“Well, I still like it.” He pulled on his now dry socks and shoes—new ones he’d picked up in Darlith—and sniffed the air. “There’s a storm coming.”
Sean frowned. “How can you tell? I don’t feel anything.”
Jayson scanned the curved horizon. “Decades of experience. Come on. Let’s get going.” Something was off. If pressed, he would have had a hard time explaining it, but he suddenly needed to be back home. As much as it was his home now.
They climbed into the kayak, and he used one of the oars to push the boat off into the river.
In no time, they were drifting down the Rhyl’s course toward the Eire.
THE WEATHER was clear, the spindle unobstructed by clouds. Marissa stared up at the sky, wondering what new hell was upon them this time.
Matt put his arm around her shoulder. She kissed his cheek.
“You okay, Ris?”
“I don’t know.” She’d thought they were done with the Preacher, with Agartha. With all of it. She sighed. “I suppose we’d better get this over with. If someone’s coming, we’ll need to find a safe place to hide.”
She led the men back inside, stopping in her kitchen to get her poppy seed extract. Her aunt Keera had helped engineer a variety of poppy flower that would grow in Forever’s unique environment, and Marissa had created an opium extract from it that was perfect for banishing pain. Heavy-duty pain. She planned to use it only in dire circumstances, and then sparingly. Keera had warned her the stuff could be dangerously addictive.
The current situation seemed to qualify despite the drawbacks.
“I’ll need you to hold his mouth open,” she said softly to Santi, “while I apply this. It should make him a bit loopy.”
Santi nodded. They followed her into the bedroom.
Eddy lay there silently, but when he heard them, he thrashed about on the bed, grunting and straining at his bonds.
Santi looked pained but stayed silent.
They sat on either side of the bed, and at Marissa’s signal, Santi pried open Eddy’s mouth, holding it as Eddy tried to bite his fingers.
Marissa managed to get a few drops of the opiate liquid inside.
They stepped back, and she gestured them out of the room. “Let’s give it about half an hour to take effect,” she whispered when they had reached the front porch. “Then he’ll be flying high.”
They sat on the porch in silence, lost in their own thoughts.
Marissa stared out at the Anatov Mountains, wondering what was happening this time. It bothered her that she couldn’t reach Colin or Lanya. It worried her even more that Andy and Aaron weren’t answering her calls. Andy and Shandra were still living up at the schoolhouse. Keera, Aaron, and Sean were out at the Eire, starting up a new settlement there.
Marissa scanned the sky for any sign of a rogue storm. For anything at all out of the ordinary, really. It was, from all appearances, a completely normal day. Deceptively normal, in fact. “Have you been able to reach anyone?”
Santi shook his head. “No, nothing. Total radio silence.”
“Radio?” That was a new one.
Santi smiled. “Long story.” He got up and strolled the length of the porch. “Sorry, just feeling antsy.” He glanced back at the house.
“We’ll figure this out.” She touched his arm. “Whatever this is.”
“I know.” He looked around at the yard. “You guys have done a lot since the last time we made it to your place.” He looked over at the just-begun barn. “I wanted to apologize to you. I never found the right time, before.”
“For what?” She stared up at him, wondering what he could possibly have to apologize for. He’d been a good friend these last seven years since the Mind War and a regular guest since they’d started the farm.
“Before we met, I had a different opinion of you Liminal kids. I thought you were dangerous—”
She nodded. “We can be.”
He growled. “Let me finish. I used to think like that. But what you did, the way all of you put yourselves in the path of danger to save the rest of us…. I just wanted to tell you I was wrong.”
She held on to the railing, staring out at the farm. The glowing corn plants, the empty space where she planned to raise the barn, the deflated balloon in the distance. “Thank you,” she said at last, softly.
“You’re welcome.” He glanced back at Matt, who was staring off into the distance. “And thank you for taking such great care of Marissa, here.”
Matt smiled weakly. “Mostly she takes care of me.” He got up and kissed Marissa on the cheek.
Her cheeks were warm. “It’s time.” She looked up at Santi, reading the fear and worry in the lines of his forehead and his tightly pulled lips. “You ready?”
“Ready as I’m gonna be. Will he understand us if we talk?”
“I doubt it. That stuff’s pretty strong.” She led them inside.
Eddy was singing under his breath.
Santi leaned over and listened, and a smile crossed his face. “I think it’s ‘Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.’”
Matt laughed. “How old is that song? We used to sing it in Micavery.”
Santi shook his head. “Older than any of us.”
“So he’s still in there.” Marissa sighed with relief. “That’s good.” She pulled up her bedside chair and felt his forehead. “He feels hot… here on the left side.”
“That’s where his loop is.”
“Interesting.” If she pressed down on his left temple, she could feel it under the skin, a spiral shape. “Okay, I’m going to see how he’s feeling.”
“You sure it’ll be okay?” Matt hovered over her like a protective father.
She pulled him down for a kiss. “I’ll be fine. Now give me a little space.” She put her hands on either side of Eddy’s face, closed her eyes, and reached into his head.
It was empty.
She jumped back in surprise.
“What happened?” Santi asked.
At the same time, Matt asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Marissa frowned. “It’s just… it’s like there’s nothing there.”
Santi turned white as a sheet. “He’s gone?”
“No, I mean, his personality…. Look, we don’t know anything yet for sure.” She squeezed his hand. “Don’t freak out on me.”
Santi’s mouth snapped shut. “Sorry,” he managed.
“Hey, I’m just saying don’t worry until we have something to worry about.”
“This isn’t enough to worry about?”
She sighed. “I mean until we know something for certain. Let me try again.” She touched Eddy’s face again, staring down at the man who had been a mentor to her since she was four. He had to be in there somewhere.
She closed her eyes and reached again.
She was in a vast empty space. There were no colors, no black, no white. Just… space. She turned around, looking in every direction, but with no point of reference, it was hard to tell if she’d moved at all.
And yet… there was something.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on it.
There.
She couldn’t see it. But there was a ripple. A wave that moved through this place that was no place inside Eddy’s head.
Or rather, spiraled.
She could feel it, passing through her, a spinning wave.
It blanketed the emptiness. Maybe the strange wave created it—dampening Eddy’s thoughts, his personality. His whole mind.
She let go.
“What did you find?” Santi stared at her from across the bed, his eyes pleading for an answer.
“Something is shutting down his mind. There’s this wave—I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. I think it’s flatlining his brain activity. Maybe interfering with his natural brain waves?”
“Where’s it coming from?”
“It’s weird. It’s a spiral. Like….” Her fingers traced the spiral of Eddy’s loop, under the
skin. “It’s coming from his loop.”
“Holy shit.” Santi sat down on the bed, feeling his own temple.
“If that’s right….” Matt scratched his neck. “Santi, you have a loop, right? Most of the Earth-born have them.”
Santi nodded. “Yeah, but mine’s been broken since the Mind War.”
“I’ve always been able to reach people through their loops.” Marissa touched Eddy’s forehead thoughtfully. “Now someone else has found a way.”
“One of the other Liminals?”
Marissa closed her eyes. “Damn, I hope not.” It was one of the things she’d feared ever since the Mind War. “I don’t think any of us is strong enough for this, though. Not without the help of the world mind. Was everyone in Micavery affected?”
Santi nodded. “As far as I could tell. Wait, there was something.” His mouth fell open. “Oh crap.”
“What?”
“There was a woman with a little boy who was crying. As I watched, she knelt beside him and… she did something to him.” He played it back in his head. “She touched his face with both hands and… after that, he didn’t cry anymore.”
Her hand went to her mouth. “It’s Agartha all over again.”
“Sounds like it to me.” Santi caressed Eddy’s face with his hand. “How do we help him?”
“We have to break the connection.” She frowned. “We have to take out the loop.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
She nodded. “We can cut the feed nerve first. That will minimize the backlash. But he could still end up… damaged.”
Santi stared at her and then at his husband. “There’s no other way?”
“Not that I can think of.” She looked down at Eddy, resting her hand on his head and threading her fingers through his hair. What if she hurt him? What if things went terribly wrong?
“Give me a minute with him?” Santi rubbed Eddy’s shoulder absently.
“Come on, Matt.” She pulled him out of the room.
They left him alone with Eddy.
Outside the closed door to their bedroom, Matt pulled her close. “I’m not sure what I’d do if something like that happened to you,” he whispered.
“I know.” She hugged him hard. “It’s happening to everyone else, though. We have to fight this.”
“Just be careful. I need you. And him.” Matt touched her belly.
The bedroom door opened. Santi’s eyes were red. “Okay, let’s do it.”
SANTI WATCHED as Marissa prepped her patient. It was easier for him if he thought of Eddy like that.
She’d covered his face with a clean cloth after dosing him with more of the opiate.
Some home spirits served to clean the incision site, and a salve she swore would help numb the pain—something she’d used on cattle, apparently, at need.
The surgical knife she’d produced from somewhere had been boiled first on the stove, which he took as a good sign.
She’d mentioned the basic training she’d had with Ana on surgical techniques, in vee, but he wasn’t sure about letting her operate on his husband.
“Okay, I’m going to need you to hold down his arms and legs, Santi. He’s drugged, but he’s still going to feel this.” She sanitized the knife with some more home brew. “And Matt, you need to hold his head steady when I make the incision. Damn, I wish I had something to use as a topical anesthetic.”
Santi lay down over Eddy’s midsection, grasping his arms firmly.
Matt took up a place near Eddy’s head and held it between his strong hands.
“Okay, if you’re squeamish, you might want to look away.”
Santi had to watch. He owed Eddy that.
“I’m cutting the artificial nerve that connects the loop to his brain.” She rubbed her finger back and forth over the upper part of his left temple. “I can feel it… right here.” She made a quick incision, and blood welled up in the cut. She blotted it up with a clean cloth.
Eddy growled.
“Hold him!” Marissa stepped back with the blade.
“Oh God.” Santi did as she said.
Slowly, Eddy’s screams faded into anguished cries. Each sob ripped into Santi like a dagger. “Isn’t that enough? Can’t we just leave it at that?”
“I wish we could.” Marissa looked pained. “As long as it’s in there, it can broadcast those waves.”
Santi looked up to see tears at the corner of Marissa’s eyes too.
“It has to come out. The nerve is just the direct connection. It can also transmit into his brain through the skull. It has to come out.”
Santi gritted his teeth and nodded.
Eddy’s cries had subsided to dull sobs.
Marissa squeezed his arm. “I’m going to make two quick incisions and pull it out. When I’m done, I’ll douse the wound with spirits to clean it.” She washed off the knife again with the bottle. “The faster we do it, the sooner this is over. Matt, I’m going to need you to put this cloth over the wounds when I am done and hold it to slow the bleeding.”
Santi stared at it, concerned. They were so far from a hospital setting here. “Is it sterile?”
“Like the others. I boiled them all long enough to kill any germs.”
Santi closed his eyes. When he reopened them, he met Marissa’s eyes. “Do it.”
She sat down next to Eddy. “It’s okay,” she said softly, caressing his face. Slowly he calmed down.
When his breathing had slowed to something closer to normal and his sobs were coming only every half a minute, she looked at Santi.
He nodded.
She leaned over Eddy as Santi and Matt held him down and made two quick incisions. As he started to scream again, she fished out the loop and dropped it into her bowl. “Pressure.”
Matt did as he was told.
“There, it’s done.” She sat back in her chair.
Santi held on to Eddy, trying to ignore his husband’s anguished cries. “Holy fuck, this is hard.”
She rubbed his back. “The worst is over. Now we let him calm down, and then we bandage him up.
“Will he be okay?”
“I hope so. We’ll know when he wakes up.”
EDDY FLOATED in a red haze, his whole being throbbing. He was all alone, lying on a broken stretch of pavement, covered with bits of debris and blood. It was hot and muggy.
In the distance, bombs were going off, and burned air—the result of laser cannon fire—filled his nostrils.
He stared up at one of the wrecked Hong King megascrapers, seeing the sun filter down through a haze of smoke and dust.
A whistling sound sent him scrambling out of the way as a heat seeker came in, smashing against the wall where he’d just been lying. It showered him with cement and pieces of pavement, but he got clear without major injury.
His temple ached. He reached up and touched it, and his hand came away red with blood….
EDDY OPENED his eyes.
It was comfortable and dim here. Wherever here was. The building was gone, as were the smoke and debris and the horrible smell in the air.
He was lying on something soft.
“Hey,” someone said quietly.
Eddy turned to see Santi sitting next to his bedside. The movement sent a shot of pain through his head.
“Hey.”
Santi came to sit beside him on the bed. “Do you know who I am?”
He snorted, which hurt. “Of course. You’re my Santi.” He reached up to touch his husband’s face. Santi looked ten years older than the last time he’d seen him.
“Oh thank God.” Santi kissed him gently. “Marissa, Matt, he’s awake!”
“Marissa’s here?” Eddy sat up and was rewarded by another spike of pain. He reached up to his left temple and encountered something padded. He looked around, confused. “Where are we? This isn’t home.”
“We’re at Marissa’s place. I brought you here this morning. Do you remember anything?”
Eddy thought back. “I had this mass
ive headache. Last night. I think it was last night. I got up to get a glass of water….” Then what? Had he gone back to bed? He couldn’t remember. He tried to check his loop for the time. It wasn’t there. Eddy’s heartbeat started to race. “Santi, I can’t feel my loop… it’s not working!” He reached up again for his temple. “Why isn’t it working?” He clawed at the soft thing and pain blossomed across his forehead.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Santi pulled him close. “We had to take it out. I’ll explain it all. But it’s going to be okay.”
Eddy fought back his tears. He looked up to see Marissa and Matt standing above them.
Marissa smiled, but it gave Eddy a chill. It was the smile you gave to a cancer patient who had just a couple months to live.
“What’s happening to me?” he whimpered.
“You’re okay,” Santi whispered again, rocking him gently.
“What’s wrong with me?”
Chapter Three: On the Run
“I CAN’T reach anyone.” Sean frowned.
“That’s odd.” Jayson tried to dip into the world mind, but there was nothing there. It was like a blank wall.
They shared a concerned look. “We’ll be back home soon, right?”
Jayson nodded. “Come on. Let’s get there a little faster.” He picked up his oars, and Sean picked up the others.
They heaved on the oars, and the kayak sped along on top of the Rhyl’s current.
The banks on either side slipped by, lit only by the sky glow. They’d passed out of the civilized and planted parts of Forever into the wilderness, where the rocky plane hadn’t yet been broken down, let alone planted with grasses and trees and flowers. This part of the world was stark and lifeless except for the flow of the river and the naked forms of rock that suggested future hills and valleys.
After another half an hour, the Eire came into sight ahead, a green oasis in the heart of the black shale landscape. The river curved up around the world about a quarter turn, swinging this way and that in oxbow bends, charting a greenish blue course ahead of them.
From this distance, nothing looked amiss.
Jayson tried dipping again, but the wall was still there.
The Rising Tide Page 27