True Heroes (94 page)
“You think you were right about everything don’t you?”
He turned back. “Again, it doesn’t matter. What is being said is that you and her are wrong together on that level.”
“Not about that.”
“About what then?”
Power began to completely absorb into Caleb’s body from the feet and through its torso. “I do have a choice.”
The rest of the wisp that was Power dissipated, leaving Caleb to look around for answers. He shook his head and turned back into the trees, moving gracefully by his own might and agility through the tightly condensed branches. Stanley was spread over a map of the United States as Caleb approached. “Kind of hard keeping track of landmarks while whizzing by everything, isn’t it?”
The studious man kept his eyes searching with his hands measuring distances until he finally looked up. “We’re in northern Kansas.”
Caleb looked down with a smile. “You’ve been in this business for way too long.”
“You should’ve seen me navigating out in the desert with nothing as landmarks besides the sand dunes. That’s where the real trackers make their living.” He tapped his finger next to the border. “I’m pretty sure there’s a village around here if you wanted to take a more luxurious break,” he looked back towards the sleeping Alice, “or wanted to give her a bed.”
Caleb smiled at her and then him. “We’ll see where the next turn takes us first. It looks like it’ll be moving us in a kind of south-west direction towards New Mexico.”
“How long are we going to let her sleep?”
“We’ll all refuel for a half an hour or so.” He crawled back into the nook of a tree and checked his power. ‘Why aren’t you recharging?’
There was no answer.
“You did hit the gas something fierce. I didn’t know you could go that fast.”
“Yeah, quite the cross-country runner,” Caleb responded absently. ‘Don’t pretend you can’t hear me.’
Another echo against his own inner voice met him.
“I put in a favor with the Major, if you’ll accept it.”
His eyes averted up to Stanley, who was idly snapping twigs and throwing them aside. “A favor?”
Stanley looked up and waved his hands. “They’re holding the resources from the war, for now, and we could get Stephen’s location in no time.”
“We’ve got a yellow-brick road beneath our feet to follow. Tell him to save his satellite images for looking down women’s shirts.”
Stanley laughed and lowered his hands. “It’s an insurance policy. Just in case the trail runs cold.”
Caleb nodded while looking away. “Did he ever hear anything of the General?”
“Nothing but rumors. Still a ton of those running through the ranks. There was something big that happened two days before I met back up with you in Virginia that not a single news outlet covered. The one guy on the base that out ranked me, a piece of work that was stepped on a few hundred times, hadn’t talked to anybody besides his assistants for a decade because of a paranoid, nervous fear of mutiny. Not entirely unfounded, but extreme. Anyways, he came out and talked to them all and threw them a party that they’ll never forget, or remember, really. The best kind. A direct result of you.”
Caleb fiddled with the moist dirt under his hand. “Your point is I’ve made the pompous pompous again?”
“My point is that you’ve made everybody themselves again.” He looked up to a smiling Stanley and could just barely quirk a smile of his own. “Is that the kind of thing you wanted to accomplish with this?”
“That’s the start of it,” he said with a nearly breathless tone. “People saw what was wrong, at some point, and the war ending showed them who they were again. This, right here, is going to show them what choice they still have to make.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s all there needs to be.” He felt a small smile growing.
Alice’s head suddenly popped up and her hand was reaching for him. Caleb rolled over to her until his shoulder and arm were within her reach. She opened her eyes slowly and frowned. “I fell asleep. We should go.”
“Only if you’re ready.”
“If I stay, I’ll sleep all day.”
Stanley started to rummage and repack the few supplies he’d unfurled and threw Caleb two bottles of water, one of which was handed to Alice. “Let’s go a little farther. Can’t be much more to chase.”
She took a deep breath and sprang for her pack, her legs uneven in stride and balance. Caleb hoisted himself up and moved to the front of the path with a vague blue covering his eyes and barely showing him the purple path. ‘Are you fighting for control again?’
‘This is the choice that I have.’
Caleb shook his head again with a hand grabbing each arm and his feet exploding the soft ground beneath them. For another half an hour they blasted around and through the subtle differences in trail directions until Caleb’s legs were suddenly moving much more slowly. Every blur began to fill into its own shape again as they passed, and the weight on his back began to purse his nerves and multiply his fatigue. The purple trail had fully faded from his eyes by the time they reached a small town on the lower edge of Kansas, and Caleb nearly dropped the bodies off of his back.
Both passengers looked on the sweating Caleb with curious and concerned eyes. “Are you okay?”
Caleb breathed heavily and was doubled over. “Yeah, good time for a rest here in the town.”
“It’s only been a half an hour since we stopped last.”
Alice walked closer to Stanley. “Power’s being testy today.”
Caleb closed his eyes. ‘What are you trying to prove?’
‘That I cannot change. That I love I, and if I cannot have what I want, I will destroy I and all associated with I. This is the last time I will speak to you, and you will be faced with a decision that will truly be the last game of chicken we ever play. Go on your quest for the right, but you no longer will have me to fuel the journey, and when you arrive at Stephen’s doorstep and when you feel the overwhelming fear in the pit of your stomach, you will know that I have always controlled you, and that this entire odyssey for the truth of the right is an empty ruse. Then, you will die, and Alice will be alone.’
‘You wouldn’t do that to her.’
‘You’re doing it to her. I’m just sitting out the final few hands.’
Caleb stared at the ground as he walked forward with unbalanced steps and cock-eyed strides. He half-turned back to Alice and Stanley and forced a smile.
“Let’s find a place to rest for a bit. One last real meal sounds good.” As he turned and walked faster down the path, Alice and Stanley stared at him with questions that neither could answer while staring at his back.
- - -
Caleb stared daggers through the neighboring building across from his standing balcony. His right hand released the choking rail and faced its palm towards his eyes. From behind, Alice’s whisper was accompanied by her touch. “It’s late, and sleep always helps you both recharge.”
“You go.”
“I want you to be there with me.”
Caleb continued to glare into his own creased palm. “Will later.”
“What’s wrong?”
He ripped his eyes away from the abyss in his hand and stared at her with a heavy look. “Thinking.”
“Don’t be mad, I’m sorry.” He turned back around to his palm. “Will you be long?”
“Dunno,” he said weakly.
She turned slowly and began walking to the bed. Within minutes, he was the only one awake. As Stanley slept on the floor and Alice took over the entire bed, Caleb squeezed the railing with one white-knuckled hand, and attempted over and over again to produce any evidence of power in his other with no results.
Chapter 24
Alice gently knocked her foot against the new bowl at her feet and observed the force of the gentle rock as it wiggled wholly through the jellied oatmeal. ‘Why are we out here eating this? The town was worse than this? No, he had to have a better reason. I want to go home. There’s nothing I’d be able to do anyways. I feel so helpless out here.’ She reached out with her foot and curled her toes repeatedly through Caleb’s short leg hairs. ‘He’s so distracted. Not even looking over at me. Just staring with his head down atop his crossed arms cradling his knees to his chest like he’s trying to be me. He’s moving. His head’s up. Talk to me please.’
“What’s up?”
‘His eyes are reset and his face is tight.’ “What’s wrong?”
He smiled at her. “A lot of things.”
“With you?”
“Everything is fine right now. Eat up. Walking around isn’t good on an empty stomach.”
“You’re telling the truth? What’s on your mind?”
“Thoughts and feelings as always.”
“About me?”
“Some, but not everything is about you.”
‘That was sharp.’ She moved her foot back and picked up the bowl in both hands. “You don’t talk to me about the stuff about me.”
Caleb’s body turned out of the corner of her eye and his voice projected straight to her sideways ear. “What do you want to know?”
‘Tell him what you thought. Ask him about that night on the beach and that day in the sun.’ “When we were on the beach, we-I’ve never connected to anybody like we did then. And the day before that made the night seem even better….” She brought her face around to him. “It was the second perfect time we’ve ever had together.”
“Every time is perfect, but those two were perfectly perfect.”
“Exactly, but I can’t get something straight.” ‘Tell him, tell him.’ “You told me on Halloween that you wanted somebody to fight for you, and I did, and you said that love was the ultimate goal, and it is, and you said that you couldn’t be with me until you were perfect, and we overcame that, and I always hear people say how cute we are together, and they’re right. I guess I’m asking what’s left for us to worry about.”
“Nothing. There was never anything to worry about. Those words that you’re looking for are a proclamation of an eternal, unbreakable bond. Love, in a most fundamental way, isn’t about roses, sayings, or people. The topic of love has been broken down into friends and family, or drives and wills, but even beneath those squabbling rationalities, love has to exist, or there would be nothing to debate. People aren’t predestined to do this or that, and one cause doesn’t lead to one effect for all people; love is the variable because it is, with all the wires untangled and unknotted, a word representing the pull of ourselves to some person, some idea, or some object. So much importance is placed in love, and that’s because when a person says ‘I love you’ they are truly saying ‘You are the only perfect thing in this world, and nothing will ever change that.’ To that effect, those words are cuffing.” He looked at Alice squarely. “There’s still more for us to experience before those words can come out. There’s still this world that needs saving before we can be bound.”
She dropped the bowl, allowing the oatmeal to clump in the short grass. Her head rolled quickly to the fire and the hanging crockpot strung up precariously, then to the tree line across the tiny clearing where Stanley emerged. ‘No clouds in the sky. No clouds in his eyes. He’s not lying, but why does this hurt then? The truth hurts now.’
Stanley sat down across from Caleb. “It’s a lot easier to navigate when we walk.”
