The Sovereign Era (Book 2): Pilgrimage (10 page)

It had scared him. He remembered that feeling. But he did it. He did it.

Somewhere out there, fifty miles or so to the south and west as that hawk might fly, was his boy. Andrew knew something about the forces allied against his son, against his…wife.

“Damn,” he whispered. He gripped the earth with toes and fingers to combat the physical urge to flee, to head for the hills in every sense of the word.

He could make a choice. He had
good
reasons.

The hawk preened, watching him.

Andrew let go of the ground and stood up, straight. Like a man.

“Gonna need help…” He grinned as his eyes watered from giddy exhilaration. “Gotta go see Denver…”

Marc Teslowski – Five

Marc wasn’t a huge fan of the Hyundai Excel they’d given him at the rental office, but it was good enough to get him up the three thousand feet into the mountains east of Missoula. It would be good enough to bring Byron back. The kid probably wouldn’t even notice the junky car. He’d be too excited to care.

Marc stamped down the possibility that Byron might just as likely be too angry to care. That was Jeri talking. That was not reality.

He was distracted from that line of thinking by the traffic on I-90 and MT 200. There were a lot of out-of-state plates. Finally, he realized with a mix of irritation and nerves that at least some of these cars probably held Sovereign on their way to…how would they think of it? Sanctuary? Asylum? They were like those Arabs on their way to that city, whatever it was, and it looked like some had come a long way.

It was three days until the first anniversary of Declaration Day, when the king of the freaks, William Karl Donner, had appeared in Washington, D.C., did his flashy David Copperfield magic tricks, and announced to the world that people like him (who even knew that there were people like him until then?) would henceforth be considered Sovereign, separate and apart from the laws of the nations of the world.

Not a week later, Reagan—
Reagan
, of all the guys—rolled over and basically went along with the idea. They called it the Sovereign Compromise. The Sovereign would be left alone, allowed to build their hideaway on land Donner owned out here, and in return, the government and the Sovereigns would share any information they got on what the Sovereigns actually were.

The thing that pissed off Marc, and a whole lot of other people, too, was that the Compromise allowed the Sovereigns to police themselves. If a Sovereign broke a human law, a law of the United States, they wouldn’t be tried in a human court, spend time in human prison, or fry in an electric chair built for humans.

Nope. The Sovereigns answered to their own law, which, from what Marc had seen in the last year, pretty much amounted to whatever William Karl Donner said it was that day.

Which was why the Teslowskis hadn’t been able to get to their son. All it took was for those freaks to declare that Byron was a Sovereign, too, and that was supposed to be that.

Well, today, Sovereign law would meet Marc’s own law: the right of a father’s jurisdiction over his own flesh and blood.

A final right turn off Garnet Range Road, and Marc found himself, along with most of the other cars he’d been following, driving beneath a green metal sign that told him he had arrived at the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies Visitors Center.

Marc could barely believe the smaller sign on right shoulder:

YOU ARE NOW LEAVING UNITED STATES
METAHUMAN SOVEREIGN TERRITORY
BEYOND THIS POINT
(EO 12512 APRIL 26 1985)

Un fucking believable.

Marc didn’t feel like he was leaving his country. He drove onto a large, well-paved parking lot that wouldn’t look out of place outside a K-Mart or GEMCO, except there weren’t any of those metal things holding shopping carts, just row after angled row of painted stripes on black tarmac.

“Jesus…”

The parking lot was about half full. Marc didn’t bother being choosy. He glided into the first spot that presented itself.

Marc strode for the only building, a low, modern/rustic-looking structure on the south edge of the lot. He tried to keep his eyes on his destination, but the temptation to scan his fellow travelers was too great.

Individuals and small groups of two or three got out of their cars, stretched, and checked their backpacks or fanny packs or maps or cameras just like tourists anywhere. Some people turned in slow circles, taking in the pine- and fir-tree-lined slopes all around.

Marc saw a woman get out of her car, fall to her hands and knees, and kiss the asphalt. A man and a woman from a nearby car approached the woman, and the women embraced. They went toward the Visitors Center as a group, speaking in low voices punctuated by bright, exhausted laughter.

Everyone looked entirely, completely human.

That was weird. Where were the freaks?

Were these people just…people? Tourists here to gawk?

Marc steeled himself for what he’d find inside the Visitors Center. It was sure to be staffed by monsters.

Marc went through automatic sliding glass doors and found himself in an open space that could have been designed by the same architect who had built the Missoula airport. Huge, polished wooden beams overhead. A shining floor that looked like, but couldn’t possibly have been, a single huge slab of marble. Tasteful kiosks of wood and brassy metal displaying television touchscreens.

Employees, distinguishable by their teal vests, approached some people with open smiles. Two employees met the pavement-kissing woman and her new friends.

No one bothered Marc.

He noticed guards, armed with nightsticks and sidearms, their uniforms traditional but unlike any with which he was familiar, were stationed every dozen yards or so throughout the space. They nodded and smiled at anyone who came near.

Over a centrally located circular booth bearing the word “Information” in carved wooden beys-relief, a long banner hung that read, “Freedom To Be Better ~ The Sovereign Era: Year One.”

Marc made for it. A young woman—an apparently utterly normal, human, young woman—smiled from behind the counter as he approached.

“Good morning, sir. Welcome to the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies.”

He was disappointed, and slightly disgusted, that regular people would sink to working for the freaks like it was just another job. Couldn’t this chick be a waitress or something? Was the economy that bad?

Marc took a deep breath, sucking in his gut and sticking out his chest. He put his palms flat on the counter and leaned in.

“I’m here to see my son,” he said.

God, it felt good to say that, here.

Her smile faltered slightly, mostly in her blue eyes, where confusion took over. “And does he work here…?”

Her reaction was a little confusing for Marc, too. “You mean you don’t know who I am?”

“I’m sorry, sir…I sure don’t.”

A staff member to her right handed a tourist a pamphlet and turned toward them. Marc saw right away that this guy, at least, knew who he was. The guy’s eyes widened. He quickly came up next to the young woman with a couple of long steps.

“How can we help you?” He smiled, too, but Marc knew how to pound through that dodgy shield.

He bared his teeth in his own kind of grin. “My name is Marc Teslowski.” He raised his voice on every word. “And I demand to see my son.”

The man was sweating over the same firm but polite mask Marc had seen on the salespeople at Wards when he tried to return some underwear not two weeks before. “I’m very sorry, Mister Teslowski, but we can’t help you with that.”

“You don’t have to help me. Just point me down the road to Donner’s hidey-hole.” He kept his feral grin in place. His eyes danced with intimidation. “You just tell ‘em I’m coming so they can open the gate or whatever they need to do.”

“Sir…I’m sorry.”

Marc shrugged. “Okay, well, how about this. I’ll wait here—heck, I’ll even wait in your office, or whatever, so people don’t stare—and you call up and have them bring my boy down here. You’re right. I don’t need to go to the Institute.” He laughed. “I’d just as soon not get any closer than I am right now, know what I mean?”

The guy looked down a moment, eyes widening, steeling himself. That’s right, Marc thought. Your day just got interesting, you traitorous little shit.

The guy focused on Marc again. “Sir, again, I’m sorry, but we can’t do that. As you know, your son, as a Sovereign—"

“My son is no such thing!” Marc bellowed. He slammed his fist on the counter.

The girl who had initially greeted him flinched and took two steps back. The guy threw an imploring look over Marc’s left shoulder.

And just like that, Marc was flanked by two of the guards. They weren’t smiling now.

“Sir. We’d like you to leave now,” said the one on his right.

Marc whirled on him. “Are you a person? Or one of them?”

The guard’s jaw moved. His nostrils flared. Marc sized him up. He had about two inches on the guy, but the guard’s right hand was at the holster on his hip.

“We would like you to leave, sir. You won’t be asked again.”

Marc smirked. “Hah! You haven’t asked me in the first place!” He looked for a sign, any small thing, that would clue him in as to the guard’s pedigree. “You didn’t answer my question—are you one of them? Or are you a stinkin’ traitor?”

The guard on his left gripped Marc’s shoulder. He had a pretty good grip. Marc twisted out of it. Something in the middle of his upper back pinched like it always did when he pivoted too fast—a reminder of his so-called glory days on the high school gridiron.

“Don’t you fucking touch me, traitor.”

The guard didn’t say anything. He just nodded once, and Marc felt the hard, prodding tip of the other guy’s nightstick on his back, twisting into the exact location of his pulled muscle.

Marc flinched automatically, arching his back. The nightstick jabbed, and Marc stumbled forward.

The guard on his left got a better grip the second time. He used both hands.

In that fashion—prodding and dragging him as he howled a string of invectives—Marc was ejected from the Visitors Center of the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies.

Once outside, a third guard met them and handcuffed Marc before extracting his car keys from his front pocket with the smooth skill of a street thief.

“You fuckers! Fuck you! Fuck you!”

A sedan pulled up to the curb in front of them. Marc didn’t have time to get a good look at the golden seal on the passenger-side front door before one of his captors opened the back door and shoved him in, one hand on his shoulder and one on the back of his head, cop-style.

The car had a thick metal mesh dividing the rear seat from the front, just like a police car. The driver didn’t turn around or say a word. He navigated out of the parking lot, which was getting crowded with cars and people, and drove back down Garnet Range Road.

He parked in a turn-out about fifty yards from the Institute road, got out, opened the back passenger door, and dragged Marc out.

“Do nothing,” the guard said before he unlocked Marc’s handcuffs and scraped them off.

“Your car will be delivered in a few minutes,” the guard said. “When it is, get in and drive away, Mister Teslowski. Go home.” The guard’s voice lowered. “This was the nice one. Next time, it won’t be us. It’ll be,” he glanced back in the general direction of the Institute, “SCET. You don’t want that. Be smart.”

The guard waited, but Marc was too furious to speak. The guard shrugged, got back in his car, and left.

It was a half-hour—thirty minutes of standing in the dirt watching lots of cars head for the Institute and very few pass him headed the other way—before three guards rode up in his rental car.

He spat on their boots before he drove back down the mountain.

Byron Teslowski – One

Byron Teslowski, a little cold in his athletic shorts and Abbeque Valley High sweatshirt, stood in the meadow between the Institute and Donner’s weird old house and waited for Spencer Croy to shoot him in the leg.

Again.

Byron couldn’t get it out of his head that his dad had shown up at the Visitors Center just a couple of hours before, been not even a mile away, and that he was still probably down in Missoula.

It made it hard to focus on the task at hand, and that could be a problem.

Mister Croy called to Byron from fifty paces away, where he stood with his right arm extended and a pistol in his hand. “You’re distracted.”

Byron glanced at Dr. Mazmanian, who was crouched a few yards to Byron’s left. Mazmanian shrugged with sympathy.

“Sorry, Mister Croy.” Byron swallowed and shook himself out like a boxer preparing to enter the ring. “I’ll get it together. Just gimme a sec—"

The impact grabbed him on his right upper thigh and spun him around. The crack of the gunshot reached Byron just as he lost his balance and hit the tall grass on his left side.

His entire leg was numb save for the burning throb where the bullet hit him. He looked down at the massive, purple bruise he could almost see spreading as he watched.

He told himself he wouldn’t throw up.

He managed to tilt his head toward the dewy grass before he did.

Doc Mazmanian got to his side quickly and gave the leg a glance before looking at Byron.

“What day is it, Byron?” Mazmanian smiled.

“Ow. Tuesday.” Byron wiped his mouth, and then wiped his hand on a dry patch of meadow grass. “Fuck. Ow.”

Croy holstered his pistol and strode to stand over Byron. “How is he?”

Mazmanian balanced his hands on his knees and stood up. “Much better than last week. Didn’t even break the skin.”

“Good.”

Careful to avoid the stinky mess in the grass, Byron gingerly shifted onto his back, propped on his elbows. The pressure of the ground on his ass made his right leg hurt even more. He winced and squinted up at Croy.

“You didn’t give me a chance to get ready!”

“Closer to reality,” Croy said. “There will be distractions in the field. Your state of mind this morning served its purpose.”

Byron shifted back to his left side and carefully stood up. Neither of the adults moved to help him.