The Sovereign Era (Book 2): Pilgrimage

by Selznick, Matthew Wayne

  “Yeah! He’s in a spot…kinda ‘cause of me. I think. Not right.”

  Sandy said to Denver, “Do you think he could make a difference?”

  Denver pursed his lips and tilted his head, thinking. “It might. Not sure how it’ll turn out for Andy, though. Somebody’s going to jail for the deaths of those PrenticeCambrian guys.”

  To Andrew, he said, “They might decide you’re it. What then?”

  Andrew shook his tangled gray mane. “Self-defense. Self-defense.”

  Denver looked doubtful. “Yeah, well. It’s not about what happened. It’s about getting a jury to believe it happened the way your side says it did.”

  Andrew didn’t care about the particulars. “Need to go to the Sovereigns. Get help. Get to Nate. Work it out.” He looked at Denver. “Need you to take me, Denver. Right away.”

  Denver scowled. “Now, I told you before, Andy, that’s just not a good idea. Especially this week. And I can’t take you, man. You gotta find your own way this time.”

  “Come again?” Sandy looked at Denver. “Let’s start with why it’s a bad idea that Andrew get some help for himself so he can help his son.”

  “Well, let’s see.” Denver started ticking off on his fingers. “I’m depositioned in Lucy and Nate’s case, and in the Teslowskis’ case. Andrew here is a Federal fugitive considered armed and dangerous. The whole damn world has its eyes on the Donner Institute, what with the Sovereigns planning on making a big deal out of the anniversary this Friday. They’ve got their hands full with the press, and the crazies…and the crazies in the press.

  “And, for Christ’s sake, I’m a middle-aged man in a wheelchair whose face has been on television more than a few times thanks to the thing last year. I’m not the guy to be driving Andy across state lines and into the goddamn lion’s den.” He shook his head. “No way.”

  Andrew pouted. “Gonna take months if I have to hoof it. Can’t wait.”

  “Why not just call ‘em? Have ‘em come and get you. What’d you need me for, anyway?”

  Andrew recoiled in his seat. Potato-chip fragments fell from his lips. “Don’t like ‘em. Don’t trust ‘em.”

  Denver waved his hand at him. “Aw! They offered to help, Andrew, didn’t they? And you need them.”

  Sandy said, “Denver. He needs you.”

  Denver gaped at her. “It’s not a good idea, Sandy.”

  “I think it is.” She propped her elbows on the table top and leaned toward Denver. “This is a good idea for so many reasons, Denver—not the least of which is that your friend Andrew Charters is asking for your help.”

  He squinted at her. “You’re a sweet girl, Sandy, but that’s not all you are. What are you thinking?”

  “What am I thinking?” She smiled and sat back. She made Andrew flinch away when she tried to touch his shoulder, and settled for pantomiming a tap in the air between her palm and his body. “Even if I wasn’t thinking anything else, that’s enough of a reason. Andrew needs you.”

  Denver frowned and said again, “What are you thinking, Sandy?”

  “I’ll go with you,” she said. “As a member of the press.”

  “The Kirby Grizzly? Seriously?”

  “For starters. But a story like this? Don’t you think it’ll get picked up? Can you imagine how good it would be for Andrew’s family?”

  He snorted a laugh. “And for one Sandy Graves, former big-city reporter, not coincidentally.”

  Andrew sat in his chair, legs jumping, and watched them volley.

  “Sure,” she said. “I smell a story. Shit, it’s probably the biggest story of my life, and that, as you know, is saying something.” She lowered her voice. “But I’m serious, Denver. It’s just the right thing to do.”

  He rolled his eyes. “The right thing to do is pick up the phone and have them come and get him.”

  “No,” Andrew’s eyes were wide. “Don’t want to go with them. Don’t trust ‘em! Want to go to them. Need to be able to leave if I want. Need you to take me. You…only trust you. Won’t go otherwise. Gotta go…but…won’t go.” He was hyperventilating.

  “Easy, Andy,” Denver said. “Easy.” To Sandy, he said, “Even if we did…you can see it makes sense to wait until after Declaration Day, right? At least?”

  She shook her head. “I can think of no better time.”

  “You’re thinking about headlines!”

  “No!” She looked away when she denied it. “Mostly, I’m thinking about the boy. You saw him on that show.”

  Andrew said, “Show?”

  “He was on a television show,” she said. “He looked so…”

  “Sandy…” Denver’s voice carried a warning.

  She stopped. “He looked like a boy who could use his father.” She looked hard at Denver. “Right?”

  “We gotta go,” Andrew said. “You gotta take me. We gotta go.”

  Denver deflated. “Aw, hell. You’re being unreasonable. Both of you!”

  “We gotta go,” Sandy said. Her smile was thin.

  “Aw, hell,” Denver said again.

  Andrew looked at them both. He sensed Sandy was some kind of ally, and settled his gaze on her. “We can go?”

  She looked at Denver, who nodded, then back at Andrew.

  “Yes, Andrew,” she said. She looked back at Denver. “First thing tomorrow?”

  When he nodded again, she turned back to Andrew and wrinkled her nose.

  “Meanwhile, Andrew, we’re burning your clothes. You’re taking a bath, or six. And I’m going to see about that horrible hair of yours…”

  Andrew paled beneath his ratty beard and the layers of grime on his face.

  “A bath…?”

  Byron Teslowski – Five

  Byron found Haze playing Star Castles in the game room off the cafeteria. Despite what sounded like angry pieces of machinery leaking from her Walkman earphones, she turned around and faced him before he figured out how to announce his presence.

  She smiled when she saw his surprise. She clicked the stop button on the portable cassette player, pulled off her headphones, and said, “Body heat. I could feel you coming.”

  “Whoa. That’s pretty cool.”

  She shrugged, but her smile didn’t fade completely. “Eh. It’s only good when someone’s right up on me. Not all that useful.”

  “That’s the sort of thing Doc Mazmanian could probably help with. If you wanted.”

  Haze’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, so I can join the team? No thanks.”

  Byron shook his head. “I don’t know what you have against the SCET.” He felt a little hypocritical as soon as he said it.

  She looked at him. “Let’s get a pop or something. Walk with me.”

  They started toward the cafeteria. Byron laughed. “A what?”

  “What, what?”

  "’Let’s go get a’ what? What did you say?”

  “A pop,” she repeated. “A…what, a soda, a cola, an orange drink or something.”

  “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “Newsflash, doofus. Neither are you.”

  They helped themselves to fountain drinks in the cafeteria. “You got me there.”

  Haze led them out of the cafeteria and along the walkway connecting the Institute buildings. The air was a little brisk. Byron kind of wished he’d grabbed a hot chocolate instead of a cold drink.

  “Chilly,” he said.

  “Is it?”

  He remembered Haze generated her own heat. “Trust me.”

  “I didn’t feel like sitting around,” Haze said. “You mind?”

  “Nah. We can walk. It’ll give me a chance to try something—I wanna see if I can, like, adapt to the temperature.”

  Haze rolled her eyes. “Always on, eh, soldier boy?”

  “Not even,” he said. “No one asked me to try it; I just, like, thought I’d see.”

  “Asked, told, whatever.”

  He glared at her. “What’s your problem?”

  She si
pped at her drinking straw, eyes ahead. “No problem, dude. It’s cool.”

  They walked a few yards in silence before Haze said, “Anyway. How was your clubhouse meeting?”

  “A trip,” Byron said. “They’re worried people are gonna, like, start shit on Declaration Day.”

  She tilted her head. “Makes sense. Celebrating Declaration Day is stupid, given how pissed off so many people are about us. Can’t blame ‘em for wanting to shove it up our asses.”

  Byron didn’t want that to make sense to him. It made things a little too confusing. Better to have clear teams, shirts and skins, Sovereign and human, right and wrong. He felt like he was playing devil’s advocate, but hell, he was committed, right?

  “Haven’t they been fucking with us for a while, though? We can’t let them just do whatever, right?”

  Haze laughed. “Seriously, Byron. Before you came here, weren’t you, like, some high-school football hero, or something? Tell me all about how the humans totally beat you down, dude. I can’t wait.”

  She was doing it again—making him feel stupid. “Well…not, like, me, like, specifically. But Donner says—"

  “Donner says!” She chuffed. “Yeah, yeah. Another rich white guy who probably hasn’t dealt with anything worse than a parking ticket his whole fucking life. Gimme a break.”

  “Maybe, but…look, right before I came here, people were totally after me. This guy, this doctor dude, he totally wanted to lock me up and, like, fuckin’ experiment on me and shit.”

  Haze sobered. “Yeah, okay.” She nodded. “I grok. You went through some shit. You’re national news, after all, you and your buddy.” She stopped walking and looked at him. “You get it, though, right? Why they’re afraid of us?”

  Byron’s mouth twisted. “Yeah. It’s…shitty. But…yeah.”

  “So…us making a big deal out of Declaration Day, it’s like rubbing their noses in it, y’know?” She grimaced. “It’s all ego.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” Byron looked at her. “But no matter what, we can’t just, I don’t know, let people try to hurt us.”

  A ripple of heat came off her, and she sneered. “Let ‘em try.”

  “Easy for you to say, right? You’re, what, Standard?”

  “I don’t know. I keep blowing off the tests.”

  Byron rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Point is, you can take care of yourself. Not everybody can.” He pointed vaguely in the direction of the Visitors’ Center. “Plus, what about all the regular people who work for the Institute?”

  “What about them? If I was a Norm, I’d totally call in sick on Friday. Not worth it.”

  “They won’t have to. We’ll be there.” Byron paused. “Well, not, like, me…but Kelso and that Schulmann guy, plus Croy…they’ll be watching out for everybody.”

  Haze’s lips turned down, and she shook her head. “They’re just gonna make it worse.”

  “Why?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, seriously!”

  Haze took a deep breath and looked off to her left, at nothing, for a second or two. “Check this out: let’s say there’s a big demonstration, anti-Sovereign yahoos on one side and a bunch of us on the other side.”

  Byron nodded. “That’s pretty much what’s gonna go down.”

  “Yeah. It’s totally predictable. Plus, our side’s gonna have a bunch of newbies. You’ve seen ‘em coming in; half of them don’t even speak English. That’s gonna make it even worse.”

  Byron hadn’t thought of that, but it made sense. “Okay. Sure. Whatever…the SCET…”

  “Hold on.” She held up a hand. “I’m not done.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So they get all preachy at each other, and maybe throw some rocks or whatever. Normal demonstration, the cops are there to keep the two sides apart, right? Nobody really wants to get arrested or get their head bashed in, mostly, so it never really gets out of hand.”

  “I guess.” Byron thought he had her. “But—that’s just it! When one of the cops is a dude like Kelso…fuck, who’d want to mess around with him?”

  She shook her head violently. “No, no, no, no. Byron, dude: the cops aren’t on anybody’s side. Your new buddies aren’t cops, man. They’re not neutral.”

  He laughed, but it sounded a little weak to his own ears. “They’re the Sovereign Conduct Enforcement Team Alpha,” he said. “They’re supposed to enforce our conduct—make sure we’re on the straight and narrow. Not take the place of regular police. People know that.”

  She clicked her tongue. “Dude, not even you really believe that.”

  Byron remembered how eager Schulmann and Kelso sounded to have a chance to defend Sovereigns from Normals.

  “It’s…” He saw triumph rising in her expression. Damn, it made him mad. He let that anger push down his uncertainty down.

  “It’s what we’re for, Haze. Fuck. Why do you have to assume the SCET’s gonna get all fucked up?”

  “Because they can, Byron. Absolute power, blah blah blah.”

  He frowned. “What? You’re not even making sense.”

  She looked mildly disgusted with him. “Read a book, dude. Fuck.” She started walking fast back toward the apartment building. “Forget it. Forget it.”

  He trotted to catch up with her. “Wait up. Jesus.”

  She kept walking.

  “Haze. C’mon.”

  She stopped and turned to face him.

  “Y’know…I bet if we’d been at the same school…” Her eyes narrowed. “I bet you totally wouldn’t have even talked to me.”

  She was totally right. He couldn’t deny it.

  She must have seen it on his face. “Yeah. Thought so. You were a jock, after all, right? Fucking jock. I know exactly how it would have gone down.”

  “You don’t,” he said.

  “Bullshit,” she snapped. “You’re a jock, here, too, you know that, right? SCET, semper fi, honorifice perficite proprio actio…you’re the jocks of Sovereign high school.”

  Byron shook his head. “You’re fucking crazy. Why does that have to mean it’s automatically bad?”

  “Because people who can do shitty things eventually do shitty things,” Haze said. “Tell me you never did, when you could. Tell me you’re some perfect exception, Byron letterman jacket jock hero Teslowski.”

  Byron thought of all the fucked-up things he’d done to Nate Charters over the years. Goddamn it, he didn’t want her to be right. She was too fucking sure of herself.

  Besides, he’d learned. He’d totally grown up. He’d changed. She had no fucking idea.

  No fucking idea.

  “You’re a fucking bitch.” He moved past her, brushing her shoulder just a little, and strode for the apartment building.

  Her heat lingered on his shoulder, through his jacket.

  Marc Teslowski – Nine

  Traffic thickened on the narrow mountain road as Marc and Ray neared the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies Visitors Center. Half a mile or so before the gate, they were effectively parked on the road. Ray peered ahead through the windshield, then looked at Marc.

  “You okay with walking some?”

  “Sure.”

  Ray let a little space grow between his car and the back bumper of the pickup truck ahead of them. When there was just enough room, he cut the wheel to the right and pulled onto the dusty shoulder of the road.

  Ray cut the engine. Marc got out of the car and looked up and down the road. The cars stretched as far down the mountain as he could see. All coming to the Institute?

  How many of the people in those cars…weren’t people?

  Ray came around the front of his car and gestured up the road. “C’mon. It’s not far.”

  As they walked, it became clear that Ray hadn’t been the first to make the side of the road their parking lot. Before long, they were in a loose queue of people making their way to the Visitors Center.

  Marc overheard accents and languages he couldn’t place. Ray caught it an
d squinted thoughtfully.

  “The human family, like I said.” Ray nodded to a bedraggled young man in hiking boots and Dolfin shorts with a heavy backpack on his shoulders who looked like he might have walked all the way up the mountain. “Come from all over.”

  Marc’s skin crawled despite the light sweat he was building up. “Seems to me, if people come here from far away, they’re not who you think they are, Ray. I don’t know.”

  Ray glanced around. “Sure, there’s some devils in this bunch. There must be. But it’s just numbers, Marc. Just numbers. We outnumber them a thousandfold. Won’t be any different here.”

  Marc felt like he should keep his voice down. “Yeah, but why’d regular people make the trip? Why now?”

  “Same reason as the freaks.” Ray pointed ahead.

  Marc heard the crowd’s murmur as he followed Ray’s gesture and saw the people gathered by the entrance to the Visitors Center.

  Two clusters of people faced off, the road into the Center forming a convenient divide between them. A third group, the Donner Institute uniformed security force with which Marc was already acquainted, hung near the closed gate to the parking lot. Marc thought the traitorous bastards looked pretty damn nervous. Served them right.

  “Be cool,” Ray muttered to Marc as they threaded the needle down the driveway to the gate.

  Neither group of demonstrators was organized enough to be chanting or shouting slogans, but some of the people on the left had homemade signs. Marc saw one that read “Go Back to Hell” and another that demanded someone “Wipe Donner’s Shit Off Montana.”

  That meant the group on the right must be full of freaks.

  He surreptitiously looked as he and Ray walked past. The group, about fifty or so strong, was dirty and sullen and mostly quiet, and they all looked pretty much just like the group on the left.

  A pop, like the sound of a pressure hose being removed from the valve stem of a car tire, made Marc jump just a little. A weird, yellowish ball of light rose up out of the crowd on the right to float above their heads.

  It looked like a dirty soap bubble made of piss or weak cat puke, only…shimmering. The crowd on the left—the people on the left—were surprised into silence.

  Marc felt very exposed.

  The bubble of light popped soundlessly. Marc flinched. He heard gasps and groans from the human demonstrators and laughter from the presumed Sovereigns and their sympathizers.