Metallic Hope: For the Record

By Kristine Kristine

James, a preteen heartthrob, is blasted into space via sound waves in the atmosphere. Safely landing on a strange planet, he encounters an effervescent and alluring creature. Chaos, panic, and passion ensue. Will James make it back to planet Earth and be reunited with his family, or will he be stuck in space for all eternity?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532056390

Kristine Kristine

Kristine Kristine is a wanderer at heart. Hometown in Indiana, educated in Michigan, spent a summer living in Yellowstone National Park, called Boulder, Denver and Anaheim home; before finally settling in Austin, Texas. Kristine Kristine has plans to travel the world, finish writing the series, and own a farm.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Epicenter of Chaos

YEAR 2054: PEOPLE ALWAYS ask me to tell them stories about James, my son. He’s grown now and tries to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible. When people find out I’m James Kane’s mother, I suddenly go from a batty old woman, to someone they need to know. They want to hear the story, the story of James. What really happened that day? A seemingly simple question, yet unexpectedly hard to answer.

Being the badgering mother that I am, I drilled James on every detail of the event. I later overheard him talking to his friends (which is where I heard the good stuff), and no, I wasn’t being nosy; they were being loud.

The Incident happened ’bout 40 years back now, way back in 2014. I’ve had many years’ practice telling this tale, even more so since moving to this old folks’ community. There’s been a lot of speculation and secrecy over the years regarding the day of my son’s now infamous disappearance, and I just want to set the story straight.

*

It was the last day of school, the end of James’s rather dreadful seventh grade experience. I’d left work early that day to surprise James and Webster with a trip to the water park. Webster is James’s childhood friend, whom I’d taken in a few years prior. I call him my son, though it’s obvious he’s not biologically mine. Joe, my oldest son, had to work after school, but helped me keep the water park a surprise.

As I pulled into the driveway of our modest suburban home, the most boisterous, glorious, free-spirited sounds rang out. I saw lights: crazy, intensely bright, flashing, lights. I saw Webster clamoring out what was left of James’s destroyed first floor bedroom window. Webster had a look of sheer joy and disbelief in his eyes. That is, until he saw me. Suddenly, the smile fell from his face. I ran to meet him.

Webster! I screamed. What’s going on?

That was… intense … Webster looked dazed.

Where’s James? I demanded. What happened to the window?

I, uh, well … I think James is in outer space? He went somewhere, it was totally awesome!

"Outer space? Do you really expect me to believe that? And awesome is just about the last word I would use to describe this situation Web!" I said, as I threw my hands up in frustration.

At that point I was more angry than concerned. I thought James and Web destroyed the house—again—and James would come creeping up any minute to explain. I’m not sure Webster yet understood the gravity of the situation either. I didn’t see any blood or fire, so I was remaining somewhat calm. Chaos was part of everyday life in our home.

Webster stated, We had every device and all the breakers fully loaded. Everything seemed fine, then, there was a burst of light. The computers started almost, like, talking to each other and…poof! James was gone, Webster said with a brisk hand gesture.

Webster had a maniacal look on his face, he seemed captivated by the event he just witnessed. I felt the opposite. I started to cry, unsure what to think. I raced around the house opening closets and cupboards. As if James would be hiding in a cabinet, or places not even a cat could fit into. People do strange things when they panic. The air in the house had a tannic smell, and bitter taste. It was hard to breathe, especially in James’ room. I ran back to the bedroom of the blast and grabbed Webster by the shoulders, pleaded with him. I was now panicking.

Webster, I need you to tell me exactly what happened. We need to figure out how to get James back, I said, staring into his dark eyes. It felt like I was looking into a dark, answerless abyss.

That’s truly all I know. We got out of school; it was the last day of classes, so we decided we were going to blast our beats louder than ever. My cousin gave us a new mixer, and we picked up some speakers and wires from the thrift store on the walk home. We connected every piece of musical equipment we owned together, Webster clarified nodding his head in the direction of the wall outlets.

I surveyed the room and discovered every outlet had a cord with about twelve other cords attached. Those were then attached to power cords, with ten more cords plugged into who knows what. It looked like a giant electrical fire waiting to happen, and mostly likely did happen.

Ok, I said, trying to piece it all together and not freak out, a task which was becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish by the second.

It took a minute to get it all figured out. It was hard to just get enough juice runnin’ through the lines. We found the old generator in the garage, and connected everything from there, Webster explained, gesturing toward the corner of the room.

I looked closer at the mess and saw that, sure enough, there was the old generator; broken down and puffing out smoke and steam as if it were an old freight train returned from a cross country journey.

I see… I replied with a skeptical eye.

We turned the generator on, amazed when everything actually powered up. Webster said, We put beats on the mixer, popped on the recorders, and started jamming’. Just when the beat was about to drop, and James was about to do his huge falsetto scream into the mic, everything went hazy. The computers went nuts. Everything started beeping, then smoking. The fumes overcame me; I heard James scream once more. Then, as fast as it all happened, everything went black. James was gone, Webster’s voice trailed off.

Chapter 2

Bad Recollection

FIRETRUCKS, AMBULANCE, AND POLICE sirens blared. The neighborhood was abuzz. Several neighbors had their windows blown out, and car alarms went off incessantly. Dogs barked in unison, the whole block was in utter disarray. It didn’t take long for the cops to figure out where all the pandemonium had begun; our house looked like a bomb exploded in the front yard. We lived in a modest ranch home, and James had the small room in front.

James’s bedroom window had been blasted to bits. Shards of wood were hanging off the hinges, and smoke billowed out in plumes. In addition to all the noise and confusion, there was a deep bass undercurrent—the only surviving remnant of the boys’ music—pulsing like a long-lost heartbeat. The cops swarmed the house. I fainted, but Webster later filled me in on the details of the day.

Son, for the last time, what happened here? The Officer interrogating Webster had a southern drawl, large belt buckle and bad attitude.

We were making music, but when we turned up the volume, Webster was grasping for the right words he told me, there was an explosion … and James disappeared. Webster stared at the ground. It was as basic an explanation he could give without telling a lie or sounding insane.

Son, don’t you know it’s dangerous to play music too loud? You go run home, make sure your ear drums’ still intact. We got some ’vestigating to do, said the southern Officer while pulling up his pants on his protruding jelly doughnut of a gut, ending with a snuff.

Webster told me he wasn’t sure what the gentleman meant by go home, seeing as how he lived with us, in the home they were all standing in, but he was just happy to finally be told he could leave.

The police then questioned every neighbor within a two-mile radius. All the neighbors seemed to echo the same sentiment, Those boys are trouble. The Mother has no business raising her sons alone, then taking on a colored boy…

Of course, that was the official statement given by old Mrs. Beasley. She seemed like the oldest woman on Earth, and the meanest one too. Sometimes we thought her main motive for living so long, was just to piss everyone off. Who really called a black child colored in those days? And what did she know about my ability to raise them?

I’d been a single working mother all of James, and Joe’s lives. Joe’s father had been a good man. He’d died in a car accident a month before Joe was born. We planned to be married that next fall. I never did marry. James’s father was a dead beat, James and Webster had that parental factor in common.

Webster had a rough childhood. His parents were both addicted to drugs and were in and out of jail. Webster had half brothers and sisters scattered about the Midwest. Webster’s cousin tried to take him in, once his mother was deemed unable to care for him, but the cousin himself was just a child, and not a good influence.

At that point in their lives, James and Webster were just on the cusp of adulthood and needed a strong good influence, although, now I question whether that was ever me. They were interested in everything around them. I worked a lot, but still tried to stay very involved.

Luckily, they had passion and a creative outlet in music. James and Webster had a group together, Metallic Hope. Joe occasionally played along on his acoustic guitar; it was their one common shared interest.

Joe preferred to work, study, and practice Tae Kwon Do. He had the patience of a saint. Joe was still growing into himself back then. Lanky and pale, with dark, thick hair; he was slightly awkward and had enlarged facial features. He was not gorgeous by most standards, but I always saw his inner beauty.

Joe was always very secure with who he was. I think he always knew he would be great like his father. Joe and James only shared one feature from me: my large, bright, hazel eyes. James has always been adorable. He’s petite like me, and has a baby face, with nice features and tanned even skin tone. At least his deadbeat dad passed on his