by C. P. James
She’d never seen so many people her age, or even roughly her age, in one place. Thousands of PGs ranging from maybe 10 all the way to presumably 24 or 25, and many who were too old to be PGs, danced and laughed and sang poorly and made food, or begged for it. Some embraced old friends. Others—more than she ever expected—had babies. She saw license plates from virtually every state, and the swollen, dirty backpacks of the itinerant. There was even a valet for packs and bikes, the huge corral nearly filled. It was a dusty, hot, smelly sea of youth, and Jayla was enthralled. Was this what it was like before? Did this happen everywhere?
Behind them at least 100 yards were Scott and Jeff, dressed in shorts and camp shirts and looking as out of place as if they’d left their suits on. People less than half their age sniggered as they strolled by, duty bound and oblivious to their derision. She couldn’t help but feel a little bit sorry for them this time, being so out of their element but helpless to do anything about it.
Lars seemed to know everyone. If he didn’t, he acted like he did and that was good enough for them. They took a couple beers offered to them, which did little to center her, but it did help quench her considerable thirst a bit before they finally went through security and got inside.
Jayla had never been to Red Rocks, but she instantly understood its appeal. The amphitheater was carved out of the rocky Colorado hillside as though tectonic forces had pushed it up that way eons ago. The weathered eponymous monoliths framed a photo in which 10,000 people would watch their heroes take the stage. Lars took her hand and led her down the side stairs to row 9, seats 45 and 46—directly in front of the mixing booth. She couldn’t imagine what they cost or how he got them, but suspected his connections were as deep as his pockets. Back at the security checkpoint, she could see her detail getting a hard time from a security guard who clearly didn’t believe they were Secret Service. They would get in eventually and keep eyes on her, but there in the dark she would melt into the crowd. For a few precious hours, it would be just her and Lars.
He left for a few minutes and brought a jug of water back with him just moments before the lights went down. She killed half of it and instantly felt much better. The atmosphere was intoxicating, and now that the effects of the weed had leveled out she was utterly euphoric.
In the wings, under dim bluish purple gels, little flashlights lit up paths for the band, who entered before anyone’s eyes had truly adjusted to the dark. Everyone went berserk. A few seconds later, the lead guitarist, JT Carnoy, plugged in and futzed around with a couple chords. The drummer, Yancy Reed, climbed behind his battlement of drums and thumped a little on the kicker before punctuating it with a rat-tat-tat on the snare. The bass player and keyboardist, whose names Jayla could never remember, did the same. She glanced at Lars, who just smiled and let out a whoop.
Still in semi-darkness, the tuneless sputtering of the four supporting players coalesced into a subtle order. No one recognized it, but everyone acted like they did. It went on like this for several minutes, during which anticipation for Marius Beecher, the famous and immensely talented frontman, reached a fever pitch. Finally, when no one thought they could stand it anymore, a chord pattern emerged from the unnamed song-in-progress and everyone instantly recognized it as “Further On.” Right about then, a figure appeared from behind a curtain in the wings and joined his brothers in the dark. He shouldered his signature blue Gibson SG and struck the monstrous power chord that kicks off the song’s initial verse:
Through the gray/The skies alight
We toast the day/And drink the night
The din of humanity was louder than just about anything Jayla had heard, and yet Marius’ crystalline voice bored a hole through it and into her ears. Suddenly she got—really got—the Watchers like she never had before. It wasn’t just how they connected with people, or that they’d played more shows in 10 years than many did in 40. No. They were just so fucking good it was hard to even conceive. No one had time to get that good, but somehow these six musicians had found each other and amassed a catalog of insane quality. The phrase “voice of a generation” was a little trite, but it was practically invented for Marius.
It could have been the weed, she supposed, but that alone couldn’t have conjured the magic in of all this. The sea of life and vitality enveloped her, and Lars had led her there. Great, she thought. What the hell do I do with this?
On and on it went, each song forming the narrative of a grand rock opera in which the two of them starred. For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, she saw herself and her whole doomed generation from the outside. The futility. The rage. The unfettered joy. The story played out on the faces around her, on the hair tossed side to side, on sweaty, tattooed backs, on lips that moved with Marius’ words, on her hand as it found Lars’ in the beautiful, barely contained chaos. An epic show in an epic place for a confluence of people attuned to the awful ephemerality of it all.
Marius Beecher poured himself into every song—so much so that he had to take long pauses between to gather himself for the next salvo of wounded, desperate notes and crunchy chords. When he performed, a bubble slowly formed around him and grew exponentially as the show progressed, enveloping everything and everyone in a sphere where there was no Cure, and no PGs, and no death, and anything was possible. It was a drunk sincerity of the best sort, and everyone was under his spell.
Late in the show, his bandmates set down their instruments and gathered around a condenser microphone in a semicircle, kicking off a short set of Opry-style numbers that would showcase their unadorned talent. They merely stood for a few minutes, looking solemnly outward, while they waited for 10,000 people to get quiet. It didn’t take long. They began with an a cappella version of the very old gospel tune, “I’ll Fly Away.”
Some bright morning when this life is over
I'll fly away
To that home on Gods celestial shore
I'll fly away
I'll fly away, oh glory
I'll fly away in the morning
When I die hallelujah by and by
I'll fly away
By the end of the first verse, Jayla, who was only about 50 feet from the stage, noticed something was wrong with Marius. His dreadlocks, which customarily fell over his face in a ropy black veil, couldn’t hide profuse sweating and a strange facial expression. Lars noticed it, too, and a low murmur began to gather in the crowd. After a few measures, his bandmates glanced over at him. On they pressed into the next verse.
When the shadows of this life have gone
I'll fly away
Like a bird from these prison walls I'll fly
I'll fly away
Jayla watched Marius’ mouth form the word I’ll after walls, and half a heartbeat later he was on the ground convulsing. He took the microphone down with him as he fell, sending a sickening screech of feedback into the amphitheater. There was a collective gasp, and several people ran out from the wings. Nearby, people loudly asked if anyone was a doctor. No one was a doctor who wasn’t at least 40, and they probably wouldn’t have been there anyway. Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered. Fans knew that Marius had turned 25 just a few weeks ago.
Through a gap in the throng of people on stage, Jayla saw Marius’ face slathered in blood, the heels of his shoes pushing weakly against the stage as though backing away from an attacker. Someone who might have been a doctor knelt over him while his bandmates tried to hold him in place. Around her, girls clenched each other and cried. Boys stood dumb, mouths hanging open. Nothing rose above a murmur. She squeezed Lars’ hand so tightly she thought she’d break his fingers. He was a statue.
She’d seen a fellow PG die just once, on a plane from Miami to Cusco. She heard a commotion behind her and turned in time to see a young woman in a coughing fit, blood spraying from her mouth, her eyes as red as if the whites had been peeled off. She, too, went into violent seizures before her systems shut down. There was nothing anyone could do for her, and nothing anyone could do for Marius, ei
ther. Beautiful, talented, full-of-life Marius. He didn’t deserve to go like this. No one did. It was an ugly, brutal, terrifying death and she couldn’t watch it happen again.
Before she knew what she was doing, she yanked hard on Lars’ hand and pulled him behind her as she shoved her way past horrified fans, many of whom had collapsed, stunned, into their seats. Others comforted each other as best they could. Lars seemed to understand immediately and followed close behind her. When they got to the side aisle, others had also decided that either it was all too much, or that they should find their cars and get out of there before the situation deteriorated. She was tempted to cast one final look back at the stage, but resisted. Out of the corner of her eye noticed Scott and Jeff still standing there in their dorky outfits, craning their necks to find her.
They were near the front of the first wave that spilled out through the main gate and into the parking lot. After about a hundred yards Lars placed his other hand on hers and spun her around. She hadn’t realized her eyes were wet until she tried to focus on his face but couldn’t. He pulled her into him and held her close as she cried and thumped her fists against his back. There was nothing to say.
41
Connie learned the broad strokes during a closed-door meeting with Geller. He explained how Heidi came to be at GIG, and that, as far as they knew, she was the oldest PG in existence. He said her longevity was extraordinary, and that they hoped to learn whether anything in her unique genetic makeup had made it so.
She listened carefully, asked questions, and understood the answers well enough to repeat them to key cabinet members if pressed. As long as she’d known him, Geller was enigmatic and obtuse when it came to sharing research information. But on this occasion he was oddly forthcoming. He said it was extremely unlikely that anything they learned about Heidi would lead to a treatment, and that it would be dangerous for anyone to believe otherwise. Geller was so clear on this point that it made her wonder how he could be so certain.
She’d been to GIG once before, as chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology when she was still a Congresswoman. It was impressive then and still was, though it had changed. What began as a birthplace of radical ideas and world-changing treatments had morphed into a patent factory, focused mostly on agricultural and biochemical research. As the years rolled on, there was a feeling that if GIG couldn’t reverse the Cure’s effects, no one could.
The Cure’s repercussions would play out over centuries, not decades. One of its most troubling casualties was a national reticence toward bold, brash ideas. America was a once bitten, thrice shy sort of country, and so innovations—especially in medicine—had largely stalled in the wake of the disaster. No one was willing to back the risky play. There were no Lyle Merriweathers anymore. If the US was still No. 1 in anything, it was fear.
When Jayla contacted her to say she was going to a concert and taking a commercial flight back to DC, she was a little hurt. Part of her wanted to say, but I only have 10 years left with you—maybe less. Instead she just told her to have a good time and be safe, and that she’d see her in a couple days.
Connie’s visit to GIG somehow went unreported, much to the shock of their communications team. She left the way she came, via back roads in ordinary-looking FBI vehicles, and headed back to Denver. Jayla would meet her there after the concert and then, hopefully, they’d have some quality time together. She came looking for hope and time her daughter, but came away with precious little of either.
42
Jayla clambered up the hillside at the far south end of the parking lot and sat heavily on the smooth surface of Ship Rock, her gaze drifting across the sprawl of the city as tears flowed down her cheeks. She made no effort to wipe them away. Lars followed and sat quietly next to her. Many years earlier, from where she sat, you could still take in the whole of Denver, from Broomfield and Arvada all the way down to the south end of Littleton. Now, it was solid city as far as the eye could see in any direction. Down below them, a handful of emergency vehicles were still parked by the amphitheater entrance. The parking lots were dotted with mourners, campers and whoever else, many of whom huddled over tiny campfires or charcoal grills. Above the building wind rose an occasional flutter of laughter, and the tears would return.
During the long silence they shared, Lars came to understand that Jayla was about as innocent as PGs came. She had done things she probably wasn’t proud of and fancied herself a tomboy rebel soul, but she still was the First Daughter and thus had been protected from the darker facets of PG life. He’d seen at least a dozen people go, some of whom he knew well. Like Marius Beecher, it was messy and violent every time. As hard as that was to see, it was worse if you knew them.
A good friend of his, Bobby Hardwicke, went into similar convulsions in his bivy at a state park in Vermont. The others came out of their tents and gathered around Bobby as he thrashed about, the blood he coughed coating the inside of the little bright yellow tent like grotesque abstract art. He screamed and made awful gagging sounds. He gasped for air. There was nothing to be done but just be there for him and say his name, along with whatever else seemed comforting.
We’re here, Bobby.
It’s okay.
Try to let go, Bobby. It’ll hurt less.
We’ll miss you, Bobby. You’re a good person. Take that with you.
This only went on for maybe four minutes before he drowned in the blood and fluid that quickly filled his lungs, but it felt like an hour. Nobody went peacefully unless they took care of it themselves. No matter how ready they thought they were, or how much they’d made their peace with it, they all fought for another few moments. Marius almost certainly would have made his peace, but just as certainly would not have wanted to ruin a beautiful moment. A man like him would’ve found that worse than the pain.
After kind words were said about Bobby and stories shared about his life, they gathered him up in his bivy and carried him into the forest for a simple burial. It was illegal on multiple fronts, but most PGs, given the choice, did it this way. The government crematoriums were seldom nearby, and they all seemed just a little too reminiscent of WWII. Usually someone would anonymously message the family, if possible, with the coordinates of the gravesite. Lars didn’t know what happened after that, if anything. He preferred to think they would simply leave wildflowers and say a few words, or perhaps leave some small, nondescript monument.
Jayla was too young and inexperienced to have come to terms with any of this. He was once, too—pretty much that whole first year after he turned 13 and struck out on his own. It was all too much for his young mind to handle, and he’d broken down just like she was now. She was a stone upon a stone, her face expressionless. Lars didn’t know if he should sit by her, hug her, talk to her or just leave her be. They’d been up there almost an hour and a half. That was a long time for a PG to sit and do nothing. It was much too early to say whether he loved this girl, but he cared enough about her to stay, and that seemed significant. He got up to force the blood back into his legs and approached her slowly.
“Listen, I hate to say it, but I’m starving.”
The first time she tried to speak, nothing came out. She probably hadn’t had anything to drink since they were on the road from GIG, and that was a very long time ago. She swallowed and croaked:
“I know. Me, too.”
She rose suddenly and started half-sliding, half-stumbling down the hill in the gloaming. Lars stared after her for a moment, then followed her back down to the main lot. She walked stiffly past the remaining concertgoers, eyes straight ahead, ignoring completely the invitations to eat, or smoke, or whatever. Lars had trouble keeping up, but eventually caught her near the far side and walked half a step behind down the short main entrance to Trading Post Road, where the car and a half-gallon vacuum bottle of ice water waited. He didn’t see any signs of Scott or Jeff.
She drank most of the water herself. He finished what was left then drove out to find somewhere to
eat. There were plenty of options just over the ridge into the city, so after about 15 minutes they pulled into a Vietnamese place and ordered heaping bowls of vermicelli and broth with a bunch of spring rolls. As they did, some of the color and life returned to Jayla’s face. She really was quite beautiful, though her eyes were still puffy and her crisp braids had started to unravel. Eventually they ate their way through the entire meal and sat again in the silence, which Jayla eventually broke.
“I’m not going back to DC.”
“Okay.”
“Tonight … changed me.”
“I know.”
“I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”
“That’s cool.”
“We need to go somewhere. Tonight. Somewhere they can’t find us.”
“Scott and Jeff, you mean.”
“Anyone. It has to be just you and me. At least for a while. I can’t … I can’t deal with anyone else right now.”
She reached suddenly across the table and grabbed his hand. He looked into her eyes and saw desperation. Loneliness. Sadness. Confusion. It was all there, and urgently so. He would’ve said anything to ease her mind just then.