Will stuffed the Carver into his backpack, unable to meet anyone’s eye for a moment. “So, obviously, we have to protect this thing and…not let them get their hands on it. Just in case.”
“But just in case they’ve figured out a way to build another one,” said Elise firmly, “we have to finish what we came here to do.”
Will nodded.
“Right on,” said Nick.
“We’d better move along, then,” said Ajay, standing up and shouldering his pack. “Hadn’t we?”
“Let’s head for the lake,” said Will. “We’ll try to hook up with Ajay’s drone. See what that tells us.”
Will set off ahead of the others down the hill toward the plain. Elise was about to walk after him when Jericho nudged her slightly and shook his head.
“Give him a minute,” he said.
The others started after him, single file, down the path, Ajay leading the way.
As he pushed ahead, Will ran through all the scenarios in his head, over and over again, from every angle. He kept bumping into the same thorny conundrum:
Did what he hope to accomplish here justify the risk they’d taken? In his urgency to take action, had he led his friends into unspeakable danger? And not just his friends. The stakes soared so high beyond their own dire straits that he couldn’t even get his head around them.
Because they didn’t get any bigger than this: In his eagerness to do the right thing, had he put the fate of the whole world at risk?
And if that was the case, was he any better, really, than his own bat-shit-crazy grandfather or the Knights of Charlemagne? What if, acting with all the best intentions, he’d actually made the one mistake that could make all of their mistakes a reality?
Where is this coming from? How did this happen to me? Is there something in my family’s makeup, an arrogance in our bones or blood or DNA, some fatal defect in our way of thinking, that leads us into making these kinds of horrific, destructive choices?
Or does it have more to do with whatever alien genetics they spliced into me?
He found no relief as he rolled the situation around, no easy way out. He was either right or wrong about it, and they’d find out soon enough.
But either way, he knew there’d be a price to pay.
The path narrowed as Will reached the bottom of the final hill and stepped out onto the plains. A narrow path forward appeared through the wild grasses ahead, which grew even higher here, almost to his shoulders. Since they were well over Ajay’s head, there was no point in having him go first to scout, so Will stayed at the head of the line. Still brooding, he didn’t even look back at the others.
Elise moved up to take the position behind him, watching him trudge forward, his shoulders slumped, weighted down with more than the bulk of his pack.
Don’t think you have to do this alone, she sent to him.
I don’t.
You didn’t force us to come with you. We all made a choice. And nobody regrets it.
No one but me.
He glanced back at her with a rueful smile. Elise didn’t have an answer for that. She thought she’d never seen anyone look as lonely as Will did in that instant.
Will, as he had done periodically since they arrived in the Never-Was, turned his eyes forward and sent another mental transmission out to Dave, a sort of broadband telepathic SOS. He hoped with all his being that he’d receive something in return, at least some indication that Dave could still be saved, and if so, that they were headed in the right direction. The creeping fear that he’d led his friends on a suicide mission that might well lead to global catastrophe made him want to crawl out of his skin.
He concentrated fiercely, listening for a response. He hadn’t heard a syllable from Dave and didn’t honestly expect to hear anything back from him now. But instead of the cold silence he’d gotten up until now, this time he heard…something. Not words, or an identifiable voice, or anything that was definably “Dave.” It came to him as muted as a whisper on the wind.
He zeroed in on it. More a feeling than a sound. A single blip on a radar screen. But it was something. Then he felt it a second time. And as he tried to place it, as vague as it was, it seemed to be coming from those distant mountains. Not much, but maybe just enough on which to hang a fragile strand of hope.
Behind Will and Elise, Ajay fell back alongside Jericho, talking low and fervently.
“You know, Coach, it’s occurred to me that, with regard to our previous conversation, there’s an emerging school of thought in quantum physics that may have some relevance here,” said Ajay. “A number of scientists are exploring the idea that all of creation, the entire known and unknown universe, might in fact be nothing more than a hologram.”
Jericho thought about it. “Guess that isn’t any crazier than the idea that the world was created by an all-powerful rock floating in a void.”
“A rock?”
“But the rock had nothing to use all his powers on, and he got bored, so one day he opened his veins and his blue blood ran out and created the water and sky, and before he knew it, his body had softened and rounded and he had become the Earth.”
“Yes, of course,” said Ajay, looking up as he located the memory. “The story of Inyan and the Lakota creation myth.”
Jericho looked down at him with mild surprise. “Is there anything you don’t remember?”
“If there is, these days it’s not for very long,” said Ajay, almost apologetically.
Jericho looked around at the lifeless, false fields of dry grass and up at the pastel-painted sky. “If this is all a hologram, who thought it up? Somebody still had to put it in play, right?”
“That is the fundamental chicken and egg question, sir,” said Ajay, trailing his hand through the grass. “Although it may well be unanswerable for the time being, as far as our version of ‘reality’ back home is concerned. But it raises an even larger question for me: If our own cosmos is just a construct, or a simulation, some sort of ultimate game within the confines of some limitless, unknowable cosmic mind, then what does that make us? Insignificant pawns on someone else’s chessboard? Vague figures in some old god’s dream?”
“Why does that worry you so much?”
Ajay looked anguished. “Because if that’s true, how does anything in us or around us have meaning? And does it actually really matter what we do about anything?”
Jericho thought about it for a moment. “It matters to us,” he said. “It matters right now.”
Ajay looked up at him searchingly. “Because if it doesn’t, what?”
“Nothing means anything,” said Jericho. “So we may as well act as if it does.”
“I find that…oddly reassuring.”
“Remembering a bunch of facts is one thing,” said Jericho, not too harshly. “Knowing what they mean is something else.”
“Knowing isn’t understanding,” said Ajay thoughtfully. “Yes. And to that point, there’s a relatively obscure school of Tibetan philosophy that believes the true mind isn’t even located in the brain. They believe it resides here, in the stomach.”
Bringing up the rear, Nick had moved up close enough to hear their last exchange.
“No doubt,” said Nick. “I do some of my best thinking with my stomach.”
“You mean, as in having a ‘gut’ instinct?” asked Ajay.
“Right on, man, yeah.”
“It’s a different way of knowing,” said Jericho.
“Exactamundo! Like when I’m super hungry, right, but I don’t know what I want to eat at first? Do I want a burger or some wings or maybe a Hawaiian pizza, you know, with pineapple and Canadian bacon, which is so awesome? And when, no matter what, I can’t make up my mind, my stomach just seems to know exactly what I want.”
“Uncanny,” said Jericho.
“And yet, hardly surprising,” said Ajay.
“And that reminds me: Where do they get that bacon in Canada from anyway? Why does ours come in these bumpy rectangles and theirs is a smoot
h circle? Do they have round pigs or something? I’m thinking maybe you can clear that up for me, Ajay.”
“I’ll make a point of looking into it for you,” said Ajay.
“That’d be great, thanks,” said Nick. “Kind of a mystery, though, isn’t it?”
“One of the great ones,” said Jericho.
Nick turned a somersault away from them, back toward the rear. “Dudes, it’s so weird here. No birds, no bugs, no animal poop anywhere. It’s like one big strange amusement park.”
Jericho and Ajay looked at each other. Ajay thought Jericho might be on the verge of laughing.
“I’m actually worried about him,” said Ajay.
“Why’s that?”
Ajay lowered his voice. “Is it possible that he’s becoming even dimmer as a side effect of all this?”
Jericho glanced back at Nick. “I look at it differently.”
“How so?”
“Maybe, in its own way, his mind is actually a superpower.”
“What a bizarre concept. In what way?”
“Keeps him in the moment,” said Jericho, glancing back at Nick again, who was practicing jumping in the air and spinning around in multiple circles. “Doesn’t overthink things. Lets him react to what’s in front of him without his head getting in the way.”
“And given his particular set of skills,” said Ajay thoughtfully, “which depend almost exclusively on instinct, no matter how bizarrely he defines it, that would be…”
“Extremely practical.”
Will glanced behind him. Only his head and Jericho’s extended above the grass line, and the path was just wide enough for them to move along without disturbing the stalks on either side. It seemed highly unlikely that anything could spot them in here.
Which was good, because when Will surveyed the area out toward the river and beyond, the dust cloud raised by the traveling army appeared much more distinct now, visible to the naked eye. He could also see more clearly how far the column on the road stretched out in either direction; it looked like miles, and there seemed to be no end to it.
Will calculated they’d been walking for nearly an hour when the shores of the lake first came into view. And just as Ajay had envisioned, one of the first identifiable features was a large stand of eucalyptus trees. They would’ve reminded Will of ones he’d known back home in Southern California, if they weren’t at least twice as tall as any he’d ever seen there and streaked with more colors than a rainbow.
The animals along the riverbanks to their right were more visible now as well, most of them segregated by type. Small groups of the strange striped kangaroos Ajay had spotted bounded around. Herds of huge, hoofed cowlike creatures with twisted horns wandered through the shallows.
Will saw a large herd of bright red gazelles lope by, with long, flexible anteater snouts. A pack of vicious hyena-like creatures with eight spidery legs skulked around the margins of the area, looking for prey. Lizards the size of lounge chairs wallowed in the mud just offshore. A floating formation of gigantic creatures he couldn’t see well appeared to be lurking just under the surface of the water. A variety of cries, screeches, and calls echoed from the area, like an orchestra tuning up.
“See any lions?” asked Nick.
He had suddenly appeared beside Will and was bouncing up and down, trying to peek over the top of the tall grass.
“No cats yet,” said Will. “Keep your head down.”
“No birds either,” said Jericho, also joining them and looking out.
“We haven’t seen a single bird since we got here,” said Elise.
“Maybe the Maker dudes haven’t gotten around to messing with birds yet,” said Nick.
“That seems highly unlikely, from a probability standpoint,” said Ajay. “Among the vertebrate tetrapods, they’re by far the most widespread and adaptable species on Earth, with over ten thousand identified varieties.”
“Meaning?” asked Elise.
“It must be a choice,” said Ajay. “For some reason they’ve been unwilling or unable to work with the airborne portion of the kingdom.”
“We need to steer clear of this whole area,” said Will, pointing toward the delta. “If we stir any of those animals up, they might notice across the river.”
They continued on, paralleling the river but staying within the cover of the grass. As they drew closer to the lake, the grass began to thin out before stopping altogether about fifty yards short of the eucalyptus stand. An entire grove of the giant trees spread out between them and the lake, and beyond them they could see a long white sandy beach.
There were also some things Ajay hadn’t seen from a distance and wouldn’t have been able to until they got this close, as most of it was hidden by the trees.
A road crossed the plain in front of them, perpendicular to their position, and ran into the grove and through it, all the way to the water, then onto a sturdy wooden bridge that crossed the delta where the river flowed into the lake. A six-foot-tall earthen dam held back the river, just shy of the bridge, allowing a controlled flow of water under the bridge. A cluster of small, trim wooden buildings attended a clearing at the near end of the bridge, which ran a quarter of a mile to the far bank.
“Ajay, take a look,” said Will, lowering his voice.
Ajay moved up to the edge of the grass, knelt down, and surveyed the area.
“It appears to be an active campsite….There’s smoke rising from a campfire in the clearing between the buildings, at least one of which appears to be occupied….There’s a rack outside along one of the walls, containing various weapons, not many but enough to maintain a small outpost or garrison, which I’m supposing this must be….”
“Guarding the bridge,” said Jericho.
“A fair assumption,” said Ajay, then looked off to his left. “Which would suggest it’s of no small strategic importance, since from this vantage point I’m able for the first time to see that the lake stretches out for many, many miles to our left.”
“So unless we’re planning to swim, this bridge is the only crossing point,” said Will. “If we want to get to those mountains.”
“It’s the only one that I can see.”
“Don’t suppose you brought one of your inflatable boats with you,” said Nick.
“I did not have room for everything,” said Ajay. “And God only knows what manner of monstrous leviathans are lurking in that lake.”
“Something’s coming,” said Elise, glancing back toward the road behind them.
Then they all heard it, horses at a gallop, and they quickly stepped back deeper into the cover of the grass. Within thirty seconds, a small party of about ten riders appeared, approaching from the left along the road toward the lake. Their horses were all black, lathered up after a hard ride, oversized, their faces covered by hoods adorned with a single red mark in their center. The party began to slow as they moved closer to the trees.
The riders were soldiers, wearing helmets along with modern-looking, segmented dark armor and what looked like rifles strapped across their backs. They were guarding or escorting two riders in their middle.
One of them, who appeared to be in charge, wore the same armor but not the sleek black helmet the others wore, and Will recognized the man’s gleaming bald head immediately.
Hobbes.
The other rider in the center also wore the armor without a helmet. She rode expertly, and a mane of long blond hair flowed behind her in the wind.
“Oh my God,” said Elise.
Will’s heart sank. It was Brooke.
At that moment, Ajay suddenly looked up and to the right, at something the rest of them couldn’t yet see.
“Oh, dear,” he said. “Here comes my drone.”
WILL’S RULES FOR LIVING #13:
READ BOOKS TO GET SMARTER. READ PEOPLE TO BECOME WISER.
“Nobody move,” said Will.
Hobbes, in the lead, held up his right hand and the squad of horsemen slowed to a walk. The road turned from dirt
to cobbled stone as it entered the grove, and the sharp clip-clop of the horses’ hooves cut through the air. Hobbes suddenly held up a closed fist and the horsemen stopped altogether.
Hobbes turned his horse around and trotted back a short distance to the edge of the trees, his eyes scanning the horizon, including the grass line where the group was concealed.
Had he heard or seen or, worse, used one of his freaky powers to sense some trace of their presence?
Hobbes called back to his riders. He waved most of them on toward the encampment but gestured one of them in his direction. A moment later, Brooke rode out to join him on the road. He spoke to her at length, waving his arm across the horizon back in their direction.
He was asking her if she noticed anything.
Brooke looked out, scanning the same span of space, her eyes moving right past the tall grass, but her look didn’t linger or even land on their hiding place.
Kneeling beside him, Will could feel Ajay shivering with anxiety, but he kept completely silent. No one else moved a muscle.
“How long?” Will whispered. “Before the drone gets here.”
Ajay glanced up toward the tree line and opened his eyes wide. “Thirty seconds.”
Now Hobbes and Brooke were speaking animatedly, with Hobbes pointing back at the outpost and the bridge as he gave orders. Will couldn’t hear what they were saying but it wasn’t hard to decipher: This was a hunting party, and they’d decided that the bridge was the best strategic location to wait for their prey.
And their conversation was taking too long.
We need to move them out of here, fast. Will looked over as he urgently sent that to Elise.
Can we suggest that to them?
Not those two. They’ll figure out where it’s coming from and know we’re nearby.
Her eyes darted around, to the encampment ahead, then settled on…
The horses, she sent. I’ve got hers.
They each targeted a horse. Both looked wet and lathered after a hard ride. Will sent a series of images to Hobbes’s mount: feed and water in the camp just ahead.
Hobbes’s horse stamped its feet impatiently and whirled around, but Hobbes kept a firm hand and it didn’t break from his control. But Brooke’s mount reared and bolted for the outpost immediately. She grabbed the reins and tried hard to break its charge but ended up just having to hang on. Hobbes galloped hard after her, pulled up alongside, and was trying to lean over and grab the bridle by the time they entered the camp.