Andrew Klavan - The truth of the matter

Waterman closed the barn door and then he and Dodger Jim came up, one on either side of me. There was a trail going off in three directions. We took the path to the right.

Sometimes we walked together. More often, the trail was too narrow and Waterman led the way with me in the middle and Dodger Jim behind me. No chance to make a break.

At first, I kept my mouth shut. I knew Waterman didn’t want me asking questions. But then I thought: What do I care what he wants? I needed to distract these guys so I could get my chance to strike.

So I asked: “Hey, who are you people anyway?”

Waterman said nothing.

I tried again. “I mean, are you the good guys or the bad guys?”

Waterman snorted. “Doesn’t that depend whose side you’re on?”

The answer chilled me. I’d heard too much of that kind of talk lately. Nothing is really good or bad, it’s all a matter of perspective, it’s all a matter of which culture you come from, a matter of what you’ve been taught and what you happen to believe. It sounded like Mr. Sherman, a history teacher of mine who’d turned out to be one of the Homelanders. It was just the sort of thing he used to say.

I’d had a chance to think about it a lot over the last week or so as I was making my way to New York to find Waterman. I’d had to think about it. When everyone is against you-not just the terrorists but the police too- you have to wonder: Did I do something wrong? Am I the bad guy? Should I turn myself in and take the punishment society says I deserve? It’s not like a math quiz or a spelling bee. The answers aren’t as black-and-white as that. But that doesn’t mean there are no answers-and, in my situation, you have to get them right or it could mean disaster. It could mean you die.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think good and bad does depend on whose side you’re on. I don’t think anyone really believes that either. I think they just say it because they think it makes them sound open-minded and sophisticated or something.”

“Oh yeah?” Waterman glanced back at me with an ironic smile on his face. “You think there’s just good and bad and that’s it, huh?”

“Pretty much,” I said. “I mean, maybe we don’t always know what it is. Maybe we goof up as we’re trying to find it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there. That doesn’t mean you can’t get closer to it if you keep trying.”

Waterman faced forward again, making his way along the narrow dirt path. “Some people would say that’s a pretty simplistic idea of the world.”

This was good. I had his attention now. If I could keep him talking, I might find the opportunity to make my move.

“A rock is harder than a feather,” I said. “You can talk and jabber and make exceptions, but in the end, if you have to choose which one is gonna hit you in the head, you’ll choose the feather every single time.”

Up ahead of me, Waterman made a dismissive riffling noise. “What are you talking about? So a rock is harder than a feather. So what? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that simple and simplistic aren’t the same thing. Some things are true whether they’re simple or not. Sometimes people just get complicated so they don’t have to stand up for what’s simple and true. It’s easier. It’s safer. But that doesn’t make it right.”

I glanced behind me. Dodger Jim was there at my back, his hands jammed into his overcoat pockets. His eyes were turning this way and that, scanning the woods, as if he expected someone to leap out at us at any moment. He wasn’t listening to our conversation. That was good too. He had the gun. He was the first one I was going to take down.

Waterman didn’t look back as he spoke now. “Well, congratulations, Charlie. You know a rock is harder than a feather. I’m happy for you. What else do you know?”

“I know freedom is better than slavery,” I said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know love is better than hate-and you can’t love something by force. You can’t be forced to love your neighbor or your country or God or anything. No one has the right to force you and they couldn’t if they wanted to. You have to be free, so you can choose, even if that means some people choose wrong.”

“Wow. You sure know a lot.”

“I know a rock is harder than a feather and I know freedom is better than slavery. That’s what I know. And that means the people working for freedom are the good guys. So which are you, Mr. Waterman? The good guys or the bad guys?”

Once again, Waterman didn’t even bother to turn around. “Well, I still say things are a lot more complicated than-”

That’s what he was starting to say when I struck.

I turned fast, snapping the back of my fist at Dodger Jim’s head. I gauged the blow perfectly. My knuckles smashed into his temple. His Dodgers cap flew off. His mouth fell open. His eyes seemed to roll in his head. For an instant, he was stunned.

I used that instant. I seized his right arm and yanked it out of his pocket. Sure enough, he had the gun clutched in his hand even now. I twisted his wrist with one hand and yanked the weapon from his loose fingers with the other.

It all took no more than a second or two, but by then, Waterman was on the move. He’d sensed the action behind him, heard the blow, and turned to come after me. He only got a single step. Then I leveled the gun at his chest.

“Hold it right-!” I started to say.

There was a sizzling white flash. A searing pain shot from my wrist up through my arm. I cried out. My arm spasmed, out of my control. The muscles went dead and the gun flew from my limp fingers, twirling blackly through the evening air. The burning blow knocked me off my feet. The next thing I knew I was lying on my back in the dirt, staring upward, dumb and dazed.

Something was hovering over me in the twilight, something just hanging there in midair, staring down at me. At first, in my stupefied state, I thought it must be some kind of magical bird or something. What else could just hover in the air like that? But as my head cleared, I saw it was a machine of some sort. It was about the size and shape of an Xbox controller. It was camouflaged like an army uniform. It had a red light burning on it. There seemed to be a round lens in the center of it: that staring eye.

I started to get up, shifting to the side. As I did, the flying thing also darted to the side, following my movements.

“I wouldn’t do anything too sudden if I were you,” Waterman drawled above me. “That thing can do a lot of damage.”

I believed him. I moved more slowly, rubbing the raw, red spot on my wrist where the thing had blasted me. The muscles of my arm were starting to come back to life with a dull throb of pain.

“What is it?” I said thickly, gesturing with my head toward the hovering machine.

“That,” Waterman told me, “is Milton Two. He’s our security drone. He let you off easy. He can dial that electronic pulse up high enough to knock you straight into eternity. Releases tear gas too when it has a mind. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said sourly. “Great.”

The thing buzzed and hovered and shifted, following my every move as I started to climb to my feet. But I didn’t get far. Just as I propped my hand against the gritty earth to push myself up, another blow struck me. This one hit me in the side, right near the floating rib. It knocked the wind right out of me. Groaning, I fell, face-first, back to the dirt.

For a moment I thought I’d drawn Milton Two’s fire again. But no, it wasn’t the drone this time. It was Dodger Jim. He’d kicked me.

“That’s for the hit in the head,” he said, towering above me where I lay. Then he grabbed me by the collar and hauled me roughly to my feet.