The Cobweals were also a Christian family, a Mr. and Mrs. with two little kids. Deut had met them during her first summer in the park. Her impression was that the Mrs. might be willing to protect her. The problem was that the Mr. seemed to have a high regard for her father. He admired the way Poppy and her brothers handled the big confrontation with the park service over their airstrip. No, when push came to shove, Mr. Cobweal was more likely to side with Poppy than her. So forget the Cobweals.
That pretty much left only one person in McHardy that Deut could turn to — Barbara Jean de Saul. Barbara Jean was a little older than Mama, and she lived alone. She was not a Christian, or at least not according to Poppy who never missed a chance to point out the old woman’s faults. Chief among them: Barbara Jean was a Hippie. A Hippie was a type of pagan who believed he was the god of his own universe and that he created his own reality. As long as something felt good to a Hippie, it was good. To Deut it sounded like a very self-serving faith.
Poppy was an expert on this false religion because he, himself, had fallen under its sway for a few years during his youth. (Even Mama P, aka Crystal Moonsong, was a short-time follower.) But in His grace and mercy, Jesus eventually found a way into Poppy’s heart, and Poppy brought Mama to salvation as well.
Unfortunately, no one had been around to save Barbara Jean, and she remained a Hippie to this day. She’d abandoned her husband, three little boys, and a good-paying job in the state of Texas so that she could travel to Tibet, seek enlightenment, and “find” herself. That was something Hippies were encouraged to do, find themselves. Poppy always joked that one day Barbara Jean would “find” herself to be a lonely old biddy in a ghost town in the middle of winter. “No, wait!” he’d add, smacking himself beside the head, “She already did!”
All of which meant that Barbara Jean’s house was probably the last place anyone would think to search for her. So Barbara Jean had that going for her.
WHEN DEUT REACHED the wide glacial wash outside town and had only a couple more miles to go, she heard the whine of a sno-go engine on the trail behind her. It was coming fast. She shined her flashlight all around for a place to hide, but she had left the forest and was surrounded by open, flat terrain. How ironic it would be to have hiked all night long and get caught right on the edge of town.
No matter, Deut had prepared for something like this. She jumped off the trail and bounded away from it, leaving as few tracks in the snow as possible. She stopped after a dozen paces and opened her rucksack to dig out the white bed sheet she had thought to pack. She curled up in the snow with her pack and covered herself with the sheet. When she switched off her flashlight, she was transformed into just another lump of snow. The sno-go sped by without slowing down. It didn’t sound like one of theirs anyway.
BARBARA JEAN WAS a round pear of a woman, middle-aged, with meaty arms and sharp elbows. She had the look of someone accustomed to making up her own mind. “Why, yes, you can come in,” she said without hesitation when Deut knocked on her door.
“Have you traveled far?” She made way for the weary-looking young woman. “Come inside. Come inside. It’s cold out there.”
Deut stepped into the arctic entry and Barbara Jean shut the solid oak door.
“You look frozen,” Barbara Jean said. “Come to the kitchen for a cup of tea, and then you can tell me why you’re out on foot so early in the morning. It’s scarcely 6:00 o’clock.” Though in actual fact the older woman had been up for hours.
Barbara Jean helped Deut pull off her heavy rucksack. Deut sat on the bench to remove her boots. When Barbara Jean hung her parka on a peg, she looked at her pioneer dress and said, “Oh, you’re one of the Prophecy girls, aren’t you?”
“Yes’m. I’m Deut.”
“Of course you are. Welcome, Deut. I’m BJ. Follow me to the kitchen when you’re ready. The outhouse is down that hall and out the back door, in case you need it. There’s a covered walkway the whole way, but you’d probably want to wear your boots.”
BJ’S LITTLE KITCHEN had been enlarged by some previous owner in the 1920s with a bay window and breakfast nook that had a nice view of Main Street. Not that Main Street was anything to look at this time of year.
Still, Deut paused to gaze at the simple, neat, clean kitchen with three large windows — though none of them were located over the sink. Would Ginger approve or disapprove?
“Are you all right, dear?” Barbara Jean asked as she set down bowls of fried corn mush.
“Oh, I’m fine, thank you. Just taking it all in.”
“You don’t say. Well, sit here and get started while I bring the rest of everything.”
Reconstituted milk in a can, butter from a can, homemade blueberry and highbush cranberry jams, honey, a red and white tin of powdered cinnamon. These, and the yellow slabs of fried mush and Darjeeling tea were the ingredients of a hearty breakfast at Barbara Jean’s house. There were second helpings and even thirds.
“Funny how that always seems to happen,” Barbara Jean said as she served herself. “You don’t run into some folks for months, or even years, and then all of a sudden you run into them everywhere.”
“Oh?” Deut said. “Who do you mean?”
“Your father, actually. Pastor Prophecy. I ran into him just yesterday and he had the most wonderful news.”
“He did?”
“He did. He said your mother returned to our world. That she’s awake and alert and regaining her strength.”
“Oh, more than regaining her strength, praise the Father. She’s as strong as ever, even stronger, and in complete charge of the house. She’s a wonder, really, and her time away helped her bind some old wounds, praise Him, and now she’s back.”
“Amen,” Barbara Jean said with a smile. “I’m so happy for her and your family, and I can’t wait to see her to hear all about it. In the meantime, I want to repeat something I said to her a couple of years ago when y’all first came to town. Your mama and all of your sisters and any of the smaller boys are welcome to drop by my house anytime you want for any reason or no reason. If I’m not here, come in anyway; I don’t lock the doors. And I have a cute little guest room that I don’t get to use often enough. It’s an open invitation.”
Having delivered her invitation, Barbara Jean delivered a large dollop of blueberry jam to the yellow island in a sea of milk in her bowl.
Deut mixed a pat of butter in hers, letting it melt and mixing it in. She salted the mush and added a dribble of milk.
They ate in silent contemplation and prayer. Finally, Deut said, “So, you and my poppy are friends?”
Barbara Jean snorted into her teacup, spilling some. She sopped it up with a dishcloth and said, “No, I’m afraid I’m no fan of your old man. We just ran into each other yesterday by accident when he was in town.”
Deut finished her cup and set it in its saucer. “Tell me, BJ, what you would do if I took you up on your kind offer and stayed for a while and my poppy finds out — or my brothers — and they came over here and banged on your door and demanded you turn me over to them or else?”
Barbara Jean laughed and laughed.
EM2 1.0
YOU ARE ASTUTE to have detected this one’s ailment.
“It was easy. So, you’re sick then?”
The machine parts of this one are unwell. The corporeal body is fine. Your planet’s environmental conditions are suitable for its continued health, but the machine bits — not so much. And since this one is an orgachine, it follows that these bits are the essential ones. They make up this one’s person.
After yesterday’s discussion about global annihilation, Jace spent a sleepless night unable to shut down his brain. After hours of tossing and turning, he finally surrendered and got up, built a big fire, and sat on the couch letting random thoughts pass through his mind. One of which reminded him that here it was, the fourteenth day of January 2013, and his winter provisions were already growing thin. If the world was about to be invaded by psycho machines, shouldn’
t he be stockpiling food and fuel? Ammo and batteries? Shouldn’t he tell someone? If not the authorities, who must already know or what good are they, then his sister and her family?
Into this sad reverie, Scrappy announced a voice-only call from Missing One. Apparently, Jace wasn’t the only one having a rough night.
Likewise, the scrapers are unwell, what you call tulips. And the strivers lack critical functions, as you have already noted. There seems to be some as yet hard-to-detect condition or quality of your space that quickly erodes the integrity of this one’s components. Or the irregular passage through the warp has corrupted this one’s settings.
This one is still troubleshooting its malaise. Unfortunately, the proximal knowledge of this one’s personal profile was lost in transit. This one is attempting to remember enough to make repairs, but the loss of its scrapers makes the remembering exponentially more difficult.
On Earth that would be called ironic, not being able to remember how to fix the remembering machine, but Jace didn’t point this out to his caller. “So, why are you telling me all this? Have you changed your mind about helping us?”
Yes. This one is willing to make a deal.
“Go on.”
Not to downplay the enormous amount of energy available to this one via volcanic magma, but much more energy will be needed to repair this one’s self, as well as to monitor and address the GOM threat.
“You want me to jump into another volcano?”
No, nothing so dramatic. There are strivers for that, if necessary. This one needs more energy than even a volcano can deliver — this one needs nuclear energy.
Jace thought he knew where this was going. “Good. You want me to help you contact the authorities who can make that happen. I can do that.”
Thank you for the offer but, again, not necessary. Due to your species’ incredible lack of forethought, there are abundant stores of nuclear energy free for the taking.
Jace wasn’t sure what it meant.
You’ve heard of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant almost two years ago?
“Yeah, sure.”
Ever since its containment failed, it has been spreading its poisonous bounty into the environment. If this one can reach the reactor cores, it can soak up all the radiation. The failed reactors are an open sore on your biome, and this one can close it, while healing itself in the process. As humans say, it’s a win-win.
Jace heard only part of this. “You want me to jump into a broken nuclear reactor?”
Please, brother ranger, do not get carried away. You need only carry a pellet to Tokyo, like the one you took to HAARP, and hand it off to a striver, a bird probably, who will take matters from there. Then you may turn around for home, or you are welcome to enjoy a little Japanese holiday.
That sounded simple enough, and he wouldn’t mind a tour of Japan, not that this was the best time to be away from home, but still . . . “Why don’t you just have Masterson or one of your other human strivers take it to Japan? Why me?”
Because this one doesn’t trust that the strivers could make it through a TSA airport screening at this time. It would do no good to anyone if they suddenly lost function in such a closed space.
“Okay, but you know I don’t speak Japanese. Hell, I don’t even have a passport.”
This one is arranging for a passport to be expedited to Anchorage. It will be ready for you to pick up on your way to the airport. This one will book all arrangements. As for the language, your communicator is an able and discreet translator.
The alien seemed to have everything worked out. “Say I do this for you, will you help us defend Earth?”
Yes, to the extent this one is able. This one will monitor the situation. Upon determining the nature of Machine’s attack, it will launch countermeasures, and when roadside assistance arrives, it will petition the People’s envoy for an exemption to its protocols and help to protect Earth, at least from the initial assaults. This one can’t promise the People will agree, but this one will make the strongest case possible that they do.
This was probably the best deal Jace could hope for from the alien. “All right. Deal.”
Good. There is still much to remember and arrangements to make. In the meantime, pack your bags and prepare yourself to travel.
JACE’S BAG WAS a large duffel with built-in wheels. He dug it out of the closet and assembled his clean clothes on the bed. Which didn’t amount to many and included nothing suitable for traveling to foreign lands. He had intended to do a big load of laundry at the lodge in Caldecott before it was shuttered for the season, but all the time he’d spent grid-walking the river flats had prevented him from doing so. The only laundromat this side of Glennallen was at Denny Lake, way too far to drive, even if the road was clear.
He did have a galvanized tub, though, and an antique washboard in the shed someone had left behind. He wasn’t entirely sure how to use a washboard, and when he researched it on YouTube all he found were jug band videos.
During the course of his preparations, he got a rare look at himself in the mirror inside the closet door. Holy shit! Who was that hairy guy?
This was going to take a lot of water. Good thing he’d figured out how to defrost the hand pump.
WITH TWO 3-gallon (11-l) steel pails of water heating on the propane burners, Jace was bare-chested and shaving at the sink, one cheek already scraped smooth, when Scrappy announced visitors.
Two men are approaching your porch. I detect elevated emotional states.
“Who are they?”
Hosea and Proverbs Prophecy.
The fuck they want? Had Deut finally ratted him out?
Bang, bang, bang, three sharp raps on his door. Neither overtly aggressive nor meek, but plenty assertive enough. Jace didn’t bother to throw on a shirt. He set down the BIC razor and went to answer the door.
The hefty one and the hothead stood there. Proverbs was wearing his brown leather eyepatch. Scrappy may have read elevated emotional stress on them, but they were both wearing big-bearded poker faces.
“Can I help you?”
They didn’t bother to answer. Proverbs simply barged past him into the house. When Jace tried to block him, Hosea wrapped him in a bear hug from behind and lifted him off his feet.
“Hey!” Jace shouted. “Let go of me. What the fuck, man? Let me go.” He squirmed and kicked and in return had the breath crushed out of him.
“Be easier on everyone if you just settled down,” Hosea said in his ear, not unkindly. “Only take us a minute.”
It took less than a minute. Proverbs did a quick sweep of the living room and kitchen area, pausing to take in the tub and pile of dirty laundry. He proceeded to the bedroom. Doors opened and shut all the way through to the junk room and back porch.
When Proverbs returned to the living room, he stood in front of Jace and said, “Lucky for you, Ranger Rick.”
Jace tried to kick him, but Hosea spun him toward the wall and gave him a face shove into it. Jace nearly fell over. When he regained his footing, the boys were already out the front door.
Jace dashed to the bedroom closet for his 870 shotgun and dashed back to the door. The sun wasn’t up yet, there was no moon, and the street was dark. He could barely make out the men’s silhouettes halfway up the block. He pumped in a round. He always loaded birdshot as the first round. It was meant to be a warning shot for pesky bears, a rude slap on the rump. Jace raised the gun and flicked off the safety. He aimed for the sound of their boots. At this distance the birdshot wouldn’t do them any damage, but it would put them on notice not to mess with him. He brought his finger to the trigger and took a breath.
But for all his hot and justified anger, Jace couldn’t make himself shoot two men in the back. He would have to confront them to their stupid faces. So he quickly threw on his parka, boots, hat. In the kitchen, the water in the pails was coming to a boil and spilling over the rims. He turned off the burners, grabbed his shotgun, walked out the door, marched
up the dark street, and tuned his senses to guide him to his prey. He was riding high on adrenalin and anger. He felt like freaking walking justice. But he wasn’t halfway up the block when he heard a snowmobile start up on Main Street. Headlights moved in the direction of the footbridge and the Stubborn Mine trail. They got away.
Just as well. Jace headed home, committing murder in his heart every step of the way.
EM3 1.0
THE CALDECOTT RIVER raged only in early summer when the unblinking Midnight Sun flooded its banks with glacier melt and spring runoff. Through the remainder of the year, the water level dropped gradually to a trickle. By winter the great river was little more than a frozen footpath in a boulder-strewn channel with steep gravel banks. A great place for a solitary morning walk to clear the head and pray.
“Dear Heavenly Father, dear Jesus, and dear Holy Ghost, good morning to You all! Thank You for another fresh new day for me and all of Your creatures to manifest Your glory!”
Even at its zenith, the winter sun didn’t rise high enough to chase all the shadows from the river channel, and Deut wished she had Crissy Lou by her side to keep her company and also to do some advance scouting for stray moose and sleepwalking bears.
“Thank You for smoothing my way to town yesterday, and thank You for leading me to BJ’s house. She’s really nice.”
Barbara Jean had proven to be a most gracious host, more generous and non-judgmental than Deut could have hoped for.
“And bless my family, from top to bottom, and keep them safe from harm. Amen.”
Glassing the Orgachine Page 21