The Ongoing Diary of Casey Neal

The Team’s All Here

April (2020)

Ichihara and the Chief Stooge give very quick introductions, then after Ichihara pulls a small briefcase out of a trunk that was no bigger than the size of the brief case,  we all go to the gate that is fenced, and protected by a chain looped between a couple of braces, and big lock that clasps the chain.  The fence keeps us from walking a path that leads maybe a hundred meters up to the big gray building.

I recognize the Chief Stooge, though he has a totally fresh set of goons with him.  It makes me wonder if they come in two-packs, three-packs, or the more economical five packs.  And if you buy the economy size, do you get a free squirt gun or  whatever.  Yes, my humor turns dark when I’m petrified on the inside.

“Should I shoot?” the Chief Stooge says.

“No need,” Ichihara says, pressing a button on his phone.

We wait.

Movement comes from the building, it’s a person in a white coat.  Whoever it is begins to walk toward us.

“I don’t understand, Yuni,” I whispered to him.  “If we’re going to arrest Charlie, why not bring your officers? Why the Russians?”

Ichihara leans in. “Japanese officers here, not have guns.”

That makes sense for about three seconds, but I can’t come up with another question in the short time between then and now.

I assume that the person walking to us is the aforementioned Dr. Incho, and a few seconds later, my assumption is proven correct.

“Good evening, Chief Inspector,” he says as he pulls a key from his pocket.  Then he sees the Russians and the guns and he pulls up short.  He speaks a string of Japanese to Ichihara.  Ichihara speaks Japanese back.  Incho pauses a moment, gives a guttural “huhn,” and bends to get to work at the lock.

Ichihara asks the Russians to hide their weapons as best they can until we get to the place.  The two with handguns do their Cyril Takayama thing, and they were gone, but the two with machine guns have a more difficult time of it, and finally settle for just holding them in closer to their bodies.

A moment later, the gate swings, and our unlikely crew heads toward the building.

My brain is spinning a hundred directions at once.

A Chief Inspector, a metal worker, a self-made journalist, a magical time-shifting baseball shaman, a physicist, and four Russian mobsters walk into a bar…I think grimly at one time.  Then I count them up and I realize there are nine of us, and I wonder if we could beat the Transmitters, and if so, which one of us would be the pitcher.  Yuni, probably.  Don-o would be the catcher, no doubt about that.  And I could see scrawny DK at second base.  Let’s put Dr. Incho at shortstop, and give me center field so I can take it in all at the same time.  That leaves, first, third, and the corners for the Russians.

Seems like the team’s all here.

Bring on Kawaguchi.

Such rumblings serve to occupy my mind long enough that my knees don’t turn to jelly before we make it to the building.  It’s clean, as you would expect.  The corridors are spare, but well-lit. We go down three floors through a stairway made of steel that’s been painted white.  The steps are ridged.  It’s Incho, Ichihara and his brief case, Don-o, DK, me, and then the goons and their guns.  Our footsteps echo against the cinder-brick walls.

Two corridors later, we’re the only people in a room that’s otherwise full of gray tables, desks with control panels, and walls covered in digital readouts of many colors and computer screens that flash various messages and status symbols.

I pretend to myself that it’s good that all indicators are “Green.”

“Need disruptor here.”  Incho points at Don-o, and motions to him vigorously.

The Chief Stooge rattles off Japanese to Ichihara.

“We speak English for our friends, here, when we can,” Ichihara says.

The Russian glances at Don-o, who has stopped halfway to the physicist. Then he glances at me.

“I asked,” he says, “what we are really doing here.”

Ichihara looks to the good  Doctor Incho.

“We use collider,” the physicist says.  “Make very high energy.  Then we use disruptor,” he points to Don-o and his face got that warm glow of excitement that you see when people are in love with their work.  “Disruptor cause break in fabric of world. A rift!”

Everyone was silent for a moment.

“Then,” Ichihara says, “we step into rift and go see man about Charlie Cooper.”

“Are you freakin’ kidding me?” the words were out of my mouth before I thought them, but all the stress of the past few days and the weirdness of this evening collapse together to one big ball of blathering inside me, and my mouth is now connected directly to the synapses that are firing in my brain and telling me that this is a seriously farked-up situation.  “I mean, you’ve got to be kidding, right?  I mean … I …” And I see everyone is staring at me, waiting to see it maybe I can be the voice of reason, and the only thing that pops into my head is “even if we can find a way into this rift, how will we find Charlie Cooper on the other side?  He could be anywhere, right?  This is crazy, right?”

It was Don-o that spoke next.

“Yuni here set me up and told me about the plan.  And I spent the entire day today in one of Charlie Cooper’s apartments, Casey. I been through his books, and his clothes.  I played a couple of his video games.  Looked out his windows.  Took a nap on his couch.”

“What does that have to do with the price of Guinness in Scotland?”

“I feel him, man.  I feel him.”

Don-o’s eyes have that half-glassy sheen that he gets when you know he’s on a line he can’t change.

“You think you can get him?” I say.

“Yeah, Casey.  I think I can get him.”

“So,” Chief Stooge says, his hand reaching into his jacket to remove a pistol. “We go get Charlie Cooper now?”

Dr. Incho took a half step back.  When no mayhem erupts, he nods and continues.

“If get disruptor positioned,” he says.

Over the next few minutes, Incho takes us into a side room, explaining that particles are already running through the collider at large fractions of light speed, and that the collision zone is through the wall of concrete that is before us.  There are tubes and wires along the ceiling here, and more rounded ducts and vents painted red and orange wrap along the walls.  What looks like a service doorway is ahead.

“Don-o stand here.”

Incho takes Don-o by the arm and put him directly against the wall, then he has Don-o spread his arms and legs like he’s a drawing outta Da Vinci’s notebook, and he goes even further to have him splay out his fingers against the wall.

“Stay like that,” Incho says, bowing briskly.  “Two minutes.”

He turns to Ichihara.

“I go run test.”

Ichihara bows.  “Domo arigato,” he says.

“Kōun,” Incho replies.

I know kōun translates roughly to “good luck.”

Then Incho leaves and we’re standing there looking at each other, and Don-o is spread out on the wall like a piece of performance art gone blue and plump, and the Russians pull their weapons and all I can think of is that it looks for every purpose like this is a firing squad and DK and I are the witnesses.

Then it starts.

There is a humming, barely perceptible.

Rising.

And there is a metallic clicking off in the distance.  Hair raises on my arms and I’m thinking of every bad science fiction movie I’ve ever scene.

Don-o stands there, though, eyes closed, a bead of sweat rolls from his forhead to disappear into his beard.

Then he is glowing.  Literally outlined in yellow and green.

I hear a ripping like good cheesecloth being torn apart.

Don-o falls backward, then, into the wall.  No.  Not into the wall.  Don-o falls backward into a scintillating field of light that hangs there before us, pulsing, glowing, and filling the entire area that just a moment before was a concrete wall.

Ichihara wastes no time.

“Come on!”

He leaps into the field, disappearing as Don-o before him did.

I look at DK and the Russians.

We all nod, and in less time than it takes to think “in for an ounce, in for a day,” we follow Don-o and Chief Inspector into the light.