Chyrpiirs Ascending

CHAPTER 1
A Leland River Family Reunion

"The bullets were yours! They were supposed to be yours!"

Yvonne Mavis pummeled the coach’s chest. Her fists clenched. They were tiny white mallets pounding and marking the blood stained jersey of the tall, weeping man. Like a stuck tractor, she strained to bulldoze him off his weakening foundation.

"You couldn’t just stand? Duck down? No! You ran into the boys bringing your bullets! What kind of man are you? No man! Coward!"

The coach, Joseph Coranado, looked to the four other moms in the emergency room waiting area for help, but a violent grief seemed to be surfacing among them as well.

Every mom he saw through tears and pain had a son wounded in the drive-by shooting. He had leaped to the batter’s box to cover his own son, Josh. He had been more than prepared for random acts of violence. It was a violent city. He expected, accepted and rehearsed for such eventualities. Gunfire. He just needed to shield his son. But Josh’s last act on earth was catching a bullet that should have been his.

Joseph received every strike from Lawrence Mavis’ mother as a stinging puncture to deflate his own pain and grief. But she was weakening. The rage stoking the fury directed at her son’s coach was nearly spent. He wept for her and the other moms. He had somehow caused massive injury to his friends and their children. While it brought his own groans of anguish to the surface, the mourning for the others numbed him to the cold reality that his own son was actually gone.

Grief-worn, Yvonne fell forward and pressed her face into Joseph’s blood-stained uniform. He wrapped an arm around her.

Two police officers, a man and a woman, entered the emergency room waiting area. The female officer came over to Yvonne and gently touched her shoulder.

"Mrs. Mavis?" Yvonne’s deep brown eyes grew darker. She pulled away from Joseph, her body shuttering.

"I’m sorry for what has happened, Mrs. Mavis. I’m sorry to have to trouble you, especially now, but it's important we get your account of what happened."

Yvonne pushed herself away from Joseph. Accepting the officer’s arm, she leaned her full weight on the woman. They began a slow journey in search of a quiet place of solace and inquiry.

Joseph felt relief for a moment, but only for a moment. He was keenly aware of mom-eyes staring at him. He would look. They turned away. His boy’s moms were casting him away. No connection. At the same time, they were trying to answer questions from a policeman. A plain-clothed police officer had materialized out of one of the hospital corridors. He wasn’t talking but was recording, with determined precision, in a black leather covered pocket notebook, every word that was spoken.

Joseph scanned the waiting room, not sure how to be helpful. The plain-clothed officer caught his eye and gestured towards the exit door leading to the street. Joseph nodded in agreement, checking in with his internal monitors. The first, a severely seared conscience, seemed to just shrug an agreement and the second, his hardened stubborn will, just said, "okay." Neither partner gave a reason to resist. No. No resistance at all. Something was deeply wrong.

Joseph and the police officer stepped together towards the two sets of automatic doors. The glass gates snapped and crackled in precise unison, fiercely committed to their role as gatekeepers for a huge metropolitan hospital. As the two men passed through the exit, the doors just as precisely eased themselves closed.

The sultry heat of State Street engulfed the two men immediately. Motors roared all around them. The sidewalk was crowded with people, boisterous, rowdy city dwellers off their restraints for a few moments in the fragrant air of Leland River. Sirens pierced the noise of the State Street corridor, some heading towards the hospital, others heading away from downtown.

The police officer led the way to the only patch of grass within eight blocks. There, in the middle of the patch, was a small table with two chairs. The whole area was ringed with knee-high rose bushes.

"Have a seat, Mr. Coranado." Joseph needed the seat. The thoughts of tragedy, responsibility, loss, despair, and hopelessness deadened every last ounce of his common sense. He was glad for the direction to be seated.

"I’m Lieutenant Louis Seltzer, Detective Seltzer with Leland River PD." Luis Seltzer pulled out his wallet and pushed his badge and ID towards Joseph.

Joseph looked without seeing. He nodded.

Detective Seltzer had the appearance of one of those dock-working, back-alley scrappers whose gambling habits always led to cuts and bruises and a list of incarcerations spanning decades. He appeared to be five and a half feet tall. His head was square and blocked, and it seemed to be wired and screwed onto lumpy shoulders without a neck. His receding gray hair was cropped short. Neat. His grooming was impeccable. His muscular build bulged through his precisely tailored blue suit. Though an obvious brawler, he was dressed as a high-powered attorney. Clean white shirt. Crisp dark blue tie with a gold pin at the shirt collar. His shoes were Italian, French, Grecian, or some other European brand. But definitely not American.

"You are?" Seltzer paused. Eyes alert but soft. Inviting. "Joseph Cunningham Coranado? Yes?"

Joseph nodded.

"You are Chief of Acquisitions and Procurements for Cheapers Enterprises? Arizona? Colorado?"

Joseph winced.

"It’s Chyrpiirs. It’s pronounced 'cheer pieris.' Chyrpiirs Enterprises. We’re mainly based in Southern Utah."

"But you and your family have lived in Leland River for two years now. Still working for the Enterprise?"

"That’s correct." There was a dead spot in his mental processing center. It seemed some of the numbness from recent horrors was wearing off. He felt something. But it wasn't shock any longer. Seltzer. He was causing some unnecessary thinking.

"I’ll fill in all the other details later, Mr. Coranado, but I am glad to assure you that the boys who were injured by the gunfire are going to be okay. Okay? They'll be okay. Just some flesh wounds. They'll recover. And, hopefully, in a few days, we can piece enough information together to apprehend your assailant. So." Seltzer grinned at Joseph with some expectation of congratulations. Joseph offered none. "Go ahead. Why don’t you just tell me what happened?"

"I don’t know. What do you want me to say?"

"Well. Did you see the car? Or get a look at your shooter?"

Joseph’s eyes widened, and his brow furrowed. Thinking. That’s right. "There was a shooter," his mind decided to agree with Seltzer. "Someone actually wanted to hurt them. Him? Why?"

"It was just a big black car. A sedan. Four doors. Big." The sleeves of Joseph’s coach uniform rode up off his wrists slightly as he lifted his arms to demonstrate the size of the car. "I thought, 'That car’s going too fast.’ I remember thinking that." He shrugged his shoulders and put his arms down at his sides. His fingers drummed against his thighs.

"Did you see someone with a gun then? Could you identify your shooter?"

"No. The car was slowing down. So I thought, 'okay,...good, let’s see my boy hit.' Josh, my boy, was coming up to bat, see? I wanted to focus on how he stood up in the batter’s box. The other team was throwing curve balls. He was missing every pitch. I was trying to coach him. I could see it. It was the way he was holding the bat."

Detective Seltzer slipped a black leather-covered notepad and a Montblanc pen from his suit jacket pocket and wrote a few words. He raised it slowly so that his eyes could peer over his writing hand into Joseph’s eyes.

"And then?"

"Then...then there was gunfire. Lots of cracks. Loud tapping around me like hail. Screams. A louder scream. ‘Get to Josh,' I thought. ‘Cover him.’ ‘Get down. Get down!’ I shouted. I saw Josh getting down. I ran to him. Fell down on him. More screaming. Screeching tires. I thought it was over. Lots of blood. Too much blood."

Detective Seltzer lowered his note book. His gaze was steady on Joseph, but softer still.

"Any idea who your shooter was Mr. Coranado?"

Joseph’s eyelids blinked rapidly. He couldn’t get enough air all of a sudden. There it was again. "Your shooter!" The groan belched up from Joseph’s belly. Convulsing began in his spine, into his shoulders, and arms. Was it all his fault? He convulsed out of his chair and went to his knees. His back bounced off the base of the tumbling chair. His forehead hit the turf. His hands slapped at the back of his head.

"Josh! No!" he screamed. "No! No! No! Joshua!"

Detective Seltzer spied two medical techs coming out of the main entrance of the hospital. He waved his arms at them. "Over here, guys! We need you over here." One grabbed a wheel chair, and the other loosened a restraint belt he carried on his waist. They ran to Detective Seltzer’s aid. The detective slipped his pen and notebook back into his suit jacket pocket and laid a heavy hand on Joseph’s shoulder.

"I know it's hard to believe, but it's going to be okay, Sir," he said. "We’ll talk about this later, Mr. Coranado. These guys’ll give you some help. They'll help you get through this. Okay? I’ll catch up with you later. Yeah. Later."

                                                                           

The "some help," offered to Joseph Coranado dripped through a clear plastic tube into a bruised vein in his right arm. Sunshine streamed through a filmy window glass into his medicated face. His mind swam between pylons in a fog-shrouded lagoon.

The most dreaded thought that caused most of the fog was the creeping reality that he had lost everything. He knew he needed to find his wife, Cathy, and tell her that Josh had been killed. This would finish her off, for sure. When Misty, their twelve-year-old daughter, was kidnapped a year ago, Cathy held on like the fighter Joseph knew her to be. But as it became apparent that Misty was gone for good, she checked out of reality. She was still under psychiatric care. Now her only son was gone too. Just how much pain and suffering could a mother stand?

He needed to tell the corporate office something too. He was through with the Enterprise. His daughter was gone. His wife was in a mental institution, and his son was dead. He had given his all for the Enterprise. The Leland River project, as far as Joseph Coranado was concerned, was now dead. Maybe he would check into a mental health hospital. His insurance would cover it.

Joseph became aware that he was moaning some of his thoughts out loud and quickly pulled his left hand up to cover his mouth. He listened. Hospital staff could be stealthy. Now was not the time to get their attention.

He tore the drip line from his arm. Flipping upright on the mattress, he stepped into the tiny closet and pulled out his clothes. Except for his shoes and socks, they were on him in a few seconds. With shoes and socks in hand Joseph padded barefoot into the corridor. The floor was icy and damp against the tender flesh of his flat feet. He made it to the elevator undetected. Hit the lobby button. He put on his socks and shoes as he rode down uninterrupted for fourteen floors.

He exited the hospital by way of the State Street exit and walked past the small patch of grass where he had collapsed the day before. He acknowledged the spot by slowing his stride and staring at the place where his face had hit the turf. It was the moment he realized he had lost everything. He had come to Leland River’s worst ghetto. He had come from Chyrpiirs Enterprises to purchase tracts of land. He came to tear down the decaying, corrupted buildings and the crime-infested neighborhoods and build something beautiful. As chief of the project, he would live comfortably with his wife and children in a gated community well away from the poverty and violence. It should have benefited them in every way. It certainly should not have cost him. Instead, it cost him everything.

As he approached the ball field where yesterday's shooting had happened, he turned up 8th Street along the first baseline of the ball field. The dugout where he should have died was on his left as he came up to the gate opening into the field between the first base bag and the outfield grass. He ran out onto the green grass and veered towards the right field bleachers.

The last time he talked with Cathy was in this remote part of the park. She wasn’t there at the time, of course. There had been several conversations with her not being with him, since their last face-to-face. He still needed to tell Cathy something. In their own bit of the despairing city, he needed to tell her that he loved her. Near or far. He loved her.

His last five conversations with Cathy always began with: "I love you, Cathy." She never answered. Couldn't answer. He thought about it for a minute. Even before her breakdown. She hardly ever responded to those words. Maybe she was always afraid of what was to follow. "We’re moving to California" or "We’ve been assigned to Washington, D.C.," or "Misty’s going to love going to a Honolulu middle school."

But their last face-to-face, in these play ground bleachers, began, "Cathy, I love you," and finished with "Someone has taken our little girl!" "Cathy, I love you," he had repeated. "I swear, the police are doing everything they can." She may have absorbed the words. But phrases with the words "I love you," were now just threats against her sanity. In every way. She went away.

She had come to look like a phantom.

It had been a grueling, intensive three-month search for Misty. Then one day, appearing a bit more robust, Cathy marched into the Leland River Mayor’s office with a nine-pound ax and shredded every piece of electronic equipment in the first three offices. Four security officers subdued her just at the point when she went after a secretary with her weapon. Several days later, Cathy was appearing in Mental Health Court, and the search for Misty was called off.

The image of his wife standing before the judge, medicated, broken, shamed, and waiting for a sentence always came up now when he walked the path to their spot. It had become impossible to say the words, "Cathy, I love you." He just couldn't bring himself to say it again. There would be no answer.

In the silence, Joseph felt a peculiar rolling of his stomach. He lowered his body onto a dew-covered bench. He took a few breaths and identified "the roll" as the need for a scone and a cup of strong black coffee. At the thought of his breakfast routine, a bit of light flickered in his dead eyes. His cheeks, cooling down after the brisk walk from the hospital, had a resurgence of heat. He felt like he wanted to smile. When he realized he wanted to smile, he felt like he wanted to curse and yet chuckle a bit. But what would Cathy think? He came to talk to Cathy. Not find relief from his greatest loss. His boy.

"I am a man. Cathy. I’m a man used to losing everything. You said it yourself: ‘Joseph, you are going to lose me like you’ve lost everything else.’ But honestly, girl, I didn’t think my heart could could get colder or harder. After you said that, I mean. But I was wrong. Do you remember Mrs. Mavis? Lawrence’s mom? She said I was the target of the shooting. It was me they tried to kill. They didn’t get me, though. Cathy. They hit a bunch of boys. Josh, our son, was one of them. Cathy. He didn't make it. He died, Cathy. They say it was my shooter."

"Even some cop said it was my shooter. Do you believe that, Cathy? If it were true, they would have had me. Why didn’t they hit me first? Right off? They could have. They should have. Cathy, I am so sorry. I lost our boy!"

The once powerful medication was beginning to lose its authority to control Joseph as his walking, running, and high emotions pumped blood to all the regions of his body. Finally, he rocked back and forth on the bleacher bench, pounding his right fist into the palm of his left hand, screaming, "Cathy! Misty! Josh!" He projected his pain at full volume at the Leland White Sox dugout along the first base side of the field. "Cathy! Misty! Josh! He could feel his voice bounce back 279 feet off the baseball diamond back stop.

"Look!"

Joseph bounced up on the heels of his sports shoes and pivoted around to see who spoke the word. No one was there. Was it what he had thought? He had heard it more on the inside than on the outside. His imagination? Probably. But then he felt compelled to obey the command. He looked. His eyes scanned the ball field to his right and then down the middle of right field towards the pitcher’s mound. And there it was.

Lying just beyond the path between first and second base and just at the beginning of the outfield grass was a slightly grass-stained, scuffed-up baseball. It lay like a huge unclaimed pearl. A slightly abused pearl, but worth a king’s ransom in this part of Leland River. The power of the baseball-like talisman caused Joseph to step down out of the bleachers and half-jog to the spot where the rare athletic piece lay unmolested. He stood above the ball in awe. There it was, still waiting for someone to own it. In a neighborhood where scraps of paper were gathered as prized possessions, here in broad daylight lay an unclaimed treasure.

He stepped back to admire the setting this jewel had landed in. If he had been a landscape architect, he could not have created a more perfect setting. The emerald green grass, edged by great pathways of red dirt and white limestone. The perimeter of the field was dotted with huge pillars of steel and granite rising 40 feet in the air with their mighty lamps for night games. Even the black scoreboard appeared regal as it officiated over 30 rows of bleacher benches painted navy blue and trimmed in butter cream. In the middle of it all, ready to play, rested an American baseball.

As he considered the possibilities set there before him, his eye caught the sight of three people rising slowly up from the Leland White Sox’ dugout. It only took a second to identify them, though for a moment they appeared to be more ghost than real. The woman led two children single-file towards him up the first base path. She was the exact same size, with the same coloring, and shape as his wife, Cathy. The same hair and swing to her arms as she walked. Her smile was a bit wry like Cathy's, and as she drew closer, he could tell her eyes were colored, shaped, and made up like Cathy’s.

Behind her was a girl who appeared to be thirteen years old and was an exact copy of his daughter, Misty. Behind her was a boy. "Oh no,! Joseph yelled. The boy was his Josh, perfectly cloned.

Joseph flung his head from side to side. His neck stretched out as though made of rubber. He raised his hands, palms out, towards the approaching apparitions. Knowing what was coming but refusing to know it. How had he forgotten that something would be set in motion by corporate, that now under the circumstances was inevitable. His mouth opened. Shut. Opened to speak. But all he could manage was a strangled "No!"

The woman, the girl, and the boy lengthened their strides. Before he could step away from her advance, the Cathy-like woman flung herself at Joseph, wrapped her arms around his neck, and began mauling his face with kisses. As he tried to push her away, she took advantage of a breathless moment in the struggle to press her lips hard against his mouth. The girl pulled on his right arm, hugging him as close as she could, and even the boy pressed into his left side.

Joseph’s mind fought hard against the blackness headed his way. Strength fled his legs. He staggard backwards. Rejecting. Denouncing. But even in rebellion against what was happening to him, he knew the drill. He had invented the drill. He had practiced the drill a thousand times. But it was too soon. Besides, as chief of the project, it should have been his call to bring new people on to the project. Especially these people.

"Alright!" he shouted at last. "Stop it! Just stop it."

He wanted to be firm. But everything had been coming out weepy and limp since yesterday.

"I appreciate you coming, but I think we need to talk. We need to stop. Stop everything and just talk about this. About your being here. I need to discuss this with the Enterprise. It's too soon. Way too soon!"

"It's already done, Joseph." Her voice was the first thing that had drawn him to the woman who was playing Cathy. A deep contralto. It was Cathy’s signature presence, not easily duplicated.

Joseph stepped back. His eyes scanned down the woman from the top of her head to the bottoms of the expensive shoes she wore. "Hmmm. Abigail right?"

"Or Abbey, if you like. But I think from now on you should call me Cathy. Or honey. I like honey."

"I would never call Cathy that."

The girl holding his right arm, persisted in staying close with every move he made. She ignored his command to stop. She tugged urgently on the sleeve of his uniform.

"Do you remember me?" Her smile was radiant. She had Misty’s smile for sure, though he had not seen his daughter really smile this brightly in years.

"Let’s see," he pretended to think, though he knew the girl well. "If this is Abbey, then you must be Thornberry."

"Priscilla actually." Her smile grew even wider, seeming to catch all of the sun’s rays while maintaining the whiteness of perfect pearls. Like Misty, her hair was blonde, her eyes were blue, and her voice was deeper than most boys her age. The only augmentation was to her ears, cheek bones, and chin. The slight differences that caused her to not be identical to Misty could easily have been attributed to the fast growth patterns of youth at her age.

His new daughter, Misty, studied Joseph’s face with unabashed curiosity and gently pulled herself up to kiss his cheek. "I love you, dad," she said.

His fake son suddenly broke away from the first fake Coranado family reunion. He was every bit as energetic as Josh. He was an identical replica with no discernible augmentation. Joseph did not recall who he had selected to play his son. By the time it came to selecting a son, the idea of a backup, substitute family had grown to be entirely ludicrous, even though he had pressed to make it happen.

"I’m afraid I don’t recall selecting you as part of our family," he said.

"That’s because you didn’t, Pop." He held his hand out to his new dad. "I’m Carmichael."

"I selected Carmichael," Abbey said. "You got wrapped up in launching the project and couldn’t seem to decide. I think Carmichael is perfect."

Wherever Joseph’s tears and well of sorrow had fled, they were coming back like a flood. Whatever made him think in the board room of Chyrpiirs Enterprises that a field chief could lose someone in their family and then just call in a substitute? He knew that it was critical for appearance sake to be cohesive in every part of his dealings with Americans, but how cold would a chief executive have to be to pull it off?

His hands gently removed the members of his new family from his body. He shifted his weight just enough to put a little distance between them and himself.

He turned so that they could no longer see his face, only the enormous black number 17 on the back of his uniform. He lifted his eyes towards the blue bleachers with the butter cream trim, searching for the right words. He found his voice, but directed it to the invisible fans in the right field bleachers.

"Look. You’re beautiful. In fact, you are all absolutely perfect. But, besides the fact that you are all handpicked to be my future family, I just can’t see how we can make it work. It would be four of us in a conspiracy that would only take one small error to unhinge the whole project." He cleared his throat. Summoned more resonance for his voice and spoke the words with greater heart.

"I love you for coming here. I love you for being willing to make it work. I love you enough to send you home. Back to the real world. I'm not even sure I should stick it out. There is just too much evil here. More evil than I could have ever thought. But your willingness to come here means a lot to me. It encourages me to keep on working this project. But I can’t ask you to go up against the demons that don’t want us here."

Abbey, the new Cathy, stepped up to Joseph and pulled him enough to turn him towards his substitute family.

"I’m glad you’re rethinking this, Joseph, because we're not going back to Chyrpiirs. We're willing to take the risks. Don’t you get it? We are as invested in this project as you are, have been since we were selected to be substitutes. There is nothing left back home for us to go to. I’m not Abbey any more. Priscilla is gone, and Carmichael, like you, has lost everything."

Joseph looked from Abbey to Priscilla to Carmichael. Silent.

Abbey’s eyes sparked and caught Joseph’s attention. A wry smile crept across her face. She stepped in close to him again and put her nose nearly against his.

"You know what, darling? I think you are going to stay. You are going to stay and we are going to be a happy, loving family. Do you know why?" It was the best imitation of Cathy’s voice and go-to move he could have ever imagined possible. It was almost too real.

In a whisper, she asked, "Do you remember Skip Spencer?"

Joseph Coranado breathed deeply and listened to the chittering, chipmunk laugh of his fake son and the muffled giggle of his substitute daughter. He let his nose fall forward against Abbey’s nose.

"My replacement?"