Pathline (33 page)

He turned to look at her.
"Serk?  I'll admit he wasn't who I'd have pictured as your first visitor, but I figured he'd be by sooner or later."  He pulled
a folder out of his duffel bag.
"I think I've made my choice for our new home, not exactly what I was looking for initially, but it won me over
.
"  He waved the folder, smiling at her. 

She reached out towards the folder
.
"
C
an I see?"

He pulled the folder back.
"I've been thinking about that, and I'm going to go with no.  The first time you see it I want it to be in person, not on some file photos."

She laughed.
"
O
k
ay
, fair enough.  Is it a short term lease?"

He gave her a playful smile.
"
T
hat's the beauty of it, it's not a lease, it's a sale.  I was initially looking at apartments and condos to hold us while we found a house, but then the real estate agent found this
.
"
H
e tapped the folder to his chest.

"A sale?!  Now I really want to look at that folder
.
"

S
he reached out
again;
he laughed and put the folder back into his bag.

"I don't think so.  The agent thinks she'll be able to expedite the process since the place has been vacant for a while, we should be able to close escrow by the time you're released.  I'm paying it off in full upfront, so not much to hold it up."

She laughed.
"
Y
ou're crazy!"

"Yeah, that's what my accountant thinks too"
H
e said with a wink. 

She put the last of the boxes into the trunk of her car, adjusting them so they wouldn't shift too much during the drive.  This was the last
batch;
the apartment would be ready to go.  She'd left the furniture, it made the move and finding a renter a lot easier.  The place was fully furnished and move-in ready, she already had a tenant lined up.  Marcus had emptied out his
loft
as soon as escrow had cleared on their new home.  Both his place and hers were in highly cov
eted areas so they decided to keep
them as investments.  As soon as Marcus had mentioned he was putting his place up for rent he had gotten a line of people wanting to
apply for
it.  He had ultimately gone with a younger agency Defender.  Rune on the other hand had taken her time before renting her
apartment
out.  At first her physical weakness had held her back.  Marcus had offered to help but she wanted to go through the packing herself.  When she was up for it she'd gone to her buildings doorman and had told him about her intention to lease the place out.  He had then provided her with a list of people who were interested in renting an apartment in the building. 

When she closed the trunk she walked over and got into the drivers seat.  She was grateful she'd bothered to learn to drive when she was young, she knew several Wanderers that never
had;
now it had become a necessity.  Though she had known how to drive since her teens, she had never owned a car.  When she was first released from the hospital Marcus had lent her one of his cars, but a couple of weeks ago she had finally bought one of her own that better suited her tastes and needs.  As she sat behind the wheel she let out a yawn.  She was tired; although at this point she was not sure whether the fatigue was a lingering remnant of her collapse or a new symptom.  She had, for the most part, fully recovered by now and had adjusted to her non-super life. 

Marcus had pretty much ignored the media since his return to the agency
.  After the op had finished the agency had dropped their silence policy, but it had also devised a distraction.  The agency now had a Dual on its roster, though the young man had only managed to pass his trials as a mid level Defender and Runner.  It was still the best a Dual had ever managed and the agency must have figured that two halves were equal to one whole.  He'd been offered a slot
with the military program
,
and since he'd joined up the agency had been focusing most of their PR campaigns on him.  Rune chuckled to herself as she drove by a billboard with his picture.  It was basically what they had done years ago.  When the government had first announced the existence of Wanderers they had eventually calmed the situation down by creating Appreciation Day as a means to refocus the publics attention.  Now, when the issue had come to a head once again, they had brought out a shiny new super hero for the people to rally behind.  The Dual had been given the super name
‘Revo’.
S
he shook her head as she thought about him.  The kid looked barely old enough to
shave;
she hoped he wouldn't let all
of
this go to his head.  Revo was new and untested, being put side-by-side with high level experienced supers who probably didn't appreciate having to baby sit a newbie
who could potentially steal their glory. 

She pulled into the private road that led to their property.  She remembered the first time she had seen the house; she had just be
en released from the hospital and
Marcus had driven her straight here.  The property
was outside the city limits, with a private dirt road leading up to the house that was obscured from the main road by trees.  The house had been vacant for a few years and needed a lot of work, but Rune immediately understood why Marcus had chosen it.  The place was screaming with potential, and most of the needed repairs were cosmetic, the place was definitely livable from the start.  The fact that it needed work actually became a positive since it not only had lowered the sale price but allowed them to fully personalize the property to their own tastes.  Rune absolutely loved it.  And it wasn't just the house that had come with the
sale;
the property included a
few
of acres of land that stretched out behind the house into forest.  In the enclosed back yard was a section that must have been intended as a garden but had never been finished.  Rune had taken it upon herself to fix it up as a new hobby.  She had never gardened befor
e
, but now that she was not working for the first time in her adult life she decided to give it a try.  Sure, a
few of her first plants had died
, and Marcus laughed when she got mad and yelled at them, but she had met spring with some blooms in the garden. 

After she dropped off all of her boxes in a spare bedroom she was using as storage
,
she decided to go for a walk through one of the trails that went through the forest behind the house.  It was lovely this time of year, there was color everywhere as spring made its mark on nature.  The crisp clean air always made her feel stronger.  She figured she was pretty much back to her pre-collapse shape by now.  She credited Marcus, the house, and these woods primarily for that.  She stopped momentarily to watch
a squirrel run across the trail
, smiling to herself.  It was as she restarted walking that she felt it.  She stopped, frozen, unsure.  She glanced around, nothing had changed.  She shook her head and started walking again, her mind and body now on alert.  There.  After a few steps she felt it again and it was unmistakable.  Her pathline. 

***

Various people referred
to it by various names, but most Wanderers referred to it as either a crossline or a pathline.  That 'line' lay at the root of their ability.  It was at
its
core the lifeline of their power.  It was what linked them to their destinations; like a fishing line or an anchor of a sort.  The line gave them
a direct course to travel through.  You couldn't wander without knowing your destination,
and then
you just had to find the line that led to it.  The Wanderer ability required movement to trigger the
passage
, so a Wanderer would be walking or running when they felt the tug of the caught line.  All it took then was to continue the movement in the direction of the tug, following the line to its end a
t
which point the Wanderer would find themselves running or walking at the destination.  Attempting to wander through an unstable line was incredibly dangerous, and any experienced Wanderer knew how to recognize the feeling of a properly anchored line.  It required great focus and emotional calm to be able to recognize all the nuances, and the greater the distance the more stable the line needed to be. 

***

Rune felt her line through to its end.  It was rock solid.  She continued her walk and shifted seamlessly through her pathline.  She glanced up as she continued her easy
pace, now at her destination.  S
he was walking at one end of a night market she had visited years ago.  She had
wandered
halfway around the world... and it had been effortless.  She closed her eyes and inhaled the smells coming from the nearby street food vendors.  What had changed?  How had her power come back so easily, and so strong?  As she caught a whiff of fried bananas triggering an immediate craving she smiled and looked down.  She rubbed her hand over the small bump that had started to take over her abdomen.
  She chuckled. 

"Thanks baby" S
he whispered.
"
L
ets get you some
bananas;
they should count as healthy even if they're fried." 

She was getting good at rationalizing cravings.  She ate while walking around the market stalls, enjoying the hustle and bustle.  When she finished her snack she looked down at her watch and realized
that she needed to get home to start dinner.  She tossed her trash into a nearby bin and walked off, wandering back to the edge of the trail behind the property.  She'd left the entry gate ajar when she had gone on her walk, so that she wouldn't need to carry keys with her.  She reached out her right hand to push the gate open, but it swung forward before she even touched it.  She frowned.  She walked through the gate and turned around to close it behind her.  This time she moved slower.  She reached out her hand to push the gate back and when she was still about six inches away from it she felt a cushioning force
between her hand and the door.  She pushed her hand forward and the gate swung shut, without her ever touching it.  She looked at her hand,
and then
a thought
occurred
to her.  She put both hands up and spread her fingers.  Suddenly, effortlessly, a shield appeared
in front
of them.  She felt inside herself, searching, but there was absolutely no drain.  She closed her hands and the shield disappeared.  A slow smile crept over her face. 

"Well, that's going to be interesting."