The Journeyman

  Paul and Rain remained standing. “Is it safe to walk around?” Paul said.

  Porter gave no answer. He was fast asleep again, but it looked to be a more peaceful rest than the state of exhaustion of just a short time before.

  “This is a safe haven,” Ken said.

  Paul’s eyes met Rain’s and held. They walked off among the hillside’s fires.

  Lying on a rug by the fires at the spiral’s edge, Rain sitting next to him, Paul scanned the night sky for the constellations that Pop Mike made every New Beginnings kid learn. Stars were dreams, they were told, and you couldn’t aim for a dream if you didn’t know its name.

  He saw nothing familiar above.

  Rain finished cleaning and reassembling her shotgun, facing away from Paul and the fire. She blocked her own light, but Paul suspected she could do the routine in total darkness. She’d hardly stopped moving since their arrival at the Nightlights.

  “Are you all right?”

  “No.” She checked the gun’s action. “I’ve never been all right.”

  “We can pick another fire—one closer in.”

  She shook her head.

  “We’re safe here.” He thought he heard her laugh. “Porter said nothing bad can get in.”

  “It already has.”

  “Who don’t you trust?” He sat up.

  She stopped working. “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “We’re okay. You’ve got the cleanest shotgun in The Commons. And we have a kick-ass monk, a big-ass mummy, and a guy who can make us disappear if we need to. I’m not worried.”

  “Maybe you should be.” She checked the shotgun’s action again. “We don’t know each other. Not how you think.” Before Paul could come up with a response, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her box of candy. Shaking a couple into her palm, she offered him one.

  He popped it into his mouth and immediately wished he hadn’t. “Thanks.”

  “You don’t have to be polite. I don’t like them, either. If you’re a licorice fan, they’re the best thing ever. If you’re not, they’re just something to endure.”

  “So why eat them?”

  “Exactly.” She handed him the box.

  He tipped the red-and-gold label toward the blue flames to see it better. “Gee-foo?”

  “Sisu. It’s Finnish. It’s the spirit of not giving up, even when things are hopeless. You go on. No matter what.”

  He tried to apply that concept to dissolving the candy in his mouth as quickly as possible. “Is that me? Hopeless? Does anyone get to the end of a Journey anymore?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Paul worked on the Sisu, refusing to surrender. “I’m worried about Porter.”

  “Me, too. He didn’t know what he was getting into with this assignment. Not that it would have stopped him. He’s hurting. If he keeps this up”—she snapped something together, took it apart, and snapped it together once more, satisfied with the sound this time—“we’ll just have to pick up the slack.”

  “Not you. This is on me.”

  She swiveled around to watch the blue flames with him. “Why were you on that bus, Paul? What was waiting for you in San Francisco? Besides Gaia.”

  “It’s what wasn’t waiting.” He reached out to the fire. It was not hot. When he let it lick his palm, there was only a tingle, which brought with it a sense of things being better than they’d been before he made contact. Even the Sisu didn’t taste so bad. “Reminders.”

  “Of?”

  “Everything that told me I was nothing.” He put his entire hand into the flames. His fear of honesty burned away. “My mother gave me up because she couldn’t handle having a kid around. Maybe she really couldn’t—I don’t know—but the fact that she didn’t even try doesn’t make me feel like much. Then she was gone.” He wanted to say everything, even if Rain wasn’t willing to do the same. “I’ve jumped around my whole life. New Beginnings—the place I lived in New York—was the longest I stayed anywhere, but even that reminded me, ‘Hey, kid—don’t forget. You’re nothing.’”

  “Do you believe that?”

  He removed his hand from the fire. It was unharmed. “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll say this again and again until you hear it. Porter’s putting everything he has into this. I’m here, and so are Ken and Po. Would we do that for nothing?”

  “That’s the problem.”

  “What?”

  “You all think I matter. I’m not used to it.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “You? You’re”—he wrestled the word beautiful down just in time—“you count. You have an effect on people.”

  “Oh, absolutely. Just ask the ones I shoot.”

  The laugh he waited for didn’t come. He saw the Ravagers disappearing because of him, and he understood. “I’ve lost as many fights as I’ve won. What does that count for, in the end?”

  “Most of them? Nothing,” she said. “If you’re lucky, you have maybe one important fight in your life. If you’re lucky.”

  He considered that, surrendering to the hypnosis of the flames. “Okay, what about that one?”

  “That one you have to win.”

  During the night, Paul dreamt that Porter spoke with a woman somewhere off in the dark, as far away as the Envoy could be without leaving the protection of the fires.

  The woman shouldn’t have been able to enter the Nightlights zone. She shouldn’t even have been able to see them. But rules were ever-changing in The Commons, and more so in its dreams.

  She and Porter spoke quietly, voices low. The woman remained in shadow.

  In the phantasmal air, Paul smelled smoke from something other than the Nightlights. It was the ghost of far-away fire, of long ago—the memory of a burning that would not heal. The woman couldn’t get close to the blue flames.

  Closed lids. Asleep, aware.

  Her voice was that of someone older, but it had steel in it. She and Porter had scars in common.

  Their words became clear, easily heard, as if Paul were standing with the two old Envoys. Which is what they were.

  “This is the job, Jonas,” she said. “The work of now. The work of to be.”

  In the dream, there were masses of people behind the woman, just out of reach of the Nightlights, beyond the shadows cast. Their ranks stretched far off into the night.

  He had no sense of their numbers. There were far too many for that. But they watched him.

  The dream was of all-seeing eyes.

  When Paul awoke in the morning, he and Rain were huddled together in the dewy grass. The rug and fire were gone.

  He’d thrown an arm over her. She hugged her holstered gun.

  If the fires were gone, so was their protection.

  He sat up. Rain stirred.

  Po stood a distance away, his back to them. Paul suspected that the monk had been facing them only moments before, keeping watch. He’d never seen him or Ken sleep.

  Rain shook her hair out and tied it up in a ponytail. Paul got up and stretched, and they started back to where they’d left Porter and Ken.

  “Good morning,” Rain said to Po as they passed him in the empty grass, the Nightlights nowhere to be seen. The little man nodded, and Paul was struck by how well he’d learned to read the monk’s expressions. Po wanted them to understand that he’d intruded only enough to ensure their safety.

  Porter and Ken sat in the grass as if the rugs and fiery bowls were still there. They all exchanged good mornings. Po walked past them and stopped a few yards away, looking down the hill at an empty road snaking off into the distance below.

  “I cannot believe this is the same person who demolished a dozen men in a diner,” Porter said, watching him. “It’s hard to think he was so angry, even though I saw the aftermath for myself.”

  “He is still angry,” Ken said. “It does not fade. He merely distracts it when he can.” He stood to follow Po’s gaze down the road.

  Paul looked, too, but saw nothing.


  “It is diversion at best, not true calm,” the mummy continued. “My real fear is that if he were left to his own devices, his fights would end only with his death or the death of his opponents. So I finish them for him, before that can happen.”

  “He can hear this, right?” Rain said.

  “I would not trouble myself saying it if he could not. He needs to know where he must improve.”

  The monk turned to face them, as if preparing a rejoinder of some sort. Then they all heard what had drawn his attention.

  The faint grind of an approaching engine.

  Paul’s eyes weren’t nearly as good as Po’s, but by the time the approaching vehicle pulled to the side of the road at the base of their hill, he could see it was an old Volkswagen microbus painted in a camouflage motif. It was the kind Pop Mike referred to as a hair-madillo whenever anyone asked the old man about the office-wall photo of his younger self, sporting shoulder-length hair and a collar-brushing beard, standing next to one.

  “How are you feeling?” Ken asked Porter as two men and a woman climbed out of the van and made their way toward them in the early-morning light. The trio’s camouflage fatigues and dark hair blended with the landscape to produce the effect of three disembodied faces in buoyant ascent.

  “Like a kitten at four a.m., and the world’s my owner’s toe,” the Envoy said, stretching dramatically for effect. He appeared to be refreshed, but his foot-pouncing days, if not behind him forever, were a few more nights’ rest away. His cough did nothing to alter that impression.

  The visitors climbed quickly. They were fit.

  From the neck up, all three—who looked to be in their early thirties—were the type one would expect to see climb out of a VW bus. The men had hair past their shoulders, one with a beard to match. The woman’s thicket of curly hair was held in place by a headband with beaded flowers sewn into it.

  They walked with a straight-backed, stiff-shouldered gait that spoke of hours of drilling, and each had a pistol on the hip. Their shoulder patches would have been appropriate for a Marine recruiting poster had they not featured pink-and-yellow peace signs.

  “Let me get this straight,” said the bearded one when they were close enough for conversation. “I missed a once-in-a-lifetime chance at Austen’s Nightlights because some ratty old coot got here first?”

  Porter squared up to face him. Paul and Rain did the same.

  Ken and Po, curiously, remained loose. Paul wasn’t concerned, however; he’d seen how fast the two could fly into action when needed.

  “Sad to say, yes,” Porter said. “And wouldn’t it just dump sand in your shorts if this old coot booted your ass up to your eyebrows?”

  The bearded man locked eyes with the Envoy. “He never gets any more agreeable, does he?”

  “Be serious,” the woman said. “He’s lost ground.”

  The stare-down continued for long seconds. The bearded man broke into a grin, let out a cry, and opened his arms for a hug. Porter obliged.

  “Your note said you’d be in last night,” the man said. “We were scared to death when you didn’t show. We came looking.”

  “I’m sorry,” Porter said. “Our party’s grown, and I haven’t the strength to keep jumping everyone all over The Commons. Anyway, it wouldn’t be a proper Journey if I did, as you know. Didn’t you receive my update?”

  “Who could decrypt it?” The woman gave Porter a hug of her own. “Your key is ten generations old.”

  “My Corps credit card’s no good. If the system’s been compromised, I can’t trust the official channels.” He finished the trio off with a big hug for the second man. “I’m dragging. The Nightlights could not have been timed better.”

  A seriousness overtook the four—a group acknowledgement of a weight Paul couldn’t name.

  The other man broke the spell. “How were they?”

  “I’d be lying if I told you they were anything less than transcendent—and you’d know it. My apologies.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” the woman said. “They appear to those in need. Missing them is a sign that life’s going well.”

  Porter made a round of introductions. The bearded man was Liam and his wife was Nicolette. The other man, who was only a few inches shorter than Ken, was D.W.

  They lived a few hours’ drive from the Nightlights. At the speed Porter’s group had been traveling, it would have been at least another two days of walking before they reached them.

  “We had dinner ready,” Nicolette said.

  “Let’s make it breakfast, then.” Porter bounced his staff on the toe of his boot.

  “Breakfast is long gone by now. Your group’s not the only one growing. We have a lot more mouths to feed than we did last time we saw you. You’ll be surprised.”

  “This Journey’s already full of surprises,” Porter said.

  27

  Weston

  Annie’s knee marked the miles. Char helped distract her via text, explaining the way things stood from her perspective, which, she admitted, was limited. Mostly, the diversion was enough. Mostly.

  June Medill had reported Char as a risk, which had tossed her back into the hordes of stored people and their Essence. It was the best thing that could have happened to her. Now Char was more deeply tapped into a key sector of the network, and while she couldn’t see who was in that sector with her, it allowed her to do more for Annie than she otherwise might have.

  Had June known she was setting Charlene up to go where she was needed? Had she done it on purpose? Annie thought so. Char disagreed. But help was help, and Annie said a small prayer for June Medill.

  Annie had no idea where to find Zach. Having escaped the pinkies’ mist, she was sharp again. With that came the knowledge that her current world was not real. Plus, as any jury of mothers would unanimously agree were she tried before them, she had abandoned her son.

  That was the worst of it. The rest wasn’t much better.

  She was, as Charlene explained it, dead—in a place ruled by the vulture-investor version of the Devil, who used people like Annie to stay on top. She and her colleagues helped Spreadsheet Satan manage his assets while June Medill and her cohorts kept the workforce doped up on their addiction of choice.

  Charlene, for her part, was back in webs, or floating in a bog, or suffering some other horror. She didn’t share, and whether it was because she didn’t want to tip the powers-that-be off to who she was or just that she didn’t want to talk about it, Annie didn’t ask. She was grateful for the assist and the presence of an old friend.

  She walked a landscape left by those whose Journeys had been stolen. Some of what she traversed had, in turn, been altered by the scattered few who were still free and wandering. If you were out and about and didn’t give Mr. Brill a reason to come after you—gathering in groups large enough to challenge him or to make it worth sending the Ravagers in—you could live among the mythicals and pretend everything was groovy.

  All you had to do was abandon the dream of anything better and live off the leavings.

  What Annie needed to remember about those leavings, Char told her repeatedly, was that many of them were challenges untaken—traps set to capture, injure, or kill. The world was loaded with monsters to battle, deadly puzzles to solve, and friends who were not friends.

  She had to watch her back.

  Even with that and the small matter of every step hurting like hell, she was thankful. The farther she got from Mr. Brill’s nerve center, the less she worried about being pursued by his minions.

  The detritus of other lives and memories was something to behold, too. A while after making her way from White Marsh Hall, as Char informed her the abandoned mansion was called, Annie found herself crossing a vast artificial moonscape complete with a lunar lander that appeared to have been designed by a second-grader with a crayon. Past the lander, she limped into a barren plain dotted with filled-in craters.

  A click from behind.

  Annie turned to see a sheet-metal moon m
an pop up out of an open pit, bullseye targets on forehead and chest, a bubble-tipped rifle aimed her way. She stared at him. He stared back.

  As if disappointed, he sank back down into the crater, which closed over him. A scratchy recorded laugh came from somewhere in the sky above.

  That happened four more times. It was a life-sized shooting game that mocked her whenever she missed the opportunity to nail a target, which was often.

  After that came a roller coaster made of rotten ivy-covered timbers, and then a haunted boat ride—its trough dry and strewn with trash, its cave mouth dark and vacant. She passed that cave as fast as she was able. No telling what called it home now.

  A rebel underground was fully operational in Mr. Brill’s empire, Char told her. It existed on multiple levels—sparks weak in isolation, but a flame of hope when united.

  The most at-risk members were those closest to Mr. Brill, the ones in his office. They played key roles as direct parts of his operation, but they couldn’t be relied upon because they were also the most likely to be caught.

  Details of the rebellion were distributed. Char knew what she needed to know and nothing more. If Mr. Brill intercepted Char’s texts—possible, even with the encryption chops of Char’s compatriots—he’d have but a fraction of the picture.

  Annie figured that Mr. Brill had never had kids or pets. Anyone with a five-year-old or a beagle could tell you: attempt to control life however you like, but even little victories cost you big—and you never succeed completely.

  Life did what it wanted, and that’s what Mr. Brill’s stored energy—the stolen humanity, with its love, fears, and dreams—aimed to do. It wanted out.

  Mr. Brill’s comatose charges dreamt, and in those dreams found others with the same visions. They tapped into the massed Essence to communicate and guide, albeit with stealth and care. Mr. Brill could shut it all down—but only if he knew about it.

  Charlene related this in text after text, and Annie took it in line by line. The fact that she’d read it all meant she’d been walking forever. And when she checked her battery and realized she’d need to save her juice for when it really counted, she turned her phone off.