Terry Neale - Jo-el

After a few moments that felt much longer she was standing right next to the window, still inside the room. Carefully I reached with my free arm and wrapped it around her waist. She clambered out of the window and I let go of the side. She screamed and closed her eyes tightly, but in ten or so seconds we were on the ground and I’d let her go. The crowd that had amassed to watch the fire gasped when they saw me and screamed when I landed so close to them. A fire-engine was by the street, which was cordoned off. I left the girl there, with a smile and flew back up to the window.

It went very easy after that, the people still in the building had watched me land. The flames and dense smoke was around the other side of the building and hadn’t impeded their view. I found the other four people on a higher floor and took them to safety. By the second trip down, cellphone cameras were pointed at us from everywhere. I also noticed a TV film crew, who were feeding real time coverage of the fire. This would be around the globe in seconds.

On the ground for the last time I saw one of the children I’d rescued crying. She looked about four years old and had been held by her mother as we flew down from the open window. She was shouting at her mother who was also crying. Sally translated what she was saying.

“ Pisu, I want Pisu, where’s Pisu?”

“What’s she talking about, Sally?”

“It’s her kitten, still in the building.”

“I’ve got to rescue a cat?”

“Your choice, Joey,” that name, why does she do that?

“ Is it still alive?”

“Uh-huh!”

“ Okay, direct me to the bloody thing.”

“Don’t you like cats, Joey?”

“No, not particularly.”

I found the kitten, cute little brown and white thing and flew down to the pavement with it in my hand, meowing at eighty decibels. I handed it to the little girl, who immediately stopped crying and gave me the most beautiful grin, her little round face like a Chinese doll. The cameras went nuts. Oh, was I glad I rescued that kitten, front page stuff, Time Magazine front page stuff. The money shot.

Back in the park, the wind blowing cold from the west as usual, the clouds building with rain, I asked Sally for an update.

“ Every news network in America is showing the Chinese TV footage of the fire in Shanghai.”

“ What are they saying about me?”

“That there must be two of you, or maybe more.”

“That figures.”

“There’s total confusion. A lot of fear. Someone even speculated about invasion from another world. But it only just happened so it’s all guess work.”

“What about the internet?”

“Same thing. But there’s a problem, someone posted a copy of the TV footage on YouTube and part of the internet in Canada just went down, overload.”

“You’re kidding?”

“I think the whole internet in the US will seize up shortly.”

“What’s being done about it?”

“Google are relaying from other countries with less traffic. Countries where it’s nighttime. There’s a lot of Alien Cult and UFO religion supporters posting on Twitter. Interest is souring.”

“Never heard of them.”

“They’ve been around since the 1930’s. The Aetherius Society is a religion that believes in extra-terrestrials. Do you remember hearing about the Roswell incident in 1947?”

“Oh, right. I thought it was a balloon that crashed.”

“We had a base station close by. The US tested the first A-bomb not too far from there in 1945. Trinity.”

“Are you saying it was you?”

“Probably, yes. One of the robots was trying to move the station.”

“Jeez! The A-bomb test damaged your base-station and you tried to move it two years later. How many robots have you got on earth?”

“Just two now.”

“How many did you have?”

“We had six, the other four malfunctioned and we don’t have the parts to fix them.”

“What do they do, the two that are left?”

“Maintain the network. It’s slowly crumbling, Cirion is too far away to help. Now there’s no point.”

“So is the network reliable? Isn’t that how I zip all over the place?”

“It’s okay.”

I wasn’t convinced. The bloody ship is sinking and now they tell me.

“What’s the market doing?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Dow’s down three hundred points.”

“Fear of the Unknown. The market doesn’t like stuff it doesn’t understand.” Knew I should have sold some shares and bought puts.

“ What about Europe?” I asked.

“Same thing, but they feel further away. Most of the channels have suspended regular programs and are showing the footage and the pundits are saying whatever comes into their heads. You name it, someone is saying it.”

“ Okay, I’ve heard enough, it’s almost twelve, I’m going to get something to eat. I want to hear about the network this afternoon. I’ll be back after Consuelo has finished cleaning.”

The heads-up disappeared and I headed out of the park to a Mexican restaurant I knew nearby. Carnitas tacos seemed like a great distraction.

There were TV’s in the restaurant, all tuned to CNN. The story of my escapade in Shanghai with the video of me carrying the people from the burning building was being shown over and over. The sound was turned down and the close caption feed was running along the bottom. I watched for a while but when the food arrived I was too distracted. By the time I finished eating the anchor woman said the video on YouTube had been removed from all servers due to overload. The internet was now the base for billion-dollar commerce and communication and the government couldn’t allow it to fail. Made sense to me.

I walked home feeling both frightened and exhilarated. I’d stirred up a hornet’s nest and I was the only person on the planet who knew what was happening. It was scary. Could I control the direction this would go; I wasn’t sure? As I entered my house the rain began to fall.

I made coffee, admiring the work that Consuelo had done. The kitchen was neat and clean, the house smelt fresh and no doubt my bed sheets were crisp. Lovely lady, I thought.

I turned on the TV but after only five minutes I was bored with the repetitiveness of the commentary so switched it off and called Sally to join me. I had something else on my mind.

“You said there’s nineteen base stations or main-frame computers, I always thought that was an odd number. How many were there?”

“Thirty-five.”

“What happened?”

“Tectonic plate movement, mostly. The stations were placed where we believed they would last the longest. We knew some would be destroyed, eventually. The Eurasian plate has caused major problems, through northern China and along the coast of Japan. Those plates are sliding towards each other, one under the other, causes massive earthquakes. We lost all the stations in that area, Japan and Taiwan are now mostly outside of the network.”

“Are you saying I can’t go there?”

“You can, but I wouldn’t be able to help or protect you. I can bounce you there, but then you’ll be on your own. You’ll be able to fly but they’ll be no access to data through the network.

“Can I bounce out of there?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe, that doesn’t sound very reassuring.”

“Probably should avoid the area,” she said, indifferently, but I sensed there was more to it. She was staring at the ceiling, as if in deep thought.