The Flashback Trilogy

Chapter 8

Charlotte pushed her way through the mob toward the front, emboldened by the fact that she wouldn’t have to face Blue’s acolytes alone, that Red was right behind her—but wasn’t really surprised when she whipped around to face the crowd and saw him standing off to one side, striking a match on the heel of his boot, lighting a cigar, just as cool and nonchalant and uninvolved as could be.

“I’ll do it,” she hissed to herself but really to him, then shouted authoritatively, “Enough! Silence! Let the Chairman speak!”

Big Blue wasted no time: “The Dancer is no friend to women, we already know this! She knew of the plan—does anyone here not believe she knew of the plan?” The women around her hollered in mutual outrage. “She’s been in the loop with the men every step of the way—hasn’t she always? One vote! Remember that, sisters. We lost the election by one vote! Who’s vote do you think that was?”

Charlotte could only scrunch up her face and look at her dumbfoundedly. At last she said, “There was no plan,” and craned her neck to look at Chairman Dean, who shook his head slowly, confirming as much. “But we won’t know anything until you let the Chairman speak!” She mouthed to Dean: ‘Where’s MacGyver?’

He only stared at her, and all in a rush, Charlotte remembered: They’d been trying to restore electrification to the damaged section of the east perimeter when she and Red and Corbin had headed out that morning ... had something happened? She shook her head once, refusing to believe it, but Dean’s expression only fueled her fears. Then, as though tapping some previously unknown strength, Dean stepped forward and said to all gathered, suddenly and with perfect clarity, “Mac is dead.”

At this the great open space fell silent almost immediately, and Charlotte noted Red looking up sharply through a cloud of smoke. Dean gripped the edge of the scaffolding and leaned forward as the gathering settled. At length he said, “We were trying to fix the east fence, which, as you all know, was damaged by the smilodon several days back. Mac, God bless him, well, he tried something—”

“He tried something without our approval!” shouted Blue, and her dyed hair shown like an indigo fire beneath the hanging chandeliers even as her supporters hollered in agreement.

“He tried what was talked about at the last committee meeting, and there was nothing preventing you, or any one of you,” his voice had raised sharply, “from attending that meeting. Now, I don’t pretend to have an aptitude for this sort of thing any more than you or anyone else in this hall. But we’ve all agreed, again and again, that when it comes to engineering, what Mac says goes. And Mac, well, he determined that, in order to restore electrification to that section of fence, all the non-auxiliary power would need to be rebooted. And that’s what you see here.” He gestured at the chandeliers and the neon piping everywhere. “That’s what this place is, in case you’ve forgotten. And, well. Something went wrong. And Mac was killed in the process. Fortunately, no one else was hurt ...”

“Everyone’s going to feel the hurt now that we’re lit up like a Christmas tree!” shouted Ebenweiser, a man who claimed to have been a wealthy philanthropist before the Flashback but was now essentially the town drunk.

“That’s not true!” said Charlotte. “The rest of the electrified fence remains intact. We can deal with the other lights on a case by case basis—by unscrewing the bulbs, if necessary. The cavern raptors can jump, we know that, but they’re not supernatural. They can’t just fly in here like ghosts, for Christ’s sake. The cat’s another story, it’s true, because it’s possible, however unlikely, that’ll he’ll—”

“You don’t know it’s a ‘he,’” said Blue—an attempt at levity, Charlotte presumed—causing everyone around her to laugh.

“That it will try to scale the fence again. But it still won’t be able to withstand the electrical charge.” She turned toward Dean seeking moral support, but instead found him looking down at her with something like pity. “Dean ...” He seemed to take a deep breath as she stepped closer. “The rest of the fence ... it is still electrified, isn’t it?” She deflated like a balloon as she studied his face. “Jesus Christ.” Her arms dropped to her sides as she moved away from the scaffold. “That’s ... just great. That’s really f*****g beautiful.”

“The fences are no longer electrified,” hollered someone near the front, passing it along through the crowd. The hall erupted into chaos as Charlotte paced to the left then returned to the center, where she stopped dead in her tracks, rubbing her temples, glaring at her feet. “Red,” she growled, loudly, “I need your help. Now.” She shot him a fiery glance.

He simply stared at her. She honestly couldn’t tell if he was about to stride toward her or simply turn and walk away. At last he stepped forward.

“All right, all right, all right!” he belted out over the din, and the turmoil subsided—if for no other reason than here was an entirely new foil for everyone’s fear and frustration. “That’s enough!”

“Stick to your painting, Michelangelo.”

“In the rear, with the gear. That’s what you’ve been good for!”

He looked at them as if to say, ‘Just, wow,’ but remained calm. “Just listen to me for a minute!”

At last the hall became quiet enough for him to talk. “Look, I know this is an unfortunate turn of events—believe me, I know. And I know that you’re all just scared and confused and wondering where we go from here.” He took another step forward, shock of red-brown hair catching the light. “I know ... because I’m scared, too. Let’s face it, we lost more than simply a friend to so many of us today; we lost the only man in the Cove with the knowledge and skill to keep this place running.” He scanned the crowd, attempting eye contact with as many people as possible. “And that’s what this is really all about, isn’t it? Because, whether you admit it or not, you know how lucky you’ve been to ride this thing out down here so far. You know how different our experience has been than, well, the people up there. And now you’re afraid that that’s all coming to an end.” He moved toward Charlotte slowly. “And you know what? It is. But it’s not coming to an end tonight. It’s not—” He was interrupted by the sound of electricity, which popped and sizzled loudly somewhere along the south perimeter and was followed by the shrieks of several cavern raptors. “It’s not going away just like that ... like so many of your loved ones have. It’s not going to simply vanish.”