Chapter 58: Dr. Persey, defrosting patients, decides to defrost a leopard as well.

Dr. Persey was happy. It was Sunday, and he was doing God’s work. Having made it through the ordeal at Church Headquarters, he was following the orders he had received there. Ralph Bishop wants revivals, he thought to himself, Ralph Bishop will get them.

It was so exciting to get the Lab so full of life. All those years of his footsteps echoing lifelessly back to him in the empty hallways – the utter barrenness of the place – were now reversing with each miracle he performed. And each one was a miracle, each one death to life, each one like a birth; together, he convinced himself, making up for the first one that got away. He began to see the Lab as his now, filling up with his children. And he was proving himself quite virile. He was up to seventy-two now. Saint Luke had nothing on him.

Like a virgin on his wedding night, Dr. Persey had been reviving patients all day Friday and Saturday, and all Sunday morning. He had waited decades for the act of thawing his patients, and once he started doing it, he could do little else, despite how tired he got.

Patty’s working out well, he thought when he heard her buzzing him. A lot better than Laura had. The traitor. He hoped Grey didn’t kill her, and he got to deal with her himself.

“The security people are here, Dr. Persey.” Patty’s voice sounded tinny through the intercom.

“Have them get right to work. No escapees this time, right Patty?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dr. Persey resumed his work. He had, of course, started with those patients who had no immediate families. This was in keeping with Bishop’s orders. He set these patients aside for later experiments. But instead of stopping with them, he had let the media whore in him come out and play.

Dr. Persey had been a devoted employee of the Church for over thirty years, carefully and meticulously doing his job. Yet despite all of his selfless commitment, Ralph Bishop’s faint praise in the conference room was the first word of thanks he had received for all that he had accomplished; granted, it had come from the top. A bit drunk on that first sip of applause, he decided he liked it, and wanted more. After all, he was literally raising the dead. Such a miracle shouldn’t – couldn’t – go unnoticed.

Dr. Persey thought about the Golden Child’s press conference. The Church’s media machine hadn’t even showed the doctor’s picture, let alone interviewed him. Surely the good doctor performing this magic should be recognized. Dr. Persey wanted more than the bland propaganda the Church’s media spit out. But how could he get the independent media to praise him?

Quickly, the answer came. Those damned independents were always blathering about the environment, about animals, about extinction. What if he resurrected an animal? One the world hadn’t seen for two decades? That would get him on the front page; the man who brought the extinct back to life. Now, he only had to figure out which of his menagerie were truly extinct.

There’s a magazine that lists them, he thought, now where did I put it?

Chapter 57: Grey & John are in a subaqueous cave in the quarry. Grey plans his escape.

Copper. Victor Grey smelled copper. It filled his head, blocking out all other smells. Wondering how long he had been passed out, and thankful he was above water when he had, he looked around him. There was very little light, but from what he could see, and smell – the water was still dripping out of his sinuses – he reasoned he was in an old copper mining cave.

When he and Johnny Rotten plunged into the water in the gorge, Johnny’s grip had slackened. Johnny went dead, as far as Grey could tell. The speed and direction of their descent had propelled them into an underwater cave. From there, it was a short distance to the water’s surface, and now they were in a subterranean cavern. Johnny’s body must have retained some grip on him, or at least been taken by the current Grey created when he came to the surface, because it was there too.

Grey could hear his men screaming like frightened children. Their voices sounded as if they were far away, and were hoarse, like they had been at it for hours. Grey cried out to them to no avail. His voice resonated in the cave, echoing back to him, hurting his ears. Either their own screams blocked Grey’s, or the cavern’s walls blocked the sound from escaping. He checked for his phone – gone. Probably at the bottom of the gorge.

Johnny’s body lay in the water at Grey’s feet. It was underwater, but it rested on a gradual incline leading up to where Grey sat. It was so pale, Grey thought he could see right through it to the other side. Maybe it was a trick of the light.

Grey pulled the body from the water. He felt like he was dragging a statue. As the body emerged, Grey noticed that the water had colored its skin. In addition to being translucent, Johnny was now a patina green. He looked like the alien Grey had once seen pictures of.

Grey turned Johnny over and water rushed from his mouth and nose. No wonder he’s so heavy, Grey thought. Well, at least he had him now. He finally had half his quarry again, albeit the less valuable half. And he wouldn’t get away from him this time. He wondered if Johnny was any use to the Church if he was dead – really dead now, not like before. Moreover, he wondered if he was any use without the Golden Child.

Grey looked around the cave again. The sunlight that filtered in came from above. Far above. The opening must have been at least fifty feet up. Even if he could somehow reach it, there was no way to know if he could fit through the hole it was coming through. But there was another source of light. It trickled in from the water, filling the cave with an ethereal, silvery-green glow.

Grey made up his mind to exit the way he had come in. But what about Johnny Rotten? How was Grey supposed to drag him through the water? Sitting down, he tried to figure it out.

As he sat, he looked at Johnny’s body. He suddenly realized that if Johnny had some sort of disease, he had probably caught it by now. Angry, he kicked at Johnny’s body with his foot. Standing up, he put his hands on his hips, trying to devise a plan.

Just when he thought he had figured out what to do, Johnny reached out and grabbed his ankle.

Part Three: The Others

A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man.

-Algernon Charles Swinburne, Hymn to Proserpine

Whither depart the souls of the brave

that die in the battle,

Die in the lost, lost fight,

for the cause that perishes with them?

-Arthur Hugh Clough, Amours de Voyage

Chapter 56: Ralph Bishop's son wakes up as an Other.

Ralph Bishop Junior woke up with a hangover. His head felt as if someone had poured kerosene in his ears, soaked his brain in it, and taken a blowtorch to it. It was still smoking, and Ralph was determined to douse the flames.

He called the nurse, who wrapped him in his bed sheets, placed him in his wheelchair, and wheeled him from his bedroom to the kitchen. The nurse got him a glass of water...

Chapter 55: David, etc. drive south; read about the Church's plan to defrost other patients.

David, Laura, and Donna drove toward the Lab. Despite the hurry they were in to get there, Donna kept pace with the few cars around them, not wanting to attract unwanted attention. Laura flipped on the radio to settle their nerves.

“Turn that up,” David called from the back. Donna, driving, complied.

“Is this David Michaels? This symphony was playing in my head when I woke up Friday night.” David listened intently.

Laura answered him, glad the subject had changed from their shock over John’s sacrifice, and eager to talk about something else. “It’s not David Michaels, it’s Michaels & David. They play every kind of music – classical, rock, pop – it’s two guys named Michael and a guy named David. They’re kind of a spooky group, if you ask me.”

“Why’s that?” David asked curiously.

“Well, they seem to have a common thread throughout their music, no matter what kind they play. I don’t know, it’s kind of like they’re saying over and over again that there’s a certain amount of pain and misery in the world and every day we have the choice of increasing it or decreasing it. And this guy David – when they were touring as a rock group, at the end of each concert he would get up on this huge cross and put his arms out like he was being crucified. The crowd loved it, but it kind of freaked me out.”

“I think we better stop soon, guys – my eyes are getting fuzzy.” Donna interrupted. “I haven’t driven this far in years.”

“Can we afford to stop?” worried Laura.

“No use getting there exhausted,” David said. “Let’s pull over at the next motel. I could use some sleep myself.”

The sun was going down, painting the sky crimson, when Donna nosed the Bug into one of the motel’s parking spaces. “I’ll check us in. You two sneak Hannibal in once I get the keys,” Donna said, getting out of the car.

She returned a moment later, saying, “You’re now David Bowie,” to David, “and you’re Laura Branigan,” to Laura. “Me,” she said, unlocking the room and letting them go by her, “I’m Donna Summer.”

Hannibal was hungry and crying, and Donna left to get him some food. She returned later with cat food, and some dinner and beer for the rest of them.

The room had a phone, but David found himself staring at it blankly, not being able to think of a single soul he wanted to get in touch with – except the one that had sacrificed himself for David’s sake.

Working on his second beer, thinking about John, he peeled the label off easily. The label was a perfect circle with a tiny notch at the top and bottom. It was black, with a picture drawn on it in lines and spirals that were blue. It was a number of images all combined, and looking closer, David picked out the profile of a quarter moon on the right side of it. The moon looked dead, its tongue hanging out, and had a spiral for an eye. Around the eye were tiny stars. The bottom of the moon was drawn in such a way that it was also an eye – a human eye – looking menacingly to the right. At the top of the moon was a bird that looked like it was on fire. It was flying toward another, smaller moon, but one that was alive. On the left side of the label, as if to balance out the dead moon, was another spiral with a fish drawn near its center. The name of the beer was written in increasingly smaller letters, from the edge of the label to its center, also in a spiral. The name read “Blind Faith.”

David tried to sense if John was dead and could feel nothing. He thought about Hannibal’s attack on John, how he hadn’t bled from the deep cuts. He wondered if John could die – he was more like something out of a horror novel than a human being.

Deciding they all needed some sleep, they retired.

Donna returned to the room with coffee in the morning, nearly dropping it in her angry excitement to show them the Sunday paper she had picked up.

Cold with horror, Laura and David read, in huge black type, the headline:

CHURCH “DEFROSTING” A SUCCESS!

HUNDREDS IN LINE TO REVIVE THEIR RELATIVES

Chapter 54: Grey's army falls into the trap. John dives into the lake wrapped around Grey.

Grey’s Army was startled. They had been facing the cabin, but now turned and started heading through the woods in the direction they had heard someone shouting from. Grey stopped them in their tracks.

“Careful, men. It might be a trap, or a decoy. Don’t forget our little run-in with the tracker and the toilet.” After a moment, he ordered them to proceed.

Grey marched behind them, flustered by the deluge of smells in the forest. No time for that now, he told himself. He came to a clearing in the woods. Ahead was a field, and beyond that, a huge outcropping of rock. He instantly deduced that that was where they must be, and proceeded in that direction.

“They’re taking it. Oh boy, they aren’t too bright after all, are they?” Donna turned toward David and Laura, chuckling. She stopped quickly once she had fully turned around. “Where’s John?”

“Jesus, I wasn’t paying attention when we ran back here. Did you see where he went?” David was worried.

Laura shook her head.

Without warning, David felt every ounce of energy leave his body. He dropped as if he had been shot.

Grey and his Army ran toward the field. His men were quick-marching as he had trained them, in a line straight across, paced ten feet apart. He was still marveling at their good form when one of them disappeared – evaporated – from his sight. It was so quick, he couldn’t even react.

One by one, only milliseconds apart, he saw the battalion he was following swallowed up whole by the Earth. Stopping instantly, he stood dumbfounded. What is going on here? He took a step backward, scanning the outcropping for signs of life. He had seen some crazy weapons in his time, but one that vaporized people instantly? No, that couldn’t be right. He replayed his Army’s disappearance in his head. They were gone instantly, but didn’t exactly disappear. No, they seemed to fall. He stopped the tape playing in his head. On the still shot, he could see his men. One was gone up to his knees. Another to the waist. Another was just a head. They sunk.

Grey scanned the ground and instantly cursed himself. They were in such a hurry to get up there that they didn’t even see them. They weren’t even camouflaged. Grey spied the projection devices, stark white, every twenty-five feet. As he was mentally struck by the irony that not only had the Church developed the system his Army was fooled by, but that this whole place looked like a scene from a movie he had seen last week, his body was physically struck as well.

Someone had come from behind him, the inhuman force of their body hitting Grey’s without stopping, their arms wrapping around him like tentacles. Grey’s arms were pinned to his sides. The smell was overwhelming. Although he couldn’t crane his neck to see him, he knew who was holding him in this death grip. Johnny Rotten.

John’s pace barely slowed. He traversed the final ten feet that had been Grey’s saving span in seconds. Grey and John, intertwined, disappeared into the field.

“Whoa, was that John?” Donna adjusted her viewing device, disbelieving what it showed her. “Shit.” She ran to the shed and shut the system down. The field dissolved and the gaping maw of the gorge replaced it.

She looked toward Laura and saw her kneeling down next to David. He was patting his chest and stomach as if feeling for a bullet wound.

“What happened?” Donna asked when she got closer.

“I think John just proved my theory that he can take it all from me. Every bit.” David got up, glad he was whole. “Now you tell me what just happened.”

Donna explained as they ran around the bluff to the edge of the ravine and looked down into its frigid waters. The impact circles on the water’s surface rippled outward where Grey and John had hit. Grey’s men had been marching when they walked off the edge, and hit the water closer to the other side. John and Grey, at the speed they were going, nearly cleared the quarry. David studied the circles as they grew.

“Watch out guys, they could shoot!” Laura pulled David and Donna by the shoulders to the ground.

Below them, on the other side of the gorge, Grey’s Army didn’t have a thought of shooting anyone. They were in deep water, icy, green, and coppery. A few of them had seen their former prey hit the water with their boss. The others were told he was there as soon as they surfaced. Far from trying to shoot the people responsible for their current situation, they were doing everything in their power to escape from someone they thought had a disease so horrible it might spread instantly across the body of water and crawl into their hides. They were scrambling for a fingerhold on the sheer rock surrounding the gorge.

David watched the water, waiting for Grey or John to surface. He pushed, trying to sense if John could gain strength from him. Trying to sense if he could feel John taking it. He felt nothing. Jesus, David thought, John must have sunk like a stone.

David, Laura, and Donna waited an hour, remorsefully, glancing every so often at Grey’s men. The men were trying to climb out of the water, but they had nothing to hold on to. The wall was sheer, with fingerholds scarce, let alone footholds or handholds.

David was sure they would get out eventually, one helping another once free, but it would likely take hours. Every so often, one of Grey’s men would get four feet off the water’s surface, probably silently praising himself, and the next instant would be down in the water again, flopping around, screaming. It was actually amusing, but it bit humorlessly into him as he continued searching the water for any sign of John.

Finally, they had to give up. Neither John nor Grey surfaced, and Donna and Laura finally convinced David that reinforcements might come at any minute, let alone what might happen when Grey’s men escaped.

“The best we can do is make sure nobody else ends up like John,” Laura said softly, touching his shoulder.

Dejectedly, David complied with their requests and got in the Bug.

Chapter 53: David, Laura & Donna make noise to draw Grey's army into the trap.

“Get that van out of here. I don’t care where you put it, just get it out of sight,” Grey instructed his Army. He again thought about backup, but quickly disregarded it. He didn’t want excess people at the cabin. He knew that when there were too many people anywhere, they made noise or got distracted. As long as he was in charge, he wasn’t going to let that happen. Besides, with his personally trained Army, Grey knew nothing could go wrong.

They set up in the woods surrounding the cabin. With all of his Army trained as snipers, Grey figured it would just be a matter of taking out the ones who weren’t important. Then he would tranquilize the Golden Child, and mark a notch on his belt for another personal victory. He was still cautious, though. He had been “on” since he got there, and couldn’t believe his quarry had left without a trace. He had torn the cabin up looking for any signs of where they might be. He knew the woman who lived there must have lived simply because there were no signs of the outside world. No bills, no correspondence, no phone, nothing. Nothing that Grey could go on. Not even car tracks. The gravel driveway and road obscured everything.

The pigeon always flies home, though, he told himself, he just needed to wait it out.

“We better get going – fast,” David said, throwing the rest of their stuff under the hood of the Bug.

“Shhh,” Donna answered. “I hear a motor.”

David cocked his head at an angle and listened. He heard it too.

They walked back to the shed, and used the viewing device to look over the bluffs. The illusionary field still covered the quarry, but there was no sign of anyone.

“Let’s draw them out,” David said. “We’ll bring John along.”

Taking the viewing glasses with them, they walked back to the camp. Laura had found a megaphone in the shed and brought that too. David pushed energy to John after untying him, saying, “Okay, I trust you. We need your help.”

John didn’t stretch. His muscles no longer knew cramps, or pain. He merely stood up at attention. Finally, he spoke. “Just let me know what to do.”

Together, everyone walked cautiously toward the woods on the other side of the quarry. Facing the direction of Donna’s cabin, Laura shouted through the megaphone, “WHAT IF THE LAB SHOWS UP?” She handed the megaphone to David.

“SHIT MAN, I THINK I SEE SOMEBODY COMING.” David handed it off to Donna.

“RUN, TAKE COVER.” Donna tried to hand the megaphone to John, but he stood like stone, staring straight ahead.

They jogged back behind the outcropping, carefully avoiding the deadly illusion at their feet. It was a fifty foot drop to the icy waters of the quarry, where the cold would shockingly shatter the illusion of the field, if the fall hadn’t already.

Chapter 52: David, Laura & Donna decide they have to go back to the Lab and destroy it.

John remained tied up. He felt abandoned, and struggled with the ropes that bound his hands. He now realized that he was dependent on David to live. He was pretty sure that if David died, he would die, too. The only energy he could muster flowed directly from David. He could feel it, and it confirmed what he now believed; without David, he wouldn’t be alive at all. What he had of life wasn’t much, but it was all he had, and he planned to hold onto it.

David and the women came back to the camp. “How’s it going, John?”

“Not too good, as you can see.”

David knelt down. “I’m sorry, John. I had no idea this kind of thing was possible.”

“Well, that doesn’t change it.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Who’s this Victor Grey guy you were talking about – is he trying to kill you?”

“I don’t think he’ll kill me, but he’ll probably take Laura and Donna out if he has to.”

“He’s the authority?”

“You could say that.”

“Well, I don’t know if I can be of any help, but if you need me, I’m here.”

“Thanks. That’s good to know.”

“Won’t you untie me? I feel like a prisoner.”

David looked at John for a long moment, thinking about his dream, then spoke slowly. “I’m still a little spooked about this morning.” He paused. “If I untied you, John, what would you do? And I don’t mean immediately, but long term. What do you want to do with your life? Have you thought about that at all?”

“No. I only seem able to entertain one thought at a time. First it was finding out what happened to me. Then it was finding you. And my mind seems to get blanker every day. Right now it’s tough to even find the words to speak. It’s like my mind is disappearing more every minute, along with my eyesight – everything is a blur.” John turned to David with a sudden request. “If you won’t untie me, will you at least shut me off? I feel humiliated this way.”

“You got it.” David pulled back his energy from John and John went limp.

As Donna prepared lunch, David asked her, “What was that comment about Eco-Assassins earlier? I read something about them at some point.”

“Well, you won’t find anyone admitting to it, but a lot of us really, secretly, like what they’re doing. They go right to the root of the problem, so to speak. No one’s admitted to helping them out, but a lot of us see a certain surety in what they do. I mean, if you’re mad at a company for knowingly polluting a river in the name of profit, why not shoot the bastard who’s in charge of it, the guy giving the orders? Makes sense on a lot of levels.” She handed David a cold falafel sandwich, which he quickly started munching as he listened to her continue. They sat on the ground.

“The Movement stays away from killing people, even our enemies. But the Eco-Assassins’ logic rings some bells in our heads. For example, the first guy they ever took out – this was decades ago, you were probably alive then – had bought the largest ancient cedar forest in the world with junk bonds. To pay off the takeover debt, he cut down almost all of the forest. Before that, the company had been logging the forest sustainably.” She handed Laura a sandwich as she finished making her own. Laura held it, not eating it.

“This guy blitzed this sleepy, undervalued old company, and in his first meeting with his new employees, he told them, ‘There’s a story about the golden rule. He who has the gold, rules.’ Does a guy like that deserve to live? I don’t know. I guess the Eco-Assassins just got sick of protests and demonstrations and boycotts – can you blame them?”

“Are they still around – still active?”

“Yes, and no. I mean, I don’t know. Lots of people picked up on their idea. There were a lot of copy-cats. Now, it’s hard to tell who actually still does it. It might be the original Eco-Assassins, it may be somebody emulating them. It’s never clear from what the media reports.”

David took this in, then looked at John, still in his bonds. “What are we going to do with him?” he asked, pointing.

“I don’t know. It’s terrible,” Laura answered. “Poor guy wakes up one morning with nothing. And no way to get his life back.”

“Should I untie him, let him loose?”

“He seems pretty harmless. Why not?” Donna said.

“Yeah, he probably won’t try anything,” David answered.

“Listen, guys, I’ve been thinking some pretty horrible thoughts.” Donna and David turned to face Laura, her sandwich untouched.

“Such as?” David asked.

“Well, look at John. He’s as good as dead. What if the Lab decides to go ahead with their experiments? What happens then? I’m not twenty-five yet. I could have been him, if you know what I mean. The next patient the Lab defrosts could take my soul – or yours,” she said, pointing to Donna.

“Christ, you’re right. What have we been thinking?” David asked, slapping his forehead with his palm. “But what can we do?”

“We have to go back to the Lab. Stop them before it’s too late.”

“Hello!” Donna said, waving her hand. “We’re talking about the Church here. How do you propose we stop them?”

David sat back, dejected.

“The computer system,” Laura said.

Donna and David turned to look at her.

“It’s the Achilles’ heel of the Lab. Aside from Dr. Persey’s head, it’s the only place the procedure he used to defrost David is stored. He gave me the password to it. It’s in a secure room in the basement.”

“Judging from your daring rescue, security’s not too tight there, huh?” David asked.

“It’s nonexistent.”

“We could sneak you in,” Donna said excitedly, getting up and waving her car keys.

Chapter 51: David, Laura & Donna set a trap at the quarry. Grey gets to Donna's house.

“Wake up, sleepy head,” Laura nudged David. “I found a building.”

“Where?” David asked groggily, looking where Laura was pointing and spying a shed in an alcove among the bluffs that was hidden from their sight at the campground.

“You two sleeping? Or just pretending?” Donna was grinning down at them. “Hard to see you guys, the grass is so tall.”

“We were wondering about that building over there,” David said, ignoring the accusation.

“Come on, I’ll show you,” Donna said, waiting for them to stand. “They were filming a movie here awhile back. They liked the bluffs, but they decided they didn’t want the quarry in the picture, so they cut it out,” Donna answered.

“Cut it out? How?” David asked as they arrived at the building.

“Welcome to the modern world – look.” Donna opened the shed and walked inside. David and Laura followed her. Inside was a machine that looked to David like the console of a recording studio, only much smaller.

“What is it?”

“Take these,” Donna said, taking a device from a hook in the shed. It looked like a cross between a pair of binoculars and a periscope. “And use them to peer over the bluffs and I’ll show you.”

David went outside and put the device to his eyes. Even though the bluffs blocked his view, he could see over the rocks to the pit of the quarry. “Amazing,” he muttered.

“So what do you want? A lake?” Donna turned the device on, slid the controls, and over the gorge a perfect lake was projected.

David was astonished. He could see tiny ripples on the surface of the lake. The illusion was too real for him to fathom. He sat down with a thud.

“Or a field?” Donna joked. She slid the controls slightly, and the lake went from blue to green as it turned into a field.

David could see the grass swaying. His mouth was open, the illusion intense.

“My God,” David said. “That’s amazing.”

Donna walked out of the shed. “Amazing, yes. I couldn’t believe it when I found it a month ago. They must have left it in case they wanted to re-shoot any scenes. But they never came back for it, and the movie came out a few weeks ago.” Donna took the viewing device from David, and looked out at the illusionary field. Bringing the device down from her eyes, she handed it to Laura. “A nice parlor trick, but what use is it?”

David’s mind clicked, and he turned slowly to face Donna. “Would the Church have any idea this is here?” he asked.

“I can’t see why. You don’t think I’d let them shoot a movie here, do you? Why?”

“I know how we can trap this Grey guy. Will that thing run for a while?”

“Sure. It’s solar,” Donna answered pointing to the glistening panels on the shed’s roof. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking about the perfect trap,” David said with a wide, confident smile.

Grey got a call. They had found the car. It was empty, an hour away from the park. They would come pick him up. Grey tried to get back on track, to turn himself back “on.” He had been enjoying himself in the field all day. Now it was time to get to work.

He got into the van when it came, and told them to hurry. One of his men started talking about a theory Dr. Persey had called them about. He said that Johnny Rotten was the Golden Child’s Other – the two of them were sharing the same soul or something. Grey swished his hand as if to make the man talking to him disappear, and turned to look out the window, daydreaming about the field and the pond and their many wonderful smells.

They drove up to a cabin by a lake. The door was unlocked – in fact, there was no lock on the door at all. After his Army assured him no one was inside, Grey went in. He sat down on the futon in the living room, leaving the lights off. He smelled the room. He smelled the cat’s dander. The cat had been there. He smelled Johnny Rotten’s unique odor; he had been there as well. He smelled the nurse, the Golden Child, and another woman, separate from the nurse, presumably the woman who lived here. He also smelled the slightest hint of gunpowder.

He turned on the lights, scanning the walls, the furniture, everything. A map hung on one wall. A collection of old records was in a crate beneath it. On another wall, near the floor, he noticed a bullet hole. He dug out the slug with his knife.

What happened here? Scrutinizing the room’s contents, he looked for their story. A kitchen chair was in the living room. Why? Grey inspected it. There were patches in the light brown finish that were worn thin. Rope? he wondered. Who was tied up? He didn’t have enough to go on.

Outside, he instructed his Army to scan the area and look for traces of other vehicles. Grey noticed a beach by the lake and was drawn to it. He was overwhelmed by the size of the body of water. He inspected the sand on the beach, scooping some up and smelling it. He could smell the water from where he was standing.

A breeze brought in fresh smells from the lake, the woods.

Chapter 50: David, napping, dreams of a movie theater & a hillside graveyard.

David slid into a dream quickly. He found himself back at the movie theater.

This time, a different letter was missing from the theater’s marquee. It spelled out “THIS IS OUR LIFE.” David looked for the missing “Y” but didn’t find it.

The dream auto-played until he was in the projection room. Spent coils of film lay chaotically in two-foot depths, covering the floor. This time, when he saw the man with his head in the projector and walked over to him, jumbles of film trailing his feet, David put his head inside too. Again, his eyes couldn’t see, but his mind’s eye could. It painted the stars and planets he had seen last time, and again it focused on one of the planets, drawing it nearer. David saw the cloud cover of the planet parting, and the brilliant green of its surface. He was with the man in the theater. David’s mind painted John’s face on him. David again felt that he didn’t belong there, but wanted to aid John, who seemed to need David’s help in navigating the foreign terrain.

They landed on the planet’s soil gently, and stood in front of a huge pair of wrought-iron gates. The gates hung on an enormous, two-foot thick fieldstone wall that was fifteen feet high, and stretched as far as they could see in both directions.

When they looked through the gates at the hillside beyond them, the gates opened. Inside the wall, they walked together up the hill. Near the top, they noticed for the first time that they were surveying a cemetery. David knelt down in front of a gravestone, trying to discern what was written there. The gravestone was worn smooth on both sides. He walked to another, feeling the warm granite for any sign of etching on its surface. There was none. He and John inspected dozens of headstones, none of which had anything written on them. They went back to the top of the hill, confused.

From the hilltop’s perspective, they noticed that the cemetery’s wall was circular. As soon as they saw this, though, the walls expanded, extending all the way to the horizon. Squinting their eyes, they looked at the wall, so far away. As soon as they did, it expanded again, eventually receding out of sight. Looking back at the hillside, they noticed that the headstones were arranged neatly into circles as well, stopping a few feet before the top of the hill. The headstones continued in ever-larger circles to the horizon, and then out of sight. It looked like there was a tombstone for every person in the world. There was one headstone right at the top. It, too, was blank. The air was perfectly still. The only smell was that of ozone, and ether.

John seized David’s hand. David was reminded of the violence the man had displayed in the theater in the earlier version he’d had of this dream. Looking down at his hand, though, he could see that John merely grasped it in a handshake. David, in his mind, looked deeply into John’s eyes. Staring intently, and stepping closer to him, he saw movement in them. He drew closer still.

The movement in John’s eyes was a replay of the earlier portion of the dream. In John’s eyes, David saw stars and planets with mist swirling around them as they spun. His mind focused on one of the planets and drew it nearer. David could see the cloud cover parting, and the green color of the landscape. It was breathtakingly beautiful, the serenity of the scene enchanting him. But David didn’t feel he belonged there. He shook John’s hand, then let go. John dissolved in front of him, slowly disappearing from his sight.

David rose from the planet, and saw his dream in reverse. The landscape was obscured by clouds, then he saw the planet from a distance, then more planets and stars. He pulled his head out of the machine in the projection room in the theater.

The man that had previously been there was gone; the floor was bare.

Chapter 49: David & Laura talk about the future.

David and Laura finished with breakfast and walked in the field behind the bluffs.

“What do you think, Laura? Have you thought about life as a fugitive?” David asked her.

“I haven’t really had time to think about it until today. When I took you from the Lab I was going more on instinct than any long-term thought process. Looking back, I still know it was the right decision. But I don’t know if I can do it.” She stopped and looked at him. “I’d always believed that the system was corrupt, but thought I’d just have to deal with it, warts and all. I’ve always lived by the party line – you know, good grades, get a full time job, retire at 70, that sort of thing. This...other way sort of frightens me. Did you know that most people in the Movement don’t even have to work at regular jobs?” They sat down together in the tall grass. “I mean, they provide everything they need for themselves and don’t really use money. They rely on each other for whatever else they need. I can’t imagine not working all the time.”

“Yeah, I talked with Donna about that. They just simplify their lives to the point where they don’t need all that much. I think the idea’s fascinating, but you’re looking at somebody who, for all intents and purposes, is starting life all over again. Not like you.”

“Well, let’s look at it methodically. Forget the Church is even after us. We start with today. Would you rather be sitting in a field talking to me or slaving away at some eight to six job? No wait, that’s too easy.” Laura smiled to stop David’s response. “How about, would you rather work all day and use the money you earn to buy the things you’d be able to make for yourself if you didn’t work all day? That’s probably too easy too. Though I guess it’s a pretty confusing question.” She looked up. “Was that even a question?”

David shook his head. “I don’t know. I think you lost me.” He smiled. “You’re right, though. When you really look at it, it’s an easy decision. It’s just easy for you to take an objective look at it now because you’re out of it. Make less money, and use all that extra time to make the things you need, not to reward yourself with the things you want.” David leaned over, looking closely at a flower he had never seen before. Looking back to Laura, he said, “You only reward yourself with stuff because you think you deserve it because you’re working all the time anyway. Does that make sense?”

“Definitely.” Laura paused reflectively. “I’m going to miss my house though, all my stuff, my salary – I never could have afforded my own house without the Church paying as well as it did.” She was flustered. “Not that I have a choice. Even if I did, though, I think I’d prefer this. I should have stayed in closer touch with Donna over the years. Maybe I would have figured all this out earlier.”

“Yeah, but then you never would have rescued me.” David had a glint in his eye as he said this.

A smile was Laura’s only answer.

They lay down in the middle of a sea of grass. It swayed in the wind like waves on an ocean.

Laura sighed. “I feel so whole in nature. It’s awkward at first, but once you spend some time in it, you realize how sterile the world has become. Straight lines, sharp angles. You don’t see any of that here.” Laura motioned with her arm, as if displaying the field, the sky.

David, meanwhile, slipped off into the sleep that had been so rudely interrupted this morning.

Chapter 48: Grey waits at a park.

Grey waited for a report about the car. He still silently cursed himself for following the tracker’s signal instead of Johnny Rotten. Despite this, he was happy. He had spent the day introducing new smells to himself; cataloguing them, learning their secrets.

He wondered aloud why he had avoided nature in the past. The smells here were wonderful, so different from the barren world of buildings and concrete. He was growing used to the soft lines he saw around him, the randomness of nature. As he studied it he realized it only looked random to him because of his past perspective of neatness and orderliness. Studying it deeply, he saw not chaos, but a perfect order. The discipline nature presented

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was so huge he hadn’t seen it at first.

He had only ever been exposed to nature in bits and pieces, in isolation. Because of this, he always felt the need to control it, to dominate it. As a young boy he had caught flies. He would pull their wings off and call them “runs” and “hops,” or if they flipped onto their backs, “spins.” Then he would pull their legs off – carefully, if he was careless their guts would come out with their back legs and spoil his fun – and call them “wriggles.” He then moved on to larger prey.

He kept pigeons as a teenager, and once he took one of them and drew a line with a pen from its head to its tail, on the top and bottom. He then proceeded to pluck out all the feathers on the right side of it. He did this slowly, meticulously, and it took him the better part of a day. He had planned to stop there, but couldn’t. With the tweezers he had used to pull the smallest feathers out, he extricated the bird’s right eye. He did this with soft pets and coos, as if trying to convince the bird it was for the best. He then brought the bird to school and kept it in a brown paper bag in the bottom of his locker until recess. Then he took it out and carefully held it so that it looked whole to anyone who saw it. It was hard keeping the bird’s neck still, and he held it tight, the bird’s bare skin bumpy and warm under his fingers. He presented it to a group of children who had gathered around him on the playground, asking him how he caught it. At an opportune moment, he turned the bird around. At first there was silence – which he relished as he did the moment between the flash of lightning and its thunderous retort – and then screams, high pitched from the girls, and low growls from the boys. He was sent home early that day.

He sat peacefully in the grass, further studied the landscape – taking in the whole picture – and almost forgot he was waiting for orders from the Lab.

Chapter 47: David, Donna & Laura make plans to throw the Church off their trail.

“You boys getting hungry?” Donna asked.

“I wish,” John muttered.

“What’s that?” David asked.

“I said I wish I could eat. You’ve taken more from me than my soul and my energy. You’ve taken away all my bodily functions. I don’t eat, don’t really sleep. I’m more of a...robot than a human being.”

David realized that if Dr. Persey was right about the word ‘robot’ being out of date, that John must have found it in David’s head. “Well, maybe if I share some energy with you you’ll be able to eat.”

“I doubt it. I’m fucked. You’ve got my soul, don’t rub it in.” He looked up. “Will you at least untie me?”

“Not just yet. Let me eat first.” David motioned to get up.

“Just my legs then?”

David turned and faced John. “John, despite what you’ve told me, I still think you might have tried to kill me this morning. Give me some time to get that out of my system. Okay?”

John was quiet a minute, planning his response. “Fair enough. But listen, even if I had that intention – which I didn’t – I know it wouldn’t do me any good now. It’s obviously your soul. It’s through with me. It used me up and spit me out.”

“John...”

“No, it’s true. I’m a goner. I realize it’s not your fault, though. You didn’t plan it like the Church did. You just woke up. I’d have done the same.”

David reached over suddenly and untied John’s legs. They got up and walked together over to the women. Donna had prepared a cold breakfast, not wanting a fire to attract attention.

Donna and Laura were finishing up a conversation of their own about some rumors Donna had heard about the Church.

“A guy I know swears he’s seen them. They keep these women in poor countries pregnant all the time, and milk them just like they used to milk cows. They have whole factories set up for it.” Donna doled out food to John and he pushed it away with his foot.

“Look, I think we all agree that the only reason the Church is vegan is so that the breast milk of its followers is pure enough to be used to cure cancer. Fine. But the idea that they’ve got factory farms set up to do this – it seems a little harsh, even for the Church.” Laura’s reluctance to believe Donna was waning despite her words.

“Okay, an example. The preventive medical clinics they set up all those years ago. Everybody thought that was a great idea, and it was. But they only did it because it was profitable. Sure, it cost MCA Hospitals a bit up front, but they made their money back quickly.” Donna handed David his breakfast and continued. “What we’re forgetting is that MCA Insurance was insuring all those people. We all know that you’re going to stay a lot healthier with preventive care, and the Church knew this too. Combined with a vegan diet, it all but guaranteed that these people wouldn’t get sick. Check the records, Laura. MCA Insurance made more money after those clinics opened than they ever had before. They were able to cut their costs in half and still charge just as much for health insurance premiums.” Donna paused, trying to sense if her argument was sinking in. “My point is this: they’re only in it for the money, and if that means keeping poor women pregnant and literally milking them for money, I don’t put it past the Church.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Laura shook her head. “I can’t believe I work...used to work there,” she muttered, turning her attention to breakfast.

David saw that they were done and smiled, despite Donna’s disturbing talk. “Not to interrupt this great conversation, but what should we do now? John probably led the Lab to the cabin if they’re any good at tracking. What do we do next?”

Donna answered, “Well, we could ambush them.”

Laura said softly, “Eco-Assassin them.” Donna and Laura giggled.

“Wouldn’t that just get us into more trouble?” David asked after they had settled down.

Donna answered him. “Well, if I know the Church, the man who would be following John is Victor Grey. He’s a really nasty guy, and he doesn’t give up unless the Church calls him off. He’s like an attack dog – but a very clever one. If I’m right, and he’s the one they have tracking you, you can rest assured he’ll find you eventually. He’s taken out a few of my friends in the past and he isn’t nice about it. Horrible, in fact.”

“If we do that won’t they just send somebody else? I mean, he’s not the only one they have for this kind of thing, is he?” David leaned forward.

“No, he’s not the only one. Just the best. If we throw him off our trail, I don’t think they’ll send somebody else. I don’t think they’ll risk it.”

“Risk what? Are you saying I’m not worth a few headhunters?” David joked, but was serious about the Lab’s efforts to find them.

“Well, they may. You probably won’t ever be sure no one’s after you. But if we get to Victor Grey and put him out of action, the trail will be cold. Somebody else would have nothing to go on.”

“True. But then I’ll never really be able to show my face in public again, will I? I mean, I’ll be an utter fugitive.”

“Welcome to the club, David,” Donna answered, mock saluting him. “We’re all more or less fugitives of some sort. It’s not that bad, honestly. I know you can’t appreciate this yet because you’ve been in the deep freeze for so long, but public life isn’t something you’ll miss all that much. The Church has its claws into everything, and if you were out living a normal life, you might want to give it up anyway. We all care for each other,” Donna looked at him seriously, “and do everything for each other that regular society could offer you. More in fact.”

“Well, that’s reassuring. You’re right – I don’t know what it’s like anymore. From what I remember, corporations controlled everything, the government was their puppet, and everyone was pretty much a slave to technology.”

“Right. Now substitute the Church for corporations, the nation for government, and megatechnology for technology. Welcome to the future.” Donna chuckled dryly, and Laura joined her. “By the way, I found an article yesterday that you should read.”

Donna got up and went to the Bug, returning with a magazine. “You might want to read this so you can see what the Church has been up to for the past twenty-five years. From a non-Church perspective, that is,” Donna handed David the magazine. “It wouldn’t hurt you to read it either, Laura.”

David saw that the magazine was called In These Times.

Chapter 46: Grey's army searches for John's car. David determines that John is his "Other."

Grey had lost his quarry. He damned himself for following the tracker instead of going with his gut feeling. Now it might take weeks to find them. He calmed himself and plotted his next move.

He had resigned himself to finding Johnny Rotten again when the MCA Reconnaissance Lab called with the location of the car the Golden Child and the nurse had stolen. It was in a park. It was empty. Grey and his Army drove to it. On the floor under the passenger seat Grey found a gold tag with the name Hannibal on it. It was pried apart. Comparing it with the chip Grey found in the toilet, he knew this was where his quarry had been.

He instructed his Army to conduct a search for Johnny’s vehicle.

The man tied up in the kitchen chair stirred, rolled his head, then lifted it. He looked around the room, confused.

“Holy Christ,” Donna exclaimed. “I think that proves Laura’s theory.”

Laura jostled David, who sat up. “Did it work?” John’s head dropped like a marionette’s whose strings were cut.

“It sure did. But what if he did come with backup? We better get out of here.” Donna motioned toward the door, then ran over and grabbed her laptop computer, putting it under her arm. Then she picked up her tiny telephone – a device that didn’t look anything like a phone to David – and put it in her pants pocket.

David and Laura snatched up the rest of their things, and, once outside, realized how tight the squeeze would be. Fitting four people in the Bug wasn’t going to be easy, especially when one of them was the equivalent of a cadaver.

“I can walk over to the quarry,” David volunteered. “Think you can handle him?”

“Sure – just don’t fall asleep on the way and wake him up,” Donna answered.

“You can be sure of that. Anything I should bring?”

“Nope, everything we need’s under the hood. Let’s get out of here.”

Donna and David put John in the back seat of the Bug, his hands and feet securely tied. David walked toward the woods while Laura got herself situated in the passenger seat.

“See you soon,” she said to David as he made his way under the canopy.

Grey waited at the park while his Army conducted the search for Johnny Rotten. He had never been this far north before. The park vexed him. He could see trees, grass, birds. Nature bothered him. He felt unsure of himself this close to it.

Most of all, he didn’t recognize the things he was smelling. Soil, grass, dew, a tree-scented wind – these were new to him. He tried to study them, but didn’t know how to pinpoint them, to separate them. They seemed to come at him in a mad rush, all intermingled. Was this smell soil, and that one grass? Was this one a tree, and that one the leaves on the ground? He investigated.

By sniffing the grass he smelled at least two distinct scents. He pulled a clump of it up and rubbed it between his fingers. He smelled his fingers. Grass. He put his nose in the hole left where he uprooted the grass. Soil. He picked up a leaf, crumpled it, and smelled it. Leaf. He walked around the park, picking up things and smelling them. All of it was new to him. New smells to be catalogued. He was happy, and almost forgot he was on a manhunt as he walked around the park.

From a distance, it looked like he was skipping.

David made his way out of the woods and walked around the quarry. He was surprised to find Donna and Laura already behind the bluffs. Donna was right, they were totally out of sight. He helped Donna extract John from the back seat, wondering how they had ever managed to manhandle him in there in the first place.

“Okay, its time to get some answers,” David announced, handing the gun to Laura, who quickly passed it off to Donna as if it were hot to the touch. David nodded to Donna. “Keep him covered.”

David sat on the ground next to John, pushing.

John opened his eyes, confused. David looked at him with confidence and intrigue; he felt powerful next to this unkempt waif. By pushing, and remaining calm, David found that both he and John could be awake at the same time.

“Who are you? And why did you try to kill me?” David demanded.

“I wasn’t trying to kill you – or maybe I was.” John shook his head violently. “Who are you?” John tried to move his hands. “Why am I tied up?” He sat up. “And what the hell have you done to me?”

“Let’s start at the beginning. My name is David Sperling. I was part of an experiment and frozen for twenty-five years.” David paused, recollecting. “I woke up from the freezer last Friday night. I was in the Lab for a few days...up until Tuesday night. Then I left and went to the cabin we just left.”

“I remember...barely. I was at an office party Friday night and basically lost my mind. Saturday...I was blacked out for most of it. Then I saw you on TV with my cat,” John pointed to Hannibal, who had crawled onto David’s lap, and now stared at John with disgust, “and decided to find you. Something told me you were the cause of all my problems.”

“Well, maybe I am, but why kill me?”

“I wasn’t going to kill you, I just wanted some answers. I mean, look at me.”

Donna shuddered, but kept the gun held out.

“I see what you mean,” David continued. “But how did you find me?”

“A pull. Here.” John pointed with his chin to his chest.

“In your chest. Just like me. The Church was right. They planned this – they expected it.”

“The Church? MCA? They did this?”

“I don’t think they knew exactly what would happen, but they set it up to anyway.”

“Is this some new disease of theirs? Why can’t I remember anything? Why do I smell so bad? Why am I losing my eyesight? What’s happening to me?”

David tried to send soothing energy to John to calm him. “I think it’s because you’re supposed to be dead – not dead, but never born. Not never born, but...not supposed to exist the way you did. Your soul...our soul –” David paused, not knowing how to go on. “When I was frozen, I think my soul went into you. Now I’m awake –”

“And you want it back?” John went on, surer, angrier. “You’re the reason I’m like this. It’s your fault. Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? Do you know what it’s like to lose your...soul? What it’s like to have your soul torn out of your body, leaving you an empty pit – leaving you with only a hollow, moldering shell?”

John was furious and desperate, and David could feel it, not just in John’s words but in the sensation in his chest. It was stronger the angrier John got. David felt his ch’i pulling further from himself, and coldly realized that John could take it all if he got angry enough. David quickly “pulled” it back in much the same way he had been pushing it to John. He was relieved to feel it flow back to him and see John immediately calm down; going limp, but remaining conscious.

“It won’t do you any good to get ugly. It may be unfair, but I can knock you right out if I want to. Let’s try to discuss this rationally, okay?”

John felt sapped of his energy. He tried to speak, but couldn’t work his jaw. He felt a warmth in his chest, and assumed this was David’s doing. He found his voice. “Okay. Just keep me conscious. I’ll try not to get too emotional.”

“Let’s go further back. Tell me about your life and I’ll tell you about mine...”

David and John talked for hours as Laura and Donna made up their makeshift campground. David and John went over their lives broadly at first, then slowed them down after college. John’s past was extremely sketchy to his memory, with huge sections of it simply gone. He tried to piece it together, but there wasn’t much left.

David, though, could somehow fill in the gaps. When John was stumped with how to go on, David would continue the story, as if he himself had lived John’s life. When this happened, David became more and more certain that buried deep within himself were experiences he only needed a jostling from John to remember. After a brief reminder from John, these experiences would bloom eerily in his mind. He was filled with a sustained feeling of déjà vu. Whenever he had gotten this feeling before, it would disappear before he could analyze it. But now, his mind kept up, and rode along with it.

They both learned a great deal about each other. They’d had many parallels in life, some that might have been coincidental, others that were too close to be. By the time David had to stop because he was too hungry to go on, he realized that John’s life seemed to be a continuation of his. John had merely picked up where he had left off. John worked in a different field, but the qualities David found so lacking in himself, mainly confidence, were experienced in John’s life. Where David always felt like he was floundering in a play he hadn’t written, John wrote his own, demanding from life what David thought would be given to him. It was really remarkable, and both David and John felt a feeling of completeness the more they talked.

But when they stopped, and their conversation ended, the eerie sensation vanished with it and was gone. It became unseizable, and it left them both with a feeling of loss and isolation, of homelessness.

“We’re soulmates,” David concluded, looking at John with a genuine smile.

Chapter 45: David tries to determine if John is the one who had his soul.

David picked the gunman up with Donna’s help. They felt like they were lifting a corpse. The man was heavy and stiff. David put the man in a chair Laura brought in from the kitchen, bending his legs and hips so his body conformed to a sitting position. “Do you have any rope?” he asked Donna.

“Sure.” Donna went into the kitchen.

David tied up the man’s hands and feet when Donna returned with the rope. “Listen, he had to get here somehow. Donna, can you go check around – see if his car is out there?”

“Sure,” she said, turning to the door and leaving. Laura and David stared at the stranger, crinkling their noses at the smell emanating from him. Donna was back in a moment with a bag and a jacket she found in the man’s car. She opened the bag, looked inside, then spilled its contents on the futon.

“Pancake makeup – ‘As Always, with Sunblock and Insect Repellant!’” she read from the label. “Some cheap cologne. A bunch of money.”

She looked through the man’s jacket. “Here’s his wallet. Let’s see.” She opened the wallet. “John Springer. Picture looks like him.” She pointed with the ID card to the man tied up in the chair. “He seems to be pretty wealthy. There’s a diamond card in here. Access keys. Club Membership cards. You name it, this guy’s got it.”

“But who is he? I mean, why is he here with a gun? Does he work for the Lab?” David was still confused.

“Not likely. If he did, he probably would have come with backup. And that car I found in the bushes wasn’t from the Lab. His gun’s not Church-issued. It’s not likely.”

“Then who –” David was cut off when Laura interrupted him.

“The one who got your soul, David. Maybe this is the one who got your soul. You were frozen for twenty-five years. He looks about that old.”

David looked at the man. He did look about David’s age. The same amount of time he had been frozen. David remembered his dreams – was this the man in the theater? Then he remembered the tugs in the morning and at night. Was this who they were for?

“That would explain why he tried to kill me. To get it back.” David touched his hand to his chest. “Well, there’s one way to find out, I think. This may sound crazy, but if I fall asleep, and he wakes up the minute I’m out, I think Laura will be proven right.”

“Are you sure you want him to wake up?” Laura worried.

“I have to know,” David resolved. His mind was racing as he lay down on the bed. His heart was still flying from the excitement, but he separated this from the “push,” as he had come to call it. He thought he didn’t really need to be asleep, he just needed to “push” some energy out of him, and use less himself. He closed his eyes.

After a moment, he pushed.

Chapter 44: David awakes and they try to determine who John is.

David sprang awake. His mind filled instantly with complete consciousness. He thought he had heard a gunshot, but then thought he might have dreamed it. No, he smelled gunpowder.

He heard a heavy thump next to his bed. Looking down, he saw a man there, passed out. Quickly getting out from under the covers, he kneeled down on the floor, next to the man. Seeing he had a gun, he took it from him. Hannibal was sniffing the man’s arm in disgust.

David touched the man’s arm. Hannibal had clawed and bit him, but no blood came from where the jagged flesh was torn. The man was as cold as ice. David rolled him on his back. He looked like he had been living in the same clothes for days. They were dirty and disheveled. He smelled like pancake makeup and cheap cologne, but there was another smell under them; it reminded David of his mother lying in her coffin at the viewing.

Donna ran down the stairs in a panic. “What the hell’s going on?” she cried. She turned on the overhead light.

Laura was waking up. Hannibal was licking his paws. Nothing seemed amiss, but she knew what she had heard. “David?” she inquired.

Shielded from Donna’s and Laura’s view was the gunman, on the floor at David’s feet. David pointed to the man. “I think he tried to kill me.”

Donna walked over slowly, peering over the edge of the bed. “Who the hell is he?”

“You got me. Nobody you know?” David asked.

“I’ve never seen him before.”

“What’s going on?” Laura was awake now, but confused. She saw David and Donna looking at the floor on David’s side of the bed. “Who’s that?” Laura said, looking at the gunman.

“That’s what I’d really like to find out,” David answered.

Chapter 43: John arrives at Donna's house. He attempts to kill David; his cat stops him.

John drove. He thought someone might have been following him, but the van he suspected was nowhere in sight. He was close now, he could feel it. Pulling off on the side of the road, getting his gun from the trunk – the border patrol, John’s money stuffed in their uniform pockets after some careful conversation, wouldn’t consider searching it – and driving on, he knew it wouldn’t be long.

He checked his gun. Still loaded. He checked his face in the rearview mirror. Human – well, human enough. He checked his location. Country road. The gravel road led to a gravel driveway. Even after he slowed to a crawl, his car was still too noisy. He pulled off into a field and parked it behind some bushes.

Setting off on foot, he was suddenly aware of the area around him. This was the country. He had heard of it, but had never found the time to visit. He had always been too busy scrambling up the corporate ladder, thinking there would be time for the country some day. The landscape disoriented him; he felt slightly off balance in it. It wasn’t made of the clean lines and sharp angles he had known all his life. Trying to regain his composure and not be distracted by the randomness of the woods, he proceeded down the driveway – at least it was close to man-made.

At the end was a cabin in the woods, next to a lake – something he had only seen before in pictures. Its shimmering surface made him uneasy, but the pull was strong. “Concentrate,” he said between gritted teeth.

He walked up to the cabin and peered into a window. A kitchen. John looked at the black, cast iron pots and pans that hung from the ceiling, the cabinets made of knotted pine, a hallway leading to another room.

Walking the perimeter of the house and looking through another window, he saw where the hallway led. The living room. The moon was casting its glow into the room, illuminating it slightly. There were two people wrapped up in blankets on a futon. John felt a warm surge in his chest, his back arching with the strength of its pull. He knew that the man he had been racing to find was here, in this room. He discerned from the size of the lumps on the bed that the man was the lump on the right. He walked quickly around the cabin until he found the door.

The door was unlocked. John slipped inside, holding his gun up as he approached the bed. The man was stirring. Dreaming, John supposed, drawing nearer. Walking to the right side of the bed, he leveled the gun at where he thought the man’s head was. He pulled the blankets back.

The man faced away from John, but his hair was the same color as the man on the TV. John grabbed his shoulder, rolling him over. It was him. John’s mind flexed as his chest filled with the throbbing warmth. This man has your energy, his mind instructed him, the pull at his chest confirming it. His mind filled with a primal urge, a childish urge – it informed him of a manner it believed would get his energy back inside of him. Repelled, John used what remained of his higher faculties and resisted the urges from his lungs.

He placed the barrel of the gun against the man’s forehead.

Hannibal smelled something familiar and it woke him. He was nestled between David and Laura, and was jostled by David moving. Not moving, but being moved. It felt different to Hannibal. His eyes adjusted to the light.

Hannibal saw John and sprung at him, jaws agape, claws out. Tearing into the flesh of the man’s arm, he fell to the floor. A loud noise made Hannibal jump.

Hannibal smelled fire.

Chapter 42: John buys another gun. Grey gets caught by David's trap, losing John.

John got up. After showering, applying his makeup, and dousing himself with cologne, he left for the gun shop. He didn’t bother covering his face when he went in. With the makeup on, he felt more human, more natural, more passable.

The man in the gun store treated him amicably until he realized John wanted the gun today. But after some masterful negotiations on John’s part, the man actually called out, “That’s the latest and the greatest you got there buddy,” and, “Come again soon,” as John walked out and the man stuffed the wad of bills into his pants pocket, turning only when he saw his latest customer hide the gun in the trunk of his car.

John felt stronger. Whatever was pulling him, which he still assumed was the Corpsicle, was close now, and as he drew nearer, he felt his strength growing. It wasn’t exactly the same feeling that he got standing outside the man’s Lab room the night he scraped the “X” on the wall, though.

It now felt as though the man was aware of him, and wanted to give him the strength.

Grey was concerned. The tracker was picking up the signal stronger than ever – the signal Grey had determined would lead to the Golden Child – and he didn’t know if Johnny Rotten was going to stop. To Grey, it seemed like Johnny was hell-bent on his direction and constantly picking up speed the closer he got to his destination. Eager to stay on the right path, Grey was again concerned about what might happen if the paths diverged.

Finally, they did.

The signal from the tracker grew weaker, and Johnny Rotten kept driving. He drove right past the place where the signal was strongest, and didn’t even slow down. What’s he going on? Grey thought. Whatever Johnny was after must not have been the Golden Child, the one the Lab wanted. If Johnny were after him, he would have stopped driving when the tracker signal grew the strongest. It was the only conclusion that made sense to him.

Deciding it wasn’t his priority to catch Johnny, but the man the Lab wanted most, he had his Army turn around and follow the tracker’s signal.

They pinpointed where the strongest response was coming from. It was, as Grey half-suspected, a motel. It seemed like Johnny Rotten and the Golden Child had that much in common; they stayed in cheap motels. The reflection from the neon sign glowed in their windshield as they pulled in. The Army was anxious. This was where they were needed most, and they knew it.

Grey instructed them not to kill the man. The nurse was disposable as far as he was concerned, but they shouldn’t kill her either unless she got in the way.

Possible scenarios played in Grey’s mind. They were both asleep, and unarmed. This scenario was the one Grey hoped for. They were both awake, ready for them, and armed. This was the one Grey prepared for.

They confirmed they were at the right room with the tracker, and burst in. The main room was empty, the bed untouched. Grey’s mind raced. They might be out. Grey could smell hot water. He directed his Army to the bathroom. The water wasn’t running. They had just gotten out of the shower. They had to be unarmed in there. He tried the door. Unlocked. He opened it. Empty.

Towels hung from the towel rack, still damp. The tracker pointed Grey to the toilet. Lifting the lid, Grey found his beacon. He instructed his Army to leave him alone.

Shutting off the light, and sitting down on the toilet, he smelled the room. Were they just here? Grey thought. Did we just miss them? The damp towels said yes. Grey’s nose said no. He didn’t smell any soap. Deducing that the towels were merely run under hot water and left to dry, he wondered why. The Golden Child and the nurse had set him up. They came here, put the tracker in the toilet, wet some towels, and left. He checked the shower, the trash; no used bar of soap, no empty soap package.

It dawned on him that it might be a trap. He got up, got his Army back into the van, and proceeded to race toward Johnny Rotten and try to catch up. He realized he would have to be more careful now. He wasn’t tracking amateurs.

What other traps or diversions might they have in store?

Chapter 41: David, at Donna's house, discovers a quarry in the woods and makes future plans.

Donna’s cabin in the woods was quiet in the morning. Very quiet. David stirred before he woke, sending a mental signal to whoever, or whatever, it was that needed it. Conscious of the act now, he remained in bed, half asleep, for another twenty minutes before he fully woke.

They ate heartily at breakfast, still famished from their road trip.

“Where would you like to go?” Donna asked them, smiling. “It’s up to you. I know people just about everywhere.”

Laura answered her with a question, “David?”

David put down his fork, sat back in his chair, took a deep breath, and answered. “North. I want to stay in the north. I’m sure you both realize why. As long as it’s safe here in Canada, this area is the only one that I know as far as the climate goes. I don’t think I’ll ever want to cross the border into that...that...wasteland ever again.” He turned to Laura. “Now I know what you meant when you said how you had time to adjust to the changes the world has seen over the past twenty-five years. I’m still in shock from seeing it all at once. And your explanation on the way up here didn’t help – I don’t want to go back there.”

Donna answered him. “Well, don’t worry about being caught. There’s no way the Church can find you here. And to tell you the truth, there are only a few people I know who can still bear to live in the States. And most of them are in Vermont. Anyway, Canada is huge, and the weather is just great, as you can see.” She motioned with her hand out the window to the lake, the trees. “There are plenty of places for you to call home if you like. What do you want to do with your life?”

David thought for a moment before saying, “Live, for one.” Donna and Laura chuckled at this. David joined them before he continued answering. “I want to try to help the Movement, if they’ll have a refugee.”

Donna finished eating and leaned back in her chair. “To be honest, they’d welcome you with open arms. More than a few of them are trying to avoid contact with one or more parts of the Church. You’d be brethren. And with what you’ve told me about your work in the environment, you’d be a real benefit to the Movement. I prefer living at this outpost, but there are communities – some quite large.”

“Let’s get back to that.” Laura looked concerned. “How do we know the Church can’t find us here? I know what they’re capable of, believe me. We should be out of here by tomorrow at the latest. They’re bound to show up, if they’re not already staking us out. They won’t kill David, of course, but I don’t think they’ll have any problem taking you and me out.” She motioned to Donna, who sat up straight at the notion of being killed by the Church.

“I still don’t think the Church will show up here.” Donna relaxed again. “But we can prepare for them, if it makes you feel better.”

David felt sick at the prospect of the Lab coming to the cabin. “Prepare? How?”

“Well, we can always camp out somewhere close by just to be safe. Listen for their noisy cars to barrel in here. There’s an old quarry nearby that would be good. The bluffs there would block out the view from here – even if they walk through the woods and start searching. We could keep watch.” She paused. “But honestly guys, even though I understand what you’ve been through, I think you should give more credit to yourselves. I think you’ve covered your tracks pretty well.”

“Donna’s probably right, David,” Laura said, facing him. “By switching cars, I guess they’re not going to have much to go on.”

“Still, I have a strange feeling,” David looked at them. “Like I’m being watched somehow.”

“Here? At the cabin?” Donna asked.

“No, here,” he said, pointing to his chest. “Did the Lab implant a tracking device in my chest?” he asked Laura.

“What? Not that I know of. Why?”

“At night, and in the morning, my chest feels warm, like it’s sending signals or something.”

“Spooky,” Donna said. “Are you sure they didn’t do anything to him?” she asked Laura.

“No, I’m not sure. But I don’t think so. I’ve never even heard of anything like that. Maybe you watched too many science fiction movies when you were younger.”

Donna chuckled, and David joined her. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he conceded, not wanting to worry them further. “But still, let’s agree to get out of the house first thing tomorrow morning. We can spend today getting ready. Agreed?”

Laura and Donna both shook their heads in unison at David’s suggestion.

They didn’t have much to pack, and spent the rest of the day by the lake. It was more than peaceful here to David. It made him feel like he hadn’t spent the last twenty-five years in a freezer. The lake reminded him of his youth. He had spent his time exploring forests and swamps, amazed at how much life they held, and the delicate balance of all of those lives together. He was reminded of something he had read once: “Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” The quote summed up his feelings not only about the intricate balance of nature, but about the scene that had unfolded before him south of the border. Man certainly messed up the web there, he thought. As if his mind wanted to confirm this thought, David pictured the world map he had seen on the wall of Donna’s cabin. The continents of his childhood looked like they had been afflicted with a wasting disease – the edges of them eaten away by a cancer. Whole island chains were gone. North America resembled a turtle. “Rising sea levels,” Donna had explained. “And that map is ten years old.”

David left the women on the beach and walked into the woods. He was only a few feet into the canopy when the smell hit him. It was raw, wild. The fecundity of the soil entered his nostrils and his mind. He couldn’t define the smell, but knew it was the one he had missed most. It was a complex smell – decaying leaves, moss, moisture – a perfectly balanced bouquet that always signified life to David. He now realized how precious that life, and the smell of it, was. Man had certainly tangled the web – torn it down altogether from what he could tell.

David looked at the trees, feeling their presence. To him, the woods were alive, not just with the animals, birds, and insects. Together with the trees, these other forms of life made up a whole organism that he felt a part of when he was in them.

David spied some hornets flying into a hole in the ground. It reminded him of when he was younger and had unknowingly sat down on a similar hole. The hornets stung his rear a dozen times as the ones returning to the nest crowded around him, their black and yellow bodies getting tangled in his hair, stinging his face, flying down his shirt. His friend’s father had come out with David after it rained and the leaves were moist, and poured gasoline down the hole and then lit it on fire. David had watched in shock as the hornets flew right into the flames, destroying themselves. They acted as if there was something deep inside them telling them what to do, instructing them; giving them orders they didn’t have the cognizance to override.

He remembered that he had felt sad then. Deeply sorrowful, like somehow he had spoiled everything. Like he had done something wrong – nothing really, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time – and had set something in motion without being conscious of it. Merely said some words, did some things that were rational at the time – and then those crumpled, burning bodies lay at his feet.

Carefully sidestepping the hornet’s nest, he walked through the woods to a clearing. Ahead of him was the old quarry Donna had mentioned. Walking up to it, he stared at the bluffs and the huge pit at their base; the green water below him no longer stinking of sulfur, but probably still somewhat acidic. The rock walls surrounding the lake were bare, sheer – so corroded and sterile they appeared incandescent in the strong sunlight. He imagined men working here, ripping minerals from the Earth with their machines. He had always thought of places like this as the beginnings of humanity’s sins. All of the gadgets throughout the ages came out of places like this, and after a short while, were eventually buried in similar man-made pits. This was their cradle, the landfill their grave.

Looking over the edge, he saw that the lake fifty feet below him was about fifty feet long and a hundred feet wide, a man-made liquid rectangle tinged with the patina of copper. Vertical walls rose from it on all sides.

He saw some caves among the bluffs that reminded him of exploring caves when he was young. He was always amazed at the snake-like tunnels they formed underground. How when one tunnel ended, another began in a new direction. Staring at the lake, he wondered how many tunnels it had flooded, and how many explorers of the caves ended up stopping when they ran into the horizontal barrier of the metallic water.

David wandered back to Laura and Donna and they all went inside for dinner.

After dinner, Donna finally showed David the laptop computer he had been staring at throughout his meal. Donna had put a small sticker on it that said “Time Vampire.” David had noticed a similar sticker, “Thought Vampire,” on her tiny television, dusty and unused in a corner. Sitting close to her, he noticed for the first time that she wore a watch, only it wasn’t really a watch. There were no numbers around the dial, and the face had no hands.

She brought up something she thought he would like. It was a program of all of the great paintings, analyzed and reconstructed digitally just as the artist had painted them. The viewer could watch every painting come on the screen brushstroke by brushstroke.

David was fascinated with the program, mostly by Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. “So that’s why she’s smiling,” he said before Donna clicked the machine off and had everyone agree to retire early so they could get a fresh start in the morning.

David lay next to Laura, the fire crackling in the fireplace. They could see the lake from the living room. The glow of the moon illuminated it, giving it a waxy sheen. The moon’s light was bouncing off the lake, filling the living room with a liquid white light.

“Laura?”

“Yes, Dave?” She turned to face him.

“Think we’ll be able to get away?”

“Sure,” she said, finally confident. “The Church operates by fear. It really doesn’t deal with crises all that well. I’m sure they’ll foul up somewhere along the line. Write you off as a loss.”

“We’re in this together?”

“Of course. What kind of question is that?”

“I think I’m just paranoid, is all. Thanks for your daring rescue.”

“Anytime,” she smiled.