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Last week, in chapter 12, Takeda partied at The Center until merging with infinity

Chapter 13: Menehune

Christo rolled to a stop at 10,010 feet, just outside the nondescript, weathered, steel door. He parked the dusty grey jeep, took off his sunglasses, pulled on a t-shirt, and slid sandy feet into flip-flops. He took a long pull from his coffee and watched the tourists take pictures. In thirteen years, he’d never tired of seeing the sunrise on Haleakala and didn’t suppose he ever would. Before walking to the door, he checked to ensure his surfboard was secured to the roof rack.

He paused to give the recognition system, watching his every move, a chance to scan and screen him. To anyone observing, it looked like he stopped for a single second before opening the creaky door. Christo walked inside and paused to drop his phone and car keys into a metal drawer. Someone would take care of parking his jeep out of sight, and his phone would be useless deep inside the walled base.

He started down the long corridor lit by several naked and slightly swaying light bulbs. Halfway down, he said, “Morning, Tom.” The security guard was out of sight but could light up the hallway with a hail of bullets if need be.

Christo found it amusing that he drove ten thousand feet up every morning to take an elevator over a quarter of a mile down. He reached the elevator and pressed the only button, a downward arrow. The doors closed, swallowing him.

Keeping secrets is a logistical pain in the ass.

He stared at the floor and noticed a little sand and a few drops of water. To his surprise, he wasn’t the first into work today. He’d stayed up late last night talking story with locals and drinking too much. It still didn’t keep him from rising early to paddle out at Ho’okipa. There wasn’t much to ride this morning, but sitting on his board in the water with the rising sun was his church.

The elevator made a grinding screech as it touched the bottom. The door opened, and Christo walked down a brightly lit corridor, stopping to enter a glass-enclosed security chamber. It shut, pulsed, and scanned him again. Upon completion, a voice said, “Good morning, Mr. Hanlon.” A hard-plastic badge landed in the tray next to him as the door opened.

He clipped the badge to his board shorts and said, “Good morning to you, too.” Christo headed down the corridor to a brilliant red-colored door. It opened as he approached and snapped shut after he passed. He walked around the high steel catwalk, which overlooked an array of computers and video displays.

A single figure sitting at a terminal glanced up at him and smiled, “Hey man, be up in a minute, okay?”

“Sure,” he said.

The grey walls of his office changed to a video of waves rolling along a beach when he entered. Lighting flickered on and came as close as possible to the feel of daytime. It even projected warmth. They worked deep inside a volcano, but the higher-ups went all out to create a relaxing work environment–even though Haleakala hadn’t erupted in close to six hundred years.

“Coffee, please,” a few moments later, a mug rose from his desk. He placed both hands on the desk and said, “Login,” a thin hidden monitor flipped up. The screen said:

HAND SCANS CONFIRMED…

SCANNING BADGE...

CONFIRMED.

He scrolled through email and several morning reports, a ritual. A popup alerted him to an incoming message from Arthur, whom he had seen a moment ago.

SUBJECT: Review and then let’s talk

It had a few image attachments. Each was similar, shots of several dead black birds with a red left leg; they appeared to be in an alley. There were also three federal ID photo badge attachments. Takeda Hill, Holly Johnson, and Seamus Emerton. He reviewed their info, listening to Arthur’s approaching footsteps.

“Howzit?” Arthur said. He was a giant of a man, part Hawaiian, part Samoan with wild black hair, a Pidgin accent, and something of a permanent smile.

“It’s good, bra. Checking out what you sent me. It’s been a while since we’ve seen these. Thoughts?” Christo took a sip of his coffee.

Arthur flopped down onto the couch, grunting, “It’s unexpected. I ran the standard reports and couldn’t find another anomaly that would indicate a rip.”

“Who was on last night? I assume these images are from Cleaners dispatched to the scene?” Christo zoomed into an image.

“Yes, they’re from Cleaners. Sophie was on; she said that luckily this was a fast pickup. It happened during the day, and that guy there, Seamus, called animal control. Sophie caught the rip when it happened and had eyes on the scene. When he made the call, she intercepted it and sent it to the Boston outfit. They’ve picked up, hopefully, all of the birds. Their remains are on a flight here. They might make it to the building by the end of our shift,” Arthur finished.

“Are we sure these were the only people who saw them up close?”

“Uncertain. Seems like a flock slammed into the building. Into the windows and stuff, so it’s possible other people saw them too. The Cleaners didn’t note anyone else at the scene in or near the structure with anything to say.”

“Did we have eyes on the rip?” Christo’s posture straightened.

“No. The eyes only came online after the breach of the flock.”

“You have any theories about why this happened? Why there, why now?”

“Nothing jumps out. Could be the start of something. But, the other happened…” Arthur trailed off.

“Oh fuck. Trees?”

“We didn’t see any, and there’s no evidence. But, this person, Holly, seemed shaken. It could have been because of the birds. I’m not convinced. There’s a moment in the video where her eyes widen for a split second. Then she seems to be yelling after her dog, I think. After that, she staggers out of the alley clutching the pooch. One could assume that a tree at the end of the alley caused that reaction. But I do hate assuming….” Arthur said.

“Because of the ass thing?” Christo said.

“Yeah, the ass thing, jerk,” he continued, “but I looked into her background. She’s a tough one. A friggin smokejumper and a trail hand in the Appalachians. She also has a background in coding, handed down from her grandfather, a west coast techie legend. Something shook her in that alley, and she doesn’t appear to be someone easily shaken. Watch the video with me.”

Arthur played the video on the mobile book he’d brought in, “See, right, here...” he hit pause and clicked the arrows forward and backward several times. “Look at her eyes.”

“Arthur,” Christo said, leaning forward.

“Just look, man,” he said, entranced.

“Arthur!”

“What?”

“Keep doing that, but watch the ground.” As he did this, what looked like the shadow of a tree on the ground was in one frame and gone in the next. It was more challenging to spot than Holly’s widening pupils.

“Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. There’s one. That’s why she took off!”

“Maybe. It seems convincing–especially with the background info you have. I doubt there’s any real foliage at the end of this dirty city alley. Did you check for archived overhead media?”

“Yeah. It’s a dead end with brick walls and not much else.”

“The other guy, Seamus, doesn’t change expression. He could be staring; a tough read. What do you know about him?” Christo said.

“He’s the landlord. Technically, his mother is, but she’s not well mentally. He’s a Veteran with several combat tours overseas and stateside. Like many vets, Seamus is undergoing treatment for PTSD. My take is that you see a trauma response. He’s been through otherworldly shit, maybe a tree appearing out of nowhere isn’t all that startling, or maybe it’s paralyzing.”

“I tend to agree. We send anyone to talk to either of them?” Christo swiped Arthur’s tablet back to the photos of the three.

“Sophie said that the Cleaners weren’t able to find Holly. It appears that she took off and met up with a friend. Seamus wasn’t ‘very personable,’ to quote what Sophie recounted from the Cleaners. They said he did nothing more than tell them that the birds were in the alley and that he had work to do. His mother was a little more animated and started shouting, ‘Those damn birds are going to kill us all!’ She didn’t get a chance to elaborate on the statement before Seamus closed the door, but as I said, she’s not well.”

“Anything coming in from our colleagues around the world?”

“Nada. Sophie shared what I’ve told you thus far with each group abroad per international protocol. Of course, everyone is a little concerned, and we’ll be escalating our daily connect schedule and keeping the comm lines open.”

“You said thus far. What haven’t you told them, or me… yet?” Christo said, narrowing his suntanned brow.

“Probably nothing,” Arthur said sheepishly.

“Come on, what is it?”

“A Center in the Boston area reported a minor incident last night. It appears that a man, that man,” he pointed to the photo of Takeda, “had a little freak out at the end of his birthday replay.”

Christo sipped his coffee, “That’s not uncommon. It happens a dozen times a year around the world. The timing being the same day as the bird thing and in the same general area is mildly concerning. Is that why it bothers you?”

“That’s a big part. But dig this, our boy Takeda here; he lives in the same building as these two.”

“Huh,” Christo put his cup down carefully.

“Huh is right,” Arthur crossed his big arms.

“You know my saying about coincidences?”

“The one that goes ‘I don’t fucking believe in coincidences,’ it’s artsy and memorable.”

Christo leaned back.

“You’re not giving me much, boss. What’re you thinking? You’ve got something.”

“So far, I’m thinking…,” he looked up at Arthur and scowled, “you’ve got more to tell me, don’t you?”

“I do; just one more thing. When Takeda came out of the replay, during his freakout, he was raving, ‘She was there, she was there again, and she was red, she was red, she was red.’”

“Jesus,” Christo said.

“Yeah. The red thing is disturbing; it could be a coincidence, right? But we don’t believe in those,” he grumbled. “And ‘She was there again’ is messing with me. ‘Again’ could be from his birthday event earlier in the day, but those rarely have other people in them. Or, it could be something bleeding from reality into his replay. That’s scary. I’ve done some initial research and can’t find any records of that ever happening.” Arthur leaned forward on the couch.

Christo rubbed his eyes, “Okay, it’s clear that we have a situation. The obvious questions are, what is it, how important is it, and what do we do? Short term, I suggest you keep up the research and look for anything similar in the past. There has to be something. I’m going to see if we can’t get someone to talk to these people,” he motioned to the screen. “Maybe find out more about what’s going on without compromising… uh, what’s that thing, Arthur?”

“The fate of humanity?” he said with palms up.

“Word. That. I’ll work on not fucking up humanity, as best that I can, because I do want to go surfing tomorrow. And, hopefully, those birds will arrive later so we can get a good look at them. I figure they’re like any others we’ve recovered—otherworldly and not technically a bird by any ornithological definition. Although, the sheer number of them is frightening. What’s the point?”

Christo started to pace, “And bloody hell, isn’t this like a movie! We’ve got events, birds, trees, and shit when a goddamn handwritten note or simple message would clear this all up. Then again, we’d be out of a job, but it’s rather boring ninety-nine point nine percent of the time at the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, isn’t it?” he stopped and faced Arthur, who was eyeing him with worry.

“Want to grab a brew at lunch, bra? I brought my cooler. Think we could use it,” Arthur held out his giant fist, and Christo bumped it with his. “Hell yeah,” he said.

Arthur turned to leave, “Hey, do you think it’s happening in other places?”

“They’re supposed to tell us, just like we told them. That’s how we keep control.”

Arthur rubbed his chin, “Sure, but like, we didn’t tell them everything. What if they’re not telling us everything?”

“We’ll tell them the whole story tomorrow–once we get a better handle on it. As to the honesty of our colleagues worldwide, we don’t have any control over that. But you know as well as I do that this job is meaningless without sharing information and trust. Let’s do the best we can.” Christo stopped, realizing that Arthur could always calm him down by making him calm himself down. Whether it was intentional or not, Arthur was a master at that. Arthur nodded, threw a shaka hand sign, and lumbered out of the office. Christo looked at the three ID cards on his screen and picked up the phone.

“Hey, it’s Christo. We might have a problem. It’s Arthur.”

Next week in Chapter 14, “Tan pants,” Holly confides with a stranger

Bill Bradbury's fiction

Song of the Red-Legged Birds: Chapter 13…