The Future Falls (13 page)

“Think. Think. Think. All the damned time. People never stop thinking. So noisy. So shattered. Think. Think. Think.” His mouth was open, his eyes wide, his chest heaving. He spun around in a circle, first to the right. Then to the left.

“It's okay. Calm down.” Here in the Wood it was harder to keep it a suggestion. Charlie did the best she could.

Dan stared out from inside a mismatched collection of twitches and visibly forced himself to calm. He closed his eyes. Nodded. Opened his eyes. “I think I should sit.”

“Not a bad idea.” Charlie held out her hand. He glanced down at it, then up at her, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Your choice,” she told him, “but you'll find it easier to move if we're in contact.” The dirt and callus on his hand made it feel more as though it were covered in bark than skin. It felt almost familiar, almost like Uncle Edward's hand near the end, thirty odd years on hooves having left its mark. Resolutely not thinking about the likely composition of Dan's dirt, Charlie led him through the Wood to where memory placed a tree that would serve as a bench.

The fallen tree was exactly where she remembered it. Exactly how she remembered first seeing it fifteen years before. The Wood untouched by time, the tree untouched by rot. They could stay here as long as Dan needed, the only time brought in with them.

Dan clutched his chest as he collapsed down onto the log, and Charlie gave him a moment to catch his breath. She'd taken family as well as Jack's
Uncle Ryan through the Wood, but that had always been on a direct path in and out; walking within the Wood was an entirely different matter and she had no idea how far Dan thought they'd traveled.

He concentrated on breathing for a moment; then, when he sounded less like he was sucking air through a hookah, he unbuttoned his trench coat with shaking fingers. Then the coat below that. As the top two layers folded back like stained flower petals, he reached into the next layer—Charlie thought it might be a pinstriped suit jacket—and pulled out a plastic water bottle. Given the color of the liquid half filling it, she really hoped it wasn't water.

Dan unscrewed the blue plastic cap and titled the bottle toward her. “Drink?”

“Thanks, but no.”

Outlined in dirt, his Adam's apple rose and fell and rose and fell and rose and fell again. Half the liquid was gone when he lowered the bottle. “Smoother than I remembered.”

“So.” Charlie shrugged out of the gig bag. “You're a telepath.”

“No.” Still clutching the bottle in one hand, Dan reached up under his toque with the other for a good scratch. “I just hear shit.”

Well, that answered Auntie Catherine's question. He knew because he heard shit.

Human mutations happened all the time, although they were usually less comic book and more in need of minor surgery.

New question. Who had he heard this particular shit from? Who else knew about the asteroid? Of course there was always a chance he'd heard Auntie Catherine's thoughts. Which meant nothing good in a whole different way. Eavesdropping on the aunties had destroyed stronger men than Dan.

When she asked, Dan stared at her like she was crazy. “How the fuck should I know?”

“You can't identify the voice in your head?”

“Voice? I wish I had a fucking
voice
in my head.” His laugh bordered on hysterics. “I have two-legged radio stations playing in my head 24/7, and I can't shut them the fuck off.”

“Was it a woman?”

“Was what a woman?”

“The voice that said the sky was falling.”

“No women. No men. Just thoughts.” Dan stared at the ground between his feet with such intensity, Charlie leaned forward to see what he was staring at, but all she could see was grass. And a stick. “Thoughts have no gender. No pink. No blue. But I can tell you that the sky fell in English. It wasn't French or Spanish or any of the First Nations languages. It wasn't in Chinese. Or Japanese. Or Hindu. Or Portuguese. Or Farsi. Or Ukrainian. Or Gaelic. Or Italian. Or . . .”

“I believe you.” Charlie had no idea how many languages there were in the world. Nor did she want to find out. “You heard the thought in English. That doesn't really narrow it down.” As neither the grass nor the stick seemed to have any answers, she straightened and tried to come up with a question that would actually get them somewhere. “You hear thoughts from all over the world?”

“North America. Melting pot. Mosaic. North part of Mexico. Siberia once or twice. Sometimes I can pull in Brazil.” He shrugged inside the cocoon of his clothing. “Depends on the weather; needs the right cloud cover, atmospheric conditions, ducks.”

“Ducks?”

“They tell you geese'll do. But they're wrong.”

“Okay.” She frowned. “So if you were shouting things you heard, and you hear in all these other languages, why do you only shout in English?”

“Because I don't speak French or Spanish or any of the First Nations languages, or Chinese or Japanese or Hindu or . . .”

Charlie raised a hand and cut him off. “Got it. So when you heard about the asteroid . . .”

“About the sky falling.”

“. . . what exactly did you hear?”

The look he shot her had actual substance. “The sky is falling.”

“Those exact words?”

“How the hell should I know. Too many thoughts. Needle in a haystack. Haystack of fucking needles.” He took another drink.

“Were there other thoughts around it?”

“Do you ever listen, girl? Too. Many. Thoughts.”

“I need you to remember them.” Given a little more to work with, Charlie was certain she could tell if he'd overhead Auntie Catherine.

“I need to stop hearing shit. We don't always get what we need, do we?”

There was that slippery slope again, but Charlie didn't see as
she
had much choice right now. “Dan, you have to remember.”

“You have black eyes. Not punched black, that's purple. Really black. Inside.”

“I know.” The breeze had stilled, but leaves on the surrounding trees continued to whisper. “Remember
the thoughts you heard around the same time you heard about the sky falling.”

“. . . can't tell people the sky is falling, millions will die in the panic. . . . damn dog on the bed again. . . . said it was cancer. . . . don't find a solution in six months, millions will die in the panic anyway. . . . You lying, cheating, bastard! . . . looks more like an Argentinian than a Brazilian. . . . take natural disasters for a thousand, Alex.”

Millions will die in the panic
was so specific a phrase, the two thoughts had to be connected. “That's a wrap, Dan. Thank you.”

Dan shrugged, tipped his head back, and poured the liquid remaining in the bottle down his throat.

Too bad. She could use a drink.

He hadn't overheard Auntie Catherine. Someone else knew. And that someone thought they had six months to find a solution or millions would die in the panic. Overwrought much? Would the asteroid be visible to NASA in six months? Would they have to publish the news because they were government funded? Who'd already seen it and how? Had the government seen it and was that why they were pulling Dan in, before people started listening to him?

Too many questions. Not enough answers.

“Damn it, Jim, I'm a musician not an astrophysicist.”

“Dan.”

“What?”

“Dan, my name is Dan.” He sighed and slumped forward, elbows on his thighs. “First time in a shitload of time I tried to do something about what I heard. All anyone did was laugh. Started calling me Doomsday Dan. Assholes.”

“I'm not laughing.”

He turned his head and stared at her through narrowed eyes. “No, you're not.”

“I have an auntie who sees the future. She saw the same piece of the sky falling.”

Dan snorted. It was slightly less damp than his snort on camera. “And I'm the crazy one.”

“You're sitting in a Wood that doesn't exist.” Charlie's gesture took in the trees and the . . . well, trees. The landscape was all variation on a theme. “That didn't cue you in that something unusual was up?”

“This is real?”

“It is.”

“Damn. I thought it was another hallucination. Like the big yellow dragon.”

“He's gold. Golden. And he's real, too.”

“The gray lady in the river?”

“Real.”

“The raccoon in the hockey sweater?”

“That one's on you.”

“So, what're you going to do about it, now you know?”

“Nothing.”

He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “How do you figure?”

“If there was an asteroid heading for impact in the next year or two, and it was big enough to do a lot of damage, it'd be all over the news by now. There's hundreds of telescopes looking for that sort of thing.” Seriously, was she the only one who ever watched
Daily
Planet
? “Since it isn't, there's lots of time for NASA to deal with it.”

“No.” Even confined by the hat, his hair slapped against his shoulders as Dan shook his head. “The voice said six months. Then we're all going to die.”

“They didn't say we're all going to die.”

“Millions.”

“Dan,” she tried for soothing rather than impatient. “That doesn't mean we don't have years to stop it. The person you overheard saw the asteroid, somehow, and overreacted.”

“How do you know?”

“If the asteroid was close enough that millions would die in six months, it would be really,
really
close. We'd be able to see it. You and me.” She waved a hand between them. “Without a telescope. Okay, not from here,” she allowed when he glanced up. “From out in the real world. We can't see it, so it isn't close enough for anything to happen in six months. Okay?”

“You should ask them.”

“Them? The person you heard?”

He nodded. “Them. Gender neutral not plural people.”

“All right. How do I find them?”

He snorted, a gentle, dry snort. “We're sitting in a wood that doesn't exist. You tell me.”

“I wish I could.” She stood and looked down at Dan, who'd closed his eyes, the deep creases across his brow smoothed out enough that she could see clean lines of skin. Damn. Taking Dan back to Calgary meant taking him back to the cacophony of overheard thought. He wasn't family, so it shouldn't matter, but Charlie couldn't just drop him back into crazy.

Not when she could help. Great power. Great responsibility. Pain in the ass.

“When this is over, will I be able to play the piano?” he asked as she dropped to one knee and freed her guitar.

“Can you play it now?”

“The joke doesn't work if you step on my line.”

“Sorry.” Standing and running her fingers lightly over the strings, Charlie watched him lean into the notes and wondered if the voices he heard in his head counted as sound. Did a voice falling in the overgrown area between Dan's ears make a sound if there was only Dan to hear it? She frowned at the strain on the homily and fiddled with her tuning pegs even though everything seemed fine. Usually, she'd be all over a charm about sound, but right now, next to a man who certainly knew every dirty crack in the sidewalk, the only thing in her head was George Canyon's cover of “Rhinestone Cowboy” and once that got in, good luck getting it . . .

She smiled. “Do you know what an earworm is, Dan?”

He scratched up under the edge of his toque again. “Crawls in your ear, lays eggs, lots of screaming?”

“No, I think that was an episode from one of those retro TV shows.” She really didn't want to know what he was studying under his fingernails. “An earworm is what they call a piece of a song you can't get out of your head.”

“No room in my head.”

“Not out there, no.” Humming softly, she ran G F E up the fretboard. “But I'm going to give you an earworm that'll write a charm on the
inside
of your head, and that charm will block all the thoughts that aren't your own.”

“So, no screaming?”

“Not unless you want to.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes it helps.”

“Used be in a punk band,” Charlie told him. C, Cmaj7, G. “I get that.”

Dan held up his hand before she could touch the strings again. “You're telling me all this because I'm crazy, right? Because if I tell people about sitting in the forest with a girl writing a song on the inside of my head, no one will believe me.”

“Pretty much.”

“Okay,
then.”

“I
DON'T SUPPOSE IT OCCURRED TO YOU to ask if Dan might be wanted by the FBI for reasons pertaining to actual criminal activity?”

Charlie shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and stared out over the city skyline. Naked and horned, David sounded more like the old David, the David with the doctorate in criminal psychology, than he had at any time since the change. Which would have been a good thing had he not been sounding like the old David at her. The old David had been a pedantic know-it-all and she'd always been glad they were too close to be listed.

“Charlie?”

“That would be a no.”

“That would be because?”

“Because it doesn't matter. Dan hears thoughts and most of the family thinks. If he overhears a member of the family thinking and repeats what he heard, we could be playing
clean up in aisle three
for months even if he never makes it back on YouTube. Better an ounce of prevention.” Here and now, Charlie saw no reason to mention the incoming asteroid to David. While she still had faith in NASA's ability to save the day, her conversation with Dan had raised a couple of questions she wanted answered before she spread the word the sky was falling. Dan hadn't overheard Auntie Catherine, so who else knew? And what was up with their belief that millions were going to die? If she told David what his grandmother had Seen while those dead millions were still on the table out of context, he'd pass the information straight to Allie and send Calgary into a lockdown that'd make the last NHL strike seem
like a pleasant memory in comparison. “Besides,” she added when the silence stretched a little too long, “Jack likes him.”

“Jack's feelings in this case are irrelevant.”

“Not to me.”

David's brows rose until they disappeared under the shaggy fall of his hair.

“Wild Powers stick together, right?” A laugh would oversell it, so she let the words stand alone and hoped they had enough weight to counterbalance the response she'd snapped out without thinking.

After a long moment, David made an indeterminate sound—a little worrying; there weren't a lot of indeterminate sounds left in Charlie's world. “If Dan's going to be protected by the family, we need to know the extent of his criminal background, if only to determine how much effort the FBI is going to put into retrieving him.”

“Big words.”

“Charlie . . .”

“Fine.” She started down the hill, her tone a mix of annoyed and resigned, the relief carefully buried. “If it makes you happy, I'll ask.”

“
Ask.
Don't let him lie to you.”

“Hey!” Turning to face him, she walked backward, arms out to keep her balance, one finger up on each hand. “You don't tell me how to do what I do, I don't tell you how to do what you do.”

David snorted, sounding significantly less doctoral. “You'll be first circle soon enough.”

The hell she would; she was thirty. “Twenty-five years, and that's a lowball estimate.”

Facing downhill again, she could hear the future in his voice. “Twenty-five years, then. I'll be waiting.”

She found Jack and Dan about halfway down the hill, sitting out of the wind with their backs to a charred slab of granite. Lichen sacrificed to Jack's flame, the stone radiated heat enough to keep the chill away. Charlie'd expected Dan to look relaxed, pleased the silence of the Wood had carried over into the world. The dirt made it difficult, but, if Charlie had to hazard a guess, she'd say Dan looked pissed.

“. . . because it's not where I live!”

“If you go back to your flop by the river, the police will pick you up.”
Jack's hands were clenched. Charlie figured he'd gone over this a few times already. “If you go to a shelter, the police will pick you up. If you just wander around, the police will pick you up.”

“They have granola bars.”

“Who do?”

“The police.”

Two streams of smoke rose from Jack's nose. “This isn't like spending a cold night in the drunk tank. You get picked up now and the cops will hand you over to the FBI.”

Dan's eyes narrowed. “Smoking will stunt your growth.”

Jack pinched his nostrils closed. “Do you want the FBI to pick you up?”

“Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.?”

“What?”

“Marvin Miller?”

“Dude . . .”

“Why's the FBI want me?”

As Jack opened his mouth, Charlie cut him off. “You tell us, Dan. Have you done anything in the US terrible enough they'd want to haul your ass across the border?”

“I went to North Dakota once.”

“That doesn't sound so terrible,” Jack muttered.

“You ever been to North Dakota, golden boy? I don't go to shelters, though.” Hands over his ears, Dan shook his head. “Too noisy. It's like a murmur, here. The sea in the distance. Wind in the trees. Background noise.”

“Partly that's the park,” Charlie allowed. Then repeated it when Dan lifted his hands. “It's muting the city. I couldn't make the earworm a complete block, not and leave you functional.”

“The worm in my ear sings to me.”

“Yeah, sort of.” Functional was, after all, variable. She reached for compulsion because David had a point. They needed to know if the FBI was going to be a problem so someone—probably Auntie Bea, she had the most experience—could deal with it. “Dan, you need to tell me if you've done anything that would make the FBI want you.”

He thought about it for a moment. “I hear what people think.”

“Does the FBI know that? That you hear what people think?”

“I didn't tell them.”

“And there's no other way they might know?”

“The internet told them.”

“Any other way?”

“No. I don't know why they want me.”

“Truth,” Charlie said for David's ears. Within the park, it was safest to assume he was always listening.

“Don't let them take me to America.” Dan grabbed Jack's sleeve. “They'll make me watch NASCAR. I don't want to watch NASCAR.”

“No one's taking you anywhere.”

“Except you.” He released Jack and pointed at Charlie. “And her.”

He had a point. “If you stay with us, you're safe.”

“From the FBI?”

“Yes.”

Dan folded his arms although it wasn't a particularly definitive gesture given the bulk of three coats and whatever he had on under them. Dirt cracked and flaked off the outermost layer with the movement. “Then I want my stuff.”

“I'll get it.” Jack bounded to his feet, wings visible on his shadow. “The aunties—not Auntie Gwen, but the rest—are on their way up from the parking lot.”

“And I want Chinese food. Noodles!” he added, squinting against the backwash as Jack left the ground. “Not rice!”

Charlie could hear Auntie Carmen complaining about her shoes as she climbed.

“Charlotte Marie Gale.” Auntie Bea's voice carried. Charlie gouged a quick charm in the dirt and stepped over it, putting the charm between her and Dan. As long as he stayed put, he wouldn't hear what the aunties had to say. Better safe than sorry was a given around the aunties. “It isn't enough Alysha brings in strays,” Auntie Bea continued, “now you have to start? Is that him?”

“No, I'm standing in front of a random vagrant.”

“And I doubt it's the first time.” An arm's length away, Auntie Bea mirrored Charlie's position; feet planted a shoulder's width apart, hands in her pockets. It might have been a sign of respect, but Charlie suspected mockery. “You're sure he's hearing actual thoughts?”

“Positive.”

“Well, that's not something we want wandering around. Particularly not now he's gained some notoriety. You say you've blocked what's coming in?”

“I've blocked most of it. I can't block it all and still leave him functional.”

“Of course you can't.” Auntie Bea sighed. “I miss the old days.”

Auntie Trisha leaned out to peer around Charlie at Dan, one hand patting her hair back into place, the curves of her cheeks a windblown pink. “I think it's fascinating that he knows what people are thinking.”

“Really?” Auntie Bea pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well, I know exactly what
you're
thinking. You're thinking Gwen got the Leprechaun, you should be able to have this one.”

Unrepentant, Auntie Trisha smiled. “He's not bad looking under the dirt.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Waving off her answer, Auntie Bea muttered, “Never mind, I don't care.”

“Have you determined why he's wanted by the FBI?” Auntie Carmen asked.

Charlie shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“It does not.” Auntie Bea's smile suggested the FBI wouldn't know what hit it should they attempt to remove Dan from her protection. Which was, Charlie acknowledged, completely accurate. “Get out of the way, Charlotte.”

Charlie stepped aside, but turned as she did. “Dan, these are my aunties. They're going to help keep you safe.”

“They look like hot baths and vegetables.”

“Yes, they do.”

“That's not necessarily a bad thing,” Dan admitted.

*   *   *

“So, that's Dan taken care of.”

“It is.” Charlie had retreated to David's side as the aunties escorted Dan out of the park. Someone had to tell Jack where to take his stuff and David couldn't be counted on to remain on two legs. “Jack thinks he's part of a secret government experiment, got spotted by the wrong people when his rant went viral, and now they want him back.”

“Possible.”

“Seriously?”

“All governments keep secrets, Charlie.”

She could hear sirens in the distance—ambulance, given the distinctive
out of my way, out of my way
sound. Not like David was saying anything she didn't know, although the secrets governments kept were generally about money wasted on dumbass ideas while social services held bake sales.

“Do you want him?”

After a brief and unsuccessful attempt to breathe spit, Charlie managed a mangled, “Who?”

“Dan.”

“What? No.”

“After he's been cleaned up a bit?”

“No!” Wanting Dan was the farthest thing from Charlie's mind. She shoved both hands back through her hair, walked three steps out, three back, and snarled, “For fucksake, David, we're standing on sacred ground. On your ground. You feel what I feel. Why would you even say something like that?”

He tossed his head, the antlers suddenly much more physical than they had been.

Oh, shit. They were standing on sacred ground. He felt what she felt, and he'd prodded her into feeling it strongly enough that he couldn't mistake it.

“Jack's thirteen years younger than you.”

“I know!” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Yelling at David wouldn't help. “Trust me, I
know.
”

“You would never take advantage.”

“Of course I wouldn't!” As it happened, yelling at David wouldn't hurt either. “What kind of person do you think I am? He's seventeen. He's Wild, I'm Wild, and he thinks I'm cool because, frankly, I am, but what I feel for him is irrelevant because I'm an adult and am fully able to recognize I can't always have what I want. So do you know what I do?” David opened his mouth, but Charlie cut him off. “I'll tell you what I do, I put on my big girl pants and I suck it up and I live my life knowing I will always have a dragon-sized, empty hole in my heart and, in the finest tradition of crappy ballads, I'll never let it show. So don't patronize me, you overgrown billy goat.”

“You done?”

“Yes.” The October wind had made her eyes water. She swiped at her cheeks.

“That's not all you do.”

“What?”

“You run.”

“Fine, and I run. Hello! Wild. I don't have to stick around, it's in the rules.”

“Jack feels the same way.”

“As what?”

“As you do. You fill that same place in his heart.”

And now she knew how the dinosaurs had felt when
their
asteroid hit. “Oh, that's just fucking wonderful,” she growled when she got her breath back.

“I tried to convince him it was the pressure of ritual.”

She could hear a dog barking off to the northeast, a siren to the south. “Why?”

“For comfort. It seemed like the logical solution; I had no idea you felt the same way until I saw the two of you together.”

“You didn't see . . .”

“Felt,” David amended, eyes black from rim to rim.

“Right. Fine. Whatever.” Charlie knew a warning when she saw one. “I'm sure you were trying to help. You want to keep helping. Tell me how the hell am I supposed to look at him now and not see him looking back?”

“You two need to talk.”

“Talk to each other? No, we don't.”