The Vision Master

by William Hill

It took him over an hour to make it to the two-lane graveled country road a mile from the cave. Twice he had to stop and wait for a sentry to pass. He had posted their three night guards to walk in concentric circles around the cave, about two hundred yards apart, walking in opposite directions and timed so that if someone got past one guard, they would walk into the next one. Unless the intruder was a Master. In that case, at least two of the sentries would sense his presence and both then would converge on him. He knew they wouldn’t sense him. The last thing Gran had taught him, before she passed, was the secret of how to mask, one's presence from another Master. She'd never shared this secret with anyone, not even her own sons. But he had. It was difficult and demanding. One has to make one's mind as blank as possible, as if in a trance, a lot like the techniques used in the Eastern religions, like Zen Buddhism. The only problem is that if one goes into the trance too deeply, one is oblivious to the world outside one's mind and body and incapable of doing anything until something somewhere deep within tells the mind to focus and the body to awake. But that doesn't work well if one needs to be aware of the outside world at the same time. The trick is going deep enough with out going too deep. It was tricky, and risky, to fathom the right balance. But he had mastered it. He hoped. He had asked Gran why she had never let anyone know about this, and her answer was typical of her, "No one ever asked". He had responded, "How can anyone ask about something they've never heard of?", and in answer to that she merely added, "Huh! No one's ever asked me that either". Liam thought to himself that the real reason she never told anyone was so she would always be able to sense others and, whenever she felt like it, be invisible to them. Walking carefully in the dark, without a light, he moved slowly so as not to trip over the rough, rocky terrain and break his leg. Or neck. All considered, he felt he was making good time.

  There were hurried steps behind him. Turning around, he saw a dark shape running toward him. Had the last sentry somehow seen him? It didn't matter, friend or foe, he wasn't about to let his absence be detected, he needed to put miles behind himself before morning, before that happened. He began mentally focusing on the person, as odious as it seemed to him to do it to a friend, to suppress him into unconsciousness.

  "Liam! Wait!” It was Carol's voice.

  Running back to meet her, he asked, "What are you doing here?"

  I could ask you the same question, Liam."

  "Doesn’t matter. Just go back, and don't tell anyone."

  "Nope. ‘Whither thou goest, I will go'."

  "We're not married."

  "Not yet, but someday we will be."

  "Oh? What makes you think so?"

  "Gran told me before she died. Said she'd 'seen' it. So, you better get use to having me around as your 'helpmate'. Now, where we going and why?"

  He remembered what Gran had told him about Carol and himself. She hadn't used the word "married", but recalling what was said he realized it was implicit. He also knew there was no arguing with Carol, because he'd loose anyway, so he gave in and explained his plan to her as they turned and began walking.

  "Brilliant, Liam!” Carol announced admiringly, but unsurprised, at the selflessness of his plan. “It just… might… work. Especially, when there's the two of us!"

  "You mean the four of us!" another voice said behind them.

  Freezing where he stood, Liam recognized Drew's voice. Turning, he saw him and Scott, and chastised himself for focusing so much on Carol and not enough on his surroundings so that he missed sensing their ‘presence’, enabling them to sneak up on him. "What are you two doing here?" he demanded.

  "Got up to take a pee and saw Carol sneaking out of the cave with all her stuff. Saw yours was gone too. Figured there was going to be an adventure, so I woke Scott, we grabbed our stuff, and followed. And here we are. So what's the deal?"

  "I don't want you and Scott involved in this ‘adventure’. Didn't want Carol either, but that's a loosing argument. Just go back, both of you, please! It’ll be dangerous. You could die.”

  “As Peter Pan said, ‘To die would be an awfully big adventure’. If you’re willing to risk it, then so am I,” responded Drew.

  Scott simply smiled at Liam as he took Carol by the hand and started walking away.

  Liam stood there watching their backs when Drew punched him on the shoulder and asked in a hushed voice, “I heard something about 'marriage'. When's the wedding? If we survive this plan of yours, I'll be your best man, if you ask nicely!"

  Liam looked him in the eye, and with a wry grin and a wink said, "Bite me!" as he turned and began following Carol and Scott, Drew behind him, laughing. Some day I’ll have to ask all of them how they’d got past the sentries, he mused.

  By sun up they'd made their way to the highway, just as Liam had hoped, but his plan to hitch a ride was rendered unlikely now that there were so many of them. One, maybe two, might be able to, but no one in his right mind would stop for four. He wasn't keen on the idea in the first place because, alone, he didn't want to be picked up by a perv, but it had seemed the only way to get where he was going fast. Now they'd have to walk, but you couldn't do that along a freeway. They'd have to go cross-country.

  "How are we going to get there," Carol wanted to know.

  Liam explained. "Sometime after we first got to the cave I asked where we where. My Uncle Del showed me on a road map where, and it was about twenty miles by road to a town called Roanoke. He also had a topographic map that he gave me that I've looked at. If we walk a straight line from here, as much as possible what with all the hills between us and there, we'll make better time than following the road, and less chance of being seen".

  "What about any farmers?” Carol asked. "What if one sees us?"

  "We'll deal with it if it happens. Anyway, as the crow flies, as best as I can make out the map, we only have to go about ten miles. If we're lucky, we'll make it there by sunset."

  "And if and when we get there, then what?" Scott asked.

  "How much money do each of you have?"

  Drew, Scott, and Carol all dug into their pockets. Between them they had twenty-seven dollars and sixty-eight cents. Liam had sixty-one, forty of which he'd taken from his father's wallet as he slept. He figured a little theft wouldn't get him in any more trouble than he was already in for sneaking away and, besides, if his plan worked out, all would be forgiven anyway. Or so he hoped.

  "We've got eighty-eight dollars. That's nowhere near enough for all of us, but we'll think of something," he told them.

  "Enough for what? Drew asked.

  "Well, I originally intended to hitch a ride to at least Roanoke, or farther if possible, and then take the bus."

  "Really, Liam!" Carol said exasperatedly.

  "What? Something wrong with a bus?"

  "No, silly. I mean, really, Liam! Where is your head? Have you already forgotten how you got us out of D.C.?"

  "Well, I don't think it'd be smart to impersonate my uncle again, as I'm sure his name is flagged on every car rental agency for not turning in the one he — I — rented."

  "You are thick! You can be anyone you want."

  "I suppose I could," he acknowledged as they continued walking.

  The sun felt warm now that it was Spring, and Old Man Winter was disappearing below the border with his cold weather to the southern hemispheres. The grass was greening up, trees were starting to bloom, and birds were singing to each other, looking for a mate with which to propagate the species. Spring and Fall were his favorite seasons. Spring meant soon Summer and no school, and Fall, because, if you reckon the start of school as the beginning of your year, as he did, meant meeting and making new friends, learning new things, and trying to improve on last school year's grades. Summer was just around the corner, and he wondered what it'd be like. Would all this mess they had become enmeshed in be done? Would he be a wanted fugitive? Would he be in jail? Or worse, "renditioned" as a terrorist to some secret
black hole overseas? Stop it, Liam! he told himself. He was forgetting his personal credo - "Yesterday is dead and gone, and tomorrow is yet to be born. All you can do is live for today".

  Suddenly, as he'd been lost in his revelry and not paying attention to anything outside his own head, he bumped into someone. Scott was standing still right in front of him. Carol, a little further ahead, had also stopped with her hand in the air motioning everyone to stop. She quickly turned to all of them, with a finger to her lips, signaling them to be quiet, and silently came back to where Liam and the brothers were.

  "Someone's up there, just ahead of us," she whispered. "I felt a presence. I've felt it before, but I can't remember where."

  Liam let his mind probe ahead. Sensing the presence Carol had, he shook his head in disbelief. Smiling, he simply walked forward. "It’s Dad. Come on guys."

  As they crested the top of a steep hill in front of them, they saw his dad sitting beneath a tree, his back to it and facing the direction they'd come from, eating an apple.

  "What are you doin' here?" Liam asked.

  Starring into Liam's eyes, he quietly, evenly said, "What are you doin' here?"

  He sensed his father's controlled anger. He could even see it simmering in his father's coal-black eyes. Liam had often reflected that those eyes, the black hair, and high cheek bones were his father's, as well as his two uncles', genetic inheritance of their Indian blood, although none if them looked as Native as Gran had. He was always a bit envious of that because, other than his own somewhat high cheek bones, he looked nothing like an Indian and, while he was quite proud of his Gael Norse blood, there were times he wished he did.

  "Well?" his father said.

  "Would you believe we were bored and just decided to take a walk?" he answered, jokingly trying to sidestep the question.

  His father's eyes narrowed and began to darken, if that was possible.

  Hoping to lighten things up, Drew said, "Hey, Mr. MacDonald, got any more apples? I'm hungry!"

  Without breaking eye contact with his son, Will ignored Drew who, recognizing that he wasn’t going to get a response, said, "Oh, sorry", and thankfully detached himself from the group. Scott took Drew's lead and walked off a ways himself. Carol stayed beside Liam, not so much to lend him moral support, but because she was, herself, mesmerized by Liam's father's eyes and felt the force behind them.

  "Well, I'm waiting," Liam's father told his son.

  "Need to know, Dad, need to know!" he answered, hoping the use of the well-worn catchphrase his father always used would get a laugh.

  "Don't use that on me, boy. As your father I have every right to know, and you damn well know it!"

  He had never said "Sir" to his dad before, as his father had never suggested, let alone demanded, he do so as many of Liam's friend's fathers had to them. While he recognized it was a term of respect, he also felt it connoted a sense of master/servant and to him that wasn't, or shouldn't be, the proper relationship between a father and his son. Still, locked to his father's smoldering eyes, he thought perhaps now it might be appropriate. "Yes sir" he answered quickly, his eyes down, breaking contact with his father's.

  His father's head moved a little in surprise at that, and his anger visibly abated. Quietly he arose and walked up to Liam, putting his hand on his son's shoulder.

  "Okay, what are you guys really up to?" he asked gently.

  Liam explained what he had planned, and why, and how the others had joined up with him on their own accord. His father listened without interruption, and when Liam was through, he turned and walked a few paces away from Liam, and with his back to him, to think over what he'd just heard.

  Turning back to Liam, after what seemed an eternity, he smiled a silly grin, much to the relief of the kids who had been surreptitiously exchanging nervous glances with one another, wondering what would happen. "There really doesn't seem to be another way to end this, does there?"

  "Not that I can think of, without jeopardizing the welfare of the others, Dad."

  "Well, there is only one flaw in your plan, but there was no way you could have known. You see, there is one bit of Intel we, that is, your Privy Counsel, Sire, didn't tell you. We've been in contact with others, who've been spying out the enemy, for the past several weeks, to see if they were onto our whereabouts, and what they've been up to since we ‘Highlanded’ it, so that we could incorporate the info into any action plan we might suggest, whenever you decided we needed to finally act. We never figured you to act on your own, but once we discovered you — and your posse here — were gone, with your stuff and supplies, we kinda figured it out. Del remembered showing you the ‘topo’ map and when we discovered it gone as well, we knew you were on the move. The only question was in what direction. It didn't make any sense for you to go in any other direction than the one you've taken, so we loaded up as many as we could into the vehicles we have, and dropped people off at different distances along the route we expected you to possibly take, to intercept you, and to warn you.”

  "Warn me about what?"

  Carol listened intently as Will explained to Liam that they had reasoned out that Liam would choose to go to Washington to confront the enemy where they would least expected him to, just as he had with going to Smith's. It had succeeded then, albeit barely, Will acknowledged, because Smith had suspected someone would come looking for him, only not Liam, and it succeeded only with the family's help and luck. Even so, they knew that Liam would probably elect the same tactic and they knew he'd need their help again. What Liam didn't know, his father continued, is that there was a Mole in his little army.

  "Mole?" Liam asked.

  "A spy, working against us, by reporting where we are and what we have been doing."

  "Who? When did you find this out, and what's he told them?"

  "Don't know rightly, but there are many possibilities. You have to remember, many came leaving family behind and it's quite possible one or more of these families are being held as leverage. We found out sometime ago through one of our own Moles, who relayed to us through the system, that our exact whereabouts has been known by the enemy for some time. They have been content to leave us alone while they marshaled their own ‘army’ and consolidated their power base in D.C. We can only believe that your leaving camp as you did has been reported, and if so, they're looking for you. You might have walked into a hornet's nest, Son, if we didn't manage to find you."

  Carol looked at Liam. He was silent for a moment, and she could almost hear the wheels in his head turning.

  "What are you thinking?

  Glancing at her, Liam turned to his father. "We — you — have ‘Irregulars’, Moles too?"

  "A few. They wanted to help us, but didn't want to leave their families at risk, so they feigned loyalty to the other side, but have been in contact with us."

  "And you trust them?" Carol asked.

  "Yeah, I do."

  "Doesn't matter either way," Liam said. “We can still rely on them to report whatever we tell them, whether what we tell them is true or not."

  Confused, Carol asked, "What do you mean?"

  "Disinformation, Carol! Dad, let them know to tell the other side we're headed southwest. Tell the rest of our people the same thing. That way, their mole will also tell the enemy the same thing our moles tell them, thus confirming each other’s report. Have our people begin getting ready to break camp. Either way, the enemy will believe we're moving, but when they look for us south or west, they'll not see some of us moving north and east."

  Carol couldn't help but think Liam's thinking was genius. She could follow his larger plan, to surprise the enemy within his own castle walls while the enemy's forces were being directed and focused elsewhere, and being supplied misinformation by the moles within their own ranks. Liam and some of his army would slip into the enemy camp unobserved.

  Looking at Liam with renewed admiration, she announced, "We can do it!" as she saw from the cor
ner of her eye his father close his, in preparation to vision out to one of their Irregulars.

  Chapter Twenty Eight: Assault on D.C.

  “Your neighbor’s vision is as true for him as your own vision is true for you.”