John Karr - Detonation Event

The other laughed.

Devans glanced at them, then to the ocean. “Not a bad idea, ocean boy.”

He unzipped his jacket, let it fall to the sand. He pulled his shirt over his head and it joined the jacket.

“Whoa! Man’s goin’ in.”

“Gonna freeze your nuts off, spaceman.”

He removed his shoes and socks but kept his jeans on.

“Right, bruh! Polar bear plunge!”

The Atlantic greeted him with a thin sheet of liquid knives over his feet. The synaptic eruption from thousands of nerve endings to his brain was instantaneous. There was no stifling the gasp, but he did manage to lower its timbre. No one could hear it over the crashing waves but Devans himself.

The brief thought of alternatives was banished as he forged ahead into the white water. Water rose past his knees, past his privates—which made him jump—then his chest.

So cold!

A swell rose and started curling for his face. He went under. Muffled sound. He felt the wave pass. He shot up, broke the surface with a raised fist and a roar.

“Alive, damn it!”

A cluster of surfers about twenty yards before him called to one another and pointed. They laughed or grinned, some nodded, some raised the timeless “hang loose” hand sign and whooped. Two in particular regarded him as they bobbed on their boards. One pointed emphatically. The other stared, then laughed. They paddled toward him, but he lost sight of them as he went under again, this time holding his breath longer.

When he broke the surface he sprayed water high like a spouting whale. Some of it carried on the breeze to hit Trent Wagner’s face. Gwen laughed as he wiped it off. They looked different with their skin-tight hoods.

“Hey, you made it!” Trent said.

“Oh, yeah!” Devans said, bobbing up over the swells and going under and breaching again. He whooped several more times.

“Not sure you’re aware, but it’s kinda crazy for you to be out here, Captain Devans,” Gwen said.

They all dove under a wave. The force of it swept Devans back a little. He broke for air once more to find the Wagners staring at him. Numbness was creeping into his limbs.

“Not much captaining lately, but that’s okay.”

“Is it?” Trent said.

“For now. H-h-had my fill.”

“Remind you of Martian temperatures?” Gwen said, nodding and grinning.

“Little b-bit! B-but there was some heat from the lava. Here, skin’s numb, but the spirit is f-f-finally stirring.”

Between ducking the swells, the three of them bobbed and stared at the waves and the gray line of the horizon.

“Mom says you’ve probably got three or four minutes before hypothermia sets in, Cap.”

“G-good to know.”

“We’d rather not drag you out,” Gwen said. “Got the boards to handle, y’know?”

“S-s-Sure,” Devans said. “D-d-done now, anyway.”

Flanked by the young adults, he pulled at the water and let the waves push him toward shore.

“Incoming!”

Too late, he caught the brunt of the curl on his shoulder blades. He snatched and held his breath as the wave tackled and swept him toward shore as mere flotsam in a chaotic blend of froth and sand and a dull roar. He somersaulted at least once, found the sandy bottom with his knees and pushed up. He spat a mouthful of ocean, coughed, then turned and raised his fists and roared again. Ocean water cascaded from his body and limbs.

“Yeah!” Trent said.

“C’mon, grab him!” Gwen said. “Wait—hold on!”

The Wagners reached with their free arms but were too late to grasp before the wave came.

Devans assumed a fighting stance and braced as the wave hit. This time it crashed into him with little effect.

He turned and pull-walked to shore, rising a little as the waves went past. The Wagners strode beside him through the white water, then ankle deep, then just air. The ocean had stung with cold at first, then enveloped him in an undulating mass of numbing agent. And now the breeze on his soaked skin should have been cutting, but it could not agitate nerves seemingly encased in rubber.

His jeans were plastered to his legs. His body had gone beyond shivering, which probably was not a good thing. Limbs were operable, albeit slow to respond. He pushed through the loose sand, gaze angled a few feet ahead.

“Hey, these are his,” someone said.

“Thanks, man. Cap, put this shirt on, it’ll help dry you. Then the jacket will start trapping body heat.”

Devans pulled the shirt and jacket on methodically while walking. He clapped Trent on the shoulder and slowly made his way down the access path.

As his eyes took in the white sand and gray day upon Earth, his mind summoned the red-orange glow from lava rivers and a section of trembling red rock upon Mars. He had become the first human immersed in the spewing elements and weak atmosphere of Mars.

So strange, he thought, to tread there and now here.

Cold from two planets.

Voices in the background mixed with the angry rumble of the volcano that had been T2. The whisper of swirling dust and ash distracted him further.

Now there was shaking, but he realized it was not of his own doing.

He flung an arm out and it paused, only to resume again.

“Hey, hey. Cap, don’t log off on us!”

The dark and glowing chaos of Mars was replaced with a narrow parking strip on Wrightsville Beach.

“This your hover?” Gwen said. “Looks like the only rental of this cluster, in any event.”

Devans pushed thoughts through the numbness of his mind. “Cedric. Open… the trunk. I can take it from here, Wagners.”

They watched him dubiously.

The trunk popped open and Devans went there, removed the jacket and damp t-shirt, worked hard to unbutton and then unzipped his jeans. “Unless you want to see a cold naked old man, I suggest an about-face.”

“Seen one nude man, you’ve seen ’em all,” Gwen said. “Besides, you’re not that old—”

Trent hit her shoulder. “Quit staring.”

They rested the boards on the old asphalt. Devans pulled hard at the reluctant jeans. Finally he got them off, along with the underwear, just as a New Hanover County sheriff’s deputy drifted down in his hover cruiser.

“Crap!” Trent said. “Put the boards around him!”

The two surfboards formed a blind.

The deputy rolled his window down. “Water’s a little chilly, judging by the status of things.”

“A-agreed,” Devans said, teeth chattering.

“Takes a special individual to polar bear it.”

“F-first time. It was just there, ya know?”

“You’re not gonna rob a bank because it’s there too, are ya?”

Devans placed the wet wad of jeans and underwear into the trunk. “I’ll hold your p-p-plasma gun while you take a t-turn in the water, officer.” He squeezed at the stopper on the cord of his duffel bag. It didn’t release. His fingers were numb so he couldn’t feel it, but he recruited his other hand as well and got the device to loosen its grip on the cord.

The deputy laughed. “Nah! I have all my senses! Good thing we have auto-driver operating systems in them hovercars for you average citizens, otherwise I’d bet you’d be a risky flyer.”

“Yeah,” Devans said, standing upright while toweling himself. “Good thing.”

The deputy gave a two-finger wave and flew slowly away. Devans pulled his underwear on, then Mylar gym sweats. Next he swapped the wet t-shirt for a dry one, followed by a Mylar overshirt meant for cold weather. He found casual slip-on shoes.

“Thanks, you can put the boards down now,” he said.

“Oh, here’s your shoes from the beach,” Gwen said, grabbing them from Trent.

Devans slowly reached for them and placed them in the trunk. “G-gonna need a few minutes to heat up in the hover here.”