The Journeyman

by Michael Alan Peck

  Her son looked right through her.

  She stepped aside. His eyes didn’t follow. She slid the door open, revealing the emptiness of the closet’s interior. He scooted sideways to stare into the other mirror.

  There was a crinkling sound to his shifting. She bent to take his hand in hers. He let her.

  That hand was empty, but the other held a carefully folded, tattered page from a notebook, its edge stubbornly retaining shreds and chads from where it had been torn out.

  Scrawled on it in crayon was a phrase that Annie guessed was Latin: “Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno.” The letters were nearly illegible.

  She closed the closet door and moved out of the way. He slid back to his original spot.

  With the notebook page in hand, she headed for the door. She’d search the Web for a translation. The scrawl piqued her interest—a novel feeling these days.

  Zach stood to face her, his hand out for the paper.

  She knew that look. If she tried to leave without giving it back, she’d have an episode to deal with. “What?” she said, though she already knew.

  He stayed as he was.

  “Okay.” She handed it over.

  He folded the page and tucked it into his pocket with care. Then he returned to his post.

  “Good night, buddy,” she said.

  Nothing. She was nothing to him. And maybe she deserved it.

  Annie dreamt of dinner basted with love—a meal she’d have thrown out in her waking hours. It was a five-hour pot roast.

  She lowered the meat into a Dutch oven filled with tomatoes, onions, celery, red wine, water, and spices, and left it at 300 degrees. Then she and Zach went walking in the snow so that their kitchen—again, a kitchen in New York, where they’d never lived—greeted them with a wondrous aroma when they came back in from the cold.

  The Annie of Mr. Brill’s working world couldn’t imagine bothering with that level of preparation, given her schedule and lack of appetite. But it was real in the dream, as was the sense that Zach was calling her.

  She awoke and rolled over to see his silhouette next to her bed in the dark. The smell of the cooking roast and the dream bond with her son waned. She turned on her night-table lamp, squinting with the click.

  “Hey, buddy. What’s wrong?”

  The boy, holding his cassette recorder, said nothing. She suspected he’d been standing there for some time, but the sudden light didn’t bother him.

  “Can’t sleep?”

  He licked his lips.

  She couldn’t remember him ever uttering a word, but it was so hard to find him in her memories at all. The Annie of dreams, who sang as she brought her little boy in from the winter outside to breathe in the meal she’d prepared, would have been stricken at that.

  This Annie could only wonder what such caring felt like.

  He held the recorder out. She reached for it, but he kept it away from her, clicking the play button. The cassette’s white plastic wheels turned. He watched her listen.

  Hiss. Like faraway breakers or a summer shower.

  “Is there something you want me to hear?”

  His chin tipped down as he waited for a reaction. The recorder continued its distant ocean.

  “I’m sorry, buddy. I don’t hear anything.” Then it hit her. “Do you?”

  He maintained his silence. After a while, he pushed stop. It was a harsher click than the play button had delivered.

  “Do you want some water?” She swung her legs over the side of the bed to stand, but he held his hand up, stopping her.

  Zach wiggled his fingers, the way he had as a baby, when he first learned that they were attached, and he had the power to move them. As an infant, he’d stared at them for hours, but now he regarded her instead, keeping the motion going like a little parade-float veteran. When she didn’t respond, he waved his hand from side to side.

  “Oh.” She smiled. “Hi.” And waved back at him. “Hey there, buddy.”

  He lowered his hand.

  “Hi,” she said. “Right?”

  12

  A Colony of Thumb-Sized Men

  A Journey of unknowns required clothes ready for anything. So Porter and Paul hunted for outdoor gear in a big-box store off the highway.

  If Paul had ever tried to imagine what death would be like, a shopping trip wouldn’t have been part of it. Yet here he was, holding quick-drying pants, wicking shirts of varying sleeve-lengths, and a pair of mid-weight hiking boots.

  Porter emerged from a dressing room fully outfitted in similar gear and dropped his blazer, pants, and dress shoes on the floor. He clapped his hands once, with finality. “I’ve been wearing that get-up for several multiples of your lifetime. It looks like long days and smells of tedium. I shall not miss it.”

  The gray man cut a formidable figure in his new clothing and boots, which were a better visual fit for his large walking staff. The worn leather riding hat on his head completed the picture.

  “Where’d you get the lid?”

  Porter grabbed the wide brim and adjusted it. “It’s a Kodiak. Australian. I jumped it here from the office. Taxing at such a distance, but necessary. I couldn’t remember where I’d left it until now.”

  The Envoy went off to find a trash can for his old suit and shoes. When he returned, Paul asked him for his thoughts on Rain, trying to make it sound like conversation meant only to fill the void.

  “How old would you guess she is?” Porter replied. “Your age? A year younger?”

  “Maybe.”

  “She’s seventeen at the oldest, but it’s difficult to say because she’s done more living than that. She carries a shotgun, which she fired twice today. Her targets weren’t human, and they probably can’t be killed with an ordinary weapon. I believe she’d be disappointed to know that. So what do you think I think of her?”

  Paul’s face grew hot. Porter was supposed to be the leader but had kept them waiting hours for a ride. Rain freed them from two dangerous players who attacked her, and she’d gained them a vehicle as a bonus. And Porter didn’t trust her.

  “She has the keys to the van, doesn’t she?” Paul said, the question edged.

  “True. And if it’s still there when we walk outside, we’ll know what kind of person we’re traveling with. If she and the van are gone? Well, we’ll still know—and will be better off with that knowledge and her absence.”

  The possibility of Rain taking off on them hadn’t occurred to Paul.

  “Go see while I pay,” Porter said. “But do not get in that van with her under any circumstances. And if she’s with someone, come back inside and find me. Do you understand?”

  Paul dropped his new clothes and boots on his way out.

  The van sat at one of the fuel islands in front of the store. The windshield gleamed, and Rain was filling the tank when Paul arrived. He leaned against the driver’s side and hoped she didn’t notice how relieved he was to see her. To give himself cover, he made conversation and asked where she was from.

  “Philadelphia born and bred. If you call how I grew up breeding.” The gas pump clicked off. She tapped the nozzle against the edge of the intake, knocking the last drops into it.

  “How’d you end up in this van?”

  She returned the hose to its hook, pausing long enough to let him know he wasn’t owed an answer—giving him one was her choice. “Bad decision on a bad day. Usually that means someone trying to convert me or a guy who’s only going as far as the next bed. Those I can handle.” She looked to her shotgun, which rested against the dashboard. “This was a bigger oops.”

  “Why are you here—in The Commons? What happened to you?”

  Her smile was meant to look forced—and did. “We usually build up to that one.”

  Chastised, Paul surveyed the other motorists gassing up. Two pumps over, a man sprayed the windows of a beat-up Humvee with blue fluid. He was actually a colony of thumb-sized men clinging together to form a larger version of themselves. They moved with flawless p
recision.

  Flawless, that is, until they stepped back and tripped on a water hose. The men forming the arm dropped and scattered on the ground. They scurried up a leg composed of their brethren and reformed the limb, chattering in squeaks that were dog-whistle high.

  “Everyone brings things in,” she said, watching them. “Everyone leaves things behind. I wonder if somewhere the pony I wanted as a kid is running around. Only it probably has a duck for a head. Or a steam shovel.”

  Across the lot, Porter approached. He was once again dressed in his old suit and shoes and was empty-handed. Passing under a sign with gas prices on it, he looked up at the digits and scowled.

  “Why’d you tell those guys we were your friends?” Paul said.

  “I needed a way out in case I couldn’t handle it.” She waited until Porter was close enough to hear her. “I figured your Envoy would take care of them if I didn’t.”

  Porter put on an impressive show of confusion. It didn’t fool her.

  “I’ve been here long enough to read you,” she said. “Both of you. I know.”

  The gray man dropped the pretense. “I understand that there are bona fides out and about, but you don’t see many traveling alone,” he said. “At least, you never used to. You are bona fide, correct?”

  “Bona fide means real,” she told Paul. “He wants to know why the Ravagers haven’t gotten me yet.” She studied Porter. “You’re a man. Between a girl’s gun and other things, there are ways to survive when your Envoy leaves you without a word or a prayer. Want to hear them? I’ll give you a second to think it over.”

  Porter softened. “If that happened to you, I am sorry.”

  “Do I get a question now?” she said.

  He nodded.

  “Does Paul understand what he’s up against, or did you pull the what-he-doesn’t-know-yet-can’t-hurt-him Envoy crap?”

  Paul looked from Rain to Porter. Where was this going?

  “Did you tell him about Brill?” she said.

  Porter straightened the lapels of his jacket. “They rejected my Corps credit card, but agreed to put everything on layaway,” he said to Paul. Then he bounced his staff on the asphalt, thinking. “The amount of money available to an Envoy is usually based on how his Journeyman behaved in life. I’ve seen dirt-poor people arrive with flush accounts and filthy-rich vulture investors forced to survive on roots and rain water. Given the current situation, we count on nothing.” He shot Rain a look. “I’m not dodging your question. I’d planned to ease him into it.”

  The Envoy focused on the side wall of the big-box store, which had an ATM near its corner. “Anyway,” he said, “since you know.” He closed his eyes in concentration, took a small breath, and gave his staff a flick. His free hand filled with as many twenty-dollar bills as it could hold.

  “We’re robbing the bank?” Paul said. “Why not just steal the clothes?”

  “At first, I thought that a working economy out here boded well for your Journey. I assumed it meant a formal structure. But I don’t see any structure. Everything’s in flux. I don’t like that the Corps card doesn’t work, and now I wish I hadn’t tried it.” Porter riffled the cash, counting. “I’ll keep track of this. It will be repaid.”

  “Can they tell where we are because of the card?” Paul said.

  “Perhaps. I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? What else don’t you know?”

  Porter ignored him and headed for the store again, his fist packed with cash.

  Paul looked to Rain, but she merely watched the Envoy walk away.

  13

  The Great Eight's Favorite Barber

  After the nautilus showed Charlene Moseley to Annie, the visions were no longer a by-product of the data-examination process. They were the process itself—its focus, not a distraction. If she allowed them to find her rather than running traditional queries to access the information, her job was easier. What she sought would seek her.

  She loved nature. Maybe that was why the visions took its form. Like attracted like, which was, perhaps, why she’d been shown Charlene. They had a history together, so their data clustered. Information wanted efficiency.

  Some of the things that sought her attention were awful, however. She periodically found herself on the Plain of Ghosts when she got lost in her work and couldn’t find a host creature to guide her out. At a distance, it appeared to be a pocked moonscape. But what looked like divots from afar were upturned faces—so many that she couldn’t see where they stopped. Those farthest from her were missing eyes and tongues.

  Buzzards wheeled overhead, now and then landing to claim a prize. Cries followed—some in familiar voices.

  Like attracted like. She knew some of those people.

  Good thing the pinkies were there to take her away, even if the off-feelings sometimes hit not when she was deep in the data but simply moving about the office. In the women’s room, where her reflection was slow to appear in the mirror, like a lamp on a delayed switch. Or in the far stairwell, where she heard a baby crying.

  And the spider webs. They were rare at first, but lately when she arrived in the morning, her keyboard and monitor were covered in them. One day, she’d been afraid to approach her desk until she was certain that the lump under the off-white mat of threads was her mouse and not something that would attack if she touched it.

  The creepy webbing greeted her daily, and she got in early to clean it up before her colleagues saw it. She never noticed it in anyone else’s cubicle. That wouldn’t reflect well on her, and she needed this job.

  Even so, Annie was unprepared for the afternoon she walked into the break room to find a criss-cross of blue masking tape over the clogged sink. A taped-up notice informed her and her coworkers that management was sorry for the inconvenience, but they would have to use the eleventh-floor sink instead.

  No surprise there. People were forever dumping coffee grounds down the drain, despite the prominent sign asking them not to. Every other week, the resulting brown cement sealed off the drain.

  The surprise came when she climbed the steps to eleven, which she did because of a bad vibe from the building’s elevators—a feeling that their doors might open on a floor from which there was no return. In the lounge area, a woman sat alone at a corner table, pecking away at a laptop.

  Annie forgot about the tea she was there to make.

  “Char?” She wanted the woman to keep typing, to not respond, so that she could laugh at how some people looked so much like others and at how the mind was tricky that way. Then she could pretend she hadn’t said anything, head back downstairs, and bang out more work while her whole-leaf steeped for the recommended five minutes.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I’m terrible with names. We’ve been in meetings together?”

  “You know me, Charlene.” Annie approached the table, but left five feet of space. Less than that, and anyone with training stopped listening and concentrated only on the hands. “And I know you.”

  Char’s eyes betrayed an inner struggle, but there was no recognition in them.

  “In bars, you never tell men you’re from Ohio because you’re afraid they’ll think you’re too boring to buy you a drink,” Annie said. “Your dad was the Great Eight’s favorite barber. You have a picture of him with them in your wallet, but it’s only with seven. You’re an amazing standing shot with a twenty-two, but you didn’t join the rifle team in college because the competition would have ruined it for you.”

  She crossed the five-foot line. Charlene watched only her face.

  “Your sister doesn’t speak to you anymore,” Annie said. “You don’t know why.”

  Annie was back on the table in Mosul, watching her friend’s breathing stop. Tears blurred her vision.

  Charlene’s eyes glistened, too. She leaned over her laptop to take a closer look at Annie. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I should remember. But I don’t.” A tear slipped down her cheek. She wiped it away.
>
  “Where are we, Char?”

  “You don’t know?”

  A harsh clearing of a throat at the lounge entrance brought the moment to an end. June Medill’s face was a portrait of displeasure. “I’ve been trying to find you,” she told Annie. “Are the throughputs ready?”

  “Almost.”

  June Medill gave them the up-and-down. She was not happy to see two workers sharing anything. “Annie, why are you up here?”

  “The sink downstairs isn’t working.”

  The sour little woman’s frown deepened.

  Back on the tenth floor, June Medill walked Annie to the break room. The sign and tape over the sink were gone.

  She walked to the faucet and turned it on. The water swirled down the drain, unimpeded.

  June Medill watched Annie for a reaction. “This isn’t why I was looking for you,” she said, turning the water off. “Do you know my real reason?”

  Annie had no answer for her.

  “No?”

  They walked back to Annie’s cubicle. June Medill’s reason was apparent before they got there.

  The walls were draped in webbing. Annie’s computer and desk were nearly unrecognizable, the floor below them covered in a wispy white carpet. Something—several somethings—scurried beneath it.

  “Might you explain?” June Medill said.

  14

  This Will Not Go Well for You

  The Van-Tasta rolled through the night with Porter behind the wheel and Paul beside him. Rain slept in the very back.

  Paul counted the dashes of the highway’s center line as they dripped through the headlights. “I’m being hunted by Satan,” he said.

  “Brill is not Satan.”

  “He takes everyone who comes through here and eats their soul, right?”

  “No. He leeches Essence, the soul’s energy, which cannot be destroyed. It merely changes form. He’s a parasite, not a devil.”