by Sean Platt
Val nervously stood, then went to the door and opened it to Captain Stewart.
Oh, Gods. This is worse than I thought. They sent the captain!
“Good afternoon, Captain. Pascal isn’t here.” Instead of inviting him in, Val stood between him and the entrance.
“Yes, I know. He’s left on another unauthorized trip. And … I’m afraid he’s now missing.”
Her face went white. Whatever conversation she’d been preparing for in her head, this wasn’t it. “What?”
“Bandits killed Rangers Knox and Campbell and we believe they’ve taken Pascal.”
She stared, unable to speak.
“What happened?” Elijah asked, jumping up from the table.
“This doesn’t concern you, son.”
“If Sergeant Pascal is missing, then at least let me help find him.”
Captain Stewart gave him a patronizing smile. “We have it handled, son.”
“But I can help.”
Val turned to Elijah. “Wait in the dining room. I’ll be there in a minute.”
He slumped his shoulders and returned to the table, out of earshot by the time the adults lowered their voices.
“What do you think happened?” Charlotte looked over at Elijah with worry in her eyes.
“I don’t know.”
“How can you help find him?”
“Because … we communicate.”
“Communicate?”
Elijah tapped his head. “We’re both Alts. I don’t know how many Alts can do it, but we have some sort of bond. We can speak into each other’s minds.”
“Can you talk to him now?”
Elijah closed his eyes and focused on Pascal, just like his mentor had taught him. He’d never attempted this without the two of them being in the same room.
“I … I don’t feel anything.”
“Do … do you think he’s dead?” Her eyes started to water.
Elijah shook his head. “No. Pascal is strong. He’s … he wouldn’t go out that easily.”
“Try calling out to him anyway, see if he answers.”
Pascal?
Elijah waited, but heard and felt nothing.
Pascal had encouraged him to practice stillness and develop his ability to overhear thoughts. But Elijah thought it was pointless. He didn’t have a psychic connection with anyone else, and never needed to practice with his mentor because the connection was always there.
Still, he pushed Elijah to see if he could connect with others, or gather any errant thoughts. But Pascal’s apprentice had been lazy, more interested in developing his physical prowess and impressing his peers, gaining respect with his fighting skills.
I’m sorry, Pascal. I should have listened.
Maybe a flicker, then a landscape of nothing.
“Anything?” Charlotte asked.
Elijah sighed and shook his head.
Captain Stewart left, then Val came to the table and sat with them, trying to keep it all together and not look as worried as she so obviously was.
“What can we do?” Charlotte asked.
Val shrugged. “I guess we wait.”
“What else did Captain Stewart say?” Elijah wanted to know.
She only delivered a few details, but it didn’t sound like she was leaving anything out, except for maybe a few of the gorier details.
“Are they going to look for him?” Elijah asked. “Do they have any idea where he might be?”
“They’re scouting areas, but there’s a lot of uncharted territory full of dangerous people.”
“So, are they just going to give up?” Charlotte sounded worried.
Val shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Charlotte said, “We need to do something.”
“We can’t do anything. Captain Stewart thinks we’ll be back on lockdown after the council meeting.”
Elijah felt a familiar itch. He stood, moving away from the women to better hear the incoming voice.
Elijah?
“It’s him!”
Forty-Five
Richmond Freeman
Richmond spent his entire ride back from The Slums thinking about Sebastian and his future. How much longer would he allow himself to live this lie in misery?
He’d grown up with a father who decried the failure of marriage in modern society, sick of weak men refusing to meet their responsibility. Most of society’s problems, from crime to drug use to general dysfunction and an inability to connect with anyone, were born there, in that failure. One bad cycle perpetuated the others until society eventually crumbled.
Joke’s on you, Dad. Aliens got us instead.
Dad had drilled these Ways To Be so much into his head that Richmond had spent a lifetime ignoring his own needs. He denied his sexuality, figuring a woman would eventually bring him around to the right way of thinking. He had always liked Olivia. Loved her, even. But still, he always knew something was missing, denied him by a crippling shame and a homophobia that started in society but spread to his father.
Richmond did the right thing; he settled down and got married.
You could live a lie, shove it down, and be happy for a while, but eventually that lie will start rotting the core. Seeing life for what it was and could perhaps even be made the pretending even harder.
Richmond knew he should be living according to his own beliefs.
But it wasn’t just him. Even if Richmond was only moving a few doors down, leaving would negatively impact his life.
The years had eroded whatever he’d once had with Olivia. Now he stayed only out of obligation, mostly to Elijah. Yes, there was love there, but not the kind that could sustain him or their relationship. She might be relieved if he left. Olivia’s biggest concern would be what people thought, and how that impression might affect her position on the council.
Richmond would happily hand the mayorship over to her. He never wanted the power. It had always been what people expected of him. The city seemed to genuinely need him in the aftermath of his father’s death. It gave them something to rally around, a token they could cling to as the world slowly tried to repair itself. He was the proxy for his father; he gave them something that made it easier to go on. Even his name helped to lubricate the lie.
But he’d done his job. Olivia was more than capable of leading Hope Springs. She would be the de facto mayor until the next election if he left. Enough people liked Olivia to keep her in power. Society would continue to rebuild itself, assuming that Stratum didn’t have alternate plans.
He wanted to leave, but couldn’t bring himself to abandon his family, especially for something as confusing as his relationship with Sebastian.
The forbidden secret was part of their attraction. But how well did they really know one another? There were times when Richmond felt like his soul understood the man, and others when it was like looking at a mask, barring his view of the man underneath.
He and Sebastian were nothing alike. Richmond had grown up pampered and wanting for nothing. Well-educated, with an Ivy League law degree. Sebastian never finished high school. A street rat, he could be as brutal as Richmond was refined.
But he saw the man Sebastian wanted to be, and that version felt like a neighbor. Both wanted a quiet life and to do good for what little was left of the world. Improve life as they knew it, even if only by inches. Sebastian might be more of a humanitarian than Richmond if anything. He had always served as mayor out of obligations and expectations. Sebastian had fought for his position in front of The Six. It was under the guise of keeping the criminals from tearing each other’s throats out in constant warfare, but thanks to a post-coital confession Richmond knew he’d done it to keep the common people safe from a burgeoning commonwealth of criminals.
He admired Sebastian in so many ways.
But there was another side of the man that was much harder to love. The one with a fence around it. Sebastian had to be tough while growing up on the streets. He could never show vulnerability. People need
ed to fear him. It was a lesson Richmond’s father had imparted upon his son many times, even if he’d been unable to hear that truth upon delivery.
He arrived at the stables. Henry, a kind but dimwitted stable hand who found it hard not to smile, handed Richmond a sealed envelope.
“Your wife left this, Mayor.”
“Thank you.” He tipped the kid, then traded the letter for his horse.
Richmond started walking home but changed direction when he saw that the letter was a request to join Olivia at an emergency Small Council meeting at City Hall.
What now?
Had the council decided to meet about Stratum’s offer again? Had there been another attack? Had the general called for a public meeting about Stratum before the Large Council could meet?
They were possibilities and each one contributed to his splitting headache. He wanted to go home, eat dinner, and relax for the rest of the night, or at least until Olivia came to pester him about trying to make another baby.
He arrived at City Hall to a meeting that was well over capacity.
What the hell is happening here?
He glanced at Olivia on his way to the stage. She shrugged, seemingly annoyed to see him.
He felt a flush of guilt as he sat beside her.
In addition to the other council members sitting at the dais, General McTaggart was also there, seated far right of the tables.
“About time,” she whispered.
Guilt evaporated in the heat of his anger. Cheating was easier in the shadow of her frost. Olivia had once been kinder, more respectful to him. Now it seemed that he could never do anything right by her.
“Excuse me,” he whispered, “I was getting important intel.”
“From Sebastian?” She spit his name with venom.
If only she knew.
Brother Serenity speaking of burials pulled Richmond from his marital woes. “Whose burials?” he whispered.
She slid him a briefing folder and whispered back. “You would know if you’d been here. Rangers Knox and Campbell were killed by bandits. Pascal is also missing, and believed to have been taken by them.”
Richmond was stunned. All he could do was stare into the crowd.
Olivia, who had been moderating the meeting, said, “Now that the mayor is back, I cede the meeting to him.”
But Richmond wasn’t ready. He needed more information before he could moderate the meeting.
“No, I was late. Please continue … I just need a moment to catch up on the briefing.” He started skimming the file, fighting his panic.
A man yelled from the crowd: “Is it true that the attackers were Alts? I heard the man can start fire with his hands.”
“Yes, that is true,” General McTaggart said before Olivia could respond.
Richmond didn’t need to look up from the briefs to know she was glaring at him for breaking protocol.
“What are we going to do about these Alts?” shouted a woman in back.
The general sat back and folded his hands over his chest, smiling as if to say, Yes, Mayor and Vice Mayor, what will we do about these Alts?
“We are investigating the matter right now,” Olivia said.
“We ought to go demand that The Slums turn them over!” yelled someone else. “They’re harboring murderers!”
“I agree,” the general said.
Richmond shot him a look as Olivia banged the gavel. “One at a time, please! Do not shout things out. Go to the front of the room when it’s time for Q&A.”
“Fuck you!” yelled a drunk-sounding man.
Richmond looked up to the balcony, momentarily forgetting that Pascal wasn’t there. Stewart stood in his usual spot. He gave the captain a nod to have the man removed.
Stewart signaled one of the other Rangers. Moments later, two Rangers escorted the unruly old man outside.
“This is bullshit!” he screamed while getting shoved roughly out the doors.
The crowd was getting out of control, some people grousing while others frantically shushed them.
Olivia banged the gavel again, but the horde kept on going.
Richmond wanted to take over. He was good at working an angry crowd. It was one of the few things he’d learned from his father that he actually excelled at. But he wouldn’t undermine Olivia like that.
She sat stuck for a moment, staring out at the assembly, letting them have their moment as her knuckles tightened on the gavel, ready to strike it again.
“Order!” McTaggart’s booming voice silenced the crowd immediately. All heads turned to him. “May I inquire as to why the mayor was late today?”
“Excuse me?” Richmond said.
“I’m just wondering where you were when we were attacked yet again? How long are we going to sit idly by as bandits wage war on our men, women, and children? Alt Bandits, I might add.”
“I’m not sitting idly. I was in The Slums following up on a lead.”
“And have you found the Alts responsible?” Though his smile said, I bet you were.”
“Not yet.”
The crowd groaned before Richmond could finish his sentence.
“Why aren’t you demanding more from Slum Lord?” McTaggart blasted. “Why are you allowing him to harbor them?”
“He isn’t hiding anybody. He’s helping us find them.”
“And how do you know this? How do you know he isn’t just pulling one over on you? Who would trust that man after all he’s done?”
“All he’s done? I’d say we’ve instigated far more incidents with The Slums than he has with us. Slum Lord is not the aggressor here.”
“So the Coalition are the bad guys now?”
He’d been baited into a trap, and had walked right into it.
“Don’t put words in my mouth, General.”
“You are doing an excellent job of showing us that you’re a terrorist sympathizer all by yourself; you don’t need any help from me. That you choose The Slums’ interests over those of your city and its—”
Olivia banged the gavel. “Enough!”
“That you choose the interests of your lover, Slum Lord, over those of your wife,” McTaggart finished.
And there it was.
Richmond’s biggest secret laid bare for the world.
Paralyzed in the spotlight as the crowd continued to echo and gasp.
He could have refuted it and turned the general’s accusations back on him, but he froze instead. And in that moment, the truth became obvious to Olivia. She stared at him, crumpling in real time.
McTaggart stood. “I have eyewitnesses that tell me Mayor Freeman has been consorting with the enemy for over two years now!”
The moment refused to end. Richmond, crucified by the staring crowd.
His heart raced, sweat beaded his forehead, dripping down the back of his neck and chest.
Olivia stared at him, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. Instead he stared down at his hands, white-hot shame burning through his skin.
A man shouted, “Traitor!”
Others followed.
Olivia kept staring as time slowed to a sludge.
The crowd chanted Traitor as council members banged their hands against the table to no effect. And still, Olivia continued to stare.
Until her throat croaked with a barely decipherable whisper. “Is it true?”
Richmond swallowed, covered the mic, and whispered back. “I am having an affair, but I am not a traitor. He—”
She stood and stomped off-stage, disappearing behind the curtain.
“Olivia!” Richmond called out from behind as he followed her.
She kept walking, out of City Hall and into the cold afternoon rain.
“Olivia!”
But she kept on walking, refusing to look back at him.
Richmond finally caught up to her.
She reeled around with fire in her eyes. Walloped him across the face and screamed, “Liar!”
She exhaled through her nose, glaring at Richmond with what loo
ked like an all-consuming hate. He could only stand there, sorry and ashamed.
Then she threw herself at him, smacking him over and over.
Richmond deserved it, so he just stood there and took it as smacks became punches and his chest like a tenderized steak.
“I’m sorry,” he said, once she finally stopped.
“Fuck you.”
She broke free of his grip and started running.
But this time Richmond didn’t chase her.
Forty-Six
Wolf
By the time Wolf left The Ruins with Brothers Truth and Path, thanks to an underground tunnel that felt even rapier than a Catholic away camp, the moon was hanging fat in a bright sky shining like the spotlight from a ghettobird on the woods and broken old homes littering their way.
They were headed east to The Slums for horses, then from there to The Temple of the Order of the Ancients, mouthful though it was. First they had to pass Void Valley, a north-and-south ravine between the edges of Old City in The Ruins and The Slums. It sounded like the quest in a video game, and though Wolf had articulated that fact more than a few times already, his observation had yet to be appreciated.
Void Valley was a long stretch of woodlands creeping north to the mountains and eventually to the Middle Passage. People only went there if they were in a hurry to lose weight and didn’t mind shedding limbs or torsos to get the job done in no time. Stratum had buried their landmines years ago, but new ones still went POP! whenever some idiot was stupid enough to try crossing the Valley.
Wolf hadn’t spoken for a while now. And not only because he was annoyed at the monks refusing to return his sword. Something else was bothering him. Even more so since he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
It was more than him not trusting the monks. Something to do with the tree and the alien squids in his vision, or imagination, or unwritten pilot for some bullshit show.
Wolf was a talker, and felt sure that he always had been, whether he could remember many specifics or not. He felt equally sure that his instincts often kept him from yapping at the wrong time, even if they also sometimes got him into trouble. Right now, they were telling him to keep shit to himself. Maybe drop it in the same deep hole where he kept the rest of his bodies.
