by Peter Telep
For a few seconds, I’m swept into a crashing wave like a surfer wiping out. When my vision clears, I’m back in my body and with the caravan.
“Sorry about that,” Meeka says. “My jumps really suck when I get emotional.”
“Excuse me while I throw up.”
“Doc, you’re not lying, are you?”
“I have no reason to lie.”
She thinks for a moment. “When word got out, your father took all the blame, but there was something I remember about a partner.”
“It was my dad’s company. And he hid the research from the government because he was afraid they’d take it away, so they blamed him for everything.”
“But you’re saying it was Solomon all along.”
“Yeah. I got another question. What did you find out about us when you were at the Palladium?”
“That you were the son of Thaddeus Harrison and Julie was the daughter of one of his partners.” Meeka’s mouth falls open. “Oh, I get why you’re asking me this. Damn. She’s Solomon’s daughter, isn’t she?”
I fake a laugh. “Are you kidding?”
“You’re a terrible liar. And you don’t want me to know this because...”
“Forget about Julie. Just help me find the engine, okay?”
Meeka probes me with her gaze. “Julie doesn’t know about her father, does she?”
“She knows everything. She’s trying to deal with it.”
“No, Julie left Flora when she was little. She doesn’t know that he caused the holocaust. She doesn’t know he’s kept on killing. Her father’s a monster. And she doesn’t even know.”
My eyes turn glassy.
She’s got me.
And I’m a complete idiot for bringing this up in the first place, but I was worried that she and Steffanie knew something and might let it slip in front of Julie.
Now they know too much.
I want to scream.
Instead, I stare at Meeka and try to sound threatening. “If you say anything, I swear, I’ll kill you.”
She laughs again. “You mean you’ll try.”
“I’m serious, Meeka.”
“Me, too. But hey, I don’t want to get her upset—”
“Good.”
“—because we need her to keep the grren off our backs. So... here’s the deal, Doc. We have a few nomads that we’ve traded with over the years.”
“Wait, Keane says you see a nomad, you kill him.”
“He’s so dramatic. Every fool has a price. Anyway, they get us information if we need it, so I’ll put out the word for your engine. But… if you play any games, I’ll wait till I get what I want—and then I’ll tell Julie everything.”
No, she won’t tell Julie everything.
Not the most horrible thing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
We return to our bodies in the river valley.
Tommy’s seated beside Brave, who’s protecting all of us with his six personas.
Ten more grren pace around us, hissing and growling.
It’s a standoff.
“Uh, Little Girl?” Tommy calls. “Your friend’s not exactly the lion king, and these other guys really wanna eat us.”
Julie crosses to Brave and connects with him.
I give Tommy the head’s up on our new alliance.
“Outstanding. So now we get the grren on board.”
“That’s up to Julie.”
“Roger that.”
Julie’s holding Brave’s ears and moving her mouth like she’s talking to the beast. She opens her eyes and faces us:
“I get the impression from him that the grren don’t care if we take all the snowter branches out of the valley, but they want something in return.”
“What?” I ask.
“They’re not saying yet.”
“So look here,” Tommy begins. “What do these monsters need besides food and water?”
“Shelter?” I suggest.
“What else?”
“Love and companionship?” Julie guesses.
“Aw, hell, we don’t have anything to trade.”
Julie connects again, and then gets to her feet. “Let’s go. He wants to show us something.”
Brave leads us into the cave. We pass through an opening, and then into a much wider section where Mama Grren and her cubs have sprawled out on an elaborate bed of leaves and branches.
The injured cub lies on its side, sweating and trembling, with Mama Grren nudging him with her nose.
“If we can help him, she and Brave will convince the grren to leave us alone, and we can get the branches,” Julie says.
Tommy groans. “Ain’t no doctor in the house.”
“I’ll get with Meeka,” I say. “Maybe they know somebody.”
“I’ll do it,” Julie says. “You look really tired.”
“You sure?” I ask.
“I got this. Why don’t you just get some rest.”
* * *
I dream of the island.
Julie and her mother are here on their first visit. We have dinner. We watch the sunset on the beach.
And then, later on, around midnight, Julie sneaks into my room and asks if they put needles in my arms, too.
“Yeah, they do. But they don’t hurt too much.”
“Except in my heart,” she says.
“Yeah, that’s normal.”
I open the window, and we lie on the floor, staring at the stars. I try to hold her hand, but she pulls away.
“We should get married when we grow up,” I tell her.
“Why?”
“Because that’s what people who love each other do.”
“But we don’t love each other.”
“Yes, we do.”
“You mean like friends?”
“No, I mean like, you know...”
“Doc, we’re just little kids.”
“So...”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know I’m still hungry.”
“You ate like a pig at dinner.”
“I am a pig.”
She elbows me in the ribs. “You ever wish your dad would marry my mom?”
“Never.”
“Why not?”
“Because then you’d be my stepsister, and I couldn’t love you anymore.”
“Why?”
“It’s illegal.”
“Oh.” She thinks a moment. “I like your dad.”
“Me, too.”
“I wish I had one like him.”
“Do you know how your father died?”
She shrugs. “I think he got sick.”
“Are you scared of dying?”
“Yeah.”
“Me, too.”
She sits up. “I’m going back to my room.”
“Okay. But first, will you marry me?”
“No. I’m never getting married. I’m going to be an old lady with lots of cats.”
“Okay. Friends forever?”
She draws a circle around her heart, and then crosses it.
I do the same. No one else does this. It’s our secret. I’m not sure how we came up with it, but it feels important.
“See you tomorrow,” she says.
Some time later, I fall asleep.
* * *
When I wake up, I’m still on the floor…
But now the ceiling’s made of stone.
I’m inside Mama Grren’s cave, where she allowed us to stay the night.
Julie’s staring at me. “You were talking in your sleep.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“You kept asking me to marry you.”
I sit up and rub my eyes. “Terrible nightmare, I guess.”
She punches me in the arm. “Even though you drive me insane, you’re okay.”
“You, too. What time is it?”
“Morning, I guess.” She flicks her gaze toward the sunlight filtering in through the tunnel. “Tommy and Brave went to the river.”
&n
bsp; “He should’ve waited for us.”
“You know he wouldn’t.”
I nod. “So how’s the cub?”
“Still hanging on, but just barely. I got with Meeka. They actually know a doctor. She jumped up here in her persona, took a look, and now she’s coming back for real. She’s no vet, but she thinks she can save the cub.”
“That’s awesome. And I’m kind of jealous that you jumped all alone and made it.”
“It was pretty cool.”
“So can I ask you something? You ever feel like, I don’t know, like you get so mad at stuff that you’ll just go crazy? I mean do something really bad? Like something evil? Like kill someone?”
“Doc, what did you do?”
“I’m not confessing. I’m asking you a question.”
“Well, yeah, I get mad. A lot. Especially now, being here. Especially after my mom lied about everything. I feel like I wanna punch someone, you know?”
“Yeah…”
“So anyway, while I was back with the rumms, I learned more about this mirage stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Like kids have overdosed and died. If you take it for too long and stop, the withdrawal can kill you. It’s nasty stuff. But there’s a side effect. It’s good.”
“What’s that?”
“It helps speed up the training for noobs like us.”
Julie jumps into her persona, shakes hands with herself, and then paces around in both her body and persona. Her persona looks exactly as she does now, except for the usual glow. She smiles, waves, and then jumps back in her body.
“Wait, how did you... you took mirage?”
She nods. “I guess I was feeling sorry for myself and just wanted to feel better.”
“Where’d you get it?
“I found a tree right behind the cave.”
“How much did you take?”
“Just a tiny bit.”
“You got any more?”
“No, I was scared. I threw the rest away.”
We look up as Tommy hustles into the cave, with Brave on his heels. “All right, Marines. You take the good news with the bad. So we found water.”
“And the bad news?” I ask.
“Come on,” he says. “I’ll show you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The hoverjet maneuvers between the giant tree trunks...
...thunders over our heads...
...and then wheels around for another sweep.
The door gunners wear goggles shaped like binoculars.
“Not sure how much fuel they’ll waste on us, but if we’re bringing up that caravan, we do it tonight,” Tommy says, coming up from the boulders. “No sooner.”
“Yeah, but the doctor’s already on her way,” says Julie.
“Ah, she could give away our position.”
“I think it’s just her and Keane. They’re on bikes.”
“Hopefully our boy will keep them out of sight. Now stay tight to the trees, and follow me.”
We hike along the hillside, across a checkerboard of rocks, and down toward the riverbank.
There, Tommy crouches down and splashes water in his face. “Contaminated or not, it’s cold and fresh. And if I glow in the dark, I’ll be just like you.” He winks and smiles.
I drop to my knees. Cup water in my hands. It’s crystal clear. This is an almost religious experience. I take a sip and sigh as it slides down my throat.
We’re there for several minutes, with Tommy cautioning us not too drink too much, especially being dehydrated. We could get pretty sick. I chance a look at Julie, who looks amazing with her hair slicked back, her eyelashes glittering in the sun.
And what’s up with her? I can’t believe she actually took some mirage... Was the promise of new magic just too great to resist? Or was it like she said, just trying to make herself feel better with her new abilities? And if she’s feeling this bad already, how is she going to take it when I tell her the truth about her father?
Brave licks his chops and nods at Tommy. For a second, I think he’s going to attack, but he swings around and trots off.
“Come on, y’all. I think he wants to show us something.”
Brave leads us along the river for a few minutes, and then up through a thicket rising to our waists. The shrubs smell like Lucky Charms—or maybe that’s my hunger getting the best of me.
Brave jumps into his six personas, and they begin clearing us a path with their claws. They’re on a Wolverine rampage, slicing and dicing until we come upon the crash site of another hoverjet.
Looks pretty recent. No vines or weeds. Pieces of the craft scattered everywhere. The main fuselage lies mostly intact but covered in deep gouges and slash marks. The canopy’s buried beneath a thick root.
“He’s showing me what happened,” Julie says, stroking one of Brave’s glowing personas. “They were flying very low, trying to shoot some grren. But there was one thing they forgot.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“The grren are not only excellent diggers. They can climb.” She lifts her head to the colossal trees above us—
And I’m blown away.
Hundreds of grren scrutinize us from the branches.
When they realize we see them, they raise their heads and hiss and click at us.
“So they brought down this bird and took their lunch to go,” Tommy says, squeezing my shoulder. “We’ve seen that up close and personal.”
“Hell, yeah, we have,” I say.
Julie gestures to the hoverjet. “He wants us to go inside.”
“I got it,” Tommy says. “Wait here.” He starts forward, ducks into the bay, and then disappears. The hoverjet creaks as he shifts toward the back.
“Anything?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer.
“Tommy?”
He returns outside—
Holding up a can of green beans from Publix, a grocery store based in Florida. United States. Planet Earth.
Julie and I gasp.
“There’s cases and cases in there,” Tommy says. “Like the Good Lord himself airdropped it in.”
“Where could they...” I break off. “The only way...”
Tommy’s already nodding. “Solomon’s got control of your dad’s engine. He’s transporting supplies to his army.”
“Brave saw the pictures on the cans and must’ve realized it was food,” Julie says.
“Why didn’t they eat it themselves?” I ask.
Julie laughs. “Doc, do they look like vegetarians?”
“Uh, no, I guess not. This is just crazy.”
“Yeah,” Tommy says. “Because we got no can opener.”
* * *
We carry a few cases of assorted vegetables back to the cave. We’ll need to head out again and bring back the rest, at least twenty cases in all. Tommy found a toolbox inside the hoverjet, and we’re able to crack open some carrots, green beans, and sweet corn.
I consume two entire cans and drink the juice. I’ve never been a veggie fan. I am now.
Julie offers some green beans to Brave. He takes one sniff, and then reacts with a burping noise. Nope, he’s no vegan.
By the time we’re done eating, a breathless Keane arrives with the doctor. They dismount from beat-up old bikes cobbled together like the rumms’ cars and designed by either homeless people or crazy art students.
“Guys, this is Doctor Valaria.”
“Sun, water, sand,” she says, lifting her goggles.
“It’s an old greeting,” Keane explains. “It means I’m glad to enjoy life with you. People used to say it a long time ago, before the bombs.”
The doctor laughs. “I’m not that old. And just call me Val.”
In truth, she’s about Tommy’s age, with gray hair bound in a braid that swings like a pendulum behind her shoulders.
She’s lean, too, like most of the rumms, with the same hard face and rough skin. She’s like an aging Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, and her eyes—bluish gree
n and amazingly wide—seem to light up the entire cave.
Tommy notices this too. He’s locked on target and rushes over to offer his hand. “Well, hello there, Val. Major Thomas McMillan, United States Marine Corps, at your service.”
“You’re from Earth?” she asks, accepting the handshake.
Tommy looks at me. He needs a translator.
I repeat Val’s question.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m from Promised Land, South Carolina.”
“Sounds like a nice place.”
“It is.”
“So when I’m finished with the cub, would you mind if I examine you?”
“No, examine me as much as you like.” Tommy looks at me and wriggles his brows.
He deserves a roll of the eyes. And he gets one.
Meanwhile, Keane, who carries a heavy backpack, slides it off and hands it to Val.
“Let’s get started,” she says.
“Ma’am, I’ll be your assistant,” Tommy says. “I’ve known some fine Navy corpsman in my time.”
Val looks at me. “Tell him he can watch.”
* * *
The operation hasn’t even started, and I’m already tense. Julie’s connected to both Brave and Mama Grren, and she’s trying to keep them calm. Val injects the cub with sleeping medication and says she’ll try to remove the bullet, try to repair some of the damage, and then sew up the area. She’s worried about blood loss, so Julie needs to convince Mama Grren to donate some blood if necessary.
I conveniently volunteer to stand guard outside the cave with Keane. It’s just too nerve-wracking in there.
I mean, think about it. If this goes south, the grren could freak out and shred us, despite Julie’s connection with them.
At the very least, if the doctor fails, the grren might refuse to let us take the snowter branches. Our deal with Meeka and Steffanie will fall apart, and we’ll be forced to search for the engine on our own.
“Want to hear something?” I ask Keane, trying to take my mind off the situation. “Julie took some mirage.”
“No way.”
“Yeah. She’s got skills now.”
He’s surprised. “Wow, she kind of said we’re all addicted. What was that word she used? Crackheads?”
“Yeah. So you think I should take some?”
“That’s up to you.”
“Do you take it?”
“After my father died, I did. But I don’t like to waste it on myself anymore. There are people worse off than me. Plus, if I got some, I’d rather buy stuff with it.”