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Storms: Chapter 1© 2000 GT <gt@dreamsmith.org> Chester Harrison sat cross-legged on the hood of his jeep, looking out across the Mara. The sky was blue above, but grey clouds gathered on the horizon, matching the grey of his eyes. The color of the grass matched his sandy blonde hair. The nearer, almost white clouds matched the color of his dusty polo shirt, which might be white again if he ever washed it, but that didn't seem likely at this point. He'd buy a new shirt at the airport, he thought. His dusty old khaki shorts that matched the color of the distant dirt road would probably get discarded as well. Chester always traveled light, buying new cloths as he went, discarding the old. He glanced at the duffle bag in the jeep, wondering idly which of its contents counted as his oldest possession. He realized with a chuckle that the three-year old duffle bag was in fact older than anything it contained. "A family heirloom," he laughed, his first words in several days. His thoughts drifted to the piece of paper in the duffle bag. The paper was new, but it contained the last legacy of his family's generations in Kenya. A number, a simple bit of mathematics - the amount he'd received for selling the land on which his father's plantation had been. It was fitting, he thought. He'd never farmed the land himself. After his parents had died, he'd rented the land out to various tenant farmers. Now the land was theirs. One less bit of Kenya owned by the white man, one more bit of land back in the hands of those who'd been here long before his British ancestors had come to Africa. Just as the Empire had slowly released its holdings around the world, returning control to the native people, he was releasing the last bit of Kenya that had legally belonged to him. But that did not matter. That wasn't the kind of ownership he was interested in. He barely had any memories of his youth on the plantation. Like his old possessions, over the years, he had slowly discarded them. Here, out on the Mara - this was the Kenya he remembered. This was the Kenya he loved. This was the Kenya he truly owned, for he carried it with him in his heart wherever he went. And this was the Kenya he would soon share with the world. He picked up the expensive camera in his lap, and aimed it at the distant herd of wildebeest. My last bit of film, he thought. It really didn't matter what he used it on, he already had more than enough great photographs. After twelve years as a professional photographer, he knew which photos were good and which ones weren't. He had all of them developed and ready to look at, but he already knew which ones the magazines would buy. After the wild success of my last series on the Canadian Rockies (not to mention the Alaskan series before that), I imagine these will command a high price. He pondered which charity to give it to. The figure on the paper in his duffle-bag was all the money he needed for himself, probably for the rest of his life. He saw her emerge from the brush. She climbed up onto a high rock and looked across the land, while her cubs emerged from the brush behind her and began playing. Come to wish me goodbye, have you? He watched the young cheetahs playing on ground at the foot of the rock under their mother's watchful eye. He could scarcely call them cubs anymore; they were nearly her size, but they still played around like the juvenile cats they were. The mother cheetah scanned the horizon, looking for their next meal. She eyed the wildebeest for a while, but continued to scan. Unable to help himself, Chester also scanned, looking for what he knew she was looking for: gazelle. However, there were none in sight. When his gaze returned to her, he saw that she was staring at him. "We've certainly gotten to know one another well, haven't we?" He recalled the first time they met. He recalled her mating. He recalled his desperate search of the Mara, looking for her, until he found her with her newborn cubs. He recalled watching them grow, snapping every precious moment, recording their lives on film. He wondered what they would think when he left. Their whole lives he'd been around, on some distant hill or outcropping of rock, snapping pictures through a telephoto lens. Would they miss him when he was gone, as he was sure he would miss them? He looked her in the eyes. "Goodbye, my love. May there always be gazelle nearby when you need them." He thought he saw her nod. Then she sprang from the rock and began walking towards the wildebeest, looking for a younger, smaller target to run down. Chester unfolded his long, lanky legs and hopped into the jeep. He headed for the road to Nairobi, then roared down it at seventy-five miles per hour, imagining what it would feel like to run at such speeds. He imagined the feel of the wind through his whiskers, as he tore up the African soil under his claws. He imagined her running down one of the wildebeest, with the feline beauty and grace that you could only see with high speed film, it happened so fast, every ounce of that streamlined, sinewy body designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to be the fastest thing on legs. Glancing in the rear view mirror, he saw distant lightning from the clouds gathering on the horizon. There was a storm coming, and it was a big one. By the time it gets to Nairobi, I'll be in Heathrow Airport, waiting for the Concorde to America. But that thought didn't slow him down. He raced on before the storm. She took one look back over her shoulder, watching the jeep disappear over the horizon. She wondered where he would be when the storm finally overtook him. ***** Storm Richards looked at himself in the mirror. He looked sharp. He looked like a million bucks. Or at least like the several thousand dollars the suit had cost. "It's all about image, kid," he repeated to himself, recalling the words of his mentor in the world of high finance. "People don't do multi-million dollar deals with a guy in a tee-shirt and jeans." He walked over to the tall, wide picture window on the west side of his penthouse apartment. He could see all of San Francisco laid out before him, with the Pacific glimmering in the distance. He imagined it was all his for the taking. Soon, he'd own it all. His fortunes were rising, his star was ascendant. Soon, all his dreams would be fulfilled. He walked back over to the mirror and looked himself over yet again. He was somewhat nervous. He'd brokered many a deal before, but this was nine digits, this was an order of magnitude beyond anything he'd done before. His tiny percentage on the deal was a multi-million dollar take. "A millionaire at twenty-six," he announced to the man in the mirror. "Wouldn't Dad be proud," he added, knowing it wasn't true. Over the years, people had commented on how much Storm resembled his dad. He said he didn't see it, but today he could see his father's ghost, looking back at him in the mirror. The same black hair, the same brown eyes (but with my mother's nose! he protested), the same slightly tanned look, a result of their common Pomo Indian heritage, although more pronounced in his dad, who was half-Pomo to his quarter. "Well, look around, Dad." He gestured at the beautiful, tasteful furniture, the widescreen TV, the expensive stereo. "Look what I have. A hell of a lot more than you ever bothered to aspire to." A look of scorn crossed his father's face. "And are you a better man for it, son? Tell me how these things have made you a better man." "What would you have me do?" he cried. "Sit around on the reservation pretending to talk to animals and spirits? You wasted your life, Dad! Your culture is dying, and nobody cares! The shamans grow old, and no one cares if they're replaced or not! Get over it!" In the mirror, his mother's nose twitched the way it always did when she sensed another father-son argument coming on. He thought his father would be angered to hear him talk this way, but his father's eyes instead reflected a great disappointment and sadness. He could see tears coming to his father's eyes. He broke away from the mirror in disgust. Four years dead, and he still couldn't stop arguing with his father. His father was the most infuriating man he'd ever met. How long would the memory of his father continue to haunt him? He walked over to his wine rack and broke open a hundred-dollar bottle. He poured himself a drink and began to sip it while slowly releasing the tension in his body, calming himself. Got to look sharp, Storm, got to look confident. Got to tell them they're going to write a big fat check and have them so sure of your words they don't even consider the possibility of it not being true. It was time to go. He finished the glass, walked back out to the mirror and made sure everything was in place. "Looking sharp," he said. He hit his reflection with a megawatt smile and strode confidently out the door towards the waiting elevator. "Look out world, there's a Storm coming," he announced as he strode through the door. The ghost watched the door close behind his son. "Indeed, it comes," he said after a while. "Are you ready for it, son?" ***** Amanda Welch sat alone at a corner table in the high school cafeteria. Her raven black hair was matched by her black clothing, and by her black makeup, all that black fingernail polish, black lipstick, and black eye-shadow that she carried in her black purse. It was also matched by the black mood she carried inside. By contrast, her fair skin looked deathly pale. Only her brilliant green eyes betrayed any color. A look of condescension crossed her face as she watched a group of cheerleaders walk by, looking for a table. One of them looked at her, but looked away quickly when Amanda gave her "the evil eye." A lot of the other girls were afraid of Amanda, and she liked it that way. The others mostly just ignored her, and she liked that too. She had no use for them and their incessant, pointless chatter about who was seeing who and so on. Like I really care who Bobby Derricks is seeing now, she thought. He got what he wanted, and moved on. That's how life works. You take what you want and move on when there's nothing left. Anyone who says different is a fool. She sat, lost in her own thoughts. What am I doing here? she asked herself for the hundredth time today. It was all bogus. Teachers that didn't teach, students that didn't learn. A big monumental waste of time interspersed with the occasional popularity contest. Next year, she thought. On my eighteenth birthday, I'm outta here. Gonna get on a bus, any bus, and just go until I feel like getting off. She tried to picture the look on her mother's face as she waved from the bus, but she couldn't quite decide on the emotion. Anger? Relief? Happiness? She always imagined her mother would be happier without her. She certainly acted like it. She wondered if she'd run into her father, somewhere out there. She wasn't quite sure she would recognize him, and she wasn't quite sure what she'd say to him if she did. I couldn't stand her, either. Why didn't you take me with you? She noticed Debbie Phillips coming over to her table. "Oh gawd," she sighed, "I don't know if I can take a dose of Debbie right now." Debbie was one of the few people she tolerated. At times, she was even tempted to call her a friend. But Debbie could be very trying on the patience sometimes. "Hi Mandy!" Debbie chirped brightly as she sat down. "Oops! Sorry..." she added sheepishly, remembering Amanda punching Mark Daily in the nose when he made the mistake of calling her 'Mandy' after she told him to stop. There was blood everywhere, but Mark refused to admit to any teacher that he'd had his nose broken by a girl, so Amanda got away with it. Debbie thought Amanda could get away with anything, she was so clever. She could outsmart any stupid teacher. Amanda waved her hand magnanimously. "S'okay, just don't let it happen again." She had decided to try to be nice today, and she wasn't going to let Debbie spoil it that easily. "What's up?" "Oh!" Debbie exclaimed. "Look what I got!" She pulled a book out of her backpack. A very colorful book with a woman built like a Barbie doll riding a broomstick on the cover. To Ride A Silver Broomstick, by Silver RavenWolf, the cover declared. Oh gawd, Amanda thought, more fluffy-bunny Wicca crap. But what she said was, "Oh. Umm... is it any good?" "It's wonderful!" Debbie gushed. She went on to describe in detail all the wonderful information and spells and goddesses and on and on. Amanda feigned interest, but she stopped hearing the words. Her mind drifted to the sing-song lilt of Debbie's continuous prattle. At least she's not talking about Bobby Derricks, Amanda thought. Not that I'd care. With a start, she realized Debbie had stopped talking and was looking at her as if waiting for a reply. "Sorry?" she asked. "Do you have your tarot deck with you? I wanted to ask it something." Amanda hated the way Debbie talked as if you could ask pieces of cardboard questions. You ask the reader, half-wit. "No," she replied, "not today." Debbie frowned. "I thought you always had it with you?" "It accumulated some negative energy," she explained, "so I have to put it in a magic box with some herbs for three days to purify it." "Ooo!" Debbie enthused, "You'll have to show me how you do that!" "I'll be sure to do that," Amanda replied brightly, knowing the mock brightness would be please Debbie. Sarcasm was invariably lost on her. Reassured, Debbie got back up. "I have to go. Me and Mary and Cathy are meeting at the mall after school, want to come?" "Maybe, but don't wait up for me." "Okay! See ya later!" Debbie bounced off. She's nice, but she's such an air-head, Amanda thought. She reached into her purse and fingered her tarot deck, reassuring herself that it was still there despite what she'd said. Do I really want to go wander around the mall with Debbie, Mary, and Cathy? Mary was the only one of the three that had more than two brain cells to rub together, although between Debbie and Cathy you could almost make a full wit. She decided she would. Her mother was expecting her home right after school, so going out to the mall seemed like a good idea. It was about time her mother woke up and realized she wasn't little Mandy anymore. She'd do what she wanted, when she wanted. She pulled a card at random out of the middle of her tarot deck. The Tower. A tower was breaking in two, cracked in the middle by a bolt of lightning and with the top section toppling over in the fierce wind of the storm. There's a storm coming, she thought. She looked out the window at the clear blue California sky, but she wasn't fooled. It wasn't that kind of storm. She didn't know what kind of storm it was, but she knew it was coming. ***** Dr. Vincent Dee's hazel eyes scanned over the lines of numbers on the computer printout in his right hand, while he absentmindedly ran the fingers of his left hand through his short brown hair. After a few seconds, he cursed and tossed the printout onto the pile of printouts on the floor. He walked back over to the computer and began typing new parameters in. Then he walked over to the thick lead door on the other side of the room. He opened it and walked through to the platform in front of his linear particle accelerator. Picking up a pair of long forceps, he carefully removed the damaged iron ball on the platform and tossed it into a container labeled 'DANGER: RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS'. He carefully sealed the container. Then he casually retrieved a fresh iron sphere and placed it on the platform where the previous one had been. Finally, he walked out of the room, closed the thick lead door, walked over to the computer, and hit the enter key. The computer began a countdown. He grabbed his thick, opaque goggles and rushed over to look through the tiny slit in the lead door. "Come on," he breathed, "this time, let's get it right." The synthesized female voice of the computer continued the countdown, oblivious of the interruption. "5... 4... 3..." He could almost feel the high intensity electromagnetic field spring into place. He knew the iron ball was being lifted to occupy the exact spot specified by the computer, but he could not see anything but inky blackness through his goggles. "2..." His pulse raced. "1..." He stopped breathing. "Fire." An explosion of blue fire appeared before his eyes as a lance of charged particles burrowed into the iron target at just under lightspeed. "Damn!" he screamed, violently throwing the goggles across the room. He stared at the ruined iron ball and fumed. He rushed over to the chattering printer and ripped the latest printout off, scanning the numbers for some clue as to what went wrong. No evidence of any movement on the part of the ball. No disturbance in space-time, not even a ripple. It had just sat there, precisely where it shouldn't have been, and been smashed into by particles that should've flown by without hindrance. He angrily tossed the latest printout onto the pile and stormed out of the lab, up the stairs into his home. Not stopping for an instant, he continued to thunder through many rooms until he reached the front doors. Swinging them wide, he charged out into the circle in front of his home. He just stood there for a while, slowly unwinding while breathing in the fresh, outdoor air. Off in the west, he could see the sun setting, a dull red orb merging with its reflection as it sank into the sea. Looking south, he could see the distant lights of San Francisco starting to come on. He considered getting in his Jaguar and heading off to the city for some dinner. It would take nearly an hour, he thought, but he could use the long drive to unwind. "Damn them," he muttered, thinking of the ignorant buffoons who had denied his petition for additional research grant money. The accelerator in his basement was more powerful than the crap he had to use at the university. He was rich, very rich, thanks to his ancestors greed, shrewd business sense, and the fact that they'd left no heirs save himself. But he did not have the money to build the equipment he needed. He knew that for sure, because he'd already asked his accountant to total up all his assets and tell him how much he could raise if he sold them all off. It wasn't enough. If it had been, he'd have done it. His accountant thought he was crazy. The regents thought he was crazy. The guys at Fermilab thought he was crazy. They wouldn't even consider making the modifications he needed when flew out to Illinois to ask. They all watched him during his presentation with condescending smiles, as if watching an overzealous undergrad bury himself with wonderful calculations, meticulously worked out from a fundamentally flawed base. "Fools," he spat. "It's right in front of them and they can't even see it." He turned around and went back into the mansion. He strode into his study and grabbed the keys to the Jaguar off his desk. As he did, his eyes trailed over the open letter still sitting on his desk. It was from an old friend he hadn't seen in several years. The thought of seeing him soon helped to calm his turbulent thoughts. He read the letter again, imagining his friend's voice as he did:
As Vincent walked to the garage, he imagined the lanky blonde, in his bright polo shirts and khaki slacks. Chester had been one of his first students, when he first landed a professorship shortly after getting his Ph.D. He'd felt barely older than his students, and extremely self-conscious in front of an auditorium full of disinterested freshmen with no interest in a boring science class - all they wanted was the required general education credits. Chester had been only eighteen, but Vincent had been only twenty-seven himself. Chester had come to him one day for additional help with the class. He was having trouble with the math, but he seemed genuinely interested in the physics, despite being a visual arts major. Vincent had been unable to place his accent, so he asked about it and found out about Chester's childhood in Kenya, and the recent death of his parents. Vincent's own parents had died just a few years before, leaving him in charge of a family estate more vast than he cared to think about. They got to talking about their respective situations, two orphaned rich kids who didn't care about being rich and who were no longer really kids. Over the course of the next few weeks, a friendship blossomed. They did various things together, but mostly they talked. About their lives, about their fears, about their dreams of winning the Pulitzer Prize in Photography or the Nobel Prize in Physics. Not for the money, they both had plenty of that already, but for the honor. And they'd both believed, back then. They'd both believed they'd win their respective prizes and their honors and their places in the history books. They never said "if" or "wouldn't it be nice", they said "when" and "it will be great" instead. They didn't need to speculate and dream - they had faith; they knew. They could see their prizes waiting on the road before them, they needed only to chase them down and catch them. Chester had gotten his prize a few years back, after shooting incriminating photographs showing environmental damage caused by negligence on the part of several oil companies in Alaska. Pictures of tragedy and the needless loss of life, even if it was just animal life, galvanized people to pass laws with tougher penalties against companies that violate the law. Chester had changed the world. People still did more or less the same thing day in and day out, but there were new laws on the books, and a new awareness in the minds of people across the nation. The world was a bit better because Chester had made it so. And here I am, Vincent thought as he sat down behind the wheel of his Jag, forty-four and frustrated. He seemed no closer to winning his own prize. He beat himself against the roadblocks in his path, throwing himself at them with all his passion, but they did not budge. And beyond the roadblocks, his prize receded ever further into the distance. The garage door opened, and Vincent raced out in his Jaguar. He had two miles of road to cover before he reached a major highway; two miles of private road, no speed limits. He covered it in less than a minute. He imagined Chester in the passenger seat, grinning that big Chester grin that invariably emerged around seventy-five miles per hour and didn't go away until legal speeds resumed. It would be nice to see that grin again. "That's Chester in a nutshell," he remarked to no one in particular. "It's that damned infectious grin. It doesn't matter how big and scary the storm clouds get, Chester grins away, grinning from ear to ear as he runs before the storm, knowing it'll never catch him. Keep on grinning, Chester." ***** Chester wasn't grinning. Chester was staring out the window of a 747, which was waiting for clearance to take off from DC's Dulles International Airport. Raindrops were beginning to sprinkle, the precursor to an incoming storm. It was no longer Hurricane Dennis, having lost steam as it headed north, but it was still one nasty storm. The 747 began to taxi, and Chester began to relax. We'll be above the weather in no time, he thought. He stared peacefully out the window until he fell asleep. She met him on the Mara as he dreamed. They raced together before the storm. You cannot run forever, she thought, someday you must turn and face it. Maybe, he replied, but not today. I will face it in my own time, on my own terms, with my friend at my side. Vincent has his own storm to face, she thought. How do you know that? And how do you know Vincent? She did not reply. Well, he thought, then I will help him face his storm, and he will help me face mine. That's what friends do. There will be others. Will you face their storms as well? Do I have a choice? She did not reply to that one, either, but he already knew the answer. He ran for a while in silence. Finally, he made his choice. We are all Gaia's children. If the Goddess wishes me to help these others, then I choose to do so. She nodded. So mote it be. The change in the sound of the jet engines woke Chester. The captain's voice filled the cabin, informing everyone that they'd be on the ground in ten minutes. Chester looked out the window. It was night, but he could see the bright lights of the city below. San Francisco Bay appeared as a black silhouette, surrounded by light. As he watched, the memory of the dream faded from his mind. |
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