The three of them might have been a lot of other things, but they were true to their word. By the time I came back down the hill with Akira and Aveena, the Crusaders had started gathering, making noise about no longer marching through the woods.
“Is this going to become a problem?” I asked as Akira, Aveena, and I approached Rocky’s company.
“Hell if I know,” Rocky said, “they’re tryin’ to convince others to follow along with their gang, but it doesn’t look like many are rallying behind ‘em.”
“I think most of these people see the logic in the decision to stay off the road,” I said.
“It’ll get the weak ones out of our hair,” Victor said, picking at some dirt wedged in the molded designs in the arms of his exo suit, “we might actually go faster.”
Benito grunted, “Sachi should just take off and whoever wants to follow will follow.”
“One of two things will happen,” César said, “either the people who don’t come with us will be captured, which might make them give us up, or they won’t get captured and then everyone else will wonder why we’re even bothering to walk through the woods.”
The bickering within the camp came to a head again, the arguments lasting almost two hours. The result was that the Crusaders, along with a few others, ended up leaving us, led by Big Terry, going back down the road in the direction of Dolores. It was nine thirty in the morning before the rearguard was moving.
Clouds covered the sky, blocking out the sun, but it actually felt somewhat warmer than the day before. Footsteps crunched over frozen soil, voices grumbling about the cold and sore muscles. The companies of Sachi’s people and the LoC Security people weren’t joking around and lobbing insults anymore, none of them happy to be with the ungrateful citizens.
Fortunately, none of us spotted any UAVs. The cloud cover would make it more difficult to spot us anyway. But none of us had any illusions that our presence wasn’t known. The march the day before out in the open under the clear sky, as well as Dolores now being occupied, made it a certainty that the CSA at least knew we were out here.
“Have you seen Akira around?” I asked, catching up to Aveena as she walked with her eyes to the ground.
She looked over to me, “she wandered off back up the hill during all the arguing. I think it was upsetting Yukiko. I saw her walking along with us up there, though.”
“Has she seemed depressed to you?” I asked.
Aveena looked back down to watch where her feet were landing on the forest floor, “how could she not be?”
I stayed quiet for a few paces before saying, “I’m worried about her brain implants.”
Aveena glanced to me again, but said nothing.
“I think she may have damaged them again during the attack on Cortez,” I said, “She hasn’t said anything to you?”
“Neither of us have tech,” Aveena said, “couldn’t talk if we wanted to. I think she’s mostly been concerned about Yuki.”
Both of us walked in silence for a few minutes again. Aveena appeared to be just as affected by what had happened in Cortez as Akira, which actually gave me some hope – if this was just the normal reaction to things, then it might not be the brain implants making Akira act this way. But Akira was already a lot more used to this kind of thing. Aveena was young and had never experienced something so harrowing.
“Do you think those guys were right?” Aveena asked after a while.
“The Crusaders?” I asked, “I wouldn’t let what they said bother you.”
“Not that,” Aveena said, “I’m used to that. I mean, like, were they right to leave us and go back?”
“That depends what you hope happens,” I said, “Dolores is almost certainly occupied by the CSA now. If you don’t care about getting caught, then they did the right thing.”
“Why’d the CSA just come in and start shooting?” Aveena asked, looking to me again, her eyes damp.
I exhaled slowly before saying, “Gabriel Mitchell’s rhetoric made the LoC’s secession look like a violent insurrection. The CSA media portrayed the LoC as being held by armed anarchists, Shift gangs, transgenics and terrorists like the forty-eights. He effectively made us look inhuman. That’s what people do in order to more easily kill their enemies.” I paused for a few steps, watching the dead pine needles pass by beneath the feet of my exo. “The incidents in Wichita and Atlanta only served to drive home Mitchell’s point that we’re dangerous and aggressive.”
“Are they going to keep trying to kill us?”
“Most likely,” I said, “especially as long as they can control the narrative being told inside the CSA, now that our communication’s been cut.”
“But you won’t let that happen, will you,” Aveena said, turning to look me in the eye again, tears welling up in her own.
I sighed. “We’re going to do what we can, but if people keep acting like spoiled children, they’ll get us all fucking killed.”
She turned back to her feet again and kept walking, saying nothing.
“I’m going to make my way up the column,” I said, “did you want to come with me?”
Aveena shook her head, “no, thanks. I…I need some time alone.”
“Suit yourself,” I said, quickening my pace, getting deeper into the crowd of people walking through the pine trees.
Off to the right, further away from the road, I spotted Akira. Yukiko walked beside her, good hand clasped into her mother’s. Both were exhausted, every footstep a chore. I thought of going up the hill to speak with her but decided against it. She would only deny anything was wrong.
As I strode amongst the people, I saw haggard expressions in their faces. Most stayed silent, sometimes looking away when they saw me. Some spoke to each other, mostly of somewhat mundane things – the cold, how long they had been walking, the boredom of not being able to connect to the internet or any mesh networks, things they forgot to take with them from home, how welcoming a cup of coffee would be, times they had gone to campgrounds in these woods and so on. A few asked me if I knew whether the CSA was close by, or what time we were going to stop for lunch, or who was in charge. I kept my answers vague.
Lunch time approached and more and more people talked of stopping to eat. I knew Sachi would be against this, considering how long it took to get everyone going after breakfast, but it didn’t stop some people from sitting down where they were to get food out. Especially people who were traveling with families.
One of the families I came across was Doctor Taylor, Teagan, Deidre, and John, along with their adopted daughters Tea and Carmen and their maid Liana with her husband. I greeted them, everyone forcing smiles at seeing me except for Tea and Carmen, whose expressions were stuck on grim as they huddled blankets tightly around themselves. Doctor Taylor pulled out a package of marijuana cigarettes, putting one between her lips and lighting it.
“Want one?” she asked, taking a drag and holding the package up to me.
“No,” I said.
She shrugged, “I never smoked ‘em that much. I’ve probably been workin’ on this pack since…well, since I met you. Yeah…I bought this pack at the Bitter Brews of Bengal on my way home the day after you brought all those kids into the hospital.” She smirked to herself, “But I figure hell, under the CSA this stuff’s gonna be illegal, so why not make this hike a little more bearable now?”
Teagan nodded slowly at her logic, taking the offer and passing the package to Deidre, who had a somewhat stunned expression.
“You’ve been a prude your whole life,” Teagan said, pulling out a lighter, flicking it, and holding the flame to the end of her joint, “why don’t you live a little now?”
“Are you really peer pressuring me right now?” Deidre asked, looking at the package in her hands.
John reached over and grabbed the package, taking one out. Deidre gave him a horrified look.
“Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” John shrugged as Teagan handed him his lighter, “isn’t that the army’s motto?”
“In front of the girls?” Deidre asked, looking to Tea and Carmen.
“Why not?” he said, lighting his joint and then passing the package and lighter to Carmen.
“John!” Deidre whispered loudly.
This brought cautious giggles from the two girls. Deidre gave no more argument as the package of joints was passed around, everyone except Deidre and Tea taking one. I shrugged and took the package from Liana’s husband, putting the filter in my mouth and using Teagan’s lighter. She gave me a grin when I handed it back to her, coughing as I blew out the smoke. Everyone else coughed as they took drags, too, chuckling at the spectacle.
I grinned, feeling the THC slowly cloud into my head.
“If we stay here too long, it’s going to be difficult to catch up,” I said, taking one last drag and snuffing the half-smoked marijuana cigarette out on a tree and putting it into a compartment on the exo suit for later.
Deidre looked around and said, “I think by now most people are stopping.”
I followed her gaze around, seeing that she was right. Not everyone was sitting down, but most people were no longer moving forward. Knowing how angry Sachi’s people probably were about this made me glad I’d decided to make my way into the crowd, away from them.
“We’re going to have to eat this food before it goes bad anyway,” John said, pulling bread and lunch meat from his backpack.
“Have you joined with your friends after all?” Doctor Taylor asked, looking up and down my exo suit as she took another drag, for the first time not coughing as she exhaled the smoke, a smile of satisfaction spreading across her lips at the feat.
“For now, at least,” I said, “desperate times call for desperate measures.”
She nodded slowly. “I met one of your friends at Yuki’s birthday party.”
“Sachi?” I asked.
“No,” she said, “a big beefy guy.”
“Rocky,” I nodded, letting the high shave the edge off the perpetual anger I’d felt since getting back from Atlanta.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” she said, “He actually approached me outside after the party. He started hitting on me. It was very strange.”
I started laughing, the THC making the image of this in my mind seem very comical. I pictured Rocky with a big stupid grin strutting up to her, twirling around once in a disco move and giving her the finger guns while winking. I imagined him saying something cheesy: hey doc, do you got some medical tape I can borrow? Cuz I’m ripped. And then he’d flex his enormous muscles.
Almost as if everyone else was picturing something equally absurd they all joined me in laughter. Even Carmen started giggling, Tea trying to fake laughter just to not be left out.
“I’m afraid I have to take some of the blame for that,” I said as the laughter died down, “at the party he asked me if you were available and I told him you were divorced.”
“No worries,” Doctor Taylor said, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit flattered.”
“Yeah, mom!” Teagan cheered, her joint almost completely smoked away.
“Mother!” Deidre said in feigned outrage, looking between her mom and sister, “that guy is younger than I am.”
Doctor Taylor grinned, “He couldn’t have been any worse than your father.”
The mention of Doctor Taylor’s ex-husband seemed to sober the mood a little, but not enough to stop the conversation.
“Mom, you don’t need to talk about it,” Teagan said, “we agreed to leave it alone, remember?”
Doctor Taylor shrugged, “we’re all stoned. I can’t think of a better time.”
Teagan looked like she wanted to protest further, but stopped herself. This was more for Doctor Taylor’s benefit than anyone else’s.
“I was in medical school when we got married,” she said, “and he was good to me at first. He’d make sure the house was clean when I got home at night. He’d have dinner ready for me. He helped me study when he could. It was my last year of residency when I got pregnant…with Teagan.” She paused, keeping her gaze on the ground. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
“He changed almost instantly when we found out I was pregnant,” she continued, “he stopped doing all those things for me. He became…distant. Would often stay out late at night. Sometimes comin’ home drunk. When I confronted ‘em about this…he said he’d been so supportive during med school cuz he thought that after I finished my residency, I could go into a private practice like I wanted. Then we’d have time to do all the things we dreamt of. You know, movin’ somewhere nice. Goin’ on vacations. Seein’ the world and all that. But he said havin’ the kid would ruin it. He never said it explicitly, but lookin’ back on it, he blamed me for the pregnancy.”
Teagan lay on her back on the ground, looking up at the forest canopy, but said nothing. Deidre and John sat, listening patiently.
“I tried to assure him that we could still do those things we always talked about,” Doctor Taylor said, eyes unfocused as she recalled the story, “but now we’d just have a daughter to share in those experiences with us. I told ‘em it might actually make it better. That…that didn’t….”
She sighed, poking at the ground with a finger. “He became more distant when Teagan was born. About a year later I found out that he was cheatin’ on me. We separated for a while. Then back together. Then separated. It was like that for quite some time. My dad ended up getting’ pancreatic cancer and I’d have to drop Teagan off with my husband. Everything was so crazy, I didn’t wanna let myself believe he was hittin’ her.”
Doctor Taylor looked apologetically to her daughter. Deidre grabbed her mother’s hand, clasping it in her own. “One day I came home from the hospital where I worked…where my dad was bein’ treated. I caught ‘em in the act of hitting Teagan. When I confronted ‘em, he beat me up.”
She shook her head, running her thumb over the back of Deidre’s hand. “That’s when I met Aaron Reynolds. He was a young police officer then, just moved in from La Junta. He came in on the domestic abuse call. He tried convincing me to press charges, but I didn’t. I convinced myself that this was just a one-off thing. That my husband just made a mistake. That it was my fault for neglecting him. I was a walking cliché.”
“After that, Aaron would often come by the hospital and check on me,” Doctor Taylor continued, “He even got to know my dad before he died.” She sighed. “My dad told me that I should find a man like Aaron. The bitch of it is…I coulda have left my husband for Aaron. It took seven more years, three more severe beatings, and a second child before Aaron finally convinced me to leave ‘em.”
Tears now streamed down her cheeks. “Aaron convinced me to leave my husband at his own wedding. His marriage couldn’t have been happier, and I resented Aaron’s wife for a long time after that. I wrapped myself up in my work at the hospital. I volunteered at the group for battered women. I volunteered at the girls’ schools. I did everything I could to keep busy and never got remarried. My ex-husband did, though. He and his new wife moved to Pueblo. I never heard anything about ‘em after that.”
She forced a smile through the tears. “I eventually stopped resenting Aaron’s wife, but we never really became friends.” Doctor Taylor paused a moment before saying, “She went off with Big Terry and them now. That guy Sean was her second cousin or somethin’, I think.”
“You did the best you could, mom,” Deidre said, rubbing her mother’s hand between hers.
“I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much about what I’ve been through,” Doctor Taylor said, looking to Carmen and Tea.
“You can’t minimize what you’ve been through because other people had it worse,” Deidre said.
“Mom,” Teagan said, sitting back up.
Doctor Taylor looked to her eldest daughter without saying anything.
“You…did the best ya could,” she said, “I think…I understand that.”
Doctor Taylor remained silent.
“I know why you stayed,
” Teagan continued, “for the longest time, I never understood.” She shook her head. “No. It’s not even that. It’s that I didn’t wanna understand. Cuz if I did, then I…I’d have to examine myself.” She looked to Deidre, who gave a subtle nod. Teagan continued, “while I was…gone. I met a man. He…he ended up bein’ just like dad. And I didn’t leave, either. Not until…until he beat me so bad that I…I…”
Doctor Taylor crawled over to her daughter and wrapped her arms around her. Teagan hugged her back, weeping.
“It’s okay,” Doctor Taylor said, “you can talk to me whenever you feel ready.”
“I love you, mom,” Teagan sobbed, sniffling, “I’m so sorry about how I treated you.”
“It’s okay,” she assured her daughter, “you’re okay. I love you, too.”
The two of them sat in each other’s arms for some time – my sense of how long warped by the marijuana high – whispering and consoling one another until Doctor Taylor unwrapped her arms. She took a spot sitting down between both of her daughters. All three of them had cheeks wet with tears.
“We all like to think of ourselves as the protagonist of the story,” Doctor Taylor said in a quiet voice, eyes on me, “but really, we’re all just extras in a much longer story, aren’t we?”
“We should probably lay off the marijuana for a while,” John said, cracking a grin, trying to lighten the mood.
“Sometimes it’s difficult to accept that someone else could be exceptional,” Doctor Taylor continued, still looking at me, “because it implies that we might not have that big a role to play.”
“I think everyone is starting to go,” Deidre said, climbing slowly to her feet, brushing off her pants and helping Carmen and Tea to their feet.
Doctor Taylor stood up at the same time as Teagan. She leaned close to me and whispered, “This might be the pot talkin’, but I now think you’re meant for somethin’ important.”
I stood, saying nothing, as Doctor Taylor turned around and started walking away with her entire family. Everyone else said their goodbyes and continued moving. The woods were alive again with the march.
I looked up to the sky, finding the gray expanse of clouds still clear of any UAVs. When I looked at the time on my bionic eye display, I found that we had been sitting for over an hour.
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