The Sovereign Era (Book 2): Pilgrimage

by Selznick, Matthew Wayne

  “I am. Nate, open the trunk and give me the keys.”

  I did it. I was well-trained.

  It irritated me all to hell. But I did it.

  My dad carried Denver to the shotgun seat. We got out of there.

  From The Journal Of Nate Charters – Twenty Seven

  Denver’s friend was named Sandy. She got us out of the parking lot of the Super 8 and back on the 15 headed north without running into the cops.

  The atmosphere in the car was pretty tense for a while. For the first half-hour or so, Sandy’s observation that the Olds “beat the shit out of that old van” and Denver’s grouchy “that was my old van, and leaving it was a mistake” were the only things anyone said.

  I sat on the wide back seat, leaning against the door. It felt strange not to be driving. With Sandy driving, Denver sitting next to her, and me in the back, I had the odd sensation this was what most kids experienced the whole time they grew up: two parents in the front and you in the back. Not me, though.

  My whole life, I’d been told my father had died in a laboratory experiment back when I was a baby. In truth, he’d been driven out of his mind after undergoing something called the “augmentation regimen.” It altered his physiology to be more like a hunting animal than a human being. Before long, he shook off his handlers and lived like a hobo, or a hermit, or whatever, for the next fifteen years or so.

  Now he was a few feet away from me, on the far side of the car, staring out the closed window at the darkness and the lights.

  Somebody had to say something. I voted for me.

  “So…what do you think will happen to that Lou guy?”

  I saw Denver and Sandy look at each other. My father, still staring out the window, grumbled, “Shouldn’t be here.”

  “Who?”

  “You,” he snapped.

  I waited for more. A mile went by. I got tired of waiting.

  “I knew that guy was coming for you,” I said.

  “Could have handled it.”

  I didn’t understand why I was getting attitude from the crazy man.

  “Really.”

  He looked at me. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I…” Frustration welled up in me, and with it, to my horror, tears. “I fucking saved your life!”

  “Could have handled it.” Broken record.

  “You hid in the room!” It took deliberate effort to keep my voice steady. I would not lose it. I didn’t even understand why I was so worked up…unless you count the twelve hours on the road, the fighting off armed killers, seeing my father again, and so on and so forth. “You have no fucking idea… what I did to get—!”

  He turned to the window again.

  From the front, Denver said, “Nate, how in the heck did you find us, anyway?”

  “I came to Kirby Lake looking for this asshole.” No reaction from my father. “I…” How much to tell? It would all come out eventually. I wasn’t ready. “I figured out where you guys went.”

  “How?”

  “Just kind of…put it together. I saw his hair and old clothes in the trash—"

  “You went through my trash?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. I guess.” I took a breath. “I knew he’d been there, and now you were all gone—well, I didn’t know about you, Sandy,” little lie, “but I, um, like, waited around, and kind of just put it all together.”

  Denver looked over his shoulder at me. “You put it all together.”

  I nodded.

  “How’d you manage that, exactly?”

  “I…saw your notes. With the freeways and the motel.”

  His voice had a little iron in it this time. “How, again?”

  What the hell.

  “I kinda broke into your house.”

  Who really cared, now?

  Denver squinted at me, scowling, before turning back to face the front of the car.

  “Well, that’s great,” he said. “Are you wearing my shirt, by the way?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t even want to know why.”

  I saw Sandy glance at me through the rearview mirror. “Nate.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Whose car is this?”

  Fuck.

  “Denver’s next-door neighbor’s.”

  “Yep. Thought so,” Denver said. “How’d you get the keys?”

  I felt tight in my throat and all wobbly in my stomach. “Can I not say right now? I’d rather not say right now.”

  My father surprised me with a painful slap on my leg. I jerked.

  “Hey!”

  He watched my face. His crazy eyes seemed less nuts and very serious. Quietly, he said, “Whose blood?”

  Of course. He would have seen it on my pants. He could certainly smell it. I’d blocked it out hours ago.

  The urge to break down hit me again. I bit my lip.

  “Can I really not say right now?”

  He kept staring at me. Every couple of seconds, he tilted his head to the left or the right. Like a curious dog. His nostrils twitched.

  He leaned toward me. I didn’t have anywhere to go. I could feel his breath on my ear.

  “Evelyn.” He must have heard the name, back on the hillside. “Right?”

  He pulled away and went back to studying my face.

  I nodded once. I had to blink; the tears were there, but I was doing a really bang-up job of not bawling.

  Denver said, “Blood?”

  “Wait, Denver.” My father’s rasp was a little less crazy. I remembered what I’d heard him say, last year, after the big fight outside my grandmother’s cabin. That his grip on his sanity comes and goes. Sure seemed like this was a different guy right then.

  To me, he said, “I didn’t want that to happen. Should have been there.”

  I laughed on reflex and immediately had to sniff hard when snot threatened to bubble out of my nose. “Just missed you, I guess.”

  “Should have been there.”

  I’d been around my dad maybe an hour and a half, in total, my entire life, so it’s not surprising I’d never seen the expression on his face I saw then.

  He looked very sad. My chest hurt for him.

  “I…lately…” I wiped my nose on my sleeve. “Lately, I’ve kinda…not been myself. The stuff…the parts like you…it’s been stronger. I thought if I could talk to you…”

  I sighed. “That’s why I was in Kirby Lake. I figured I’d talk to Denver and see if he knew where you were, or if he could help me find you.”

  My dad sat back a little. He laughed. I heard Denver chuckle briefly, too.

  “What?”

  “S’why I went to Denver,” my dad said. “Why we’re going to Donner.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t get it. Sorry…”

  “Wanted to help you,” he said. He looked down—suddenly bashful? I was captivated. “Wanted to…get a grip. First.”

  Denver filled in the blanks. “He got a bug up his butt that he should be in your life more. But to do that, he’d have to come in from the cold, as they say in the John LeCarre books. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So he talked us into taking him to see Donner’s people, to see if they could help him get his…nature…under control. Make sense?”

  I looked at Andrew Charters. He glanced at me, then back at the dark floor of the car. A tentative smile twitched on his lips.

  “Yep,” I said. I laughed a little; I didn’t know what else to do with the feelings flowing and shifting and slipping around in my head. I sniffed again; I was still crying a little.

  I felt like I should do something, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to hug the guy. We weren’t there just yet.

  I shoved his shoulder.

  “Thanks, and stuff,” I said.

  Marc Teslowski – Ten

  Marc barely saw Ray around the house on Thursday. The place was crazy with Ray’s follow-ons running around preparing for a big party at the ranch that night, a windup for when they joined
the protesters at the Institute on Friday.

  Marc stayed out of the way. No one asked him to help with the preparations, and everyone he ran into made it clear they thought of him as an honored guest, and that he should just put his feet up. Still, all the activity made him uncomfortable, and not just because he wasn’t helping with anything.

  Whether they were just doing regular chores around the house, coming back from “down the hill” with kegs of beer, boxes of chips, bags of ice, and loads of other party supplies, or having impromptu planning sessions in the hallways about their plans for Declaration Day rabble-rousing, all of Ray’s family and followers seemed lit up like Bible thumpers knocking on the door on Sunday morning.

  It was damn disturbing. Marc felt like he was a bystander in Jonestown, the night before the Kool-Aid got passed around.

  Marc had reasons to hate the Sovereigns. Real-life, personal, firsthand reasons. They’d insulted him by taking Byron, taken a swipe at his balls by maybe taking advantage of his son’s normal teenage rebellious tendencies…all probably because of Byron’s involvement with the Charters kid.

  Marc had never figured that part out, but who knew how the freaks thought, or what kind of plans their leader had in his head? It sure as hell made more sense than the bullshit idea that Byron was actually one of them.

  But Greene and his people…their hate, it was like religion or something. The people running around the house today, and the new ones coming in, they all had a light in their eyes that was just a little too nutty.

  It wasn’t personal for them. It was bigger than personal.

  And that was crazy.

  A few times through the day, Marc considered picking up a phone and getting himself a taxi back down to Missoula. He could call Jeri, have her wire some money. He was pretty sure she’d started her own bank account a while back, on the sly. He hadn’t given a shit, so long as she was quick to give up whatever she’d stashed away whenever he decided to ask for it.

  Now might just be the time.

  On the other hand, he wanted to be at the Institute tomorrow. He figured all the confusion of the celebration and speeches and yelling back and forth would give him his best chance to slip through the Visitors Center and, hell, just walk up the road to the damn place. Start knocking on doors.

  And if Greene had something balls-out crazy planned—something dangerous—the same basic plan applied. Marc would rather be in a position to get Byron out of there than hear about it all on the news the next day.

  So he’d ride it out with the weird, culty, “speciesist” crazies. At least they’d saved him a few days of hotel and rental-car fees.

  Marc took a nap, walked around the grounds and watched the place get transformed for the night’s festivities, helped himself to a beer or two, and watched a little television. When the sun went down, he wandered out and joined the first of the revelers.

  Almost immediately, someone put a beer in his left hand and a plate loaded with a hot dog and some potato salad in his right. There was backslapping. People wanted to shake his hand and get their picture taken with him.

  Crazy fuckers.

  A country-and-western band—not one of those toe-step-kick faggoty urban cowboy outfits; these guys had a little southern rock in their sound—started up on a bandstand that hadn’t been there when Ray had given him the tour the day before. Marc stood around and listened to them for a bit, then moved from group to group, accepting beers (and the occasional shot) when they were offered.

  After a few hours, Marc had a pretty good buzz. He made sure to visit the guys manning a row of smokers and barbeque grills so he could keep a little bit of food in him, and every third beer, he downed a plastic bottle of water. The buzz was good, a party was a party, but he didn’t want to get shitfaced. There was work to do tomorrow.

  It was some time after nine o’clock when he heard a ruckus swell up out of a cluster of rednecks near the house. Somebody let out a rebel yell, and there were a lot of whoops and hollers. Somebody started up a chant of “Speech, speech!” and the rest of the crowd took it up.

  “What the fuck now?” Intrigued and amused, Marc hung near the back of the crowd and waited for something to happen.

  Ray Greene climbed up on a picnic table in the middle of the crowd and the chanting dissolved into cheers, applause, and shrill whistles. Grinning, Greene let them go for a few seconds before he raised his arms.

  “All right, all right!” The crowd calmed down. Marc noticed more people gathering; he was no longer on the outskirts of the audience but right in the middle of it.

  “All right,” Greene said again. “I hadn’t planned on saying anything…but you folks, all you beautiful people—all you beautiful human beings—how can I say no to all of you?”

  Someone off to Marc’s left shouted, “Humanity!” The crowd whooped it up in a quick swell as Greene nodded.

  “Damn right. Humanity…and we’re the best of it, right here. I’m damn privileged to see so many of us in one place, gathered as we are to celebrate our purity so that, united in our resolve and fellowship, tomorrow we’ll be ready to show that devil’s nest we will not go quietly into extinction!”

  Marc looked around at the men and women gallivanting around him and wondered how many would actually show up for protesting after they woke up hungover.

  “In fact,” Greene went on, “in fact…some of you out there—I see your faces, I recognize you from snapshots in your cards and letters—some of you have taken the battle for human supremacy personally. Some of you have met the enemy, right up close…” He raised a fist and shook it. "…and you gave ‘em what-for!”

  Applause erupted. Marc saw some people exchange high-fives and backslaps. Boots stomped the dirt.

  “Speaking of that very thing…” Greene scanned the crowd. “Where’s Scott Pond? Where the hell is he?” Greene grinned wickedly. “Don’t tell me you’re not out there, Scotty; I paid for your damn plane ticket!”

  Laughter rippled. A hand shot up from the crowd. “Over here, Ray!”

  Ray swept his arm in a wide gesture. “Get up here, Scotty! Get up here! Get him up here!”

  The crowd got crazy, stomping and clapping. Scott Pond found himself lifted up and crowd-surfed to the picnic table, where he found his feet next to Greene.

  Greene shook his hand. Pond got into the spirit of things and pumped his fist in the air and whooped.

  The crowd settled down as Greene resumed speaking.

  “Scotty’s been a big supporter; a great long-distance friend of The Good Human from the beginning. I’m so pleased he’ll be by my side tomorrow morning…and I tell you what, it was a bit of providence that Scott flew into town today.”

  Greene paused and scanned the faces in the crowd. “Do you want to know why, my friends?”

  An obligatory sweep of applause.

  “Well, fine. I’ll tell you. Arby and I drove down to meet Scotty today—I’d get Arby up here, too, but he’s taking care of another…heh…very special guest we have here tonight—you’ll find out about that later. They’re the guest of honor!”

  Marc thought maybe Greene was talking about him, but he hadn’t seen Arby all day, and anyway, Marc wasn’t a big deal to the speciesists after he’d been palling around with them all night.

  “Anyway…Arby and I meet Scott, and we’re driving back from the airport along Reserve Street, talking ‘bout how much fun we’re gonna have tonight and what’s on the plate for tomorrow and such and like…and we see her. A woman.”

  Greene winked. Hoots and catcalls came from the crowd. He waved his hands and shook his head. “Nah, c’mon! I’m a widower, friends! Besides…I should have said: something that almost, mind you, almost, looked like it might pass for a woman!”

  Hisses and boos.

  “That’s right. You got it; smart bunch, you bet.” Greene nodded slowly. “It was a Sovereign, right there in broad daylight, bound for the devil’s nest, and…wrap your heads around this one, my friends: it was hitchhiki
ng!”

  A quieter wave of commentary from the crowd at that. They were hooked.

  “So, hell, we did what any decent human being would do. We pulled over and offered that thing a ride.”

  Marc heard more than a few lecherous asides from here and there. Greene let a wry grin flow across his lips as he shook his head.

  “Nope, nope…even if I wasn’t a widower and Scott here wasn’t married and Arby…well, wasn’t so damn shy…believe you me, friends, no one would think of having relations with this creature.

  “It was so pale, its skin was almost blue, with all the veins running like, I don’t know, maybe like a roadmap, underneath, plain as day. It didn’t have no lips—and I don’t mean they were thin, I mean it when I say it didn’t have no lips, period. Just a slit for a mouth.

  “It had the devil’s mark, too, my friends. Plain as day. The thing’s eyes—the pupils were like what you see looking at a snake.”

  Greene shivered theatrically. “Damn disturbing. Inhuman. But we saw an opportunity there with it. So we swallowed our natural revulsion, faked big good-ol’-boy smiles, and got it in the car.” He laughed. “Arby had a hard time of it, with it back there with him in the back seat. He didn’t like that one bit.”

  Greene put his arm around his guest. “Scotty, why don’t you tell a little bit. I need a drink.” He looked out at the crowd. “Does anyone know where a man can find a drink around here?”

  People fell over themselves to get a beer in Greene’s hands while Pond coughed into his hand, smiled a little nervously, and took up the story.

  “Well…so, we get it in the car, and everyone makes sure to act friendly and interested and sympathetic while it gives us a sob story…comes from some little town in Wisconsin, no one likes it, parents won’t talk to it, boo-hoo-hoo.

  “I won’t speak for Mister Greene—"

  “Call me Ray, you son of a bitch,” Ray interjected. The crowd laughed. Ray pounded about half his beer.

  Pond grinned. “All right, all right! So I won’t speak for Ray or Arby, but I was a little worried about what kind of trickery it might have up its sleeve, what its Sovereign ability was.

  “We didn’t need to worry about it, after all. It said it didn’t know if it could do anything…that it just started changing one day and couldn’t take it anymore, poor albino, snake-eyed freak, and that’s why it was headed for the devil’s nest: to see if they could tell it what kind of curse it carried.”