As he turned around and started back toward the house, the kid’s proclamation from earlier reverberated in his skull: we’re all on somebody else’s leash until we decide to cut ourselves loose.
CHAPTER 20
Andrew Leland had told Shawn he remembered nothing about his time on the other planet beyond “bare-bones facts.”
This was a lie.
Yes, he had experienced nothing through his human senses and couldn’t remember things as they actually had been. But his mind had adjusted his memories and translated them into experiences he could understand, as the mind so often does with the incomprehensible.
Still, things were hazy even in translation, and he found his memories to be fluid and unspecific, very much like dreams. A place on that world that was neither city nor forest nor beach might be remembered as any of the three, depending on the time he was remembering. Likewise, the beings with whom he had lived were sometimes recalled as vague, faceless entities and at other times as people, though he knew that whatever they had been, they hadn’t been anything like people.
He remembered her as a she and himself as a he, without knowing whether those terms had applied to either of them at the time.
“They want me to take it down,” he told her one night, in what must have been the fourth year since his arrival, measuring in Earth-time. By that point, he was already revered in their world for having built the incredible shield that had protected their planet from Earth’s planned attack. But if they felt gratitude to the mysterious man from outer space, they had grown increasingly nervous about his planet. Yes, with his help, they had staved off an attack, but a hostile and unpredictable world like Earth so close to their own was a continual threat, and it was unclear whether the barrier he’d engineered for them truly couldn’t be breached. The threat, it was finally assessed, needed to be removed completely, and in order to accomplish that, they required him to undo what he had done, to remove the shield so they could pass through from their end and eliminate the danger permanently.
“What did you answer?” she asked.
The two of them were standing on the edge of some beautiful place, possibly a large field or a sandy beach, which was illuminated by a majestic blanket of stars.
“I told them I couldn’t do that.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
“Is there a difference?”
“What did they say?”
“Nothing.”
She looked into his eyes, and he feared for a moment that her penetrating gaze might hold a hint of judgment, that she might now see him as the others surely did, as apart, as not really one of them.
Then, without any warning besides a mischievous gleam in her eye, she snatched a medallion or pin or something else from off his chest and suddenly took off running.
He darted after her, and soon they were running side by side, playfully shoving one another as they raced beneath the night sky. To those born of her world, he knew she was considered a kind of goddess or sorceress, exalted, worshiped, revered, but to him, she was both more and less, childlike and at the same time a source of such incredible wonder that he sometimes questioned how he ever could have felt alive back on Earth. When they reached the other side of the field, they both collapsed, panting on their backs as they lay amid the stalks of the field or the sand of the beach or some other substance entirely.
He would never understand her, he knew that. Her power was said to be beyond the comprehension of all but the wisest and most intellectually evolved of their world. Just like the so-called Illumination, that strange and mysterious resource that Earth had sought to steal from them. Leland had built the cosmic shield chiefly to protect the Illumination, but he still had no real idea of what it was, why it was so powerful, or why anyone on Earth might want it.
She, on the other hand, was one of the enlightened few who did. Since he knew the Illumination was beyond his grasp, he never pressed her to try to explain it to him, though he sometimes teased her, asking who was more powerful, she or it, a question she would laugh off, probably because she understood that his teasing masked his deep sense of inferiority.
And who in his situation could help but feel insecure, unworthy, at least some of the time? In truth, he wasn’t interested in understanding the Illumination. What he really wished he could understand was her.
They lay there for several moments, staring up at the stars, and then she rose to her feet and stared down at him with those intense and sincere eyes, always remembered as wide and green. Looking up at her now, silhouetted by the dazzling star field above, he was reminded of the very first time he’d seen her, bathed in ethereal light, surrounded by a vast horde gazing at her with reverential awe.
“You’ll be in grave danger now,” she said, her voice soft, but firm. “You have to let me save you.”
He didn’t respond, and she stared at him for several more seconds, then lowered herself back down and climbed on top of him and placed her mouth upon his. She lay down on him, and the two remained that way for some time after.
* * *
The rain continued to pound the walls and roof of the old mansion. Leland stared out the bedroom window at the trees and the highway in the distance. He didn’t really remember her anymore, not truly. What she looked like, what she sounded like, even much of her personality, these were lost to him. And the field had not been a field and the kiss had not been a kiss and the girl had, of course, not been a girl.
But that feeling that had passed between them, as the two of them lay there beneath the stars, that feeling had survived, was with him always, and he knew he could pass through a thousand different bodies in a thousand different worlds and he would never be able to forget it.
CHAPTER 21
When their supplies finally ran out, Shawn and Leland had been living with the kid, who called himself Miles, for two weeks. In that time, Shawn had warmed up to Miles, who certainly made better company than Andrew Leland. For the most part, he was a genial and bracingly honest conversation partner, though he could also turn cold and distant on a dime if you pressed him about his past or, for that matter, his future.
Since they’d met him, Miles had continued to show no sign that he might recognize Leland, though Leland and Shawn remained careful not to let down their guards. There had actually been one incident that had made Shawn a little uncomfortable, though he wasn’t sure what it indicated, if anything, and it certainly didn’t rise to the level of evidence, per se, of anything to be concerned about. It had occurred about a week after Shawn and Leland had arrived at the mansion. Miles had been telling Shawn a story about his grandfather, some kind of war hero, when he decided he wanted a cigarette, and Shawn had accompanied him outside to the front porch to continue the conversation while Miles smoked. As they stepped outside, they were both immediately struck by the clarity and brightness of the stars in the night sky, and for a minute, neither said anything. Then, after a long drag on his cigarette, Miles asked, “You think there’s anything’s out there?”
“What do you mean?” asked Shawn.
“You know. Life.”
Shawn, who’d been trying to spot Andromeda in the sea of tiny white dots, looked over at Miles. He was still watching the sky, his cigarette lobbed in the knuckles of one hand while the other rested on his hip in a sort of quasi-aristocratic pose. Shawn wasn’t sure how to answer him. Once upon a time, it would have been a perfectly normal and commonly asked question. But nobody asked it today! Of course there was something “out there”—the world had watched it snatch away a famous physicist on live TV! So was Miles just fucking with him now? If yes, why? Did he already suspect Leland’s identity, and was he deliberately putting Shawn in the awkward position of having to either confront the subject of Bernasconi Hills head-on or blatantly and unnaturally ignore it? Or was he instead just one of those conspiracy theorists who didn’t believe Bernasconi Hills ever happened?
In the end, Shawn opted for a simple and uncontroversial “Yes, I do�
� without elaborating and quickly changed the subject back to Miles’s grandfather.
The conversation had unsettled Shawn, but not so terribly, and he didn’t bother mentioning it to Leland. Ultimately, he concluded that, as with the time Miles had used the term rocket scientist, the incident probably said much more about Shawn’s own paranoia (however justified) than it did about Miles.
It was late afternoon when Shawn and Leland got back into their Honda Civic for the first time since their arrival and set off for a shopping excursion in nearby Black Canyon City. The plan was to load up on supplies and then stay in the Atterbury House for another four or five days before moving on to the next location, leaving most of the supplies behind, in keeping with their agreed-upon arrangement with Miles. While the mansion had provided a stable and convenient cover, more than two weeks in the same spot was already pushing it. As for where they’d be heading afterward, Shawn had no idea. Leland rarely told him where they were headed next before they were about to go, and he kept him totally in the dark about the overall trajectory of their travels and where, if anywhere, their ultimate destination lay. Leland didn’t need to spell out why; Shawn understood that the less he knew, the better. If he was captured by Ambius, they would surely want to know about Leland’s whereabouts and any other information about him Shawn might possess. However, even if Shawn knew nothing, there was a strong possibility he might be tortured for info, which is why Leland had given him a tiny cyanide capsule that could be hidden in his tooth. Whether this was primarily to protect Shawn from the pain of torture or Leland from exposure by Shawn was left ambiguous.
In Black Canyon City, about fifteen miles from the Atterbury House, they pulled into the parking lot of a Walmart, and Shawn got out of the car. While many previous shopping outings had involved risky after-hours break-ins, this time there was no need, as Miles had surprised them with money. It turned out he had at least four hundred bucks in cash, probably stolen from his parents. He’d likely been holding out until now to see if he could trust them.
While Leland waited in the car, a nondescript baseball cap pulled down to just above his black shades, Shawn walked into the superstore and felt a surge of freedom. Hundreds of customers moved this way and that, as various staticky announcements—sales, specials, upcoming store events—rang out over the intercom. He knew which section he needed to seek out first, what needed to be obtained, but for a moment, he simply stood in place. This was the first time in a good while that he’d found himself amid a real crowd, an anonymous individual blending in with a larger whole. A member of society.
It felt liberating and then suddenly troubling. Wasn’t he, after all, a member of society? And didn’t that carry certain obligations? Shawn held secret knowledge that affected all these people around him and millions—no, billions—more, and the only reason he wasn’t acting on it was because Andrew Leland wouldn’t allow him to. Cut the leash. There was a bus station just beyond the parking lot; he’d caught sight of it from the car. He didn’t need to remain anybody’s prisoner; he could break free and finally, finally do the right thing. This was his big chance, right here, right now. Leland was out in the car, nowhere near him. Shawn could be on a bus headed out of Arizona before he even realized he was gone. Cut the leash, dammit!
But he couldn’t do it. Maybe it was because he knew no one would ever believe him. It would be one thing for Andrew Leland to come out and reveal the truth, but it was quite another for Shawn, a complete nobody, to come forward with such a wild and improbable story. Or maybe, despite his disappointments and disillusionment, he still had some reverence for Leland, still trusted him, and was afraid to betray him.
Or maybe he was just afraid, period. He wasn’t sure himself the exact reason, maybe didn’t even want to know, but in the end, he returned to the car with a shopping cart full of food and supplies and unloaded them into the trunk and backseat of the Honda.
“We’ll pack tonight,” Leland said afterward as Shawn climbed into the front passenger seat. “Be discreet about it.”
Shawn gave him a confused look. “Aren’t we staying another few days?”
“Nope. Leaving at sunrise. No reason for him to know in advance. Safer that way.”
When they returned to the mansion, they brought most of the items from Walmart down to the basement and, together with Miles, stacked them inside the closet where he’d been stashing his supplies. They didn’t tell him about the things that had been left upstairs, paid for with his money, that would be going out with them in the morning. After Leland went back upstairs, Miles tore open one of the six-packs he’d requested, and he and Shawn shared a beer.
“You guys didn’t get any of the magazines I asked for,” Miles observed.
“Well, in just a few days, you’ll have your SIM card back.”
Miles grinned. “True that.”
After they finished the beer, Shawn wished Miles good night and then started toward the staircase, but paused at the landing. He turned back to Miles, who was sitting on his mattress now, fiddling with his phone, probably gearing up for one of his marathon gaming sessions. Miles had been something like a friend to him these past few weeks, probably the closest thing he’d had to one since going into hiding. Miles had also lit something of a spark in him, even if in the end Shawn couldn’t actually go through with breaking free from the ties that bound him the way Miles had done.
It didn’t seem right to just disappear without a word. He knew Leland would have objected to even the slightest hint that they would be taking off tomorrow, but this wouldn’t actually qualify, and anyway, Leland wasn’t here now, was he?
“Miles?”
Miles look up from his screen.
“Been fun times hanging with you.”
Miles looked at him a little funny, and for a second, Shawn wondered if he might suspect something. But then he smiled with something approaching genuine warmth. “Same here, pal,” he said.
Shawn and Leland spent the rest of that night packing as quietly as they could. Sometime after 1:00 A.M., Shawn went to bed as Leland continued to through his maps, making preparations for wherever they’d be heading next. It’s really a shame to be leaving here, Shawn thought as he nestled into his sleeping bag. It was by far the most hospitable spot they’d found, not to mention easily the most fascinating. He’d also miss Miles, he realized. He hoped that the kid would get out of here soon, either go back home and find the strength to face whatever he was running from or else start life anew just like he wished he himself could.
* * *
A few hours later, Shawn woke from his sleep to a noise, opened his eyes, and bolted upright.
A figure stood in the middle of the bedroom, barely visible in the darkness. With the help of the shallow moonlight streaming in from the window, Shawn’s eyes quickly adjusted, and he realized it was Miles and that he was pointing a handgun directly at Leland’s sleeping bag.
“Miles!” Shawn cried in a hoarse whisper, and Leland’s own eyes popped open, as well.
Miles gave Shawn a quick glance without turning his head. “I ain’t gonna hurt you, pal,” he said. “But your friend and I, we got us some business to attend to.” He smiled at Leland, who was starting to sit up. “Did y’all really think I didn’t recognize the most famous man in the world? I knew you the moment you first pulled up in that beat-up Honda. Everyone on Earth knows that face, and me even more than some. I never really told y’all where I was from, did I? Little town called Annabella, Texas. Heard of it?”
“Nope,” said Leland.
But Shawn had. He remembered reading articles about Annabella years ago, sometime soon after Bernasconi Hills. About how the local Presbyterian minister and the majority of his flock had jointly renounced their Christian faith and sawed the steeple off their church, declaring themselves members of a new order with a brand-new theology.
“They worship you,” Shawn said quietly to Leland. “Like a messiah.”
“Like a god,” Miles corrected. “Overni
ght, my family, my whole town, went from normal, hardworking folk to fucking fruitcakes. And our good, holy reverend … well, let’s just say he was the biggest fruitcake of ’em all. Whole lotta pickles short of a barrel. I lived with it long as I could, long as I had to, and then I busted right out of there. Decided I’d rather live on my own than be part of some nutty cult. But maybe … well, maybe I gave up on ’em all just a little too soon. Ya know? Maybe things will change back to normal once I show ’em all that the great Andrew Leland bleeds red just like anybody else.”
With slow but deliberate movements, Leland started to work his way out of his sleeping bag.
“Oh no you don’t. You stay down,” Miles demanded, but he looked uncertain as he spoke, and Leland ignored him, carefully keeping their eyes locked as he got to his feet. “That’s my gun,” he said when he was standing face-to-face with Miles.
The kid chuckled. “Don’t feel so great to be on the stupid end, huh?”
Leland didn’t answer.
“You got any last words, Lord and Savior?”
“Give me back my gun.”
Miles laughed again. “You don’t think I’m serious?”
Leland shook his head.
“Why’s that?”
“You would have shot me while I was still sleeping if you were. That would have made sense.”
“Maybe I just wanted to give my little speech first. Don’t everybody?”
Despite his joking, Shawn noticed that Miles actually looked incredibly nervous. In fact, he looked more nervous pointing that gun at Leland now than he had when Leland had pointed the gun at him back when they first met.
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