Erich Bruckner
Somewhere at Sea
When he opened his eyes, he felt so oddly disconnected, he had no sense of orientation or touch. It was as if he were a pair eyes, and only eyes. Or less than that—perhaps just a window providing a view. And the view was nothing more than a hazy expanse of gray nothingness.
An unsettling thought pierced him: if this was death, then it was truly horrifying.
But, no…he felt somehow still alive, but in a tenuous fashion. He felt as if he’d come back to consciousness from a totally blank state. No memory of time, sleep, or anything that preceded it.
Erich forced himself to concentrate on the gray smear that comprised his world, and slowly, it changed as his eyes regained the power to focus, to process information.
And he knew he was looking up at the ceiling of a room.
From that simple discovery, he became slowly aware of his body. He lay supine in a bed, and with great effort he moved his head to the left to see a gray wall. Some kind of metal. Something familiar about the feel and color—he was on a ship.
And he’d been given some kind of powerful drug.
As sensation and thought gradually returned to him, like the rising tides on a beach, he compared this experience to coming back to awareness from his series of operations for gall bladder, a hip replacement, and several heart procedures. The numbing effects of anesthesia receded, and he tried to remember what had brought him to this point of disorientation. Was the room moving? There was something familiar about it.
Lifting his arm, he felt alarmed at how difficult a task it had become. His bones felt dense, heavy, and all his muscles screamed. Only great effort of will and strength allowed him to push on the mattress, and turn to face away from the wall. Then as his vision cleared (thank God he’d let Jason talk him into the Lasik operation), he assessed his situation.
The Spartan fixtures of a ship’s sick bay had not changed since his days in the Kriegsmarine. He knew where he was, but he had no idea who had put him here. The nightmare of the assault on his son’s house now fell back on him like the impact of a cresting wave. And he feared for the lives of Margaret and Jason as well. The harsh bark of gunfire, the terrifying ratchet of the helicopter, and being roughly dragged into the aircraft…all had the surreal quality of being like a bad dream that just might be true. He knew he must keep his thoughts rational. If he dwelled on the possible fates of his family—things over which he had no control—he would be useless. He knew he could not blame himself for what happened because he felt as though he were answering to forces much larger than himself.
Strapped to the wheel of fate.
Across the room, on an adjacent hospital bed, lay another person, staring at him with dark eyes.
“You’re awake,” said Tommy. “Man, I was gettin’ worried. You were out for awhile. Longer than me, I mean.”
Erich glanced at his wrist, a lifelong habit to consult time’s passage, but his watch was not there. “How long?” he said. “Where are we?”
“You? About eight hours, I’d guess. Me? I think I’ve been awake for a couple.” Tommy sat up on the edge of the bed. He was dressed in T-shirt and boxers, just as Erich.
“And what kind of boat is this?”
Tommy shrugged. “Not sure. They’ve got us locked in. Can’t see much from the porthole. They took our clothes too.”
Erich tried to lift himself to an elbow, tried to sit up. When Tommy saw how challenging a task it was, he slipped off the bed, moved to help him.
“Thank you. You are a good man.” Erich’s head felt light as he gained an upright position. The effects of the drug were still subsiding. He hated feeling so infirm, so frail.
“You remember anything after they got us into the chopper?” Tommy’s dark, longish hair looked matted from perspiration.
“No. Nothing. Perhaps it will come back to me. What about you?”
“Just bits and pieces. That’s the way it’s comin’ back for me. I got a feelin’ they don’t want us to remember, but I do…some.”
“What did they do to us? Where are they taking us?”
“That motherfucker, the guy with red hair and the mustache…I think he killed old Augie.”
“Your friend…” Erich felt a twinge of anger, and yet also a bit of relief that the poor old fellow was out of pain, out of the discomfort that comes with great age. In one small way, Erich envied him.
“He smacked him in the side of the head. I didn’t like the way he fell…and then he…he just never moved after that.” For Erich, the image of Augie challenging the two intruders returned. The old gentleman had walked up to the stocky, red-haired man, yelling into his face.
“Those bastards,” said Tommy. “I owe those fucks—for Augie.”
“You may get your chance. But patience needs be your ally.”
Tommy looked at him, started to say something, but remained silent. Instead, he patted Erich on the shoulder, then turned to look out the porthole where a brassy sun beat down on the flat sea like a hammer.
“What else do you remember?”
Tommy turned from the porthole. “They hit us with those injection guns as soon as we were all in the helicopter—you know like those things they vaccinate the kids with? And I guess it knocked us out pretty fast.”
“Yes, I would agree.” Erich had no memory of anything other than the roar of the rotors and the open bay door of the aircraft. If they had injected him, the effect of the drug had erased the experience.
“But then, I think when they got us here, or somewhere after the helicopter, I remember being in a chair—like at the dentist, you know?”
There was something familiar at the mention of the chair. Leaning back. A bright light. Erich listened, getting frustrated at the inability to clear his head. “They probably interrogated you. Me as well. But I am having trouble remembering.”
“Man, I wonder what we told them?” said Tommy, who stood again, began pacing from the bed to the porthole and back. He appeared tense, agitated, and ready for trouble. Erich recalled his own youth, and how easy it had been to slip free of society’s conventions, to express anger and outrage.
“The effectiveness of drugs like…” Erich struggled to recall the words, “.…sodium pentothal or scopolamine are overrated.”
“Really?”
“From what I have read, there is nothing in the drugs that can force you to be truthful. You will be relaxed and open to suggestion, but you can still withhold information if you truly want to.”
“Hmmm, I wonder if I did.”
Interesting that he was concentrating on that fact. Had he told them everything he knew? Or only everything they wanted to know? It all depended on asking the right questions. He was beginning to recall the faces gathered around him, enquiring, but not their exact words—and certainly not his.
That could be a significant difference. Erich considered this. “That fact that we are still alive tells me that we did not yet tell them what they wanted to know, or that we remain of some use to them.”
Tommy grinned without humor. “Yeah, I gotta feelin’ you’re on the money with that one.”
Erich nodded. “I think so. Even though our captors did not have the look of totally ruthless men, I fear they nevertheless possessed that trait.”
“So what do we do when they come for us? Do we see what they want? Or should I try somethin’?”
Again, he was reminded of his early days with Manny. It was almost unthinkable to accept, but they were so young for what had been heaped on them. Men in their twenties with no understanding of how fragile life could be. He remembered acting so often on impulse, rather than reason or information. “We need to know more of our situation before we can act with any chance of success. Or we jump from the pot to the fire, yes?”
Tommy nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Besides…I am a very old man.”
Tommy looked at him and smiled. “You might be as old as you say you are, but I gotta tell you—you look way younger. Maybe sixty, but that’s it.”
“I have been told that ever since the end of the war—that I never looked my age. And I think I know why…”
“What do you mean?”
“The metal bar—the intermatter—the scientist told me about radiation they were working with. Tau-rays, he called it. I have often wondered if keeping that object in my bedstand all those years, if the radiation did something to me.”
Tommy chuckled softly. “Yeah, you mean like keeping you from aging, huh?”
“Something like that, yes. When I think about my age, I can hardly believe I am still alive. But I can tell you truly, Mr. Chipiarelli, I will do whatever I can to defeat these people.”
Tommy grinned. “Hey, c’mon, Captain. Tell me somethin’ I don’t know.”
Erich grinned, said nothing. He could hear a low-frequency vibration, a rhythmic beating in the air that grew ever stronger, louder. Tommy moved to the porthole, gestured for Erich to join him.
“I hear a helicopter,” he said. “You think it’s for us?”
Erich took a breath slowly and exhaled with equal measure. He remained on the edge of the bed because, at the moment, the idea of walking across the room seemed a little adventurous. Ever since awakening, he’d been feeling a hint of arrhythmia, which—radiation or not—his doctor had told him could be the harbinger of something worse. While he fully understood the tension and anticipation in Chipiarelli, he knew he was not physically able to keep up.
The sound of the approaching aircraft grew louder and more insistent. The air above the boat vibrated and shook, telling Erich that something large and powerful lumbered above them. “Do you see it?”
Tommy kept his attention on the sky. “Yeah, it’s one of those big ones. Like a flyin’ crane. Big. Propellers on both ends. It’s carryin’ some kind of little boat, looks like a sub or somethin’.”
Erich nodded. That made sense. Things were flowing into place, and he felt himself warming to the confluence of events. He felt flashes of memory from his days on the command deck, and he relished the chance to be in that position one final time.
After twenty years of dealing with choices no more important than Cheerios or a poached egg, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to make a decision that actually mattered.