Forest of Dreams

by Bevill, C. L.

  The cammie pants went on one leg just fine, but I had to carefully ease them over the other one. I guessed I was lucky I still had my underwear. “Won’t tell me, huh?” I asked. I might as well push. Tate had said I wasn’t going to be harmed, so I could wax sarcastic until my little acerbic, mocking heart was content. Twisting a little to put the belt through the loops was uncomfortable and reminded me that I had been dragged about in a cavalier fashion.

  When I was done I retrieved the crutch and stood up. Salome hovered for a long half minute; her expression was skeptical about my ability to remain standing by myself. (She was almost correct, but I made myself remain upright until the little black spots at the corners of my eyes disappeared.)

  “Hungry?” Salome asked. “The cantina is around the corner, and they’ve got eggs this morning. Scrambled with some processed cheese. I think the cheese is ten years old, but it’s supposed to have a shelf life of twenty-five so we’re good.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I said. Now that I had hold of myself, the preeminent question was what did Theo want with little ol’ me? Theo and his people were limited to the tech bubble, if everything he implied was true. Not all of them had to be lunatics, but I didn’t really know for certain. Maybe they were more insane on the inside than on the out. That meant their resources were dwindling. They could want to trade. They could want protection. They could want diesel fuel. They could want Twizzlers. The list was endless. On the darker side of the list, they could want women. They could want sacrifices. They could want to decimate everyone on Earth. It made my head ache.

  The Redwoods Group wouldn’t want to deal with Tate. In fact, Gideon, the de facto leader of the group, now a whopping seventeen years old, would want to try Tate for his crimes. For all his rhetoric, Tate had killed at least three people, and he’d attempted to kill dozens more. The loss of his arm was hardly payment enough. Furthermore, Gideon knew about Theophilus. I had told Gideon and Leander about Theo because I didn’t want him in the group on the off chance that he’d survived his little dip in the bay. They’d seen the evidence themselves; they’d helped pull up the hanged bodies and buried them in the cemetery at the Presidio. (As corpse transport, we’d used the same shopping cart that Theo had considerately provided.) Then they had tromped back to the church with me and helped me bury Bathsheba in the open grave that Theo had thoughtfully left. Yep, Theo was that, thoughtful.

  Their surgeon had helped me out, and it had been about three days before I could travel. While I was in the bed of a local clinic getting all the good stuff through an IV, I told Gideon about Theophilus, and I’d never spoken about him again.

  I think the time in the clinic was the worst. It was where Louise had resurfaced and taken over. I went with Gideon and the others because I could tell they weren’t twisted, evil people like Theo had been. I knew I would be safer with them. Then all I had to do was to find a protector who was appropriate. Zach came around about a month later, but he was already in love with Sophie. To my everlasting shame, Louise didn’t think that was a problem.

  In any case, the story went on, and I found myself here, under a mountain, facing Theophilus again in a whole new manner. Someone said once that life is circular, and they weren’t just whistling Dixie.

  I limped to the door, following Salome and I asked, “They got coffee?”

  “Sure. Turn off that lantern, and I’ll take the other one,” Salome replied easily. She inclined her head to the left, and I flipped the switch on the lantern that had been left. “This way. I think it’s some kind from Jamaica. Blue Mountain is what it’s called. Someone left a stash in the zone, and we found it about a week ago. Someone had a serious coffee addiction. There was about ten pounds of it. And get this, it isn’t stale. I think it was the stable temperature down here that did it. It keeps pretty consistent, and the coffee was in airtight containers. Some zoomie really dug his brew.”

  Yea, coffee! Coffee brewed by members of the insane society party zone, but coffee all the same.

  I carefully made my way after Salome, who only glanced at me once. I was supposed to be in the security center in ten minutes, which was likely about five minutes at that point, but getting a mug of coffee would only take me two, provided I didn’t have to fight someone for it.

  The same cantina I’d found before was our destination. There were about eight people in the area. Most were spread out at the tables, drinking from mugs and eating as if they had all the time in the world. The bar had been transformed into a smorgasbord. I ignored the series of swiveling heads and went right for the coffee pot, pausing to savor the aroma as I grabbed a mug.

  “You want one?” I asked Salome who lingered near me. Was she guarding me, or was she guarding others from me? I didn’t know what kind of damage I could do with the crutch, but I might be able to do something serious. One shot to the shin, and they might get a major owie bruise.

  “I’ve had mine already,” Salome said.

  I shrugged, hit the spigot, and waited for dark brown-colored glory to fill up the cup in my hand. I added two packets of sugar and some fake cream. I was momentarily happy. I could have been happier, but well, you know. I drank three swallows before I sighed. Salome had spoken the truth. It wasn’t stale. I turned to her. “I guess I need to be somewhere,” I said. “Can I take the coffee with me?”

  It was Salome’s turn to sigh, but hers was more pointed. She reached for the cup and said, “I should carry that for you.”

  Salome had a point. She grasped the mug in her hand and turned. I followed her even while eight sets of eyes followed me. I looked back at them and gauged them in a few heartbeats. They liked to wear military-issued clothing. Most of it was Air Force issued. A few of the jackets had the tags still on them. A few of them had Canadian insignias on them. (Dad used to hobnob with all kinds of foreign military, half the time bringing them home to have Mumsy or myself acting as hostess, so I’d seen the insignias before.) They’d been raiding the facility for whatever they could use. (The side note was that the facility, like its more well-known big brother down the road, was run by both the United States and the Canadians at one point in time.) I didn’t blame them for wearing readily accessible clothing, but it cloaked what they’d been before.

  The basics were there. There were six men and two women, three if you included Salome. Four if you included me. There was a racial mix. Four were Caucasian. (Six if you included Salome and me, and I wasn’t 100% about Salome.) Two were African American. One was Hispanic or American Indian. The final one probably had some ancestors from China or Japan. Yea, diversity! Homicidal maniac diversity, but still…

  As I passed the last table with three people sitting together, I looked at them and said, “What? You’ve never seen a blue-eyed blonde before?” One chuckled before turning to the other two, and the remainder almost instantly dismissed me.

  I hobbled and trudged down a long hallway following the LED light of Salome’s lantern. The one hallway that I hadn’t gone down at the tri-way split was the one we followed. The signs were still along the sides.

  I wasn’t kidding when I said it was a living, breathing Cold War relic. Someone was going to start quoting Kennedy or Nixon. The 70s were going to vomit forth a mound of bell-bottom jeans along with disco balls and pet rocks. One sign said “United States Air Force, Coming Right Up!” The buxom girl saluting while she sat on top of the plane in the sign looked more like she was from the 1940s. Another one said “Air Force Parking Only: All others will be towed” along with arrows indicating that everyone in the hallway would be taken away if they didn’t comply. This was followed by a series of yellowing movie posters that someone must have liked. Star Wars graced the wall next to Jaws and The Godfather. The Exorcist and Taxi Driver were also in attendance. So someone had eclectic taste.

  There were also more directional signs such as “Security Ops” with an arrow and “Project Arrowguard” with another arrow at an intersection in the hallway.

  Then there was a simple door
with a simple sign. I recognized the flickering glow of regular electricity and realized that the gennies must be running as Salome opened the door and gestured me inside. It didn’t look like a security center or the master control epicenter of what must have cost billions of dollars in pre-change money. It was rather simple. There were rows of desks with keyboards. There were simple desk chairs. There were two rows of monitors. There were some speakers. There were phones, the old-fashioned kind with the dials, not the push button kind. And Theo and a woman I hadn’t met before were there. They sat in two of the desk chairs looking at some paperwork I wasn’t close enough to see. Tate leaned against a wall and fingered a computer monitor that was older than I was. Theo and the woman sipped from mugs identical to the one that Salome handed me before she left the room, closing the door behind me.

  In one hand, the woman held a pistol that was pointed between the door and me. She appeared like she wouldn’t have a big problem using it on me.

  “Can I sit?” I asked. “Or would you like to shoot me now?”

  Theo grinned at me, and it was the kind that sent chills racing down my spine. “We’ve got a proposition for you, Hasadiah,” he murmured.

  Chapter 13

  Lulu Becomes Informed

  The Present – Colorado

  “So I imagined a place like this would look more like something out of Dr. No, or maybe an Austin Powers flick,” I said. I looked around. “But hey, no Dr. Evil, is there?”

  Tate chuckled darkly and then quoted, “‘Why must I be surrounded by frickin’ idiots?’”

  I pulled out an office chair and sat. I leaned the crutch against the console and pulled my mug to my face, inhaling the fragrant aroma of the coffee. Surely, they couldn’t kill me when I had a cuppa in my hand. “You still a religious fanatic, Theo?” I asked politely.

  “Martin,” Theo corrected mildly. “That was kind of a lunatic phase I went through. The world getting changed, billions of people vanishing, mermaids appearing, you know?”

  “Yeah, I got that,” I said, “but I didn’t kidnap girls and torture them and worse.”

  “You keep bringing that up,” Theo said, “like I should be apologizing or something.”

  “You don’t think you should apologize for doing the things you did,” I said slowly. Where was Mr. Stabby when I really needed him? I wasn’t typically prone to homicide, but if ever someone needed to be killed, it was Theo, beloved of God, and frickin’ idiot. Thank you, Dr. Evil, for the inspiration.

  “The changed world is an abomination,” Theo said, and I had the feeling he was repeating words that he had often said before. “The changed world is a heretical act against God. God would never condone such atrocities against His visions. The people with their special powers, their so-called abilities, they’re repulsive and immoral. They should be burned away to show Him that we still obey His laws.”

  That answered my question about Theo’s level of religious fervor. “How do you know this?” I asked. I tried extremely hard to keep the doubt out of my tone. I was dancing with the devil, and I didn’t want him to step on my toes with his cloven hooves.

  “You think God doesn’t reveal His plan to me?” Theo asked. Thankfully, he didn’t sound offended. He spread his arms wide and indicated the world at large. “Every part of life is a sign, Hasadiah. All one has to do is to open their eyes to see.”

  I saw all right. “Why am I here?”

  The woman sitting next to Theo covered her mouth with her elegant hand. I looked at her because I didn’t want to betray the fear that was itching to burst out of my body. She was in her fifties and well coifed. In the before world she would have gone to the salon once a week. Her gray would have been touched up and any split ends would have been ruthlessly trimmed away. She would have a little work done on her jawline to ensure that revealing little sag wouldn’t give away the game. Botox injections around the eyes would have eased away those leading wrinkles. She would have typically worn some kind of fancy suit like Elie Tahari or Eileen Fisher. Her shoes would have matched perfectly. She was my mother’s counterpart right down to the trust fund and the settlements from her two divorces. Her time after the change hadn’t managed to modify her.

  Now she was Theo’s counterpart.

  “Why?” I repeated. I lifted my leg up and put my foot on the seat of the chair next to mine. The throbbing eased.

  “‘We’re on a mission from God,’” Tate quoted. It was movie day to be sure.

  “Do you have that one here?” I asked. “I’d love to see John Belushi again.”

  “I’ve got the DVD,” Tate said. “You can take it to Sunshine when you’re done. Watch it there. You guys have movie night on Wednesdays. We’ll even send some popcorn with you.”

  I would have smiled, but I couldn’t make my lips move. There was also a big lump in my throat that I couldn’t force down. They’d been spying on Sunshine. They’d been there. They’d been close enough to see inside the rec center and account for our actions. They’d been out of their “zone” where their brains were fried enough that they would be nutcases. More importantly, they’d been right there at Sunshine where all that insanity could spill out at any time.

  Why was I here? Or maybe it was a case of why was I here? “Penn,” I said, putting the numbers all together. Penn was the researcher at Sunshine who’d found the article about Cheyenne Jr. Penn was the one who was enthusiastic about it. Penn was the one who’d brought it to me. To me, although there were four other people who searched for tech bubbles. “Penn’s one of you,” I concluded. God, I’m stupid sometimes. I played right into their hands, even with Tate playing the loonie while warning me about the pit. Of course he hadn’t wanted me to fall in. I wouldn’t be any good to them if I was dead.

  Theo smiled again. “Penn’s a loyal man.”

  “Not to us,” I muttered. Penn was going to be a very sorry man if I got my hands on him. “You wanted me here. Why me? What mission?”

  “Hasadiah never had the patience that was necessary for enlightenment,” Theo said to the woman.

  “Patience was never one of my attributes,” I admitted. “I wasn’t patient when you chained me to a church pew, either.”

  Theo touched his neck, and I hoped the scars still bothered him. He wasn’t going to tell me anything except for when he was damn good and ready to tell me. I drank some more coffee, but it tasted like ashes in my mouth.

  “My name is Ariel,” the woman offered as if I had asked. “It means the lion of God.”

  “I remember the story,” I said, “although I haven’t been too interested in Biblical lore of late. I also remember that Ariel was a man.”

  “An archangel,” Ariel corrected.

  “If I recollect correctly,” I said, “Ariel wasn’t really in the Bible at all, but something out of Milton’s imagination.” I glanced at Tate who appeared skeptical. “It was for a college course,” I explained. “No one really wants to read Paradise Lost.”

  Ariel didn’t look happy. She hadn’t really read the Bible, and I suspected she hadn’t read Paradise Lost, either. That was okay; I would have needed the CliffsNotes version to talk about it in any detail.

  “Hasadiah didn’t have patience,” Theo said, “but she’s got a brain.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I murmured.

  “And she’s got connections in the new world,” Theo added. “She’s got the means that we need to get it done. Not to mention that a little bird whispered in my ear about her being the one that could get it done.”

  That didn’t sound promising. They wanted something from me that only I could do or someone like me could do. But why would I do it? It wouldn’t be out of the goodness of my heart. They needed to have some leverage over me.

  Theo abruptly stood up, and I cringed in response. Tate laughed again. “What did you do to Lulu that she jumps so?” Tate asked Theo.

  I stood up as well, pulling my injured leg off the office chair, grasping the crutch and leaning on it. “Theo beat me,” I
answered. “He also tried to murder me. Once, twice, maybe more. I’ve lost count. He also beat a girl to death in front of me.”

  Theo stared at me consideringly. “Yes, poor Bathsheba. I haven’t thought about her for some time.”

  “No,” I said shortly, “maybe not, but I think of her a lot.” I paused to force a lump down my throat. “Do you happen to remember what her real name was? I’d like to go back and put a marker on her grave. With her real name on it, just so someone remembers.”

  “Marcy,” Theo said. “Her name was Marcy. I don’t think she said what her last name was. If it makes a difference I found her around Rincon Hill, but I think she walked across the Oakland Bay Bridge originally. She might have been from Alameda or San Leandro.” He paused, and the side of his mouth curled into a reminiscing smile. “She smelled like strawberries. I could have saved her if you hadn’t screamed at her to run.”

  I thought my previous urge to kill Theo couldn’t be topped, but I was wrong. The new urge had my hands trembling to grab the crutch tip end and aim the broader shoulder support for the softest part of his skull. If I hit it hard enough, bits of skull would penetrate his brain and that would be the end of Theo.

  “The poor girl didn’t deserve to be beaten to death with your bare hands,” I said, grinding my teeth together, “no matter what I screamed.”

  “We’ve all got blood on our hands,” Ariel said and stood up, tucking the pistol into the back of her belt. She wore the same kind of t-shirt and cammie pants as I did. Her feet were bare like Theo’s, but she had painted her toenails neon green. It was an odd comparison with the urban camouflage pattern.

  “Some of us more than others,” I said. “Did the sharks recognize a greater predator in the water, Theo? Is that why they didn’t eat you?”

  “Finish your coffee, Hasadiah,” he said. I knew the game. If I continued to call him Theo, he would continue to call me Hasadiah. It was a childish game, but it was all I had at the moment. Him, too, if I was reading the cards correctly. “You’ll need the caffeine.”