Jason almost smiled then, his eyes darting erratically. He pointed out the open window to the neighboring houses. “Brandon! He’s got a brand new Mac 99 in his basement. It came in a week or two before the satellite blew, but he hadn’t had a chance to get it hooked in to his system yet. It’s still in the box, not even opened, in the original packing!”
Carol put her hand on his shoulder as she leaned over the table to wipe up the spilled coffee with a dish towel. “But it won’t be in any better shape than anything else, will it?”
“But it might!” He was on his feet, swaying unsteadily in a way that convinced Ed now that he had taken too much of something. “They said it yesterday on the broadcast! They’re finding a lot of stuff still in boxes that made it through OK because of the packing.”
“That’s not what they said, Jace,” Brittany put in. The tears still flowed down her cheeks, but she spoke the words clearly, precisely, as though they had already had this discussion several times before coming here. She regarded Ed, explaining, “They said that some equipment was turning up that hadn’t been affected. But it was mostly in warehouses and storage rooms with unopened boxes and crates that had been stacked several deep. A few,” she emphasized, “in warehouses packed with hundreds.”
Jason looked around the room, desperately searching each face for signs of some kind of support. “But it’s a shot!”
“All right, then,” Ed considered. “Assuming Brandon’s new computer is one of the lucky ones, and assuming the car has enough gas to make it far enough to reach an unaffected area, can you get it on-line? What exactly do you need?”
“I just need a telephone, and a power source.” Jason’s eyes brightened hopefully, and he leaned forward on the table next to his wife. For the first time since entering the kitchen, the man looked a bit less frantic, maybe even a little more controlled. “I can’t go virtual, not without going through my own node, but I have enough account contacts to establish a basic set-up node in the first functional motel room we can find.” He stopped, almost holding his breath as he waited for Ed’s answer. “I’ll pay you. Enough to get your old car fixed up any way you like.”
Ed waved his hand to dismiss the offer. The last thing he wanted was Jason’s money. But as he considered his request he glanced at Carol and, seeing the look of compassion in her eyes for their despondent neighbor, he actually found himself feeling a bit sorry for the disagreeable man. Would it be so awful to do a good thing for a bad neighbor? That was exactly the kind of attitude, after all, that he found lacking in people like Jason and his ilk. Besides, having complained about it for years, he couldn’t very well act the same way, now could he?
He let out a long, slow sigh. “Brandon’s agreed to give you the computer?”
Apparently thinking that Ed was softening, a grin appeared on Jason’s face. “Of course he’ll agree! He wants back on-line, too, but he doesn’t have the accounts to set up an out-of-state node. Once I take care of Kishuri Blankenberg, he can use my node to conduct any business he wants. He couldn’t refuse.”
Five minutes later, standing on Brandon and Heather’s front lawn, their neighbor was anything but agreeable in matters regarding his computer. The discussion—if you could truly call it that—was heated from the beginning when Brandon had refused to let Jason inside. From the tone of the argument, it was clear that Jason had not bothered to run his idea past Brandon before he came begging for the use of the Chevy in the dark of night.
“I don’t believe you!” Jason was screaming through the screen door. “I extend you an opportunity to get back on-line, I even offer you the use of my personal node, and you’re saying no?”
“Look, Jace. I appreciate the offer, I really do.” The man was trying to be nice, but was clearly losing patience. “But I just don’t need back on as desperately as you do. I can afford to wait a few weeks till they get things restored around here. And when they do, I’m going to need a working system. My old system is just as fried as yours, and can you imagine what the chances are going to be of anything else being available? I’m sorry, but I’m not even taking the new one out of the box till the phones and power are back. I just won’t risk it.”
Jason grabbed the handle of the screen door and rattled it violently, trying to get inside. “Damnit Brandon! I’ve got to have it!” Brandon stood back, startled by the man’s sudden burst of anger.
“Jace, please…” Brittany, more unnerved and upset than ever at what her husband was going through, tugged at his jacket sleeve. “Let’s just go home. Let’s leave them alone.”
“Goddamnit! Why don’t you leave me alone!” He jerked his arm free of her grasp and pushed her forcefully, sending her stumbling backward to land heavily on the walkway.
“Jason! That’s enough!” Ed was halfway to the front steps when Jason fumbled in his jacket and pulled a dark object out of his belt. In the hard light of the lantern, Ed couldn’t identify the thing at first. The he realized what it was: a gun.
“No,” Jason said. He leveled the weapon in Brandon’s direction. Jason was more agitated than ever, but the gun—a lightweight plastic Glock 9mm—was steady and unmoving. When he spoke, his voice was just as steady. “I want the computer. I need it. I’m getting it.” Apparently confident that he was now in control, he ignored the others. He turned back to the front door where both Brandon and Heather stood in frozen shock. He reached for the door, rattling the handle again. “I’m taking the Mac, Brandon. Let me in.”
Neither man moved.
“Let me in!” He punched at the lower screen panel, tearing it loose, and reached in to undo the lock on the handle, then jerked the door itself open so hard that it slammed back against the front of the house.
“Jason, no!” The loud crash of the breaking screen door finally seemed to snap Brandon from his trance. He put his hand out in a weak attempt to stop the man from entering his house. “Please, don’t do this.”
“Move!”
The moment Jason shouted, it seemed to make everything that happened next flow together as a single action. He swung the gun around menacingly, moving forward. Brandon jumped back, trying to slam the heavy main door.
Jason tried to push his way in, but lost his balance. The Glock discharged into the edge of the door, sending a burst of wooden splinters flying everywhere.
Heather screamed once, then again. Brandon was thrown forcibly backward by the bullet’s impact and fell, disappearing inside. Carol cried out and started toward the door, but Ed put his arm out to stop her before she could get any closer. Brittany, still on the sidewalk and unable to take any more, turned to Ed with such a confused look on her face that he wondered if she even comprehended what had happened.
And then, for a brief instant, there was no sound, and no one moved, and no one did anything, and Jason just stood there^and stared dumbly at the man lying in the entranceway. Heather leaned over him amid the pieces of the shattered door. She looked up, mouth open, eyes wide at the man standing above her, the gun now hanging limply at his side.
“Oh, God. Oh, God!” Heather was suddenly frantic. Her voice gasped fitfully as she wiped her hands over and over again at the blood oozing from the upper right side of Brandon’s chest, as though her desperate actions could somehow make the spreading stain go away. “Brandon, please, get up. Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
Jason looked stupidly at the gun in his hand, then at his neighbor lying in the pool of blood at his feet—the pool of blood that he had caused. Then back at the gun as though he couldn’t bring himself to connect the two. He stammered uselessly. Whatever he said became immediately drowned out by the distraught woman. He held the gun so loosely and offered so little protest when Ed took it from him, that it was a wonder he hadn’t dropped the weapon on the porch.