by Karen Haber
“I’m not fourteen,” Billy said, wounded. “I’m nearly sixteen.”
“Uh-huh,” Rick said. “Well, you almost didn’t make it to sixteen, friend. Still might not if you don’t get your head on straight. I’m going to do you a favor this time and help you clean this up. But next time I might not be around, and you wouldn’t enjoy becoming part of the local architecture. Believe me.”
Billy said nothing. He glared at Rick defiantly.
Rick nodded and in a flash the skimmer was clean. The girl’s boots sparkled in the lamplight.
“I need an address,” Rick said.
The girl frowned and looked at the ground, away from his probing gaze. “Three forty-two Morning Star Road,” she said.
“Get in the skimmer.”
She hesitated.
“Get in,” Rick said again.
This time they obeyed, slamming the doors.
“Good night, kiddies.”
The car was gone. I gazed through where it had been and saw the frost-rimmed terra-cotta walls of the plaza. It was quiet, eerily quiet in the plaza. Even the dogs had stopped barking.
“Jesus, Rick. You transported that entire skimmer.”
“Yep. And I’ll bet old Billy’s decorating the inside of it right about now. If he has anything left in his stomach.” Rick chuckled and for an eerie moment he was the image of our biological father, Skerry.
“If you hadn’t stopped them—” The words backed up in my throat.
“Yeah,” Rick said. “Dead. Those two, maybe you. Damn fools.” He spat out his toothpick. “I can’t protect everybody from themselves all the time. I wish I could.”
I owed him my life. In wonder and a little fear I stared at my brother, and a wave of awe swept over me, so powerful that for a moment I felt light-headed. Rick had saved us, saved those two kids and me. He didn’t want praise, didn’t want thanks. What he had just done was as natural for him as it was for me to breathe.
I had thought that I knew my brother, knew him in that private, intimate way that only twins enjoy. But he was stranger and greater than I had ever suspected. Unique. More powerful than I’d dreamed. The rules that applied to others couldn’t apply to him, and I had no right to ask that. I never would again. But I said none of these things for fear of sounding like a fool. Instead, I just reached out and squeezed his arm.
Rick turned tired eyes toward me. “How’s your digestive tract?”
“It wants to go home and get in bed.” I managed a weak smile.
“Hang on, then.”
With a deep breath I told my stomach to behave, and nodded.
Blackness swallowed us.
I stayed the night at Better World: my quarters were Spartan, bare wood floors with scatter rugs, a few pieces of rustic furniture, but the bed was comfortable and I slept better than I had in years.
Rick seemed to think I had come to stay but I quickly dispelled that idea the next morning. He was outside, working without a jacket, seemingly untroubled by the wintry air.
“I thought you said it was cold out here.”
He grinned. “Out there, yes. But I’m nice and cozy, thanks to a little bubble of air I brought along from inside.”
“I should have guessed.” Envy pricked me for the ease with which my brother could master his environment. “I’ve got to get back, Rick. I just took a quick leave to come out and see if you were really here.”
He gave me a keen, knowing look. “You didn’t just come out here to see me, did you, Julian?”
“Well, I—”
“No, don’t bother trying to find a good cover story. I know—the Mutant Council sent you, didn’t they?”
“Rick, it’s bad manners to eavesdrop on somebody else’s thoughts.” I felt my cheeks heating up with embarrassment.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping, little brother. Just making an educated guess. And from the color of your face, I guessed right. I knew that bunch of golden eyes would send somebody sooner or later. They’ve been trying to get hold of me for some time now. But I’m not interested in going to them. They’re welcome here if they want to help out.”
“Maybe you should go see them.”
“And do what? Offer myself up for their convenience? Become their errand boy? No thanks. What good did they ever do anybody? They’re just a bunch of misers, Julian. Stingy with their mutant skills when they could be helping millions of people. And should be.”
“They might make trouble for you.”
“Anything they want to dish out I can take. But you tell them that it’s a bad idea to antagonize me, Julian.” He left the threat hanging between us.
“I thought this was the new, improved Rick.”
He gave me a half-smile. “Yep. But I’m nobody’s fool. And as someone a whole lot smarter than me once said, you can afford to be gentle only when dealing from a position of strength.” He held out his hand and grasped mine firmly. “I’m sorry to see you go, little brother. There’ll always be a place for you here. But tell those golden-eyed bastards that if they don’t want to help me out, then they had better stay away.”
4
i went back to the mutant council with the bad news. A special meeting had been called, and the grand meeting hall was almost full. From across the room I noticed a striking woman: high cheekbones, the skin stretched tightly across them. Dark, curling hair provided the perfect frame for delicate features that might have been sculpted from porcelain and coated with a thin celadon glaze. Alanna, my half-sister, here. I hadn’t seen her in years. Why was she in attendance? Before I could reach her, or even use mindspeech to greet her, Joachim Metzger convened the meeting.
“You were right,” I said. “It’s hard to believe, but my brother does have an organization out there,” I said. “It’s called Better World. And he has pledged it to community duty. He seems to think the mutants have been rather lax in their public service and he’s trying to make amends. Unfortunately, it’s like trusting a child with liquid explosives.” There, I’d said it. I believed it, too. But I didn’t feel good about turning against my own brother, not one bit.
“If this is so, then he must be stopped,” Metzger said. “Before something truly dangerous occurs. We have had barely a hundred and fifty years of emergence and many nonmutants are still not comfortable with us. We simply can’t afford the risk.”
“Risk of what?” a woman’s voice called out fiercely. “Too many happy, pain-free, well-adjusted people? What’s wrong with that?” The voice sounded familiar, and when the speaker rose to her feet, I saw that she was Alanna.
“Julian, how can you be so disloyal?” she cried. “Perhaps you’re jealous of Rick. Hasn’t he suffered enough? Paid for his crime enough?”
“I can’t believe you’re defending him,” I said. “He killed your father.”
“Yes. And you exiled him for it.”
“I don’t deny that. Otherwise he would have gone to jail. Or hurt more people.”
“So instead you put him into his own private prison, with you as turnkey. Well, Julian, when is his sentence up?” Her golden eyes glittered with anger. “I think what Rick is doing is admirable, wonderful. His work could be of great benefit, not just to society in general, but to mutants in particular. The Mutant Council should support Rick Akimura’s Better World organization and offer to participate. Perhaps we could offer guidance to him—he might accept it as long as we were cooperating.”
I turned on her furiously. “Don’t be ridiculous, Alanna. Rick would never accept guidance in any form, from anyone. What are you saying?”
“I’m not denying that trying to work with Rick is a calculated risk,” she said. “But it’s one worth taking. Don’t condemn Rick. Don’t turn your back on him. Help him. My father would understand what he’s doing. Not only that, he would approve.”
There were muffled chuckles and I saw several gray-haired mutants smiling.
“Why shouldn’t we support Rick’s program of outreach to the nonmutants?” Alanna said. “W
hat’s wrong with it? In fact, I think it might be an even better means of bridging the gap between us.”
“We have programs in place—” Metzger said.
Alanna cut him off. “Are we so calcified in our behavior? So immobilized, so ritualized that we can’t share the riches of our mutant gifts with those who don’t have them?”
All around the room people were nodding their heads. Alanna was tremendously persuasive and she might just be able to swing a vote in favor of Rick. But she was wrong—I knew she was. Rick was still impulsive, dangerously unpredictable, and uncontrollable. With the best of intentions he could do dreadful damage. He had to be stopped.
“What are you trying to do,” I demanded. “Create an excuse to reestablish your ties to Rick, now that you know where he is?”
She glared at me and I knew that I had hit home. I didn’t enjoy doing it but I had to use any weapons I could to destroy her argument before she won everybody over.
“Don’t you wonder why he didn’t contact you, Alanna? Why he didn’t summon you? Are you certain that you want to force yourself upon him now?” I knew I was being cruel, going perhaps too far, but I couldn’t help myself. I was too afraid of the threat that Better World represented, and I had to try to stop my brother, even if that meant making an enemy of my sister.
Alanna gave me a look that both damned and dismissed me. Then she turned to face the Book Keeper. “I offer my services to spearhead a taskforce to contact Rick Akimura. I could represent mutant interests while participating in his organization and guiding it.”
“Do you think he will accept your interest and suggestions?” Metzger asked.
“It’s worth a try, isn’t it?” Alanna said.
“And I say we must stop him entirely,” I cried.
Metzger leaned forward. “What you say makes sense to me, Dr. Akimura. You know my feelings. But I must poll all here and see what they think.” He closed his eyes and I felt the brief touch of his mind as it reached out past me, across the crowded meeting hall into every mind there.
“Hmm, as I feared,” Metzger said, and chagrin was evident in his voice. “We are almost evenly divided. Therefore we can’t endorse either of your proposals.”
“This is a terrible mistake,” I said. “We mustn’t delay bur efforts.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Alanna said. “I’ll go to New Mexico right away.” She gave me a look of malicious triumph. The battle lines had been drawn between us and we both knew there was no retreating.
The air was cool and dry, and a welcome breeze set the yellow acacia blooms dancing in my parents’ yard. The January weather in Los Angeles was unusually warm, a gentle treat after the sub-zero days and nights of Boston. I finished my coffee and left the cup for the mechmaid to clear.
My mother sat across from me, lounging restlessly against the big blue pillows on the webseat. As meticulous and chic as ever, she wore a red stretch suit and her hair was cut in an asymmetrical curve that revealed glittering emerald earrings.
“So, Mother, should we talk about it?” I said.
She gave me a wry half-smile. “I was sort of hurt, you know. I thought, somehow, that Rick would get in touch with me, first. But I suppose that you’re the logical choice.”
“I don’t know about that. I’m the one who sent him into exile, remember?” I stared at a perfect pink rose bobbing in the warm breeze.
“When did he call you?” my mother asked. There was an unfamiliar tremulous tone to her voice that I didn’t care for.
“He didn’t. He dropped me a note.” My mother said nothing, merely toyed with her coffee cup. She was beginning to make me nervous. “When is Dad coming home? I’d love to hear his opinion of what Rick is up to.”
“A little before noon.”
“And what does he think?”
“He says it’s the usual crackpot reports from the provinces. You know Yosh.”
She had begun to refer to him as Yosh rather than “your father” in the months following Skerry’s death and it had become a habit with her. It saddened me that she still had trouble with that. Never for a moment had I considered Skerry my father in any but the biological sense. Yosh’s calm guidance had seen me through childhood fevers and fears, adolescent storms, and even some of the peculiar rites of manhood. In terms of love, and every other emotion, in the only terms that truly mattered to me, Yosh was and always would be my father.
“And what do you think?” I said.
“Well,” my mother said. “At first I ignored these rumors of miracles in the desert. At least I did until that little girl was saved. But then I knew. It had to be Rick.”
“And you approve? Of this entire crazy Better World group he’s got going?”
She nodded briskly. “Of course I do. And we have to go there, Julian. Right away.”
“Oh, sure, Mom. I’ll just quit my practice and we’ll leave Dad a note so he knows he has to fix his own dinner.”
“I don’t understand your attitude, Julian.”
“And I sure as hell don’t get yours.” I stared at her, amazed. “Have you forgotten who Rick is? And what he is?”
“I don’t care.” Her knuckles were white where she held the coffee cup. “Listen to me, Julian. He’s paid his debt. I want to see my boy.” She reached out and grasped my hand in a punishing grip. “Oh, Julian, don’t you see? If we don’t join with him now we might lose him forever. This is our one chance.”
“I’m not so sure you’re right. Or that losing him forever wouldn’t be the best solution for all involved.” I extricated my hand from the clamp of her fingers.
“How can you say that? He’s your brother. Your twin.”
“Mom, he’s a proven killer.”
“You know that was a mistake! He never intended to kill Skerry. He just wanted to be left alone with Alanna. Everything just happened too quickly for him on Ethan Hawkins’s damned space station—Rick barely had time to get accustomed to his mutant skills. Everybody was jumping on him. Besides, that was six years ago. He’s grown up since then, I’m sure of it. And I very much doubt that he’s hurt anybody since.”
Her defense rankled me. She had always been quick to protect Rick. Two nulls in a pod. “Mistake or no,” I said, “Skerry’s still dead, isn’t he? And Narlydda has never recovered from that. If Rick can do so much damage purely by accident, just imagine what he could do if he set his mind to it.”
She stared at me, shocked. “I can’t believe you would say that about him.”
“Mom, I love Rick as much as you do. But I’m not kidding myself when it comes to his nature. He’s reckless and unstable. And that’s a bad combination, especially when you add superior mutant skills to the brew. I’d just as soon he stay but in the desert for good. For his sake as well as ours.”
“Have you talked to Alanna?”
“Briefly.” I hadn’t yet told her what had happened at the Mutant Council. “I don’t think we’re exactly on speaking terms these days.”
“You shouldn’t just let family ties unravel.”
Just one big happy family, I thought. Or thinking will make it so. I took a deep breath and said, “Mom, she may be my genetic sister but she grew up with Skerry and Narlydda. I wish I could feel closer to her. But it’s not possible.” Especially now.
“Don’t be ridiculous. If you kept in better contact, you’d feel closer. And you’d know that Alanna has forgiven Rick. She told me so herself.” Mother nodded. “I knew that she would. She still loves him.”
I felt a sudden pang at her words, at the thought of Alanna still in love with Rick and rushing to his side. Well, hadn’t I accused her of just that? And how did I really feel about my beautiful half-sister? I didn’t want to probe that area too deeply for fear of what I might find. “Mom, I might as well tell you. Alanna and I had a falling out over Rick.”
“That’s foolish. If Alanna can forgive him, why can’t you?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Stop p
laying head games with me, Julian. You know how much you resent him for the mess he made. But do you really want to bury him in the desert?”
Before I could answer, my father walked in. He was wearing a loose-fitting black sweat suit and a brown leather jacket over that. There were more lines at the corners of his eyes than I remembered and his long hair was touched with gray.
“Julian.”
We shook hands gravely. He sat down next to me and patted my shoulder. “So Melanie has conjured you up from the land of Eastern Standard Time.”
“Dad, you don’t agree with Mom that she should go to New Mexico and join Rick, do you?”
A look flashed between my parents, opaque and unreadable. “I don’t know, Julian,” he said. “I don’t want to be the heavy here. But I certainly wouldn’t be happy if she went.”
“Which,” my mother said, “translates into no.”
My father frowned. “It seems like a foolish waste of time to me to go running around New Mexico. If Rick wanted you there, wouldn’t he ask you to come?”
“Better a cult of strangers than his own family?” Mother glared at me. Then she included her husband in the indictment. “I can never forgive myself for turning away from him.”
This was becoming a familiar refrain. I stood up. “Look, Mom, let’s skip the mea culpas, okay? You didn’t do anything to him—we didn’t do anything. He did it. He did it all.”
“Don’t we have any responsibility?” Melanie said. “Aren’t we all guilty of Skerry’s death?”
Dad cut in. “Don’t be so melodramatic, dear. I get plenty of that at the symphony.”
“I don’t think we’re guilty of anything except excess guilt,” I said. “I refuse to blame myself for what happened to Rick. And I’m still convinced he’s unstable and dangerous. Which is why I’m doing everything I can to stop him—and this crazy Better World group—before it creates trouble for everyone.”
For a moment no one said a word.
My mother broke the silence. “My God,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you would turn against kin, your own brother. Honestly, Julian. You’re so stubborn sometimes. You remind me of my father. He refused to bend, to accept change, and his attitude caused the family—and himself—a lot of pain.”