by Matt Rogers
He took them back up the stairs and went out to the porch again.
The trio were still there.
Slater handed the sat phones to Alexis. ‘Do you know what to do?’
She stared at them, then it clicked.
‘Yes,’ she said.
110
Alexis sat across from Brandon and Addison in the empty mess hall.
Brother and sister had arms around each other’s shoulders.
They’d been through hell, and they still had a ways to go, but they’d soldier through it together.
Alexis said, ‘The four of us who arrived here a couple of days ago … we need to leave.’
Brandon said, ‘Obviously.’
‘In other circumstances we’d stay. We’d help out. We’d help coordinate. But my friends have past lives. Those past lives are ticking time bombs, and Maeve and Dane found out who they really were. Seems the Riordans had contacts in the government. On the off chance that some undesirable people swoop down on this place looking for us, we need to be elsewhere. Do you understand?’
Brandon said, ‘You don’t owe us anything.’
Alexis stared at him. ‘Do you understand what Maeve did to you?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
It hurt him.
He didn’t like saying it.
But he seemed to have made it a priority to tell the truth.
Alexis turned to Addison. ‘And you’ve always known, haven’t you?’
Addison said, ‘Yes.’
Alexis placed the two sat phones on the table and paused for a beat. ‘We’re not going to be here, so whatever choice you two make, it has to be made on your own.’
They didn’t respond.
Alexis said, ‘You can use these phones to call the authorities. You can explain everything that happened. You might go to jail, but probably not for long. That’s if you put the blame on the Riordans, which is where it damn well should be placed.’
Brandon stared with wide eyes.
Addison gulped.
Alexis said, ‘Some of the people here aren’t going to want that to happen. They’ll protest it. They’ll argue that you should pick up where Maeve and Dane left off, continue to grow Mother Libertas into a powerhouse, but it won’t work. To be frank, none of you in this commune have the qualities that the Riordans possessed. You’re not psychopaths, you’re not narcissists, you’re not sociopaths. You were lost and you listened to someone you shouldn’t have. You let them sink their hooks in and allowed them to command you.’
Neither of them replied.
Alexis said, ‘When you make it out of this mess and wind up back in a normal life, you’re going to feel guilty. That’s a good thing. You can’t grow unless you feel pain. I’m not going to ask you any questions about it, but I take it something happened with a woman named Karlie, and it’s going to tear you both up inside, because you’re not evil. You might even think about killing yourselves.’
Addison was a statue.
Brandon’s brow was furrowed, like he didn’t want to believe it but knew it was true.
Alexis stayed quiet.
Finally Addison said, ‘Are you going to tell us not to?’
Alexis stood up. ‘No. It sounds like you beat an innocent woman to death. If I were you, I’d think about suicide. I might even do it. But if you make it out the other side, and there’s no guarantee you will … then make up for it with the rest of your lives. Act charitably. Help other people. Try to repent for what you did.’
Again, Brandon fell back on the question he couldn’t get his head around. ‘Why don’t you just kill us? You know we’re murderers.’
‘Because it’s too grey,’ Alexis said. ‘It’s a mess morally. How much influence did Maeve have on your actions? How much of it was you, and how much of it was her? I can’t answer those questions, and I’ll never know the answers, so I’m not the one to pass judgment. That falls on your own shoulders.’
They bowed their heads.
Alexis said, ‘Ask yourself those questions. Then do the right thing, and use those phones for the right reasons.’
Brandon lifted his head and stared Alexis in the eyes even though it made him intensely uncomfortable. ‘I will. I promise.’
Alexis shuddered.
She wasn’t sure why.
Then it hit her.
He’ll do anything I say now.
If she stayed, she could be Maeve.
She could wield power over the gullible.
It made her stomach churn.
She nodded farewell to both of them and said, ‘Underneath all this, you two are strong. And you know it.’
They nodded back.
She left them to an uncertain future.
It was all she could do for them.
111
King sat drumming his calloused fingers on the sun-baked wheel of the pickup truck.
It was the same vehicle Maeve had used to bring them out here. It was in good enough condition to get them back to Gillette, and from there they could make their way back to Vegas before the government got wind of their presence in Wyoming.
Alexis and Violetta slipped silently into the rear seats.
Violetta said, ‘Creeps me out.’
King said, ‘What does?’
‘Them.’
King looked past them in the rear view mirror, out the back windshield of the pickup. He saw perhaps a dozen disciples milling around the end of the trail, staring vacantly at the truck, arms by their sides. Like walking zombies. They didn’t know what to do or where to go. Then again, they’d never known.
That’s what made them perfect victims in the first place.
King said, ‘They’ll figure it out.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Violetta said. ‘I don’t think they’ll reintegrate well with society.’
‘There’s millions of people who aren’t integrated,’ King said. ‘That’s how the world works. This commune’s just a tiny speck in comparison to the real problem.’
‘The world’s better off without the Riordans,’ Alexis said.
King nodded.
In a world of grey, that much was black and white.
He met her gaze in the rear view mirror. ‘Did you talk to those kids? What were their names?’
‘Brandon and Addison,’ Alexis said. ‘They’ll do the right thing. They saw the error of their ways.’
‘You sure?’
Alexis looked him dead in the eyes. ‘Absolutely.’
King breathed out, satisfied.
Slater got in the passenger seat. He’d been sweeping the farmhouse for important evidence, but when he slipped into the truck King saw he was empty-handed.
Slater exhaled in opposite fashion to King, clearly dissatisfied. ‘They were thorough. There’s nothing left.’
King said, ‘It doesn’t matter. They’re dead.’
Slater said, ‘Do you think they told anyone about our identities? Will the disciples speak to the authorities?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ King repeated. ‘By then we’ll be back in Vegas.’
‘I don’t like this.’
‘What?’
‘Leaving them here. What if they do exactly what we think they might do? What if they double down on their beliefs?’
Alexis said, ‘Brandon and Addison are the ones with the phones. And they’re not doubling down on anything.’
‘How can you be sure?’
She said, ‘I just know.’
King said, ‘If none of this hits the news cycle, we’ll know. Cults are good for headlines. It’ll spread through the media like wildfire.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’ Slater said.
‘Then we come back and deal with whoever took over.’
It settled Slater, and he rested back in the passenger seat and closed his eyes momentarily, decompressing from the madness.
King didn’t take his eyes off Alexis.
She stared back.
He could tell that she knew, deep down, th
at Brandon and Addison would try to fix the wrongs they’d committed.
She’d convinced them beyond doubt, and she was aware of it.
‘Congratulations,’ he said.
She cocked her head to the side. ‘For what?’
‘You proved you’re no less capable than any of us.’ He paused. ‘You’re an operative now.’
She let the words sink in, and then she smiled.
She said, ‘Wouldn’t want to be anything else.’
Violetta gripped her knee and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Slater clamped his hand down on King’s shoulder and did the same.
Over and over and over again, they went into hell and made it out.
Together.
King drove away from the commune.
Epilogue
Connor had never felt more alone.
The windowless room that was his office had always accentuated the isolation and loneliness of the job, but he’d never taken notice of it until now. A natural introvert, he’d never needed human interaction to thrive. He found satisfaction in the minutiae of his job — compiling intelligence, sifting through interceptions, summarising the important points and passing them up the chain of command.
It suited his personality.
He’d taken the Myers Briggs test nearly a decade ago and it had labelled him an INTJ — Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging. Before the test he’d considered it bullshit pseudoscience, but he’d never been described so accurately. He’d always been quiet and bookish, the architect of his own mind, and that left little time for the frivolous gossip that plagued ordinary work environments. So he’d bounced between government admin jobs, making no friends but tearing through work like a man possessed, and five years ago he’d caught the attention of a certain division of the government that operated under the radar, just like him.
They were similar in that regard.
His employers didn’t waste time getting choked by the systemic logjam of bureaucracy, and he didn’t waste time getting choked by the frivolities of unnecessary human interaction. They offered him a job doing the same thing he was already doing but focused instead on the world of black operations and espionage. It came with quadruple pay. He’d accepted the same day, tucked himself away in this one-man office without complaint, and spent the last five years curating intelligence for the division that kept America at the top of the food chain while still being able to pretend they were a transparent democracy.
But sooner or later, everyone needs an outlet. He had no friends. How could he get close to people his own age? They busied themselves with climbing the rungs of law firms or tech start-ups and spent their free time bar crawling. He couldn’t think of anything more alien. He wanted to discuss big ideas, the overarching principles of the country he lived in, the morality of the messy things that went on behind closed doors.
Then he’d found an ear … or, rather, it had found him.
A whisper from the grasslands of Wyoming had caught him, and he’d listened.
Now he had no one to whisper back to.
He tried Dane’s number again. It was three days since the man had contacted him, and Connor hadn’t gone that long without hearing his voice in months. He had the sense to call from his personal phone. Six months of devotion to Mother Libertas, six months of unimaginable rewards, and no one in the building had a clue. It was almost too easy.
Now it was horrifying.
The line rang, and rang, and rang.
It went to voicemail.
Dane’s quiet, soothing voice said, ‘It’s me. Leave a message.’
Connor never had.
Now he did.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I have more information on King and Slater. I did a deep dive into their files. There’s things we might have overlooked. Call me immediately. It’s urgent.’
He’d never lied to Dane before.
There’s a first time for everything.
But he longed desperately for the attention, for a co-conspirator, for anything…
Anything to make him needed.
He’d already given the Riordans everything he had on the two black-ops legends. It had put him in an awkward position — he recognised Mother Libertas were in danger with King and Slater in their midst, but he couldn’t alert his employers without putting a spotlight on parts of rural Wyoming that absolutely needed to stay dark. The movement was still in its infancy, and the resources he’d have to use to wipe out the ex-operatives for good would also end up destroying Mother Libertas, too.
For the first time ever, he tried Maeve.
In the cold silence of his office, the mobile at his ear buzzed its outgoing call tone.
He didn’t expect her to pick up. He was nothing compared to her, and the reincarnation of Gaia had bigger things to worry about than a lowly intelligence analyst. But he’d given them so much, helped protect them, crushed any news of their growing presence in the mainstream media…
The least they could do—
A thought hit him like an electric shock.
He couldn’t believe he hadn’t considered it, but devotion had blinded him to the very real possibility that Mother Libertas had been compromised. He’d read King and Slater’s rap sheets, and they were something to behold, but was there a chance…?
He pulled up a customised newsfeed on his phone of articles relating to a specific section of Wyoming he’d bookended in case of disaster.
Empty.
He waited in a trance, a dark premonition stewing in his mind.
He could have been sitting there for hours.
A light knock came at the door.
He lifted his eyes off the phone screen and jolted. Devin Nelson, the President’s right-hand-man on all discreet matters, hovered in the open doorway. He was Connor’s direct superior and one of the most powerful men in the country.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ Nelson said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing, sir,’ Connor said. ‘Just … you know … think I’m stressed. I’ll get over it.’
Nelson’s beady eyes bored into him. They’d already said more to each other than they had in the last week. They knew their roles, and their system was as efficient as it was sparse.
Nelson said, ‘Let’s go for a beer tonight.’
Connor couldn’t hide his surprise. ‘What?’
‘Watch your tone, kid.’
‘Sorry, sir. It’s just—’
‘I know,’ Nelson interrupted. ‘You didn’t think I existed outside of work. You need to decompress. I can see it in your eyes. I’ll have you out of here if you don’t comply. Goat Rapids Tavern across the street in two hours. I know a kid who needs a beer when I see it.’
He left abruptly, probably to take care of tasks that were critical to the interests of the nation.
Connor knew he must have looked near-suicidal if Mr. Nelson had reacted like that.
Shaken up, he lowered his eyes back to his phone.
An article hovered there.
He only had to read its headline.
MASSACRE IN THUNDER BASIN AFTER CULT IMPLOSION: SIX DEAD, OVER A DOZEN WOUNDED.
If Nelson’s proposition had shaken him, this broke him to the core.
He didn’t open the article; he didn’t have to.
They were dead. The Riordans were gone. Mother Libertas was crippled, perhaps forever. Despair washed over Connor, rounding his shoulders, putting a thousand-pound weight on his windpipe, threatening to spiral him into a total meltdown. He tried to breathe, but he couldn’t. The walls of the office closed in, and icy detachment gave him a dizzying out-of-body experience.
Then his inner architect took over.
Crafting grandiose plans, hardening his resolve, deepening his devotion.
You are responsible for the cause, a voice boomed.
He wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself, or if Gaia was speaking through him.
You are tasked with taking this to the next level.
You.
He got up, went to the bathroom, and splashed his face with water.
When he met his reflection’s gaze in the mirror, he noticed his eyes were alive with determination.
Connor stepped into Goat Rapids Tavern at precisely nine p.m.
Nelson was already in a corner booth, draped in shadow, like a physical representation of his role in this country. Earlier that day Connor might have been intensely uncomfortable with the prospect of social interaction with his employer, but now he knew every word that came out of his mouth had a purpose. However, if he came in with unusual confidence Nelson would suspect something, so he reverted to the façade of shy introspection.
He walked up to the booth and sat down across from the man.
Nelson pushed a cold pint across the table. ‘Drink, boy.’
Connor sipped at the frothy head. ‘This is odd, sir.’
‘I know,’ Nelson said. ‘But for once in my life I have a free evening, and you need to get your head out of the cave you’ve been swimming around in.’
‘Sir?’
‘What we do,’ Nelson said, ‘breaks people. Not physically, but there’s an invisible toll to all the secrecy. You can’t talk to anyone about what you really do. So tonight we’re going to do our best to pretend we’re normal people. We’re going to drink, and you’re going to talk to me about your life. You don’t have to mean any of it, but it’ll be cathartic. Trust me. I’ve been in this game longer than you’ve been alive.’
Connor shrugged. ‘I think you might be right.’
‘I know I’m right, boy. Now drink.’
They drank.
One pint led to two, which led to three, and before they knew it they were mentally lubricated enough to disperse with their reluctance to open up. More beers followed and Connor found himself sharing a list of insecurities he’d never written down, let alone vocalised. It made sense that he’d never discussed them with anyone, because he had no one in his life to talk to besides Dane and Maeve. He started to realise the deep flaws in his soul might have been the reason he turned to Mother Libertas in the first place, but another pint washed away those thoughts. If he went there, he might shatter the only belief system he had left.
