Chicago Burning

I always loved fire. Even as a kid. If I'd been less responsible, I would have been what people call a "pyro". If I had one mutant power, it would be the ability to manifest fire. Think of the possibilities; you're eating some bananas and sipping cheap brandy and think, "if only I could put these together and light them afire," but you have no matches. Good thing you can shoot fire out of your hands, instant bananas foster.

Fire is the only thing that isn't a thing. Fire is a reaction, not an object. It contains no matter, no atoms or elements. It's just the physical structure of some object breaking away from itself. Civilization would be impossible without it. Water has to boil, food has to be cooked, bodies have to stay warm. Empires have to burn, to make room for new ones. They say Chicago burning down was the best thing that ever happened to the city, gave the town a chance to start over fresh. Unheard-of rebirth and cultural expansion.

At the time, though, it probably sucked a lot and for a lot of people.

I was frozen, in a way. I couldn't move, my brain was too busy exploding to deliver any muscle commands through my nervous system. My house, the only one I'd ever lived in, was gone. Some charred walls and a huge pile of ash. Gone was everything physical in my life that I could hold onto and say, "this is mine." All I had now was a bloody shirt, pants that probably had a grass-stain on the back now, my wallet, a knife, and a gun. All my clothes, both of my computers, my tv, all my movies, my books, everything. Gone. I'd left that USB drive in there too. Fantastic.

Amy was still pulling on my arm and saying something. Eventually the dull buzzing filling my head cleared enough to process her words. "Come on, we shouldn't be seen here."

I didn't know what she was talking about, but I stood up and let her tug me back behind a house and out of sight from the street. I leaned against the wall again, closed my eyes, and tried to take control of my breathing again. My head ached still.

From where ever Amy was, she sighed and under her breath said, "Man, your house..."
I opened my eyes suddenly, seeing the world differently now. "I can afford it," I said before turning and walking back toward Amy's.

Outside her house, I leaned against my car and waited while she went inside and came back with my gun and my keys. When she asked what I wanted them for, I said nothing. I took the gun and the few loaded magazines and set them in the passenger seat of my car before starting the engine. The passenger door opened and Amy picked up the gun and ammo and set it in the back seat after sitting down.

"You're not coming," I said.
"The hell I'm not," she said.

I looked at her, then back at the steering wheel. If I'd had some kind of plan, I would have tried to consider it and how to implicate her into it. I had nothing.

"Fine," I said, "but don't blame me if you get killed."
"Deal."

Amy stopped trying to ask where we were going once it was clear we were headed toward Quantico.

"Do you think it was the gas can?" she asked after a few minutes of silence.
"No," I said plainly.
"Any reason?"
I said nothing.

I wasn't in a mood for talking. I wasn't really in a mood for anything. Going to sleep for a few weeks and not dreaming at all sounded like the ideal scenario just then. When I first saw that the house had burned down, I too had figured it was that gas can I lit and threw, or the van I threw it at. It couldn't have been, though. The street was was at least 100 feet from the house, so anything that could have gotten that far would have been small. It would have started a small fire and burned slowly until the cops arrived. They'd call the fire department, who would come out and put out the blaze while it was in the middle of tearing up the kitchen or ruining the carpet. The inside might have been destroyed, but the house would be standing. Houses don't burn all the way down these days, even the old ones. Not unless one makes an effort of it. Someone had either placed small charges on the supporting walls downstairs and initiated a hurried, but controlled demolition; or someone had strategically set large fires on both levels knowing how they'd burn.

It would be a good way to get rid of the bullet holes in the walls. Rounds can be dug from walls, their angles and trajectories determined and the type of weapons determined. Burn the wall down, and all that's left is a few small bits of lead in a mountain of debris. My house was burned down on purpose.

Yet another assault upon my life and everything in it. I was through with it. No more sitting around wondering whodunit or why. No more sneaking around, no more bank or computer espionage. No more unanswered questions. Now, I was going to find the answers even if it killed me. I had nothing left but question marks. Not for long, I told myself.

I drove to Quantico as I had done before. Off the highway, onto Russell Road, and to the security gate. The same elaborate dance of vehicle-circling and stupid questions was performed by a different man at the gate. I showed my identification and the guest pass Schumer had given me and I'd left in my car, said I should be cleared in the system, and waited while he looked it up and used the phone. He came back, told me the same story about parking in the lot to the left and waiting for an escort. The young lady would have to wait in the car. I nodded and pulled forward into the lot, into nearly the same spot I'd parked before. It was a Saturday, so the place was a bit more deserted than when I'd been there before. I hoped Schumer would be there on a weekend, but if not I wouldn't mind just walking around that "University" and seeing what kind of fun I could have.

A Jeep pulled up in a few minutes, I got out of the car without saying a word to Amy and got into the Jeep. The driver brought the car down the road in silence, dropped me off in front of the same building, and drove off. Outside the front door of the building was Lt. Colonel Schumer, flanked on both sides by fatigued Marines holding M16s and standing at attention. Schumer looked the same, albeit a bit more nervous. When I approached him he offered his hand, I just looked at it.

"Right," he said, retracting it. "Well, I assume you've thought of more questions for me. Why don't we head to my office?"
"What's with the Centurians?" I asked, looking at both Marine guards. They both eyeballed me as if they could shoot knives from their eyes.
"Oh, just part of their Executive Protection rotation. For their training. They pretend I'm somebody important and I give them a grade based on how well they keep me from being killed."
I couldn't decide which was more odd, the fact that Schumer was lying, or the fact that I knew.

Regardless, I followed them inside the building and through a metal detector. I didn't remember that being there the last time. Schumer and his guards each went to the side of the detector, but one of the guards stopped me from bypassing it and pointed me through it. I went through to no fanfare. I was glad I'd decided to leave my gun in the car.

I followed Schumer down the hall to the left and to his office. The two guards stood outside the office, one on either side of the door. When I sat down in the same seat as before,Schumer closed the door and stepped around and sat behind his wide oak desk. I glanced at the back of his computer and tried not to smirk.

The fact that I'd been kept from considering for the past 12 hours was that, for some reason, he had a video of me on his computer. A recent video, taken of me at a time I could not remember. The intruders had distracted me from it, and then the fire had swept it from my mind. I'd remembered it while I drove, though. I'd racked my mind trying to make sense of it, and came up with nothing more credible than there being a clone of me running around somewhere. Rather than trying to play spy, I decided to go right to the source.

"So," Schumer said as he settled into his chair and folded his hands on the desk.
"Shut up," I said before he could continue. I leaned forward against the desk to get closer to him. "You're going to tell me what the hell is going on. You're going to tell me why you have videos of me on your computer, you're going to tell me why my house was burned down last night after armed men came in and tried to kill me, you're going to tell me why Nathan Comstock is being paid to keep tabs on me for you and why he hired ahitman to 'bring me in', and -- for the love of God -- you're going to tell me what my dad really did here."
I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms, feeling slightly silly for still wearing a black concert t-shirt for a band I didn't know.

Schumer unfolded his hands and leaned back in his chair as well. He pursed his lips slightly and looked at me silently for at least twenty seconds, as if contemplating some elaborate mathematical theorem. I mimicked his posture and waited. Schumer opened his mouth to say something, paused for a moment, considering his words, and said at last, "Your house burned down?"

I felt my arm tick slightly. If I'd had my knife on me, it probably would have gone through his forehead just then. "Yes," I just said, calmly. "After a brick of guys in tac gear and carrying XM8s broke in and started shooting." I didn't know what "brick" meant, but it sounded appropriate.

Schumer leaned forward slightly and rubbed his leathery chin, then ran his hand through his stiff, graying hair. His voice deep and rough as ever, he said, "I can answer some of those questions, others I have no idea about. If you come back in a few weeks, I'll probably be able to answer them all."
"Just tell me what you can now," I said.
"It will have to wait. Come back in a few weeks, after the 5th, and we can talk about it as much as you'd like."
"The 5th? My birthday? What does that have to do with anything?"
Schumer closed his eyes for a second, then opened them and began to shuffle papers on his desk. "It's just the best time for me, my schedule is just packed until them. Look at me, I'm working on a Saturday."

I sighed, long and drawn-out. It was the same thing. Every time I wanted answers, some stupid thing came in the way. Everybody talking in riddles or treating me like an idiot. That was fine, kind of intriguing in fact, until someone burned my house down. Then the appeal was lost. Now, all I have time for is the truth.

Schumer knows the truth, but he expects me to wait for it? Wait while more Government agencies introduce themselves or try to shoot me or blow me up. No more waiting, no more games. The truth, now.

I brought my right foot up to the top edge of the desk and pushed with all my strength. The oak desk heaved, and tipped forward. The monitor and computer on the right side of the desk slipped forward and crashed onto the floor, then the desk itself fell forward to the floor, knocking Schumer over and pinning him down. He yelped as he fell and screamed as the edge of the desk came down around his stomach. The desk had come down onto the metal computer case on one side, propping it up slightly and holding some of its weight off of Schumer.

Behind me, I heard the door open. One of the guards spilled into the room, his M16 drawn and ready. I was on my feet and at the door in seconds, my hands around the barrel of the gun and yanking it from the Marine's hand. With a quick thrust I crashed the butt of the weapon into the guard's chin, then swung it sideways to strike the other around the side of the head. I dropped the rifle and pulled the pistol from the holster on the waist of the second guard, brought my elbow into his gut, and the butt of the pistol into the forehead of the first man's. In one flurry of motion I had the two men on the floor. I slipped one of the pistols into the belt of my pants, then grabbed the other pistol. The M16s I unloaded and threw the weapons and ammo down opposite sides of the hallway.

Back inside Schumer's office, I stepped around the desk laying on the floor and pressed the barrel of the pistol in my hand into the cheek of Schumer's wincing face.

"How about you tell me right now?" I asked politely.
Schumer coughed and groped at the surface of the desk pinning him to the floor. "You crazy little shit," he said between coughs.
"Maybe we should start with what you really do here and what my father's job was," I said, still pressing the gun into his face with a steady pressure. My right elbow hurt slightly from the impact against two skulls.
Schumer's breathing was getting weaker. "Fine," he said, "get this thing off me and I'll tell you."
"Tell me and I'll get it off you,"
"I can't breathe!"

I pulled the gun away, stepped over his head to the other side of the desk and pulled the edge of it up. With the few inches of clearance, Schumer was able to back himself out from under the desk. I let go and pulled him up, as he was having trouble getting his balance for the coughing. He hunched for a few seconds, catching his breath.
"I could have internal bleeding..." he said.
"Tell me something to make me care," I said, holding the gun into the back of his neck.
"Not here," he said. "Outside, by the river. There's a small park. We can walk there. I'll tell you there."
"Great," I said.