Christa Faust - Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

From that moment on, there would be no one in this world who would be able to stop him.

He jogged back to the street where the rehearsal studio it was located, hoping he would have a chance to reconnect with the Reiden Lake boys and Miss Sharp. He was suddenly desperate to see them.

He felt like a man in love.

There were sirens on the wind, but still far away. He needed to find the hippies before they fled the scene.

He stopped as he came around the corner. Only a moment earlier, when he had run from the cop, the street had been dark, lit only by the glow of a minor fire down the block. Now the whole street was ablaze with light and thick with black smoke. At least eight cars were burning like torches along both sides. What had happened? Had the boys done this? How could they? No, they wouldn’t have had the time.

What the hell was going on?

Then he saw them through the flames—two of them at least, the two boys, their silhouettes entering the shipyard across the street from the rehearsal studio. He increased his pace, then slowed again as a portion of the shipyard fence splintered and toppled onto the sidewalk. Something in the smoke had pushed through. Something large and dark. Was there someone in there operating some kind of wrecking equipment?

The smoke cleared for a moment, and he saw an old shell of a boat, spinning in a lazy circle, like a leaf in a river, as it floated five feet off the ground, flattening the fence as it went. More psychic disturbance. These fools were causing more chaos than he ever had.

That thought should have made him feel jealous or competitive, but instead it increased his desire to play with them. Finally, he had worthy opponents. Not equals, of course, but prey worth chasing. Prolonging the game, until they could share the exquisite moments of their own inevitable deaths.

He went on, more cautious now, and peered through a broken gap in the fence. The entire contents of the shipyard seemed to have lifted up into a slow swirl, like a cloud of rattle-trap asteroids circling some invisible sun.

No. Not invisible, just hidden. Whatever the gravitational center of this solar system of junk, it looked like it was inside a rusty airstream trailer that appeared to serve the yard as an office. And just as Allan suspected, his quarry were making their way toward it, picking fearfully through the moving maze of floating constellations of rubbish.

Allan slipped inside the fence and started after them.

* * *

Walter edged ahead and to the left as a bathtub started to float over his head, then he slipped between a chain fall hoist and a fork lift that looked as if they were dancing together. Bell tiptoed after him, holding his breath as if the slightest sound or movement would bring the whole impossible whirlpool crashing down around them.

There were smaller objects in the air, as well— batteries, springs, gas tanks, a coil of rope undulating like a snake. It was surreal and beautiful and terrifying all at once. A defiance of gravity and logic and science.

Walter wished that they might be experiencing these events under different circumstances, fascinated as he was by the hidden secrets of the mind that this amazing phenomenon suggested. Secrets that had to be explored, and he could imagine spending the rest of his life digging deeper into those mysteries. If only the risks weren’t so dire. If only the potential for destruction and death wasn’t so terrifyingly clear.

The rounded, silver airstream trailer stood just ahead, alone in a circle of empty air like the eye of a hurricane. Walter stepped up to the door with Bell at his side, each man letting out a relieved breath as they left the floating maze behind.

There were sounds coming from inside the trailer as Walter reached for the handle. An odd, arrhythmic thumping, and tortured grunting. Walter pulled open the door and peered inside. It was dim, but not black. The blue light of a TV flickered from the far end of the trailer, revealing that things were floating in there, too. Papers, books, lamps, pens, pots and pans, a pack of cigarettes. The calendars and posters of bikini girls on the walls rippled and flapped as if they were in a high wind, though the air was dead and still.

The thumping grew louder.

Walter stepped up into the trailer, pushing a floating stapler out of the way, and looked toward the back, toward the light and the noise. He stopped. The TV was on its side pointing at the left wall, a table overturned beside it. On the floor, bathed in the cathode glow, was a man.

He was an older black man with a round jowly face, dressed in coveralls and a knit cap. His back was arched and rigid, and he was twitching as if he’d touched a live wire, with froth bubbling between rigid lips and his eyes wide and staring. The thumping was his right heel kicking spasmodically against the linoleum, as his other limbs twitched and jerked.

“He appears to be in the midst of a grand mal seizure,” Walter told Bell over his shoulder. One of the man’s flailing hands was encircled by an engraved medical alert bracelet featuring the Hippocratic snake and staff, and the word EPILEPTIC in large red letters.

Bell squeezed in on his left.

“Do you think his epilepsy might have been triggered by our... event?”

“Undoubtedly,” Walter said, nodding. “And the electrical storm going on in his head is manifesting in the physical world as that psychic cyclone outside.” He started through the debris, ducking through flocks of flapping paper and slowly spinning pens. “But a seizure usually lasts less than a minute. No more than two. We saw that car flatten the fence at least four minutes ago.”

“A feedback loop,” Bell offered. “The psychic pulse triggered the fit which triggered a larger psychic burst which in turn...”

Walter knelt by the man.

“What can we do for him?” he asked.

Bell knelt beside Walter.

“Nothing,” Bell said. “Except maybe turn him on his side so he doesn’t choke on all that drool, and make sure he’s not going to bang his head on anything.”

“Ah, yes. We can do that. Although...” Walter looked up at Bell, uneasy. “I’m concerned about what happens when he comes out of it. Do the things in the air settle gently to the ground, or do they drop all at once? There could be a lot of damage. Someone could get hurt.”

“Not much we can do about that, either,” Bell replied.

* * *

Allan stepped under a floating boat hull and into the clearer air around the trailer. Only a few smaller things—wrenches, pipe fittings, and beer cans—drifted there. He glanced behind as the sound of sirens grew louder. It seemed so unfair that capricious circumstance would force his hand like this, but it was becoming increasingly clear that it would be best to take out the Reiden Lake boys right now.

They were too dangerous and could not be allowed to live. All the other connections to his old life, his old world, had been severed, all except these two. With them gone, the final tie would be cut, and he would be free.

But all the arbitrary killings were wearing on him, making him feel like a butcher, rather than an artist. This was not his destiny, not who he was meant to be.

Should he kill them? Or not?

He crept closer to the trailer door.

* * *

Walter put his hands on the man’s shoulder and hip, and pushed to rock him over onto his side. His body was so rigid that it was easier than he expected, and the man nearly flopped face first onto the floor. Walter grabbed awkwardly at him to save his teeth, and touched his hand—flesh to flesh.

All at once every floating object in the trailer dropped straight to the ground.

Bell gasped, and began to speak.

He was drowned out by a thunderous crash that shook the trailer. Walter thought he heard someone outside let out a stifled cry, but he couldn’t be sure. A bookshelf full of ring binders tipped forward and dumped its load on him, and the battering he received made every other sensation take a back seat.