The Falling Away (19 page)

Quinn closed her eyes, pushed on the paper clip in the fleshy part of her palm, welcomed the pain.

31

The next morning Webb looked infinitely better. Especially after popping a few more Perks to quell the shoulder pain. Even the wound looked better as they dressed it; Dylan had expected a hot, reddened mass of flesh, having seen more than his share of bullet wounds. But Webb's wound had actually seemed to shrink overnight, healing without the normally attendant inflammation.

Maybe everyone should be taking pig antibiotics. Or Percocet. Or both.

They sat in their room exchanging quiet conversation as daylight began to glimmer. The storm had broken, and the day dawned crisp and blue outside the small window.

“So what now?” Webb asked, dressed and sitting on his bed.

“This is as far as I planned.”

“Little bit further than I planned.”

Dylan smiled. “Okay, me too. But I didn't think you'd want to hear me say that.”

Webb tested his shoulder, didn't seem horribly troubled by a limited range of motion. “So now we're . . . what? Cult members, I guess.”

“Beats being mules.”

“So far. They haven't asked us to drink goat's blood or anything.”

“They won't.”

“How do you know that?” Webb was looking around him, as if searching for an item that would ground him in his current reality.

“I don't. Just trying that glass-half-full thing for a change.”

“And how's that working for you?”

“I'll let you know.”

A knock came at the door. They exchanged a look; Webb shrugged. Dylan rose and went to the door, opened it.

A tall woman stood in the doorway, dark hair spilling over her shoulders in thick curls. On her face was a smile almost as bright as the morning sun behind her. “I'm Elise,” she said. “Your S.O.B.” As if that explained everything.

“S.O.B.?” Dylan asked.

She laughed easily. “Sorry, guess I didn't say what that was. Special Orientation Buddy. S.O.B.”

Dylan turned and looked at Webb, who shrugged once again. At least with his good shoulder.

“How about if I come in, for starters?” Elise asked.

“Oh, sorry. Sure, sure.” Dylan backed away, and Elise stepped inside, stamped her feet on the rug by the doorway, closed the door behind her. “Beautiful day outside. Almost like we special-ordered it for you two.”

“Did you?”

Another laugh. “Well, just part of my job as your S.O.B.”

“Sit down,” Dylan offered, and Elise crossed to the end of the room, settled easily into the chair at the desk. She was tall, thickly built; Dylan could picture her in armor and a helmet as a Valkyrie. Or maybe an Amazonian warrior.

Methinks someone's developing a little crush
.

Shut up, Joni
.

“So . . .” Webb said. “What exactly does an S.O.B. do?”

She ran a hand through her hair. “Yeah, I know,” she said, “you're thinking S.O.B. is corny, maybe a bit—what?—precious. But that's part of the whole thing. People come in here a little scared sometimes, don't really know anything about us, think we're going to whisk them away to some secret ceremony. The S.O.B. part is unexpected, so it's—”

“Disarming,” Dylan said.

Elise looked at him, nodded. “Yeah. Disarming.” They were all awkwardly quiet for a few moments.

“I guess,” Dylan said, trying to fill the space, “we didn't officially introduce ourselves. I'm Dylan, and this here is Webb.”

“Nice to meet both of you. Officially.”

“So what happens now?”

“You get the grand tour.”

“Don't you want to know why we're here?”

She furrowed her eyebrows, looked at Dylan. “You're here because you're supposed to be.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, why else would you be?”

Hard to argue with that kind of logic.

She smiled. “I guess what I'm saying is, it doesn't really matter. We all come in here, unsure what to expect, but maybe hoping for something better, right?”

“I could go for some better,” Webb said.

“There you go,” she said. “So let's just go with it, assume you're here because you're supposed to be here. It's my job to show you around, give you an idea what we're all about.”

Dylan cleared his throat. “Well, I have to be honest: I'm not exactly what you'd call a True Believer.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean . . . I suppose most people are here because they're ready to change their lives and all.”

“Really.”

Dylan wasn't sure if she meant that as a question or a statement.

“Me and Webb,” he said, “we're here because we got a whole mess of trouble following us.”

She nodded. “Well, Li says even when we're running from something else—”

“We're running from ourselves,” Dylan finished. “I got that bit of fortune cookie advice last night.”

“So Li visited you already?”

“Brought us these clothes.”

Her smile widened. “Well, there you go. That's why you're here. To get away from whatever's following you. Maybe to get a fresh start.”

Once again, hard to argue with that kind of logic.

Elise pushed a wayward piece of dark hair behind her ear again. “First, let me get a few big misconceptions out of the way. We're not Amish, or anything like that. We don't ride around in buggies. And no hippie-dippie treatment; some people expect us to sit around a big campfire, tripping on acid.”

“Or drinking goat's blood,” Webb said helpfully.

Dylan shot him a harsh look, but Elise laughed.

“Well, we only drink goat's blood when it's a full moon.”

“So how do we start our big S.O.B. tour?” Webb asked.

“Well, it's morning, which usually means breakfast. No goat's blood on the menu, but we have the more mundane fare: pancakes, hash browns, eggs. Even our own fresh fruit during growing season.”

“I hear that's the best time to grow,” Webb said.

Elise cocked a finger at Webb, smiled, went to the door. “Let's go,” she said. “Unless you've already eaten.”

They followed her past a building with large windows; Dylan was about to ask what it was when Elise spoke again.

“This is our community center,” Elise said. “Kinda like the town hall, if you like.”

Dylan had to admit, as they walked, the place didn't look much like a stereotypical cult compound. It looked more like a planned community scooped from suburbia and dropped onto the Montana prairie. The buildings shared an architectural vision of some sort, incorporating large, rough-hewn timber framing and bright white stucco. The effect made it seem like a small community, a place you could call home, and Dylan was quite sure that was no accident.

Inside the dining area, a cathedral ceiling held the large rough-hewn beams overhead, punctuated here and there by gently turning fans. Skylights let in natural light from the sun, while odd lights he'd never seen before hung from the ceiling at strategic locations, illuminating tables and common areas with a warm, inviting glow. The entire room was enveloped by the sweet smell of fresh bread, and laughter filtered toward them.

“LED,” Elise said, noticing him staring at the lights. “Much more efficient, much more natural. We're all about that here.”

Chain restaurants would kill for this kind of ambience. Dylan had to admit, each new glimpse of the HIVE was more and more impressive. Unexpected. Somehow . . . genuine. All the more impressive because very few things struck him as genuine these days.

They followed Elise through a cafeteria line, heaping their plates with eggs, hash browns, fresh fruits, pancakes. The beverage station even had a machine that ground and brewed individual cups of coffee. Dylan carried Webb's plate on his tray so his friend could rest his shoulder.

After his time in the military, Dylan knew how difficult it was to keep up with food service for large groups, and the HIVE seemed to do it effortlessly.

They sat at their own individual booth. Webb hungrily took his plate from Dylan's tray, first bites shoveled into his mouth before they even sat down.

Dylan tasted the coffee, let himself close his eyes for a few seconds and enjoy the feel of hot liquid in his mouth.

“So I'm guessing this gets a passing grade,” Elise's voice said.

Dylan opened his eyes, turned to Elise seated beside him, and let out a sigh. “You had me at fresh-ground coffee,” he said.

“Good recruiting tip. I'll tell Li.”

He set down his coffee. “So, uh . . . if you don't mind my asking—”

“You're wondering about Li.”

“Among other things.”

She took a bite of hash browns, shrugged. Across the table, Webb was polishing off some scrambled eggs.

“He's what Oliver Stone might call a mystery wrapped inside an enigma,” she said.

“Also known as: the Great Sower.”

“You've obviously seen the Guide.”

“Did a little bit of reading last night.”

“So what'd you think?”

Now Dylan shrugged. “I don't know. Seemed a little over-the-top.”

“Sometimes that's the only way to shake up the status quo.”

“That one from the Guide too?”

“No, that's a pure Elise-ism.”

“Maybe put it in the suggestion box for the Great Sower. You might get a Junior Sower badge or something.”

“Already got that,” she said. “I'll show you sometime.”

Dylan blushed and felt Joni stirring inside, wanting to say something.
Not now, Joni
, he warned, and she went still again.

Dylan drained the last of his coffee thirstily, looked around the dining room at other tables, other people laughing and smiling. Maybe they had good reasons to keep those grins on their faces all the time; maybe, odd as it might sound, they were smiling because they were happy.

Elise noticed him surveying the surroundings. “Not exactly what you expected from a cult, huh?”

“You call yourselves a cult?”

“No, but a lot of people outside do. People who don't understand what we do. What we are.”

“Well,” he said, “if it is a cult, I just might be ready to drink the Kool-Aid.”

Elise did that push-a-lock-of-hair-behind-the-ear thing again. “Or at least the coffee,” she said.

32

After breakfast, Elise informed Dylan and Webb she had the whole day to show them the compound and help them get their bearings. Following the orientation, they would again meet with Li, the Great Sower.

She started by offering them computer-printed maps of the main section of the community, which was labeled on the page simply as HIVE Village Center. Dylan studied the general layout. In the middle were the dining hall and the community commons, with other buildings radiating away from them along a series of roughly concentric circular streets and paths. Various buildings were labeled as homes, greenhouses, production, storage, resources, livestock, entertainment.

“What do these labels mean?” Dylan asked as they walked down a cobblestone path. Even though a light dusting of snow covered the frozen ground, the path was clear.

“Which ones?” Elise asked without stopping.

“All of them. Production, storage—what gets produced and stored?”

“Ag, mostly. Remember, this is all self-sustaining, so we grow our own grains, veggies, fruits, raise our own livestock. Even create our own power with the turbines—and what we don't use, we sell. Don't tell me you've never seen HIVE community eggs or milk on the shelves.”

“Well, sure, but I mean: it's all on this map? This looks pretty small. Maybe a couple hundred acres.”

Elise stopped, turned, cocked her head. “Well, of course it's not all on this map. We have thousands of acres of cropland, open-range leases, that kind of thing. You're just looking at the community itself.”

“How many acres?”

She shrugged, started walking again. “Don't know. Like I said: thousands. Does it matter?”

“I guess not, but . . . I mean, that has to be a lot of money. To buy and build.”

“I suppose. But a lot of the early people came from family farms, brought their acreage into the cause. Some brought money. And of course, it's all built on a sustainable model. The turbines, for instance, are long-term leases from a power company back in . . . Minnesota, I think. Actually, not just a power company; they're a holding company for a couple pharmaceutical companies, some bioresearch companies—all of it pushing green technology, sustainable technology. Li's in pretty tight with them. They put up the capital to build the turbines; we get power and a percentage of all the profits. Li's pretty brilliant about building partnerships.”

They came to the door of one of the large, timber-framed buildings.

“Just Li?” Dylan asked as Elise opened the door.

“Of course not,” Elise said. “Everyone here is part of it, offering different skills. Think of Li as the general; he's got other officers overseeing troops in all different divisions.”

A military analogy for the army vet
, said Joni inside.
She's good
.

She doesn't even know I was in the military
.

What makes you think that
?

We just met
.

I know, but . . . be careful
.

Being careful
.

“Okay,” Elise said. “Right now we're standing inside one of the packaging buildings, as your map will tell you. Any guesses as to what gets packaged?”

Ahead of them, several smiling workers checked eggs in cardboard cartons, stacked the cartons on wheeled pallets, then wrapped the pallets in paper. Once the pallets were filled, the workers pushed them toward a large overhead door at the far end of the building. A few of the workers noticed their visitors and waved a greeting.