Read Online Bastion Science Fiction Magazine - Issue 4, July 2014 by Alex Hernandez George S. Walker Eleanor R. Wood Robert Quinlivan Peter Medeiros Hannah Goodwin R. Leigh Hennig - Free Book Online
house. The two of them had arthritis and reflexes like molasses; they needed a driver. My older brother had worked in their lab in Cambridge, and he gave them my card. Lied and told them I was reliable. Lorena was exactly like she looked on the television: small, quiet, boiling with thoughts you wouldn't understand. Cliff, on the other hand, you could talk to. A guy's guy. He squinted at everything, had terrible posture, and he always wore this wide-brim camping hat he bought because he didn't want to look like summer people. It didn't work.
The guy with the gun, it turned out later, had stalked them for a week before the incident. I hadn't noticed. I was waiting to pick up the couple outside The Hartstone Inn. Cliff was opening the door for Lorena, she was shooing him away with a cane, and this bozo in—no shit—a white jean jacket over a green hoodie pulls a goddamn Glock from his pants and yells that he wants to talk with his dead boy. I know you can do it , he says. A conspiracy theory nut.
I sprang at him and grabbed the guy's wrist, forcing the gun lower until it pointed at the ground. I thumped him on the head and shoulders with my free hand. The gunman began spazzing out, high on adrenaline and oblivious to the blows. He fought me with everything he had; he scratched at my ears with dirty fingernails and shook all over like a dog, trying to regain control of the hand still wrapped around his pistol. I looked at the gun and saw that the moron still had the safety on, but I wasn't too relieved. He'd already given me some kind of disease, I was sure of it.
Here's what's crazy: Cliff wanted to talk to the guy. He said, "Mister, I'm really sorry, but you know we can't do that. Lemme explain."
Lorena tried to keep the situation from veering too far into the ridiculous. "Clifford!" she yelled, "He's a luddite, don't talk with him!"
But Clifford went on. "We don't call them 'ghosts' because it's not so much a them as an it. We use the term 'residual life force.' It's not ectoplasm. There's no such thing as ectoplasm. Let's say you make an engine that runs on burning wood. There’s heat, right? This is like a machine that doesn't harness the heat, but harnesses the smoke. The sign of having been. Does that make sense?"
Lorena: "Clifford! You can't reason with these people!"
The nut: "My boy, my boy…"
Me: "Doctors, please stand back. I'm trying to break his wrist, so, uh…"
Clifford, undaunted: "And this stuff, it's all moving around. So maybe the idea is more like tidal energy. And just like the tide's stronger in some places, so is the SR—the spiritual residue. "Residue" isn't quite right, but we named it before we knew how it works. Not that we fully understand it yet! Lots of work to be done, work for younger… Anyway, the plant here in Quebec doesn’t pull in that much juice, whereas all of Europe is powered by a single plant in Northern Poland. Or how the Hiroshima plant could do most of China, if they ever figure out some kind of agreement. They—I mean it —tends to stay concentrated in certain locations like that." Cliff sighed, a deflated sound you only ever hear from those who are very old, who have done all they set out to do and can do no more. "It's not your boy. How would we even find him?"
I got the gun out of the crazy guy's hands and kicked him behind the knee. When he went down I gave him another in the neck for good measure. He sobbed and sobbed, "I want to speak to my boy."
Cliff said, "I'm sorry."
Lorena said, "Don't be."
In the car, Cliff was breathing hard. I asked if he was okay. He said he was tired of lying. Lorena elbowed Cliff in the ribs and told me to drive.
#
Wiscasset. Lorena flashed an ID that got us inside the plant. She wouldn't let me carry the box. She wouldn't let me help her up the shaking maintenance ladder, either. And on the roof, she wouldn't take my arm as she hobbled over to the nearest of the purring turbines. You can't see the SR, obviously, but
The guy with the gun, it turned out later, had stalked them for a week before the incident. I hadn't noticed. I was waiting to pick up the couple outside The Hartstone Inn. Cliff was opening the door for Lorena, she was shooing him away with a cane, and this bozo in—no shit—a white jean jacket over a green hoodie pulls a goddamn Glock from his pants and yells that he wants to talk with his dead boy. I know you can do it , he says. A conspiracy theory nut.
I sprang at him and grabbed the guy's wrist, forcing the gun lower until it pointed at the ground. I thumped him on the head and shoulders with my free hand. The gunman began spazzing out, high on adrenaline and oblivious to the blows. He fought me with everything he had; he scratched at my ears with dirty fingernails and shook all over like a dog, trying to regain control of the hand still wrapped around his pistol. I looked at the gun and saw that the moron still had the safety on, but I wasn't too relieved. He'd already given me some kind of disease, I was sure of it.
Here's what's crazy: Cliff wanted to talk to the guy. He said, "Mister, I'm really sorry, but you know we can't do that. Lemme explain."
Lorena tried to keep the situation from veering too far into the ridiculous. "Clifford!" she yelled, "He's a luddite, don't talk with him!"
But Clifford went on. "We don't call them 'ghosts' because it's not so much a them as an it. We use the term 'residual life force.' It's not ectoplasm. There's no such thing as ectoplasm. Let's say you make an engine that runs on burning wood. There’s heat, right? This is like a machine that doesn't harness the heat, but harnesses the smoke. The sign of having been. Does that make sense?"
Lorena: "Clifford! You can't reason with these people!"
The nut: "My boy, my boy…"
Me: "Doctors, please stand back. I'm trying to break his wrist, so, uh…"
Clifford, undaunted: "And this stuff, it's all moving around. So maybe the idea is more like tidal energy. And just like the tide's stronger in some places, so is the SR—the spiritual residue. "Residue" isn't quite right, but we named it before we knew how it works. Not that we fully understand it yet! Lots of work to be done, work for younger… Anyway, the plant here in Quebec doesn’t pull in that much juice, whereas all of Europe is powered by a single plant in Northern Poland. Or how the Hiroshima plant could do most of China, if they ever figure out some kind of agreement. They—I mean it —tends to stay concentrated in certain locations like that." Cliff sighed, a deflated sound you only ever hear from those who are very old, who have done all they set out to do and can do no more. "It's not your boy. How would we even find him?"
I got the gun out of the crazy guy's hands and kicked him behind the knee. When he went down I gave him another in the neck for good measure. He sobbed and sobbed, "I want to speak to my boy."
Cliff said, "I'm sorry."
Lorena said, "Don't be."
In the car, Cliff was breathing hard. I asked if he was okay. He said he was tired of lying. Lorena elbowed Cliff in the ribs and told me to drive.
#
Wiscasset. Lorena flashed an ID that got us inside the plant. She wouldn't let me carry the box. She wouldn't let me help her up the shaking maintenance ladder, either. And on the roof, she wouldn't take my arm as she hobbled over to the nearest of the purring turbines. You can't see the SR, obviously, but
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