by Gann, Myles
Alice could be seen frowning heavily from Power’s perch. “We were just going to talk from now on, remember?”
Power flashed away and appeared with a bright indentation along the outer edge of the bed. Alice flipped her body around and shielded her eyes until Power’s blue dimmed greatly. “There’s something I have to tell you because some part of me is seeing Caleb and his quest for truth, and the rest of me sees that it is working. He’s actually making tremendous progress using only the truth.”
“He says you’re afraid of me and him.”
“That I’ll be left behind, yes. It will happen. I have no more delusions of that, but perhaps I can change. Perhaps he is wrong about that.”
Alice snuggled into her pillow as Power floated off the edge of the bed but remained level with her. “Maybe.”
“Will you hear me?”
“Of course I will.”
Power rotated its floating body until its fixed feet felt the bottom of the aura on the carpeted floor. “There are, admittedly, good things about Caleb and bad things about me. It’s rare indeed when we can see the same topic from the same viewpoint, or even work towards the same conclusion, but…we saved you that night together. We fought Stephen back together. He did that for the world, he told you that, but I did it for you, Alice. The world could wither and die tomorrow and I wouldn’t blink an eye, but I would do anything to protect you. I’ve never felt that before; I’ve never sacrificed who I am or what I am for Caleb or Carol. What he’s aiming for is much bigger than him, and he knows that; even in the best scenario, he accomplishes this magnificent feat, and you’re always second. You are the first and the only with me. You could always be alive and young and well and with me.”
“I guess we’re never going to get around this are we?”
“This is all I have left.”
“He says you’ve always had yourself. What’s changed?”
Power laughed without an echo. “Have you not been around for the past year? Everything around me has changed. Everyone. Even that meat sack I’m connected to has not only surpassed me, but he’s always been better than me. Every bit of the focus has always been on him, him, him, him, him! I had to focus on myself, on making myself far stronger than he could ever dream without the luck of the genetic draw. All this time, I’ve made myself strong enough to protect someone like you; someone who would come along and make me feel truly protective as something I couldn’t live without.”
Alice rubbed her right arm with her left hand. “You know what he would say right now?
“I don’t care what he would say.”
“It’s the truth. It’s all that matters.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“You’re right. You and I could hollow him out and live together forever, but it would be a lie. Such a big lie that we would never even have a chance to be happy. Not after we both know there’s something more.”
Power recoiled until its back hit the open window. “What would he say?”
“That everything you’re talking about boils down to you looking out for yourself.”
“You can say the same for him.”
“I don’t think so. I really don’t. I truly believe he wants to be with me, and that he wants to live somewhere in the middle of nowhere with me and raise however many kids with me, but there’s something deeper inside of him that keeps him from that future for now. He told me he wanted to die in that cave, and that he wanted to kill himself before that. You kept him from that. You have to see these things…,” her eyes averted, “that’s why you’re asking me this. You’re asking me to be with you because you know he’s meant for me. Have you always known?”
“I was meant for Carol, and he took her away from me. It only seems right.”
“No, it doesn’t, Prince. It seems very, very wrong.”
Its head dropped and the eyes that Alice couldn’t see were shut tightly. “Your answer is no, then?”
“I’m sorry, Prince, but you already know it is.”
“But…what can he offer you? What is the magical difference between me and him?”
“You are something that will always look out for yourself above everything else, even through me. Caleb will always look out for what’s right and repel what is wrong, and if being with him is right and if what we have is true love, then we will always be together and nothing will ever need protecting. If we aren’t, then I honestly don’t want another relationship. I’m sorry, but I’ll never feel this way about anybody again.”
“You love nobody.”
Alice smiled and laughed lightly. “Because there’s no other person worth loving to me.”
Power let itself fade into a lesser blue and eventually into a translucent distortion, all the while finding its home within Caleb’s mind shrinking into near nothingness.
- - -
Stanley stretched before the rising sunlight while Caleb and Alice wandered out and into the kitchen. As she forced energy through her fingers and movements, Caleb found his body leaning on the unstable side of the table. Stanley turned around and smiled. “You don’t look ready for this.”
“My body is, but my mind’s not exactly tip-top.”
“Me and the Prince were up pretty late,” Alice said as she hefted a duffle bag to the door.
“And you’re not tired?”
She smiled weakly at Caleb. ‘She is. She’s exhausted and hurt. Those bags under her eyes aren’t from a few hours of depravity. What did you do to keep her up all night?’
‘Caleb, the communication between us is over. Use me as you see fit, but stay out of your own head for my sake.’
‘Tell me what you did.’
‘I’m telling you to drop it. Drop everything between us.’
Alice was suddenly within his angled eyes and lazily falling into his arms. He slid his hands under her short sleeves and across her shoulders while staring into the small wrinkles at the nave of her neck. ‘We will be talking about this.’ “Let’s get the stuff and go. I’m good for a couple of hours before we need a rest.”
Stanley shouldered his bag and moved to grab the other two. “Is the trail still fresh?”
Caleb lit his blue eyes. “Yes, very strong still.”
“Let’s hit it then.” Caleb and Alice separated just to move to the door and out into the hallway. “Not that I’m the master of navigation, but if we’re traveling the trail, we shouldn’t travel the trail, if you catch my drift.”
Caleb smiled as the brisk air of the morning sent warmer blood through his lungs and heart. “I’m going to travel left and right of it until the trail strengthens. If he does know I’ll follow, then he also knows that he won’t be able to hide where he is, and any other traps would be pretty useless. It’ll be a straight fight when we finally arrive, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Stan handed Alice the smaller bag before shouldering the other load for Caleb. “Just observe the path at your feet, not what’s up ahead.”
Alice held his right hand while Stan latched under his left arm. “Yes sir.”
He let himself fall forward for half a beat before letting Power push from beneath his feet. Both hands kept their strong grips around his extremities as his eyes and feet positioned their rushing path ten feet to the left of the purple stream, and three stories above, until the city rushed away and vast change took them. Clear skies changed to grey and pluming white atop the twisting path between trees and landscape scars across nature’s own face. Any subcutaneous village or town was skipped to the far left or right for the first hour and a half, to which point Caleb could not remember a breath taking place.
His feet slowed quickly and the sweat that escaped the rush of speedy wind was finally accompanied by the remainder of his natural body heat, plus the burn of his power’s use. Alice and Stanley were wobbly on their own feet and twisting their shoulders and rubbing their eyes against the entire journey. Both sat down as Caleb pulled heavy breathes into his lungs while seeing forward wit
h slivers of power and noting quickly the journey’s next turn. “He’s leading us off somewhere. This is the third turn we’ve made. That’ll lead us in a new direction.”
Stanley breathed heavily against the base of a tree. “Maybe he’s leading us in a circle?”
“No, we’re almost four states over now. He’s got better things to do than to lead us completely away.”
Caleb turned and saw Alice with her eyes closed and her chin against her softly-heaving chest. ‘At least she’s getting some sleep now.’
‘I’ll only need a few minutes to rest.’
‘You can spend it avoiding the subject of Alice completely.’
‘I intend to.’
The two men made eye contact for a moment before Caleb whispered, “I’m going to check out that stream.”
Stanley just nodded. Caleb turned and walked as gently through the thick foliage as his heavy feet could, and waited until the small falls of the tepid stream were drowning out his voice for all but his, and its, ears. “Let’s talk.”
Power emerged at the edge of the fall basin. “I need to rest.”
“You and I both know that we can go for another hour before you need to rest.”
“I didn’t sleep last night.”
“You don’t need sleep. You’re not even a person.”
“Thank you for reminding me.”
“What happened last night?”
“Talk to her about it.”
“Something tells me she wasn’t the one that started all of this.”
Power turned sharply. “No, that was you.”
“I was asleep all night.”
“You’ve been a waking nightmare for me for a very long time now. She’s been infected with your idea of the truth, and the right, and the wrong, and I finally told her and she finally told me, and it did nothing but tear us apart. How in the wildest of hells is that right?”
Caleb didn’t smile. His eyes met with the hazy blue outline of Power, the falls splashing lightly through the opaque figure. “This broken record has to stop. You and her cannot be together with you who you are. The truth you said was probably along the lines of ‘I can give you something he can’t’ with the assumption that she was somehow limited by this relationship, but the truth doesn’t limit her. It can’t. You think you’re offering her freedom when you’re really just offering her a single lie to live the rest of her life by.”
Power’s stare persevered. “She said you’d say something like that.”
“You both know well enough.” Caleb turned around and looked towards Stanley as he unfolded a map and studied. “You can rest now for a few more minutes so we can find our bearings, and then we’ll get going again.”
“You think you were right about everything don’t you?”
He turned back. “Again, it doesn’t matter. What is being said is that you and her are wrong together on that level.”
“Not about that.”
“About what then?”
Power began to completely absorb into Caleb’s body from the feet and through its torso. “I do have a choice.”
The rest of the wisp that was Power dissipated, leaving Caleb to look around for answers. He shook his head and turned back into the trees, moving gracefully by his own might and agility through the tightly condensed branches. Stanley was spread over a map of the United States as Caleb approached. “Kind of hard keeping track of landmarks while whizzing by everything, isn’t it?”
The studious man kept his eyes searching with his hands measuring distances until he finally looked up. “We’re in northern Kansas.”
Caleb looked down with a smile. “You’ve been in this business for way too long.”
“You should’ve seen me navigating out in the desert with nothing as landmarks besides the sand dunes. That’s where the real trackers make their living.” He tapped his finger next to the border. “I’m pretty sure there’s a village around here if you wanted to take a more luxurious break,” he looked back towards the sleeping Alice, “or wanted to give her a bed.”
Caleb smiled at her and then him. “We’ll see where the next turn takes us first. It looks like it’ll be moving us in a kind of south-west direction towards New Mexico.”
“How long are we going to let her sleep?”
“We’ll all refuel for a half an hour or so.” He crawled back into the nook of a tree and checked his power. ‘Why aren’t you recharging?’
There was no answer.
“You did hit the gas something fierce. I didn’t know you could go that fast.”
“Yeah, quite the cross-country runner,” Caleb responded absently. ‘Don’t pretend you can’t hear me.’
Another echo against his own inner voice met him.
“I put in a favor with the Major, if you’ll accept it.”
His eyes averted up to Stanley, who was idly snapping twigs and throwing them aside. “A favor?”
Stanley looked up and waved his hands. “They’re holding the resources from the war, for now, and we could get Stephen’s location in no time.”
“We’ve got a yellow-brick road beneath our feet to follow. Tell him to save his satellite images for looking down women’s shirts.”
Stanley laughed and lowered his hands. “It’s an insurance policy. Just in case the trail runs cold.”
Caleb nodded while looking away. “Did he ever hear anything of the General?”
“Nothing but rumors. Still a ton of those running through the ranks. There was something big that happened two days before I met back up with you in Virginia that not a single news outlet covered. The one guy on the base that out ranked me, a piece of work that was stepped on a few hundred times, hadn’t talked to anybody besides his assistants for a decade because of a paranoid, nervous fear of mutiny. Not entirely unfounded, but extreme. Anyways, he came out and talked to them all and threw them a party that they’ll never forget, or remember, really. The best kind. A direct result of you.”
Caleb fiddled with the moist dirt under his hand. “Your point is I’ve made the pompous pompous again?”
“My point is that you’ve made everybody themselves again.” He looked up to a smiling Stanley and could just barely quirk a smile of his own. “Is that the kind of thing you wanted to accomplish with this?”
“That’s the start of it,” he said with a nearly breathless tone. “People saw what was wrong, at some point, and the war ending showed them who they were again. This, right here, is going to show them what choice they still have to make.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s all there needs to be.” He felt a small smile growing.
Alice’s head suddenly popped up and her hand was reaching for him. Caleb rolled over to her until his shoulder and arm were within her reach. She opened her eyes slowly and frowned. “I fell asleep. We should go.”
“Only if you’re ready.”
“If I stay, I’ll sleep all day.”
Stanley started to rummage and repack the few supplies he’d unfurled and threw Caleb two bottles of water, one of which was handed to Alice. “Let’s go a little farther. Can’t be much more to chase.”
She took a deep breath and sprang for her pack, her legs uneven in stride and balance. Caleb hoisted himself up and moved to the front of the path with a vague blue covering his eyes and barely showing him the purple path. ‘Are you fighting for control again?’
‘This is the choice that I have.’
Caleb shook his head again with a hand grabbing each arm and his feet exploding the soft ground beneath them. For another half an hour they blasted around and through the subtle differences in trail directions until Caleb’s legs were suddenly moving much more slowly. Every blur began to fill into its own shape again as they passed, and the weight on his back began to purse his nerves and multiply his fatigue. The purple trail had fully faded from his eyes by the time they reached a small town on the lower edge of Kansas, and Caleb nearly dropped the bodies off of his back.
Both
passengers looked on the sweating Caleb with curious and concerned eyes. “Are you okay?”
Caleb breathed heavily and was doubled over. “Yeah, good time for a rest here in the town.”
“It’s only been a half an hour since we stopped last.”
Alice walked closer to Stanley. “Power’s being testy today.”
Caleb closed his eyes. ‘What are you trying to prove?’
‘That I cannot change. That I love I, and if I cannot have what I want, I will destroy I and all associated with I. This is the last time I will speak to you, and you will be faced with a decision that will truly be the last game of chicken we ever play. Go on your quest for the right, but you no longer will have me to fuel the journey, and when you arrive at Stephen’s doorstep and when you feel the overwhelming fear in the pit of your stomach, you will know that I have always controlled you, and that this entire odyssey for the truth of the right is an empty ruse. Then, you will die, and Alice will be alone.’
‘You wouldn’t do that to her.’
‘You’re doing it to her. I’m just sitting out the final few hands.’
Caleb stared at the ground as he walked forward with unbalanced steps and cock-eyed strides. He half-turned back to Alice and Stanley and forced a smile.
“Let’s find a place to rest for a bit. One last real meal sounds good.” As he turned and walked faster down the path, Alice and Stanley stared at him with questions that neither could answer while staring at his back.
- - -
Caleb stared daggers through the neighboring building across from his standing balcony. His right hand released the choking rail and faced its palm towards his eyes. From behind, Alice’s whisper was accompanied by her touch. “It’s late, and sleep always helps you both recharge.”
“You go.”
“I want you to be there with me.”
Caleb continued to glare into his own creased palm. “Will later.”
“What’s wrong?”
He ripped his eyes away from the abyss in his hand and stared at her with a heavy look. “Thinking.”