Forecast is being serialized semiweekly across 42 web sites. For a full list of participants and links to live chapters, please visit www.shyascanlon.com/forecast. Also, FORECAST found a home at Flatmancrooked and will be released in hardcover in Spring, 2010. Chapter 35 is available at PANK Magazine and Chapter 37 is available at 3:AM Magazine.
Helen asked for a moment to wander.
“It’s your trip,” Blain said, after looking at his watch. “But we’ve gotta get going soon if we’re going to meet up with Busy at your friend Asseem’s place.”
“Right,” Helen said. “Of course.”
“Assuming you picked the right one.”
“Always the optimist,” Helen replied, and looked down at Rocket for support.
Rocket, however, was already off sniffing around. He’d apparently found his happy place, no longer finding it necessary to stick to Helen’s shins. And though she’d found it annoying moments before, she now felt vaguely naked.
She must not have covered this anxiety very well, because Blain immediately sidled up beside her and, without speaking, made it known that he wasn’t going anywhere. This put us both at ease. It was very possibly even more reassuring to me than Helen herself, since she couldn’t have known yet how serious her situation was turning out to be.
The CS complex is located just south of downtown Seattle, and I was traveling primarily west, it seemed, though the gauge I’d been given was taking me down a series of dead ends. This made sense—how could it know that certain paths were blocked?—but it was nonetheless extremely frustrating, and I was required, on a number of occasions, to retrace my steps and discover new ways to reach the far side of whatever wall the device had directed me to walk through.
That, and I was headed down.
Being an early, and hence by then relatively senior, member of the Surveillant staff, my office and viewing room were located on a good floor, its lounge looking north across Elliot Bay from a perch above the industrial cranes that stalked the docks of the city’s vast seaport. And though I’d been in the building since the beginning, I’d never had any interest in exploring it. I went to meetings in the meeting room, entered and exited through the nearest elevator—which brought me directly to a bus tunnel—and of course primarily, almost exclusively, my time was devoted to the viewing room. I was therefore wandering through all manner of unfamiliar floors, rooms, and hallways, always heading down and still, for the most part, north, though once I’d descended below the ground floor I’d lost the advantage of windows to help orient me. I could have been headed anywhere.
I was at very least five levels down when I came to an exit I’d never seen before. It was at the end of a long, bare hallway and, though clearly marked Exit, the door was obviously not often used. People brushed past me from both directions, carrying files, pushing carts, speaking into the air in front of their face, their words being picked up by the building’s voice-recognition system, and stored, the central computer most likely carrying out requests that would be done by the time they got to their desk. I’d never used that system, and it still amazed me to see people walking alongside of one another, each one speaking, but not to each other. I looked back down the hall. The Professor’s meter was clearly insisting that I head in that direction. I don’t know why I stalled, exactly – the act of leaving the building seemed at that moment significant, irreversible even, as though I’d only pretended to make my decision about all this before and there I was, facing it all over again. What was I doing, after all? I was leaving my post, my sworn effort to watch and protect. Until that moment I could have been doing anything. Until leaving the building I could have been looking for an empty bathroom stall. By walking through that door I’d be breaking down the most important distinction that existed within the realm of my profession. If the Professor had not been the one to ask this of me, would there have been any way to persuade him that such a transgression was defensible? Right then, staring down that lonely, blank corridor, I had my doubts. I bit down slightly on my top lip, and tipped my head in the direction my body reluctantly followed. As I approached the door I could hear noise from outside. The sound of voices, whistles, a honk, and things less recognizable trickled into my ear and as I touched the smooth metal bar that ran across the center of the door I realized that what lay outside was exactly what I’d been instructed, ordered, to avoid at all costs: Helen. Nauseous from nerves, I pushed open the door.
“Have you ever tried REMO?” Blain asked.
The question wasn’t as strange as it may seem – REMO is a major topic of discussion among civilians. Its use, abuse, and theories about its meaning have amounted to a cultural capital on the scale of a common television show or popular movie star; it is something people bring up to find a point of connection, or fill the space. Besides, he’d already told her about the addicts in the park. Helen was in front of the Cyclone Chamber, squatting at a placard that charted the increase in frequency of cyclone activity from before the End of Electricity, through the Brightening, to the present day. It was fascinating. She’d never seen this information displayed in such a straightforward way. Though of course she’d lived through it all, it was somehow more alarming to see the data presented there, under ground, than it was to see cyclones in the distance, or even above her own home.
She looked up behind her shoulder at Blain and grimaced. “Unfortunately, yeah, a couple times.”
Blain kicked a smallish rock that turned out to be Styrofoam, and it went soaring off behind a strange plastic tree. “No likey, eh?”
“No likey one bit,” Helen confirmed. “Hey, did you know that there’ve been over 100 new cyclone classifications discovered in the last 10 years?”
“Enough to make your head spin.”
“Well there’s a new twist on an old saying.”
“Babe, we could go around and around like this all day.”
“So long as we each wait our turn.”
Blain frowned.
“You mean this whole issue revolves around me?”
“You’re good,” he admitted.
“Thanks. Really, though, this is actually informative. I’m kinda surprised that this park was ever created in the first place.”
“You mean because…”
“Because people don’t exactly seem that interested in the facts, when it comes to weather.” Helen shrugged out an obvious duh. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Right. Well, I guess you’d know more than I would.”
“Bet your ass,” Helen said, standing back up. “Why?”
“Why what,” Blain said, scanning the inauthentic underbrush for Rocket.
“REMO. Have you done it?”
Blain flicked his head to suggest that they move on, and Helen was ready. She called Rocket over, who trotted back to her side, happy as a dog, and they all started walking down the pathway between the Cyclone Chamber and the Thunder Shack.
“No… Well, yes,” Blain said. “But I guess why I brought it up is I think it’s interesting.”
The decrepit amusement park resembled a cross between a run down mall and an industrial storage area. The buildings were dressed up in innocuous, subdued olives and beiges but the paint covered plain, corrugated steel. Rivets ran up and down the walls like an orderly procession of beetles.
“I think it’s gross,” Helen said, making a face.
“Well think about it. You’ve got on the one hand this stuff that comes out of you, you know, that you make. On the other hand you’re putting that stuff that comes out of you back in your body.”
Rocket ran off down the path ahead, chasing a rat.
“You think he’s okay?” Helen asked. She was amazed he’d shed his apprehensions so completely, but was herself unable to entirely forget them.
“Sure, he’s a dog, ain’t he?”
“Uh, right.”
“So but what I’m getting at is, you take this stuff and you, you know, consume it, and then it’s a part of you, right? It’s a part of you that then comes back out as REMO.”
“Right. I think that’s a fair explanation for it.” Helen wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but it provided a fine sound track to the surreal, unnatural landscape.
“So it’s both consumption, and production.”
“It does seem to blur that dichotomy,” Helen said absent-mindedly, looking around at the derelict carcasses of a city’s false hope.
“Though, of course, it’s unsustainable.”
I tried not to think about how close I was to the park. I was pretty sure it was to my right, but when I looked down streets that led off in that direction they’d veer after a few blocks—the Seattle Underground doesn’t adhere to a grid plan—and I’d be left with little more than a hunch.
Before that day, I hadn’t been to the Underground in years. What I remembered most was the positive spin on dark implications it had initially represented. Everything had been just a little too cheery and polished, from what I remember. All the quaint little cafés with their “outside” seating, napkins that didn’t have to be held down with magnets to tables that didn’t have to be chained. It was all a little too much, and I couldn’t help but think about the world over my head, and how unpredictable it had become. Neither could anyone, I guess, which is why it is the way it is, now, and was that day: a creepy mixture of seedy big business sharing its playless playpen with entry-level criminals who couldn’t stand the heat topside. Or the cold. Or whatever the world decided to throw at you at any given moment. I passed slick limousines—one of only a few types of automobiles that were allowed below ground—parked along side of shopping carts filled with “used” electronics for sale. I passed street vendors operating carts that broke every health code selling food to suits on their way from subbasement to subbasement, ushered around by shifty body guards with one hand permanently hidden in their jackets.
But what I noticed most were the masks. Everyone wore them. I’d seen people who wore AS-Masks while watching Helen, of course, and I’d seen people on TV who wore them, but it was a different thing altogether to be there among them. To be one of them. It was mildly disturbing. I looked into a couple of the faces I passed by, trying to determine their mood, what they were thinking, but it was impossible. Everyone seemed emotionless, going about their errands and tasks like automatons. No doubt appearing like an automaton myself, I made my way through this anonymous public space clutching my two gadgets close to my chest, the cobbled gauge tracking the emotion that my mask reflected from what was coaxed out of my body by the public conduction conduits all along the streets, and my monitor locked onto Helen, my Helen, who was merely blocks away.
“So where is everybody?” Helen asked.
Blain, walking a couple steps ahead, stopped and turned around. “Everybody who?” he asked. He seemed suddenly tense. He looked at her through narrowed eyes, and cocked his head to the side, his massive jaw jutting out in the opposite direction.
“Hey, whoa there, cowboy,” said Helen, stopping too. “Rocket!” she called. “Rocket c’mere boy!”
I stopped too, of course, the hairs standing in attention on the back of my neck. Leave it to Zara to get in trouble just when I was out of reach.
She looked up at this massive man before her, and forced a smile.
“You know, the criminals you said were down here.”
Blain visibly relaxed, rolled his eyes, and turned back around.
I pushed forward.
Helen watched his back as it rocked slowly back and forth, each muscled upward shoulder rising over a raised foot long and wide.
“They’re around,” he said. “They stay out of sight, mostly, in case of cops.”
Helen started after him, looking around for the dog.
“Rocket!” she called again. “That damn animal.”
“Got minds of their own,” Blain said, shaking his head. “Little guy probably found something to pee on.”
They continued up the path for a few paces in silence, Helen growing silently worried, until she heard a rustle from a nearby plastic shrubbery pitched in grass green foam. She turned, looked a bit closer, and sure enough Rocket’s yellow nose was poking out from beneath it.
“There you are,” she said, and crouched down to get a better look.
Rocket did not look very good. He was wide-eyed, and shaking slightly. The bush he was under rattled as he spoke.
“Helen, I met someone who knows you.”
“What?” Helen exclaimed.
“Shhh!”
“Oh give me a break. Come on, Rocket, we gotta keep moving.” She began to stand back up, but Rocket redoubled his efforts.
“Helen, I’m serious! Do you know a guy named Skip Handpepper?”
Helen froze.
So did I.
“Handpepper?” she said in disbelief. “Uh, well I did know a guy named Handpepper a while back. Does he have crazy—”
“Curly red hair,” finished the dog. “That’s him! He needs to see you! He says you’re in danger!”
Helen finished standing up. “Well, this is certainly unexpected.” She decided to ignore the warning for the moment, and let Handpepper explain it to her himself. “Do you really have to remain under that bush?”
Rocket looked both ways slowly, and crawled slowly out. “I thought it would make it more cloak and dagger,” he said.
“Right. So where is he?”
“He’s just on the other side of Lightning Strikes.”
“Is everything okay?” Blain called.
Helen looked up and saw that Blain was a hundred feet or so ahead.
“Ah ha!” he said. “I see you’ve reunited with your lost dog. Well, tell him to get a move on. We don’t have a whole lot of time.”
Helen stood her ground. “I think there’s someone I used to know over here!” she called. “An old teacher of mine!”
I couldn’t believe this was happening. If Handpepper was down there with the riff-raff, it couldn’t be a good sign. He’d begun to dabble in deeper and increasingly obscure sexual avantism after Zara had left his class—I doubt any causal connection—but I always figured he’d manage to keep things in order. Why would he be there, and how could he know anything about what was happening? I watched, unable to move, as Blain’s face returned to the scowl it had only just left and he stomped back to Helen, who had begun to follow Rocket down a smaller path in between a concession stand and something called a “Drying Booth.”
I moved off to the edge of the sidewalk and tried to focus. Was the Professor getting all this? I needed to know. I activated the walkie-talkie feature on the monitor, opening a communication channel between me and the main viewing room.
“Professor!” I called. “Do you see what’s happening?”
There was no response. What if the Professor had been called from his post? The sounds and smells of the street seemed to intensify.
“Professor!” I tried again. “Professor, answer me if you’re in the viewing room!”
Someone walked by and jostled my shoulder, knocking my monitor to the ground. I scrambled to pick it back up and thankfully the screen hadn’t been damaged.
“Watch where you’re going!” I shouted to the figure who’d bumped into me.
It stopped, turned around.
“What was that?”
“I said…” I realized that I should let this go. Getting into a fight was the last thing Zara needed from me right now. “I said, I’m sorry.”
“That’s what I thought you said.”
The figure turned back around and shuffled off.
I looked back down at the monitor and realized that the light indicating connection with the viewing room was out. I tried to activate it again and nothing happened.
“Fuck!” I yelled. “FUCK!”
I heard a honk, and looked up to see a delivery truck backing in to the place where I stood. I turned around and saw that I was right in front of a loading dock. I glanced at the ET gauge, and it happened to be pointing in the general direction of an unmarked door just to the right of the cargo bay. It was wavering a bit, and I probably could have followed it further up the street, but I was frantic, and I needed to avoid any other unintentional interactions. I ran up to the door and tried the handle. It was unlocked.
Helen followed Rocket down the little path, and Blain followed them both.
“We really gotta get going,” Blain called out. “I thought you were looking for Asseem, not some teacher!”
Helen ignored him and kept walking. She thought about the time she’d run into her old teacher on the overpass to downtown Seattle, and how he’d told her that he’d just seen Asseem. Asseem had denied it and she’d had no reason to doubt him at the time, but now she began to wonder.
“He’s right over here,” Rocket said, nose to the ground.
When Helen finally saw him she recoiled despite herself. Handpepper was crumpled on the ground, gaunt, his clothes almost rotting off him. He smelled incontinent. Her memory of him was as a generally tidy man, so this was a complete transformation. In fact, she wouldn’t have recognized him were it not for his hair.
He looked up at her, his eyes red and out of focus.
Then he screamed.
“Get away! Help! I can’t take any more! Someone help!”
“Handpepper!” Helen said, remembering her mask. “It’s me, Zara!”
“Zara, my dear! My sweet sweet Zara!” He reached a thin, filthy arm up to her.
Helen dodged the arm, and it fell to the ground as though unable to lift its own weight.
“Handpepper, what’s happened to you?”
“Never mind me. Zara, thank God!” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you! You didn’t dance the night you said you’d dance and I’ve been waiting, Zara. I knew you’d come back.”
