Epitaph Road

by David Patneaude

  “What are they going to do to us, Kelly?” Tia said. The fresh concern in her voice — fueled by the surroundings, no doubt — put an edge on the familiar question. We’d had weeks to talk over what we would face when we got back, but our fears were still there, ready to ignite. How could they not be, with images of Sunday and Dr. Nuyen and Gunny and smoke rising over Afterlight constantly replaying through our heads?

  “I think they need to worry about what we’re going to do to them,” I said. We’d had time to talk about that, too, although so far our plans were sketchy.

  She barely nodded, maybe not even a little reassured by my brave words.

  “Someone has to do something,” I said. “And the someone’s us. We can’t chicken out just because we’re within PAC’s reach again.”

  “I’m not chickening out,” she said. “I just can’t pretend I’m not worried about what could happen…afterward.”

  “I’m worried, too,” I said, “so I’m trying to concentrate on what Rebecca Mack and her buddies caused. What they set in motion.”

  “What they did to the people we loved,” Tia said, sitting up a little straighter. “And everyone who loved them.”

  “Exactly,” I said. After seeing how Sunday’s death had affected her family, I was more determined than ever not to let this just fade away.

  We’d barely gotten into the house that evening when we attracted a crowd, including Sunday’s mom. For days and days we’d worried about how we would tell her, but we didn’t have to say a thing, at the start anyway. She could count to two. She could subtract two from three. Her face told us she knew who’d survived, who hadn’t.

  One night in the mountains we’d woken up to the chilling cries of a wild animal — a big cat of some kind, we guessed — drifting across the water. Sunday’s mom came close to duplicating that mournful sound once we began answering her questions about Sunday’s death, even though we left out or altered or sugarcoated the most horrific and revealing and unspeakable of the details.

  An explosion, was what we told her. A cave-in. We didn’t know the cause. We were outside. Sunday was inside, asleep.

  Nothing about the second bear. Not to Sunday’s mom or anyone. We’d save that piece of the story for later.

  Tia’s mom was a mess — overjoyed to see her daughter, crushed by the absence of her niece. The sisters were off somewhere together now, propping each other up.

  The door opened. The old lady walked in, followed by my mother, who barely looked my way. After our first long embrace — too long for me — she’d kept her distance. My hostility must have been showing through.

  Mom found a chair against the opposite wall; Rebecca Mack took the one at the desk in the center of the room, the center of attention. Fittingly, her perch was higher than the rest. She could look down on us.

  “Is that the Formula V material?” she said, eyeing Dr. Nuyen’s beat-up backpack. So far she hadn’t even said hello, but it didn’t bother me. I decided to let Mom answer the question.

  “All there, as far as I can tell,” she said.

  I didn’t like the insinuation, like we might have lost something. “Everything Dr. Nuyen had in the backpack is still in the backpack,” I said.

  “You and I will take it to San Diego first thing in the morning,” Rebecca Mack said to Mom, ignoring me. The old lady’s thin hand crept up to her thin neck. She stroked her skim-milk skin. On her third finger was a big blue-green stone. Bones and turquoise.

  “I’ll call the lab when we’re done here,” Mom said. “Let them know to expect us.”

  So far they’d acted like they were the only people in the room, but finally Rebecca Mack turned to Tia and me. For an uncomfortable few seconds it was a stare-down. “You’re both heroes, no doubt,” Rebecca Mack offered half begrudgingly, breaking the silence. “You’ve been instrumental in keeping the world on the right course.”

  She didn’t have an inkling of how instrumental, not yet. But I didn’t feel like a hero. I didn’t want to be one, especially with the recognition coming from her. “Isn’t it kind of lame that you had to rely on a couple of kids to get the world out of a jam?” I said. “And that one of them was a guy? Your plan mostly sucked.”

  “As Dr. Mack just told you, Kellen,” Mom said, “we’re grateful for everything you and Septiembre did.” Her tired pale face was taking on a little color.

  “We don’t want your gratitude, Mother. Your boss here had an excuse or two for what she did. What she’s still doing. What’s yours? Did you know what PAC was all about when you joined up? Did you ever think about leaving?” I got up. Before I knew it I was standing over her, watching her shrink back against the wall. “Did you ever think I’ve got a son? How can I do this? How can I do this to my son’s father, someone I supposedly loved?

  “And her name’s Tia.”

  Mom managed to close her mouth long enough to start a sentence. “Your father wasn’t a target.”

  “Wasn’t he?” I said.

  “Kellen heard you,” Tia said.

  “Heard —” Mom began.

  “That’s right,” I said. “In your room. You and Aunt Paige and then Mack the Knife here.” I glanced at Rebecca Mack, wondering how she liked her nickname. She looked unruffled and half amused. “Plotting. Scheming. Ignoring Aunt Paige begging you to warn Dad or let her do it. You were perfectly okay with letting him die.”

  “I wasn’t okay with it.”

  “You were! You’re a cold-blooded killer, no better than the bad guys you’ve slaughtered. What about me? Would you kill me, too?”

  “Your mother was moving you out of harm’s way,” the old lady said.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” I said. “Anyway, that was this time. What about next? If I’m in the way, is it just tough shit? What about all the innocent people who died during this little massacre?”

  “The stakes were too high,” Mom said. Her voice was barely audible.

  “Were they?” I said. “You don’t have a clue.”

  “We could have been better prepared,” the old lady admitted.

  “Better prepared?” Tia said. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Really,” Dr. Mack said. Smug. The world’s biggest know-it-all.

  “Really,” Tia said.

  “Did you ever have any sleepless nights over what you’ve done?” I asked Rebecca Mack.

  She didn’t answer. She looked at Mom, like Put a cork in this kid’s mouth.

  “Did you ever wonder during those sleepless nights I hope you had if there was some guy just as clever and scary-evil as you?” I said to her papery old face.

  She frowned, silent. I had her attention. “There was,” I said.

  “Wapner,” Tia said. “He killed Sunday. He aimed to kill you, too. Both of you. Me. Every female in the world.”

  For the next several minutes Tia and I told Rebecca Mack and Mom the story of Formula T. We told them about Sunday, and Kate the Fratheist lab assistant, and the other female scientists, and Dr. Nuyen, and Wapner, and the fail-safe button.

  It felt satisfying to watch the faces of know-it-alls become the faces of know-nothings.

  We finished. The room was quiet for a long time while Rebecca Mack and Mom gathered themselves and Tia and I just hung out, empty.

  “It — Formula T — is buried?” Mom said finally.

  “Deep,” I said.

  “Heroes wasn’t a strong enough word,” the old lady said.

  “There ain’t no heroes,” I said.

  “Brighter Day started this,” Tia said.

  Rebecca Mack lifted her eyebrows. “Not without justification,” she said. “The conflict was started long before Brighter Day.”

  “Brighter Day’s goal was to end the conflict,” Mom said. “And the ruin.”

  “It didn’t work, did it,” I said to her. “Half the world murdered, the other half on some future mad scientist’s shit list, Afterlight wiped out on your watch. And you’re just going merrily along with the who
le thing.” She looked beaten. I didn’t care.

  “A plot like Wapner’s won’t happen again,” Dr. Mack said.

  “Who’s going to prevent the next one?” I said. “You have some other kids you’re going to send out to do your dirty work?”

  “Unlike males, we learn from our mistakes,” Dr. Mack said. “But to do that, we need every piece of information we can get.” She took out a recorder, clicked it on, and set it on the corner of the desk. “I want you to tell your whole story, from the hour you left here until the hour you walked back in.”

  We told our tale, parts of it for the second time. We made sure to include all the details we’d spared Sunday’s mom. We emphasized how ignorant PAC had been, what would have resulted if Wapner had succeeded. Now the clock said 1:25, but I wasn’t tired. Hitting Dr. Mack and Mom with a blow-by-blow description of what they’d turned loose was painful but energizing.

  “So here we are,” I said finally, “waiting for the next chapter.”

  “There will be no next chapter,” the old lady said.

  “You need to get back to your normal lives,” Mom said.

  “There’s no getting back,” I said. “There’s no normal. I’ll be in this house until I can figure out where else to live, and then I’m gone.”

  “You don’t mean that, Kellen,” Mom said, acting surprised, acting like I was the irrational one. “You can’t just leave.”

  I returned her hurt expression with a look of my own that I hoped came off as cool and detached even though I didn’t feel cool and detached. “Watch me.”

  “Where would you go?”

  “I have options. People who aren’t mass murderers.” I expected her to react, but she just sat and stared at me. “How could you?” I added. “How could you?”

  “Paige,” Mom said. “Your father. Those are your options?”

  I glared back at her. “Anywhere but here.”

  “You’ll throw it all away,” she said.

  “Ask me if I care.”

  Tia stood. She paced, ending up at my side. “We know everything,” she said. “We could expose you.” For an instant my heart fluttered anxiously, but then I decided Mack the Knife and her apprentice wouldn’t take that kind of threat seriously.

  And I was right. “To whom?” Rebecca Mack said. “Everyone who matters already knows.”

  “Everyone who matters?” I said.

  “Why do you care about Anderson, then?” Tia said. “Why did you arrest her?”

  “Ms. Anderson wasn’t exactly arrested,” Mom said. “She’s been detained.”

  “We feel a certain level of maturity and accomplishment is needed before a person can appreciate our history,” Dr. Mack said. “And even after that, we like to be prudent with the dissemination of information. Consequently, Ms. Anderson has been suspended from her teaching position.”

  “Whispers and rumors?” I said. “That’s dissemination?”

  “Our communication methods have been effective,” the old lady said. “If you two are smart — and I know you are — you won’t waste your time trying to undermine them.”

  I ignored that little warning, if that was what it was. I didn’t want to get into a discussion of what Tia and I could or would do about getting our message out. “Have you even told Merri — Dr. Nuyen’s daughter — what happened to her mom?”

  “She knows her mother is dead,” Dr. Mack said. “She was informed earlier this evening. We didn’t provide her with the particulars. We didn’t know the particulars.”

  “That must have been a real disappointment,” Tia said. “You’re obviously ashamed of the truth. The whole truth anyway.”

  “We live with shame,” Mom said. “It’s part of what we do.”

  “And what we did,” Rebecca Mack said. “But like you, we didn’t have a choice.”

  “Wapner and his loonies felt the same way,” I said.

  Rebecca Mack didn’t have a response. Mom didn’t have a response. For a long moment we all stared at each other and at the walls and off into the future.

  The women were unbending. The walls were closing in. The future still had some promise. I steadied my hand on Tia’s shoulder and we walked out.

  We met in our favorite coffee shop yesterday,

  me in my layers of cold-weather gear,

  you in your faded green T-shirt,

  the one that turned your eyes the color of thyme.

  We talked about the old days,

  and although a glance in the tableside mirror

  confirmed the presence of new lines and shadows and loss on my face,

  I noticed that you hadn’t changed at all,

  that you still looked exactly the same as you do

  in the photo on our piano, the one with your faded green T-shirt and thyme-colored eyes and

  time-frozen smile, the one resting on a tear-stained obituary notice

  with the dates of your coming and going.

  — EPITAPH FOR BENJAMIN BRADY

  (JANUARY 16, 2035–AUGUST 10, 2067),

  BY KATE SIFFORD, HIS ONE AND ONLY,

  DECEMBER 25, 2068

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  At the top of the stairs, Tia and I said good night. She headed to her room, I headed to mine. I had Mom’s e-spond and a call to make.

  I touched in Aunt Paige’s number, willing to risk waking her.

  She answered quickly. “I’m not ready to talk to you, Heather.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Kellen?”

  I told her yes. She responded with tears. After she calmed down, I found out where she was — an apartment (her idea, no restrictions, except some suspected surveillance) — and gave her a summary of everything that had happened since I’d left home. Even though I tried to keep it to the basics, she reacted with a million questions and more crying, especially when I told her the part about Dad — her brother — being in Seattle and planning on staying, and nearly an hour passed before the conversation began to run out of steam.

  I plugged in a question. “Do you know what they did with Ms. Anderson — our history instructor?”

  “I can make an educated guess. A place on the university campus called Harmony Tower. It’s a formerly abandoned dorm PAC uses to detain mild dissidents. Until they’re re-indoctrinated and deemed safe again anyway. I was afraid they’d send me there. But I guess they considered me mostly harmless. And in a critical job.

  “I miss you so much,” she added while I thought about what she’d just told me. It was about the tenth time she’d said those words.

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “You have to visit me. And bring Tia.”

  “I will. Soon. Maybe tomorrow, if I ever get out of bed. Do you know if people in Harmony Tower can have visitors?”

  “With some constraints, I’d expect. Are you thinking about visiting her?”

  “I want to.”

  “Give it a try. I think the worst that can happen is that one of the watchdogs there will tell you no. But be careful. You’ve got some pull with your mom on your side, but you wouldn’t want to end up in the place yourself under any circumstances. And you have your trials coming.”

  My trials. The last thing on my mind. Something else had taken their place.

  Before we said good-bye she managed to tell me once more how much she missed me and I promised once more to visit her soon.

  Two thirty a.m. wasn’t late if you had things on your mind. I carried them down the hall to Tia’s room, expecting to have to wake her up. But she was lying in the dark with her eyes open. In the dim light from the window I saw them glistening.

  She sat up as I perched myself on the edge of her bed. She smelled of shampoo and soap.

  “Can’t sleep?” I asked.

  “Sunday’s bed is so empty,” she murmured, and I took her hand. It was cold, even though the heat of a July day still hung in the room. “It all felt like a nightmare at the time, but being away from it — here — makes it seem more real.”

>   “We can’t bring her back,” I said. “But maybe we can do something that would make us feel a little better when we go on from here.”

  Even in the near-dark, I saw a question on her face and in the angle of her body. So I gave her my answer. And we talked, late.

  I returned to my room with thoughts of our planning and plotting filling my head, but that would have to wait until the next day. Right now I had something else to do.

  I went to my desk and touched my computer to life. I did a search, hoping. And after a couple of tries to find the right spelling combination, I located what I was looking for. NetSketch had a listing for alonebutmerri.

  The profile was slim and generic and contained no photos, but I was almost sure I had the right person. So I composed a note to her.

  MERRI — I DON’T KNOW WHAT EXACTLY PAC TOLD YOU, BUT YOUR MOM IS THE BIGGEST REASON FEMALES ON THIS PLANET HAVE A FUTURE.SHE’S A HERO.AND SHE GAVE ME A MESSAGE TO PASS ON TO YOU. “TELL MERRI I LOVE HER,”IS WHAT SHE SAID.

  For good measure I added ALWAYS, imagining that Dr. Nuyen would have wanted me to. I hadn’t included much in the way of information, but if Merri felt shortchanged she could get back to me, and maybe by then I’d have thought of a way to blunt the specifics of her mom’s death, even if it meant making up something less painful. For Merri. And me.

  I posted the note, knowing she wouldn’t read it until the next day at the earliest. But at least I’d sent it. And maybe she would respond. It would be good — mostly — to hear from her, even under the circumstances.

  Finally, I headed to bed.

  I’ve tried three kinds of phones,

  a dozen different messages,

  and innumerable cries in the dark.

  I’m waiting for just one answer.

  — EPITAPH FOR JOEY BARROWS, STILL MISSING

  (APRIL 11, 2053–AUGUST 2067, I FEAR),

  BY MADDIE BARROWS, HIS MOTHER,

  DECEMBER 26, 2068