4
Bodhi watched Selah leave. The look of anger on her face was unmistakable. He crossed the hall to the teaching theater and pulled open the door, aware of his diminishing strength. A week ago he’d have barely noticed the weight of the thick wooden door.
Glade was still sitting down at the front, bent over a slew of old maps. Bodhi rushed down the stairs and over to the table attached to Glade’s desk.
“I don’t know what you said to your daughter, but you have to stop treating her like that.”
Seemingly unfazed by Bodhi’s outburst, Glade peered over the magnifying lenses, then back down at his work.
“Selah looked like she was angry and ready to cry when she left here.”
“And what business is that of yours? Need I remind you that I’ve ordered you away from my daughter?”
Bodhi leaned forward and rested his palms on the tabletop. “I made a bad deal, and I’m going to back out of it. I love your daughter, and I’m going to be with her whether you like it or not.”
Glade leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers together. “Is that so? Tell me, what do you still remember of your past? Keep in mind that I run this community, so where are you going to take her to live? And while I’m on the subject of living, how long do you think your life will be now that your abilities are waning?”
Bodhi’s bluster faded. He froze, momentarily overwhelmed, not able to give satisfactory answers to any of those questions. “But I love her.”
Glade smiled wryly. “Love is never enough. Now, I would like to think this will be the last time we have this unpleasantness. I was serious when I said you’re to be my right hand and confidant on this project. I need your undivided attention, and that is why there’s no room for romancing my daughter.”
Bodhi straightened his shoulders. “How can you have so much trust in me when you know I don’t like you for holding the rest of my life hostage?”
“Because, my friend—”
“Don’t call me your friend,” Bodhi said, disgust in his voice. “I’m no friend of yours.”
“But you are in love with my daughter, and her safety is the reason for all of this.”
Bodhi glared daggers at Glade. If there was ever a time he wished another man harm, it was surely now. “I can’t believe you’d have the audacity to bring that up after the litany of intimidation you just laid on me.”
Glade waved a hand over the maps. “This project is about finding the way to the West.”
“And I care about your project why?”
“Because it’s important to Selah as a novarium.”
“Why should I believe you?”
Glade pointed a finger at him. “Because you’re the one who transitioned her. You’re the one who set her on this path, and you’re the one who is going to help me carry it through.” He frowned and ran his finger back over a section to find his place.
Bodhi’s heart pounded against his chest. He took the stool next to the table. “Are you saying that just to undercut my attitude about you?”
“It’s time we talk seriously, and no more of this male posturing. If I agree to that, will you?” Glade stood and held out a hand.
Bodhi hesitated. If he made peace with Glade, that was the end of it. There was no turning back on a bond. There hadn’t been an opportunity to feel any spirit of kinship, other than when they first left the Mountain. That sense quickly faded in Baltimore when Glade took up a fast friendship with Jaenen Malik. Bodhi had a bad feeling about that guy. But could he trust this man?
He took a deep breath, exhaled, and stood up. He stuck out his hand and gripped Glade above the wrist, arm to arm, pulse to pulse. They pumped a shake. Bonded forever, however long that was fated to be.
Bodhi held on until he felt Glade’s grip relax. He didn’t want it to seem that he didn’t know the customs involved in making a bond. They parted and Glade motioned him to take a seat.
“Can I get some answers now?” Bodhi’s desire to understand this place competed with the knowledge that as his memories faded, his past moved into oblivion.
“Yes, we’re going to spend a lot of time together, so you might as well get some answers now so I can have your full concentration on the work at hand.”
“Already I can’t remember home or what precipitated my coming here. How much of my memory will I lose?” Bodhi laced his fingers on the table, knuckles turning white, waiting for the sentence.
“What’s it been now? Three months? The Protocol has gone inert. You should have lost just about all the memory and abilities you’re going to lose. It’s interesting that you ask about memories rather than the strengthened abilities you gained coming here.”
Bodhi shook his head. “My past is more important than those. When you forget your mistakes, you’re doomed to make them again. What about longevity? Do I lose that also?”
“I truly can’t say. I’ve never known one of you long enough to find out.”
Bodhi tensed. “What do you mean?”
“Eventually the other Second Protocols like you left the community and never returned,” Glade said, turning away from Bodhi.
He felt the slight. There was something wrong in the way Glade said that. Was it painful for him to admit? Should he ask? Better still, did he want to know the answer?
Glade busied himself with reshuffling the maps. “That’s something to be discussed later.”
Bodhi understood the tone. He should drop the subject for now. But he made a mental note to ask about it again when the time presented itself. “When did you come here?”
Glade made a notation on his halo-tablet and looked up. “To TicCity?”
“No, I mean to this place, this country. You haven’t lost any abilities, and you only seem to have gained. I can’t believe your Protocol is the same as ours. We’re all prepared for some ability loss regardless of a transition.”
For a minute there was dead air, then Glade cleared his throat and spoke in a soft tone. “I could have stopped it from happening. The Sorrows were my fault.”
“You’re one of the originals? I thought you were just a progeny of that first generation.” Bodhi didn’t want to believe he was sitting with the catalyst of historic destruction.
“I could have stopped the nuclear explosions that set off the chain reaction.” Glade looked almost passive at the moment.
“You were here?” Some of Bodhi’s bluster dissolved as he looked at the pain on the man’s face. He couldn’t imagine bearing that much agony for eternity.
“Yes.” Glade spread his hands out over the map.
“You can’t expect me to believe you let a whole country be destroyed just because you could. There has to be another reason that makes more sense than this craziness. Why would you let this happen?”
Bodhi watched as Glade’s countenance changed. His shoulders drooped, then quaked as though he was being wracked with sobs, but there were no sounds. He stared off into the distance.
“Sometimes groanings are necessary for rebirth.”
“That’s more crazy talk!” Bodhi forgot the bond he’d just made and slammed his hand on the table. A disorganized group of old documents dislodged from a mountainous pile and fluttered to the floor like fall leaves, pulling a rolled map with them. The map bounced upon hitting the floor, the tie holding it strung open, and the map unrolled.
Bodhi wanted to rage about the logic of destroying a society and millions of people, but the look on Glade’s face said he’d better pick up the documents first. He ground his teeth and bent over to retrieve the pages and map. Slow, steady breath. He picked up the map with shaking hands and began to reroll it. A small image caught his eye. He rolled past it, then stopped. He unrolled the map and spread it out on the table.
His eyes widened and his heartbeat began to race. “What is this map for?”
“These are the only clues we have to finding the way to the West. The Third Protocol left behind detailed instructions, but warring factions over the last hundred years have destroyed the data in an effort to keep us from finding the key. This is all that’s left,” Glade said.
“Have you noticed this?” Bodhi pointed with shaky fingers at the drawn image. This had to be something. It was too much of a coincidence.
Glade looked. “I don’t see what interests you.”
Bodhi twisted the map around to Glade so that the image drawn into the land topography became noticeable. He pressed his finger to the spot, tracing the ovals. “This is the symbol of Treva’s uncle—his settlement, Stone Braide.”
Glade’s eyes lit up. “I knew you’d be an asset!” He shuffled through documents. Papers scattered everywhere.
Bodhi screwed up his lip at the disorganized chaos. Before coming here, he didn’t even remember paper as a medium. “Can all of this be scanned into a halo-tablet or bio-computer?”
“No, no,” Glade said, obviously distracted and excited by the revelation. “Subtle nuances will be lost by scanning. I never saw that symbol, and I’ve looked at that map a hundred times.” He scrambled to the pile on the floor and shuffled through the pages, grabbing specific sheets. “This is the first solid clue I’ve had since before I went away. My boy, you have redeemed yourself. Change of plans. Reschedule our departure for as soon as possible and inform Taraji of the change in plans. We’re going to Stone Braide.”
Bodhi gulped, not sure how helpful it was heading back to Stone Braide. He didn’t want to leave Selah, at least while Jaenen Malik was still in TicCity. And he definitely didn’t want to go back in the direction of that Mountain. “Is it necessary for me to accompany you on this trip? Are there other things I could do here to aid your research?”
“There’s nothing more important than this trip. It’s the first lead in years, and it comes at a very important time.”
“But there must be—”
“As a novarium, Selah is in danger.”
Bodhi narrowed his eyes. “So if being a novarium put her life in danger, why did you leave her and her mother? After all, you were in captivity for eighteen years. If I hadn’t come along you might still be there.”
Glade shook his head. “I wasn’t supposed to be there that long.”
“You knew how long you’d be in jail? Forgive me if I don’t believe you.” Bodhi would need to know a lot of details before believing this story.
“Actually, I owe you a lot of answers. You’ve been the fated answer to most of this.” Glade’s tone softened considerably, not just with sadness but with actual signs of friendship. “Do you really love my daughter?”
“Of course I do. You already know that.” Bodhi would follow that woman across the earth, regardless of her father’s plan, but the closer he could stay to her, the better.
“Then you’ll help me. You’ll dedicate yourself to the completion of this project. And my goals will become your goals—for Selah.”
“What specifically does this have to do with Selah?” Bodhi asked.
Glade looked him straight in the eye. “If I haven’t found the key to the West, and the Third Protocol, in nine months, then like all of the novarium before her, Selah will fragment.”