A "Winds of Change" Story

By Brian Eirik Coe

We stopped at a rest stop somewhere in central Connecticut for lunch that afternoon. The weather was definitely turning away from summer, there was a noticeable chill in the air, but it was a still gorgeous day. While Tim and Jon topped off the tanks in both cars at a filling station, we all ate a quick lunch.

Jon was leaning against the truck looking angrily at the paper box in his hand. "I ordered the alfalfa nuggets! Why was that so hard to do? I didn't want chicken! Stupid..."

Maxine sighed. "You could go and return it."

Jon snorted and stuffed one in his mouth. "It's fine, I'll live." He grumbled.

I smiled and turned back to my lunch. As I ate the fast food burger, my mind wandered to the interview and the city ahead. It would only be my second time in the Boston, the last having been a snowy December morning about six months before the Change. Had things not gone as they had I'd already be a few months into my graduate education rather than having to go through a second interview process.

My mind was already firmly in Boston when Kim paused while climbing into the back of the truck. "The tapes! I almost forgot!"

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She groaned and hefted the bag of digital tapes she'd already recorded. "I was supposed to drop off these at an affiliate in Chicago so they could be transmitted back to San Diego. My producer wanted to start doing some preliminary editing." She looked at the rest of the assembled group. "Do you guys mind if we stop at the station in Boston before we meet your friend? It should only be an hour or so, and we're early."

Predictably, Tim grumbled something unintelligible and stalked back to Maxine's car, but the rest were agreeable. "Can you or Brian fly them in?" asked Jon.

She shook her head. "I don't think I can fly yet and I need to leave some instructions for the editor. We'll have to drive."

There was more agreement and Kim quickly called the station from a pay phone to get directions. It wasn't much out of the way. In just a few hours, we'd be there.

Boston.

Of all the cities in the United States, Boston was hit the hardest by the Plague War. One of the largest east coast ports, the city had the misfortune of being host to the first American GI infected, a young private and former POW coming home aboard a troop transport. He died only a few days after arriving in the city, followed quickly by many of his shipmates. By the time that anyone knew what was happening, thousands in Boston were already sick and tens of thousands more were exposed.

When people began to realize a plague was in their midst, there was a mass exodus from the city that destroyed all hope of keeping the plague under control. Soon, cases started showing up in New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other cities within a few days travel. Slowly but surely, the plague started to spread west.

The slow spread in North America is the key to why there was such a smaller death toll here than in Europe. The Nazi's released the plague in many areas that were still under their control as well as against enemy troops. That, combined with the massive migration of refugees spread the plague like wildfire across the continent and later the globe.

But in the States, it was slower. Once Boston was infected, other ships were quarantined offshore before being allowed into ports, keeping down the spread. As people in cities far from the plague realized what was happening, many were able to escape ahead of it. Anyone who could put together the money to leave a city, did. While small towns were certainly not immune, most felt safer in the country. People who couldn't afford to leave entirely relocated to smaller communities in the outlying areas around the cities and the suburbs were born.

But Boston didn't get that chance. Nearly half the population of the city fled or was decimated by the plague.

By the time a cure was found, it was almost too late for Boston. Most of the businesses that had made up the sizable financial district were gone, and without a healthy workforce many of the factories outside the city closed their doors or were mothballed. It would take twenty years, and the fading memories of the Plague, before people braved the city again.

Today, it's population was only slightly larger than it had been before the plague started. The city even still had several holdovers from the Plague. Several of the historic districts in the city, for example, had been closed to traffic in an effort to slow the spread.

After it was all over most dropped the restriction, but several areas were never reopened for private cars. Trolley buses carried passengers through most of the cities historic downtown now, and the sounds of horse drawn coaches taking people on private tours were common.

It was considered one of the finest cities in the United States. Growing fast, there were now more people worried about it losing it's charm than it's survival. Corporations were moving in at a steady clip, and education was again the cities largest industry. Fully a quarter of a million students called Boston home every school year.

With luck, I'd be one of them.

We reached the station shortly before dusk. We still had a couple of hours before we were supposed to meet Eric, so there was plenty of time. I jumped out grabbed some of Kim's equipment. She then led me into the building.

We went straight to the mousy receptionist. She looked up at us with a confidant smile, probably one of the first times that I'd seen someone who was a morph of a prey species react without any fear at all at in my presence. "Good afternoon!" she said cheerfully. "You must be Kim Moss."

Kim stopped a little short. "Yes, that's right. How'd you know?"

The receptionist got a devilish grin. "I could lie and say it's a Power, but in truth we were told to expect you." She stood up and beckoned us to follow her down a side hall. "Come with me, there's someone here who wants to speak with you."

Kim and I exchanged glances. This was a little odd. Kim shrugged a little and followed the receptionist with me right on her tail-feathers. We were led down a couple of narrow halls to a conference room. The receptionist opened the door and walked in, saying "Dr. Pavan? Miss Moss is here."

Kim started to enter the door and suddenly stopped short, blocking my view of the room. Her beak hung open in surprise. "Janet? What are you doing here?"

The name didn't instantly ring a bell for me, and I had to gently prod Kim into the room so I could get a look myself. Perched at one end of the table was probably Dr. Pavan, who was a mid degree gull of some kind. Sitting next to him was a medium degree sable morph, one that I now recognized as Kim's friend from San Diego. The last time that I'd seen her had been moments before I'd lost it and flown into the mountains in my first norm shape experience.

"Kim! I'm so glad that I finally caught up with you!" She said as she jumped out of the seat. "I've been trying to catch up with you since you left Edmonton! I called every hotel and motel for a thousand miles! You wouldn't believe the phone bill that I ran up! By the way, you owe me for the drinks at the bar."

Kim was taken aback a little as Janet came over to greet her. "What are you talking about?"

Janet hugged her a little and smiled. "The bar! You know, the one that we left because of the quake? Well, the waitress found me on the beach after all of you flew off and gave me the tab. You know how much the bill was?"

Kim shook her head. "No, Janet. Why are you here?"

Janet seemed to realize where she was again. "Oh! Yeah! Well, I flew to Chicago to meet you, but you apparently forgot that you were supposed to drop the tapes off there. I was hoping that you'd stop here. The sooner I caught you, the better!" She shook her head and muttered. "Seventy five bucks for drinks..."

Kim looked more and more confused. "Why didn't you just call me on the cell phone?"

Janet gave her a tired look. "I tried that. Is it on?"

Kim opened her beak to talk, then closed it and reached a hand into her purse. After a moments searching she closed her eyes and shook her head. "It's not here. I must have left it in Edmonton or something." She looked back up at Janet. "But what's so important that you couldn't just talk to me when I checked in the next time?"

Janet looked a little nervous. "I found..." her voice got quiet as she looked at me. "I think I know why you lost control when Maxine shifted you, Brian." She shuffled a little, "It was my fault."

I tilted my head in surprise. "Your fault? What makes you say that? It wasn't anyone's fault."

Janet shook her head. "No, it was me. Look, get everyone in here. I think I've got a lot of explaining to do."

All of us sat or perched around the table, including the gull Dr. Pavan who Janet explained was a researcher from the University of California at San Diego. After the introductions, he started to speak.

"I was getting interviewed at the station a few days ago because of my Power. In a sense, I can detect active Powers and can get some feeling for their nature." He nodded his beak in my direction. "Like you, Mr. Coe. You've got some low level Power active right now. Something of a defensive nature."

I frowned. "I don't think so, unless your detecting my shield. But that only comes on when I'm in danger. It's automatic."

He shrugged. "Apparently, it's on at some low level all the time, because I can sense it clearly from you. Anyway, that's not important. After the interview was over, the station manager asked me to wander the halls and look for people with active Powers. Not to spy on them, everyone knew who I was, but rather because some people had been losing control of their Powers."

Janet broke in. "It was getting strange. A small but growing number of people at the station with Powers started having them go wrong. Odd things, improbable things. You know Kent in editing? He could raise or lower the temperature of an object or person a few degrees? The other day he almost froze to death in the editing room when he tried to lower the temperature in there a few degrees." She giggled a little. "You should have seen him, Kim. He stumbled out of the room all glassy-like, ice crystals all over his scales. He was in a-- a-- what is that again?"

Pavan sighed. "A tupor. Anyway, there were several others at the station with similar stories. All assumed it was simply because they didn't understand their abilities. At first, I didn't see anything amiss. But I decided to talk with the ones who had problems and I came up with a commonality." He pointed at Janet.

She sighed and slid down in her chair. "Every one of them had done something directly to me with their Power, and every one had problems with it afterward. Sometimes for weeks after." She giggled. "I was sorta like a walking Murphy's Law."

"Wait a minute." Interjected Bryan. "You mean to say that she screws up Powers?"

Pavan shook his head slightly. "Not in so many words, and apparently not all Powers. Anyone who does a direct action on her is affected, though. Kent Hayes had cooled her down a little the day before because of the heat. Another, who had the ability to change eye colors in herself and others, now has mismatched eyes because she changed Janet's to violet."

Maxine was looking at Janet with a growing mixture of shock and anger. "I norm shifted you." She said quietly. "On the beach, just before..." her expression hardened. "You did this? Everything that happened with Brian, all the strange things happening, it was you?"

Janet was shivering a little, seeming cold despite her thick fur. "I didn't know I was..."

"Do you have any idea what I've gone through?" Maxine continued. "I nearly killed Brian, for Gods sake!"

Jon put his hand on her arm. "Maxine, it's okay."

"No, it's not okay!" she retorted. "I've been beating myself up because of her! I've put all of you in danger!" She jumped up from the table near tears and ran out.

There was a short, uncomfortable silence before Jon stood slowly. "I'd better go after her." He said. Oddly, Tim didn't protest, make a move to stop him or got after his sister. Instead, he seemed to be staring at Janet with an odd leer on his bovine face.

Bryan was thrumming his fingers on the table, his expression a little distant and worried. "Is this permanent? Can you do something to turn it off?"

Janet looked plaintively at Dr. Pavan who spoke for her. "We aren't sure yet. The effects of what Janet does are hard to pin down. No one that we know of has lost complete control, but some people are having more problems than it's worth. It's very unpredictable. But the effect might diminish with age."

"But you don't know if it lasts forever?" he asked.

Pavan shook his head. "No, we don't. But one of the reasons that I wanted to meet up with you before long is that there is someone at Harvard that might be able to at least figure out the depth of the problem. He's got a Power similar to mine, but far more powerful. I've been talking with him and we think that he can see how strong the aftereffects on Maxine are."

Bryan's lips curled back a little and he shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat. The room fell silent after that. Kim was comforting her friend, who didn't seem to want to talk at the moment. I kept looking at Bryan, though. He seemed nervous.

Standing, I reached over and tapped him on the shoulder. "Why don't we go and see what's keeping Jon and Maxine." He nodded gratefully and followed me out of the room. We walked down the hall a few feet until we came to a small office kitchen area. I stopped in and poured myself a paper cup of water, keeping Bryan in my sight.

"Okay, Bryan, spill it." I said finally.

He looked at me surprised. "Huh? What?"

I motioned a hand in the general direction of the conference room. "You were nervous about something in there, and my guess isn't that it's because of what Janet might have done to Maxine."

He sighed and shook his head. "I used my Power on Janet, once. Just when I was getting everyone to move down the beach so I could talk to Jon alone."

I shrugged. "I can see why you're nervous, but why don't you just say something?"

His eyes narrowed angrily. "That's easy for you to say. Your Powers are harmless! Mine isn't! People can't trust me because of them even when they know me. Hell, you didn't!"

I twitched. "That's not fair and you know it." I said in a controlled voice.

"Why not? You were ready to let Tim slam me in the muzzle to keep me from speaking because you were afraid of my Power!"

"You'd already used it to screw everyone up! What was I supposed to do?"

He glared at me in anger, but his expression quickly changed to frustration. He crumpled the paper cup and threw it at the recycle can. He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, taking a few deep breaths. Surprisingly, he grunted lightly in humor. "Life would have been so much easier if I'd just decided to be evil."

I smiled thinly. "It's never too late, you know."

He made a small show of pondering it. "Maybe tomorrow. Being good is a bit more of a challenge." With a final sigh, he looked back in the direction of the conference room. "I guess I'd better tell Janet and Pavan."

Go Back to Shadows

Go Forward to Associations

Go back to Index Page