The Sovereign Era (Book 2): Pilgrimage (37 page)

“So you thought you’d make sure I didn’t?” He could tell she was kidding. He was pretty sure, anyway. “Come in. What’s up?”

“You were right,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

She frowned like she was confused, but she smiled, too. “I like the sound of that…and also, huh? What about?”

“I…what you said. On Wednesday.” He opted to look at his shoes. “If we’d, like, gone to the same school. I totally wouldn’t have talked to you.”

“Is that the thing you’re also sorry about?”

“I’m sorry I called you a fucking bitch.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Hah. I
am
a fucking bitch, Byron. I kick ass at it.” She smiled. “Apology accepted.”

Byron was surprised at just how intensely relieved he felt right then. He laughed nervously. “Good. Cool. So we’re cool.”

“You can be cool. I’m hot. Yuk-yuk.”

“Nice one.” Byron sighed hard. “Fuck, Haze. This has been a shitty day.”

“Your friend’s dad getting killed?”

“That, yeah, but…Donner brought me, and my dad, and Nate, and his dad’s two friends…he brought us all into this…I don’t know, meeting, or, what, like an interrogation room, with the dude who shot Nate’s dad, and that leader of those crazy people. Ewing Kass and Spencer were there, too. It was a trip.”

“What happened?”

Byron ran a hand through his spiky blonde hair. “Nate…I’m kinda scared for him. He’s so fucked-up right now, what with his dad getting killed and stuff. We were in there, and this Lou Uldare guy, the dude who shot his dad, right? He threatens us, and Nate, like, just jumps him.

“Right there in front of Spencer, and Donner. Just gets up in his shit and threatens to rip his throat out.”

“Fucker deserves it, you ask me,” Haze said.

“Donner talked him down; I guess they want to grill the guy for whatever they can get about our enemies. So Nate—check this out—Nate fucking pops the dude’s eyes out. With his fingers.”

Haze’s own eyes opened wide. “That’s…hardcore.
Jesus.”

Byron’s chest tightened. He sucked on his bottom lip. “It was gross. And fucked, dude. But…I don’t know…it was sad, too. Nate made this noise…like he was angry and kicking ass, and totally, like, bummed out. All at the same time.” He shook his head. “Dude’s fucked-up. Way more than I ever was about this shit.”

Haze took a seat at her little kitchen table. “Sit,” she said.

Byron did.

Haze said, “So…it freaked you out? To see this kid you used to, I don’t know, give wedgies to or something, do something like that?”

“He freaked me out yesterday morning when he went for Uldare in the first place, right after his dad was shot,” Byron said. “If I hadn’t pulled him off the guy, that would have been it. He was ready to kill him. With his bare hands.”

Haze raised her eyebrows. “I repeat my question.”

“The answer is, hell, yeah. I hope we can help him get that shit under control.” Byron shook his head. “That was hard to watch. But Donner…I don’t know about that guy.”

Haze raised her hands. “Hello? Finally!”

“He’s a cold son of a bitch. Totally willing to, like, torture Uldare and the other dude. I mean, I never really spent any time with him before…we got introduced when Spencer first brought me here, but that was different.”

“He didn’t shake your hand in between stretching someone on the rack, you mean?”

Byron didn’t laugh. “He wasn’t the dude you see on TV. Mister politician, mister freedom fighter.” Byron pursed his lips and shook his head. “
That
guy was totally not in the room tonight.”

“It’s like I said. Power corrupts. Nobody’s more powerful than Donner.”

Byron frowned. “I don’t even know if he’s like that, though. I mean, he can do anything, right? How can he be, like, corrupted?” He shook his head, thinking. “No, I just…I don’t…I didn’t think everybody’d be so fuckin’ violent, you know?”

Haze smiled and laughed, but her eyes were sympathetic. “Oh, Byron. You joined the SCET. You had to know that was a full-contact kind of thing.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I get that we’re gonna have…situations. Like this morning, with those protestors.” He inclined his head toward her. “It was totally cool of you to come with us, by the way, even if I was, like, blown away that you wanted to.”

She looked away. “That was for Yvette.” She shrugged. “Besides, I didn’t really do anything. Ed Kelso blocks out the sun, and everybody settles right down. He’s fifteen feet of psychological warfare.” Byron laughed. “But go on.”

“I get that there’s gonna be shit to deal with. That things could get rough,” Byron said. “I’m cool with that; I think it’s, like, necessary if a Sovereign is, like, breaking the law or whatever.”

“You stopped Nate from killing that dude.”

“Exactly. I just figured I had to…like it was the right thing to do, even though Uldare’s totally a killer. It wouldn’t be right, and…I don’t know…it totally
wouldn’t
be right for Nate to do that. He’d be sorry. I know he would.”

Haze’s “Maybe” was neutral. “So what’s your damage?”

“It just freaked me out to see Donner doing what he did to the militia guy…and not doing anything to directly stop Nate from fucking poking a dude’s eyes out.” He sighed. “I don’t know.”

“You coming to your senses?”

“I just…it’s more complicated that I thought. The whole thing—being a Sovereign. It’s like life is more complicated.” He breathed a laugh. “I mean, a year ago, one of the reasons I took Spencer up on his offer was because I couldn’t handle the idea of going back home. Because of my dad. I…I ditched out, totally left my mom and my friends and everything…because I couldn’t stand being around that guy once I, like, knew what I knew. And I didn’t know
shit
, y’know?”

She nodded.

“Then he shows up here, and he’s a hero of the Sovereigns and totally, like, still that guy, I think, but…I don’t know. Better?”

“People change.”

“He’s a pretty old dog, Haze. It’s weird. It’s a trip.” Byron sat back, stretched his back, stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know what to think. About all this stuff.”

“Do you need to have it all figured out?” She laughed. “Right now? ‘Cause I don’t know about that, dude.”

“Nah.” He laughed and leaned forward. He rested his elbows on the table and looked at his hands.

“Here’s the thing, all right? All night, after the fucking shit that went down with Donner and everybody, I’ve been just, like, walking around and thinking. And the thing is…I know I’m not so good at seeing some stuff.”

He looked up at her, then back at his hands. “You are, though. You called a lot of it.”

“I’ve seen it before,” she said.

“Well, I guess I’m sorry if you have…and glad, too, ‘cause you can point it out for me when I’m all gung-ho and shit.” He looked up at her. “Anyway. I don’t want us to be angry at each other.”

“Dude, I accepted your apology.”

“I know…I know.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Byron felt better. But now it was him and her, late at night, alone in her apartment again, and she was wearing a T-shirt and maybe nothing else. He started wondering things.

She stood up. “Okay!” She walked out of sight. He could hear her rustling around.

She came back with his hair dryer. “I’m done with this. Thanks.”

He stood up and took it from her. “You’re welcome.”

They stood there.

“Good night, Byron.” She lifted her hand and swiveled it left and right, a tight little parade wave. “I want to go back to sleep.”

“Okay.” He felt a lot better than when he’d arrived. He smiled. “Yeah. Me, too.”

“Okay. Good night.” She moved him to the door. “I’ll see you at…you know. The thing tomorrow.”

That was a buzz-kill. “Yeah.”

He hadn’t wanted to think about it. Now he’d get about five hours of sleep before the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies had its first funeral.

From The Journal Of Nate Charters – Thirty Six

Around eight o’clock Saturday morning, an employee of the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies dropped by and invited me to visit their commissary. She gave me a voucher good for anything I wanted to buy.

The unspoken intention was that I not have to show up at my father’s funeral wearing the same damn clothes I’d first put on Thursday morning. Made sense to me.

After the stunt I pulled on Uldare, I got the very strong impression Denver and Sandy weren’t all that keen on hanging out with me for a while. And Byron didn’t answer his phone.

These things also made sense to me.

So I went alone.

There was a time I’d preferred being alone. The way things were going, I thought maybe it was a good idea for me to get used to it again.

The commissary looked a lot like a K-Mart, which was jarring and strange to me. These Sovereigns wanted to be held separate and apart from the rest of humanity, but I guess they still want all the same stuff, presented in a familiar way, as the rest of us.

I found jeans and a button-down shirt and socks, all black, and a pack of boxers. Picked up some black creepers, too, even thought they were a knock-off brand. Another surprise.

I wandered around the aisles and realized that as long as the Sovereigns were buying, I might as well get enough clothes for a couple of days. I got another pair of jeans, a pack of socks, and a couple of flannel shirts.

I looked at jackets. Would I need a jacket? How long was I going to be in Montana?

I finally couldn’t hide from the fact I was stalling. Plus, the funeral wouldn’t wait for me. Or maybe it would, but that would make me a whole different kind of asshole than some people probably already thought I was.

I paid. The guy at the checkout was actually very nice. He expressed his condolences. I went to the apartment, got cleaned up, and dressed for the funeral.

I had about an hour to kill. I spent some of it sitting on the edge of the bed, trying really hard to think about nothing.

I cried a little. Not about my dad. Not exactly. More out of exhaustion, I think.

I went to the cafeteria. The place was practically empty, which struck me as odd until I remembered that pretty much everybody at the Institute was going the same place I was.

There would be a huge crowd to see him off, but from what I’d seen, my dad got real nervous around people. I wondered if he’d been like that, but, you know, less so, before the augmentation regimen.

If there was an afterlife, which Andrew Charters was there? The scientist, or the feral homeless wild man?

I got a double-decker cheeseburger and a big pile of chili fries and a corner table.

I had almost finished eating when my mother walked up.

“Nathan…”

The intellectual part of my brain knew her being there should have been a big surprise, but my emotions were so blunted and worn out, I simply waited until my brain reconciled her presence with the surroundings.

She looked like she needed to hug her son. So I stood up.

It was only once we were embracing that I started to feel something. I didn’t like where that was headed. I pulled away from her.

“How’d you get here?”

She studied me as she spoke. “The Institute called me about…Andrew. They arranged everything. A car, a plane, a ride from the airport.” She touched my cheek, and I didn’t even want to pull away. Maybe I was just too tired to care. “I feel like it was ten minutes ago that I was sitting home angry and worried about you.”

There was pressure behind my eyes. I blinked once or twice and hoped for the best. “I told you I had to see him. I told you I needed help.”

“I’m not here to fight with you, Nathan.” She sounded pretty tired, herself. She looked at her watch. “Are you ready? It’s time to go.”

“Okay.”

There weren’t any golf carts available outside the cafeteria, and it would have been pretty lame to go to a funeral riding on a golf cart, anyway. We walked. We didn’t say anything to each other.

It was so strange that my mother was there.

She had a right to be. But it was so strange.

I didn’t know exactly where this thing was going to happen, but that didn’t matter. All we had to do was follow everybody else out across a wide meadow to a square of fresh sod next to a big three-story house.

It was the house William Donner grew up in. He’d had it moved here, apparently, and his uncle still lived there. I saw that on a documentary.

I wondered how the uncle felt about having a tiny cemetery for a side yard.

The sky was a little cloudy. It was a little chilly. I should have bought that jacket.

There were rows of folding chairs, the same kind as in the scene of my latest rage-out, set up before a lectern.

Two coffins. Two rectangular holes in the ground.

The chairs were mostly filled up. Lots of other people milled around. The giant guy stood toward the back. He wore a black suit, the biggest black suit ever made for anyone, ever.

Ewing Kass spotted my mother and me. He showed us to our seats, right in the middle of the front row. Denver, Sandy, Byron, his girlfriend, and his dad were already there, seated.

The skinny guy Marc Teslowski rescued from the speciesists was seated next to him. He caught my eye with his all-black ones and nodded in that somber, respectful way people do. He looked a lot better than the last time I’d seen him.

Sovereign doctors could work wonders, I guess. Just not miracles.

Far as I know, the woman named Yvette Schwenck was not represented by friends or family. Fortunately, about five hundred loved ones she’d never met turned out to honor her.

That was sad.

“Oh, damn,” my mother said quietly. It was mostly a sigh.

I took her hand. She squeezed it and held on.

Doctor William Karl Donner, the most powerful Sovereign known, self-proclaimed steward of the most dangerous minority group on the planet, came out of the house and walked across the lawn to the lectern. The ends of his pant legs got damp from the wet grass.

Other than that, he was perfectly groomed. His suit was very dark gray and, while I don’t know a thing about such things, looked very expensive. He had a dark-red handkerchief folded in the breast pocket of his jacket. His tie was black. His shirt was a little lighter than the jacket.