From the Indie Side (43 page)

The two men struggled on the ground, each
fighting to get to the gun lying a few feet away. Kareem punched
his brother, catching him on the jaw, but his blows were weak,
feeble. Ahmed, though, landed crushing blows, knocking Kareem to
one side.

Ahmed grabbed the gun as the helicopter came
around from another angle. Kareem steadied himself against the bomb
as he got to his feet, watching as his brother fired at the Perspex
dome of the chopper, aiming for the pilot. The chopper raced
overhead, pulling up and banking to one side as it turned back
toward them.

Kareem was dizzy. His brother’s blows had
rattled him. 

“This is the end,” Ahmed cried, flicking
something on the side of the digital display at the base of the
bomb. “In sixty seconds, New York becomes a nuclear wasteland.”

Three bullets punctured Ahmed’s body in rapid
succession, coming down at an angle from the helicopter as the
pilot strafed sideways through the air, giving the sniper a clear
line of sight. Ahmed slumped to the ground. Blood seeped into the
gravel.

Kareem rushed around the side of the bomb,
ignoring his fallen brother. He leaned over the device at the base
of the pallet, looking at the red numbers flashing in the dark
casing, remembering his brother’s gloating words. He was
remembering the past. For the first time all day, he remembered
something that had already happened and not the future. He wrenched
the digital faceplate off the bomb casing and threw it to one side
as the first bullet caught him in the shoulder.

“No!” he yelled as a searing hot pain cut
through the soft tissue.

The real detonator was right there in front
of him. A bunch of wires led from a battery to a small brown
circuit board and on to a multicolored ribbon cable that
disappeared between the bags stacked on the pallet. A single red
wire looped around the board, apparently not leading anywhere.

The second shot struck Kareem in the lower
thigh, snapping his femur. Blood sprayed across the wooden pallet.
Kareem knew exactly what had happened as his right leg gave out
beneath him, causing him to buckle forward as he struggled not to
collapse on the gravel. Leaning on his one good knee, he ran his
fingers over the circuit board, manic in his desire to disarm the
bomb.

Kareem knew nothing about electronics. His
brother had worked in an auto-electrical workshop for a year or so,
but Kareem hadn’t so much as opened the back of a computer. There
was no way Kareem could defuse this bomb, and yet he knew his
brother was arrogant. He’d always struggled with pride. And that
was when a thought struck Kareem. Ahmed would put the answer in
plain sight, just so he could brag about how he outsmarted
everyone. It had to be the red wire. It was so obvious it would be
ignored. But for Ahmed, it would be a signature.

Kareem grabbed hold of the circuit board with
one hand and was about to rip the red wire off when the third
bullet struck, striking him in the back of the head.

Time seemed to stop. Although the bullet was
traveling at supersonic speed, Kareem felt as though he’d been
struck by a lance or a javelin in slow motion. The bullet struck
the parietal bone at the back of his head before passing through
his soft brain tissue and exiting through the frontal bone above
his right eye.

Kareem slumped to the roof, his right eye
darkened. The vision from his left eye narrowed, focusing on one
finger still clinging to the red cable. Kareem realized this was
why he no longer remembered the future: because for him, there was
no future. For him, time stopped on this roof. Yet he couldn’t give
up. He couldn’t leave Deb to die. He couldn’t allow his brother to
win.

As the fourth bullet struck his failing body,
bursting through his shoulder blade, he wrenched the red wire
loose.

Blood-red hues stretched across the sky as
the sun dipped below the Manhattan skyline. The downdraft from the
rotor blades of the police helicopter beat upon his body.

Darkness descended. Boots stomped around him,
but he could no longer see. There were voices, but they faded until
there was nothing but the empty silence. He felt cold. A moment
later, he felt nothing at all.

Kareem was dead.

Of all the things that had blocked New York
roads over the years, there had never been diversions for flowers
before. Central Park West was swamped with bouquets blocking the
street. Being roughly dead center within the city, as well as the
site of one of the bombings, the Museum of Natural History had
become a focal point for the outpouring of emotion that followed
the terrorist attacks. Police diverted traffic through the park as
the floral tributes piled deeper by the hour.

The truth about how Kareem had overcome his
brother and foiled a plot to irradiate New York City had stirred
millions. No one believed Deb’s version of events about his memory,
though. They all thought Kareem had stumbled upon Ahmed’s plans or
had somehow got wind of what was happening and had sought to stop
his brother from becoming the worst mass murderer in American
history.

Tens of thousands of people came to show
their appreciation for Kareem Hadee Rafid. There were handwritten
notes, typed letters, crayon drawings by young children, Hallmark
cards, messages scrawled on torn bits of cardboard. It seemed
everyone wanted to express their feelings in one way or
another.

Deb had never seen so many flowers. A sea of
roses and pansies, orchids and carnations, along with wisps of tiny
flowers she knew as baby’s breath, and dozens of types of flowers
she didn’t recognize. In some places, the flowers were fifty feet
deep as they lay stacked against the makeshift memorial outside the
museum.

U.S. flags of various sizes fluttered in the
light breeze. For the most part, they were handheld flags wedged
between the flowers, but there were also a few full-sized flags
draped over the blackened walls of the museum.

Deb sat in a chair watching the extensive
television coverage. The FBI had identified Ahmed’s associates as
members of the Russian mafia, although most commentators said mafia
was too weak a term and stuck with terrorists. Three terror cells
had been identified and broken up, with all but one of the suspects
being taken into custody.

Lying in a hospital bed next to her, Kareem’s
eyes flickered.

Deb jumped, hitting the call button beside
his bed. She stood over him, looking down at him with tears in her
eyes.

“Hey there, baby,” she said softly.

Kareem mumbled. Saliva dripped from the side
of his mouth.

A doctor and nurse entered the private room.
The police officer standing outside the door glanced in at Deb and
Kareem and smiled.

Kareem started to move, but it was clear he
was in pain.

“Just relax,” the doctor said, standing at
the end of the bed. “You’re going to feel groggy for a while.”

“D... Dead,” Kareem managed from beneath his
oxygen mask.

“You thought you were dead?” the doctor asked
rhetorically. He gestured to Deb, adding, “Well, if there hadn’t
been a medic on hand with a major trauma kit, you would have been.
She saved your life.”

Deb smiled, taking his hand in hers and
gently squeezing his fingers.

The doctor noticed Kareem struggling to move
his left side.

“You’ve suffered severe brain damage,” he
said. “You’re probably going to have a loss of sensation on the
left side, but with hard work and physical therapy, we’re confident
you can regain most, if not all of your mobility.”

Kareem nodded slowly.

“The brain has remarkable plasticity. You’ve
lost sections relating to memory and motor coordination, but just
take things one day at a time. It’s going to be a slow road to
recovery, but you
will
get there.”

Deb squeezed his hand. She looked down at his
broken body. Bandages adorned his head and chest, and his leg was
in a cast raised up by a pulley. A tear fell from her cheek,
landing on the sheets beside him.

“We should let him rest,” the doctor said,
gesturing for Deb to follow him.

Deb started to let go of Kareem’s hand when
he squeezed her fingers. He was trying to speak. She bent down with
her head just inches from his. Her hair fell softly to one side,
lying on the pillow beside him.

“Two... Four... Three... Seven,” he
whispered.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she replied softly. “Just
rest. Try to get some sleep.”

“Two... Four... Three,” he repeated. Deb had
no idea what he meant. These weren’t the numbers that had won them
the lottery. She didn’t know what to make of his insistence on
telling her those four numbers.

Deb kissed him gently on the forehead,
saying, “It’s okay, you’re safe. Just rest up and be patient. I’m
not going anywhere. I’ll stay here in the hospital with you.”

“Seven,” he said, and Deb put her hand gently
on his oxygen mask, touching the plastic as though she were
touching his lips.

“Please,” the doctor said from the
doorway.

“I’ll be back,” she promised. “Now rest.”

Deb struggled to take her eyes from Kareem as
she walked around the bed and out the door. As she walked into the
corridor, the police officer closed the door behind her. His badge
had a serial number, a number stamped into the shiny chrome finish.
It was a number Kareem couldn’t possibly have known, a number he
wouldn’t have seen yet:

Two. Four. Three. Seven.

Not Quite The End.

A Word From Peter
Cawdron

I hope you’ve enjoyed “The Man Who Remembered
Today.” Short stories and novellas are often belittled in the
publishing world for no other reason than that they’re too short to
be published as a stand-alone book, and yet some of the greatest
science fiction stories ever written were either short stories or
novellas: “Nightfall” and “The Bicentennial Man” by Isaac
Asimov,
 I Am Legend
by Richard Matheson,
Who
Goes There?
(which was made into 
The
Thing
)
by John W. Campbell
,
“The Minority
Report” and “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”
(Total
Recall
)
by Philip K. Dick,
A
Clockwork Orange
by Anthony Burgess
, 
and the
list goes on. Anthologies like 
From the Indie
Side
 give these nuggets a voice, so thank you for
supporting independent science fiction with the purchase of this
book.

Catch up with Peter Cawdron on:

Twitter: @PeterCawdron

Website:
thinkingscifi.wordpress.com/

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/pages/Peter-Cawdron/270440363006276

Books:
http://thinkingscifi.wordpress.com/books/

Thank you for supporting independent authors
by purchasing and reading From the Indie Side!

Much like these independent authors, I am
also an “indie” of sorts: a freelance editor. During the day I work
in a cubicle at a bank, as I’ve done for the past fifteen years.
Data analysis, spreadsheets, cash flows, reports… the job’s about
as different from editing fiction as you could imagine. But about
two years ago, on a whim (I still don’t understand why I did it), I
sent an email to author Hugh Howey to alert him to a few errors in
his now-bestselling novel
Wool
. Somehow that email led to
me proofreading more of his novels, then editing them, then editing
for other authors… and now I find myself involved in this
anthology, working with some of the most talented indie authors
writing today. I’m honored to have this amazing opportunity. I’m
still just a guy who works in a cubicle, after all.

My thanks to Susan May and Brian Spangler, my
wonderful partners in making this book a reality. Susan came up
with the idea for this anthology in the first place, recruited
Brian and me, and has been the driving force throughout the process
in bringing her idea to fruition. And without Brian’s broad
expertise in project management, publishing, and business—and his
long hours of research and legwork—we would never have made it
across the finish line. Not only that, but Brian and Susan also
contributed beautiful stories of their own.

I find it fitting that this anthology was led
by a mom, an IT project manager, and a banking analyst. Welcome to
the new world of indie publishing.

David Gatewood

January 2014

Q. This is by far the best book I’ve ever
read. Mere words can’t do it justice. How can I help to share this
literary triumph with the world?

A. Wow, that’s some incredible praise! I
mean, of course we hoped you’d like it, but wow, that reaction is
beyond anything we ever… Well, consider us flattered. Here’s how
you can help. Tell your friends. Share us on Facebook or Twitter
(or whatever social network has taken over the world by the time
you read this). But most importantly,
please leave a
review!
  Reviews are make-or-break for an
independently published book. We have no marketing team, no
presence in bookstores.
You
are our marketing team. Our
success (or failure) is in
your
hands.

Reviews are not only important for helping a
potential reader make a purchasing decision; they’re absolutely
critical in bringing a book to that potential reader’s attention in
the first place. Sites like Amazon use the number and favorability
of reviews in their algorithms: a book with more reviews (and more
positive reviews) is more likely to show up in a search, in a
“Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” list, and are more
likely to be featured or highlighted by Amazon itself.