The Sovereign Era (Book 2): Pilgrimage (19 page)

Haze led them out of the cafeteria and along the walkway connecting the Institute buildings. The air was a little brisk. Byron kind of wished he’d grabbed a hot chocolate instead of a cold drink.

“Chilly,” he said.

“Is it?”

He remembered Haze generated her own heat. “Trust me.”

“I didn’t feel like sitting around,” Haze said. “You mind?”

“Nah. We can walk. It’ll give me a chance to try something—I wanna see if I can, like, adapt to the temperature.”

Haze rolled her eyes. “Always on, eh, soldier boy?”

“Not even,” he said. “No one asked me to try it; I just, like, thought I’d see.”

“Asked, told, whatever.”

He glared at her. “What’s your problem?”

She sipped at her drinking straw, eyes ahead. “No problem, dude. It’s cool.”

They walked a few yards in silence before Haze said, “Anyway. How was your clubhouse meeting?”

“A trip,” Byron said. “They’re worried people are gonna, like, start shit on Declaration Day.”

She tilted her head. “Makes sense. Celebrating Declaration Day is stupid, given how pissed off so many people are about us. Can’t blame ‘em for wanting to shove it up our asses.”

Byron didn’t want that to make sense to him. It made things a little too confusing. Better to have clear teams, shirts and skins, Sovereign and human, right and wrong. He felt like he was playing devil’s advocate, but hell, he was committed, right?

“Haven’t they been fucking with us for a while, though? We can’t let them just do whatever, right?”

Haze laughed. “Seriously, Byron. Before you came here, weren’t you, like, some high-school football hero, or something? Tell me all about how the humans totally beat you down, dude. I can’t wait.”

She was doing it again—making him feel stupid. “Well…not, like, me, like, specifically. But Donner says—"

“Donner says!” She chuffed. “Yeah, yeah. Another rich white guy who probably hasn’t dealt with anything worse than a parking ticket his whole fucking life. Gimme a break.”

“Maybe, but…look, right before I came here, people were totally after me. This guy, this doctor dude, he totally wanted to lock me up and, like, fuckin’ experiment on me and shit.”

Haze sobered. “Yeah, okay.” She nodded. “I grok. You went through some shit. You’re national news, after all, you and your buddy.” She stopped walking and looked at him. “You get it, though, right? Why they’re afraid of us?”

Byron’s mouth twisted. “Yeah. It’s…shitty. But…yeah.”

“So…us making a big deal out of Declaration Day, it’s like rubbing their noses in it, y’know?” She grimaced. “It’s all ego.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Byron looked at her. “But no matter what, we can’t just, I don’t know, let people try to hurt us.”

A ripple of heat came off her, and she sneered. “Let ‘em try.”

“Easy for you to say, right? You’re, what, Standard?”

“I don’t know. I keep blowing off the tests.”

Byron rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Point is, you can take care of yourself. Not everybody can.” He pointed vaguely in the direction of the Visitors’ Center. “Plus, what about all the regular people who work for the Institute?”

“What about them? If I was a Norm, I’d totally call in sick on Friday. Not worth it.”

“They won’t have to. We’ll be there.” Byron paused. “Well, not, like, me…but Kelso and that Schulmann guy, plus Croy…they’ll be watching out for everybody.”

Haze’s lips turned down, and she shook her head. “They’re just gonna make it worse.”

“Why?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously!”

Haze took a deep breath and looked off to her left, at nothing, for a second or two. “Check this out: let’s say there’s a big demonstration, anti-Sovereign yahoos on one side and a bunch of us on the other side.”

Byron nodded. “That’s pretty much what’s gonna go down.”

“Yeah. It’s totally predictable. Plus, our side’s gonna have a bunch of newbies. You’ve seen ‘em coming in; half of them don’t even speak English. That’s gonna make it even worse.”

Byron hadn’t thought of that, but it made sense. “Okay. Sure. Whatever…the SCET…”

“Hold on.” She held up a hand. “I’m not done.”

“Sorry.”

“So they get all preachy at each other, and maybe throw some rocks or whatever. Normal demonstration, the cops are there to keep the two sides apart, right? Nobody really wants to get arrested or get their head bashed in, mostly, so it never really gets out of hand.”

“I guess.” Byron thought he had her. “But—that’s just it! When one of the cops is a dude like Kelso…fuck, who’d want to mess around with him?”

She shook her head violently. “No, no, no, no. Byron, dude: the cops aren’t on anybody’s side. Your new buddies aren’t cops, man. They’re not neutral.”

He laughed, but it sounded a little weak to his own ears. “They’re the Sovereign Conduct Enforcement Team Alpha,” he said. “They’re supposed to enforce our conduct—make sure we’re on the straight and narrow. Not take the place of regular police. People know that.”

She clicked her tongue. “Dude, not even you really believe that.”

Byron remembered how eager Schulmann and Kelso sounded to have a chance to defend Sovereigns from Normals.

“It’s…” He saw triumph rising in her expression. Damn, it made him mad. He let that anger push down his uncertainty down.

“It’s what we’re for, Haze. Fuck. Why do you have to assume the SCET’s gonna get all fucked up?”

“Because they can, Byron. Absolute power, blah blah blah.”

He frowned. “What? You’re not even making sense.”

She looked mildly disgusted with him. “Read a book, dude. Fuck.” She started walking fast back toward the apartment building. “Forget it. Forget it.”

He trotted to catch up with her. “Wait up. Jesus.”

She kept walking.

“Haze. C’mon.”

She stopped and turned to face him.

“Y’know…I bet if we’d been at the same school…” Her eyes narrowed. “I bet you totally wouldn’t have even talked to me.”

She was totally right. He couldn’t deny it.

She must have seen it on his face. “Yeah. Thought so. You were a jock, after all, right? Fucking jock. I know exactly how it would have gone down.”

“You don’t,” he said.

“Bullshit,” she snapped. “You’re a jock, here, too, you know that, right? SCET,
semper fi
,
honorifice perficite proprio actio
…you’re the jocks of Sovereign high school.”

Byron shook his head. “You’re fucking crazy. Why does that have to mean it’s automatically bad?”

“Because people who
can
do shitty things eventually
do
shitty things,” Haze said. “Tell me you never did, when you could. Tell me you’re some perfect exception, Byron letterman jacket jock hero Teslowski.”

Byron thought of all the fucked-up things he’d done to Nate Charters over the years. Goddamn it, he didn’t want her to be right. She was too fucking sure of herself.

Besides, he’d
learned
. He’d totally grown up. He’d changed. She had no fucking idea.

No fucking idea.

“You’re a fucking bitch.” He moved past her, brushing her shoulder just a little, and strode for the apartment building.

Her heat lingered on his shoulder, through his jacket.

Marc Teslowski – Nine

Traffic thickened on the narrow mountain road as Marc and Ray neared the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies Visitors Center. Half a mile or so before the gate, they were effectively parked on the road. Ray peered ahead through the windshield, then looked at Marc.

“You okay with walking some?”

“Sure.”

Ray let a little space grow between his car and the back bumper of the pickup truck ahead of them. When there was just enough room, he cut the wheel to the right and pulled onto the dusty shoulder of the road.

Ray cut the engine. Marc got out of the car and looked up and down the road. The cars stretched as far down the mountain as he could see. All coming to the Institute?

How many of the people in those cars…weren’t people?

Ray came around the front of his car and gestured up the road. “C’mon. It’s not far.”

As they walked, it became clear that Ray hadn’t been the first to make the side of the road their parking lot. Before long, they were in a loose queue of people making their way to the Visitors Center.

Marc overheard accents and languages he couldn’t place. Ray caught it and squinted thoughtfully.

“The human family, like I said.” Ray nodded to a bedraggled young man in hiking boots and Dolfin shorts with a heavy backpack on his shoulders who looked like he might have walked all the way up the mountain. “Come from all over.”

Marc’s skin crawled despite the light sweat he was building up. “Seems to me, if people come here from far away, they’re not who you think they are, Ray. I don’t know.”

Ray glanced around. “Sure, there’s some devils in this bunch. There must be. But it’s just numbers, Marc. Just numbers. We outnumber them a thousandfold. Won’t be any different here.”

Marc felt like he should keep his voice down. “Yeah, but why’d regular people make the trip? Why now?”

“Same reason as the freaks.” Ray pointed ahead.

Marc heard the crowd’s murmur as he followed Ray’s gesture and saw the people gathered by the entrance to the Visitors Center.

Two clusters of people faced off, the road into the Center forming a convenient divide between them. A third group, the Donner Institute uniformed security force with which Marc was already acquainted, hung near the closed gate to the parking lot. Marc thought the traitorous bastards looked pretty damn nervous. Served them right.

“Be cool,” Ray muttered to Marc as they threaded the needle down the driveway to the gate.

Neither group of demonstrators was organized enough to be chanting or shouting slogans, but some of the people on the left had homemade signs. Marc saw one that read “Go Back to Hell” and another that demanded someone “Wipe Donner’s Shit Off Montana.”

That meant the group on the right must be full of freaks.

He surreptitiously looked as he and Ray walked past. The group, about fifty or so strong, was dirty and sullen and mostly quiet, and they all looked pretty much just like the group on the left.

A pop, like the sound of a pressure hose being removed from the valve stem of a car tire, made Marc jump just a little. A weird, yellowish ball of light rose up out of the crowd on the right to float above their heads.

It looked like a dirty soap bubble made of piss or weak cat puke, only…shimmering. The crowd on the left—the
people
on the left—were surprised into silence.

Marc felt very exposed.

The bubble of light popped soundlessly. Marc flinched. He heard gasps and groans from the human demonstrators and laughter from the presumed Sovereigns and their sympathizers.

Dim streamers, like the tails from washed-out fireworks, drifted through the air and faded away. When the last of them was gone, the spell was broken and the shouting resumed, more urgent and angry than before.

Marc and Ray faced the security guards. They stared back through mirror-lens sunglasses.

“Invitation?”

Marc scowled. Ray guffawed.

“Invitation? We want to talk to someone inside, son. We’re visitors. For the…” He winked at Marc. “For the Visitors Center. Right?”

The security guard turned his head to take in Ray and Marc in turn. He spoke to Marc.

“I’m afraid the Visitors Center is closed today unless you have an invitation.”

Ray grinned. “An invitation from who, now, son?”

The security guard kept his tongue. He probably understood he was being baited.

Marc stewed. “I don’t need an invitation. My son is in there.”

Another of the guard said easily, “Then you must have an invitation. Once we see that, I’m sure there won’t be a problem, sir.”

Marc couldn’t tell, what with the sunglasses and all, but he was pretty sure this jackass had been one of the guards he’d dealt with yesterday.

“You son of a—"

“Marc.” Ray touched his shoulder and drew him back, gently but firmly. “Hold on a minute. Look.”

A blue van moved through the parking lot. Before it turned to head for the gate, Marc saw KECI stenciled on the side doors.

The security guards gave just enough ground to let another of their number open the gate wide enough for the van to slip slowly through. “This is going to turn out just fine,” Ray said. “Hold on.”

“They’re leaving,” Marc said.

The anti-Sovereign demonstrators organized themselves enough to chant “Ah-bom-meh-NAY-shun! Out OF the NAY-shun!”

“Oh, I doubt it,” Ray said.

Sure enough, the van stopped. A woman in a peach pantsuit bounced out holding a microphone, followed by a man lugging a camera and another man holding a fuzzy microphone on a stick.

“Oh, fuck,” Marc moaned. “I’m not gonna be on TV again.”

“This is different.” Ray held on to Marc’s shoulder. “This is different.” He nudged Marc to face the reporter more directly.

Marc saw recognition on her face. He watched her say something to her little crew before the cameraman hefted the camera onto his shoulder and the guy with the boom mic slapped on a big pair of headphones. They moved toward him, the woman taking point, literally leading the way with the smaller microphone in her hand.

“Are we good?” she said to the others.

“We’re hot,” said the cameraman.

Ray snickered. “Now we’re cooking with gas, Marc. Yes sir.”

The woman was on Marc. “Lori Parapetti, KECI, Montana’s News Channel. Marc Teslowski, what brings you to the entrance of the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies two days before the Declaration Day festivities? Are you with the protesters?”

Marc recognized the formation of the camera and sound guy from his experiences with far too many roving-reporter ambushes in the last eleven months. If he wasn’t actually on television right this instant, he would be by six o’clock.

There was no escape.

“I’m here to see my son. That’s all.”

“Has Byron Teslowski broken his silence and invited you to visit him on the Institute grounds? That’s pretty big news!”