Dom was enjoying watching the road that passed through town, noting the different numbers floating up from license plates, an intermingling of localities, numbers that were foreign to this place, but that were able to blend easily enough with the local numerical ecology. That didn’t always happen with human-created numbers, although he supposed that plates from other states and provinces had been around long enough to negotiate their way in with the local ones.
In the middle of his reverie, Jenna said, “Oh my God.” Dom looked over and saw her pointing down. Below them, in the splash park, water pouring from the fountains was being accompanied by a slow dribble of black sludge, foul-looking numbers, which were gradually fanning out across the concrete surface, emphatically not going down the drain with the water, a tide of tumbling dark figures, insect-like and scrambling to crawl over each other and strain against gravity.
Search numbers.
They were off and down the stairs, shoving by the family that was on the last flight, Dom grabbing the rail and pushing off the wall to avoid one kid who wobbled after taking each step. “Take random numbers of steps and then jump two or three,” said Dom, demonstrating. Jenna followed suit. “Don’t always start a set of stairs with just one foot, or the same foot.” He was panting again, but kept up a steady flow of advice, so much that there was no way she’d be able to follow all of it. The look on Jenna’s face told him she was almost ready to give up, and if he could keep her attention focused with more instructions to follow, he knew he could keep her with him, both mentally and physically.
There were more people to avoid, but it was easier on the way down, everyone hugging the railing and hanging on for dear life as they realized just how many steps they had to climb to get to their goal. They hit bottom and dashed through the gift shop, pounded the door open, ignoring the looks and comments from behind, and dashed across the parking lot, trying to get to the car while swinging wide around the splash park.
“They’re . . . tired,” gasped Billy.
“So’re we,” responded Dom.
“The numbers. They’re not rising above the ground.” Billy made Dom stop, and for a few seconds he just stood there, hands on his knees and trying to keep his head up to look. Beside Dom, Jenna was hunched over, coughing and crying at the same time.
Finally, enough of his breath back, Dom stood and peered over the rows of cars. “Sonofabitch, you’re right. Fuckers can’t even get up over the curb.”
Billy nodded his head. “It’s taking all their energy to keep from going down the drains.”
“So how did they end up in the water, anyway?” asked Jenna.
Dom shrugged. “Dunno. Probably not worth sticking around to figure out right now, either. We could go and flush them down and they wouldn’t be able to get word out to their boss, but other numbers might be coming over the horizon or bubbling up from underground, so I think we’re better off just running again. Get some more mojo so I can take care of these bastards.”
Jenna grabbed his arm. He looked down in surprise, and then she tugged. “So let’s go, then.”
11
They were back on the road, leaving Drumheller behind as they drove north. Jenna kept checking over her shoulder, but each look elicited a report that nothing had changed, and pretty soon all three of them began to relax again. “But not enough to take our guard down,” said Billy, after Dom had commented on this.
It took a few more hours to get to Edmonton. They stopped once for gas, once more to use the restroom. During that second stop Dom bought some snacks and drinks, but the burgers had filled the gaps pretty nicely, and they only dipped in for the odd bite or sip.
It was almost time for supper by the time Edmonton’s downtown came into view, a small cluster of steel and glass and concrete rising from never-ending farmland and, as they neared the city, out of and above endless swaths of near-identical housing and big box retailers. Dom looked over and noticed the face Jenna was making. “What?”
“Kind of ugly, don’t you think?”
“The city?” She nodded, and he shrugged. “Actually, I’m kinda fond of the place,” he answered. “You sure as hell don’t see its best face, driving in like this. But the city has a lot going for it: great parks, which I like, and from what some friends have told me, some pretty liveable neighbourhoods.” He changed lanes, took an exit off the road and found his way over to the far lane, turned once more onto another road, this one a strip of hotels, bars, and shops; there were hundreds of people walking and shopping, window or real, buskers playing guitars, beggars trying to put the tap on everyone who walked by. “Great pace here, too, considering the size, although even it is getting too big for its britches.” He pulled into a parking spot and got out, stood with Jenna on the sidewalk. “It’s too late to get to the bank today, so this is the best place to be. There are a lot of numbers happening in a place like this, and as long as we’re careful about covering our tracks, we’ll be safe.”
“How can you be sure? You thought we were okay down in Drumheller, too.”
Dom shrugged again. “Guess I can’t be sure. But this is the best answer I’ve got right now, unless you or Billy have anything.”
Jenna made a face. “Don’t be an ass.”
“I certainly don’t,” replied Billy. “I’ve never been here before, so I don’t know what the city has that might be of help to us. We’re in your hands, Dom.”
“Right. Let’s find us a couple of rooms for the night and then go get supper.” He fished their packs out of the back of the car and they went into a hotel one block east. This time he gave Jenna some cash and had her pay for her own room, watching to make sure that she rubbed away the numbers, which she managed with only a little difficulty. When they got to their floor he told her to meet down in the lobby in a half hour, which Jenna negotiated up to forty-five minutes so that she could have a shower.
Once in the room Dom threw his bag on the floor and collapsed on the couch, immediately seeking out the remote control, scanning channels for sports. “You like athletic competition,” commented Billy.
Dom nodded, settled on a Mariners-Blue Jays game. “The numbers appeal to me, and I’ve done well by the mojo that gets dug up. Especially in baseball.” The two of them watched in silence for a few minutes, letting the easy rhythm of the play and the numbers drift over them. Dom was getting sick of long and difficult days, and he imagined that Billy and Jenna were as well. What he’d give to be able to attend a ball game in real life, and not have to worry about anything except not getting a sunburn or spilling beer on his legs when he jumped to catch a foul.
Finally, Billy interrupted the moment. “How are we going to avoid the search numbers this time?”
“Meaning what?”
“I suppose I mean that no matter where we’ve been or the steps we’ve taken, this person has managed to find us. And next time there is no guarantee that the numbers will be slow and weak, or that we’ll be able to dash out of harm’s way at the last possible second.”
“Ah.” Dom thumbed the remote and swung his feet over the edge of the bed. “Hang on a minute.” He went into the bathroom and unzipped, pissed with his eyes closed—bodily functions with Bill inhabiting his body still kind of freaked him out—then splashed cold water over his face and let it air dry.
“Well?” The shadow sounded impatient.
“This is a different sort of city,” said Dom, after a few seconds more. “Most places, all their streets have names. Main Street, Central Avenue, that sort of thing. They have a few named streets here, but most of the city is on a kind of grid, with the streets all numbered instead.”
Billy grunted. “I see.”
“Yeah. Hundreds of numbers, crossing each other all over the map. Every one of them sending out their own little waves of interference.” Dom walked over to the window and opened the curtain. “Look closer at the sky.”
Billy peered with Dom’s eyes. “My goodness. If you don’t look too close, that looks like smog.”
Dom nodded. “Most people can’t see it, of course. But those are numbers, constantly drifting up into the air from the interaction with each other, but not floating off too far because there’s still the attraction from below. It’s an amazing thing, and yet you don’t find too many numerates coming to Edmonton.”
“I wonder why?”
“Too damn cold in the winter.” He opened the door and walked out to meet Jenna.
Subset
She’d gotten up early and come down to the lobby about a half hour before and just stood there for the whole time, looking out the door at the people passing by, but Jenna heard Dom coming and turned to greet him, smiling. “This place feels safe,” she said as they walked out onto the sidewalk. Dom pointed up at the sky and told her about the numbered streets and about how that affected the place in ways that rarely happened in other large cities, and she nodded a bit, trying to understand. Then they wandered off to find a pizza place that Dom said he remembered from the last time he’d been there.
“Tell me about yourself,” said Jenna, after they’d been served their pizzas and drinks. She’d realized while walking here that they had not had the time to get to know each other, and for the first time since this had all started she felt like things were calm enough to spend some time getting to know Dom, instead of just learning about the numbers.
Dom looked up in surprise, but before he could say anything Billy chimed in: “Yes, I’m also curious. You’re unlike any other numerate I’ve known, and I’ve known a few of them.”
He took a big mouthful of pizza, chewing slowly as if to give him time to organize his thoughts. When he swallowed and washed it down with some beer, he asked, “Where do you want me to start?”
Jenna took a sip of her soda. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-one.” Younger than she’d thought.
“Where were you born?” asked Billy.
“Nova Scotia. But I was raised a few hours north of here, in a little town called Peace River.”
“When did you discover you were a numerate?” This was Billy again.
Dom leaned back in his chair, looked around the restaurant. There were two other tables in use right now, a couple sharing quiet and intimate talk, and a family of five making a lot more noise, but all of it happy, the youngest shrieking with joy from his high chair as an older sibling made open mouth faces while chewing on pizza. “These people all have it pretty good,” he finally said. There was a slight choke in his voice, but Jenna chose to ignore it for the moment.
“What do you mean?” asked Billy.
Jenna held up her hand. “I think I know,” she said. “You had what I didn’t, right? A good family life.”
His lips pursed, Dom paused for a moment before finally nodding his head. “Yeah. Loving parents, a little sister who looked up to me.” He fiddled with his beer mug for a second, then took another drink. “But the numbers, they fuck you over something serious. I did the same thing your mother did, Jenna, except I did it a lot earlier. She waited until after she’d had you, but the numbers, they first spoke to me when I was twelve. I mean, I’d been seeing them all my life, I’m pretty sure, but I didn’t know what they were until then, much less what I could do with them. And when they did crash down on me, I managed to hold them back for almost four whole years.”
“And then?” Jenna closed her eyes, remembering her mother and anticipating what was coming next.
“I left.” He drained his beer, waved at the waitress for a refill. “Walked out on my family and never looked back. Been more than eight years since I last saw them. It still took me a year or two to figure out what my numeracy meant; worked odd jobs for quite awhile until I got the hang of it.”
“Have they looked for you?” asked Billy. “I have a sense that in my first life I did no such thing, but this is a story I’ve heard more and more over the decades.” He stopped talking when the waitress arrived with another beer, who nonetheless had likely heard him talking with the accent and different voice, based on the look she cast back at him as she headed over to the noisy family’s table.
“Yeah, they tried to find me. I know the cops were in it for awhile, but their numbers were easy to avoid, especially since there was nobody involved who knew they existed, much less how to control them, and every day away, I got better at handling them. I finally phoned one day, when I knew my parents would be out. Talked to my sister, told her that I was okay and that they should stop trying to find me.”
“What was her answer?”
“She was pretty pissed off. Yelled at me, called me all sorts of names, then backed off, told me she loved me and they wanted me to come back home. Tough language from someone who was only eleven at the time.” He grinned at the memory, took another swallow. “They were in a car accident a few months later. Dad’s in a wheelchair now, and Mom and my sister were hurt pretty bad, but they got better. I still arrange for some money to mysteriously appear in their bank account whenever I can.”
It had been hard for Jenna to lose her family the way she had, and must have been even more difficult for Dom, walking away like that and then not being there for them after the accident. It was appalling to think about, and for just a second she wondered if she should get up and walk away, get off this path to a life of hunting for numbers and secrets that Dom had buried himself in. Perversely, though, she caught the look of despair that had ever-so-briefly crept onto Dom’s face, and thought of her mother and what she had left behind, chasing the numbers in the face of the same sort of loss, and realized that she was in this every bit as deep as they were now.
That realization didn’t answer everything for her, though. “Then why are you still away?” she asked. “When all is said and done, how is it that you can’t just let your family know that you’re still around, maybe show up for Christmas once or twice.” Her voice caught, and for a second she was sure she was going to start crying again, but she got a hold of herself and carried on. “The numbers spoke to me, too, but I didn’t wander off and desert my father just because I could see funny things floating through the air.”
Dom frowned. “Jenna, I’m not your mother.” She felt herself flinch at this, but he pressed on before she could argue the point. “I can’t speak for her, but I imagine that the lure of these numbers is more extreme for some of us than it is for others.”
“My mom, she was pretty distant for a long time before she disappeared. I suppose when she did go it didn’t come as much of a surprise, probably less to me even than to my dad.” She bit her lower lip, thinking about those last days and remembering how she blamed herself, but she blinked rapidly for a few seconds and carried on. “I guess whatever numbers were speaking to her had her attention early on and just needed some time to convince her to leave us behind.”
Dom took another bite of pizza, followed it with more beer. “Well, that’s exactly it, and I can’t stress it enough; the numbers, they call me. Whether I’m awake or asleep, it doesn’t matter. Hell, once I even paid someone to put me into one of those sensory deprivation tanks. The numbers were fluttering around like moths, bumping against the ceiling of the tank, aggravating the crap outta me.”
“I see them all the time, too.”
He shook his head. “No you don’t, Jenna, I can pretty much guarantee that. I’ve watched you, awake, even asleep when we’ve been in the car. The numbers do just the opposite with you. They’re willing to be manipulated by you, but first they try to stay away from you. It’s the damndest thing I’ve ever seen, but we’ve been so busy I really haven’t had time to think much about it.”
“What do you mean, stay away from me?” But even as she asked this she thought she knew the answer.
“I’ve seen numbers come close to you, but unless you are planning on using them or if it’s something like the search numbers that were sent after us, then they leave you alone.” This was Billy talking. “It’s almost like there is a bubble around you, and none of them want or are able to pass through it.�
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Dom nodded. “Remember when I stuck you with the wire?” He pointed at the makeshift bracelet on her wrist. “The numbers didn’t do what they were supposed to. Normally they would’ve crawled right in, but instead we had to convince them to do so, instead of them just melting off your skin.”
Jenna stared back at him, worried that he was trying to tell her that he couldn’t teach her what she needed to know. Dom frowned at her, then turned and with a gesture of his finger brought some numbers from the noisy family’s credit card down from the ceiling. They coasted down, dropping momentarily near the floor before rising again, behaving like a flock of ducks thinking about landing on the water and searching for the best spot. They flew right at Jenna’s head, then broke off in two directions while still several inches from her, some heading back up to the ceiling, others fluttering around Dom’s head, some even slipping in through his skin, just folding up and squeezing their way through the pores, more random numbers to join in his blood.
“I’ve . . . I’ve never noticed that before.” She was watching the numbers that were back up by the ceiling, eyes open wide.
Not saying anything, Dom pulled some more numbers from the air, but these ones he set in place so that they hung in front of her. “Take them in,” he said.
“What?”
“Take them in. Bring these numbers into your body.”
Jenna was confused. “How do I do that?”
“I dunno.” Dom shook his head. “Remember, everyone has a different style. Maybe you have to grab them, maybe you have to lean over and swallow them. You have to experiment a little, see what way is best for you.”
“Why do I need to learn how to bring numbers into my body?”
“Every once in awhile you’ll come across some feral numbers that will be able to serve you to good purpose,” replied Billy. Dom took another swig of beer, then let him continue. “Sometimes it’s spillover from someone else’s mojo, although that sort of thing doesn’t happen too often, since people guard those numbers very carefully. Other times they might be numbers that you recognize as a part of a pattern you’ve been searching for.”
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