Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams (39 page)

A female
reporter, young, spectacled, short hair, raised a shaking hand and
as a microphone boom was lowered towards her, she offered, “It
should go in a museum.”

Tiernan nodded,
“Possibly. Certainly I would say if we don’t know what to do with
it, we should not squander it. No price should be high enough. Do
we agree?” he dominated the cameras again, eyes darting
deliberately from one to the next, “Why then, once we understood
that the worlds resources were finite, why did no one step forwards
and shout ‘
stop the madness?’”
Many of the people closest to
the podium started as Tiernan shouted the words. “We’ve got enough
oil to last a good while, but it’s finite. In terms of the lifetime
of mankind, we’ve got the equivalent of that five grams of gold.
Really, it’s all we’ve ever had. Conservatively, mankind reached
modernity about two hundred thousand years ago. We really started,
I mean started earnestly using oil to power even the most
unnecessary venture or flight of fancy in the past couple of
centuries and boy have we used a lot of it.”

Tiernan lowered
his head and stared at his hands as he spread his fingers out on
the podium. His father’s warning played over in his mind briefly
and he tried to push it to a dark corner. He was sure, he’d always
been sure that he was on the correct course.

“Our sense of
urgency is inextricably linked to that ominous chant we hear in the
back of our minds, ‘four score years and ten’. Each of us has a
desire to achieve everything we can, experience everything there is
to experience in that short span of time we are alloted on this
earth. I’m standing here today to tell each of you that there is
more. We can not continue as a species to act as if we have an
inexhaustible stockpile of resources. Not while we still call Earth
our only home… Humanity may walk the earth for another four million
years if we are lucky, but we will not walk with our heads held
high if we continue to crave and consume and waste.”

He lifted his
head and gazed about the room, making eye contact with reporters
and camera operators, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and risk
sounding crazy. I was elected on a campaign promise of capital
reform, and that was a commitment that was to be held up and
honored the whole world over, led by the sixteen nations of the
Economic Unification Council. Today, here and in those fellow
nations; Russia, Germany, France, England, Palestine, China, Japan,
Israel, Poland, Switzerland, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Iran and
Iraq, we, the chosen leaders of the EUC are united in our message
that we were
wrong
.” He thumped the desk and shook his head
slowly. “Income caps are not enough. Reduced military spending is
not enough. Tightening the purse strings, balancing the books,
leveling the playing field, debt forgiveness.. It’s all very
catchy, but it all falls far short of what is right and what is
necessary.”

The room was
almost silent, no clothes rustled, no lips moved, all eyes were on
Tiernan as he held out his hand and pointed his index finger,
sweeping from camera lens to camera lens. From somewhere in the
huddle of reporters, someone muttered the word that was perhaps on
everyone’s lips, “Communist.”

Tiernan
shrugged it off, “You want it all, and you aren’t to be blamed; we
…” he swept his hand back to indicate the handful of politicians
who stood to the sides of the podium and around the room, “We gain
from your insatiable greed. You’ve been brought up greedy, you’ve
been brought up impatient and I’m not going to tell you that you’re
to blame.” He glanced down at the podium again, and lowered his
hand to rest on the cool wood, “But I’m not going to enable you
either.”

Stanwick turned off
the radio and batted away Cobb’s hand as he reached instinctively
to turn it back on.

“Jesus, I was
listening to that. This might be one of the biggest…”

“Blah, blah.
Shut the fuck up or I’ll kill you right now. I won’t even pull over
to do it, I’ll just keep driving and choke you to death in your
seat.”

Cobb turned to
look at her and immediately thought better of firing back a
response.

“Honestly Brad,
you’re going to be sick to the back teeth of hearing that shit by
the time they get through analyzing everything the self serving
dick has to say.”

He muttered
something under his breath and scuffed his feet on the floor of the
foot well, drumming his fingers on the Pontiac’s door paneling.

“Brad, you’ll
have to speak up, I’m a little hard of patience” Stanwick took her
right hand off the steering wheel and backhanded the side of his
head to add emphasis to the word ‘patience’.

Cobb gritted
his teeth and stared at the miles of arrow straight road which lay
ahead of them. “I said, you don’t even know what that self serving
dick has to say.”

Looking up into
the rear view mirror, Stanwick could see David following closely,
his eyes watching the Pontiac attentively. He was struggling to get
to grips with West’s retro-fitted Chevelle, throwing the rear end
out whenever he attempted to overtake. She glanced at Cobb and
smiled inwardly. He looked so uncomfortable in David Beach’s
clothes, but they couldn’t very well have him running about in his
uniform, so they had made do with a quick change in the back seat
of Beach’s Toyota while David had cleared out his glove box.

“You’re wrong,
FYI.” Stanwick’s words were calm and quiet.

Cobb chanced a
glimpse of her eyes through their reflection in the rear view, and
he was only now, breathtakingly aware of how stunning her eyes
were. If he’d been in a more tranquil situation, Cobb would have
allowed himself the admission that Stanwick Thrass was the most
beautiful woman he’d met in real life. The situation wasn’t
tranquil. He clenched his teeth and told himself repeatedly that
she was as ugly as her personality; evil, bitchy, snarky and
another dose of evil.

“What am I
wrong about?” the words came out with a touch more sarcasm than he
had intended and he flinched at the sound of his own voice,
convinced that his words would be followed by another smack upside
the head.

Stanwick licked
her lips, then bit them, apparently holding back a torrent of
frustration. She was no slave to her emotions, her shows, tells,
facial ticks and shifts of posture were calculated to elicit a
response and control the emotions of those around her. She enjoyed
those verbal and postural games, because they kept her rooted her
in her humanity.

She loved
watching Cobb, a grown man, a trained killer, shifting awkwardly
simply because she’d licked her lips. Of course, there was more to
it than that. She knew that. She knew Cobb had been in that
apartment and had probably seen what she was capable of in the heat
of combat. She knew that his sense of emasculation must have been
profound. He was her bitch and it made her smile inwardly.
Outwardly, she glared at him through the mirror.

“You’re wrong
about the speech, I know exactly what Tiernan was about to say.
I’ve heard it a thousand times.”

Cobb didn’t
want to give her the satisfaction that would surely come with his
curiosity. He suspected she would elaborate anyway; he’d only spent
an hour in her company and so far, unbidden, she’d told him about
the bit jobs she’d worked for various broadsheets, following
Tiernan on his campaign trail, she’d told him about her distrust of
the government agencies, and she had threatened to talk over
Tiernan’s speech to chit chat about her cars (plural). He leaned
forward and reached into the foot well, taking a bag of beef jerky
from the plastic bag they had picked up from the gas station before
getting onto I-78. He took a piece before proffering the bag to
Stanwick who took a handful, dropping the pieces onto her lap,
“Thanks Brad.” She smiled, “Keep me fed and you might survive.”

They were a
couple of miles further down the road when Cobb gave in to his
curiosity. He’d stole the occasional glance of Stanwick as she’d
chewed and gnawed her way through most of the jerky in her lap. He
had eventually come to the conclusion that she cared more about
eating than about the political turmoil or the dire situation she
was apparently involved in.

“So … Miss
Thrass..”

“Stanwick, or
Stan, whatever. Definitely not Miss Thrass.”

Cobb smirked,
“Okay, Stanwick it is. What about Tiernan’s speech?”

“Oh God,
really? We’ve got eight hours to kill and you want to get into that
right away?”

“I just missed
the punchline of the most important presidential address in my
lifetime because apparently you’ve already heard it … You’ve got to
give me something here.”

Stanwick turned
to look at him for a moment, confident that the straight road
wasn’t about to throw her any surprises, “Okay Brad, but then I
want something from you in return.”

She looked back
at the road and grinned, trying to think of something shocking to
demand of him. Cobb nodded, “Fair enough.”

Stanwick rolled
down the window and spat a piece of gristle into the wind before
starting, “There’s a prophecy …”

Cobb laughed,
“Cut the shit.”

“I swear to God
boy, I’m out of jerky and you’re going to question the very first
thing I say?”

“Sorry, sorry …
Jesus!” Cobb reached down and picked out a fresh bag of teriyaki
jerky, quickly tearing into it and pouring some into Stanwick’s
lap. She had to turn her head to look out of the window in order to
hide her smile which was broad, warm and genuine.

“Many years
ago, and I mean that in the geological sense … many, many years
ago, a prophetic vision was recorded on a device which allowed the
vision to be viewed by many. The device was the product of a
civilization which had reached a pinnacle of technological
advancement which has only been bettered by modern civilization
during the past century, and even then, we are talking about a very
marginal lead.”

Cobb rested his
head back and closed his eyes, trying to block out the image of
Stanwick smashing his colleague’s head against the wall of the
apartment. He had hoped, briefly, that these people had saved him
from something. Perhaps, he had reasoned, he had thrown in with the
right crowd. What went down at the apartment, it was clear that his
colleagues were not what they appeared to be. So okay, none of
these people were in a straight cut situation, but he was
particularly unsettled by that deceit. This was really something
else. Whatever cult Stanwick was involved in, it was obvious that
he’d made a mistake. Some powerful shit they were selling Cobb
thought; that a woman this strong could be brainwashed into
believing this crap. He already understood that these people were
dangerous, but he was starting to think that they might be more
than merely dangerous; they might also be mentally unstable.

“There was an
almost immediate realization that the vision accurately predicted
the events that were happening in that country.”

Cobb nodded
calmly.

Stanwick pursed
her lips, watching Cobb’s hands fidgeting in his lap. “To cut a
long story short, Tiernan’s speech today forms part of the final
days predicted by that prophetic vision. Okay?”

Cobb opened his
eyes sharply, aware that Stanwick’s last words were spoken in a
caustic tone.

She shook her
head, “I’m sorry, it’s just that I know there’s no point in going
over all of this with you right now. You’re not going to get it,
it’s going to freak you out and you’re going to spend eight hours
wondering how the hell you get away from these nut jobs …”

Cobb laughed
awkwardly, “No …” he sighed, “Yes, possibly.”

Stanwick picked
a couple of pieces of jerky from her lap and crammed them into her
mouth, chewing them down before continuing, “You will get your
answers, it will make sense to you, but that’s not going to happen
right now. If you really want something to give you a grounding in
the reality you’re in, open the glove box.”

Cobb followed
her suggestion.

“Okay, see in
there, there’s a zip-lock with a book in it? Get that out.”

Cobb reached
forward and took the bag from the glove box.”

“Okay, be
careful, there’s only a couple of copies of that in the world, but
that one is mine. It was hand written in the fifteenth century and
it’s really only a synopsis of the vision, but it’s a start.”

Cobb stared
blankly at the letters which were embossed into the dark material
of the binding, unable to understand the language he saw.

Stanwick
sighed, “Shit, I’m sorry, my mistake. Yeah, you’re going to have to
wait till we get to my humble abode, unless you can read
Latin?”

Cobb shrugged,
“I’m fluent in five languages, but I passed up on Latin. It didn’t
seem likely that I’d need it as frequently as Mandarin.”

Stanwick gunned
the accelerator to overtake an eighteen wheeler, “Sucks to be
you.”

“I can’t
believe it.”

Stephanie threw
her bare feet up on the high dashboard, an act which required her
to push herself forward in the seat to reach, her head slumping
down so that the seat belt tugged at her chin, “Sup?”

David slammed
his fist on the steering wheel, inadvertently sounding the horn
which elicited a giggle from Stephanie.

“Did you
understand any of that speech?”

“What
speech?”

“On the radio
just now. The president’s speech.” David looked sidelong at his
daughter and decided not to comment on how ridiculously
uncomfortable she looked, “were you even listening to it?”

Preoccupied by
an experiment she was carrying out, Stephanie had been too busy to
pay much attention to the radio. Biting her hand and watching how
quickly her skin regained its color may not garner the attention of
the Nobel Prize committee, nevertheless Stephanie considered the
research to be worthwhile. She had an objective frame of reference
for her experiment; she knew that normally it would bring tears to
her eyes if she bit her skin with her canines hard enough that
their points left dark dents. She’d managed to draw blood not long
after they got onto the interstate. Not only had she not cried, but
the blood had vanished from her skin almost as quickly as it had
appeared, along with the mark left by her teeth.