“What?” This had come almost simultaneously from Dave and Jefferson.
“Your skill is talking people into doing things. Sometimes things they don’t really want to do, but you make them believe. That’s what your life has been, hasn’t it?”
“Some might say.”
“I say, because I know.” Ethan was getting a feeling he couldn’t shake. It was true that the man was a user of other people, that he had crushed others down for his own needs and left many impoverished, but many enriched as well. He did have a gift of persuasion, though it was no match for the silver hand that uncovered all truths. He had talked his way onto the bus over Dave’s objections, and he had hidden a Gorgon and a Gorgon-engineered human under their noses, and he might have spirited Ethan away to the Gorgon realm if the alien presence hadn’t been so powerful. Ethan had no idea what was waiting at their destination, but this feeling he could not shake made him look at Dave and say in a voice that was direct and forceful and far older than the years he portrayed, “We might need this man.”
“What?” Dave repeated. “Why in hell would we need him?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Ethan answered, “but I might not be enough.”
“Enough for what?” Olivia asked, as puzzled as both Dave, JayDee, and even Jefferson Jericho.
“For the task. What that is, I don’t know yet, but this man…” Ethan paused, trying to read this feeling but unable yet to decipher it. “He’s too valuable to leave behind. He’s seen a creature who might be the Gorgon queen…if she really is a female. He’s been favored by her,” he said. No need to go into the other details he had uncovered, he decided. “I believe he should go with us, no matter what else he’s done.”
There was a moment of silence. Jefferson couldn’t decide if going to this mountain Ethan was talking about was any safer than staying here, but he did know one thing: as long as he was with this boy, he would be more protected than by the soldiers with all their useless guns. On the other hand, Ethan was a target for the Gorgons, and they weren’t giving up; they would find him, wherever he was. And out there were the Gray Men, too. Thousands of those things…
Still…what was the tradeoff?
“I’ll tell you everything I know,” Jefferson said, speaking to Dave because the rock needed to be turned. It wouldn’t take much; the boy was in command here. He turned his focus on the woman. “Things about Vope and Ratcoff you’d probably want to know too. I can make myself useful, I promise you that.”
Dave’s eyes were dark and dangerous. “You make a move toward Ethan again and I’ll kill you,” he said, “and that’s my promise to you, scumbag.”
“Fair enough,” said the preacherman, with a slight bow of his head. Maybe it did register in him that he might still have a chance to seize Ethan and be transported to the Gorgon queen, might still have a chance to save his people and his town and himself, but he felt the boy’s eyes on him, imagined he felt the boy’s alien power taking his brain apart and examining those thoughts one by one to test their weight, and so he let them fly away.
“I’ll know,” Ethan said. That was enough for Jefferson Jericho to hear.
I’ll be a good boy, Jefferson thought, and Ethan answered, “I’ll count on that.”
Major Fleming and the other soldiers had work to do. Dave vowed to keep himself between Ethan and Jefferson Jericho at all times. Olivia took JayDee’s hand and helped him to the service elevator. There were supplies to be gathered for the trip, and Hannah Grimes had to be approached about driving the bus because Dave didn’t think he could handle a rig that size, not on the roads they would face when they left I-70 in Utah. The interstate itself might be a cratered challenge; who knew what was out there, in those mountains that must be crossed?
But something was out there that Ethan had to find. No one doubted it. They would be leaving as soon as the work was done on the bus, out into the world again, out into the war.
Jefferson Jericho realized everything he had ever built was likely destroyed. Regina, also destroyed. Or maybe New Eden was returned to its original plot on the Earth and left for the ravages of the war or the Gray Men to tear it to pieces. Which did he think was the better fate? He didn’t want to think, but he figured he would never see the place again. He was throwing in his lot with this boy and the others, and maybe Dave McKane would kill him before they got to this mountain that seemed for some reason to be so special, or the Gorgon queen would transport him out of here and kill him in retribution, or something was waiting on the road that could overcome even the boy’s power and kill them all. But at least he was alive today. He was not going to be locked up or executed.
The boy might have a use for him. That made him a little nervous, but for now Jefferson counted that as a victory. And for now, it was the best payoff a High Roller could hope for.
Twenty-Two.
Ethan was prepared for what awaited him in the mall. A boy with a silver eye who could blow apart Cypher spiders and soldiers by the power of a mind-weapon was going to find people cringing from him as if he carried a plague. They would be terrified of him, and who could blame them? He would be terrified of himself, if he wasn’t in this suit of skin. Dave went to find Hannah Grimes and took Jefferson Jericho with him. Ethan, Olivia, and JayDee went to the food court to get something to eat. The people who were already there left in a hurry, and that included a few nervous soldiers. The three survivors of Panther Ridge, alone in the food court, served themselves bowls of thin vegetable soup from a big metal pot and cups of water from plastic jugs and then sat down at one of the bright orange tables.
They hadn’t been there very long when Olivia motioned to her right and said, “We have company.”
Ethan saw Nikki approaching. She, at least, seemed to have no fear of him anymore. She came up to the table. For a moment she looked with true wonder into the silver eye that had no pupil and then she asked, “Does it hurt?”
“No. It’s not any different from the other one.”
“That is…so freaky,” she said, and she gave a quick little laugh that she tried to stop with a hand over her mouth, but too late. “I mean…it looks kind of cool. It doesn’t make you have…like…X-ray vision or something?”
“Not that I can tell.” Worrying about if I can see through her clothes? he wondered, but he didn’t care to violate her privacy by wandering around in her mind.
“Get yourself something to eat, sit down and join us,” JayDee said, nodding toward the fourth chair. “Looks like we’ve scared everybody else away.”
“Thank you,” Nikki told him, “but I just need to speak to Ethan for a few minutes.”
“Is that our cue to disappear?” JayDee asked, with a spoonful of soup halfway to his mouth.
“No sir,” said Ethan, “we’ll move to another table.” He took his soup bowl and his cup of water and followed Nikki to a table across the food court, because though he didn’t want to peer into her mind, he knew this was something she needed to speak to him alone about. When they were settled, sitting across from each other, Nikki looked from one eye to the next as if trying to figure out which one to talk to.
“I can see through both of them,” he explained. “One’s just…like you said, freaky.”
“How did that happen? Did you feel it happen?”
“No, I didn’t.” Just more evidence, he thought, of the change he was going through. Whatever the alien force was inside him, it was asserting itself more and more. “I didn’t feel anything. I was too busy.”
“Wow,” she said. She pushed a drift of blonde hair off her forehead. “That was like crazy amazing! But…do you mind if I ask you something?”