he? Hospital? Hell? Purgatory?

Vic looked around and found that he’d been dragged under the overhang of a building. This part of the city wasn’t well-known to him, because he usually just caught his bus and didn’t stick around any longer than he had to.

Someone grabbed his leg near his ankle, and then he was pulled again. At least that explained the feeling of riding a slide.

“Stop!” he yelled.

“We’re almost there. Sorry, buddy, I didn’t know what else to do. You were lying on the sidewalk in the rain, with blood pouring out of your shoulder. You okay? I tried to call an ambulance, but they didn’t pick up.”

Blood? Ambulance? Then it came back to him. The object in the sky, and something falling toward him. Something silvery that caught the sun’s reflection and temporarily blinded him.

“The asteroid? Did it hit?” he asked, though he knew the answer already, since he was still alive and breathing.

“I don’t think it was an asteroid, but whatever it was passed over the city and kept heading toward the coast. Damnedest thing I ever saw.”

The man was in his early fifties, going by his appearance. Grey beard, and hair to match, which had well and truly receded into a bowl cut. His eyes were sharp, though, and that made Victor feel a hell of a lot better.

“What happened to me?”

“I don’t know, buddy, but I’m real sorry to say this is all I can do. I gotta figure out how to get back to my family. You understand, right? You got a family?”

“I do, but please don’t leave me, man. I’m bleeding.”

“Not much. I’d stay, I really would. You have a cell phone, right?”

“I dropped it and the screen broke.”

“Bad luck.” He looked up and caught the eye of an Asian woman hurrying past.

“Miss, miss!” the man called. She looked at them and doubled her step.

The old guy got to his feet and rushed after her. He moved into her path and spoke with the diminutive figure.

“He’s hurt. Call an ambulance, please!” he said, and then the guy was off like a shot.

“Oh, fuck me,” Victor said. He knew the woman wasn’t going to stick around and help some stranger. She’d be off just like the older guy, but was Victor any better? If someone stopped him on the street and begged him to call 911, would he do it, or make it anyone’s problem but theirs?

Something buzzed around in the back of his mind like an annoying fly. Strange. Victor was overcome by lethargy. No. Something was talking to him back there. Something—or someone—and it was genuinely bizarre.

Much to his surprise, the woman came toward him. Her step was tentative, and when she got closer, he saw that she was young and cute. If this was about to be his Mother Teresa, at least he was in good company. She had short, dark hair that covered one eye. Must be weird having one eye always behind a veil, Victor reflected.

“You okay?” she asked as she leaned over and looked at the blood. Her lips pulled back in a gasp.

“No, I’m not okay. Please call 911. Something’s stuck in my shoulder.”

She knelt beside him even though it was into a puddle, and touched his jacket. She slid the zipper down so she could slip the coat open, then pulled the left side open until she could see his wound.

“Nothing here. Blood,” she said, and their eyes met.

“It must have come out. Christ, it hurts so bad! I don’t guess you have some Tylenol or something stronger on you?” He tried to sound flippant, but he hurt too much to be in a humorous spirit.

The buzzing wouldn’t go away, and it was driving him crazy. He clenched his eyes and rubbed his temples. Was he dying? Was this how his world ended? Bleeding out on a sidewalk in Seattle?

She took a handkerchief from her pocket and looked at it. Oh no, if she was sneezing on that thing, he didn’t want it on his flesh. She might be a looker, but that wouldn’t save him from an infection.

She dug around in her bag and came out with a package of tissues. The girl pulled out a wad of them, then slipped her cold hand inside his shirt until she had the tissues over the wound. She pressed down hard enough to make him see stars.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” he gasped, again and again.

“Sorry,” she said, and she did look sorry. She looked downright miserable as she took his hand in hers and guided it to the wound. “Hold here. Help comes.”

“Thank you. What’s your name?”

“Kimiko. I’m Kimiko. Nice to meet you.”

“You’re very kind, but I can’t imagine this is in any way nice,” he said.

She looked at him quizzically, but he didn’t offer any follow-up questions. What was wrong with him? He’d been stabbed by something, left to bleed out, and all he could think about was being a smartass.

She glanced over her shoulder and up at the sky, worry etched on her face.

“You know, finding a guy on the ground with all this stuff going on overhead. It’s just nice of you to stop. Thank you for helping me.”

“You are welcome.” She smiled and pushed a wet strand of black hair out of her eyes, leaving a streak of his blood across her brow.

“Oh no. I’m sorry,” he said.

His words sounded hollow, and he had the urge to take the tissue from his shoulder and wipe her face. Then something lurched inside him, near the wound, and pain made him nauseous. It started in his shoulder and sent pulsing waves along his spine and sides. He tried to wave at her face, unthinking, only to find that his arm wouldn’t respond.

Kimiko had her phone out, and dialed over and over again. She hunched over and used her jacket’s hood to keep the phone from getting soaked.

“Oh, oh! Answer,” she said, and handed him the phone.

Victor gave her a tight smile, took the phone in his left hand, and slowly tilted his head to avoid straining the damaged muscle too much, but it wasn’t enough: he saw stars. He wanted to bite down on his tongue. His teeth ached as the pain overrode all other senses.

The buzzing was still in the back of his head. It whispered to him, and tried to reassure him, but there were still no words, just the feeling of peace.

Something wrenched in his arm again and he cried out. He reached out and grabbed hold of the curb, squeezed, and wept as the waves of pain built and washed over his body.

Then the ache faded and he felt—better? Not better; he felt different. It was the same feeling he used to get when he’d been a runner. After the first few miles, he’d reached a state of mind that was almost like ecstasy. It was called “runner’s high,” but that made absolutely no sense.

“Sir? Hello?” A female voice on the phone said.

“Ah crap, sorry, sorry. My name is Victor Barnes and I’m at the corner of…” He kept talking until he felt like he was going to pass out. Ten minutes later, the glare of flashing lights and the sound of a siren brought him out of his near-fugue state.

“Saved at last.”

When he looked around, Kimiko was nowhere to be found, nor was the phone he’d been talking into. At least she’d stuck around until she knew help was on the way.

The Victor noticed that the small section of curb he’d been clutching in pain had been crushed into chunks of concrete and powder.

Bryon had gotten away with a free day at home yesterday, but now he was back at school and his morning had been a hair’s width shy of being the worst of his life.

His report was due in second period English, and after blowing off school to spend the day gaming yesterday, he was going to have to scramble to keep up. His teacher had not been impressed that he’d picked a couple of comic book writers as his literary heroes, but he’d worked on his paper for weeks, and didn’t think he should have to write about novelists.

Comic book writers were every bit as important to literature as some stuffy jerk who liked to spend pages on flowery speeches and anything but tight dialog that carried a story forward.

His books were filled with action, sly looks, and occasional speeches, but only when absolutely necessary.

His class was probably going to be empty today. There had been talk on the news of an explosion or something in Seattle, but his mom was making him go to school anyway, because she had to work and didn’t have a sitter available.

Bryon had argued that he didn’t need a sitter. He was sixteen and would be taking driving lessons soon, but she had not relented. He hadn’t told her that a few times a month he blew off school, snuck back home to play video games, and then forged an excuse letter to turn in to the front office.

“Mom, what if they send us home?”

“I’m sure they won’t,” she’d said. She’d zipped up the side of her skirt and smoothed down the sides.

His mother, Anne, could be very sweet, but not in the morning, and especially not before she’d had her first cup of coffee. She always looked harried, though, because she never managed to leave the house on time. She screamed out of the garage with a piece of toast hanging out of her mouth and a mug tucked into her car’s drink holder. She worked at a stock firm, but she was a receptionist, and had to answer to five different bosses throughout any given day.

Bryon was pretty sure one of her married bosses was seeing her on the side, because she always cast furtive glances Bryon’s way when she got late-night texts. Sometimes she had to run out for an “errand” that took an hour or more.

Bryon kept his mouth shut. As for his judgment he kept that to himself, but if she was sleeping with some old married guy and they got caught, she was going to lose her job.

“But what if the thing in Seattle is really big and they cancel school?” he’d whined. As much as he loved the subject of his report, he didn’t relish getting in front of his class and being embarrassed when they made fun of him for his chosen subject.

“It’s nothing. Eat your eggs and go, shoo,” she’d said, and leaned over to kiss the top of his head like he was five again.

Jeez, mom.

The walk to the bus stop was annoying, because rain had started up a minute after he’d left the house, and didn’t shown any sign of quitting. His hood had seen better days and kept getting blown off of his head.

He considered going back home, but it was risky to take two days off in a row. The chance of them calling his mother increased every time he played hooky, so he kept his free days to a minimum.

Bryon stood at an intersection and got splashed by an old blue Ford sedan rushing by. It might have even swerved to hit the puddle. Jerk!

The sky was getting brighter by the second, as if the sun was about to appear, but the cursed rain just would not let up! He hated it, hated school, hated the kids that teased him. He hated that he had to walk a mile to a bus stop because the district had to cut back on stops to save fuel.

He stepped off the curb, and something punched him in the side.

Bryon swung around, thinking that a bully had shot him with a rubber band or maybe even one of those airsoft guns.

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and dropped his backpack. He put his cold hand under his shirt and felt around for damage. His hand rubbed over his back and butt cheek. He tried to look over his shoulder, keep his head down so rain didn’t drench his hood, and turn all at the same time, and nearly ended up on his face.

He pulled his hand out from under his shirt and saw red. Lots of red. He was bleeding? Jesus Christ on a jalopy!

That should’ve been the clue right there that this day would be a complete wash. First the news of an explosion near the freeway, then all the damn rain. His mother still didn’t believe that school would be canceled, or that his few friends had reported on Twitter with gleeful tweets stating they were “Off ‘cause Dad freaked about stuff blowing up. Snow day in September!”

Bryon dropped his backpack and lifted his shirt. He found red smeared across his back and some soaked into his shirt, but he needed a mirror to see what kind of damage had been done.

He wanted to freak out and return home, but when he ran his hand over the area that had been stung, he didn’t feel a wound, just a little bit of a bump, and then even the pain was already fading.

He was embarrassed by the fat that rode his waist like a tire’s inner tube. He hated that he couldn’t see his junk because it was under a belly big enough to stuff a rack of ribs and half a cake into, like he’d done on his birthday a few months ago.

Mom had said not to overeat, but Bryon hadn’t been having any of that on his birthday, and had gorged himself with abandon. Then he’d felt sick for the rest of the night.

Bryon dug around, but there didn’t seem to be any fresh blood. He was all too familiar with how even a little could spread around and feel like a gallon. He’d popped enough zits in his day to make a full coat of warpaint.

Bryon held his hand out and let water run over it, washing his blood onto the sidewalk. His eyes followed the flow to the ground, and then around his Nikes. By then, the crimson was diluted enough not to matter.

“Whatcha doin, fatass?”

Jesus! Rod Steckman was the worst of the bullies, and today of all days he’d decided to cross paths with Bryon.

Rod took any chance to pick on Bryon, any chance at all, whether it was slamming him into a locker—no mean feat considering Bryon’s weight—or spitting in Bryon’s hair. He had a group of cronies—on the football team, no less—and if it got any more cliché than that, Bryon didn’t know what else would qualify.

They’d once surrounded Bryon and made him crawl around while snorting like a piggy. The guys had pelted him with food, books, paper, trash—anything they could get ahold of.

Bryon had lost it and cried until they’d left him alone. One of the guys had been unzipping his pants, threatening to piss on Bryon, but a teacher had intervened and chased the kids off. He hadn’t exactly been nice to Bryon, either; more like a father scolding a child about being nicer to people if Bryon wanted to be treated with respect. The entire experience had left a sour taste in his mouth, and he’d stopped reporting the bullying to the school staff.

What he dreamed about was taking a bat to Rod Steckman and beating the jerk black and blue. He’d read articles on the internet that offered advice on how to deal with bullies. Some of them spoke of standing up to tormenters, because once you took a stand, they backed down.

He didn’t want to just take a stand; he wanted to hurt Steckman and his cronies. The Vulture could handle this guy with one hand tied behind his back.

Bryon launched himself forward, pretending like he hadn’t heard the bully. Rod picked on the guys who didn’t fight back, just like a bully. Bryon had plans for him, someday.

He was going to stand up to him by delivering a line like Batman, something along the lines of: “I’ll break you in half,” even though The Vulture came up with better dialog. He’d be all menace and hate, then he’d throw a pair of haymakers that would put Rod on his ass.

He’d hit the jerk so hard that teeth would fly and Rod would slide across the school hallway—because all of his fantasy fights took place in the school hallways. That way the girls could see what a badass he was.

Today was not his day to have a battle, but he did intend to fight back, one day, after he’d lost some of his girth and learned how to actually throw a punch. Right now Bryon had to get his project to school in one piece.

“I was talking to you, fatass!”

Rod’s voice was closer. Bryon pressed on, swinging his arms faster and faster as he launched into hyper mode. He only had another block to go before he could hop on the Metro bus so he could avoid the public school bus and the ridicule attached to riding the yellow behemoth.

More importantly, he would be at a bus stop where other commuters could be his silent sentinels.

A swish of air, and then Bryon was flung forward. Rod was on a bicycle, and when he was close enough, he grabbed Bryon’s backpack and pulled.

Then Rod was past, with his close-cropped hair gleaming with rain water, his giant American flag sewn onto the back of his old Levi’s jacket, his NRA patch on one shoulder and pot leaf on the other, his legs pumping as he howled laughter. Rod looked back as he pedaled away, and shot a middle finger in Bryon’s direction.

Bryon had gotten his hands out as he’d fallen—that was instinct. He’d had his head up, but impact with the ground had never actually happened.

As he’d been tossed toward the sidewalk, a tremendously painful pinching had occurred where he’d been stung a moment before, and his back had wrenched in agony as a muscle had spasmed, and pain had ripped through his right leg all the way down to his foot. The torment had raced up his side, and it had felt like his heart had been clenched in a tight fist.

But he hadn’t struck the ground. He hadn’t torn the skin off his palms, his jacket hadn’t been soaked by the standing water, and the breath had not been knocked out of his body.

Bryon stared down at the concrete, a few inches from his face. He looked from one hand to the other, where his outstretched fingers hovered nearly half a foot off the ground. Then he looked down, and his mind was truly blown.

Bryon was floating.