Ex-Purgatory, Peter Clines [top ten books of all time .txt] 📗

did with Tennant’s last year in the lead role? For that matter, what season was Chuck in? And how had LOST ended? He was pretty sure it wasn’t on the air anymore, but couldn’t remember a final episode.

“Mr. Burke?”

“Give me a minute.”

He couldn’t even think of any new cartoons. Every morning with breakfast he’d been watching an episode of Battle of the Planets. He knew it was soft-core by some standards, but he’d grown up on this version before he’d ever heard of the original Gatchaman. And off that thought another memory shoved its way forward.

“Oh my God,” he said. “You’re the ninja.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“In my dreams,” said Barry. “I recognize your voice. You’re the ninja. You’ve got guns. And a cape.”

There was a pause. “Shall I take this to mean you cannot name a current television show?”

“I just told you you’re a ninja with guns and you still want to talk about television?”

“It is more important,” said the woman on the phone. “Have any elements of your dreams appeared in the real world?”

“Sorry, what?”

“Have you seen any elements from your dreams while you were awake?”

“Like a guy in a red and green sweater with a glove made of knife blades?”

“The walking dead.”

“Ahhh. No, not that I can …”

There’d been a staff meeting a few days ago, right after George’s call, when his coworkers had gotten quiet and looked very pale under the office lights. They’d all stared at him without blinking for a moment, then the meeting continued as if nothing had happened. And there was a smell in his office he couldn’t track down, a sort of under-scent of mildew and rot. It clung to everything. Sometimes he even brought it home with him.

“Maybe,” he said. “I think maybe I have, yeah.”

There was a pause on the other end. Then the woman spoke again. “I believe it is in our best interests to be together,” she told him. “Can you travel to Los Angeles?”

A handful of thoughts flashed through Barry’s head. The casual meeting he was supposed to have with Mike from maintenance about the smell. Jerry and Vanessa talking about component testing schedules. Keith asking for reports. His weekly Warhammer game with the guys down at the store.

He thought about his dreams and how right they felt. Not just in a geek-fulfillment sense. In a simple, basic sense. Speaking to the woman on the phone, speaking to George, he knew his dreams were true.

“Yes,” said Barry. “Yes I can. I can be on the first flight out of the Sunport and be in LA before ten o’clock.”

“I will arrange for a car to pick you up at LAX.”

“Cool,” he said. “I’ll see you then.”

She hung up and he set the phone down. He thought about what he’d just agreed to, and was pretty sure it was going to mean the end of his career at Sandia. They were always on a tight budget, and he wasn’t high enough up the chain to have any sort of protection. He was throwing it all away over a dream.

A dream where he could fly.

Barry reached up and grabbed the handle over his bed. Most folks called it a trapeze, but he always felt if you were going to tell people you had a trapeze over your bed it needed to live up to certain expectations. He pulled up on the handle and swung his body across the bed and out over his wheelchair. His legs dragged behind him.

It was a little after two in the morning. He could be packed and ready to go by three-thirty and at the airport by five. Then he just needed an accommodating flight.

“He will be here in the morning,” Karen told George. “I will have my father pick him up at the airport.”

He glanced at her from the driver’s seat. “Is that wise?”

“How so?”

“I mean … well …” He tried to think of a polite way to phrase his worry and gave up. “Is it safe for your dad to go to an airport?”

Her eyebrow went up.

“Isn’t he kind of … wanted?”

The corners of her mouth trembled again. The almost-smile. “My father long ago perfected the art of hiding in plain sight. If he does not want to be noticed, he will not be. How else could he be staying in a hotel surrounded by paparazzi?”

George decided to call the matter closed. “Okay, then,” he said.

They were still on surface streets. Somewhere deep in Santa Monica. He didn’t know exactly where, but according to the street numbers he’d hit the beach in another dozen blocks if he kept heading down the road they were on. After that …

“Let’s stop and get a beer,” he said.

Her eyebrow went back up.

“We’re driving around with no plan and the car’s got a quarter tank of gas. Let’s stop and make some kind of plan.”

She glanced at her phone. “Last call will be in the next fifteen minutes at most establishments.”

They passed two clubs before settling on a bar. George parked across the street, went to shut off the engine, and realized he still didn’t have a key. The engine revved. It sounded like a grumble.

“We’ll be right back,” he said to the dashboard. “Half an hour at the most.”

The car revved again and then turned itself off.

“You are talking to your car,” said Karen.

“I don’t know if you noticed,” he said, “but the car’s talking back.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but decided against it.

They walked across the wide road. An oversized man sat on a tall chair near the bar’s door. A tall table with a desk light and a beach umbrella created a small check-in station. The doorman looked up from his book when he saw them approaching and straightened up. George went to reach for his wallet and realized it was back at his apartment, but the man waved them through with a broad smile at Karen. He took a quick step to make it clear they were together. It felt awkward, and under the stark lights