Cryonic (23 page)

“My wife . . . my son.” I choked.

“We'll try to look them up when we land. Your last name is Bruyere, correct? We didn't know their names so we figured we'd wait for you to come to so you can help us. San Diego is a pretty big place these days, given its distance from the front. We didn't want to contact every Bruyere in the county and tell them a frozen relative came back from the dead to see them. Know what I mean?”

I nodded, but my mind was already in another place. I couldn't believe I was on my way home. I wondered if my
family was still alive and the journey had been worth it. I was so close to realizing my dream that I pushed the doubt out of my mind. I refused to tolerate the thought of living without them.

“Get some rest,” he said, patting me on the belly.

I winced in pain.

“Oh, sorry, hoss. We land in an hour. I'll fetch you some painkillers so you can be up and at 'em.”

I almost refused the painkillers. I hated the groggy feeling I got from Vicodin, but these things were incredible. Neal gave me two tablets as the jet approached San Diego. After we landed, he fetched me. It had hurt so much to move that I was hesitant to try to sit up. Neal finally grabbed me by the shoulders and lifted me into a seated position. I cringed the whole way up and then realized the pain I was feeling was psychological.

“Go ahead, stand up,” he said.

I got to my feet and rotated my torso. I didn't feel even the slightest tinge of pain.

“What on earth did you give me? This stuff is unreal!”

“First time on Renidol, I take it?”

“First time for everything lately.”

“The best part about it is you won't get addicted to it. Just take a tablet every eight hours until the soreness from your surgeries subsides.”

The jet had a side door just like a passenger jet, and we walked down a set of portable steel stairs to the tarmac.

“Is this Miramar?” I asked.

“You still recognize it, eh?”

“I lived in San Diego my whole life. You guys didn't really change the base all that much.”

“Good point. Come this way.”

We walked past an enormous hangar and two neat rows of midnight black, Stealth helicopters parked out front. Long one-story buildings with few windows ran alongside the
hangar. They reminded me of barracks. We entered the third one, and I was surprised to see the bustling office inside. The space was divided into cubicles. Men and women in uniform were in meetings, on telephones, and working with computers similar to the one we saw in Weston.

“Man, everything here is just so . . . normal, I guess. I've seen some really weird shit since I left New York.”

“You might be seeing more of it, hoss. That virus is spreading pretty quickly. Let's hope they can administer your cure fast enough.”

“It's not my cure. Dr. Andrew Trowbridge is the one who discovered it. We lost him outside St. Louis. He was a very brave man.”

“Yes, I've been informed.”

We walked down the corridor between cubes, and everyone we passed stared at us. Some whispered to each other, others saluted, but everyone stopped what they were doing.

“They're saluting you, too, you know.”

“Why me?”

“You're a hero.”

“A hero? What did I do?”

“You brought us the cure, and through hostile enemy territory at that.”

“Not even. I'm just a guy that didn't get sick because of dumb luck. My friends who didn't make it—they're the real heroes. I wouldn't be here without them.”

“A lot of people are saying that you and Celeste have saved us. If all our forces weren't busy fighting those things and rolling out the cure, there'd be a lot of pomp and circumstance to your homecoming.”

“Like you said, the virus is still spreading. All we did was try and save ourselves.”

Neal took me to a cubicle, and we sat in front of a computer. He brought up a list of women in San Diego with the last name Bruyere. My wife was not among them. My heart sank.

“How about the rest of the country? Can you show me that?”

She wasn't on that list either. I felt sick to my stomach.

“Maybe she changed her name,” Neal suggested.

“Why would she do that?”

“Uh, you died forty years ago. She probably remarried.”

I felt like such a fool. I hadn't even considered the possibility that she'd remarried. Rationally I knew that forty years had passed, but in my heart, in my thoughts, she was the same woman I kissed goodbye on the day I died.

“My son . . . his name is Colt. Please look him up.”

He spun alphabetically through a new list of names. As soon as he came upon Bruyere, I spotted Colt's name in the middle of the mix. I leapt up from my chair and tried to point to Colt's name on the projected image. My finger went right through it.

“That's him, that's my son! Right there, Colt Bruyere.”

“Eight Zero Two North Rios Avenue. You know where that is?”

“Of course,” I said. “I knew he'd stay in the neighborhood,” I muttered to myself.

“Would you like to call him?”

“Yes, yes, I mean no. I don't know. Should I call him?”

“I would, but that's your call, hoss.”

“I would, it's just . . . it's so weird, that's all. What if he doesn't believe me?”

Neal shrugged. “You've been all over the news.”

“Even weirder.”

“We can take you there, if you'd like.”

“Good idea. It'll be so much better face to face. Let's go see if he's home.”

Neal drove me off the base in a white, solar van with government plates. My hometown had changed so much I hardly recognized it. The buildings were taller and densely packed. Areas that had once been quiet suburbs looked like mini-cities. The traffic was terrible on freeways that crisscrossed in every direction. It looked more like Los Angeles than San Diego. It took us forty-five minutes to get up to Colt's house on the coast, but it felt like hours. I was so excited to see him, but apprehensive at the same time. I felt guilty for crashing the plane. He knew better than anyone that I shouldn't have been flying that day. I grieved for his mother. I couldn't bear the fact that I'd never see my beautiful wife again.

We pulled up in front of the address from the computer and parked against the curb. I remembered the house vividly. It was the quintessential Southern California stucco track home, one of just a few built on the street. It was completed in the late nineties and hadn't been remodeled. It still felt like a new home to me, even though it had become a cozy, aging relic among a neighborhood of angular, glass-covered marvels.

“I'll stay out here until you're done,” Neal said.

“Actually, I could use a little space.”

“And if he isn't home?”

“That's okay. I'll just go for a walk, check out the neighborhood, and stuff.”

“I'll come back to check on you at sixteen hundred hours. Here's my number if you need to reach me before then. We
can provide a place to stay if you need.” He handed me a plain white business card with the Marine Corps globe and anchor printed prominently on the front.

“Thanks.”

I got out of the car and walked slowly toward the front door. Neal gave me a quick nod as he took off down the street. It felt like Dad had just dropped me off for my first day of school, I was so anxious. I pushed the doorbell, and the chime echoed inside the house. The door opened, and I recognized Colt immediately. My boy was no longer a young man. He was older than me. My heart opened wide, but my timid mouth remained shut.

“It's you! It's really you!” he screamed. He grabbed me in a tight hug.

I hugged him back as hard as I could, bawling. The joy of seeing him again was greater than any I'd experienced. We remained there for a moment, locked in the embrace.

“Let me get a look at you,” I said, pulling my head back and putting my hands on his face. “You're an old man now like your father. Imagine that.”

“You look just like I remember, Dad. You're like a walking photograph. I can't believe you're really here.” He gave me another hug.

“How did you know I was coming?”

“It was all over the news. They kept saying your name and how you'd been frozen in twenty ten and brought back to life in New York. The first time I heard that I just about fell out of my chair. I didn't know what to believe. There's been so much misinformation since the war started. It all sounded too good to be true.”

“Now you believe it?”

“Of course. They're also saying you're a hero. That you're a gift from the past who found the vaccine and brought it across the front.”

“That's the part you shouldn't believe.”

“Then how'd you get here?”

“There'll be time for that. I want to talk about you. You stayed in the neighborhood, eh?”

“I did. I love it here. I also wanted to be close to Mom. Here, come inside.”

We walked into the house. It was smartly decorated and cozy inside. It definitely had a woman's touch. We went into the living room and sat on the couch. There was a picture on the mantle of Colt frolicking in the grass with a petite blonde woman and two angelic little towheaded girls.

“What a beautiful family!”

“I'm a lucky man.”

“That you are. At least until they're teenagers.”

“I can't say I'm looking forward to that. This is Molly and that's Linea.”

“How old are they?”

“Molly is nine now, and Linea is seven.”

“Wow, you two waited a long time to have kids.”

“They're our little war babies. Actually, a lot of people wait until their mid-forties to have kids now, so we weren't too late. Candice and I were so focused on our careers that the years just flew by. Then the war started, and our perspective changed. We got pregnant right away. She's a little younger than me, so that helped.”

“When can I meet them?”

“Tonight. They'll be home around six. We should have dinner.”

“That'd be marvelous, son. Say, you look a little pale. I take it you haven't been in the water lately?”

“I'm afraid not. Only a couple of times since the war started. It's really frowned upon.”

“Frowned upon?”

“Ever since we've had the Chinese on our front porch. You have to understand, Dad. It's a different world now. Most every waking hour of every single day is spent defending our country. It's been a real struggle to keep this half of America free. I miss surfing a lot, but I have to defend my family's freedom.”

“So you're a soldier?”

“No, I'm an engineer, but like most people, I dedicate my craft to the cause. Which reminds me, I might need to take a phone call at some point. I work from home, and I've been fielding a lot of urgent requests today.”

“Are you serious? You haven't seen me for forty years, and you're going to work?”

“The shift from fighting the Chinese to fighting this disease hasn't been easy. We have a lot of work to do if we're going to contain it.”

I was proud of his dedication. Still, I felt dejected, but I tried to hide it.

“Dad, you were right in the middle of this outbreak, weren't you?”

“Ya, I've seen some things.”

“I can't allow it to come here. I've heard some horrible things. My little girls can't see that.”

“Of course. Don't worry about me. I'll just, um—listen, before you go anywhere, I have something I want to tell you.”

“Sure, Pop.”

“You can't imagine how sorry I am for leaving you and Mom like I did. I should have been there for you two. All those years . . . I should have been right here.”

“I'm not going to lie to you, Pop. It was hard. It was really hard on us for a very long time, but eventually we
started to enjoy life again. Not as much as if you were with us, but we knew you'd want us to carry on.”

“There are so many things we didn't get to share. I should've been there when my little granddaughters were born, when you graduated, and the surfs. Oh the surfs! I waited forever for you to get big enough to surf with me, to travel with me, and what happened to that? I threw most of our best years together right in the garbage.”

Colt's eyes grew swollen and moist. I moved next to him and put my arm around him.

“I just want you to know that I'm sorry. That I realize what I've done. I wish I could take it all back.”

I noticed Colt's right hand resting on his leg. The ring and pinky fingers were missing.