The Sovereign Era (Book 2): Pilgrimage

by Selznick, Matthew Wayne

  He ran around to the driver’s side of the car. He reached for the car door latch and just felt the cold metal on his fingertips when Drake slammed into him.

  They hit the ground rolling. Drake’s bare arms were slick with bird shit and blood. It made it hard to get a grip on him.

  At least he didn’t have the gun.

  Drake’s flag-draped hands wrapped around Marc’s neck. The kid’s face was pocked and cut and bloody. One of his eyebrows was loose, and the top of his right ear was mostly missing.

  Strong hands. Marc felt the edges of his vision getting dim.

  But both his hands were free. He used them to pound on Drake’s sides, but that didn’t give the kid enough grief to let go.

  Marc got smarter. He grabbed that bloody ear and twisted as hard as he could.

  That did it. Drake howled and loosened his grip.

  “Off of me!” Marc pushed him hard and rolled away. Panting, he got to his feet.

  The birds, a black, undulating ball of noise and rage, found Drake.

  Marc scrambled into the car. His throat hurt like hell. He found and disengaged the brake and dropped his foot on the gas pedal. The back end of the car fishtailed in the dirt for a couple seconds before the tires found some traction.

  Marc had to go past the main house to get to the only road off the ranch that he knew. The revelers either hadn’t been alerted or just gathered something wasn’t right when he flew past pushing eighty miles per hour.

  The exit of the ranch was blocked by a long wooden gate.

  Marc made a sound that was equal parts groan and scream and leaned into the steering wheel. He drove through the gate. The sound of wood and metal grinding and breaking was very loud inside the car. The impact vibrated through him.

  He was on the road.

  After the sound of the birds, the screaming, and the collision of the gate, the comparative calm of the car’s engine and the wheels on the road made his ears ring.

  From the back seat, Eddie Schwippe croaked, “Action…hero…”

  Marc laughed, then winced. Fucking kid nearly crushed his larynx back there.

  Marc Teslowski – Thirteen

  Marc aimed the car for the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies.

  What choice did he have? Eddie Schwippe was beat to hell. Marc bet they’d let him through the gates if he showed up with a Sovereign in very damn serious need of medical attention.

  He grimaced as he focused hard on the slice of the mountain road in the arc of the headlights. He couldn’t deny that Schwippe might not have been trussed up in Ray Greene’s barn for the last few days if Marc had done something when he and the scarecrow Sovereign first arrived in Missoula.

  Marc thought about the albino girl.

  “You are one lucky son of a bitch,” he muttered to the prone form lying on the back seat.

  Marc was surprised to hear some movement back there, and a soft groan.

  “Thanks…”

  Marc didn’t need to hear that. Didn’t want to hear that.

  “Just go to sleep. Let me drive, for chrissake.”

  If Schwippe said something else, the words were drowned out by a loud and rhythmic clanking coming from somewhere under the hood. The engine seized seconds later.

  “Fuck!”

  Apparently driving a car through a wooden fence at full speed and getting away without any serious damage wasn’t something that happened in real life. Marc brought the car over to the shoulder of the road in a controlled coast. He turned off the headlights.

  “Schwippe. I take it back. Wake up.”

  Marc turned and saw his passenger sit up slowly, moaning all the way. “We stopped.”

  “Yeah. We’re fucked.”

  “Where…where were we going?”

  Marc’s lip curled. “Donner Institute.” Not how he’d planned it. “Figure you need the help of your own kind.”

  Schwippe blinked the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. His whole face bunched slowly; the wince extended down to his shoulders, and the whole move looked like it hurt. He exhaled sharply and took a moment.

  “How…” Another moment. “How close are we?”

  “Too damn far.” Marc frowned. “And I don’t know if anyone’s after us.”

  Schwippe carefully wrapped his thin arms around his battered chest. “Probably…pretty cold out there.”

  “Sure. But it’ll stay warm in the car for a while, I guess.”

  Schwippe raised his head. “I think…we can’t stay in the car. I think we can make it. To the Institute.” He tried to lick his cracked lips. He cringed and gasped. “I think we have to.”

  Marc figured it probably wasn’t safe to just sit on the side of the road in one of Greene’s cars and wait for the crazy rednecks to show up with their guns. But…

  “You’re crazy. How’re we gonna get there? You can’t travel.”

  “Oh, I’ll travel.” He closed his eyes for a moment; opened them. “Given the alternative…there’s no alternative. Right?” He tried to smile.

  “You think you can walk all that way? We’re talking miles.”

  “With your help. Besides…it’s closer…as the crow flies.”

  Marc shook his head. “You’re punch-drunk. I can’t just set off hiking through the mountains in the middle of the night and find the place. What’re you thinking?”

  “What are you thinking? We’ll have help.”

  Schwippe looked past Marc, out the windshield. Marc turned around and jumped.

  An owl stood on the hood of the car. It blinked patiently and preened.

  “Jesus,” Marc said. “Seriously?”

  “Oh, yeah. Listen.” He tried to lean forward. It didn’t go so well. He tried to sigh, and it turned into a little grunt. “You did something good, Marc Teslowski. You saved me. You saved a Sovereign.”

  Marc looked away from Eddie’s one good, big, black eye. “Wasn’t thinking about it like that.”

  “My…” A grunt and flinch. “My point. So let’s…push the irony a little more and have my Sovereign ability save us both.”

  “So you can make birds do whatever you want?” It was fucking creepy.

  “Oh, hell. No. I…communicate with them, sort of.” He shifted his weight. “Just so happens they think I’m a pretty nice guy, I guess. They go along with my suggestions.”

  Marc shook his head. “More than that. They died for you.”

  Schwippe blinked hard. “Yes. They did.” His laugh was thin and short. “Who knew? Up until tonight, I have to admit,” he coughed, “I thought my Sovereign so-called ability was pretty weak.”

  His expression hardened. “Not anymore.”

  Marc didn’t have anything to say about that. They sat in silence for a couple of minutes until Marc decided they should get going if they were really going to do this. There was another problem, though.

  “Even if your pal out there can guide us,” he said, “and I don’t break an ankle on the way…it’s too cold. I can let you wear my jacket, but…”

  “I was thinking about that. I have a hunch. I bet if you look in the trunk, there’ll be a blanket or something. It’ll be better than nothing.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Those lunatics have a militia in the mountains of Montana. They probably have…stockpiles of freeze-dried food…” Schwippe did his cough and flinch thing again. "…in the basement. They’ll have an emergency kit in the trunk. I think.”

  Marc popped the trunk, got out, and looked. Schwippe was right.

  Byron Teslowski – Six

  Byron jerked awake. Wisps of his last dream dissipated in seconds and left him feeling confused and, for no reason he could figure out, a little sad.

  Someone was knocking—no, someone was pounding—on his apartment door. He sat up in the bed.

  “Hold on!” He slipped out of bed. “Coming…” He checked the clock; it was twenty after six in the morning.

  Byron opened the door. “Jon? What’s up? I thought…”r />
  Jon Schulmann looked like he’d been sick. “Need you now.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing good.”

  Schulmann waited in the doorway while Byron quickly dressed.

  “You’re not going to tell me what? Is it my dad again?”

  “I sure hope not.”

  Byron locked up. Schulmann was already walking down the hall. Byron trotted to catch up with him.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Dude!”

  “You want to hear it from Croy.” He shook his head. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Byron just met this guy day before yesterday, and he thought he was kind of a jerk, but this morning he seemed different. Worse.

  They left the building, and Schulmann led the way to a golf cart. Byron was surprised to see Haze leaning against it.

  They hadn’t said a word to each other since Wednesday. She didn’t exactly jump up and give him a hug. “You hear about it?”

  Schulmann broke in before Byron could respond. “Please get away from the cart. He’ll be briefed by Mr. Croy.”

  Fuck that.

  “No, Haze. Jon won’t tell me. What the hell’s going on?”

  Haze gave Schulmann a dirty look, then said to Byron, “They killed one of us.”

  “Aw, what? Who? When?”

  Schulmann got behind the wheel of the electric cart. “Get in, Byron. This is SCET business.”

  Byron sat down in the cart but kept one trainer on the pavement. He looked at Haze. “How’d you hear?”

  “Couple of guys I met, they work the infirmary night shift. Saw her brought in. Everybody on graveyard knows by now. It’s all they’re talking about in the cafeteria.”

  Schulmann said, “We’re going, Byron.”

  Byron pointed his thumb at the back bench of the cart. “You want to come?”

  “Yep.” Haze climbed aboard. Schulmann rolled his eyes but kept his mouth shut.

  ~

  Croy, Dr. Mazmanian, and Ed Kelso were ready for them inside the barracks. Croy wore field fatigues. Kelso wore a nightshirt big enough to serve as the mainsail of a clipper ship, reminding Byron that the giant was the only person who actually slept here.

  Byron wasn’t all that happy to see Derek Fontino there as well. He’d managed to avoid the DOD liaison all day yesterday, and no doubt the guy still wanted to meet with him. But this morning Fontino barely registered his presence.

  If Fontino was unwelcome, the presence of the fifth man was flat-out surprising. It was William Donner’s actual personal biographer, the newspaper guy, Ewing Kass. In comparison to Fontino’s crisp suit, Kass looked like he’d slept in his white dress shirt and chinos, or like he hadn’t slept at all. Still, for him to be there…he was almost Donner’s proxy.

  Doc Mazmanian raised an eyebrow when he saw Haze.

  “Ah…we were thinking this was going to be a little more just for SCET and Institute staff, Haze. Sorry…you can take the cart back if you want.”

  “And you can waste time trying to get me on it, Vic,” she looked pointedly at Schulmann, “or you can get on with it. I want to know what happened last night.”

  Schulmann rolled his eyes again. Mazmanian glanced at Croy, who hadn’t moved and didn’t respond to the drama. No surprise there. Mazmanian smiled slightly.

  “Well, I guess we’ll get on with it, then.”

  Croy seemed to take that as his cue.

  “Her name was Yvette Schwenck. Her body was recovered in a ditch on Highway 200, one third of a mile west of Garnet Range Road.”

  Vic Mazmanian said, “I believe she was thrown from a car.” His voice was low and not quite emotionless, but it just didn’t come naturally to him like it did with Croy. “She was killed when they drove back to run her over.”

  Schulmann asked, “Who did it?”

  Croy said, “That’s not known at this time.”

  Ed Kelso’s voice was like a rock grinder. “At what time will it be known, then?”

  Croy didn’t answer that directly. “We know of one other Sovereign expected at the Institute before today who has not arrived. We must assume he met a similar fate. We have also received reports from new arrivals this week of harassment from members of the local speciesist militia group.”

  Ewing Kass spoke up. “Rayford Greene’s people.”

  Croy didn’t respond; everyone knew Croy never responded to things he considered obvious, so maybe the comment was meant for the rest of them.

  “Hey,” Byron said, “that’s the guy you guys were talking about Wednesday.”

  “That guy’s the asshole your dear old dad’s been hanging out with, too,” Schulmann said.

  Byron found himself more than a little bugged by Jon today. “Look, my dad’s a fuckwit, and a total asshole…but he wouldn’t kill somebody. He’s all bark.”

  Mostly.

  Fontino stood with his legs slightly apart. He cupped an elbow in one hand and thoughtfully covered his mouth with the other. Byron thought he looked like a male model in a department store catalog.

  “You think the Schwenck killing is a message.”

  “I cannot speculate,” Croy said. “It is reasonable to assume that the local militia is involved. Possibly responsible. It is a given that group will be represented at the Visitors Center today. Provoked, violent engagement during Declaration Day festivities is expected.”

  “Figured as much,” Kelso said.

  “I have revised the agenda. We will not wait for an incident. The SCET will be onsite all day. I want you all back here and ready to deploy by 0830. Byron, you will accompany Mister Kelso and Mister Schulmann.”

  “I will?”

  Doc Mazmanian said, “You got fitted for your uniform yesterday, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, then.”

  Haze said, “Mister Croy.” Byron almost forgot she was there.

  “Yes.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Sure I can. How did we know where to find the girl’s body?”

  “Doctor Donner sensed her death.”

  That gave everyone in the room a little pause, except for Ewing Kass, who bowed his head, and Derek Fontino, who, Byron noticed, focused very hard on Spencer Croy.

  Haze seemed really tense. “Wait a minute. You said there was ‘one other’ Sovereign who was expected but hasn’t show up yet, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Back when I got here, I just, y’know, walked up to the gate. Did these two Sovereigns, like, call ahead, or something? Make an appointment?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Then…how—?”

  Croy anticipated her question. “Doctor Donner was aware of them.”

  Byron saw Haze’s eyes narrow and her face tighten. “I’m going with you guys.”

  Schulmann shook his head. “No way. Sorry. You’re not trained.”

  “I’m a Sovereign individual, by your boss’s made-up laws and by rules of the Compromise.” She strode up to Schulmann and got in his face. “You wanna stop me?”

  Byron felt the heat coming off of Haze from ten feet away. He saw beads of sweat pop on Schulmann’s face.

  “You really want to play firefly with me, girl?” Schulmann said.

  “You think I’m gonna wait for you to run and get your little suit?” Haze said.

  Kelso said, “Zing!” Schulmann reddened from more than the heat.

  Doc Mazmanian said, “Seriously? This is not the day for this kind of bickering.”

  Croy turned to Byron. “Mister Teslowski will vouch for Ms. Edgars. Or not.”

  Byron realized Haze had never told him her last name. “I—why me?”

  “Works for me,” Doc Mazmanian said. “You know Haze better than anyone here.”

  Croy just looked at him, waiting.

  Byron assumed this was another on-the-spot test he didn’t understand. It was stupid.

  “Like she s
aid. Who’s gonna stop her?”

  It wasn’t really a glowing endorsement. Haze’s sarcastic half-smile let him know she knew it, too.

  “Settled,” Croy said. “Oh-eight-thirty.”

  Schulmann immediately went to the golf cart and puttered off, back to the apartments. Byron yelled after him, “That’s cool, Jon! We’ll walk!” Quieter, he said, “Dick.”

  Haze went with Byron. Alone with her, he couldn’t put their fight out of his head.

  “I’m surprised you want to come with us.”

  “I have my reasons,” she said. “Don’t think I’m joining up or anything.”

  “I know.” Byron shook his head. “That girl. It’s totally fucked.”

  “Uh-huh.” She moved stiff and fast, practically power-walking.

  “It got to you, huh?”

  “They knew she was coming, Byron. Donner himself knew she was coming, and no one went to pick her up and make sure she got here. What is wrong with these people?”

  Byron thought about it. “That is fucked-up,” he agreed.

  She hawked and spat as they walked. “Something is, all right.” They reached the apartments. “I don’t have a stupid uniform, thank god. I’ll wait here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Happy fucking Declaration Day,” she growled. “And hurry up, because I cannot fucking wait to start burning shit.”

  From The Journal Of Nate Charters – Twenty Nine

  Less than a mile short of our destination, every vehicle crawling northbound on the two lane mountain road leading to the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies collectively surrendered. The road was a parking lot.

  “Looks like we walk from here,” I said.

  “This is gonna be a bitch,” Denver groused. “Shoulder’s not paved.”

  Sandy said, “Don’t fuss, Denver. We’ll wheel you right up the road. No one’s moving; it won’t matter.”

  Andrew growled quietly. “Lots of people. Lots.”

  That was for sure. Having left their cars behind, people streamed the last little way to the Visitors Center in clusters. It was as if we’d parked in the farthest lot from the gate of Disneyland…except I didn’t see any little kids anywhere.