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Sierra looked out into the expanse and I looked out with her. The sun was moving behind Central now. It was still, quiet—too quiet.
Out in the expanse, I saw the machines. The long line of trucks was barely visible within a great cloud of dust, but they were there, cutting a ribbon across the dry land.
I took the field glasses from my pack and looked through them. I focused on the side window of a driverless truck, peered into the vacant cabin and then I followed the long line of trucks, counting as I went.
The trucks were so close together they looked like one long train, but I knew what I saw wasn’t a train. Luke took me to the place where the trains ran once. I saw the difference and knew then that convoys weren’t trains.
Convoys were trucks. 64 trucks to be exact. Always. Each a hair’s breadth apart, moving from one side of the expanse to the other before disappearing from sight.
From where we watched, it seemed they moved slowly, but when I put the glasses on them I knew otherwise. Their movement was a dance, a race. A race to get across the expanse and disappear.
I took the book out of my pack and showed it to Sierra. “Did Luke show this to you? Did he ask you to remember?”
Sierra reached out to touch the book. She was trying to find her words, I could see it.
I pulled the book away. “Mine,” I reminded her. “Not yours, but I’ll share. It’s okay to share.”
Sierra was new among us, having fallen from the sky only recently. Well, newer than Linc and Chevy at least, but not as new as Jetta and Rabbit. Matthew spoke the laws daily, but I wanted to be sure she understood. “Mine,” I repeated and I put the book back to where she could touch it if she wanted to.
Sierra moved her fingers across the page. “Words, letters,” I said.
The look in Sierra’s eyes told me she understood.
I wanted to say, “I can teach them to you, as Luke taught me.” But I didn’t. Instead, I showed her a picture of before, of when we drove and flew and rode. “Before,” I whispered.
“Before,” Sierra finally managed to say.
I didn’t know for sure if Sierra understood what she was seeing. Still, I touched the things and spoke their names as Luke had done. “Man. Woman. Child. Car…”
Sierra said nothing but her eyes seemed to ask, “Why?”
“To know,” I said. “To know and remember.”
Sierra looked around. I knew she was looking for Luke.
I touched her hand to the book. “Luke told me this is what was.”
I waved my hands and pointed to the stone ghosts behind us and to the great emptiness in front of us. “This is what is.”
But even as I said it, I knew this wasn’t quite right. Then just for a moment, it seemed that what was and what is were one—or that they are one really. In my mind, I see them. The cars. The planes. The trains. But it’s not the machines controlling them. It’s us. The humans. But how?
It’s funny how past and present blend. How easily they slip together and become one even though I know it is wrong. But why? Why is it wrong?
Why can’t I slip from past to present? Why can’t I slip from present to past?
The present is. The past was.
I don’t know how to explain what’s in my mind. The things I could never tell Luke about because he said slipping was wrong. But how am I supposed to remember without slipping. I see things. Flashes of things really. A hand in mine. Sunshine through an open window. A tall glass raised to red lips. A long, oblong table lit by a pair of red candles.
I see curly locks of long golden hair between my fingers. The hair is not mine. My hair is long and straight, though blond too.
There’s an emptiness in the place where Luke said there would be. I don’t know why. I don’t know how to fill the void. I wish I did. I do. I really do.
Sierra is here. Her presence helps. It doesn’t fill the hole within me, but it should. Somehow I know it should, but it doesn’t.
There’s a sudden wetness on my cheeks. I try to wipe it away, but before I do Sierra touches it. The look in her green eyes is startling. Somehow I know it’s like the look in my own eyes.
“What is it? What do you feel?” I ask. These are Luke’s words. I no more understand them now than I understood them before. Except that maybe perhaps I do understand them now.
Sierra takes my hand in hers and wipes away my tears. In moments like this, I know she is like Luke and me. I know she is one of us.
Mimicking Luke, I touch her heart. “Is it here? Does it hurt? Do you feel?”
Sierra wrinkles her forehead, nods. “Luke,” she whispers.
“I know, I know. I miss him too. If he was here, he’d have the answers. He’d be able to help you, to help you speak, to help you feel.”
Curious to know more about what she’s experiencing, I touch the place where her eyebrows come together. She doesn’t seem to like it; she backs away.
I realize I’ve slipped into the present again. I can’t help it.
The past was. The present is.
“Luke will come back to us. He has to,” I say. In the back of my mind, I see him but only for a moment. He’s leaning against a wall and his tawny eyes are fixed on me, looking into and through me in a way that only he can. “He knows what to do. I don’t. I can’t help you be any more than I can help myself.”
As the sun marches across the blue sky, the machines disappear. Sierra and I stare out at the great expanse, waiting for what will be revealed next. Sometimes I think this is the worst of all the instructions. It’s the waiting really and the nothingness of it all. Then I remember what can happen and why I’m here. Why I’m here and the others aren’t.
Matthew asks me to go out and look because he knows when the next of us comes I will know what to do and he trusts me to do whatever must be done—just as he trusted Luke before. But only Luke and I know the secret. The secret of where we really come from.
I don’t know who shared the secret with Luke. I only know what I must do when it’s time. I only know that we don’t really fall from the sky. It’s what we say, but it’s not the truth.
The truth is different. Dangerous. A dangerous truth that I want—no, need—to share with Sierra. She’s ready. I know she’s ready. She’s not like the others. She’s like Luke and me. She’ll understand. She’ll know.