I liked Vala, I really did. Still, a part of me didn’t trust her. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was her ‘better than you’ attitude she projected, or the arrogance she was unaware of. Davis saw it, he didn’t say much about it.
He is our leader, and while he doesn’t always make the right decisions, he tries, and we respect him. He’s been like my father since I was a child. I don’t remember my real parents. Even though I was five years old when I last saw them and should have some sort of recollection, I don’t. I was told their ending wasn’t kind and Davis took me in immediately.
Davis is a big dude, with a huge heart and a knack for playing guitar. A lot of the elders talk about Davis in past tense. They say, “Oh, man, he was like a big country star. Back in the day …” I’m not sure exactly what that meant. Everyone old enough to remember the world before it ended uses the saying, “back in the day’.
Best I can figure is he was famous for singing. I don’t get his singing voice, it’s the same as his talking voice, deep with a yang to it. People like it though. They ask him all the time to sing.
I do what he says, out of respect and, well, because Davis was around before the world went to pot and he knows things. Davis also doesn’t dismiss me even though I’m young. One would think, in a world that was pretty much scratched out, at nineteen I would be respected. Instead, I’m still treated as a child.
I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that in the beginning, a lot of kids didn’t survive. They were killed by Savages or they were starved out.
In Angeles City, we are the remaining hub of old world civilization, or as close to it as you get. We remember the world and make it a point to teach others.
We also get strays from the Straits. That’s the area where tiny villages are set up for people by the Sybaris. We call these people Minnies, a nice nickname for minions, because that’s what they are with the Sybaris.
They know only that world and what the Civilized Sybaris tell them. The Civvies raise them, train them, choose them, and feed from them.
And heck, the Minnies just hold out their arms and let them take the blood. Me, me, me, pick me!. I’ll be your slave, your servant, your livestock!
They even let them take their children. Yep. The Civvies take the human children, raise then until young adulthood, then turn them. They do this because they can’t have their own kids.
Unless of course, they mate with a Mare. A Mare can be male or female, and is either born or created, I don’t know the specifics. Some say God sent them to take down the Sybaris, like Moses. People believe he was the first Mare because he led the humans away from the Ancient Sybaris and that starved them out.
The Sybaris claim the ‘Gods’ created them as a gift. Although, I don’t think the Sybaris of thousands of years ago thought Moses was all that much of a gift.
Just my observation.
Either way, a Mare can be dangerous or a godsend to both humans and Sybaris.
Vala is a Mare.
This complicates things when it comes to my feelings for her.
I said something to Davis the night before the Lyons Estates attack. Vala had been getting these creepy visits from her so called teacher, Iry. This teacher was a young Sybaris. Why he was bothering her so much, I don’t know. He warned Vala that an attack was coming, and Davis dismissed it as a lie.
Vala, no matter how cool her abilities, is not in control of them. Marie, Vala’s appointed mother figure, took her to a small town outside of Angeles City to show Vala what happens when a Mare loses control.
The town was overrun by Day Stalkers and the Mare had struck out wildly in defense, killing the Stalkers and the people of the town.
I followed them to the town because it was my job to keep an eye on Vala, and I told Davis. He was not happy. He and Marie got into it, and Vala stopped speaking to me.
That evening, I told Davis how I liked Vala but a part of me was unsure. Even though she went through the bunker training where they taught her how to be like us, a part of her wasn’t.
“Why do you think that is?” I asked him. “She seems nice enough, still, there is something I don’t trust.”
“Maybe it’s not her you don’t trust, rather what she is, or who she is,” Davis suggested.
“I don’t understand.”
Davis replied in a nonchalant manner while fiddling with his guitar. “Well, you can take the boy from the country, but you can’t take the country from the boy.”
“What the heck does that mean?” I asked. “Seriously.”
“I never said that to you before?”
“No.”
Davis looked up at me with a smile. “Okay, I’m from the country.”
“This country. America.”
He laughed. “You sound like Vala. Country is a term for more simplistic living. The area, the people, it’s more open, fewer buildings. Sometimes south, sometimes deep in the woods or on a farm. Animals, tress, country living. I’m from the country. Down to earth, home boy.”
That made me laugh.
“Most people from the country talk like me.”
“That slip sliding, drawn out way you talk and sing?”
“Yes.” Davis nodded. “My way of acting. Even though I live out here in the city now, or what’s left of it, I still act like that country boy. You can take the boy from the country, but the country is still in here.” He pointed to his heart.
“Ah.” I nodded, finally getting what he meant. “So like in Vala’s case, you can take the Minnie from the Sybaris, but can’t take the Sybaris from the Minnie.”
“In a way, yes. You can take her away from the influence, but the influence will always be there. Like growing up Catholic.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Vala was raised by them, she carries that infliction that they embedded in her.”
“Whoa. Good word choice.”
“What about Rusty?” I asked. Russell, or Rusty as we called him, was from the Straits. He had designed the deprogramming protocol that Vala went through.
Davis shrugged. “You have to ask him. I know the boys are raised differently.”
“Vala says they aren’t.”
“Tanner, what is it you want to know?” Davis huffed. “What are you searching for?’
I didn’t have an answer. I only knew something about Vala didn’t feel right, and I just didn’t know what that was. I wanted to know. I wanted to fully like her and trust her, however, a part of me wouldn’t allow myself.
That answer was not one Davis could give me and was one I had to discover on my own.