Wayne looked away, feeling sick — and not just because he was storin’ up health. “I know I said I didn’t need a speech, Wax. But I don’t know that you need to rub it in, neither.”
“Fortunately,” Wax said, “you don’t need forgiveness, Wayne.”
“Now that’s nonsense.”
“No it’s not.” Wax leaned forward, pointing with his bottle. “Wayne, would you do it again, if you had the chance? Rob a man for his pocket change? Shoot him when things get heated?”
“What? Of course not!”
“So,” Wax said, leaning back, “you don’t need forgiveness. Because you aren’t the man who killed Durkel. Not anymore. The man who did that, well, he’s dead. Buried beneath six feet of the clay and rock that passes for soil in the Roughs. You haven’t been him for years.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” Wayne said.
“Why not?” Wax replied, taking another pull on his beer. “What’s any of this for, if people can’t change? If there’s no chance for you, Wayne, there’s no chance for anyone. We might as well shoot a man the first time he does anything wrong, because hey … he’ll never change, so who cares?”
“That’s not fair.”
“You’re not fair,” Wax said, “to yourself. I’ve watched you, Wayne. You didn’t become my deputy because you wanted redemption. You don’t keep fighting alongside me because you need to be forgiven. You do it because of the man you’ve become. You do it because you want to make the world better.”
“Maybe you’re wrong,” Wayne said. “You don’t know what’s in my brain, Wax. Maybe I am corrupt, through and through. You know how I am when I get in a brawl. Maybe I’m doin’ all this to get a chance to fight and kill folks. Because I like it.”
“Nope,” Wax said. He finished off his beer, then held the bottle out, dangling between two fingers. “I don’t buy it, Wayne. I know you. And I respect you. Admire you. There are times I wish I could be as good a man as you are.”
Wayne sat up, squinting at him. “Wait. You’re serious?”
“Damn right.”
“Mate, I burned down a building today. And not one what you’re supposed to burn down, like a school. A big important building.”
“Yeah, and what did you do with that fire?” Wax asked. “Did you light it and run?”
Wayne shrugged.
“No, you got everyone out,” Wax said. “You specifically led a group of people knocking on doors to make sure everyone escaped. You lit the fire because you needed to, but then you made sure that…” He hesitated, double-checked his bottle was empty, then looked at Wayne with a frown. “Wayne. Schools aren’t meant to be burned down. Just because we did it once doesn’t mean it’s all right.”
“No, see,” Wayne said, finishing off his own beer, “I figured it out. Schools is meant to be burned down. Imagine you was a kid, and you woke up and found the school was plumb gone? Well damn, that’d be the best rusting day ever!”
Wax sighed.
“I figure,” Wayne continued, “that’s why the city keeps building more schools. Have you seen how many there are these days? The government is saving them up, in case they need to make some kids happy. Then they’ll burn ’em down.”
Wax eyed him. So Wayne smiled and winked, letting him know that this might have been an exaggerated-story-type thing.
Wax leaned back. “I can’t tell with you sometimes…”
“That’s the problem though, ain’t it?” Wayne said. “Because I do terrible stuff! Ranette told me that Durkel girl — apparently, visiting her is the worst thing I coulda been doin’. I’ve been making her life awful all these years even without knowing it!”
“And you care?” Wax asked.
“Course I do!”
Wax inclined his head toward him. “Proof. You’re a good person.”
“Fat lot of good it does when I still mess everything up, mate. I still grab stuff sometimes, even when it’s not my friend’s and I ain’t joking. I don’t think about it until later. And I realize, maybe that fellow liked his cigar box.”
“You mess up a lot less than you fix, Wayne. You can’t deny it. You are a good man.”
Wayne fell quiet. Because … because he liked Wax. More, he trusted Wax. Wax was right about things.
Could he … be right about this?
Wax leaned forward. “You can’t keep digging up the corpse of who you used to be, Wayne. You can’t keep toting it around. Let him stay buried. Consider who you are, not who you left behind. That’s what I’ve learned these last few years. It’s made all the difference.”
Huh. It was platitudes. Easy words to say. But Wax didn’t just say things. He never had. Wax meant things.
Maybe … maybe it was time to bury that corpse. Because rusts, it was feelin’ heavy lately. What would life be like if he weren’t carryin’ that thing? Maybe a part of him was ready, and had been for years. He’d stopped shakin’ when he held a gun. His body was ready to move on. Could his mind allow it?
He scanned out over the city, his head pounding from storing health. Cars bustled below, representatives of a new world, with fancy new buildings throwing long shadows as the sun started to set. The whole Basin was changing.
Why not him with it?
He let himself stop storing up health. Truth was, it wouldn’t do much. His head cleared, and his aches faded.
“Right, then,” he said, sitting up. “We needta solve this thing, Wax. I’ve got this bad feeling — had it all day — that we’re on a trail that is far, far too cold for comfort.”
“Agreed,” Wax said, pulling over two duffels. “Look through that. See what Steris packed us.” He pushed over the first of them — his ammo pack, retrieved from a rooftop.
Wayne took it and undid the ties and zipper, while Wax dug in the other and took out some pages, holding them up. The billboard had some electric lights on it, to make the thing visible at night — which was good for readin’. Huh. Maybe Wax had a good reason for pickin’ this spot after all.
Wayne began counting ammo for Wax’s guns, setting it aside in little pouches. “So,” he said, “they was testin’ some flyin’ bomb out in the ocean?”
“They were only testing the delivery device,” Wax said, shuffling papers. “No bomb on it yet. That would be too dangerous. Plus, it wasn’t ready yet. I’ve got schematics for the bomb here, and until recently they were having trouble creating a big enough battery to make it portable.”
“But they figured that out?”
“Unfortunately,” he said, handing a schematic over — as if Wayne would have any use for it. “Look there. Finally have it working, portable but large. That’s what’s giving them such a headache. They have these rockets that can fly a good thirty or forty miles, but not with such a huge payload.” He shuffled more pages, then handed another over. “This schematic is a dead man’s switch. An extremely pernicious one. They don’t want anyone disarming the thing. And here, a design for a much larger rocket. Maybe a last chance at making this work, but they’re worried it won’t fly far enough … and might catch Bilming or other towns and not just Elendel.”
Wayne grunted, tucking the pages in his pocket. Then, digging further into his own duffel, he found a sandwich.
“Hot damn,” he said, unwrapping it. Pastrami? Hot double damn. “Good thing you ignored me and stayed with that woman. She’s quite a catch.”
Wax gave him a flat look.
“I was wrong about her, all right?” Wayne said, digging out a second sandwich and tossing it to Wax. “I’m wrong about people a lot. Maybe even myself.”