The Girl Who Chases the Wind

Chapter 26: Nothing Beside Remains (END)

The only word I could attempt was a cautious, “...W-what…?”

Propping himself up, Feldon explained, “I had it on an electronic dead man’s switch which I reset manually for months. I let them live. Then, I found Rachel…and I knew I had to change the world. Make it better…”

I shook my head. “Don’t you fucking dare!… Don’t you dare put it on me!”

He lowered his head and took a breath. “No. But it is my gift to you. All the terrible people you’ve had to tolerate in your articles. All the victims of their crimes….Justice has been done.”

I snapped. I threw myself at him, fists clenched. I used all I had. I kicked him in the gut and punched him in the face. He reeled with my blows as I wrapped my hands around his neck. I stared into those eyes, my body throbbing, and my heart thundering in my ears.

“You’re a madman!”

I resisted every sickening feeling that this was wrong. I tightened my grip past that invisible threshold in my mind. I could see his color changing. His arms flailed. He could’ve easily pushed me off or grabbed at my neck. But he didn’t.

I pulled myself away as he coughed, and his regular color returned. “And I’m…not a killer.”

Lily and Mari both came over to comfort me. Feldon pulled himself up and cleared his throat. I relaxed my hands and told him, “But you’re dead to me.” I turned away.

Finally able to speak again, Feldon said, with a hoarse voice, “You’re my daughter. My little girl. You’re all I have left. I…didn’t know if I would survive, but I made plans in case. We can go. It’ll be safe. It’ll be a better world….and we’ll be together.”

Mari hissed, “You’re not going anywhere. You’re a mass murderer.” Despite her wounds, Mari tensed up and looked like she was about to bolt at Feldon.

With a grimace, Feldon pulled a small device from his pocket and quietly uttered, “I’m sorry. But soon there will be many people here with so many questions. I have to leave.” As soon as he pressed the button on the device, Mari and Lily’s feet were both locked in place like they were cemented to the floor. Mari yelled and flailed but couldn’t move.

Putting the device back, Feldon added, “As soon as I am far enough away, you’ll be able to move again. I’m sorry about your wounds but the nurses should be able to attend to you before things get too crazy around here. And I’ll make sure you both are taken care of…and…Rachel…” I only allowed him a quick glance.

Feldon spread out his hands. “I am truly sorry it has to be this way. You must believe I had the best intentions for everything.”

I refused to give him the satisfaction of a response, positive or negative. Mari cursed at him and tried to tear her feet from the floor. Feldon sighed.

“Please…will you follow me, Rachel?”

I said only one last thing, as I turned to him, “My name is Logan Harper. Rachel is dead.”

Feldon staggered a moment then pressed his lips together. “I see…I see…then that’s it. That’s it.” His voice broke, as he finally said, “Farewell then…Logan. I really did mean well. I really did…”

He receded through the door, moving slowly. It wasn’t too long before Lily and Mari were able to move again. They tried to chase after him, but he was nowhere to be found and chaos was starting to spread around outside.

That was the last time I saw Dr. Arnold Feldon.    

Epilogue

The Girl Who Chases the Wind by Logan Harper
April 17, 2045

This is the hardest article I’ve ever had to write.

I’ve written about the Yadizi genocides disguised as resource wars. I’ve documented the persistence of bacha bazi despite international claims of reforms. I even met one of the more than two-thousand who died on September 5th of last year.

But this is harder than any of those because I saw a doctor, with the most advanced medical technology I could imagine, become a murderer. Since that day in September, I doubt there is anyone who doesn’t know the name Arnold Serhii Feldon. When most see the name they likely think of science gone wrong, man with too much power, or perhaps the three-hundred million dollar bounty for the man who has vanished without a trace.

For me, I want to remember the man who comforted children with his boxes of miracles and lamented that he couldn’t do more. I want to remember him that way, but he chose to be a man of vengeance instead of a man of medicine.

Worse of all, the foundation and project he left behind, the world-famous Mantlemay Project Clinic, has become the most recent victim of his path of destruction. The rooms, where people of all ages with seemingly-inoperable neurological conditions could be cured even if they didn’t have insurance, are dark and the halls empty as the federal government continues its investigation into Feldon’s activities.

Nothing beside remains of Feldon’s kingdom in the desert. His ambitious artificial forest, a monument to the ones of his youth in Ukraine, has been choked to death by the timeless, never-ending sands.

The treasures of his legacy have been split up between several medical corporations (some who lost prominent leaders that September day) which once did regular business with Feldon. Whether they will revive the Mantlemay Clinic in some form is unknown but highly doubtful.

But the difficult part of this article is not to lament this terrible loss of hope to the tyranny of a man who claimed he knew best. It is to recount the final days I or anyone last saw Arnold Feldon.

It began with a normal day, as most things do.

I received an article offer from one of my regular patrons between tea and staring at an old-time blinking cursor on a screen….

=====

I couldn’t sit to type any longer, I had to stretch. There was still a lot left to go and even more left to cut. I’d included all the stuff about Rachel and my personal life in one version but that wasn’t meant for anyone but myself. The closest I ever came to outing myself.

Sure, there were junior troll sleuths on the net who hollered theories about my identity, but people were doing that since the beginning. 
 
“Logan?”

I spun around with a quick smile and asked, “What is it, Lily?”

Lily stood in the door frame with her hands neatly folded in front of her. Mari lingered behind her, barely showing with the bright swell of Lily’s peach sundress. Mari wore her usual plaid, button-up shirt with loose-fit jeans.

Swallowing her words for a moment, Lily glanced behind her and then back to me. “We…well…we were thinking of going to the little park down the road because I heard the local bakery is giving away cake. And all sorts of other stuff too. But mostly cake! Would you like to come?”

I knew the local bakery well and they knew Lily well too. I looked over my screen and how much white was still left on the page as I muttered, “I still have a good bit to write….but I could use a break.” The notes and recordings I’d been allowed to keep sat next to my keyboard.

We decided to move out of my old apartment in mid-October, partly because too many people were able to find us but mostly because it was too small. Not long after Mantlemay, a series of strange packages were sent to my apartment. They contained machines for servicing and repairing Lily and Mari, which were enormous once Mari helped me put them together.

Those weren’t the only mysterious gifts I received. Soon after, checks disguised as article payments for works I never wrote arrived, enough to cover the costs of a move and the energy needs of the machines. Tracing the checks didn’t lead anywhere, even with a call to Kala, who had since been hired as an advisor by the FBI to track down Feldon.

Making my way to the living room, I noticed the TV had been left on a news network. The Day of Death, as everyone termed it, was all everyone talked about for a solid week. Everyone freaked out about the economy as over a hundred trillion dollars in wealth went into flux. But it got worse than that.

Regimes fell and what they fell into, especially in the case of my “old friend”, was far worse than what there was before. Governments which had only talked about the possibilities of weaponizing Memetic Crystalline were crawling over each other to have the most advanced programs. And that wasn’t all. A power vacuum in Southeast Asia led to a ten-day war full of the horrors of white phosphorus bombardment along with a few new ways to kill people both sides had dreamed up which didn’t require any gray goo.

And on it went. The Middle East this time. I switched off the TV and slipped on my shoes.

Mari lingered around as I picked up my keys and wallet. I asked her how she was doing. She didn’t answer at first. She just leaned around on her legs and said, “I wish I could run like I used to.”

I nodded. I had offered to find a luxury cabin in the Canadian wilderness which still had enough of a connection for my work, but Mari refused, explaining, “You’ve had enough taken away from you. You shouldn’t have to hide away from everything and everyone you know.” Granted, the number of people I knew and cared about were not that many, but she wouldn’t budge. Fortunately, we took enough trips up north so they could run in the forest. It wasn’t the same though. Lily seemed like she could be happy anywhere with fresh cake but there was still one day when she mused, “Why am I still alive…?”

It was the kind of question Mari put out all the time but soon retracted if I was around. My only good answers were the quickest, strongest hugs I could offer.

Edgar passed away in late January after a serious infection which only got worse. I visited the nursing home he wound up in when I could and tried to imagine a projector on the wall with him and Ada smiling at me as an impossible landscape danced behind them. I cried on the couch for what felt like a month when he died.

Outside, the chill of winter was still in the air. It wasn’t as cold as it had been but the gardens out front and the trees showed only the barest signs that the chill was receding. I went back for my jacket and made sure Lily and Mari both got their jackets too (even though I knew well they didn’t need them). Mari fussed awkwardly with hers, bending to put her arms through the sleeves because she always twisted and turned her jacket inside out.

I offered to help. She jerked her head at me and nearly scowled. But she soon relaxed and gave a calm nod.

As I held it up, she carefully slipped through one arm after the other. Adjusting her jacket, I felt her hand reach down to clasp mine. She looked over at me with a faint smile and a nod. Swiftly, Lily stretched over and added her hand on top of ours. She grinned broadly and giggled. Mari answered with a sigh and told me, “Come on. There’s cake to eat…or something.” This earned a quick, sad frown from Lily and some words about “properly respecting cake”.

I kept pace with the others, which wasn’t an easy thing. I still got winded but these walks were frequent enough that Mari didn’t bother calling me a “hippy shut-in” anymore, as she did the first month we all lived together.

Halfway to the park, my shoelace slipped out of its knot and clicked around on the pavement. We stopped and I quickly retied it.

I paused.

The wind, which each day the last week had pushed on me with a heat-stealing chill, curled around behind my back. It moved firmly but gently. And it was warm, like a blanket of air rushing past me. It picked up to a breeze like a warm breath. I sniffed it.

For an instant, like a sudden flash in my brain, I got the feeling and smell like when it begins to rain. But there wasn’t a cloud in the stark blue sky. The wind dashed at my back. I whirled around.

And it was gone.