“We were worried when you didn’t show for breakfast or lunch, or to pick up Phoenix and Keller from school.”
“Oh my God, where are they?”
“In their room now. We have them.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and Patty. Why don’t you go get something to eat?”
I swung my legs from the bed. “I have food here.”
“I know, but you’ve been working so hard around here with the kids. Go get lunch. Renee saved you a plate. She made fish bites.”
Even before the world went to shit, I loved fresh fish. I could eat it every day. “Do you mind keeping an eye on them all?” I asked. “I can use the fresh air and food.”
“No, go on.”
I ran my hand down my son’s face as I headed toward the bathroom. “Danny? Look, I know you mean well and all, but Patty is a nice girl. Don’t lead her on, okay?” I paused before going in the bathroom. “I sounded like an overbearing mother right then, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but you’re fine.”
My son was becoming a very good man. I saw what was happening. He was attached to Patty, and he probably was afraid to tell me. In more ways than he knew he was so much like his father. I met Daniel when I was eighteen and pregnant by someone else. He took on Jessie as his own child.
Because of how Daniel was with me, I didn’t say anything to Danny. I just didn’t want him to mislead her. If his intentions were pure, I would stand behind him on it.
Since my wonderful son was offering to give me a break, I was going to take it. I took a quick shower then headed over to the cafeteria. I saw Sonny’s scooter, but opted against taking it. I was allowed to walk, even though I still wore out easily.
A plate of food was waiting for me in the cafeteria, a chicken and gravy concoction with a desert of apple plum pudding. Renee handed me the plate and made sure to tell me that while the pudding was homemade, the other stuff came from a can.
“Just trying not to overload everyone on fish,” she said. “One meal a day maybe.”
“Do we have that much fish?”
“Have you seen the scores going out there to fish?” she asked. “It’s a pastime. Until other assignments go up, we’ll be swimming in fish. Pun intended. Last night I was here until two am breading and freezing fish.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I took on the job,” Renee said.
“We appreciate all that you do. It has to be tough.”
Renee waved it away. “I was lunch lady in a school with five hundred kids. This is nothing. While I may need some help if we get more people, right now I’m handling it. I have supper started and I’ll take a good three hour break.”
“I want to be busy.”
“You are. You have all those kids.”
I shrugged. “They go to school. The boys go every day for a couple of hours. I feel like I don’t contribute. Did I ever?”
Renee closed her mouth tightly and stared at me. “Go eat your food. I have rice to stir.”
Taking that as her answer that I was never productive in the time she knew me, I followed her advice and walked into the dining room.
When I entered, I recognized the Fallen Soldier table from the days I visited Danny in military school. A lone table set up for a diner that would never come. Only this table was different. It had a small toy, an apron, a screwdriver, a book, different items that represented not just a soldier, but everyone that had fallen in our new war against extinction.
Stacey, the new girl, was seated at a table and I decided to join her. Once I sat down, I saw she was polishing silverware.
“How come you’re doing that?” I asked.
“Bored. It’s something to do,” she said. “You’re late for lunch. Are you not feeling well?”
“Tired. The baby was fussy and I fell asleep when she did. Sometimes I wonder if she’s hungry. I don’t produce milk and I know that Lenore pumps and gives us our supply, but I just worry it’s not enough.”
“Do you want me to try and pump?”
I looked up at her and suddenly I felt bad. I didn’t even know she was a mother. “Stacey, thank you. I can’t ask you to do that.”
“Oh, no problem. I would love to help. One day I will have a child and I’ll need to learn how.”
“You never had a child?”
She shook her head.
“Why do you think you can pump breast milk?”
She snickered and clutched her huge breasts. “Have you noticed the size of these things? I’m sure they are packed.”
“Well,” I cleared my throat, “you might as well try.”
“Exactly.” She paused. “What did they do in the old days? Before formula?”
“Maybe what we’re doing. Women sharing breast milk,” I replied. “They made formula with milk and sugar, I think. Fed the babies solid food early.”
“Well if you can make formula with regular milk, you should ask the man across the bay. He has milk, or did. Not breast milk. I don’t think.”
“The man across the bay, the one no one sees, has milk?”
“Not breast milk.”
“How do you know?
“He’s a man. Unless men get breast milk.”
“No. No. I mean how do you know he has milk if no one talks to him?”
“I didn’t say that. He just doesn’t come over often. Only when he has too much fish or when we lived here, once a week he’d bring a container of milk. Leo used to skim the cream from the top then we’d put it in the water to keep it cool.”
“I wonder if he still has milk over there? How is he getting it?”
Stacey shrugged. “Maybe he has a cow, or knows where one is. He was there long before we were and he’s still there. So he’s doing something right.”
I wanted to feel encouraged by Stacey’s words, but it was hard considering she often got confused and was known to have told Sonny one thing and Randy another. It wasn’t that she lied, she just was a little bit of an airhead.
“You could go ask him instead of waiting for him to come over. It’s not that far. From our boats to his shore it’s not even a football field. Don’t swim, it’s not good for you.”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t swim.”
“Take a boat, there are plenty.”
“Alex said some aren’t seaworthy.”
“Then tell that to the man who makes the moonshine. He takes the one with the paddles out every morning.”
“There’s a rowboat?”
“Yeah, two of them. If you want I can take you over. I’m pretty good at sailing.”
“You said it was a rowboat.”
She nodded with a smile. “Yes. I can sail a rowboat.”
“You know what? I can too.”
“Do you want me to row you?”
I thought about it for a second. “Yeah, let’s do this. If I let him know I need milk and he knows where to find it, maybe he can help.”
“Let’s go.”
I scooped up my pudding, and after hollering to Renee that I’d be back to do my dish, I headed out with Stacey.
I knew it was a decent walk to the pier, so I walked across the area and got on Sonny’s scooter. Stacey and I took that to the parking lot by the pier.
She led the way down the stairs. “There, the blue one. That’s the one that moonshine guy takes out. The paddles are in there.”
As we made our way to the boat, I looked across the water. It wasn’t that far. Still, it was a bit insane to go over. Admittedly, it wasn’t just the milk, it was curiosity about the man who had been living in isolation for so long. He was a mystery, an anomaly. He’d probably lost everyone he loved and never wanted to speak to another human being. His dropping off milk and fish was his way of getting human contact, I supposed.
Stacey helped me
into the rowboat then she untied it, tossed the rope in, and climbed inside. I wasn’t sure if that was the order she should have done it. I feared the boat tipping over.
Surprisingly, once we pushed away from the pier, she actually knew how to row and keep the boat steady and at a good pace.
“I’m excited,” she said. “I’ve never been over here. I’m curious to see where he lives. How he lives.”
“You don’t think he’ll kill us, do you?”
“No. Peter is really nice.”
“Wait. What did you say his name was?”
“Peter.”
My stomach flipped. Peter was the name Ed had given to me. He was the man I was supposed to give the time control device to if Ed didn’t make it. Of course Ed didn’t remember him much, since Phoenix was a baby.
I grew anxious about meeting him. It had to be the same Peter. It had to be. What were the odds? I needed to meet him and find out why he was the one who got the time travel technology. Was he future? Maybe he was a brilliant scientist. Who was this man? What was so important about him?
I truly hoped it was the same Peter. When we arrived at his small pier, there was a single boat. My heart pounded until Stacey said, “He’s not here.”
“How do you know?”
She tossed the rope on the pier, then climbed up and secured our boat. “He has two boats.”
“Damn it.”
“We can wait here, or go to his house and leave a note.”
“Let’s do that,” I suggested. I took her hand and she aided me onto the pier. We took a worn tree lined path he obviously walked on all the time. At the end of the path was a yard. The grass was as tall as I was, but I could see his house about fifty yards away.
It was a huge house, one of the ones I always dreamed of having. It wasn’t secure; there was a fence, but it was maybe four feet tall.
Once we reached the fence, I saw the pool. Unlike the one on base his pool wasn’t full of algae and debris. It was clean and the water was crystal clear.
A simple swing gate was unlocked so we opened it and entered the yard. It had to be his house. It was kept up.
“A pool. It’s beautiful.” Stacey immediately kicked off her shoes.
“What are you doing?”
“I just want to put my feet in it.”
“Go on. I’m gonna find a way to leave him a note.”
Stacey giggled and sat on the edge of the pool. The whole pool area didn’t look like anything in a post-apocalypse world. Patio furniture with strung lights? There were two generators right off the patio doors, but neither was on and they didn’t look connected.
Was I wrong for going into his house? I wondered how upset he would be. Before I did I double checked the backyard for something to leave a note on.
Upon finding nothing, I slid open the doors and walked in. It wasn’t what I expected. I thought maybe it would be stacked with boxes, survivor supplies and such. It wasn’t. It was clean. The dining room table had a shine to it as if he had polished it. There were pictures on the wall, but they weren’t of anyone. More like ones that were bought at a home store.
The only odd thing was the huge freezer placed in the middle of the dining room. I walked to it and lifted the lid, briefly wondering if there was a body in there. A cloud of mist rose up and then I saw he had fish wrapped in there. I closed the lid and walked to the kitchen. A single dish was in the sink.
Curious, I opened his refrigerator. Sure enough there was a pitcher of milk and not only that, a small dish of butter. I lifted it and sniffed it. I wanted so badly to just take a clump, but I wasn’t there to steal his food.
I closed the fridge and began my search for a pen and paper.
My first thought was to check drawers. Everyone had a junk drawer where they threw things.
His drawers were organized. One was utensils, the other serving ware. At last I found the ones with pens and pencils. I snatched a pencil. I just needed a piece of paper. The next drawer I opened didn’t have paper, it had a black case, like an iPad case, and on top of it was something I didn’t recognize.
It looked like a ruler, thin, black, no numbers or lines, but it felt heavy. After looking at it for a moment, I put it back.
Just as I pushed the drawer closed, I heard his voice.
“Can I help you?”
I closed my eyes, my heart pounding. I felt like an intruder. “I am so sorry. I was just…” I turned around and faced him and if I thought my heart was racing before, it pushed the limits of blasting from my chest.
He exhaled heavily and smiled, rushing over. “Mera, they said you’d come,” he said excitedly. “I’ve been waiting on you. I didn’t expect you for another four years.”
My eyes widened, and I jumped when he grabbed my hand. “How…how is…how…” I stuttered in shock. “Oh my God.” His hair, the curly hair, that unmistakably handsome face and warm eyes. I knew those eyes. I had stared into those eyes a million times.
Trying to catch my breath, I could only gasp, “Daniel.”
33. Alex
Sonny was probably wondering what was wrong with me. After speaking to Javier I was frazzled, and beyond that, worried for my friend. If indeed Sonny was the infamous Sandman in the future, we had to do something. Ed never mentioned Sonny dying, he never mentioned it at all. In fact, I was left to wonder if we did it. I was actually convinced we created a new and improved Sandman. In the future the cloaking serum came later, which meant they probably didn’t use Michael’s blood.
I needed to speak to Beck, I had to tell him what we found out. Together we would decide whether or not to tell Sonny. We told Michael and he took steps, I believed Sonny would too,
On the ride back, I asked Javier, “Why didn’t you tell us the cloaking serum ability expired?”
“I wasn’t sure. Blood tests show it is still fighting off the virus. So, in effect it is an inoculation, but I think once it becomes a vaccine, it stops the cloaking. To be honest with you, Alex, I don’t know.”
Hadn’t Ed told us everything? I wanted those letters he gave Mera, the ones we weren’t supposed to look at. I needed to see them, to see the course of action we took over and over and failed. If Ed didn’t fix it, I would.
Yet we took every precaution Ed put into place. The future Phoenix was confident.
Continue the Reckoning, slay the Sleepers, keep the east clean.
The East Coast was clean. With the exception of a few Sleepers it was nothing like the Midwest.
Javier lived, that had to account for something. Maybe Sonny was just morphing. Maybe Michael was the Sandman and the one calling the Sleepers. Surely, after six weeks, if Sonny started to inadvertently call them, we would have seen them.
Then again, the cloaking was working.
My head spun. I needed to sit down with Beck. He was always less emotional and more clearheaded about things than me. I ran with my gut; he thought out his path.
We were a great team even though we had a pretty intense love/hate relationship.
When we arrived back on base, I radioed Beck. Last I spoke to him was a half hour before and all was fine. Why would I expect it to change?
Something did change, and I knew it when Beck asked if I could come to observation.
I wasn’t even sure what that meant, but since I knew he and Miles were working on radar, I went to the dedicated radar room.
Miles and Beck were before the panel of radar screens. Only two of them were on.
“What’s up?” I asked.
Beck looked at me, then looked again. “You all right? You look pale.”
“It’s been a hell of a couple hours,” I said.
“What happened?” Beck asked.
“Why don’t you ask your buddy here about his Sleeper experiences. Or rather, if he still gets along with them?”
Mile
s sank into his chair.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I said. “A c couple days ago, Hot Doc discovered the serum wore off.”
Beck exhaled and ran his hand over his face. “It didn’t last in the future. We were expecting it.”
“No, we weren’t. That was the serum Levi made.”
“And that lasted, what?” Beck asked. “Hours? Come on, Alex, we got months out of it. We did it once, we can do it again. A lot can be done in months.”
“You’re so reasonable at times, I hate you,”
“Anything else?” Beck asked. “I need a clear head from you right now.”
“Um, nothing I can discuss here.” I nodded to Miles. “Oh, yeah, Hot Doc has Sleepers in the lab. He’s trying to infect them so he can create the Sansdemic.”
“That’s good.”
“He needs more Sleepers.”
Beck raised his eyebrows. After clearing his throat, he turned to the radar. “Great segue to why I brought you here.”
I leaned down and looked at both radars. “Looks like a storm brewing fifty miles due east. Won’t be too bad.”
“You know weather?” Beck asked.
“Learned in the Navy. However, this mess…” I pointed to the other radio, “here out west. That’s a weird shaped storm front, ‘bout four hundred miles out. Could break.”
“That’s line to sight, ground,” Beck said.
“Ground?” I asked. “What the hell is it? That has to be a low storm. It’s a huge mass.”
“It’s not a storm.” Beck stared at me for a second. “I believe…it’s Sleepers.”
For a moment I felt as if I had been hit with a baseball bat, but that feeling was replaced with a feeling of relief.
Not that I was happy about seeing a huge mass of Sleepers, but I was relieved that the worrying was over. I thought constantly about the future. Did we change it? Did we screw up? Are we all gonna be happy go lucky on our new beachfront property?
I obsessed about it to the point of being neurotic. There was no point to it now.
The serum was a bust. It would never be a forever solution. There was none.
With all I knew about Sonny, coupled with Beck not doing the Reckoning, I quickly realized Ed’s little time trip to save the future was pretty much in vain.
Sleepers (Book 7): Sleepers 7 Page 18