I smiled. “He’s so smart. But six languages? Really?”
“Yeah, but he’s also something else. Lacking warmth. He can put it out there, but he still doesn’t know it instinctively. These kids, the ones from the future, were like that, remember? They aren’t any more.”
“They learned and so will Phoenix. Keller is at a disadvantage, he’ll catch up.”
“Are you kidding me? Keller can teach them all.”
Beck’s words brought a warm feeling to me. “Thank you.”
“No, I’m serious. He doesn’t understand six languages, or probably can’t count.”
“Beck he’s two.”
“Exactly. A two year old raised by you who knows better than anyhow how to teach love, mix that with the no nonsense and sometimes nonsense ways of Alex, add a dash of Sonny’s love for everyone and easy disposition and you know what you got … you got a hell of a kid. Keller is an amazing child that exudes love. All of these kids are like that.”
“We just raised them as a family.”
“And I am part of that more than I am part of the military. That is first.”
I felt Beck’s grip tighten in his immediate silence. “Beck, what happened? Did something else happen?”
“I’m sorry, Mera.” He braced me tighter. “I am so sorry. I walked in here tonight with that attitude and it took the simple words of a two year old boy to snap me back to where I should be. Where I worked best.”
“What did Phoenix say?
“It wasn’t Phoenix. It was Keller.”
I turned on Beck’s lap and looked at him.
“I was tucking him in, bent down to kiss him and he said, in that Keller way, right into my head,” Beck pointed at his temple, “Thank you. I love you.”
“Oh, Beck, I—”
“I understood right there and then why you denied it. And you know what? I cried, Mera. I picked up that boy, held him, told him I loved him and I cried. How could I even remotely suspect anyone, let alone a child that had such a cruel start in a cruel world? My God, if I could think it, anyone could. I will stand by you protecting him. I’m sorry I doubted you and anyone else.”
Turning my body more into Beck, I held him. “It’s okay, Beck.”
“No. It’s not. It will be. When I first returned from the ARC, while we were out, Alex asked when I became such a dick.”
“Alex is wrong.”
“No, he wasn’t. But things are gonna change. I’m gonna make a conscious effort to get back to where I was. The life I lost sight of during that eighteen months.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Back to a kinder, gentler Beck?”
“Yep. And we’ll leave being a dick to Alex.”
That made me laugh. I embraced him once more and stood. It was time for bed. But when I turned to catch that glimpse of the moon beyond the fence, I caught a glimpse of something else. A single Sleeper, just standing there. Staring like he could see us in the sliver of a window.
Before I could say anything to Beck, he saw it too. Just as he stood, the bone chill of the stalker Sleeper changed into something that felt eerie.
The Sleeper turned and walked away.
33. SONNY
The night before was foggy, but not nearly as foggy as the day. The last thing I remembered was Alex yelling at me and then I lost my hearing. After that everything faded. I didn’t believe I was that injured.
Obviously I was, because the next time I regained consciousness, Alex was kissing me on the forehead and fluorescent lights nearly blinded me. I went from the truck to the infirmary without realizing anything. I figured it was the infirmary because I saw Javier.
I couldn’t hear anything. My ears still had that loud ringing.
While I was unconscious, before I woke up to Javier, I had the weirdest dream. I dreamt I was home on the ranch. My wife was there, holding our son. He was perfect, she was beautiful. My mother was frying bacon while my father at the kitchen table sipping a cup of coffee.
It was a sense of peacefulness.
“Glad you’re here Sonny,” my wife said. “I wish you could stay.”
“Why wouldn’t I stay?”
“Because Alex is bringing you back,” she said. “We only have this moment.”
“How do you know Alex?”
She smiled. “Sonny, things they aren’t what they seem. People aren’t who you think. You gotta figure out who you’re fighting to win the fight.”
“What?” I asked her. And I thought, it was the weirdest conversation.
“Sonny, please.” Her voice changed to a deeper one. “Sonny, please.”
“He’s back.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Got it. Hurry.”
“What?”
I opened my eyes.
That was when Alex kissed me. Not what I expected.
Everyone was leaning over me saying things, but I couldn’t really hear them. Partly, their words were muffled and buried beneath the ringing. I wasn’t in any position to read lips.
I was awake then I was out, then I woke again to seeing Mera.
She probably asked me how I was, that was what it looked like. When I spoke she gave this look that was repeated by Alex, Noah, and Patty when she came in after sunup.
I spoke; they all stepped back, closed one eye and winced.
Did I smell? Or maybe I was talking that loud. I doubted it. Surely, if I were talking that loud, I would know. I would hear.
My chest hurt when I moved. More than my shoulder, and I thought that was where it would ache the most. Maybe the muscle or something was damaged. It felt as if I’d been punched.
I was hungry, sore, miserable and just wanted to get out of that infirmary. It smelled like cheap disinfectant. I also needed to find out what was going on with the Sleeper situation; the attack on the truck was odd. I had never seen them do that. They chase, they are impulsive. But Sleepers don’t plan.
Finally, about nine thirty, after I had been up for a while, Javier came in.
He said something I could barely hear. In fact, I did hear but it was muffled and tin-like. It reminded me of old Charlie Brown cartoons the way they had the teacher and parents talk.
“I’m sorry!” I said. “I can’t understand you. Maybe if I read your lips.”
Held his ear, shut one eye, and winced.
“Am I talking loud?’
He nodded.
“Sorry. I’ll try not to.”
Javier smiled. It was forced and pacifying. Then he said something.
It sounded like a long, drawn out, Aw, Ooh, and Eee.
“No I have eaten yet. Thanks!”
Javier just stared at me.
“What?”
He tossed his hand in a ‘never mind’ fashion and said something else. I think he called me an asshole, not sure.
“Whatever!” I told him. “I just want to get out of here.”
He sighed so hard that his body actually moved with that breath and he gave me a thumbs up, another forced smile and left.
I took that as a good sign.
34. MERA
I loved when our phone rang. No matter what my mood, it was a taste of life before The Event and I answered the phone pleasantly.
I had just gotten back from taking the kids to school and was ready to clean up our cell block home. Javier called to let me know that Sonny was doing well and he didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t recuperate back in our area, especially with Alex around. He asked if I could come after lunch and escort Sonny and to block my ears because Sonny still couldn’t hear correctly.
I agreed but knew his walking up the steps to his cell room wasn’t going to cut it for a week or so.
Beck was with me when I got the call so there was no need to call him off of gate duty.
We had an empty cell on the first floor and I got that ready for Sonny. I was in my element, as Alex said when he stopped by and saw me in the cell.
“Ah, the happy homemaker.”
“
I can’t help it,” I told him. “That was my favorite thing to do before all this craziness. Daniel worked, I once in a while held a short term part-time job. But I loved cleaning after the kids left, making dinner.”
“Watching soaps?” Alex asked.
“What? No. Cooking shows. Anyhow, I’m getting this ready for Sonny so he doesn’t have to walk up and down the stairs.”
“You should make it homey. Bring down some of his things from his room.”
“Oh, I don’t want to invade his privacy.”
“I will,” Alex replied. “Let me go get some things so this place doesn’t look so …”
“Prison like?”
“You got it.”
I thought it was nice of Alex. He took a little while, I suppose figuring out what he should bring down. I actually swore I heard him leave and briefly thought he forgot what he went upstairs for. Then he returned with a few clothing items and a box of strange things.
“I didn’t take it all, just enough to make this place comfortable for Sonny. This will make a dent into making this place look less cold.”
“That was nice of you.” The posters sticking out of the box surprised me. “Sonny is into posters?”
“He used these to cover the walls. There’s a ton more up there. I don’t get it, but hey, whatever floats your boat, right?”
“Right.”
“And don’t forget the Jesus night light, he really swears by it.”
“I won’t.”
“Well if you need anything …” Alex stopped and with a snap of his finger he spun. “I knew there was a reason for me being here other than to raid Sonny’s room. Have you seen Beck?”
“What do you mean? Didn’t he come for the typical morning testosterone meet and greet thing you guys do?”
“I prefer to call it the chill and grill. But nope, He didn’t. I had twelve freaking soldiers in his office. I was in his office. His office. I don’t even have an office. Who needs an office? A major in the army, an officer, that’s who needs an office. Beck has one. His soldiers are there waiting. I don’t have orders for them. They’re standing around and waiting. Where is he?”
“Maybe he went out Sleeper hunting. He was just here like a half an hour ago.”
“He ain’t Sleeper hunting. What the hell is that anyhow?”
“Alex, I don’t know what to tell you. He helped get the kids to school, came back here, I got the call about Sonny and he left.”
Alex snapped his finger. “That’s where he is. Probably at the infirmary, thanks.” He darted an unexpected kiss to my cheek and left.
I went back to my task and started pulling out the odd posters. Alex had thrown on old roll of tape in the box, probably from Sonny’s cell. I didn’t quite get Sonny’s taste in posters, though. They were old and thick, images from the seventies and eighties. The car poster I understood, maybe even the Dukes of Hazard, but I was really thrown when I unrolled a poster of a shirtless Magnum PI. “What the hell, Sonny?”
When I said that out loud, I heard the arguing moving toward my direction.
Clearly it was Beck and Alex, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I do know that Alex was doing most of the talking.
I stepped out of the cell to see them enter the community section of our area.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Alex looked at me. “Did you know?”
“Alex,” Beck warned.
“Know what?”
“Alex!”
“That Beck quit,” Alex said.
“Quit what?”
“Quite being the leader.”
“How can he quit being the leader?” I said. “He never really was, you are.”
“Thank you.” Beck held out his hand. “That’s what I said.”
“That is not what I’m talking about and you know it,” Alex said harshly. “You can’t be one way one day and the next pull a Sonny, play a little Boggle and have a change of heart.” He peered down to the table where the game was in the center. “Probably were playing Boggle. There was a reason we had such a hard time finding this one, it’s a fate changer.”
“Alex,” Beck said softly, “I didn’t have a change of heart; I had a change of mind.”
“Mind, heart, doesn’t matter when it comes to this,” Alex said. “You’re putting something on me that isn’t mine.”
“What are you talking about?” Beck asked.
“Um… have you noticed we got a bunch of soldiers running around here? Armed and in uniform? Why is that, Beck? Why are they still in uniform?”
“Because there is still a branch of the government and we salvaged a hell of a military.”
“Well I don’t want them.”
I gasped. “Alex, that is not nice. Those boys don’t have a home, or family, or—”
“Mera,” Alex held up his hand to me, “that is not what I mean. I mean… I didn’t ask for the military to come here, yet they have been tricking in like Reaganomics. We didn’t have them in Grace. I read The Doctrines, and there is no mention in the one we had about the military stepping into this camp.”
“They’re fighting the same war,” Beck argued. “Use them the way you want.”
Alex growled, “I didn’t bring them here to use.”
“Alex, look,” Beck softened his tone, “before I went away, you led us. I supported what you said and did what you asked. I just want to do that. Follow the lead and do what you ask. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that you’re forgetting you went to the ARC. You went, then while there, visions of military danced in your head, you changed your tune, and came back home singing Hey, Hey we’re the Army. Not only that, you sent out the troops, wrangled them in, shoved the Beckoning down all of our throats and now you wanna say ‘whoops, my bad’?”
“The Beckoning?”
“The Beckoning isn’t the Reckoning, ‘cause that happened. You took it upon yourself to do it one better. To make the failed original Reckoning work. Your baby, your ball. Not mine. This thing is bigger than I thought. It’s more now than fending off Sleepers. It’s a war. You’ve made yourself a big part of that. You said you want to follow my lead and do what I ask? Well, I ain’t asking you to be General Patton, I’m asking you to stay a team player, pick up your ball and finish the game.”
Alex stepped off his proverbial soap box and started to leave. Not before he backtracked, swiped the Boggle game from the table, said, “I’m taking this, it started enough trouble,” and then he walked out.
In the silence of the aftermath of Alex’s verbal lashing, I sat down next to Beck, who had just slid to a seat at the table. “You think maybe you just needed a day off and you took it too far?”
Beck glanced at me totally confused, then he laughed. “What?”
“When I worked at the local drug store, I wanted a day off. But I knew they wouldn’t give me a day off so I was a no call, no show. Basically, I quit. I didn’t want to quit, I liked my job, but I wanted a day off.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“It sort of is. You don’t want to be supervisor anymore, and instead of telling Alex you don’t want all that responsibility anymore, you just didn’t show up.”
He raised his eyes to me.
“You can still have the job Beck; give the responsibilities to someone else. Be a soldier in the fight with Alex, not the commander. Just don’t walk away completely. Because it sounds like what you did.”
“I guess it came out wrong.” Beck kissed me and stood. “I need to speak to Alex.”
“And get back to work?”
“Yeah, back to work.” He exhaled. “After all, I have the Beckoning to deal with.” He took a step, stopped. “The Beckoning.” He chuckled. “Only Alex.”
I was alone again and ready to go back to my chores. It was peaceful after the brief outburst, and I had a lot to do to finish Sonny’s new room, and that included hanging all those posters.
35. SONNY
T
here were two things I really appreciated. The first was being back in our home, and the other is the fact that Alex went to the nearest chain drugstore and to the old ‘As Seen on TV’ aisle and grabbed me an Aural Optimizer. One of those ‘hear the TV better’ things. It really helped. I wasn’t yelling, in fact I started talking softer, but more than that, even with the buzz and the ringing, I could hear people.
Javier said I had ear drum inflammation.
It was good to be back.
I could see why Mera was married so long. When she had a cause to take care of someone, whether it was a child or an adult, she stepped up to the plate. She went out of her way to make sure my temporary cell was cozy, although I didn’t get why she had to hang all those posters of male sex symbols from the eighties. Hasselhoff was a bit much. Although the Jesus nightlight was a nice touch. It does get kind of dark in the unit.
My body was sore, and I inched around the area, much to the scolding of Mera, who kept telling me to get to bed.
I kind of liked that.
She filled me in on the Beck and Alex problems and the new word Alex invented. That made me laugh, but when I laughed it hurt.
As soon as I had a little to eat, I retired to my new bunk, then I heard all the kids return from school.
Mera was doing that mother thing: “Be quiet, Sonny is resting.”
“Where’s Boggle?”
“Alex took it. Said it was a bad thing.”
“Like the Devil’s tool?”
“No, he just—”
“If Alex Sans says it is from the Devil we should never play it again.”
“Alex is an asshole.”
I never really heard all the conversations when the kids got home. In Grace I was there for lunch, but we were so structured and regimented, they came in, prayed, ate, and played for awhile before heading back to school.
With all the commotion of the kids arriving, I never heard Michael or Randy come in. Before I knew it, they were at my cell, which wasn’t that big to begin with. Add Michael and Randy and it was completely claustrophobic.
“Javier said Alex got you a hearing aid of sorts,” Michael said. “That was nice of him.”
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