Paradigm (31 page)

“Jesus, kid!” said Colby. “What the hell was that?”

“He’s fine,” said Alma. “You’re fine. Sam? You are fine?”

“Yeah,” said Sam, forming the words slowly. His head was still pounding, but that suddenly felt like nothing after the digivend. “I’m fine. We need to go.”

Alma glanced at Colby, who nodded, picked up the keys and got into the car.

“Colby’s gonna take me to get my bike,” she said.

“What? But…?”

“I’ll meet you and Nathan on the road, okay?”

“No. Alma, you don’t need—”

“I do. Just like you need that car. It’s part of me. Okay?”

“Well, let me drop you off, then.”

“Look at yourself, Sam. You need to put some miles between you and this place. I’ll catch you up.”

Sam straightened up and breathed deeply, trying to take everything in. He did understand. Of course he did. Except that he didn’t.

“Take the I-5 out of town. Nathan said he passed an old quarry near a place called Wheeler’s Ridge. We’ll meet there. Okay? Sam, are you hearing this?”

“Yes, I’m hearing it. I’m just not liking it.”

“Take care,” said Alma, smiling.

“Sure.”

She turned and opened the passenger door of the Vega, then stepped back and walked up to Sam, leaning in so that her mouth was so close to his ear he could feel her breath and the warmth of her skin.

“I wasn’t asleep, porangi” she whispered. “And I want you to know…the yellow sky is enough for me too.”

Chapter 33

S
am watched as the
Vega trundled
down the street, its engine whirring like a clockwork toy. He ran his hands through his hair, rubbing at his scalp. The headache was still there, but everything had changed.

He walked slowly back to the GTO, and realized he was smiling.

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” asked Nathan. “Because I could—”

“Nathan,” said Sam, turning the key and gunning the engine a couple of times. “There is very little that is certain in this world, but I can tell you one thing—you are
never
going to drive my car again.”

He pulled out and drove through the dark streets and alleys of the outlands, before reaching the old highway and heading north. With each mile the headache dissipated a little more, but didn’t vanish altogether, which was weird.

Sam found himself thinking about Dr. Robinson’s warning, and the boys in the clinic, and couldn’t help wondering if things were going to get worse.

“I met him again, you know,” he said, eager to think about something else.

“Who?”

“Vincent. There was a mob after him and Cherry.”

“What did you do?”

“We helped them. Me and Alma. He turned out to be an okay guy.”

“You helped them? After what they did to you? I would’ve let them die.”

Sam glanced at Nathan, surprised at the venom in his voice.

“They didn’t do anything to me,” he said. “That was you.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Yes, you did. You could’ve told me. We could’ve put some miles between us and them. There’s no way they’d be able to outrun the GTO.”

“I was scared.”

“You think I wasn’t?”

Nathan stared out of the passenger window sulkily.

“I
said
I was sorry,” he muttered.

Sam glanced at him again. How could he think that just saying “sorry” would be enough? This wasn’t about forgetting to make a fire, or leaving food out, or not putting oil in the car when you said you would. It wasn’t about the usual, dumb things that everyone does from time to time. It was about deciding that your life was more valuable than the next guy’s.

He understood that fear was a galvanizing force and that frightened people do desperate, dreadful things that would horrify them at any other time. But usually, afterwards, when it’s all over and the dust has settled, most of them apologize with a lot more sincerity than Nathan was managing to muster.

“You said you didn’t think I was human,” said Sam, quietly.

Nathan didn’t say anything, but Sam could’ve sworn he saw him smile—just for a split second. He shifted in his seat and pressed down hard on the accelerator. He needed to think. Something was wrong. This wasn’t the Nathan he’d thought he’d known.

After about fifteen minutes, he decided to try again.

“So,” he said. “Are we going back to the household stuff or something new?”

Nathan looked at him like he had no idea what Sam was talking about, then shrugged.

“Dunno,” he said. “Is the chick coming?”

“You mean Alma?”

That was the second time in as many hours that Nathan had used the word “chick.” Sam tried to remember if he’d ever heard him use it before.

“Yeah.”

“Maybe. It’s up to her.”

Nathan made a kind of grunting sound and went back to staring out of the window.

“What?” said Sam.

“I don’t like her,” muttered Nathan. “She kills people.”

“Really?” said Sam, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You’re going to go there?
She
kills people?”

Nathan shrugged. Sam could feel himself getting angry again.

“Okay,” he said. “Tell you what. I’ll drop you off in Fresno, you should be able to get a ride there.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Nathan. “But I want my stuff out of the trunk. Those things are worth money and, like you said, the pocket generators are solid gold.”

Sam hit the brakes, pulled to the side of the road and glowered at Nathan.

“Fine,” he said. “How about you take them now and wait for the next idiot stupid enough to give you a lift?”

He got out and started to walk toward the back of the car, but before he’d gone three paces his simmering headache flared up again, sending a searing pain through his temples. He staggered backwards before steadying himself on the trunk of the car.

“Sam!” yelled Nathan, jumping out of the car. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean… I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter.”

Sam waited for the pain to subside before he opened his eyes. Nathan was looking genuinely concerned.

“Want me to drive?” he asked, smiling.

“No,” said Sam, laughing, and straightening up. “I’m fine. Just give me a moment.”

Nathan got back into the car while Sam walked up and down by the side of the road, breathing deeply and trying to stop shaking. He wasn’t fit to drive, of course, but there was no way he was letting Nathan into the driver’s seat.

After a few minutes, the shaking had stopped and most of the dancing lights in front of his eyes had disappeared. He got back into the car and started the engine. Nathan looked tense.

“It’s okay,” said Sam, smiling. “After all, what am I going to hit?”

Not many people liked to travel by night at the best of times, even if they had vehicles with functioning headlights, but since Carolyn Bast’s little war, the few who had ventured out preferred to do so in daylight. Now, just before dawn, the great highway was nothing but a barren, grey, pock-marked ribbon of road. The GTO roared through the mountains that encircled the Los Angeles basin, past the customs and immigration checkpoint and through the winding Grapevine to the flatlands of the Central Valley.

Nathan fell asleep somewhere between Tejon and Gorman and Sam was able to relax and enjoy the drive, feeling every nuance of the old car’s engine as it sped through the grey light toward Wheeler’s Ridge.

Once or twice, he glanced at Nathan, wondering how he could ever have imagined that things would be the same, that they could just return to the Wilds and go back to selling junk out of the back of the car. For a while, after he released him from the cage, Sam had still sort of clung on to the idea. Nathan would apologize, Sam would graciously accept and all would be as it was.

If it was a story in one of his books, it would have been exactly like that. But real life was never so neat. Nathan wasn’t really sorry, and now that Sam suspected he’d do exactly the same thing again if he felt he had to, it was pretty impossible to do the magnanimous forgiveness thing either. Never mind the whole bit about Sam not really being human.

“Where are we?”

“Nowhere,” said Sam, truthfully.

The flat valley stretched away in front and on every side, dry scrub with white patches where salt had broken the surface of the crusting earth. The outline of distant hills could just be made out in the distance through the heat addled air, but the overwhelming impression was of yellow ground giving way to yellow sky.

“No,” said Nathan, sitting up. “It’s just ahead! Take this road here.”

Sam turned off the highway and headed toward a long-broken gate and the unmistakable scarred, abraded rock of an abandoned quarry. After about two hundred yards, he left the road and followed a wide dirt track to the remains of some low-lying buildings, then continued on up to the top of a red rock outcropping and switched off the engine.

He got out and walked to the edge, examining the dusty highway for any sign of Alma’s bike. He heard Nathan’s door open and close, but didn’t turn around. He felt apprehensive and nervous, though everything seemed to be going according to plan. He glanced back at Nathan, who was leaning against the car and smiling.

The smile didn’t look like Nathan’s, despite the fact that it was definitely his face that was doing it.

He turned away and examined the highway again. Nothing.

Where could she be?

He put his hand in his right hand pocket and felt the now-familiar sharp outline of the key to the Paradigm Device. It still had Bast’s chain on it. He took it out and looked at it.

“Hey, Sam,” said Nathan. “Look at this. We’ve got some new stock.”

Sam turned around. The trunk was open and Nathan was staring at the contents, smiling slightly. There was a brief moment when Sam wondered if Nathan had decided that maybe they would go back on the road after all, but then it dawned on him.

The trunk was open.

He felt in his pocket for the keys, even though he knew they were there.

So Nathan had the other set. He sighed. This was bad. Beyond bad.

But even as he tried to think of a way out, he was overwhelmed by feelings of sorrow and regret. He hoped it hadn’t been painful, although judging from what Bast had said to Matheson, it almost certainly had.

He glanced at the paradigm key in his hand, wrapped the chain around it and hurled it as far away as he could.

“Seriously, Sam,” said Nathan. “Where’d this shit come from?”

Sam walked back to the car slowly, making sure that Nathan was always in sight and never too close. He looked at the trunk. It was full of heavy weapons. Nathan grinned and pulled out some kind of shoulder held rocket launcher.

Sam didn’t hesitate. He spun around and made for the driver’s seat.

This time the pain exploded through his head like a flash of white heat. He stumbled, clawing at the door, but found only hard dirt and rock.

“
What d’you think the range is on these things, Sammy?
”

Sam struggled to stand. He looked up. Nathan had the rocket launcher on his shoulder and had walked to the edge of the rise. He was smiling, but not speaking. Except he was.

“
Like, d’you think I could hit that?
”

“You’re not Nathan,” gasped Sam.

“I am, in a way.” Now he was speaking again. “I have access to all of his memories, for example. So, to return to the point, d’you think I could hit that?”

“What?”

Sam staggered to the edge of the rock. Far below them, speeding along the old highway, was a bike. Even from this distance there was no mistaking it. It was Alma’s Norton Commando.

“
Nathan wouldn’t be able to hit it, of course. But I’ve got just about every guidance system known to man inside my matrices. I think I probably could.
”

“Don’t. Please.”

“That’s better,” said Nathan, smiling. “Politeness always helps. Would I be correct in thinking you just threw away the key to the box?”

Sam nodded. He thought about rushing him, but no sooner did the thought occur than there was another explosion in his head.

“
Please stop making me do this, Sam. I don’t want to damage you and it does limit the lifespan of this shell.”

“Tough,” gasped Sam.

Nathan lowered the weapon and retrieved the box from the car.

“Open it.”

“What? How?”

“Don’t play games, Sammy. I know you have a few special skills of your own.”

“Why don’t you…?”

“I’m a bit limited by the shell at the moment. This one’s better than the others, though. Or maybe I’m learning how to preserve them for longer. It’s hard to tell. Now open the box.”

“Is he still in there?” he asked.

“What?”

“Nathan. Is he…is there anything of him still there…in his head?”

The thing that was no longer Nathan cocked its head on one side as if he was looking at a painting, or rummaging through an old bag.

“No,” he said, finally. “Some memories racketing about, but that’s pretty much it. Why do you ask?”

“I thought there might be a chance.”

“Did you?” Nathan grinned and shook his head. “I thought you were the pessimistic one, Sam. Wasn’t it Nathan who always saw the sunny side of things?”

Sam glared at him.

The thing that had been Nathan laid the box at his feet and picked up the rocket launcher again.

“
Open it.
”

Sam shook his head and braced himself, but the flash of pain didn’t come. He looked up. Nathan was staring at him with an expression that was both quizzical and impressed.

“Well done!” he said.

“What?”

“You’ve shut me out.”

Sam stood up. He still felt shaky, but for the first time in days he had no headache at all.

“I knew the experiments were successful, but I had no idea it had gone as well as this. Ha! No wonder those idiots at Hermes tried to shut the whole thing down.”

“Hermes didn’t know about it, though, did they?”

Sam was playing for time, hoping that Alma would turn off the road.

“Head office didn’t, no. I convinced Matheson…well, his dad…It’s so hard to keep the characters clear when human beings grow old and die so quickly. You’re nothing but mayflies, really. Anyway, I convinced him that it would be wiser to withhold the information until they were sure the technology worked.”

“Because you’d already tried it with Seattle.”

“You see?” said Nathan, grinning with delight. “This is what I’m talking about! They were worried that the locules would be defective. Mentally defective. But you’re just smart as a whip. I can’t wait to get in there! Yes, of course I’d proposed it to head office. The thing about scientists, though…the really great thing…is that they’re curious. They always want to know more, to see if something really can be done.”