City of Wonder: A Channel Riders World Book

Michael Lewis Morrison was drunk; really, really, drunk. He leaned himself back gently, head resting on the wall behind him and legs stretched out across the bed. He was in that stage of drunkenness where holding on to a thought for more than a second was next to impossible. The thoughts his mind tried to send him drifted away only half formed as his attention skimmed the vast universe behind his eyelids. It was a tenuous state at best and he knew from experience that it wouldn’t last long.

It was a fine line, drinking enough so that the world’s edges became soft and blurry, but not enough to send him into unconsciousness where dreams lurked, waiting with sharp talons to tear him to shreds.

Recently he had become an expert in finding that very fine line and walking it with precision.

A sound off to his left made him frown and open his eyes. For a minute the world didn’t want to hold still and he feared he would be sick. Being sick would throw him too close to reality; he clamped his jaw shut and swallowed convulsively. To his relief, the world slowed from a rapid spin to a wobbly, but less vomit inducing, image. He frowned when he realized he was looking at a row of buttons. The buttons were blue and sewn onto a darker blue shirt in what he thought might be a straight line. At the moment it was difficult to tell.

Against his better judgment, he lifted his gaze, following the trail of buttons up to a shirt collar topped with a face. The face looked familiar. He was sure he knew it, but he was just as sure that he didn’t want to remember why he knew it. The face was scowling down at him, age lines helping to make the scowl deep and darkly forbidding, the short white hair bristling as though in a temper of its own. Deciding that looking up had been a bad idea, Michael let his gaze fall back down the shirt buttons, his head moving in sync with his eyes until his chin was resting on his own chest. He closed his eyes, smiling to himself when the scowling man disappeared.

Michael heard a heavy sigh. “If I don’t see you, then you don’t exist.” Michael said, or thought he said.

He wasn’t sure if he opened his mouth or merely thought the words. The thought drifted around his brain, lasting longer than it would have a few moments ago and he knew he would have to take another slug from the bottle soon to maintain the balance and not tip over into either true consciousness or complete unconsciousness. He tried to remember where he had set the bottle down and if he could find it again without opening his eyes. Despite his firmly held belief about the unreality of his visitor, he didn’t want to test the disappearance by opening his eyes again. He figured if he was still there, than Michael would have to work that much harder to erase him a second time.

He had just about decided to risk a blind grab when he heard the man’s shuffling footsteps. Michael relaxed, figuring that the man decided Michael’s version of reality was better and made himself vanish in compliance. He cracked an eye open as a wave crashed into him. Michael sputtered and wheeled his arms about as though trying to swim to shore.

Suddenly, he realized there was no more water. He stopped flailing and opened his eyes again, realizing as he did that he pinched them shut as the water hit. As his eyes opened, he saw the scowling man standing in front of him, holding an empty bucket.

“What was that for?” Michael sputtered. This time he was nearly certain the words came out of his mouth.

“You stink,” the older man said.

Michael wondered if that was a general statement or an answer to his question. Before he could decide, the man turned the bucket upside down and sat on it as though it were a stool. This put the man slightly lower than Michael, who straightened up in reaction to his dousing.

“Do you know why I’m here, Michael?” the man asked.

It sounded more like a statement and less like a question. Michael stared into the icy blue of the older man’s eyes and couldn’t formulate a response.

“Im here,” the man continued granting Michaels overheated brain the relief from finding an answer on his own. “Because everyone else has run out of options. In fact about an hour ago, I was sent for because they thought you might have actually managed to kill yourself. I can see why the mistake was made. God knows you certainly smell like something three days dead.”

“I'd be better off dead,” Michael said softly. He was drifting from the line of oblivion and coming dangerously close to reality, he could feel it, lurking, waiting.

"Allie wouldn't have wanted that,” the older man said.

The name hit like a punch to his gut and Michael felt the air whoosh out of him, felt the pain so deep it left him a hollow, brittle shell. He gasped for air, felt it scorch his insides like damnation. Why was he still breathing? Why was he still moving when life had already left him?

A flash of light blazed behind the older man, and for a moment Michael thought it was the end, the bright white tunnel all near death survivors spoke about and he almost wept for the joy of relief, only to have the hope torn away as he realized it was merely the door opening, letting in the morning light. It was morning, he hadn’t known.

Another day without Allie.

Would his torment never end?

The man who opened the door stepped inside. With the light behind him, Michael could only make out the general outline of the newcomer. “Commander

McLaughlin,” the shadow man said. “You asked for assistance?”

The older man nodded and stood. “Yes. Help him to the bath house. The cold water might help sober him up a bit, but get him clean regardless. Have a couple of the others clear this place out while you do. The bedding goes along with any drink you find. See if you can get him to eat anything and then let him come back and sleep the rest of it off. I need him sober.”

“Yes, Commander,” the shadow man said. He stepped forward a little and Michael could see the contempt in the man’s eyes. McLaughlin caught the look too and placed a hand on the man’s arm.

“His wife was the pilot of The Defender,” McLaughlin told him.

Michael watched the man’s eyes soften with pity and he slumped. At least with the contempt he could hope that the man would let him drown in one of the large communal baths that were the standard in Haven before he could actually manage to get sober. Michael hadn’t been sober since the day of the memorial. It was not an experience he wished to endure.

The commander left the circular, one room cottage and Michael watched the pity in his new caretaker’s eyes harden into determination. Michael sighed, realizing that he would be helped no matter how much he didn’t want it. Apparently for now, it had been decided that he would live.

“This is going to hurt,” he decided. The thought stayed stamped in his brain, solid as stone and Michael realized he had lost his grasp on that thin line of oblivion.

Sober,” he said resignedly. “If that doesn’t kill me nothing will.”