Now, must sleep. Evening shifts this week doesn't mean that I have to like them.
Chris wiped
his eyes fiercely as he was carried out of the old churchyard by a tidal wave
of cousins and friends towards the trucks parked at the side of what had barely
still been a small town main street in 1975, and past them down over the crest
of the hill to the marina. Past the Golden Dynasty restaurant, the pavement was
cracked and potholed, reminding Chris of the alley behind the Denny’s. It was
hard to believe that his uncle and aunt had to drive down that road from Cherry
Grove to their offices in Oroville. Their trucks looked far too nice and new.
Behind the hill, at least the west side of Osoyoos Lake hadn’t changed,
although new subdivisions on the far bank had crept up the mountains here and
there. over the curve of the hill that led down to East Oroville.
So much had
changed, and so little. By now he was just a little more ready to see people
suddenly turned old. It didn’t hurt that he hadn’t seen his aunt and uncle for
six years. Or 43. Whatever. Chris knuckled his eyes again, cursing himself.
Boys didn’t cry! He looked up. His Uncle Jason was handing over keys to Henry
and Brad, with comments about insurance and explosions that Chris didn’t really
understand, except to gather that superheroic shenanigans were not unknown in
these parts. Then, Chris and Charlotte were face to face with Uncle Jason and
Aunt Sandra. Chris wondered how well his sister even remembered them. Charlotte
hadn’t even seen them since she was seven. Maybe it was best that way, that she
didn’t know that the Dawsons had been avoiding them.
Except,
looking sideways at his sister’s fiercely set face, Chris knew that wasn’t the
case at all. Apparently oblivious, Uncle Jason reached out to take them both in
a directing hug that headed them gently back into the churchyard. “Christopher,
Charlotte. You’ve both grown so much! Here, I’m sure your cousins can be
patient for a—“
His uncle’s
voice faltered. He was leading them well to the side and around the church, to
the neat line of Dawson family plots sheltered by the outstretched wings of the
age-blackened stone angel that marked Elizabeth Dawson’s grave. The last time
Chris had been here, there had been a fence of black iron around the plot. It
was gone now. And, he thought, knowing what he was about to see, there had been
one gravestone fewer. After 40 years, Chris realised, his eye, at least, ought
not be able to pick out a newer stone amongst the old. Except that for some
reason his eyes fixed on winter-withered vines of morning glory that crept up
one stone at the edge.
“Love in
vain,” Charlotte whispered. Chris looked at his sister, but she didn’t explain.
His uncle’s
arm gently drew him towards the stone, until Chris could make out the name and
legend engraved on it. “Mary Solace Wong, 1941—1975. Mary of the Sorrows is
home at last.”
“Everyone
from around the Lake and up as far as Rock Creek came to welcome your mother
home,” his uncle said, his voice rough.
“But we weren’t there,” Charlotte said,
tugging at something in her knapsack with furious strength. “We weren’t here ever.” Flower stems emerged in her
hands, but the flowers or whatever caught on the lip of the bag, and Chris felt
some complex mix of guilts at not having one of his own and not somehow
preventing the pricking that was letting Charlotte’s red blood run down her
hand from the flower stems she was holding far too hard. He reached over to
help, but Aunt Sandra got there first.
“No, you
weren’t. Your uncle came to us from Hong Kong in ’69. He had so much to learn
from your grandfather, and we had to hide him from your father meanwhile. And
when your Cousin Jenny came with her time machine and her plan to have her
parents adopt you up in 2011…. Your mother thought that it was for the best.”
Charlotte
let go of the flowers and held her injured hand in her good one as Aunt Sandra
took the bag and gently disengaged the bouquet of red and white roses that had
been hiding within. Her eyes swept from her aunt to her uncle to her brother.
“Hiding Uncle Henry? Is that the best you can do? You were ashamed of Mom!”
Uncle Jason
replied. “Oh, Char-Char, you know better than that. We wouldn’t have been there
for the first seven years of your life if that were the issue. Your grandfather
made us promise that no-one outside
Cherry Grove could know where your uncle was until he was ready to fight your
father.”
Chris
finally found his voice. “But didn’t the Hobgoblin know? I mean, he brought
Uncle Henry to Philadelphia and promoted him to membership in the Liberty
Legion in 1974, right?”
His uncle
looked at him, his mouth set in an unmistakeable I’ve-said-too-much-line.
“There are things you don’t know, Chris. Enough. Chris, Charlotte, we’re
family. You don’t have to forget, or forgive, or do anything you don’t want to
do. Just remember that we love you, and that we won’t be here in Cherry Grove forever.
People come and go. Only family is forever.”
“Forever, or
even that much longer. Frankly, even in summer the Valley is getting too cold
for my bones in the morning,” Aunt Sandra said. “I’m really looking forward to
selling my practice and living in the Palm Springs house year round. Now you
kids hurry along before your cousins explode or something.”
“Yes, go.
But please do stop in at the Grove on your way back to town.” Chris briefly
wondered how his uncle was going to get back to the house at Cherry Grove, but
obviously there was a plan, so he supposed that he didn’t need to worry.
The drive up
to The Benches was a lot more comfortable with two vehicles, and Brad and Henry
drove much faster than Uncle Henry. Soon, they had passed through the gate and
over the ringing cattle catcher and were climbing the precarious road that
Chris had watched his grandfather bulldoze out of the side of hill so that they
could bring store-bought hay up to the winter pastures instead of mowing the
gully grass by hand every summer.
Finally they
climbed over the last, bone-jarring rise and onto the First Bench, five acres
of almost-flat land, utterly unexpected in this up-and-down landscape, running
slightly down towards the valley floor below until it reached the hidden
spring, screened by a line of trees at the far end. Snow blanketed the flat,
muffling the sound of anything but a gentle wind in the trees. The cousins
dismounted one-by-one, forming up into hand-holding couples, or chasing each
other for a good old-fashioned facewashing, depending on temperament. In this
peaceful, private place, even Emily dared to take Rafaella’s hand.
Chris was
third from last out, before Rose and Charlotte. Charlotte’s mood had lifted,
but Rose looked sad and bewildered. (Dora, of course, was chasing the Rugrats,
one arm wrapped around John, the other pulling Jason’s jacket down off his
shoulders, while she shrieked, “Watch, watch,” at her sister.)
Charlotte
turned to her friend. “If you’re serious about someone, you’re supposed to
bring them to The Benches and see how they like it. It’s a family tradition.”
Rose’s voice
was small. “That’s alright for you. I’m never going to have a boyfriend.”
“There’s
probably some boy mooning for you right now.” Chris listened carefully to the
hint of hesitation in his sister’s voice. Oh, that was a triangle, that was. They both wanted Jameel. Chris wondered if Rose realised. Probably. She was smart, that girl.
“There’s
not. There never will be. And that’s not the point. There’s a place for you in
this world. There isn’t for me.”
“That’s not
true,” Chris said, surprising himself. “There’s a place for you. You have to
stand somewhere. That’s what Gramps Jason and Grams Mary made here at the Benches.
A place for Wongs to stand. You can make yourself
a place, and find a stance. Set your feet, or life will sweep you away.”
Charlotte
continued. “Rose, you’re as cute as you let yourself be, and as centred a girl
as I’ve ever met. If you want to stand on The Benches, our family is happy to
have you. When you’re ready, and you will be ready, bring your boyfriend up
here. But wait ‘till it’s summer, Auntie Ma says.”
“Why …..Oh.”
At that
moment, a crow burst from the trees at the upper edge of the bench, too fast
for Christ to see whether it was fat, much less old. His nose filled with the
sharp smell of horse even before a massive yellow stallion broke into the open,
followed by a tiny herd of two Riding Club-style ponies.
“What is the
Lion Stallion doing here? And why is he wearing saddlebags again?” Jason asked.
Brad
answered in a sing song that was presumably meant to sound as though he were
reciting, “What I did for my Christmas Vacation: Chauffeur a cranky spirit
horse across country through holiday traffic.”
“Oh, come
on, Brad,” Henry said. “It was hilarious when Richard Pryor did it.”
“Did I see
you having hilarious times, Hank?”
“Maybe a
little hilarity.”
“Such as?”
“Quietly.
While you were sleeping. That motel with the Magic Fingers Bed that you had to
try.”
“You like
Magic Fingers beds, Brad?” Jenny asked, her voice studiedly curious.
“I can take
them or leave them. They’re funnier than driving a horse trailer across
Montana. Vroom!Splutz! Crack! That’s
the sound of a domestic pickup entering the Speed Zone as it passes you on the
shoulder. Followed by the sound of the slush and gravel wake hitting midway up
the windshield.”
May took the
saddlebag off the Lion Stallion and looked inside. Then she reached in and pulled
a single piece of paper out of it and read, “’You’re about to be ambushed by V’han’s
Second Chancers responding to an emergency. It will happen as soon as you leave
the family property. Please use tactics.’ Signed, ‘Captain Chronos.’”
May had
barely finished talking when a distant explosion rolled down the hillside, like
the sound of a particularly mighty backfire on the Crowsnest Highway up Anarchist
Summit, only a few miles east. Dr. Wong spoke, his ordinarily soft voice
hardening with authority. “We’re going with three teams, here. My original
decision would have been that dual citizens would respond to the emergency in
Canada. That’s Henry, Brad, Jenny, and Chris. You’ll be enough to deal with V’han’s
forces there. Next, she’ll use time travel to put in a second team to ambush the
responders us on the way. May, Jamie, Rebecca, Nita and I will hit them, with
the Rugrats covering us from stealth. Rose, Charlotte, Dora, you lay low. Time
machines can’t enter The Benches unless they’re driven by a Wong.
“I don’t
think so,” Dora said, dreamily, as her body lit up with a rippling white gold
fire. “The Maid of Gold is coming.”
David swore.
“Dora, you know your parents don’t like you trying to control something so
powerful at your age.”
“Control?
That’s funny. The needfire must.”
“Nita!
Transport?” Henry asked.
Shouting to
be heard over his brother, Dr. Wong waved his phone in his hand. “This is what
V’han’s D-Troopers look like. Bear in mind that they teleport. They’ll have
supers with them, but there’s a lot of Battalioneers, so expect the unexpected.”
Nita
gestured Chris and Henry over. “Hank, can’t fool me. You’re going to be riding
your mother’s horse. I’ve got a flight harness for Chris. You’ll figure it out
pretty quick. Oh, and Hon? Merry Christmas.” Nita picked two black bags out of
the back of the Land Rover, handing one to Henry Wong as he mounted the Lion
Stallion in a vault, the other to Chris. Chris reached inside and pulled out a tangly
harness of belts and straps with gadgets on it here and there that he strapped
over his Tatammy fatigues in hardly more time than it took to change into them
in the first place.
Two
throttles slapped into Chris’s hands as soon as he snapped the final buckle. A
twist here and a pull here, and he was aloft, though it took all his Eight
Spirit mastery to keep himself stable and pointed in the right direction. By
the time he was finished sorting all of that out, he was already eight feet off
the ground, looking down at his sister. “Listen to Dr. Wong, okay, Sis?”
“This is
completely unfair! Why does Dora get to fight?”
“Because she’s
channelling Spooky the Ghost from beyond space and time? And you’re still
learning the inner secrets of Eight Spirit Kung Fu?”
“Like you’re
some kind of Ascended Master!”
“Above head
height, anyway,” Chris said, doing a loop, not sure until he came out the other
side that he would be able to do it. Then Brad and Jenny lifted off in a flash
of green light, wearing matched uniforms of deep evergreen and brown. The
colours, Chris realised, of The Benches. Chris supposed that it was time to
follow them, wondering when, exactly, they’d become Canadian citizens. Time
travel, he supposed. That was usually the answer. Below them, the Lion Stallion
flowed across the broken terrain of the hillside with unreal speed. Henry,
dressed in a mustard yellow costume inspired by a kung fu uniform, was almost
the same colour as the horse, but Nita’s Christmas gift, a high-tech compound
bow, was cool and black across his back.
Chris was
looking down when the Lion Stallion cleared the fence line, so he saw the motely
bunch of supers rising from the ground, followed by D-Troopers decked out with
flight discs and D-harnesses. Their ambush, in turn, scattered as Jamie,
Rebecca and May appeared in their midst. It looked like the three of them
practiced that move frequently, and with Dr. Wong, Nita Guzman and the Maid in
the air, there was no escape there, either.
Whatever.
That fight was in other hands. Chris was needed on Anarchist Summit. He could
already see the switchbacks, supposedly cut by Chinese workers for the old
Dewdney Trail. A UPS truck was stopped in front of a crater blown in the road –by
the explosion, Chris supposed. It was surrounded by attackers, but, unlike the
ambushers at The Benches, they were wearing what looked like space suits.
Weird, Chris
thought, as he aimed a solid kick at the bubble helmet of the first one in
reach, swinging his whole body into the follow through to scoop up the two guys
next to him between his calves and slam their heads together. It was less
impressive than he hoped. Helmets were, on second thought, probably good for
stopping head injuries and stuff. That was what they said, anyway.
Chris hit
the narrow paved shoulder in a three point, the flight harness throttles
gracefully retracting just before palm hit pavement. It was hard to believe
that he’d just been flying. Or that these two guys were so freaking slow to pull out their sidearms. “Yeah,
don’t go to any trouble on my account,” Chris muttered as took one man’s arm
and snap-rolled him, while kicking the half-drawn pistol in the gap between
hand and holster. It went off with a bright, bluish flash, and set the man’s suit
on fire. He dropped and rolled, desperately beating at his pant leg.
Funny. It
didn’t look that serious. Not all of the combatants were that easy to take out,
though. The ground was being lit in alternate strobes of green and white as
Brad and Jenny matched energy projection powers with someone upstairs, and
Chris ducked, instinctively, just in time to miss out on a massive blow from a
tall woman, also in a spacesuit. She pulled her hands back for some kind of handclap
brick trick , but before she could deliver it, the Lion Stallion reared behind
her and delivered a solid blow to the helmet.
Chris had no
time to watch, because the last unengaged spacesuit guy had drawn a freaking
naginata. “Seriously, man?” Chris asked, drawing his . It could be worse, he
thought. If he’d been in the Twenty-First Century more than three weeks, he’d
be completely sick of the otaku crap.
He drew his tonfas and let the Empress of a Billion Dimension’s ninja fanboy take
a few swings to size him up. He wasn’t bad, but not nearly fast or strong
enough to play with the big boys, so Chris caught the head of the Japanese
halberd in the crooks of his tonfa and broke the handle with a qi-assisted twist. Two robots fell
around him as this took place, black arrows crackling with electricity sticking
out of them. This was turning into a massacre, Chris thought.
And then
Chris found himself being washed downstream in a raging torrent. He had a
moment to realise just how cold it was before he tore his shoulder against a
rock. This could be serious, he thought, as he instinctively twisted the
throttles that had stuck themselves in his hand, and pulled free of the water
just before it hit a real rapid. His
trailing foot actually went off the shelf, still dragging through the spume,
and for a moment he dangled, looking down into the white-foamed pool far below,
the spray from water hitting the cliff behind somehow even colder now that most
of him was in the cold mountain air of some place that definitely wasn’t the Okanagan valley.
Another dude with offensive
dimension-shifting powers, Chris thought. Well, at least for the little otaku’s
sake it was good to know that he wasn’t trying to make his way in the Empress’
legions his karate skills. So, apparently, Chris was told, most practitioners
couldn’t close the manifold on their gates completely, which meant that there
was a gate back home somewhere near. Chris began looking around, and, after a
moment, found it.
The fight
was over by the time he popped back through. There were bodies (and robots) strewn
all over the place. A guy in a brown UPS parka stood by the side of the road
talking to Henry and the rest of the team. He was holding a translucent plastic
bag with a weird glyph on it in his hands. “This is it,” he said.
“What is it?”
Chris asked. “Catch me up.”
“Where were
you, kid?” The UPS guy asked.
“A hazard dimension.
The guy with the naginata has dimensional gate powers.”
“Oh. Well,
that makes sense. Anyway, the Furious Fist here was asking what was taking the
ambushers so long, and I was explaining that they wanted me to pack all the
parcels I picked up in Osoyoos in these bags. Me. While those assholes stood
around and watched. Got their’s though. So you the Fist’s kid or something?”
“Nephew,”
Chris said. “And that’s not—“
“How old do
I look?” Henry asked.
“Sorry,
dude. Son, right?”
“Yeah. I'm the Avenging Son.”
"Kid got a name yet?"
"Don't think so."
"Well, no pressure, Hate to think what kinda codename I woulda picked when I was sixteen. You guys gonna join me for a beer? Because I do believe I just clocked out for the day."
"Sorry, man. We have lunch plans."
Chris interrupted impatiently. “What
happened to these guys?” He waved his hand at the still figures in
the silvery spacesuits.
Henry
frowned. “They took poison.”
“Like, crazy
Eastern assassin cultist poison taking?”
“Yes.” Brad
said. “It’s horrible. We can see it through the flesh--“
“It’s like
swallowing lava,” Jenny finished.
“So not V’han’s
style,” Henry said. “Everyone in the ambush who broke a suit seal just
committed suicide right here. And why just these guys? Why not the ones in the
other ambush?”
Jenny held out her phone. “This is the glyph on
the bag, right? It means ‘Bio-Hazard.’”
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