West cleared his throat, but sat on the other side of the bar, saying nothing. After a prolonged awkward silence, he looked up, smiled sheepishly, looked back down at his empty glass. He put it under the bar. “I think I’ve had enough for tonight… today… whatever the hell it is.”
Patra grinned. “Enough to drink or enough of my past?” Her fingers tapped out a metallic tattoo on the top of the bar.
“Patra,” he reached out, held her hand in his, “Please don’t think that I—It’s just… I had no idea. No one did. You disappeared, and we all assumed you were dead. Just the fact that you’re sitting here, it’s like finally seeing the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot or…” She frowned, but he could see a glimmer in her silver eyes. “Well, it’s amazing that you’re here, talking to me. It’s unreal.”
“That’s very flattering. You’re acting like I’m a celebrity or something, and you don’t have to. I’m not the President’s daughter anymore. I’m just Patty Jennings, and he’s dead just like everyone else.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Was he a Styx, too? That would explain a lot of things.”
“No… No, he wasn’t one of us. But I bet you never knew that he had us look for you everywhere. He thought that the Quebs had gotten you. I don’t know how many of those bastards we questioned. I don’t know how many died from our questioning, either.”
Patra’s eyes teared up as best they could, and she sobbed. She stood, walked over to the door, looked out onto the murky gray expanse of dawn, or twilight, or whatever it was. She stood in the open doorway, arms crossed over her chest, head leaned against the side of the door. “I never meant to hurt him like that. I never wanted to…” She trailed off to silence. “I saw the broadcasts; I saw how much I’d hurt him. I saw how old he looked, how gray and wasted and… Have you ever seen someone hurt like that, West?” She waited, and when she received no answer she turned around to find West sitting behind the bar, eyes covered with the palms of his hands. In the faded light, he was cast into shadow. His tired hands withdrew from shielding his face from her sight, and she saw eyes that were red from their own inner turmoil. He began to speak from the dark, and his voice broke her heart. Patra knew then that she was not the only person who had loved and lost and survived.
Lips. Parched.
Richter pursed his ragged lips and blew air through the opening they created, and a pathetic sound that in no way resembled whistling emerged. He frowned, tried again. His efforts to entertain himself with music had been thwarted once again.
Thirsty.
Day or night? He walked into the black landscape, guided only by his instinctual sense of direction. What did he expect to find hundreds of miles to the north?
He would find Diablo.
Then what? What are you doing, James?
Father, do not speak to me. Give me back the stars and the sun and the lost lost children of the night and then you may speak to me. Then and only then.
Sky blended into horizon. Day blended into night blended into days blended into nights.
He walked. North, north, north. Walk, walk, walk.
She joined West in the shadows of the Diablo Tavern. They could no longer tell day from night; each was a bloody gray haze created by the healing Enemy web just miles above the planet surface. At least the vessels no longer hovered overhead. There was no wind, no clouds in the sky. No movement. Existence seemed somehow paused.
She cleared her throat, spoke with a voice like unintended trauma, knowing full well the agony that her inquiry had caused within the man before her.
“What was her name?”
West inhaled atmosphere and tears, whispered more than spoke into the night.
“Abigail.”
The name hung in the air, seeming to enjoy the freedom from years of hiding in the deepest and darkest part’s of a young soldier’s broken heart.
“We married young and lived dangerously, but we were happy. She died while giving birth to our son. He was stillborn. It shouldn’t have happened, it was one of those things… The doctors tried their best to save her, but she had lost too much—I mean, they tried everything, but it was too late, and… The blood was—When she was taken from me, I lost everything I’d ever loved. She rescued me from living the life of a corn farmer in Nebraska; she showed me the world and became my world. How she could ever love someone like me, I never—”
“West, don’t—”
“After Abby died, I joined Milicom. I had nothing left but a house filled with baby toys and clothing and diapers… and her. She was everywhere I looked in that house. I could see her face in the mirror, I could smell her on my pillow, I could feel her everywhere. Oh, Abigail… I had to escape, and Milicom helped me to escape. It was years before the Quebec War, and years after War Three. I figured I could travel the world with the Reconstruct Fleet and try to forget my prior life. I served some time in Africa and South America, helped rebuild some cities, but it wasn’t working out. I still had eight years on my Milicom contract, but I wanted to come home. They really didn’t need the homefront personnel at the time, and they said the only way they’d let me come home was if I was enrolled into a special program that Milicom had established, a covert program to develop advanced weapons systems from a technology that couldn’t be explained—”
“The Styx program.”
“Yeah. They brought us here, a fine crop of bright young patriots. They sent us into the light, and those of us who came out again had become something not human.”
“How many of your group survived?”
“There were fifty of us in my test group, Level K. Two of us came out alive, me and an ex-Irish Blood Army soldier called Ember. After us, there would be only one more group sent in before the Quebec War interrupted the program. Level L was made up of two men, both pretty high-ranking Milicom officers, Richter and Michael.”
“How many of you were kept off that island after the war?”
“Santa Fosca? After the Chicago.. incident, supposedly the lower levels of Styx were exiled to that island. In reality, most of them had to be killed. And I was among the lucky few who had to do most of the killing. The only Styx left here on the mainland after the purge were Levels K and L, well, only Richter was left at that point. What happened in Chicago started in Montreal years before.”
“What happened in Chicago, West? Were the reports true?”
“A lot happened in Chicago. I think that that’s a story best left for another time.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“Don’t worry. I just need to get some fresh air for a while. This place is depressing me. I think we should move on.”
They rose, West blowing out the flame of the oil lantern. Outside was a confusing murky gray. Day blended into night blended into day.
They moved on.
Morning?
Hayes rolled up his sleeping bag, which had remained vacant the night before. The campfire had sputtered itself to a weary death at some point during the night; neither he nor Maggie had noticed. They had been warm enough.
There was no wind, but the air was brisk enough that Simon pulled the collar of his thermal vest up around his neck. He could see his breath quite easily with each exhalation. Mid-June. The planet was dying.
His sleeping bag rolled tightly and strapped to his rucksack, he looked over at Maggie, who was engaged in similar business. She smiled quietly at him, and touched his mind briefly, warmly. He walked over, draped his arms loosely around her hips. He bent down and touched his forehead to hers, kissed the tip of her nose. Her smile widened, and her dimples made their appearance. Simon picked up Maggie’s pack and kissed her neck as he stood back up. She slung the pack over her shoulders and took Simon’s hand in her own for a brief moment.