Epitaph Road

by David Patneaude

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It was almost noon by the time Tia and I dragged ourselves out the front door. At the bottom of the porch stood two new bikes. From their handlebars hung tags, one with my name on it, one with Tia’s.

  Tia’s bike was a single. I could almost see her mind struggling with that thought. Me? I was struggling with the thought of accepting Mom’s or Rebecca Mack’s or whoever’s thank-you gift or bribe or whatever it was.

  I didn’t struggle for long. “We don’t need these,” I said.

  “No,” Tia said. “We don’t.”

  We left them standing there and continued on to the bus stop. In fifteen minutes we were at the university entrance and a campus map that showed Harmony Tower. On the map it was a different shade of green from the other structures represented — much lighter, as if it barely existed.

  Five minutes later we stood in front of the building. It was a poor excuse for a tower — five or six stories of brick. The door was unlocked. Inside, the only hint that this wasn’t an everyday dorm lobby was the lack of anyone hanging out except a pasty-faced guard sitting at a desk near a bank of three elevators.

  Despite her official PAC uniform, she looked too young for the job, like she could have been a student herself. Maybe that was the reason she was there — to fit in on the campus scene. But she gave us an old lady’s world-weary annoyed look when we approached. We just tried to look calm and unconcerned, like we belonged.

  “This isn’t university property,” she said.

  “We know,” I said. “We’re here to see a friend.”

  “What makes you think your friend is here?”

  “We were told she was,” Tia said. “She’s been here a few weeks, probably.”

  “Yeah? Who told you?”

  “Rebecca Mack,” I said.

  The girl straightened from her slouch. She was practically sitting at attention. “You know Rebecca Mack?”

  “We were with her last night,” Tia said.

  After we mostly convinced the junior guard — her name tag said HILLIARD, CONTAINMENT — that we knew Rebecca Mack and told her who we were there to see and she’d checked our IDs on her scanner, she touched a desktop screen and waited until a voice — Anderson’s — said, “Yes?”

  “Visitors,” Hilliard said.

  “John Boyd?” Anderson’s voice, even through the tiny speaker, sounded hopeful.

  “No,” Hilliard said. “A couple of kids. One of ’em’s a boy, thinking he’s special. The other one’s a girl, thinking she’s hot because she’s with a boy.”

  Tia and I bit our tongues. Knowing Rebecca Mack hadn’t made us immune to abuse, but I didn’t want to make the guard’s bad attitude worse. We were pretty much at her mercy.

  “Do they have names?” Anderson said.

  Hilliard told Anderson who we were. Anderson told her to send us up.

  “Room 402,” Hilliard said. She eyed us while we got on the elevator.

  The building was quiet, but as we walked down the fourth-floor corridor to Anderson’s room, I heard music from one room, conversation from another. The smell of cooking was coming from somewhere. The door to 402 was open when we got there.

  Anderson greeted us just inside. Considering the circumstances, she seemed pretty together. Her eyes looked tired, but not like she’d been sleep-deprived or anything. Her red hair was still frizzy, but there was no evidence of helmet head. Obviously, she hadn’t been out riding her bike. “Kellen,” she said. “And Septiembre.” Her smile was subdued but real. “This is a surprise.”

  “Tia,” I said, saving Tia the effort. “She goes by Tia.”

  “Of course,” Anderson said. “I remember that now.”

  She led us in and offered us seats in the small room. In one corner stood a desk with a row of old-fashioned books squeezed between bookends on its back edge, but there was no evidence of anything electronic on the desk or elsewhere. Apparently, PAC didn’t trust Anderson to access the outside world except through visitors.

  “What have you been up to?” she asked. “And how did you know where to find me?”

  For the next hour we answered those two questions and a stream of more from her that eventually dried up as we related the details of the second-to-last part of our journey — the return to Afterlight.

  Finally, we told her what had brought us to Harmony Tower. “Rebecca Mack says we can’t do anything to expose what Brighter Day did,” I said. “What PAC’s been up to from the beginning.”

  “She says everyone who matters already knows,” Tia said.

  “She’s partly right,” Anderson said. Her face seemed less animated than when we’d arrived. Her voice was more like a murmur. “Those in power know. From her point of view, they’re all that matters. Lots of everyday people — adults, anyway — have figured it out, even though many of them would rather not think about how we got to where we are. They can’t change history, and most of them — even some men — believe they’ve benefited from it.”

  “Kids don’t know,” I said.

  “Kids matter,” Tia said.

  “I think so, too,” Anderson said. “I want to teach actual history, not a fairy-tale version of it. Or at least give my students the resources to investigate our past before they get so old that they’re sidetracked by familiarity and comfort and the belief that the destination validates the journey, no matter how wayward and murderous. Dr. Mack and her crew don’t agree with me, obviously. That’s why I’m here.”

  “We want to tell people about it,” I said.

  “You should.”

  “Not just kids we know,” Tia said. “We want to tell a lot of kids.”

  “And adults,” I said. “We want to reach everyone we can.”

  “How would you do that?”

  “We thought maybe you could get us access to a listing of all the kids in the history classes,” I said. “Or maybe all the classes.”

  “If we had the electronic roster,” Tia said, “we could send a message to everyone on it. In no time at all.”

  “We could tell them everything,” I said.

  “A summary, of course,” Tia said. “But all the important stuff.”

  “And at the same time we want to put it on the Net,” I said. “We want to revive an old website and have the story there for everyone who doesn’t know it.”

  A small grin had appeared on Anderson’s face. “Let me guess,” she said. “Junkyarddog.”

  “Can you help us do it?” Tia asked.

  Anderson nodded. Her grin widened. “I think they pissed you off.”

  “We lost people,” I said. “Everyone lost people.”

  Anderson sighed. She swiped at her eye. “See, you can’t invoke this kind of passion in us leave-well-enough-alone adults,” she said. “How were you thinking of setting everything up?”

  “E-spond,” I said.

  “It can be done, but they’ve taken mine away,” she said. “They’ve taken away anything I could use to communicate with the world outside my window.”

  “Can’t you just take off?” I said. “That guard downstairs looks like a pushover.”

  “What good would it do me?” She lifted the sleeve of her T-shirt. A fresh scar, a couple of inches long, angled across her upper arm. In the center of it was a dime-sized lump. “Tracking device. They’d have me back here in an hour, facing more time and scrutiny. As it is now, I’m on my way to convincing them I’ll be no problem once I’m out of here.”

  “We weren’t thinking of using your e-spond,” Tia said.

  “Whose, then? If you use one of yours, they’ll know who created the site and sent the message.”

  “The library’s,” I said.

  “You check out an e-spond and they’ll have a record of it,” Anderson said.

  “We know that,” I said. “We’re going to borrow it… anonymously. But can you get us into the school’s database?”

  “I can do better than that. I can get you into the regional base for trials candidates. Fi
ve states. Tens of thousands of fourteen-year-olds. A couple of touches and they’ll have your revelation.”

  “Can they trace your password?” Tia asked.

  “I won’t give you mine. They might have disabled it anyway. I have a couple of shadow passwords for emergencies, and no one can track them back to me. I’ll give you one. I can also show you how to get a basic version of junkyarddog up and running in no time. If you build and trigger it using an e-spond you’ve borrowed anonymously, it can’t be linked to you. There’s no telling how long PAC will allow it to exist before they take it down, but for a time — enough time, I think — your story will be out there for the world to see.”

  “When would we know if it all works?” I asked.

  “When you try it.”

  PAC did allow Anderson to have paper and pens. So she wrote down an access code, the phantom password, and the processes for sending our message to the entire list, building and activating the website, and posting the message there.

  “What you’re doing,” she said. “It’s worthwhile and brave, but it’s bordering on dangerous. You could jeopardize your trials.”

  “We’ll be careful,” I said, stuffing her directions deep into my pocket.

  We headed for the door, but before we got there, Tia had a question. “Who is John Boyd?”

  Anderson’s faint smile disappeared. Her eyes filled. For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to — or couldn’t — answer. But finally she did. “A friend,” she said. “Lived in the hinterlands. Near a settlement you’ve visited…Afterlight.”

  Once outside we headed across quiet campus lawns toward the entrance. I remembered the rumors about Anderson and how she spent her weekends. “John Boyd,” I said. “He was more than a friend.”

  “I could tell, Kelly.”

  During the short bus ride to the library, my nerves cropped up. Tia pretty much stopped talking, a sure sign that she was nervous, too. Our plan involved more than a little treachery, not a skill for either of us. To add to my anxiety, just as we got inside, I spotted an old friend.

  The security cop — the one who had hounded me and called me names and accused me of stealing the last time I’d been here — was standing no more than twenty feet away, suspiciously eyeing patrons as they moved into the checkout line with their books and digital books and movies and recordings and e-sponds. Tia saw her, too — I could tell by the way she froze for a second or two — and together we moved on an angle away from the cop, toward the room where the e-sponds were shelved.

  At the last moment, just before we would have been out of sight and safe, she glanced our way. All I could think was Disaster. All I could think was that she’d be sniffing along behind me like a wolf after sheep.

  All I could think was There goes our plan.

  But instead of snapping to attention and following us, she got this weird look on her face. It was recognition for sure, but combined with something else. Disgust, maybe. And there was some color in her face, too. It was the pink color of humiliation.

  She turned on her heel and walked in the opposite direction. We hurried on before suspicion gained the upper hand and she changed her mind.

  I chose an e-spond from a shelf. Tia, who would draw less attention and distrust than I would, took two at a time, and before our jitters got the better of us I threw a quick look around the room and whispered, “Now.” She expertly slipped one of them down the front of her shorts. I glanced and detected nothing.

  We walked nonchalantly to the checkout desk. The line was short, but it seemed to take forever to get to the terminal and get her e-spond — the one she didn’t have stashed away — scanned. While we were waiting, I chanced a couple of subtle looks around the room for the cop, but she was keeping her distance, out of sight somewhere, maybe on the trail of someone else.

  We were almost out the door, moving along in a small crowd of people, when the alarm went off.

  Tia took a few more steps, getting beyond the range of the sensor, but I stopped. I headed back to checkout, holding up Tia’s scanned e-spond and my un-scanned one, pretending to be embarrassed. It wasn’t easy. I didn’t feel embarrassed, even with all the extra scrutiny from the mostly female crowd and the woman at the desk. “I forgot to scan it,” I told her. “My friend did hers, but I was too busy talking.”

  The woman reached under the counter and touched something. The alarm died. “Happens all the time.” She smiled as she checked Tia’s e-spond and scanned mine. “Have a good day.”

  “I’m planning on it.” As I walked away I took one more look around. The cop was back, peering across the room for the culprit who’d tripped the alarm. Her eyes fell on me. I nodded in her general direction and headed off, trying not to hurry.

  I got through the door without commotion this time and joined Tia at the bottom of the steps. We took off, not looking back. We wanted to put some distance between ourselves and the library.

  “Good work, Tia,” I said. “Cool like ice.”

  “You, too, Kelly. I knew you could sweet-talk anyone in there. With that one exception.”

  “Maybe I’ll grow on her.”

  “Where are we going?”

  For a moment I wasn’t sure.

  Then I was. I didn’t know how much we’d accomplish with what we were about to do, but it would be nice to have a witness to it, someone to see that we were trying, at least, to set the record straight. It would be nice to have my grandfather looking over our shoulders. “Epitaph Road,” I said.

  Ain’t no late-night heart-to-hearts,

  ain’t no summer since you’ve gone.

  — EPITAPH FOR SUNDAY MARIE MCCLOUD

  (OCTOBER 11, 2082–JUNE 20, 2097),

  BY MARY ALICE MCCLOUD, HER MOTHER,

  ABRIL MENDOZA, HER AUNT,

  AND TIA MENDOZA, HER COUSIN AND SISTER AND BEST FRIEND,

  JULY 17, 2097

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tia and I had been through a lot in the past few weeks. I felt different. I was sure she did, too. How could she not? But Epitaph Road looked the same. The park and the burial site looked pretty much unchanged: sprawling green fields, flaming gas exhaust pipes masquerading as white crosses, mid-afternoon sun beating down, casting short shadows around everything.

  But there was no Sunday. And so far, there were no Fratheists.

  We stopped at the monolith and waited while an old woman moved out of the way, freeing one of the display screens. I scrolled to my grandfather’s epitaph and let Tia read it. “The bear,” she said. I’d told her the story of Dad’s bear the morning we found the tracks crisscrossing our campsite.

  We walked to a quiet spot near the center of the graveyard and sat down on the warm grass.

  “You’re sure about this, Tia?” I said. “You could just catch a bus back to the house right now and not be involved. Not even as a witness.”

  “I’m already involved,” she said. “I’m not bailing now. We’re partners in this.”

  “There’s a difference between us,” I said. “You’ve got a shining future. Mine’s not so shining.”

  “That could change.”

  “Maybe. But if not, whether I end up as a second-class citizen or a third-class nobody isn’t a huge deal. Not in the big picture. Not when there’s a chance to put a hole in PAC’s story and a dent in its reputation.”

  “I have a good feeling, Kelly — we’re not going to get caught. Suspected, maybe — most likely — but not caught.”

  “I have the same feeling — mostly — but I can’t help worrying about you, the partner with everything at stake. As for me, screw it. I’d be happy catching fish with my dad.”

  “Too late for worrying.” She took out the pilfered e-spond. We began brainstorming. Not far away, a pipe belched fire into the sky. Grandfather, I told myself.

  We talked and wrote and revised. We knew what we wanted to say, but we didn’t know exactly how to say it and how much emphasis and space to give to each item. And we wanted one message we
could use in both the mailing to the kids and on the website. So it took some time.

  When we’d run out of ideas and cuts and changes, Tia read me what we had.

  YOU’RE A SKEPTIC.

  IF YOU’VE HEARD CERTAIN THINGS — CONJECTURE, CONSPIRACY THEORIES, WILD-EYED ACCUSATIONS — OVER THE YEARS, YOU’VE MOSTLY SNICKERED AT THEM AND HURRIED BACK TO THE COMFORTS OF WHAT PASSES FOR REALITY. BUT MAYBE ONE RUMOR — THAT DIE-HARD, FAR-FETCHED, ALTERNATE-UNIVERSE ONE ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF ELISHA’S BEAR, ABOUT SOMEONE PURPOSEFULLY UNLEASHING IT — HAUNTS YOU. MAYBE YOU’RE SKEPTICAL INSTEAD ABOUT THE SO-CALLED TRUTH YOU’VE BEEN SPOON-FED FROM AN EARLY AGE — THE IDEA THAT THE BEAR JUST SHOWED UP ON ITS OWN AND TARGETED ONLY MALES.

  YOU SHOULD BE.

  That was the introduction — the part we hoped would get people’s attention.

  Tia read on. We tinkered with things a little more, trying to make the information evenhanded and as much like a story as possible. We included a lot of the bad stuff men had been responsible for — wars, terrorism, mass deaths, slavery, human and environmental exploitation — and we wrote about Rebecca Mack’s personal experience with abuse and justice. And we documented the history of Brighter Day and Elisha’s Bear and its recurrences, including what had just happened at Afterlight.

  We didn’t mention the Foothills Project and its lab or the smothering of the second bear. We didn’t want to inspire more fanatics. Or draw sure attention to ourselves.

  Finally, we agreed — it was about as good as it was going to get. I took out the paper Anderson had given me and read everything off while Tia tapped away. In a moment we were into the student database. Simple and mostly sweat-free. She scrolled down a bit and stopped. It looked like a zillion names. She directed our e-script to the MAIL space and chose SEND ALL.

  We didn’t send it. Not yet. We pulled up another template and followed Anderson’s directions again, this time for creating the website. It was quick and easy, even with our nerves on edge.

  “Junkyarddog.bites,” Tia said when we’d pasted in our message and we were all but finished. “It looks good to see it live.”