8
PEACE AT LAST
The fire lit the area Darwin and Teresa had chosen as their campsite, making the trees dance in the flickering light. As Estra had put more wood on the fire and removed some food from her pack, he had walked back to the highway in the dark and paced up and down the broken ribbon to make sure they weren’t visible and that she was truly alone. He spent the time thinking.
They hadn’t seen Estra since the battle that gave them the Source at Hoover Dam. Before that, she and her followers had rescued him from Phil when he’d been held as a prisoner. She’d been the first person he’d met who had worshipped him. Somehow, it had gotten out what he’d done at Quantum Labs—the Qabal headquarters—and she and her followers had built him into some sort of deity. That had almost turned bad. He’d lost track of her at the end of the war, and was happier for it.
Paul’s group in San Francisco were the same thing. Darwin worshippers. When they were being led around the site the first time, Paul had mentioned that their healer was on a sabbatical, that she had been away for quite some time but was expected back soon. Estra was that healer. She was part of the San Francisco cult that they had just escaped from. Had Teresa made the connection? From the laughter coming from them, he didn’t think so. He had to tell her before she said something she shouldn’t.
“Make sure the fire stays low and please be a bit more quiet,” he said. “We saw a group from Salem earlier today, and yesterday they attacked a small town. The last thing we want is to be seen by them.”
“It has been a while since you’ve been able to See, hasn’t it?” Estra asked. “Have you forgotten that they don’t need to see or hear us to know we’re here? They can just monitor the Threads and find us in a heartbeat. We’re not that far off the road.”
He remembered. But he also remembered that when he’d been able to do the same thing, he’d monitored the road more than the sides. They’d set up camp more than five hundred yards off the beaten path. Even someone keeping an eye out for people hiding in the ditch or just off the road shouldn’t have Seen them.
“We’re far enough,” Teresa said, as if reading his mind. “Estra was just saying how much she’s looking forward to being back home. San Francisco, you said, right?” She gave him a hard stare.
Estra nodded, still looking at Darwin. “Yup.” She sat down to eat what she had pulled from her pack. “Rumor has it you two were there for a while. I didn’t believe it. Everyone knew you died at Hoover Dam saving the Source. I figured if the rumors were true, it was my job to debunk the charlatans and get them out of there. Sometimes a group’s zeal can get them to do strange things.”
“And now that you know he’s not dead?”
Estra shrugged, shoving the last piece of what looked like sausage into her mouth and chewing slowly. “Don’t get me wrong, Darwin. I like you and all, but a dead deity is way easier to control than a live one. Your secret is safe with me. Besides, I don’t know if I believe you’re a god anymore. I used to. You know that. But there are thousands of people out there that still do. If I told them I’d seen you, they’d believe me.” She chuckled. “It seems I still have that kind of clout. Anyone getting close to you can see you’re just a shell of what you used to be. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just that it’s easy to see the Source you used to have inside of you just isn’t there anymore. It’s abandoned you. If the Darwin worshippers ever find out about you being alive and just an ordinary man, I lose that clout.”
Darwin snorted.
“I was just a low-level healer before you came along. And not very good at that. Oh, I’ve gotten better over the years, but it’s always been a struggle for me. Just the fact that I worked beside you, that I healed you when you were brought to the dam, that I brought you back from the desert, has made me a more important person than I could ever have been on my own. I guess I should thank you.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“What choice do you have? I’ve seen you. The only way you can be sure I won’t tell the world is by killing me, and we both know you’re not that kind of person. Neither is Teresa. She’s a healer, and it would go against everything she’s ever been taught.”
Darwin let out a slow breath. She had him pegged wrong. He was a killer. All you had to do was walk a few miles back down the highway to see proof of that. He was glad a night separated what he had done back there and Estra walking past the place. He couldn’t remember who had told him that Mother Nature takes care of her own. By tomorrow, what was left of the bodies would be dragged deeper into the bush by whatever predators were out there. He doubted there would be much left to even recognize as human.
“Like I said, one look at you and anyone can see you’re just an ordinary guy. What god would let their face look like that? You’re not who you used to be, and I need you to be. If you stay dead, then you can be whatever I need you to be.”
Darwin believed her. Despite her adoration for—as she had so succinctly put it—what he used to be, she was a good person. Despite his belief, he stayed awake most of the night, his back to a tree as he watched her sleep. An hour or two before dawn, he woke Teresa and she took over the watch.
It was something they would have to get used to again.
Teresa woke Darwin the next morning, shoving a sandwich of dry, squished bread and hard cheese into his hand before he was even awake. He ate it as Estra kicked the cold remains of the fire around the clearing and into the surrounding bushes and trees. By the time she was done, it was impossible to tell there had ever been a campfire.
Teresa had already packed up their stuff and was standing by the bikes waiting.
Estra approached him and gave him an awkward hug. She whispered in his ear before letting him go.
“You’re a good man, Darwin. With or without the Source inside of you. I wish I’d known that before.”
She walked down the narrow path back to the highway, turning back before they lost sight of her around a corner.
“Be careful,” she called back. “I’ve seen more groups of Salem Threaders than usual, and they don’t seem to be in a good mood. Just keep your eyes open.”
With that, she disappeared into the trees.
What would she do when she got back to San Francisco? Paul was gone, but some of his cronies had to have remained behind. Would they tell her about the dancing Darwin? About his escape and how Paul and a handful of others had gone out to find him and bring him back? If they mentioned Teresa or how scarred he was, she would know it really was him, and when Paul never came back, she’d know what he had done, or guess it. Not the specifics, but she would know.
How would that change her opinion of him being a good man? He wasn’t sure why it suddenly mattered to him.
They pushed their bikes to the highway and turned south, continuing the journey down Highway 1 to Chollas.
Miraculously, they didn’t see another group of Salem Threaders. They spent the next night at the top of a long climb, the sun going down over the deep blue water of the ocean as they walked their bikes up the steep incline. They pushed the bikes off the side of the road and grabbed a cold meal, choosing not to have a fire.
On the second day they made a sharp turn left, missing the gates to Vandenberg Air Force Base. From the intersection, they could see that the gate was still manned. Even from this distance, it looked like the people there wore uniforms of some kind. A group of them left the gate, heading toward the intersection. It looked like they were carrying guns, the first he had seen in this world. Darwin and Teresa rode off, leaving the group behind. He didn’t want to spend another night with cold food and no fire, but with sunset so close, they camped in the flat, bush-covered fields just before Vandenberg Village. Darwin barely slept with the amount of people using that small stretch of highway. It seemed that every few minutes another group, talking loudly without a care in the world, walked past their little hiding spot.
It took another five days before they got close to Chollas, choosing to stop outside of Los Angeles in what used to be a state park instead of being caught in the city at dark. They did the same thing outside of Camp Pendleton, where the flat fields had turned into an overgrown jungle of bushes and stunted trees. From here on in, they would be mostly riding through one city or another.
Darwin thought of Enton as they turned onto the road leading to Chollas. The Sam’s Club parking lot was just behind them, and he remembered the day he, Enton, and Teresa had lain on top of the hill across the intersection and watched the Qabal and their Skends gather for an attack. He would never have guessed where his life would end up almost two years later, but looking back he could see the line he had followed, realizing that it really couldn’t have been any other way. He tried to follow the line forward, tried to see where his path would lead. He tried to see a small house with children playing in the yard. Tried to see Teresa watching over them as he worked in the small garden. But the only thing that formed in his mind was a gray box the size of a small car, with glowing blue letters on the side.
Teresa was quiet as well, but not, Darwin thought, for the same reasons. He had no doubt she was thinking of her mother and her brother. Both had been turned into Skends and had never been seen again. The loss was something she still felt deeply, but they never talked about it. Sometimes he thought she blamed him for not getting them back. He had turned most of the Skends back to human the first time he’d come into contact with the QPS, but hadn’t had the chance the second time at Hoover Dam.
They rode past the first housing complexes on their right, with the wildness of the reservoir on their left. This part of Chollas had been abandoned long before Darwin had ever arrived on this world. It wasn’t until Fauna Drive that they began to see signs of life. The houses looked lived in. They continued on, taking the shortest route to the Lincoln Military Housing building.
Darwin finally relaxed as they approached the rusted red monstrosity at the side of the road. He still didn’t know exactly what it was, but thought it had to do with communications somehow. He didn’t think it was ever in use, not at this location anyway. Which made it exactly what he had thought it was the first time he had seen it. . . an art piece.
It wasn’t the metal structure that made him realize he was somewhere safe. The sound of children playing in the playground behind it was. Someone had replaced the triangular awnings covering the play structures, using what looked like handwoven cloth in a multitude of bright colors. Two adults watched the kids play, while a third eyed the two strangers riding past them on bicycles. They stopped in front of the District Office, the sign calling it that still in place over the door, and leaned their bikes against the empty flagpole. He hesitated before following Teresa inside, feeling vaguely uncomfortable with leaving their bikes in the open. They were barely through the doors when a familiar raspy voice greeted them.
“Teresa? What . . . Darwin!”
Mellisa ran past Teresa and pulled Darwin into a bear hug. He returned it, suddenly feeling better about the world, as Teresa stood by with a soft smile on her face. When he was able to extricate himself, Mellisa turned on Teresa and gave her a hug as well.
“What brings you two back here? Got tired of traveling and wanted to settle down? Or,” she nudged Darwin, “did you miss me so much you couldn’t stay away anymore?”
He laughed along with Teresa before answering.
“We figured we’d come back and see what was up before we decided what to do next.”
“Well, you’re welcome here anytime. Your timing is perfect, we just got off our four-month watch at the dam. We’re officially on holidays, as much as you can call running this place a holiday. It is for me, but Carlos—being Carlos—figures the last crew that was in here couldn’t organize a box of napkins. Speaking of Carlos, he’d love to see you.”
“That would be great! We’ve been traveling for quite a while, though. Is there any place for us to unload our gear and maybe wash up a bit?”
Mellisa turned serious in the blink of eye. “Of course, how silly of me. I’m too used to holing from one place to another.” Her voice trailed off as she realized what she was saying. “I’m sorry, Darwin, I didn’t mean to . . .”
“I lost the ability to Thread a long time ago,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay. I think there’s a couple of rooms free beside the playground. Come on, let’s check.”
They picked up their bikes as they walked past them. Darwin hesitated at the spot on the road where they’d imprisoned Baila so long ago. She’d somehow managed to fight her transformation into a full Skend, and Carlos was hoping to find out how she’d done it. If she could fight it, then there might be a way for them to change people back. She’d escaped before the Hoover Dam battle. The blood she’d left on the ground had long since disappeared, but the scratches on the road’s surface remained. He moved on, following Mellisa to the two-story apartment complex kitty-corner to the District Office. The building was laid out like a motel, with access to each room via an outside staircase and a full balcony on each floor. Mellisa knocked on the first door and a woman Darwin didn’t know opened it.
“We have some unexpected visitors, Sara. Is there any chance there’s some room at the inn?”
Sara glanced at Teresa and Darwin, eying their dirty clothes. Her gaze stopped on Darwin’s face for a fraction of a second before going back to Mellisa. If she had recognized him, it didn’t show on her face. From inside her apartment, he could hear singing, several male voices without instruments except maybe something for percussion, though it sounded more like another voice than an instrument.
“The one right above me is empty, if they don’t mind a bit of singing.” She looked at Teresa, avoiding Darwin’s face. “My husband is in a band. They’re putting on a show tonight, if you two are interested.”
“They sound great,” Teresa said. “We’ll definitely be there.”
“They’ll like that. The bigger the crowd, the more they enjoy performing. I’ll get the key.” She disappeared for a minute before coming back with a single key on a chain. “I only have one, so don’t lose it.” She held it out to Teresa.
“I’ll leave you two alone, then,” Mellisa said. “Teresa knows where the water and buckets are. There should be cloths and towels in the room. When you figure you’re clean enough, you know where to find me.”
They both carried water to their room, walking slowly with a bucket in each hand. By the time they reached their room, it felt like his fingers had stretched three inches and his shoulders had popped from their sockets.
He washed up while Teresa carried the empty buckets back. Lying on the soft bed was a mistake, and she woke him up a half an hour later.
“Come on, sleepyhead. I think it’s time we went to see Carlos.”
Darwin rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stood, losing his balance and using the side table to stay upright. “Let’s go.”
They found Carlos in a small office, his window open and a soft breeze moving the curtains. He stood as they entered and walked around his desk to pull both of them into a hug.
“Long time no see. How are you two doing?” He beckoned to the chairs in front of his desk and moved back to his own. “We’ve heard some stories of sightings of you two, but the only real confirmation we had of you was from Darby. That was quite some time ago. We kind of expected you to show up long before now.”
“We had some complications,” Teresa said. “The first time we had any real issues on the whole trip.”
Carlos raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.
“We ran into a group of Darwin cultists. They recognized us before we recognized what they were. They figured an imprisoned Darwin was better than no Darwin at all.”
“You made it out, I see.”
“Yeah,” Darwin said. “It wasn’t pretty.”
“You think they followed you and will show up here?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. We ran into Estra. You remember her, she was the healer kept in Hoover Dam with the rest of us.”
“She was a believer as well, wasn’t she?”
“Yes. I don’t know if she still is or not, but she’s part of the group in San Francisco. She told us she would tell them that I was dead. For real this time.”
“Awful nice of her.”
Darwin shrugged. “Whatever. It worked for us. She may change her tune when she finds out some of her own are dead.”
Carlos raised an eyebrow again, but didn’t ask any questions. Darwin was happy he didn’t.
“So, why are you back? I thought you’d planned on staying on the road for a long time.”
Darwin touched his chest. “It’s waking up.” The words were simple, but saying them to Carlos seemed to make it more real. More immediate.
“That might explain some of the fluctuations at Hoover. There were a couple of times it felt as if the Threads it created all turned and headed off in the same direction. You know how odd that is. Normally they just go randomly. To See them all suddenly coordinated was wrong.” He wrote a note and gave it to someone in the hallway. “I’ll let Sandra know. She’s got the next four months there. It’s good though, right? You’re starting to get some of your capabilities back?”
Darwin shook his head and Teresa grabbed his hand.
“It’s anything but. I don’t have any control. When things start up, it feels like it did just before Baila jumped on me. I’m bombarded with images and Threads and it feels like my brain is going to explode.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“I think we may have some of that inhibitor on hand that the Qabal used on you a couple of years ago. Maybe it’s just been so long that you need to acclimatize again.”
“Maybe. I’d prefer to stay away from any kind of drugs, but if it’s a choice between that and going crazy . . .”
“I’ll get you some, and instructions on how to use it.” Carlos pulled a bottle of homemade whiskey from the drawer of his desk along with three glasses. “It’s just about closing time, how about you two fill me in on your travels?”
Teresa shook her head and stood. “I’ll let you two do that. Do you mind if I wander through the hospital?”
“Knock yourself out. Rebecca’s still in there, if you’re interested.”
“Thanks. Darwin, don’t forget we promised Sara we’d go see her husband’s band.”
“I’ll get him there,” Carlos said. “Mellisa and I will be going as well.” He poured two glasses as Teresa left. “Now, tell me everything!”
Mellisa joined them halfway through and poured herself a glass. The whiskey wasn’t anything like he’d had back home, but it went down easy enough. If with a bit of a sting.
By the time the concert was ready to start, they were all a bit tipsy.
The cooler evening air helped clear Darwin’s head as the group headed for the green space behind the complex he and Teresa were staying in. A deck had been built off the back of the building and a handful of people had claimed their space of the grass. Teresa waved from a blanket that looked suspiciously similar to the one he had fallen asleep on earlier in the day.
The three made their way over, with Teresa hastily making space on the blanket once she smelled their breath.
“Somebody’s had more than one glass.”
Darwin grinned and pulled her in for a kiss. She pushed him away with a grimace while Carlos and Mellisa laughed. God, how he had missed these people. The last year on the road had been good, he reminded himself. There had been ups and downs, there always were, it’s what made life worth living. But he had missed these two.
When he’d first come to this world, he’d been a loner. His friends had left him when he missed over a year of school after the accident. No, that’s not when it had happened. They had gotten distant, but they had never truly left. They left when he finally went back to school, trying to catch up to his classmates and friends, and ending up passing them. Teenagers didn’t like being around someone who left them in the dust. At least his friends didn’t. Maybe they hadn’t really been his friends after all. He couldn’t see Carlos and Mellisa and Teresa doing that. In fact, they hadn’t. When he was in control of the Threads, he’d surpassed anything they had done, and they’d celebrated with him. When he’d lost his abilities, when he’d gotten his scars, they helped him cope. They stayed with him until he was ready to move on.
That’s what friendship was.
The Darwin of two years ago would never have been able to sit here laughing and waiting for a concert to start, no matter how much alcohol was in his system. It wasn’t who he had been. He joined in the laughter. The booze was making him melancholy.
A hush fell over the attendees as a group of six men took over the back deck. Teresa elbowed him in the ribs, cutting his laugh short, turning it into a short bark that echoed off the back of the building. Carlos and Mellisa snorted into their hands.
The men nodded to a person off to the side of the deck, and when the shortest one spoke, his voice was amplified. For just a brief moment, Darwin wished he could See again. What color were the Threads required to do it? Was shape a factor, or something else? He pushed the thoughts away and listened.
“ . . .a crowd that’s already happy is the best place to start. We’re an a cappella group, which means no instruments will be used during our show. Everything you are about to hear is created by us. My wife,” he gestured to the side at the Threader amplifying their voices, “is simply making sure that even those in the back can hear us.”
He stepped back in line with the others and another member of the group stepped forward and began to sing in a deep bass voice. The others behind him filled in the space in the music with their own voices. A cymbal sounded and Darwin looked for the instrument, remembering they had been told everything they heard was created by the six on the deck. It took him a minute to realize it was the short one who had introduced them creating the sound with his mouth.
The familiar words of “House of the Rising Sun” filled the space and the cymbals turned into a full drum kit. Darwin let himself be pulled into the music. The last time he’d heard any was when he and Teresa had been in New Orleans. That music had spoken to his soul, and he desperately missed his phone full of music and photos and memories. The music swelled and his body filled with it, drifting with the notes, feeling the drum beats against his chest, floating on the highs and sinking with the lows.
Teresa reached for his hand and he gripped it tight, squeezing her fingers in time with the beat.
The song switched to an old Simon and Garfunkel tune and he let out a long, slow breath, returning back to the blanket behind the apartment building. The music continued on into the night. Several people had cleared an area off to the left and created a dance floor, filling it with bodies that moved to the sound. An echo of what Darwin felt in his soul. Teresa pulled him to his feet as the music slowed, dragging him to the dance floor. They found a space in the middle and stood holding each other, swaying in time to the song, their feet shuffling in the trampled grass.
Darwin closed his eyes and held her close. The alcohol had worn off long ago, leaving him with a slight headache. It disappeared as they danced, and he knew that if he could See he would see the white Threads of healing. Without him having spoken a word, Teresa had known and had taken it away. He was pretty sure she could have done it sooner, but she believed in the saying don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. In this case, don’t drink to excess if you can’t handle the hangover. His headache was nowhere near a hangover, but he was glad for the end to it anyway.
“Thank you.”
She squeezed him tighter in response. He didn’t know what he had done in this life or a previous one to have deserved her.
As they danced, he felt the familiar sensation of the Threads around him. Without even trying, he could feel his dance affect the Threads as they responded to his movements and his emotions. Teresa’s feelings pulled into him and the Threads warmed and darkened, moving with the same languid pace of the other dancers on the floor.
The song ended, moving into something a little faster, and Darwin pulled Teresa back to the blanket. They wove between the seated audience and sat down beside Carlos and Mellisa.
“I felt Baila in that.” Mellisa’s rasp cut through the music. Darwin nodded in response.