Corrector (7 page)

“Who are you?” he asked defiantly.  His younger brother looked cowed and was already nervously backing up toward the shore, finding it was easier to wade into the water down the slippery granite than to climb back out.

“I’m a cop,” Jake lied.  “Can’t you read?  The signs say stay out of the water.”

“It’s safe enough here,” the youth argued.  “I played here last year.  You’re no cop.  You can’t tell me what to do!”

Jake had been working his way closer to the two boys as he talked.  Just then the young one slipped and dropped into the water, his head almost going under momentarily.  Seeing his sibling’s plight, the twelve year old stopped arguing and grabbed the hands of his brother and tried to pull him upright.  Jake could see he was having trouble and was able to step in and help pull the younger boy up.  Then he pulled them both out of the water onto the shore where they stood dripping wet and shivering.

“Get away from the water and go get dry,” Jake commanded, and pointed up the hill.

The younger one was crying as they headed away.  Jake saw them intercepted by an adult before they had gone some thirty yards.  The adult talked with the red head, looking toward the water and Jake several times during the discussion.  Finally the man pointed up the hill, and after seeing the boys were headed where he had directed, he made his way toward Jake.

“Timmy says you yelled at them,” the man said.  “Told them to stay away from the water.”

“The damn fools were already in the water.  Another couple of feet and the current would have grabbed them.” Jake pointed at the unmistakable flow of the strong current a short distance from shore.

The man blanched.  “They were in the water?  I hadn’t noticed.  We are all so wet from the hike up here I didn’t think about it.  Christ.  You can’t look away for a minute.”

The man held out his hand.  “Thanks.  I was taking care of my wife who found the hike up here more than she was ready for.  The kids slipped away.  I thought Timmy knew better.”

Jake took the hand, then watched as the man hurried away moments later.  The boys were lucky.  He had back-tracked of course.  Jake and his two friends had been coming down from Lake Mead after spending the night when they had learned of the tragedy.  Two boys had gone over the falls the morning before.  The Ranger they had met on the trail had the full story and the specifics, including the time and location the event had taken place.  It was easy enough for him to back-track to the morning they had been coming up the trail.  Forewarned of what was going to happen, Jake had changed their plan and had told his friends he wanted to go the wet route.  After a certain amount of grumbling, they had relented, which had allowed them to be in place when the two boys headed down to the water.  Jake had chosen his place to dry out where he could see the spot the Ranger had told him they had gone in.  Now that wouldn’t happen.

“What’s going on?” Zack asked as he came up behind Jake. He had seen the man come down the hill and approach his friend.  He hadn’t been paying attention, resting in the sun with his eyes closed when Jake had rousted the two boys.

“A couple of kids playing in the water,” Jake told him.  “I chased ‘em out is all.”

Zack looked at the water and shook his head.  “Probably saved their lives,” he reflected.

“Where’s Nate?” Jake asked. “We probably should get going or we won’t make the lake before dark.”

“He went to take a piss,” Zack replied.  “He should be back in a minute.”

Fifteen minutes later the three men were back on the trail, moving away from the majority of the hikers.  Jake knew that most of those who had come to the top of Vernal Falls would go no farther.  The hike up to the top of Nevada falls was much harder, and for the most part only those who planned to spend the night in the back country would continue on.  That meant the trail was far less crowded and they could move at their own pace.  Zack took the lead with Nate following.  Jake brought up the rear, which gave him time to think.

He was at a loss of what to do about Karin.  He’d handled the situation badly.  For more than two weeks now he had stewed about the matter, and he had come to no conclusion.  He had even considered bringing to a halt any attempts to use his ability any longer.  Then something like the two boys came up, which told him he probably couldn’t do that.

After the event in Scottsdale, he had decided to propose and had taken her out to dinner and then off to a private spot they both liked where they could talk.  He’d felt it necessary to tell her the truth about himself.  Anything else would be dishonest, and he didn’t want to risk her learning later by accident.  He was certain he would slip up sooner or later if they were together fulltime.  He told her about his ability.  She, of course, didn’t believe him.  He had chosen the night to tell her based on events that no one could have known about.  In a couple of hours an unsuspected undersea volcano in the South Pacific would erupt.  It would form a small new island.  Nothing special, but the kind of thing he shouldn’t have known about. 

When they woke up together the next morning it was on the news.  Exactly when and where he’d told her.  She was shocked, and wanted to know how he did it.  He told her the truth.  He had no idea.   The first time he’d been aware of was the back-track in Afghanistan that had saved him from the IED.  At the time he’d had no idea it was anymore than a dream, but later events caused him to investigate and he learned what he could do.

Then he had told her the hard part.  He told her what he had been doing.  How he had used the ability to stop some of the violent events that had been plaguing our society for some time.  She was shocked when he told her he had killed more than a dozen of the deranged individuals over the past half decade.

“You killed them?” she asked aghast. 

“It was necessary,” he replied.  “They were going to die anyway.  I simply killed them before they could hurt anyone else.  You know I’d killed before as a soldier.  We talked about it.”

“That’s different,” she complained.  “That’s warfare.”

“Why is it any different?”

“For one thing warfare is legal.  Also, you were shooting at an unknown enemy; random individuals.  What you have been doing now is targeting specific individuals.  That’s more like murder.”

Jake didn’t understand the distinction and said so.  “Wasn’t it better that only the evil doer died?” he asked.

“Why can’t you simply let the authorities deal with it.  Use your knowledge to warn them and then stay out of it.”

He’d tried that a couple of times.  He’d made anonymous calls to the police and FBI in appropriate locations in an attempt to forestall attacks.  The results had been under-whelming.  For the most part he’d been disbelieved, especially when he wouldn’t reveal who he was or how he’d come by the information.  The police had been more interested in knowing about him.  The action taken was usually late and more often than not insufficient to be completely effective.  In two of the three instances, the killer had gotten away, and in none of the cases had the authorities stopped the attack without at least several innocents being killed.  Twice they had instituted a search with him as a possible suspect that they assumed had backed out of his part in the attacks.  Only the fact they had nothing to work with kept him from being found.  He’d also tried to warn the authorities about an earthquake and a mining accident. No one had been willing to listen.  Just another crackpot was the reception he’d been given.  Jake was certain a fear of significant financial loss based on an unverifiable source was one reason they didn’t choose to follow-up on his warnings.

He’d told Karin about these cases.

“What if you explained what you can do?  Prove it to someone in the government like you did to me.  Then you could go back and tell them when one of these things happens.”

“What kind of life do you think I would have after that?” he asked her.  “I would be constantly in demand.  There are tens of thousands of events every day.  Most are the kind of thing I now have to ignore because I have no hope of doing anything about them.  That wouldn’t be the case if I were to do what you have suggested.  I would be asked to deal with more than I could handle.  Also, there would be those who would want to study me; to try and figure out how I do it.  I’d no longer have a life.”

“How do you decide who you are going to help?” she’d asked.  “Obviously, it isn’t everyone.”

“A lot depends on whether it is something I can handle on my own.  It has to happen close enough I can get there, and it has to be something I can alter without relying on any other help.  In a way, it’s like neighbors.  If someone’s house burns down across town, you feel bad, but don’t do anything.  If your neighbor’s house burns down, you pitch in and try and help.”

They had argued about it for several hours.  Karin was simply not willing to see his point of view.  She was appalled at what he had done, and was frankly uncomfortable being with him.  Clearly, he had changed in her perspective.  She’d never personally been exposed to any violence, and couldn’t reconcile what he was doing with her vision of the world.  In the end he’d taken her home, his hopes for their relationship shattered.

Then he’d back-tracked.  Knowing the outcome of his revealing his secret to her, he hadn’t done so.  That meant things were in a kind of limbo.  He wanted to go forward with Karin, but he didn’t know how.  Telling her, at least in as much detail as he had, wouldn’t work.  Keeping a secret wouldn’t work either.  There had to be some middle ground.  Either that, or he stopped his activities entirely, and let the secret stay hidden.  Hence his need to think.

“You’re sure quiet today,” Nate observed when they stopped for a break a few miles short of their destination.

“Thorny software puzzle,” he lied.  Both Zack and Nate knew he’d started working on a new game.  “Are you sure you should have brought that?” he asked Nate changing the subject.  Nate had a short barreled .454 Casul in a shoulder holster under his outer vest.

“I’ve been scared by more than one bear up here,” Nate countered.  “I doubt we’ll see any Rangers out here, and it’s easy enough to hide if we do.”

“You might want to be careful once we get to the lake.  There will be more people and could be a Ranger there,” Zack advised. 

Jake didn’t know how he felt about his friend bringing the gun.  It was a park, which made the gun illegal.  Usually they hiked in the forest, which changed the rules.  He also knew that bears could be a problem.  There had been an attack outside the park earlier this year already.  His thinking was skewed he realized, because he knew he had a means to avoid an attack after it had happened.  Nate didn’t have that luxury.

The wood in the campfire snapped and spit, the resin in the pinewood not the best for a fire.  They were in an approved area, a short distance away from the main campground where a number of other groups had gathered to spend the night.  No one else was in this smaller area, and their fire was in a rocked enclosure well away from the trees and brush that would burn so well if ignited.  As an extra precaution, they kept the fire small, just enough to heat the water they needed for the tea and the freeze dried food and to give a little heat and light as they sat on logs set around the fire pit.

“How did you happen to see those kids this morning?” Zack asked when the conversation lagged.  “If you hadn’t gone after them they probably would have gone over the falls.  Happens every year, and the water is seldom this high.  You probably saved their lives.”

“Random chance,” Jake replied, waiving off the suggestion he’d done anything.

“If they’d got into that current it would have been all over,” Nate added.  “There would have been nothing anyone could have done at that point.”

Jake suddenly realized he might have a chance to feel out his friends.  Throwing caution to the winds, he asked, “What if someone knew what was going to happen?  Would it be right to interfere?”

“What do you mean knew?” Zack asked.  “You mean someone could see what was going to happen.  Of course they should.  That’s kind of what you did.”

“No, I mean someone had solid knowledge that a future undesirable event was going to take place.”

“A premonition?” Nate suggested.

“Like that, but a somehow proven knowledge.”

“Someone who knew the future,” Zack said getting into the game.  “Should someone who somehow knew the future, try and change events?  Is that your question?”

“I guess that’s basically it,” Jake agreed.

“Wouldn’t that mean a lot of complications to future history?” Nate asked.

“That’s what we think because the question is normally posed in the context of someone traveling a significant distance back in time to modify the past.  But suppose an event, say those kids, were to happen where they were swept over the falls.  They are dead.  But someone has the ability to send back a warning and stop it.  The future is now that they are alive.  Not much has changed if we believe the future isn’t deterministic.  It hadn’t had time to progress very far.”

“I’ve never thought of it that way,” Zack admitted.  “The future would be different from that point on, but that would be the case if Nate suddenly decided to pull out that hogleg of his and shoot one of us.  The future would change suddenly there as well.  Alternate paths for what hasn’t happened yet are always available.”

“Given that line of thought, it seems to be it would be the right thing to do,” Nate said.