The bus ride from the school to the hospital was slow and loud but it brought Quey a touch of nostalgia as he sat back in the forward facing seat that was just big enough for two, with a slight smile and thought about his potential life. That’s what he considered what might have happened if his parents hadn’t died. In that life things were very different, though he wasn’t certain of the particulars as to how they were different, he just knew they were. If parallel dimensions existed where other possible outcomes played out there was one where he was someone else entirely. He was a boy whose parents had lived and he’d never gone to the camp for wayward youths. Maybe he met a girl one afternoon in a park, like Terry Von Zaul had so many years ago. Maybe she was beautiful and maybe they had a kid. A little girl.
In his seat, sitting beside Natalie, he chuckled a bit.
“What?” she asked and he shook her off.
The feeling brought about a chuckle that shriveled when his mind continued to consider that other existence. He’d have finished school, which meant he’d have taken the aptitude tests and would have been given a selection of jobs based on his abilities. He’d know nothing of moonshine or the road. He’d have no idea that Dusty and Rachel and Natalie even existed. Right now the full meaning of his day would rest on basic questions. “Where are we going to get lunch? How will I be entertained later?” His life would be absent of any sense of adventure that wasn’t experienced vicariously through a show or video game. It would be mediocre at the best of times and painfully boring at the worst.
He’d be in an office somewhere waiting for someone to bring up the subject of lunch so he could spend the rest of the A.M. discussing that topic. An endless string of ideas just to have the group end up spending their mid-day hour at the same place they always went on whatever day it happened to be. He’d live for the weekends and hope to go on vacation one day. In the end he’d grind his life away a tick at a time and when he had the opportunity to do something as amazing as see half the things he had already in this life he’d be too old and feeble to enjoy them.
‘Youth is wasted on the young,’ and old man had said to him once when he was a teenager. He’d been hamming it up with a pretty blonde girl in a thrill ride theme park called Forgotten Canyon. He thought he understood what that meant now. That man had spent his whole life working the rides in that place so kids like him could just up and wander to it on a whim. In a few years he’d reach the age where he wasn’t worth keeping on the job any longer and they’d tell him to just stay home. They’d claim he’d done his part and contributed to the world in some fundamental way and that now was his time and he should enjoy it, but what the hell was he going to do? He couldn’t pick up and run off to somewhere he never knew existed like Quey had that day. He couldn’t meet a pretty girl and buy her ice cream and hold her hand when she screamed on the Devil’s Tail Whip, letting her squeeze so tight he thought she might just break his hand and have that be enough to get her to agree to hang out back at the cheap motel he’s staying at near the highway. Those days were well behind him and now that it was his time, even if he managed such an encounter they didn’t even make a pill capable of giving him the sort of erection Quey had thrust into that pretty blonde—Sandra something or another—that clear and cool afternoon.
‘Fuck the potential life,’ he almost said aloud in a bus full of pubescents and a set of parents. Instead he just looked out the window and smiled as they passed houses full of families where mom and dad had lived and thought of all the things they were missing out on. He would never be happy his parents had died, but he thought maybe it wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened either.
“You still with me?” Natalie asked.
Quey looked over at her, startled from his thoughts.
“We’re almost there,” she told him and when he looked out the window again he saw the medical center coming up on the right. It was smaller than he thought it was going to be, three stories packed into a neat rectangle with an entrance marked ‘EMERGENCY’ out front. They’d use the other entrance near the parking lot off to the left of the building.
“You ready to do this?” Natalie asked him.
A bit sly, Quey shot her a glance and replied, “Ready is my middle name.”
She gave him a funny look and asked, “What?”
Shaking his head he replied, “Nothing,” as the bus turned into the parking lot and stopped near the doors marked ‘MAIN ENTERANCE.’
The inside of the hospital was a wash of white light and walls and potent in its sterility. As the group passed through the double doors the two women behind the circular desk in the center of the lobby looked up at the group.
Quey made note of the three doors to his left and the two to his right then looked up at the open walkway lining the perimeter of the second floor. He imagined Blue Moon security officers running in and taking position along the rail, aiming guns down at them. It was a thought he was glad to let go of.
One of the girls behind the counter touched a device in her ear and spoke softly. “Maddy, the student visitors have arrived.”
The lobby was saturated by the voices of teenagers and the occasional laugh as they waited for their host to step from the elevators and cross to them. Natalie met Maddy, a dark woman with soft features, with enthusiasm and the two of them began to go over the days’ itinerary.
Quey looked over at Dusty and Rachel. He was gripping her hand tight in his but Quey thought maybe his nerves came more from what they might find in her skull than the prospect of being scanned.
The other three adults were gathered near the center of the group of teenagers talking among themselves. A couple of the boys started to horseplay and the man with the trimmed beard put a quick stop to it with a poignant, “Hey.” The boys looked at him for a moment then settled.
Natalie and Maddy finished talking and the dark woman clapped twice. “Everybody,” she yelled and the teenager’s murmuring faded slowly into silence. Maddy smiled as she introduced herself then ran through everything they were about to see and the rules they needed to follow.
Reggie had been doing his part of the job all by his lonesome since the bus pulled into the parking lot and the field trip made its way inside a little more than three hours ago. Needless to say he was bored behind the wheel of his little blue four-door, but luckily he had a sheet computer stuck to the steering wheel. With his elbow propped against the door and his fist set under his chin he sat staring at the screen, passing the time with the mindless drivel people loaded onto the signal.
The car was parked around the side of the building, on a thin stretch of concrete that was only there so waste disposal units could haul the trash away twice a week. They chose that spot because it was near the exit Natalie said they were most likely to get to first should things go awry and it was a quick roll from there to the main road. No one ever came out here and as Reggie looked around and saw just how hidden away he was he contemplated switching the screen over to one of the sex sites and running a batch while he waited. He checked the time and saw now was about when Natalie was going to slip away with Rachel and give her brain a good looking over and figured he had at least a half hour before they might come busting out of the exit looking for a quick get away, and that was only if things went wrong. If things went as planned he’d be sitting out here for another two or three hours all by himself.
After a long sigh he clicked on another inane video and after ten seconds he said, “Awe, fuck it,” and began looking for a napkin. He found some in the glove box, one thing you could count on after seven months on the road was napkins in the glove box. He gave another quick look around, saw not a soul lurking anywhere, and tapped the screen back to the main page. He was about to switch to an adult site when he saw the news feed. Angels of the Brood warn, more violence to come.
Reggie recognized the face in the video’s thumbnail from Bravette. It was Render. Hesitantly he tapped the video and watched as it played.
Quey was at a T-junction i
n the hospital hallway with his sheet folded to fit in the palm of his hand. He had a warning ready to go at a tap of his finger that would ping Natalie’s sheet in the room down the hall where the scan was taking place. The plan was for him to pretend to be lost, looking for a bathroom if anyone should come by and happen to ask what he was doing there. In the mean time he just stood at one of the terminals along the wall and pretended to use it while he kept watch on the door. Plenty of people walked past him, but no one seemed to care what he was up too.
That was when his device started to vibrate. He looked at it and saw a message from Reggie. ‘Get out here as soon as you can. No security, but big trouble… maybe. Either way it’s something you should see.’
Quey peered at the message and tried to decipher its cryptic nature then gave up as he spotted Natalie and Rachel emerging from the door down the hall. He sighed, allowing himself a bit of relief but any easement it offered was quickly replaced by a pondering of the big man’s message.
The women hurried toward him and they all grinned relief while they chatted briefly.
“Everything go okay?” Quey asked.
“Not a hitch,” Natalie reported.
“And?”
Rachel chuckled while Natalie informed him that, “She’s fine. I saw something on the scan but its nothing to worry about. No bleeds or swells or anything of that ilk.”
Quey nodded and smiled at Rachel, “You hurry back and let Dusty know before he worries himself into a frenzy.”
She chuckled and looked at the two of them.
“We’ll be right behind you,” he said. Rachel was curious but she nodded and hurried away. Whatever was on Quey’s mind would come out eventually and she was too excited about telling Dusty she was all clear to press the matter further.
“What is it?” Natalie asked.
“She really okay?” he asked.
Natalie chewed her bottom lip and nodded. He looked at her intently for a tick and she said sternly, “That scanner is full body and I can’t tell you every little thing. Just that she’s aware of everything I saw and her brain is fine.”
Quey had too much running around in his brain to add this particular riddle to the mix so he decided to accept that as good enough and move things along. “All right. Well I got a troublesome message from our getaway driver and I have to bail,” he told her. “Keep your device handy in case that need extends to us all.”
She nodded worriedly and watched him as he hurried toward the exit before she returned to the group. She found them where she left them, in one of the lounges Maddy had brought them to for lunch. Rachel and Dusty were in each other’s arms, laughing and doing a poor job of trying to play it cool.
Reggie didn’t know where the napkin had gone to and he didn’t care. His leg bounced nervously as he waited for Quey to make his way out of the building and around to where the car was parked. It took fifteen minutes but it felt like hours.
“What is it?” Quey asked after opening the passenger’s side door but before he was completely settled in the seat.
“You have to see this,” the big man said and moved the sheet from the steering wheel to the dashboard between them then tapped the screen.
Quey saw Render stepping toward the camera with a wild face, his eyes caught in a fury. “We tried to be nice about this. We tried to be civil, truck driver.” Quey glanced at Reggie and the big man glanced back, then they both returned to the screen where Render was standing next to a Pickens and Zaul barrel of moonshine with orange light flickering across his face. “We tried to make things easy but you had to go and lie to us. Well let this be a warning, we found you out and let me tell you, if you think the bounty on you was high before, the man who put it there isn’t happy. We are not happy. Not one bit.” Render took a long sip of shine and reached forward, gripping the camera and ripping it out of someone’s hand. The screen jostled into a blur of motion then settled on Render’s enraged face. “You took us for fools. You played us as such and let me tell you truck driver,” he barked. “You can’t hide her forever! YOU! Can’t hide forever.” There was another blur of motion as the camera turned and settled on the Pickens and Zaul ranch and the two acres behind it burning wildly. Quey watched as flames leapt from every inch of the house, lighting the evening sky with brightness closer to late afternoon than middle of the night. The camera zoomed haphazardly in on the house, then scanned over to the two fenced-in acres. He could see the tops of the apple trees lit up like torches, the lemon trees burned like candles and below them all were the grape vines and the berry bushes slowly decaying from brilliant orange flames into smoldering embers.
Render turned the camera back to his face and said, “Thought this place was pretty tucked away, didn’t you? We found it, and what you were hiding here. We’ll find you,” he warned and the video ended.
Quey sat back in the seat numb and staring out the window at the road running left to right across his vision and the trees and bushes and lush green grass beyond it. He saw none of that. If you asked him then where he was he would have told you he didn’t know because the answer was in his head, trying to make sense of it. What had happened? How had the Brood found the ranch? Why burn it to the ground? What had he lied about? What had he hid in the ranch?
“You all right?” Reggie finally asked.
Quey nodded.
A Glance Back and Then Ahead
Quey had been quiet the whole way back to the inn where he went directly to the bar and did not pass go or collect two hundred dollars. By the time Reggie called Rachel, Dusty and Natalie—still at the medical facility—and filled them in on where they went and why and made it to the bar himself, Quey was already on his third round.
“Must be hard,” the big man said in as soft a tone as his deep voice could muster. “Watchin’ a place you called home go up like that.”
Quey shook his head and drank his third round in a single gulp. “You know,” he trailed off, as if he couldn’t bear to say what he had to next, and ordered another round with a gesturing of his empty glass. “I don’t mind the ranch burning,” he finally said as a full glass was set before him. “Never really had a mind to go back.”
“What’s got you then?”
“I told that psycho in the suit the truth about the girl they were looking for. What’s got me is why do they think I lied and how the fuck did they find the ranch to begin with? Place isn’t registered, and the area’s not well enough known that someone would point them to it,” he said then took a sip from his glass. “Seems sometimes my whole life has been one ass fucking after another.”
There was a moment of silence before Reggie ordered a drink of his own and said, “Make it a double.”
“I’m ready for this trip to be over. I’m ready to get back to the robotics compound and be done with this whole mess. Let Ryla decipher the data and see what comes of it. Load it into the signal and bust Blue Moon wide open or walk away satisfied, either way I’m ready for this shitstorm to end.”
“Funny thing about shitstorms,” Reggie said as a glass was set in front of him. He took a quick sip before adding, “They’re never light. You never get a shit drizzle, it’s always a fucking monsoon.”
Quey chuckled and Reggie felt better having seen that. “Tornado spewing hurricanes of shit,” Quey added.
This time it was Reggie who laughed, “With shit tidal waves.”
“And volcano’s erupting rivers of the stuff.”
“And it’s never just one.”
Quey nodded and both men drank slowly and silently for a spell. It was good catharsis: bitch a little, joke a little, drink a little and move on. By the time Rachel and Dusty came back from the field trip any ominous air there might have been around the two men was gone. What was left was an emphatic cheer for Rachel’s clean bill of health, though somewhere in the back of Quey’s mind he wondered what else Natalie had seen on that scan.
Dusty ordered another round of drinks and Quey let his curiosity go… though he did note
that Rachel didn’t touch her drink.
It was just starting to get dark when there was a knock at the door. Natalie had tomato sauce simmering on the stove and meatballs frying in a pan beside them, so she hurried through the living room to open the front door. Quey stood on her stoop, obviously floating at least knee deep in a bottle of something, judging by his sway and lean.
“Hey,” he said.
“Come in,” she invited hastily and started back toward the kitchen. “I have dinner on the stove,” she added.
He entered, closing the door behind him and wandered through the living room and into the kitchen. Steam rolled up from the pot and pan on the stove in heavy wafts that permeated the air with the scent of garlic, onions, tomatoes and herbs. He took a long breath and felt his stomach beg.
“Have a seat,” she said and he did, in the chair across from where she was working. “What brings you by?” she asked as she stirred her meatballs, browning them evenly on all sides.
“I was out walking and I smelled something delicious,” he joked.
Natalie laughed.
“No,” he said. “Really I wanted to…” He watched her stir her sauce before bringing the spoon to her lips, blowing, and giving it a taste.
“Yeah?” she asked, glancing at him.
He sighed. “Do you have any questions?”
She stopped. The air seemed to thicken. “Everything you told me is true?” she asked dully.
“Saw with my eyes and heard by my ears.”
Natalie nodded and finally replied, “Nope.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, standing. “I didn’t want to intrude, I just… we’re leaving tomorrow and I wanted to make sure…”
Natalie smiled at him. “Thank you. And you’re not intruding,” she continued after a brief pause, “As a matter of fact I insist you join us.”
The Saffron Malformation Page 32
