He hoped that Zach’s time here would help him as much as it had helped John. They didn’t fly in; even for John and Sera, it would’ve been a long haul, never mind while carrying another person. Instead they opted to use a car that John had “procured” before they had gone to rescue Zach; with the war on, and many destruction corridors still scarring cities despite reconstruction efforts, there were plenty of abandoned cars. A set of fake plates and magicked papers from Vickie turned it into a completely forgettable vehicle; just another beat-to-hell plain white delivery van on the roads. A van was necessary; Sera’s wings took up space, and Zach’s green skin and blue-green hair drew attention. Both of them had to ride in the back. So, John drove, taking back roads and staying away from anything that even resembled a traffic camera or license plate reader; Vickie plotted their route, and when they couldn’t avoid a situation where they might be recorded, she did her finger-waggling and futzed with whatever system might catch them. The entire trip took about a week; John drove through the night on several occasions, his enhancements, enough caffeine to kill a mule, and frequent telempathic “boosts” from Sera helping to keep him alert. Whenever that got to be too much, they would find somewhere to camp, away from prying eyes. Food was prepackaged and easy to heat up—no need to carry fuel or a stove with two fire-chuckers on hand. Sera was getting very good at boiling water, cooking hot dogs, and even grilling steak…literally by hand. Zach’s appetite certainly hadn’t been affected by what he had gone through; John ate a lot due to his metabolism being so high combined with how much work he did, but Zach was a walking disposal. A crate of Gamma Bars kept him from grumbling in between meals. Vickie arranged anonymous pickups of supplies from several camping stores along the way; prepaid, and needing only a name to be handed over. John handled the public stuff while Sera and Zach stayed in the van, out of sight.
When the trio finally arrived at John’s cabin, it was just after nine in the morning. The air was cool and dry, with all of the usual natural morning sounds filling it. It was one of the few places anymore where you didn’t hear anything mechanical. They were too far out for highway noises, and planes flying overhead were too high for more than faint jet noise. John peeled himself out of the cheap imitation leather driver’s seat of the van, stretching and groaning; he heard more pops and cracks than he thought was possible as his joints and muscles stretched out.
“Where are we?” Zach asked, climbing out of the van, which was now packed with supplies.
“Somewhere safe, kiddo. You won’t have to worry ’bout bein’ found out here. This is a place that I set up, years ago, after I got out of the Program. No one but us knows it even exists.”
Vickie had implanted Zach with the standard Overwatch Two setup before they left Atlanta. He had been wary, but it was the only foolproof way to make sure he was safe, and for him to get into contact with her. Since it was all going through her “magic circuits” and wasn’t on any sort of broadcast or wired link, no one could use it to back-trace him or eavesdrop.
It also solved the problem of entertaining (and educating) a bored teenager with no wilderness experience, no internet, no cable, no broadcast TV and damned near no broadcast radio. Anything he wanted could be piped right into his ears and onto his HUD. And anything he physically needed, Vickie could arrange to be delivered to the door by the absolutely incurious contact she had in Laramie. Tim Rangle—one of Vic’s hacker “associates” with a habit of cooking up complicated plots in lieu of much simpler solutions—was used to delivering to people out in the middle of nowhere who didn’t want to answer the door. As long as he got paid, he didn’t care what happened to the boxes he dropped off.
“I don’t want to stay here. I want to go back with you two. I’m going to lose my mind out here, alone.” Zach paced around, looking at the property. The cabin itself was a simple affair: a single room divided up into kitchen (with wood-fired stove), den with couch and a collection of sun-faded books and magazines, bathtub, and a simple—albeit comfortable—bed.
They went outside to continue the tour. The outhouse was slightly down the hill and off to the left. There was a large woodshed, stocked with several cords of seasoned wood, and an attached tool shed (which, coincidentally, housed John’s secret cache of weapons in a compartment beneath the floor). What seemed to have most of Zach’s attention were the large rocks and boulders scattered behind the cabin. All of them were scorched and blackened; some bore deep gouges, were half melted, or had holes burned through them. Melted rock was strewn about, little pools of used-to-be lava, now hardened and looking like ponds in a range of gargantuan mountains.
“What happened here, anyways?” Zach turned back to the couple, shaking his head. John snapped his fingers, and his right hand became sheathed in flame.
“Practice makes perfect; took a long time for me to get it all down this small instead of startin’ a forest fire. Nice thing ’bout this place: no neighbors to come ’round, askin’ questions ’bout all the strange noise and lights.”
For a moment the teen looked impressed, but his expression quickly faded. “I’m not stupid. Or young enough to whine about how unfair things are. But I still don’t like this.”
John could feel the pleading desperation that Zach was experiencing; he knew it well enough himself. The boy wanted someone to talk to, someone to help him work through what he had gone through; what he had done to survive, and the people that he had lost.
He tried to look sympathetic. “You won’t have to deal with it alone, kiddo. Remember what Vickie told you; y’ever need to talk to someone, you’ve got a line through the Overwatch system to her. Or me an’ Sera.”
“I know it feels as if you will be isolated, Zachary,” Sera said softly. “But think how much danger you would be in if you were not. And think how much danger you could put the others in if you were found. Even if you do not know where they are now, you know their names and their powers, and that alone could be used to find them.”
He opened his mouth as if to say something, then thought better of it. Finally, he sighed. “I know you’re right. I don’t want you to be, but I know you are.” He kicked at the ground, chewing on his lip before he looked up at John and Sera again. “How long do I have to be out here, ‘communing with nature’ and all of that crap?”
John shrugged. “That…we don’t know. Hopefully not for too long. But there’s no way to tell; whenever the war ends, or gets to the point where we’re not fightin’ for basic survival. One way or another, things are comin’ to a head.”
“And there’s no way I can come with you guys? Help with the fighting? Actually do something?” There was no doubt in John’s mind that the kid was absolutely sincere and honest in his request. He felt it, and presumably so did Sera. But every time he and Sera had delved into the Futures, it had been clear; they were needed elsewhere, and Zach was needed here. Before, John had figured that anywhere secure would do, but now that they had reached his old safe house/cabin, he was certain that Zach needed to be here specifically. He couldn’t put into words why, but he felt it in his bones.
It was Sera who answered Zach. “We do not know if we will succeed, Zachary. But if we fail, if we fall, you are the last hope against the Thulians. This much, we know for certain. And we searched long and hard for you, and went through much to find you and bring you to safety.” She glanced soberly over at John. “In so doing, we have probably exposed John to his old enemies, those who are behind the Program we brought you out of. But that is the price we were willing to pay.”
“You’re that important, kiddo. An’ we can’t risk losin’ you. Once this thing is over, everythin’ will be better. But we can’t do what we need to do unless we know that you’re safe.” They spent another hour showing Zach around; most of that was focused on going over a map of the area, routes of escape, other supplies that John had scattered around the valley and beyond it. John had really done his best to set this bolt-hole up; when he was younger, thinking about spies and being on the
run, disguises and fake identities had all been fun to think about. When it had become a reality for him, he took everything up a notch, leaving as little to chance as he could. Now Zach really was impressed; even if he was forced from the cabin, for some reason, any direction he went he would be able to find enough supplies to see him through as he escaped.
“But the best option for you is to hide here, or in the forest, then come back when you are certain whoever came here is gone,” Sera pointed out.
“It’s not like you lose comm if you run from the cabin,” Vickie pointed out. “I can reach you and probably even find you bolt-holes not even Johnny knows about. Earth magician, remember? If there’s a cave or even a hole under some roots, I can find it.”
“Or she can make somethin’ for ya that no one will ever find. She’s good like that. That, an’ her extensive tea collection is why we keep ’er around. Should be a moot point, though; Vic is goin’ to have stuff monitorin’ the area all the time, so it’s unlikely anyone is goin’ to sneak up on you. Wish I had that sort of set-up when I first came here.”
“Oh snap. Thanks for reminding me, Johnny. Eyes in the air please, so I can fly them out and plant them.”
“Roger that.” John opened a pouch on his utility belt, picking out a handful of marble-sized spheres. These were smaller versions of Vickie’s spy-eyes; just a motion sensor, a heat sensor, a solar panel, and a camera. He chucked them in the air, where they hovered over his head in a ring for a moment. Then, one by one, they shot off; they were small enough that within moments, they were out of sight.
“That’s magic, right?”
“Technology fueled by magic. I’m the only person I know that can do that. I’m flying them by magic, but I’m planting them in treetops with a good view. Sticking with pines, that way there’s no chance that they’ll lose the cover. Once they’re planted, they’ll only come on if the motion or heat sensors trigger, or I hit them up remotely. They’ve got nice little ECHO-tech-lasts-forever rechargeable batteries in them and the entire surface is solar cell. I’ll test them periodically, and if one goes down, I’ll ship you a replacement.”
True wonder filled Zach’s eyes as he looked off in the distance, where the magic eyes had flown off. John couldn’t help but smile; he was still a kid, after all. Even with all of the hell that Zach he had seen, the world still held mystery and magic for him. Not just in the literal sense since, well, magic appeared to be real. But that very real potential and possibility that magic represented.
Sera went back inside the cabin. John sensed that she did not want to leave just yet.
Communin’ with nature, darlin’? he asked lightly.
Communing with the man you were, came the somewhat surprising reply. I know you now. I did not know you then.
I was very, very different back then. Not as open. I had to reinvent myself. A lotta that happened here…an’ it was finished when I came to Atlanta.
Everything here, you had to choose carefully. Some is obvious. Some is not. Why a bath instead of a shower? Surely the tub was harder to transport than some pipe and a shower head.
Easier to just get the water into the tub an’ heat it up with my fires; I’ve never been a great plumber, an’ a standin’ shower was outside of my range back then.
She wandered around the cabin, poking through his old belongings and perusing them. Old books, a lot of them philosophy or poetry; she smiled as she caressed one very well-worn copy of a Dylan Thomas collection. There were also periodicals; Soldier of Fortune, security industry and counterintelligence quarterly reports, standard Guns & Ammo-type rags. There were a few stacks of research papers; early stuff that seemed to be along the same lines of thought as his enhancements, though nowhere near as advanced. And…a short series of…romance novels? She picked one up. The author was Victoria Nagy. There was a long sigh in her earpiece. “You must have been one of the twenty-nine people that bought my ‘love among the metas’ series, JM.”
“There was a bargain bin an’ I had a lotta time on my hands.”
“Well, I will give you points for the fact that every one of the seven books involved metas with fire powers, and I did do my research.”
“Strangely enough, it helped me out. A bit.”
But Sera’s attention had moved on. She peered at the walls, and then, startled, at the floor. “Why are there holes here?” she asked. “They are not bullet holes. And surely they let in drafts.”
“They used to be covered with somethin’. Explosives. There’s a lot of interestin’ things you can cook up when you have time on your hands, an’ have read a bit of chemistry.”
“But…why?” she asked, bewildered.
Zach was outside at that moment, but John still kept his voice low. “I wasn’t goin’ to go back. No matter what. If I couldn’t get away…I was determined to take as many of the murderin’ bastards with me as I could.”
She blinked slowly, her habit when she was thinking, then nodded. “Yes. I can see that. The more you removed from the system, the fewer there would be to take others. Like Zach.”
“A small, useless gesture, probably. But, if that’s what it came to an’ that’s all that I had left…then I was goin’ to go out with a bang, one way or another.”
“Hey, Zach,” Vickie said, in all their ears. “Go hit the van and find the crate marked ‘Stir Crazy.’” Then she said, in John’s ear only, “I’m keeping him distracted.” There was a moment, and then she went on. “Yeah, that’s the one. That’s for when the remote entertainment isn’t entertaining you anymore. I’m guessing those goons never once gave you a chance to fool around with anything that wasn’t on their approved checklist. So when you are bored, go to the crate and open one of the boxes. They’re all unmarked, so whatever’s in there will be a surprise. I won’t swear it will be something you like or want, but it will be something you never got a chance to try.”
“Like what?” Zach asked cautiously.
“Well, like there’s a couple of musical instruments in there, and you can read all the instruction books and watch vids via your HUD.”
There was a single .45 ACP round sitting by itself on a shelf. Sera picked it up and turned in over and over in her hands for a moment. Then she looked at John, long and meaningfully. “I do not believe that Zach will need this, either,” she said, holding it.
He opted to respond through their connection. No, he won’t. When I was rebuildin’, recreatin’ who I was here…there came a point when I didn’t want to go on. It felt like there had been too much; too much loss, too much pain, with only more to come. I got low. After a spell of feeling sorry for myself an’ starin’ at that goddamned bullet, I got pissed off. Figured that the biggest middle finger I could give to the Program was to survive, even if it hurt.
“Little did I know what was in store for my dumb ass…but it’s all been workin’ out so far, darlin’.” He moved closer to her, pulling her into an embrace. She put the bullet into his hand and cupped her own over it.
“Shall we put an end to that episode, then?” she asked. In answer, he flared the fire in his hand, and she did the same. The bullet did not so much melt or explode as vaporize. The fire was hot enough to light up the entire room, despite only being the size of a baseball. The ashes quickly flew away on the currents of air that rushed to feed the mini-conflagration. Just as quickly as it had begun, it was over.
“We’ve gotta get back to Atlanta. We’re skatin’ enough as is, though I’m pretty sure we can keep the Commissar from throwin’ too much crockery at us.” They walked through the door of the cabin; Zach was on the porch waiting for them.
“Some light show.” He shifted uncomfortably, then tried to pass it off as he looked down at the ground and leaned against the porch railing. “It’s time for you two to go, isn’t it?”
“You won’t be alone in the conventional sense, Zachary,” Sera said softly.
“Okay.” He glanced up at them. John didn’t need his new senses to tell that the kid was scared,
and wanted them to stay. They were some of the first people that had actually been nice to him, that didn’t want to use him, that had actually tried to help him. It was going to be hard on all of them for the couple to leave Zach here. John thought a moment, then walked to the van. He dug around in his personal backpack for a few moments, retrieving a small brown object.
“I wasn’t lyin’ to you when I said that I know what you’re goin’ through, Zach. Here,” he said, handing the object to the teen. It was his leather-bound journal, the one that he had started after he went on the run. “I wrote in it just ’bout every day after I got out of the Program. It might help. Hell, if you get lost in the woods or somethin’, you could probably use it to start a fire.” John grinned lopsidedly with the last bit, clapping his hand over Zach’s right shoulder. “It’ll be okay.”
Zach looked down at the journal for a moment, then raised his eyes to meet John’s. “Thank you.” He turned to Sera, nodding his head. “Both of you. For everything. I know I can be a pain in the ass, but I mean it.”
“We’ll see you soon. Stay safe, comrade.”
“Leave the van. I’ll fake up a driver’s license for the kid. I’ll arrange a faster pickup you two can fly to. We’re moving a couple of Metis eggheads to Laramie; you can ride on the empty back. Besides, you two never got a shot at riding in one of the saucers.”
The couple embraced Zach a final time, then finally walked down a light footpath, away from the bolt-hole and Zach; John spared a single glance over his shoulder at what had once been his home, then continued on. Past is the past. An’ we’ve still got a lotta work to do movin’ forward.
* * *
It had been a week since the couple had left Zach in Wyoming. Vickie had kept them apprised with regular status updates—in between barreling everywhere they could reach to help repel Thulian attacks. They had even managed to share a couple of video calls with him. He was a tough kid; it had taken him a couple of days, but he had already adjusted to his new circumstances with surprising ease. The young are like that, John had thought. No matter what, he’ll make it.
Avalanche: Book Five in the Secret World Chronicle Page 19