She nodded. Said wistfully, only partly for his sake: “Would be fun to do some drifting.” It really would be. It would be fun to do a lot of things. She could see him envisioning that as well, out in their favorite parking lot, sliding round and round, leaving long black marks on the asphalt and tire smoke in the air. Happier thoughts. Happier times.
She drank her coffee and let the moment be.
There were no Kel checkpoints, no visible Kel presence of any kind. It made sense the aliens would choose to run things that way. Likely as not they couldn’t man checkpoints even if they wanted to. The Earth was huge and they would not have the manpower for such minute control.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Mike smiled.
She took a deep, cleansing breath. “Me too.”
He continued his methodical attention to driving normally, resisted the urge to go around the next driver, stayed in his lane and slowed to a safe following distance.
A random thought came to her and she asked: “Have you met someone new?”
For a long moment he said nothing. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know.” Then: “I was kind of waiting on you.” He made brief eye contact, but before she had to remind him said: “But you’ve moved on.” He sighed. “I get it. I’m just glad you’re safe.” He looked at her a few more times, getting a little nervous. He scratched the back of his neck. “You look great, by the way. I don’t know if I told you. You look even better than when you left, and you were pretty back then.” All at once he was embarrassed, searching for a distraction. He reached and touched the armor. “This armor is so awesome! What’s it made of?”
She looked down. “I don’t know.” She touched the armor too. “It’s pretty tough, though.” I’ve had a few chances to test it. She took another sip. “It’s real light.”
“Man!” he shook his head, on to other things. “All that shit that went down at your place! Did you see any of that? Crazy! Back about the time you left. That robot thing? Did they kidnap you before any of that happened? Did you see it?”
Memories flooded back. “I heard about it.” She took a long, concealing drink.
“And just now,” he continued his marvel, “like a week or two ago. The Kel were all over your house! It was like they were looking for you. Tore the whole place up! Have you been back? Did you see what they did?”
Another shake of her head. Another sip. She kept the cup to her lips, eyes on the dash. Worried how close he was to the truth. Worried how close she’d come to being captured. Killed.
It was all her. Right at the center of all of it.
“When that shit went down,” Mike rambled on, “then the Kel were there, tearing your place up … all this focus on you. It had to be you; it was all I could think. Your mysterious disappearance. I half expected the Kel to come knocking. I thought for sure they’d figure out I knew you and want to ask me questions. Like I would know where you were or something. I’ve been scared! Man, I can’t tell you. Looking over my shoulder this whole time, expecting them to come after me. I mean, I’m—was your boyfriend. If they wanted you, why wouldn’t they come looking for me? Jess, it’s been freaky.” Jess took another sip. Mike continued: “When I heard you tapping on my window … I thought maybe it was them.”
She choked, mid-swallow, the moment breaking as she tried not to spit the coffee. She wiped her mouth and let the laugh go.
“The Kel?” She laughed again. “You thought the Kel were tapping on your window?”
Mike just looked at her; that sweet, Mike innocence and suddenly she was laughing harder. He had thought it was them.
She tried not to laugh at him. “In your back yard?” She imagined it, Kel soldiers standing around his window. “What? Like, they were out there trying to get your attention?” She leaned forward in the seat. “Mike!” she whispered, pretend-tapping on an imaginary window. “Psssst! Mike! You in there?” Acted like she was peeking in. “Mike? Listen, if you’re in there come out. It’s the Kel. We’ve got questions.”
“Okay, okay,” now he laughed too, but only to show that he got it. “Yeah, yeah. An army of Kel standing around my back yard, waiting for me to come out. Ha ha.”
She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry.” She eased. “That’s just funny.”
“I know it’s dumb,” he defended, “but I’ve been watching my back. You have to admit. I mean, we all have, but lately, when your house kept coming up … I had no idea what was coming next. I mean, I was your boyfriend for crying out loud,” he said it again. “I thought for sure they’d want me.”
She thought to lay a hand on his leg, hesitated, then reached and did, giving him a comforting squeeze. “I know,” she assured him. “I love you, Mike. And even though a lot of crazy shit has happened, and even though I’m on my way to a bunch of even more crazy shit, asking you to take me, I just want you to know that. I love you. I always did. And I truly am sorry it didn’t work out.”
She didn’t expect him to say much in response. But he did. And of all the things he could’ve said, she was surprised with what he did say. He wasn’t hung up on their history, he didn’t try to use the opportunity to get her to change her mind.
Instead he said something amazingly profound.
“It’s okay,” he said warmly. “Our time together was amazing, but in the end it was just teen romance. I think I knew it even then. It was great, it was wonderful, but I think I knew it wouldn’t last. I loved every single minute of it. I really did. God! You made my heart sing, Jess. No joke. I used to see you at school and dream of asking you out. Can you believe that?” She could. Of course she could. She’d always wanted to ask him out too. “When you asked me …” he shook his head, amazed, “it was like my dream came true. The butterflies I got every time I saw you, every time I thought of you … before and after we were going out … it was incredible. Even after we were already going out, Jess. Amazing! You never knew that, but it only got stronger the longer we were together, not less. Once we were officially girlfriend-boyfriend you affected me the same way. I was giddy. Hell, most of the time I was in such a fog … like I couldn’t see straight. I was worrying the whole time I was getting it all wrong.” She wanted to tell him he wasn’t, that he was perfect, but he needed no reassurance. Mike had come to terms. “I would never trade that for anything. Never give up that feeling, never give up those memories. Never never. I would suffer a hundred losses like this if it meant never losing that little slice of happiness. You, us …” for an instant it looked as if he might actually choke up, but he finished strong: “Those moments … I’ll cherish them forever, Jess. Forever.”
She really did love him. Mike was a good guy. She’d not been wrong in that assessment. Normal Jess might even have gone on to live happily ever after with him. High school sweethearts, maybe even married with kids. She could think of few better things, few better outcomes for her life, and part of her was comforted by the notion that, had that life not jumped the tracks the way it did, she would’ve been happy.
She’d made a good decision in Mike.
“I’m just so glad to find out you’re okay,” he said. “And I love you too.”
She watched him a while, happy, then drank a little more of her coffee.
By that point they’d been through all the catch-up, even a little small talk, updates on school and life in town. The view from the man in the street, so to speak. No matter this new perspective it didn’t change who she herself so recently was, and there with Mike it was all coming back. His thoughts on the invasion, the world through his eyes, what it was like to see things from his point of view, how things were kind of normal in a weird way—even as they could not have been worse. And as he talked and they chatted, perspectives oscillating, she worked, as always, to maintain. Her inner reality against the world outside. Traffic lights and pedestrians and fast-food signs, music on the stereo, familiar flavors of the coffee, sounds and smells and all of it so like-it-always-was, sharing Mike’s outlook—feeling it, remembering what it was like
to be a nobody teen, awed by the epicness of grand events, world events, no hand in them whatsoever, all things of importance left to the grown-ups. Rammed hard against the reality that now she was a player. Right in the middle of all the things Mike was trying to understand. And not the grown-ups, not the kids … no one had any idea what to do. With the invasion of the Kel even the “grown-ups” had been forced to grow up.
She sat back in the quiet. Mike tooled along with traffic, studiously paying attention. Music played, the combination of that and the sounds out the open windows painting a sonic tapestry of life on Earth. She took it all in, listening and looking at everything, near and far.
Realizing “grown-up”, as a concept, no longer had relevance. Not with this new insight. Not now that she knew. To think she’d become an adult, all at once and because of everything, like flipping a switch, leaving childhood behind … meaningless. Adult, child—those were body references, and while they definitely held significance within the context everyone was used to, and certainly could not just be thrown out the window, they were not a true measure of things. She’d opened Pandora’s box with what she’d been through, and to call herself “grown up” was, fundamentally, wrong. She was so much more than that. Everyone was. By this new frame of reference even an eighty-year-old was technically a “child”. People were timeless. And so it wasn’t as if she was suddenly grown up; more as if she’d woken up.
More like she simply was.
She looked over at Mike.
Intuitively she knew he was as timeless as her. Everyone. And she also knew, from her own direct, shocking, painful, enlightening experience, what it took to get there. A person’s awareness of such things was buried deep; too deep to simply snap out of their stupor and easily see the truth of it. It was unlikely Mike, or anyone, was simply going to have a grand epiphany and decide all at once to “know thyself” and, oh, well, look at that. I’m pretty much immortal.
Way too much crap stood in the way.
The “why” of that she did not know. Each moment she came more to terms with her own reality on the subject, her own awareness of what it meant, new insights, but how any of that infinite thread of existence connected …
She had the idea that, since everyone had been going on for so long, existing in various states, various forms, probably after millions or billions or whatever of years of failures and pain and deaths and awfulness and horrible this and agonizing that and dying and dying and dying again … everyone had probably decided long ago to just forget what they really were. It would’ve been an easy decision to make. To just absorb themselves in the minutia of each new existence, the minor pains and sufferings of a simple life, whatever that life held, its triumphs and failures, sad and happy moments. To forget any hint of real power that might’ve got them in trouble before. Just lay low, as low as possible, maybe become a CEO or something, maybe president—anything but admit the truth, anything to deny what they really were and avoid the heartache.
For her, though, it was too late. Like Neo in the Matrix she’d made her decisions and now she was fully unplugged. Fully Jess, as she’d come to understand it—more Jess than she’d ever been—and she recognized, as part of that, she was not superior in any significant way. Just more aware, and that made all the difference. To use a crude analogy she had a gun and she knew how to use it. Everyone else had guns too, they just didn’t know how to use them. In fact, most didn’t even know they had a gun. Knowledge—for Mike, for everyone—was missing. Not potential.
But Mike had a role. Even though just an average teen he was about to play a huge—more huge than he could imagine—part in the future of mankind.
She sat a little straighter as they arrived. Mike signaled—using his blinker like a good boy—turning into the library parking lot.
He noted their arrival unnecessarily.
“We’re here.”
CHAPTER 38: STAR ANGEL
Willet kept wondering when they were going to be shot down, or forced down, or discovered, or why, in fact, this last stretch of their escape was being done aboard a helicopter. A big, military-spec chopper. After all the shit they’d caused, the idea of getting in something that flew, in the sky, went against all instincts.
It was just a bad idea.
But it was the last leg of their extremely circuitous getaway and they were almost there. The steady whump of the giant rotors had become a ticking clock, countdown to the death blow; a dark gray CH-53E Super Stallion, military through-and-through—clear contraband, and for Willet their destination could not come quickly enough. He was near ready to just leap out now. Take Satori in his arms and jump from the bay doors and run the rest of the way.
“Five minutes,” came the voice of the pilot over his headphones. They all wore headphones. The chopper was loud, much like an ornithopter of Anitra, though the rotary concept was smoother than the pump-and-thrust wing-beat of the ‘thopters on Willet’s home world.
Beside him Satori shifted a little and settled deeper against him, sound asleep, face like an angel. He pushed strands of red hair out of her face. She was curled in the seat beside him and had been sleeping much of this journey, regaining strength, eating when he woke her. They’d covered a lot of ground, squeezed into uncomfortable spaces, cold, hot, one particularly unpleasant hop spent stuffed alongside a bunch of crates of frozen fish.
Willet could still smell it.
Early on in the journey they got Satori some clothes. Too big, baggy, plain but concealing. An eye patch now covered her missing eye.
He couldn’t stop staring at her.
Along the way they heard things. Contact with Drake and crew was only intermittent, just enough to get them home, but they’d been in touch. Jessica’s little escapade had become an instant global sensation, too late for the Kel to put a spin on it, too late to keep the massacre of the Bok a secret and the mystery girl had become a sort of hero. Even people along the way, remote people on obscure routes, had heard. Already they thought Jess some sort of legend. Willet, of course, knew all the things she’d done even before this.
Jess was a legend.
Earlier today they learned she left Hong Kong for her next destination. She was on her way to Phase Two. Zac, for his part, knowing where she was headed, appeared on more than one occasion as if he were about to break out and make a run for her. Whatever arrangement the two had agreed to prior to all this was now done, all obligations fulfilled, and Zac was compelled in ways Willet totally understood, but on which he hoped the big guy would not act. Half a world stood between them, and Jess was already on her way.
Willet gazed down on Satori; brushed more hair from her face, blowing persistently in the turbulent air.
Along the way they learned other things. That their resistance cell was going dark. The repatriation of this little group here, the Ones Who Did, who went aboard the Kel dreadnought and made history, was their last open action. At least for now. They learned the Trojan had taken root. Fang was able to morph it to its next iteration, escaping the Kel trace, and it was time to hide and see what they could do with it. Time to study the results of their success and learn some tricks.
They heard other things.
That the Kel had taken captives. Members of the militia, at the refinery. Not any that knew anything of value, but it was possible they knew enough.
Connections could be made.
Willet leaned closer to Satori, ready to wake her and get off this flying death-trap.
It was a dangerous time.
**
The old Native American man who answered the door was only a gatekeeper. Jess got the idea he knew little if anything of what his small group kept secret. The place where she met him, her final destination, was on a reservation. She and Mike had come to the main lodge, dead in the center of “downtown”, people and light traffic moving here and there, most headed to the bar as the sun set. After greeting her in the main lobby the gruff, elder tribesman eyed her suspiciously, bade her wait and left.
A few times she thought to go out to the car, check on Mike or even get up and wander around the little waiting area. It was cluttered, lots of decades-old tribal decorations, furniture, and carpet that looked like it had last been updated in the ‘70s. Plenty of trinkets and tchotchkes to touch, if she had the mind, things to pick up, to examine, everything dusted but old. She stayed sitting. Heavy green drapes on the windows matched the green shag carpet. Decorative rugs. Plenty of turquoise. The room was a total cliché.
The place had only been a few hours away. At the library Mike followed her instructions, chasing down the leads she gave him, the information she needed to piece together the final bits of the puzzle. She gave him starting points, asked him to use books and microfiche as much as possible, stay off the grid if he could, and be discreet. The clandestine nature of her request only fueled his enthusiasm. There was no need for more on the back-story, and he didn’t really ask—it was enough to know she was working with the resistance, trying to chase down an old secret, something that could be helpful to their cause—and so he was off. She’d waited in the car with the windows down, in a shady spot in the parking lot, watching as families and old people and the usual selection of library patrons moved in small numbers in and out. It was a lovely, peaceful day. A few times she dozed.
When Mike returned, several printed docs in hand, it was as if he’d become a treasure hunter or something. She could see it in his eyes. Especially since he’d done the research and she was waiting for the details. Now he was the one with the knowledge. Now he knew something, he had the inside scoop, and he was eager to share what he found.
Star Angel: Prophecy Page 45
