“I can fix things,” Michael assured Dominic as he followed him up a set of stairs into a cramped attic space.
“Yeah?” He didn’t seem at all interested.
“I used to take the recording devices out of Handy Dans and sell them on the black market.”
Dominic stopped at the top of the stairs. He turned slowly and glared at Michael.
“What? Why the hell would you take such a risk? What’s wrong with you?”
Michael shrugged. “My family needed the money. It’s not like I ever got caught.”
Dominic nodded almost imperceptibly, keeping his eyes trained on Michael’s. Then, without warning, the corners of his lips curled into a smile and he began to chuckle.
“We might have some use for you after all,” he said and turned into the room.
The attic had been prepared for Michael in advance. A simple cot stood in the corner, its gray wool blanket and white sheets tucked beneath the mattress in military fashion. There was a desk, a wardrobe, and a basket, probably for dirty laundry. There was also a shabby bookshelf filled with old paperbacks and a set of encyclopedias showing gaps where some of the volumes were missing.
Michael’s shoes clapped over the boards as he jogged over to the books.
“No way,” he said. “These are all illegal”—he lowered his voice—“illegal books. In the People’s Republic, at least. This is amazing.” He pulled an encyclopedia off a shelf, opened it, and smelled the pages.
Dominic shook his head. “You’ll have new clothes sent to you, along with a toothbrush, soap, and anything else you might need. There’s a convenience store in the center of town. Once you start making your own money, you’ll be able to shop there.”
Michael fell back onto the cot, wincing as the springs let out squeals of protest. He held one of the encyclopedias to his chest. Tension drained out of his back and shoulders like water being squeezed out of a sponge.
“So what happens now?” he said.
Dominic studied him, the swollen spots on his face gleaming in the sunlight slanting in through the only window. “You should meet the other boys, you know, get comfortable, try to fit in. Then, we’ll eat.”
He ducked under the sloping ceiling and righted an analog clock sitting on the desk, then went about setting it to the correct time.
“You’ll be expected for breakfast at six o’clock every morning. This isn’t a vacation. The other boys won’t accept you as one of their own if you start breaking the rules, so no rebellious shit, okay?”
Michael sat on the edge of the cot and wrung his hands together.
“What if I just don’t fit in? I mean, I’m from the city, you know?”
Dominic was about to speak when the roar of motorcycles sounded outside the house.
“Ian’s back,” he said, motioning for Michael to get off the bed and follow him. “Sounds like he brought his gang. Come on. Try to look tough.”
The roaring stopped as the boys parked the bikes. Michael could hear them laughing through the open windows as he followed Dominic into the garage, which, aside from a few stacks of boxes and scattered piles of sporting equipment, was empty. He almost bent over to pick up a baseball bat but stopped himself. Did he want to meet these guys with a potential weapon in his hand? How would that be for a first impression?
Dominic flung the door open and stepped outside. Michael winced in the sudden wash of sunlight. The first things he noticed were the motorcycles; they looked like they had been worked on extensively, and Michael guessed they were all over thirty years old.
A sudden, joyful shout grabbed his attention. One of the boys, a tall chubby one with a messy mop of blond hair leaped toward Dominic and pulled him into a bear hug. The boy was huge; not as tall as Dominic, but at least eighty pounds heavier.
“Dom, holy shit, it’s good to see you.”
“Eli, you big teddy bear, how about letting me breathe a little?” Dominic worked his way out of the boy’s arms and stood smiling at him. Then he turned his attention to the next boy, who reminded Michael of Benny in a strange way. He was fair-haired and tall whereas Benny had been dark-featured and of average height, but they had that same confident way of swinging their arms as they walked.
“Dominic,” the kid said, playing with a set of keys in his right hand. “You look like shit. Have a run-in with the FSD again?”
“And you, Pete,” Dominic said, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder, “you look pretty much the same as the last time I saw you. Don’t worry. You’ll hit puberty eventually.”
Pete pushed him away, smiling a little as he eyed Dominic’s bruised face. “At least I don’t look like the entire FSD whaled on my ass.”
“But you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
That left the last of the three boys, who was shorter than everyone present. His narrow eyes were a deep brown and stood out against the paleness of his skin. Like the heads of matches, they seemed quick to flash into rage at the slightest provocation. He wore a denim jacket with dark clothes beneath it, and his hair was shaved down to a thin fuzz. A piece of metal in his left earlobe caught the light.
“He’s back,” the kid said in a voice that sounded artificially toughened. “What’s the matter? Get tired of city dick?”
Dominic gave a light-hearted chuckle. “Ian Meacham, you look as cheerful as ever. Finally got yourself laid with something that walks on two legs instead of four?”
The other boys chuckled and watched to see what Ian would do. Ian glanced at them, saw Michael, then looked back at Dominic.
“I see you got yourself a little boyfriend. What street corner did you pull him off of?”
Michael’s body tensed. Where he was from, those were fighting words. He had punched other boys for less than this. Here, though, he was outnumbered, and he had no one to back him up now that Benny was dead. The memory of Benny bleeding all over the floor enraged him suddenly.
“Go to hell,” Michael said, barely moving his lips.
Ian reached around to the back of his pants and pulled out a 9mm pistol. He lashed his arm outward to aim at Michael—
…and released a sharp gasp as Dominic, now pressed up against him from behind—right hand clenching the pistol and the boy’s fingers in a powerful grip—spoke threateningly into his ear.
“Gotcha.”
“Get off me!” Ian shouted.
The boy struggled but was obviously no match for Dominic, whose facial bruising made him look in that moment like a sociopathic killer.
Dominic spoke in a low, breathy voice.
“You’re subject to the rules of this town like everybody else, I don’t care who your father is. So unless you want me to break every finger you own and ruin your solitary sex life for the next few months, put the gun back into your pants where it belongs.”
Pete took a step toward them. He spoke with the confidence of someone who had been leading this pack for a long time and was used to these situations.
“Dom, let him go. He’s one of us and you’re not. As far as I know, you’re still outcast.”
“Oh?” Dominic said, pushing Ian away but keeping the boy’s pistol. “You need to lay off the shine, Peter. I wasn’t outcast. I volunteered to leave.”
“Whatever,” Peter said. “Just take it easy. Ian didn’t mean anything. He has a problem with authority.” He looked at Ian. “Right?”
“Spite yourself, Pete.”
Peter glared at him, head rising slightly.
“What did you just say to me, you little punk?”
“Nothing,” Ian muttered and looked away.
Dominic shoved Peter aside. He took a few steps toward Michael.
“This is Mike Cairne,” he announced. “He’ll be your roommate as well as a new addition to the ment community. He’s a Type I, so you boys better watch your step.”
“Type I?” Peter said with a scoff. “Stop messin’ around. They don’t exist.”
Dominic, looking bored now, shot Michael a quick glance bef
ore turning to leave. Eli was standing in the way. Dominic squared his shoulders before the brutish boy. Michael expected another conflict, but then a warm grin spread across Eli’s face as he stepped aside to let Dominic pass.
“Age before beauty,” Eli said with a wink.
“Wisdom before ignorance is more like it, knucklehead.”
The boys ignored Michael as they made their way back into the house, leaving him standing in the driveway with no idea what to do next.
“Dominic, wait!” he called out, and ran to catch up to the man.
Dominic didn’t look happy to see him. He was fingering his bruises and shaking his head.
“I’m not going to be your personal guide around here. You have to learn to fend for yourself.”
“Okay.” Michael kept pace with him.
“You can’t just follow me around everywhere.”
“All right,” he said, matching Dominic’s steps.
Dominic whirled on him. “What do you want from me, kid?”
Michael shrugged and said the first thing that came to mind.
“What do you for lunch around here?”
Chapter 3
Louis Blake lit a cigarette.
The men sitting around the table watched him, waiting for him to cough up the smoke like he usually did. But this time he didn’t. Midas’s cough syrup was just that good. He would have to get the old doctor a little gift to show his gratitude.
The smoke hung near the ceiling of the small room. The only light came in through the window, an intense sunlight that made Blake a little drowsy. It was around this time that he usually woke from his afternoon nap.
“He’s a killer,” John Meacham said, splaying the fingers of his big, rugged hands on the table. “He’ll bring death to this town, mark my words.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” Blake said, putting the cigarette to his lips. “It happened under circumstances that were highly unusual.”
“And what circumstances are those, exactly?”
“Well”—he exhaled smoke—“for starters, he watched an FSD officer slice his brother’s neck open with a broken bottle while his mother and father were freezing to death inside of a giant refrigerator.”
Meacham frowned deeply and shook his head. “Jesus.”
He sat opposite Blake at the other end of the table, by the window. Four other men sat between them, wincing at what Blake had just shared. One was Gerald Kepplinger, a drowsy-looking man who oversaw the staff running the power plant. Another was Joe Bigg, a well-groomed man with dark features who oversaw the water purification and distribution plant and was the only person in town who wore hair gel (it was homemade). And then there was Hugo Seneca, a broad, brown-skinned man who always looked like he wanted to punch something and then scream at it. He oversaw agriculture and made sure people were producing the proper quantities of food assigned to them. They were the town’s ministers.
The fourth man was Midas Ford, the town’s only doctor. He was a black man in his sixties, with gray hair that clung to his head in a curly fuzz, leaving a domed bald spot up top. His glasses took up half of his face and his cheeks were heavily pockmarked. He sat slumped in his chair, looking like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how.
A chair creaked as Hugo Seneca sat forward and twined his fingers together on the tabletop. “I’d like to say something if that’s okay with you, Louis.” He gave Blake a hard, patronizing glare.
Blake sat smoking and watching the man.
“This boy, by virtue of his involvement in the experiments, is property of the People’s Republic, which makes him personal property of Harris Kole. What do you think’s going to happen when Kole finds out you stole his property and brought it out here to the mountains? Where do you think he’s going to start sending his scouts?”
“Property?” Blake said.
Meacham rolled his eyes. “Here we go.”
“Did you say this boy was government property, Hugo? Because the last time I checked, we didn’t share the same philosophy as slavers.”
“Oh, to hell with that,” Hugo said, sitting back and glancing at Meacham for support. “You know what I mean. The boy’s a Type I telepath, the only one in existence as far as we know. If Kole ever had a reason to send soldiers across the border, it’s him.”
“I agree,” Kepplinger said, looking as though he might fall asleep at any moment. His voice came out thin and papery. For a man who worked around electricity all day, his presence was as titillating as a dead battery. “That boy brings a certain amount of risk that our small community cannot”—he wagged a finger in the air—“and should not withstand.”
“Thank you, Minister Kepplinger,” Meacham said with a look of mild contempt.
John Meacham himself was a thick-limbed man with powerful shoulders and a face that was always pink from all the time he spent out in the sun. Aside from his job as Overseer of Gulch, he delegated the collection and distribution of firewood, a process that needed to be done right due to the unpredictable climate in these mountains.
“We can’t outcast the boy,” Blake said, “not after kidnapping him and bringing him out here.”
Meacham got up and leaned over the table.
“If what you say about him is true”—he peered at Blake from beneath his shaggy brows—“then the boy would be better off in the New Dallas Republic. You did him a service by smuggling him over the border in the first place. You don’t have to be his nanny, too.”
Midas Ford spoke up unexpectedly, his voice humble and soft. As usual, everyone listened.
“He wouldn’t survive a day out there, so you all listen to me, now. I held that boy’s brothers and sisters in my hands once upon a time—children that came out of those experiments just like he did, to die at the hands of men like the one I used to be.” The old doctor stood up with a grunt, wagging his index finger. “You outcast that boy, and I’m going with him. I don’t care if it costs me my life. I’m not gonna have any part in another child’s death.”
He shuffled toward the door, leaving the men in silence. On the way there, he stopped and rested a hand on Blake’s shoulder.
“I know you’ll do the right thing, Louis.”
Blake stabbed his cigarette into the ashtray and exhaled smoke.
“And quit smoking, damn it,” Midas said on his way out. “It’s gonna kill you.”
The ministers chuckled as the door clicked shut. Blake used the distraction to do a telepathic scan of each one. Uncapping the lens in his mind, he opened himself to their emotional fluctuations. Mostly he sensed fear, mixed with mild resentment.
“Michael’s not a threat to any of you,” Blake said.
Meacham slapped the table. “That’s not what we’re—”
Sounds from beyond the door interrupted them. It was Midas Ford, and he was laughing with the kind of joy reserved for a man greeting a son back from war. The men at the table hadn’t heard Midas laugh in years. They all knew what it meant.
Meacham closed his eyes, turned his face away. “Blake, you son of a bitch.”
Blake clenched his teeth and laughed. He couldn’t help it. The irritation this brought to his throat and lungs made his chest heave. He took out the cough syrup and swallowed a quick dose just as the door swung open and Dominic strutted into the room.
“Well, well,” Dominic said, winking with his swollen eye. “The Ministry of Control, with John Meacham as Over-Dictator. Much has changed in this tiny town.”
Meacham stood bent over the table, white knuckles pressed to the wood, the pink skin of his face tightening with fury.
“What are you doing here, Dom,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “I told you never to step foot on this soil again.”
“Nuh-uh.” Dominic wagged his index finger from side-to-side. “Blake was Overseer back then, and he’s the one who told me never to come back.” Dominic looked at Blake, who was still smirking. “Well, old man?”
“Fine with me,” Blake said.
Dominic grinned at John Meacham.
“Wipe that stupid smirk off your face,” Meacham said, straightening. The tightness in his massive shoulders was obvious. “I buried your older brother, and I’ll do the same to you. Just give me a reason.”
Dominic remained calm though a violent edge crept into his voice. “Is that all you want? A reason?”
Blake sent his voice into Dominic’s mind. Don’t react. He’ll have you thrown out.
He can try, came the response.
“I’m not gonna stand for this,” Meacham said in a low, growling voice. He took several steps toward Dominic, his face deepening in color, a sure sign that he was teetering over the edge of a tantrum. “You think you’re in control, but you’re not. You’re just like that boy you brought into my town—a danger to these people.”
Easy, Dominic, Blake sent across the room. You’re tougher than he is.
Mind your own damn business and get out of my head.
Meacham had brought his face inches away from Dominic’s, nostrils flaring like those of a bull about to run someone down. Dominic didn’t move except for a slight twitching of his fingers. The scene lasted for a few seconds, with everyone else in the room watching in silence. Finally Dominic backed down.
“I’ll stay out of your way,” Dominic said. “I’ll even follow the rules. But from now on, you got something to say to me, you say it through Dr. Ford or Major Blake.”
“And what about the boy, Michael?” Meacham said, sneering in amused contempt at Dominic. “We all know why you went to all that trouble bringing him here, don’t we?” He gave a perverse wag of his eyebrows. “You being a cocksucker and all.”
Blake winced. He could sense the tremors of rage running through Dominic. He was like a pillar supporting too much weight, ready to crack apart at any moment.
Blake wouldn’t use telepathy to calm him, not this time; Dominic would take that as an insult.
“Like I said,” Dominic told Meacham, surprisingly calm on the surface. “You want to say something to me, you go through Major Blake or Midas Ford from now on.”
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