They were his to command. When they ate, he ate. When they slept, he slept. They were the We, the Babcock, and they were forever as he was forever, all part of the Twelve and the Other, the Zero. They dreamed his dark dream with him.
He remembered a time, before he Became. The time of the little house, in the place called Desert Wells. The time of pain and silence and the woman, his mother, the mother of Babcock. He remembered small things—textures, sensations, visions. A box of golden sunlight falling on a square of carpet. A worn place on the stoop that fit his sneakered foot just so, and the ridges of rust on the rail that cut the skin of his fingers. He remembered his fingers. He remembered the smell of his mother’s cigarettes in the kitchen where she talked and watched her stories, and the people on the television, their faces huge and close, their eyes wide and wet, the women with their lips painted and shimmering, like glossy pieces of fruit. And her voice, always her voice:
Be quiet now, goddamnit. Cain’t you see I’m trying to watch this? You make such a goddamn racket, it’s a wonder I don’t lose my goddamn mind.
He remembered being quiet, so quiet.
He remembered her hands, Babcock’s mother’s hands, and the starry bursts of pain when she struck him, struck him again. He remembered flying, his body lifted on a cloud of pain, and the hitting and the slapping and the burning. Always the burning. Don’t you cry now. You be a man. You cry and I’ll give you something to cry about, so much the worse for you, Giles Babcock. Her smoky breath, close to his face. The look of the red-hot tip of her cigarette where she rolled it against the skin of his hand, and the crisp wet sound of its burning, like cereal when he poured milk into it, the same crackle and pop. The smell of it mingling with the jets of smoke that puffed from her nostrils. And the way the words all stopped up inside him, so that the pain could end—so he could be a man, as she said.
It was her voice he remembered most of all. Babcock’s mother’s voice. His love for her was like a room without doors, filled with the scraping sound of her words, her talk-talk-talk. Taunting him, tearing into him, like the knife he took from the drawer that day as she sat at the table in the kitchen of the little house in the place called Desert Wells, talking and laughing and laughing and talking and eating her mouthfuls of smoke.
The boy isn’t just dumb. I tell you, he’s been struck dumb.
He was happy, so happy, he’d never felt such happiness in his life as the knife passed into her, the white skin of her throat, the smooth outer layer and the hard gristle below. And as he dug and pushed with his blade, the love he felt for her lifted from his mind so that he could see what she was at last—that she was a being of flesh and blood and bone. All her words and talk-talk-talk moving inside him, filling him up to bursting. They tasted like blood in his mouth, sweet living things.
They sent him away. He wasn’t a boy after all, he was a man; he was a man with a mind and a knife, and they told him to die—die, Babcock, for what you have done. He didn’t want to die, not then, not ever. And after—after the man, Wolgast, had come to where he was, like a thing foretold; and after the doctors and the sickness and the Becoming, that he should be one of Twelve, the Babcock-Morrison-Chávez-Baffes-Turrell-Winston-Sosa-Echols-Lambright-Martínez-Reinhardt-Carter—one of Twelve and also the Other, the Zero—he had taken the rest the same way, drinking their words from them, their dying cries like soft morsels in his mouth. And the ones he did not kill but merely sipped, the one of ten, as the tide of his own blood dictated, became his own, joining to him in mind. His children. His great and fearful company. The Many. The We of Babcock.
And This Place. He had come to it with a feeling of return, of a thing restored. He had drunk his fill of the world and here he rested, dreaming his dreams in the dark, until he awoke and he was hungry again and he heard the Zero, who was called Fanning, saying: Brothers, we’re dying. Dying! For there was hardly anyone left in the world, no people and no animals even. And Babcock knew that the time had come to bring those that remained to him, that they should know him, know Babcock and the Zero also, assume their place within him. He had stretched out his mind and said to the Many, his children, Carry the last of humankind to me; do not kill them; bring them and their words that they should dream the dream and become one of us, the We, the Babcock. And first one had come and then another and more and more and they dreamed the dream with him and he told them, when the dreaming was done, Now you are mine also, like the Many. You are mine in This Place and when I am hungry you will feed me, feed my restless soul with your blood. You will bring others to me from beyond This Place that they should do the same, and I will let you live in this way and no other. And those that did not bend their wills to his, that did not take up the knife when the time had come in the dark place of dreaming where Babcock’s mind met theirs, they were made to die so the others could see and know and refuse no longer.
And so the city was built. The City of Babcock, first in all the world.
But now there was Another. Not the Zero or the Twelve but Another. The same and not the same. A shadow behind a shadow, pecking at him like a bird that darted from sight whenever he tried to fix the gaze of his mind upon her. And the Many, his children, his great and fearful company, heard her also; he sensed her pull upon them. A force of great power, drawing them away. Like the helpless love he had felt so long ago, when he was just a boy, watching the red-hot tip rolling, rolling and burning against his flesh.
Who am I? they asked her. Who am I?
She made them want to remember. She made them want to die.
She was close now, very close. Babcock could feel it. She was a ripple in the mind of the Many, a tear in the fabric of night. He knew that through her, all that they had done could be undone, all that they had made could be unmade.
Brothers, brothers. She is coming. Brothers, she is already here.
FIFTY-TWO
“I’m sorry, Peter,” said Olson Hand, “I can’t keep track of all your friends.”
Peter had learned that Michael was missing just before sunset. Sara had gone over to the infirmary to check on him and found that his bed was empty. The whole building was empty.
They had fanned out in two groups: Sara, Hollis, and Caleb to search the grounds, Alicia and Peter to look for Olson. His house, which Olson had explained had once been used as the warden’s residence, was a small, two-story structure situated on a patch of parched ground between the work camp and the old prison. They had arrived to find him stepping from the door.
“I’ll speak with Billie,” Olson continued. “Maybe she knows where he went.” He seemed harried, as if their visit had caught him in the midst of some important duty. Even so, he took the trouble to offer one of his reassuring smiles. “I’m sure he’s fine. Mira saw him in the infirmary just a few hours ago. He said he was feeling better and wanted to have a look around. I thought he was probably with you.”
“He could barely walk,” Peter said. “I’m not sure he could walk at all.”
“In that case, he can’t have gone far, now could he?”
“Sara said the infirmary was empty. Don’t you usually have people there?”
“Not as a general matter. If Michael chose to leave, they’d have no reason to remain.” Something dark came into his face; he leveled his eyes at Peter. “I’m sure he’ll turn up. My best advice would be to return to your quarters and wait for his return.”
“I don’t see—”
Olson cut him off with a raised hand. “As I said, that’s my best advice. I suggest you take it. And try not to lose any more of your friends.”
Alicia had been silent until now. Suspended on her crutches, she bumped Peter with her shoulder. “Come on.”
“But—”
“It’s fine,” she said. Then, to Olson: “I’m sure he’s okay. If you need us, you know where to find us.”
They retreated through the maze of huts. Everything was strangely quiet, no one about. They passed the shed where the party had been held, finding it de
serted. All the buildings were dark. Peter felt a prickling on his skin as the cooling desert night descended, but he knew this sensation was caused by more than just a change in temperature. He could feel the eyes of people watching them from the windows.
“Don’t look,” Alicia said. “I feel it too. Just walk.”
They arrived at their quarters as Hollis and the others were returning. Sara was frantic with worry. Peter related their conversation with Olson.
“They’ve taken him somewhere, haven’t they?” Lish said.
It seemed so. But where, and for what purpose? Olson was lying, that was obvious. Even more strange was the fact that Olson seemed to have wanted them to know he was lying.
“Who’s out there now, Hightop?”
Caleb had taken his position by the door. “The usual two. They’re hanging out across the square, pretending they’re not watching us.”
“Anyone else?”
“No. It’s dead quiet out there. No Littles, either.”
“Go wake up Maus,” Peter said. “Don’t tell her anything. Just bring her and Amy over here. Their packs, too.”
“Are we leaving?” Caleb’s eyes shifted to Sara, then back again. “What about the Circuit?”
“We’re not going anywhere without him. Just go.”
Caleb darted out the door. Peter and Alicia exchanged a look: something was happening. They would have to move quickly.
A moment later Caleb returned. “They’re gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
The boy’s face was gray as ash. “I mean the hut’s empty. There’s no one there, Peter.”
It was all his fault. In their haste to find Michael, he’d left the two women alone. He’d left Amy alone. How could he have been so stupid?
Alicia had put her crutches aside and was unrolling the bandage from her leg. Inside, secreted there on the night of their arrival, was a blade. The crutch was a ruse: the wound was nearly healed. She rose to her feet.
“Time to find those guns,” she said.
Whatever Billie had put in his drink, the effects hadn’t worn off yet.
Michael was lying in the back of a pickup, covered with a plastic tarp. The bed of the truck was full of rattling pipes. Billie had told him to lie still, not to make a sound, but the jumpy feeling inside him was almost more than he could bear. What was she doing, giving him a concoction like that and expecting him to lie perfectly still? The effect was like shine in reverse, as if every cell in his body were singing a single note. Like his mind had passed through some kind of filter, giving each thought a bright, humming clarity.
No more dreams, she’d said. No more fat lady with her smoke and smell and awful, scratchy voice. How did Billie know about his dreams?
They’d stopped once, just a few moments after they’d left the infirmary, which they’d exited through the rear. Some kind of checkpoint. Michael heard a voice he didn’t recognize, asking Billie where she was going. From under the tarp Michael had listened anxiously to their exchange.
“There’s a broken line out in the eastern field,” she explained. “Olson asked me to move these pipes around for the crew tomorrow.”
“It’s new moon. You shouldn’t be out here.”
New moon, Michael thought. What was so important about the new moon?
“Look, that’s what he said. Take it up with him if you want.”
“I don’t see how you’re going to make it back in time.”
“Let me worry about that. Are you going to let me through or not?”
A tense silence. Then: “Just be back by dark.”
Now, sometime later, Michael felt the truck slowing once again. He drew the tarp aside. A purpling evening sky and behind them, in the truck’s wake, a boiling cloud of dust. The mountains were a distant bulge against the horizon.
“You can come out now.”
Billie was standing at the tailgate. Michael climbed from the truck bed, grateful to move at last. They had parked outside a massive metal shed, at least two hundred meters long, with a bulging convex roof. He saw the rusted shape of fuel tanks behind it. The land was lined with railroad tracks, heading off in all directions.
A small door opened in the side of the building; a man emerged and walked toward them. His skin was covered in grease and oil, so much that his face was practically black with it; he was holding something in his hands, working at it with a filthy rag. He stopped where they were standing and looked Michael up and down. A short-barreled shotgun was holstered to his leg. Michael remembered him as the driver of the van that had brought them from Las Vegas.
“This him?”
Billie nodded.
The man moved forward so their faces were just inches apart and peered into Michael’s eyes. First one eye, then the other, shifting his head back and forth. His breath was sour, like spoiled milk. His teeth were lined in black. Michael had to force himself not to pull away.
“How much did you give him?”
“Enough,” Billie said.
The man gave him one more skeptical look, then stepped back and shot a jet of brown spit onto the hardpan. “I’m Gus.”
“Michael.”
“I know who you are.” He held up the object for Michael to see. “You know what this is?”
Michael took it in his hand. “It’s a solenoid, twenty-four volts. I’d say it comes off a fuel pump, a big one.”
“Yeah? What’s wrong with it?”
Michael passed it back, shrugging. “Nothing I can see.”
Gus looked at Billie, frowning. “He’s right.”
“I told you.”
“She says you know about electrical systems. Wiring harnesses, generators, controller units.”
Michael shrugged again. He was still reluctant to say too much, but something, some instinct, was telling him he could trust these two. They hadn’t brought him all this way for nothing.
“Let me see what you’ve got.”
They crossed the railyard to the shed. Michael could hear, from inside, the roar of portable generators, the clang of tools. They entered through the same door the man had emerged from. The interior of the shed was vast, the space illuminated by spotlights on tall poles. More men in greasy jumpsuits were moving about.
What Michael saw stopped him where he stood.
It was a train. A diesel locomotive. And not some rusted derelict, either. The damn thing looked like it could actually run. It was covered in protective metal plating, three-quarter-inch steel at least. A huge plow jutted from the front of the engine; more steel plates were riveted over the windshield, leaving only a thin slit of exposed glass for the driver to see by. Three boxy compartments sat behind it.
“The mechanicals and pneumatics are all up and running,” Gus said. “We charged the eight-volts using the portables. It’s the electrical harness that’s the problem. We can’t pull a current from the batteries to the pump.”
The blood was racing through Michael’s veins. He took a breath to calm himself. “Do you have schematics?”
Gus led him to a makeshift desk where he’d laid out the drawings, broad sheets of brittle paper covered in blue ink. Michael looked them over.
“This is a rat’s nest,” he said after a moment. “It could take me weeks to find the problem.”
“We don’t have weeks,” Billie said.
Michael lifted his face to look at them. “How long have you been working on this thing?”
“Four years,” Gus said. “Give or take.”
“So how much time do I have?”
Billie and Gus exchanged a worried glance.
“About three hours,” said Billie.
FIFTY-THREE
“Theo.”
He was in the kitchen again. The drawer was open; the knife lay gleaming there. Tucked in the drawer like a baby in its crib.
“Theo, come on now. I’m telling you, all you got to do is pick it up and do her. You do her and this will all be over.”
The voice. The voice that
knew his name, that seemed to crawl around inside his head, waking and sleeping. Part of his mind was in the kitchen, while another part was in the cell, the cell where he had been for days and days, fighting sleep, fighting the dream.
“Is that so fucking hard? Am I not being absolutely clear here?”
He opened his eyes; the kitchen vanished. He was sitting on the edge of the cot. The cell with its door and its stinking hole that ate his piss and shit. Who knew what time it was, what day, what month, what year. He had been in this place forever.
“Theo? Are you listening to me?”
He licked his lips, tasting blood. Had he bitten his tongue? “What do you want?”
A sigh from the far side of the door. “I gotta say, Theo. You do impress me. Nobody holds out like this. I think you’ve got some kind of record going.”
Theo said nothing. What was the point? The voice never answered his questions. If there even was a voice. Sometimes he thought it was just something in his head.
“I mean some, sure,” the voice went on. “In some cases you could say it goes against the grain, carving the old bitch up.” A dark chuckle, like something from the bottom of a pit. “Believe me, I’ve seen people do the damnedest shit.”
It was terrible, Theo thought, what staying awake could do to a person’s mind. You went without sleep long enough, you made your brain stand up and walk around day after day after day no matter how tired you felt—you did push-ups and sit-ups on the cold stone floor until your muscles burned, you scratched and slapped yourself and dug at your own flesh with your bloodied nails to keep awake—and before long you didn’t know which was which, if you were awake or asleep. Everything got blended together. A sensation like pain—only worse, because it wasn’t a pain in your body; the pain was your mind and your mind was you. You were pain itself.
“You mark my words, Theo. You do not want to go there. That was not a story with a happy ending.”
He felt his awareness folding again, taking him down into sleep. He dug his nails hard into his palm. Stay. Awake. Theo. Because there was something worse than staying awake, he knew.
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