Lightning (13 page)

“No. There weren't as many large ones as there are now. It's against the law to cut trees in this forest. We must travel many miles to bring back wood to build homes when necessary.” Mari puttered in the kitchen area and returned with a plate of cheeses and meats cut in finger-sized chunks.

Selah looked at the meat. She really didn't want to eat coyote. “Can I ask what kind of meat that is?”

Mari looked down at it, a question enveloping her face. Then she brightened. “Oh, no, it's not coyote.” She threw her head back and laughed. “This is the summer sausage my family is famous for. It's a mix of pork and venison seasoned with mustard seeds, pepper, salt, and sugar. We make it dried or smoked. The dried sausages last all winter, and we eat the smoked now.”

Selah expelled her breath. “Now that I can deal with.”

They ate and talked for about twenty minutes. It amazed Selah how easily they meshed, laughing at the same things and making the same gestures. She actually felt more comfortable with Mari than she did with Treva. The thought gave her a lump in her throat.

As they laughed at a story Mari told about a rambunctious squirrel that insisted on living inside the tree near her bedroom wall, a group of voices drifted up from the ground. Mari held up her hand for quiet. Selah tensed. Did they have problems with bandits here?

Mari went to the door and looked over the railing. “Welcome to my home. Come on up!” She motioned to her men. “See you at the evening meal. Thanks for bringing them. Take the wagon out to Raif and help him take the coyotes to old man Rumen. He'll think it's his birthday. He won't have to hunt all winter.”

Selah rose from her comfortable seat, wishing she could rest here for days but feeling the urgency of her mission pulling through her weariness. One by one Treva, Cleon, and Jaenen poked their heads up over the porch, big smiles on their faces and wonder in their eyes.

“Can you believe this house! In a tree!” Cleon seemed beside himself with joy. He scampered about the porch, checking how the house was put together and what held each part in place. Running his hands across objects as though committing them to memory, he looked up from what appeared to be a pipe. “Water! How do you get water in and out of here?”

Mari smiled and pointed up. “Look near the top of the tree. There's a water collection tank up there. It's gravity-fed to here by those green pipes, and gravity-fed to the ground in the brown pipes. The brown pipes drain into tanks underground that lead the water away from the tree.”

Cleon bolted around the outside to inspect all the applications.

Selah grinned at Mari. “Is this house strong enough for all of us, especially energy boy over there?”

Mari nodded. “No problems at all. We could have four or five others before I'd get concerned. This house is made to last through my lifetime and a few others.”

“This is like a beautiful dream. Now my only problem is going to be convincing your brother to keep our marriage home on the ground,” Treva said as she explored the inside and walked to the closed doors. Mari nodded her permission.

Selah didn't want to appear nosy, so she stayed in place even though her feet were itching to see the other rooms Treva explored.

She looked at Jaenen. He hadn't said a word since he came in. She tried to get his attention, but he seemed preoccupied in looking out the window on the side where Mari had said the colony stood. Cleon had suddenly become babble boy. He had a hundred questions for Mari about the construction of the house, and he wanted detailed explanations. Selah felt sorry for her but wasn't going to rescue her yet because something about Jaenen's manner concerned her.

She walked over and touched his shoulder. He tensed. She yanked back her hand.

“Is something the matter? You're awfully quiet. You didn't even say hello when you came upstairs,” Selah said.

He turned. Either his eyelids had shrunk or his eyes were bulging as though something were pushing on them from inside his head.

Selah gasped and pulled back to a safer distance. What was happening here?

B
odhi moved away from the second-floor window and glanced around the small, cramped hotel room. The low light didn't hide the fact that the floors were grimy and the walls were dingy and scraped occasionally by narrow streaks that looked to be squashed bugs. He grimaced at the idea of sleeping here for the night, while—

“What's the matter?” Glade asked. “You've been acting angry since we arrived in Baltimore. Considering that was around seven and it's now almost midnight, I'd say whatever's bothering you hasn't gone away.” He leaned back in his seat, and it telescoped into a reclining position.

Rapid weapon fire ricocheted off the outside corner of the stone building. Bodhi flinched, scrambling away from the window area. Raucous laughter and playful screams and giggles echoed between the buildings. A few more weapons went off, but this time maybe up in the air since Bodhi didn't hear an impact.

He pressed his mouth together, then bit his lip. The metallic taste told him to control himself. “This is beyond belief. Look at this place. This hotel isn't fit for barn animals to live in, let alone people.”

Running in the hall. A frantic knock.

Bodhi opened the door and Taraji stormed in. “Are you both all right? I saw the weapons fire hit the building.”

“It was the outside corner. Didn't come in here,” Bodhi said.

“But it did move him out of window range.” Glade smiled, remaining reclined.

Taraji looked relieved. “Celebrating absolutely nothing is the favorite pastime of people in this part of town. They do a lot of gambling and ingesting of drinks that dull the senses, and thus they think it's pure fun to shoot up buildings full of sleeping people.” She frowned and shook her head.

Her attempt at sarcasm made Bodhi almost smile. At least smiling would help tamp down some of his negative emotions.

Glade moved his chair to an upright position. “That kind of society evolves when education and the principles of your people are forgotten.”

Weapons cracked outside, and again the outside stone wall deflected the shots. Everyone flinched. Bodhi stormed over to the doorway near Taraji.

“Why is there a city ban on weapons and they take ours, but there's an army out there? Do you have backup downstairs with you?”

“Yes, from security.” Taraji put her hand on her holstered weapon. “Why?”

“Well, I could say that I'd feel safer with you and a weapon here.” Bodhi tipped his head to listen for another shot. “I'm listening to the shots and calculating their trajectory by the sound of deflection—”

“Whoa. Short version, please,” Glade said.

“Someone is purposely standing in the same spot shooting, to create a sense of a random pattern.”

Taraji nodded. “So that if a round entered this room, it could be deemed a revelry accident. I'm on it!” She scrambled out the door, and running footsteps faded into the distance.

“So stay away from the window and continue your answer,” Glade said.

Bodhi looked back toward the window and grimaced. He moved to take a seat near Glade. “We were here three months ago, in the best part of town with Lander security. We even stayed in the Town Center building with Council members. And now we're relegated to this?”

“Get used to it,” Glade said. “It looks like we may need to go into hiding if this trip to Stone Braide doesn't net workable results.”

“This is insanity! Selah is to be protected and cherished. She's the future for us all.”

Glade stared at him, not moving.

“What's wrong? Did I say something wrong?” Bodhi asked. “I don't care anymore. I just want to go home and protect Selah.”

“I've never before heard this level of passion in your voice when you spoke about protecting my daughter.” Glade nodded. “I believe you now.”

Screams. Bodhi tensed. He heard laughter and then giggling screams. Glade lifted one corner of his mouth in a half smile.

“How come this isn't making you nervous?” Bodhi was jumping like a frog at every crazy sound. He wanted to know what Glade did to keep from reacting.

“This is strangely like the last eighteen years I spent in the Mountain. Nights of screams mixed with laughter, weapons fire, and all sorts of things that don't normally happen in civilized society.”

“And there was no respect there for a novarium at all, not even from her own people?” Bodhi didn't remember being taught how or why novarium were important, but he knew it deep inside.

“It wasn't this bad before I went into the Mountain, but they were traveling this path, toward indifference and lack of respect. Now I'm jaded to it. As I said, the last eighteen years have changed me.”

“You told me love ruined you, so which is it?” Bodhi had been looking for a way to get back to that conversation, and this seemed a good time.

Glade looked down, silent for a full minute. Bodhi feared speaking further. Had he crossed a boundary?

“My wife died giving birth to my daughter. I killed her,” Glade said softly.

“What do you mean? Pasha isn't dead.”

Glade lifted his head. His eyes appeared moist. “I was the ruler there from the beginning—”

“Ruler!” Bodhi laughed. “You mean like a king? Oh, this is bio-coin rich.”

“They'd had their fill of
president
and
governor
and were looking for something that didn't have a bad connotation.
Ruler
won.” Glade shrugged. “I didn't care.”

“How did you get them to follow you so fast at the beginning?”

“I saved many of them from the tsunami flood in the Sorrows. They said I made a natural leader. Anyhow, I outlived two wives over the first ninety years. I loved both of them dearly and grieved deeply because neither union produced children.”

“Did you do that ‘remaining within the First Protocol' thing and only marry other First Protocol Landers?” Bodhi asked.

“Yes, sixty years ago I fell in love with the daughter of a second-generation Lander, of the First Protocol. As husband and wife, we ruled together for thirty years without a child and then she conceived. Despite a few reservations, it was pretty laughable that it took us so long.”

Loud music blasted in the hallway. Glade and Bodhi flinched.

A loud knock at the door. “Hey, do you want to come and have a party with us?” a woman yelled above the sound of the music. Her tiny footsteps moved away.

Glade shook his head. Bodhi nodded. They both remained silent.

A loud pounding on the door. The frame rattled. “We're having a party. Bring your bio-coin and we can buy more drinks,” a male voice yelled. He banged on the door harder.

Bodhi and Glade reached to unholster weapons that weren't there.

“Rolly, come on! The party's starting,” the guy yelled. He banged on the door again.

Bodhi heard the woman return. “This isn't Rolly's door. He's the next one over there.” Their footsteps faded away.

Bodhi sidled up to the window to watch them exit the building while Glade listened at the door to be sure they had left the floor.

Bodhi looked back at Glade. “So you and your wife had a baby?”

“The baby lived but my wife died. I listened to the medico.” Glade's countenance fell. “I should have known better.”

“Medico?”

“In this part of the country that's what they call a healer, a doctor type. Apparently before the flood, the medico's father had been the mayor. His family claimed the town as theirs, but the citizens hated their family. So granted, I did save the citizens from the flood, but I think they chose me as the leader just to spite the medico's family.”

“So 120 years later, revenge is still the driving force for the medico's family? And this doctor gave you bad information?” Bodhi's pulse had quickened—either from the loud constant noise or from fear for Glade's other child.

Glade, visibly shaken, clutched at his chest and fingered a silver chain Bodhi hadn't noticed before. “They said my wife contracted a blood disease and she and the baby would die before the due date. The medico insisted on a treatment that I knew was wrong.”

Bodhi shut his eyes and his voice softened. “What happened?”

“My wife delivered our daughter and died an hour later.”

“I'm sorry for your wife. What happened to your daughter?”

“I devoted myself to her, but I couldn't take it. She looked exactly like her mother, even had the same mannerisms.” Glade's voice choked.

Bodhi had never seen Glade vulnerable, and it unnerved him. He felt like he shouldn't be looking.

Pain etched itself on Glade's face. “The longer I was around my daughter, the more I wanted to end my existence. I missed my wife so much. So twenty years ago, when the pain became too great, I ran away and never went back.”

“You left your daughter behind? Where is she? Is she still there?”

“Yes, she was nine at the time. It was better for her to stay at the colony. I will never interfere or contact her.” He sighed. “She and Selah must never meet, for their own safety. And I mean life or death.”

“I understand. Just the idea that the splinters might get an opportunity to capture your daughters would be enough to send them into a frenzy. The girls should never be together. Are you giving me a directive to keep this secret from Selah?”

“If you want to keep both my daughters out of danger, yes.”

“When did Pasha come into the picture?”

“I met Pasha because she was my assignment. We did things a little differently back then. It was my job to make sure she met up with the Lander coming by sea who would transition her. But I fell in love with her.”

“What does that mean? What happened to the Lander
from the sea?” Bodhi wondered who was supposed to have protected him when he arrived.

A series of shots rang out. All in the air. Bodhi didn't flinch this time. Were enemies lurking outside waiting for him to get used to the sounds and let his guard down?

Glade shook his head. “I loved her so much I couldn't stand losing her to the life of a novarium.”

“You haven't told us about a novarium's life yet.” Bodhi already knew Selah was special, but he believed that partly because he loved her so much.

“I would tell you if I knew.”

“So how do you know what kind of life you'd have been losing her to, if you don't know what a novarium does?”

“The only thing I do know is a novarium has one year from the time of her transitioning to connect with the Third Protocol, or the novarium fractures—her brain and physical functions fall apart. I couldn't risk Pasha. We hadn't found the keys.”

Novarium fractures. Novarium fractures.
Bodhi felt a wave of guilt smothering him. If they didn't find the keys, it would be his fault that Selah would . . . He didn't want to even think that word again. “How much of this does Selah know? I can understand not telling her about your other family, but have you told her that her mom was a Lander child or that she was originally supposed to be transitioned also?”

“I choked. I couldn't explain how much I loved her mother without showing my vulnerability. So I lied. Selah thinks I'm a coward.”

“So you're really not going to tell her she has a sister?
What do you think will happen later if, and I assume
when
, she finds out?”

“You know how she is. Nothing would stop her from finding her sister, and to have both of my children together . . .” Glade shook his head. “It would put both of their lives in danger of death or a lifetime of being imprisoned for experimentation. The splinters will stop at nothing to get biological samples from two of my children.”

“But if Landers can sense each other, how does your daughter hide?”

“Like Pasha, who wasn't transitioned at eighteen, my daughter's gene also went dormant. I put a system in place that would thwart other Landers from finding her or the colony. And I found another effective way of using the same technology to upgrade the colony's security so it will serve them for many lifetimes.” Glade sagged back in his seat. “An endless life can be very cruel.”

Bodhi felt a lump rise in his throat. It had never occurred to him how many times Glade would have to bury loved ones. “What happened to Pasha's Lander from the sea?”

Glade dropped his head again, his shoulders slumping. “I led him to be captured by people hunting Landers. He fought them, and they killed him on the way to the Mountain where they were going to sell him.”

Shots from a laser dart drilled through the window and struck the wall a foot to the right of Bodhi's shoulder, leaving a charred circle. Bodhi dove in Glade's direction. Another laser dart. This one burst into the room. The assailants were shooting from a building across the street.

Bodhi and Glade retreated to the far corner, where the steep angle to the window would restrict the size and strength of the beam if they were hit. A breath of quiet. A shot. It hit Bodhi across his right bicep like a sharp needle. He jerked away just as the door blew open and Taraji and two Baltimore security stormed the room.