Threader war, p.8
Threader War, page 8
The steady clop of horse hooves on concrete penetrated into his brain and he spun, almost losing his balance. The sound faded, and all he saw was heat shimmering off the broken concrete and the false promise of cool lakes on the horizon. He took a small sip of his water before turning back and trudging behind Teresa, thinking the sound was a figment created by his overheated brain. The sound seeped into his consciousness again and he turned only after Teresa had, watching as a train of wagons emerged from the haze of heat behind them. He thought of running, but there was no place to go, no place to hide, and the sun reflecting off their blankets had probably given them away well before they’d heard the horses.
The lead wagon pulled up beside them and stopped, the horses standing stock still in the afternoon heat.
“Need a lift?”
He squinted up at the driver, recognizing her almost right away, though he couldn’t remember her name. She was the Dance Master, the one who had led the dance in the amphitheater at SafeHaven so long ago. What had brought them on this highway in the heat of the day?
“Your name’s Darwin,” she said. “Enton introduced us last year.”
Teresa stepped forward. “Baila, it’s me, Teresa. From Chollas. We’ve met a few times. Do you have any water?”
“Right! What are you two doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”
Teresa filled her in on the details as Darwin accepted a jug of water and guzzled it greedily before passing it on to Teresa.
“Skends in SafeHaven? Was anything left?” Baila’s face drained of color and her hand gripped the reins so tight that they trembled.
Darwin shook his head. “I don’t know. I did a quick scan before we holed out and didn’t See anyone. Maybe they all got out?”
“We can hope so,” Baila said. “I know there were plans in place for a quick evacuation, though I don’t know where they would have holed to. At least with all the Skends around they could build the holes and protect themselves.” She took the jug Teresa handed up to her. “You may as well join us. We’ll be stopping tonight and figure out where to go from there. The plan was SafeHaven, but that will have to change. The third wagon has room. Get in the back out of the sun. Sleep if you want to.”
They crawled into the cooler interior of the wagon and lay down, staring at the tarped ceiling above them.
5
A Dancer’s Soul
Darwin woke as the wagon wallowed around a corner and rolled to a stop. He heard the horses snort and voices echoed down the line. Rubbing the grit from his eyes, he struggled to sit up, every muscle in his body aching from lying on the odd shapes of the wagon’s contents, and the hard ground last night. He shook Teresa’s shoulder to wake her. A thin strip of sunlight fell across her face, making him remember why he had called her his angel. Even through the exhaustion and pain she carried with her, she was beautiful. He watched as her eyes slowly opened and squinted against the filtered light before crawling out of the wagon. The sudden harsh light of day made him blink and rub his eyes again. He stretched to try to get rid of the kinks and meandered to the front of the line.
“You’re awake. Good,” said Baila. “Scan the area to See if anyone is here.”
Darwin opened his mouth to tell her it wouldn’t work, that the Threads didn’t respond.
“You can do a quick scan of the area. If it works, there are Skends nearby and we need to get out of here. With some luck, they wouldn’t know we’re here yet. If the Threads don’t respond, we’re good to go.”
He tried a quick scan, finding the Threads as aggravatingly unresponsive as usual. It didn’t make sense. He could See them, they looked the same as they always had, so why didn’t they respond? What was different? Could it be that the QPS, the soul of the machine, gave them a life and a purpose? It didn’t really make any sense, but none of it did anyway.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Good. You keep that up every fifteen minutes or so. If it changes, you let me know right away.”
“I will. What did you do before me to check?”
“You’re assuming we already don’t have a Threader.”
“You don’t. Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me to do it. They would have done it automatically.”
Baila glanced at him, a small smile on her face. “You’re smarter than you look. How about you and your girlfriend help unload some of the supplies so we can get fed and watered? Maybe help with the horses.”
“She’s not my—”
“Don’t argue with a Dance Master. You’ll lose.” She turned to unbuckle one of the horses before looking over her shoulder at him. “And maybe not so smart after all.”
He took two steps back toward the wagon they had slept in before stopping to face Baila again. “What were you doing on the highway . . . when you found us?”
Baila laughed. “We’re a traveling troupe, what do you expect us to do?” The smile left her face. “Truthfully, we had planned to stay home for quite some time, but it seems we can only be idle for a while before we get restless. This isn’t the best time to travel. Still, the call runs deep in all of us, and we had to move again. You can’t keep a good performer down.” She turned her back on him again, the conversation over.
Teresa was already unloading some boxes when he reached the wagon. She glanced in his direction before turning away and getting back to work and Darwin’s smile vanished. Girlfriend. What did Baila know, anyway?
One of the troupe introduced them to Vaneshia, the woman who took care of the horses. She was short and full of energy, even after what must have been a full day of travel. The animals towered above her, but each one recognized her when she approached them, nuzzling her short hair in greeting. She greeted each one differently, treating them like people more than animals.
It took a little over half an hour to get the horses settled and fed and watered. The final wagon carried large drums of the life-giving liquid, and they scooped it out into bowls for the horses to drink. Darwin and Teresa had their fair share as well, drinking until they felt bloated.
Someone from the troupe walked up to them before they were finished.
“You’re a healer, right?” the woman asked.
“Yes.”
“Could you come with me? It’s Anita. She’s about six months pregnant. She was fine when we left Tijuana, but she’s complaining of some pain.”
“Of course. Where is she?”
“This way. We told her to stay home, but . . .” The woman’s voice faded into the distance as Teresa followed her away from the horses. Darwin turned back to finish his work.
He didn’t help get the horses out of the rigging for the wagons. He’d started undoing a buckle and was quickly stopped. Apparently he’d done the wrong thing. The dancers were old hands at it, though, unbuckling here and tying something off there. Vaneshia was definitely in charge, making sure nothing was missed. After they rubbed down the docile beasts, some of the harnesses were put back on the horses. When he asked why, they told him it was faster to hook them back up if they had to leave in a hurry.
Unable to help, he moved through the wagons, the odd man out. Each wagon was different, yet obviously belonged to the group. Bald and cracked car tires supported the wooden box frame of each wagon. It seemed a miracle that they held air at all. Above that, the patched orange and blue tarps were worn and faded, looking barely enough to protect the insides from the sun and the rain. The only thing fresh and vibrant was the new-looking paint on the box sides: brightly colored swirls and patterns that reminded Darwin a bit of the Threads, yet held an artistry all their own.
That reminded him to attempt a scan every once in a while, and he was ashamed that he’d forgotten. As he took a quick look, Baila glanced his way. He gave his head a small shake, and she went back to what she was doing.
How had she known he was trying? More than likely it was just a fluke. Dancers didn’t See. Enton had told him that the first time they’d met. But when they danced, what they could do with the Threads was breathtaking. He still remembered the performance he’d seen at SafeHaven, how the dancers’ movements echoed in the colored Threads that washed over the audience, how Baila had created a massive eagle that dove over their heads before disappearing into a beautiful aurora.
So what did they do now that the Threads were so dull and lifeless? He’d have to remember to ask her.
As he was wiping the last water bowl dry and placing it with the others in the wagon, the smell of cooking wafted through the air. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday, and the odor of something frying reminded him of that. His stomach churned and let out a loud gurgle. From behind him, he heard a laugh that sent his heart into a rapid staccato. Teresa grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the group across the street.
“I’ve heard that sound before,” she said. “Maybe they’ll have something that isn’t spicy, so you can actually eat it.”
He gripped her hand tightly and let himself be pulled along, a grin on his face so big his cheeks hurt.
Dinner consisted of pan-fried bread cooked in bacon fat, and warmed-up beans in a thin sauce. Darwin couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten something so delicious, even though it was on the spicy side. He remembered to check the Threads every once in a while, and Baila looked at him when he did it often enough that it wasn’t just a fluke. So how did she know? Maybe she was part Skend and sensitive to Thread use like they were. He laughed at his own joke. More likely it had something to do with her being a Dancer.
By the time the sun had set and the dishes were wiped down and put away, the fire had turned into a pit of fiery embers that threw the occasional spark in the air with a loud pop. The members of the troupe who weren’t on watch huddled around the heat as the air temperature dropped, talking quietly amongst themselves. Baila wandered from group to group, chatting and laughing before moving on to the next one. Teresa settled down beside him, and Baila skipped them with a simple wave, moving instead to the next clump of people.
“I’m sorry,” Teresa said.
“For what?”
“I haven’t been very nice since you came back.”
“You’ve had a lot to think about. I . . . I remember I wasn’t the kind of person anyone wanted to be around when my mom and dad died.” He paused, realizing how his words might have hurt her. Teresa’s mom and brother weren’t dead, they were Skends. “Sorry.” He took a breath. “I hurt a lot of people that were trying to help me.”
They stared at a lone flame that had sprung up. What was left of the embers was dimming and didn’t throw off much light.
“Your dad?” She put her hand over his, whispering, “I’m so sorry. I know how much he meant to you.”
Darwin leaned into her hug.
“How did you do it? How did you get past it?” she asked.
He put his arm around her, pulling her in close and feeling the heat from her body pressed into his side. “I didn’t,” he said. “I don’t think you ever do. Time helps. A lot. It dulls the pain and helps you think about the good times. Eventually you’ll realize you didn’t even think about them for a whole day, and the guilt will hit you like a freight train, and it’ll start all over again. Those times get farther and farther apart, until you’ll only think of the happy times, and they’ll make you feel good, and you don’t cry anymore.” His voice lowered into a whisper. “It takes a long time, and you never know what will set you back.”
A warm hand wiped the tears from his face, and he smiled into Teresa’s palm. He didn’t tell her that his wounds were still raw, that he still saw his dad lying on the bed in his three-piece suit, still saw what was left of his mother on the QPS room floor when he had sent red Threads through her. In his head he knew that woman wasn’t his mother. That she looked and sounded like her, but she came from a different world. They had never met. She hadn’t raised him, hadn’t kissed his cheeks when he hurt himself, hadn’t praised him when he came home with a good report card. But his heart told him he’d killed his mother twice. Once in his world when he drove the car into the guard rail, and once here.
The pain was the same.
* * *
• • •
The next day, they stopped at Chollas, using the water in the reservoir to replenish their stocks. Darwin kept Teresa occupied as best he could, but he saw her glancing across the parking lot and up the small rise that led to the damaged fence and the playground. There wasn’t much he could do . . . she missed her mom and her brother, and the community she had grown up in.
Once all of their containers were full, the troupe backtracked to College Grove Drive, and from there to the freeway that led to SafeHaven. Darwin left Teresa in the third wagon with the pregnant dancer—she’d been feeling nauseous most of the day—and ran to catch up to the front where Baila sat. He arrived a little short of breath and jumped into the front seat beside her.
“Are we going to SafeHaven?” he asked.
“From what you said, there really isn’t any point, is there? No, we’re going around most of the city. I don’t know if you know the area too well, but we’re basically staying east of it. We’ll stop at San Bernardino for a day or two and do some performances. It’s a good way to stock up on food and horse feed, and maybe some more water. After that we’ll follow Interstate 15 to Las Vegas. If any of the places want a show and to put us up for the night, we’ll do that along the way. There aren’t too many big places, so it will all depend on if they have enough food to pay us with.”
“Shows? Are there enough Threaders along the way to have an audience?”
Baila laughed, though it had an edge of bitterness to it. “No, of course not. We haven’t been able to do a dance since the Threads stopped responding. We can’t see them, but we can feel them, and we knew when it wasn’t working anymore. No.” She took a breath. “But we’re performers. If all we could do was the dance, we would have had a difficult time keeping food in our bellies and our horses taken care of. We all have alternate skills that we use. Some of us juggle, some sing. All of us can act, and we have a small repertoire of plays we can do. That is why we’re heading to Las Vegas. We’re booked at the Bellagio to do The Book of Mormon. It’s not quite as funny anymore since the Mormons turned into hermits, but it’s still a crowd-pleaser.”
“So you don’t use the Threads at all?”
“Use? No. We never did, you know that. We danced, and the Threads responded. Remember what I told you in SafeHaven when we first met? Emotions are the key to the Threads. We would dance and feel and rejoice and cry, and the Threads would respond. There isn’t a performer amongst us that can See. Which is good, considering where we’re going.”
“San Bernardino?”
Baila shook her head. “Las Vegas. It’s a different kind of place. Always has been, I guess. You’ll see when we get there. Now, get back to Teresa. She’s hurting, and could use your company.”
Darwin dropped out of his seat and waited for the first two wagons to pass him. Teresa was sitting on the backboard, her legs swinging back and forth, and he hopped on beside her.
“How are you doing?”
She grimaced. “I hate that question. Everyone asks me that, as if their knowing will somehow change everything.”
“How about how can I help instead?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” She leaned against him, whispering softly so he almost couldn’t hear her. “You shouldn’t have come back.”
He waited awhile before answering, not sure of the right words. “I had to. I knew you were in pain, I just didn’t know what had happened. I had to.”
* * *
• • •
They spent a night in a place called the Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park before getting back to the highway the next morning. Small hills separated the caravan from the Santa Ana River somewhere off to the left. The troupe and its two extra passengers had just left the remarkably well-preserved Interstate 215 to maneuver around the twisted remains of two metal railway bridges that had once spanned the massive eight-lane highway. All that remained of the southernmost lanes was a crater that was large enough to have taken out a road at least twice the size of the one they were on.
Darwin had seen plenty of damage from the initial war between Threaders and non-Threaders, but this one seemed to hit him harder than the others. Harder than the graveyard outside of Forsyth. Whether it was the single point of damage in an otherwise pristine landscape, or the warped and rusted metal that stained the ground under it, he didn’t know, but an uneasiness settled into his gut.
The war that had created this damage had ended long ago, during the early days after the QPS had started throwing Threads into the world—years before the machine had been turned on in his world and he’d been transported here.
He sat quietly beside Baila as the horses struggled to pull the wagons up the slope that led over a set of rusted railway tracks. Teresa stayed in the third wagon with the pregnant dancer. She’d chased him away when he tried to help.
Looking at the destruction, a feeling of revulsion spread through him that he hadn’t expected. How could people have destroyed so much of what made them who they were? How could the hatred have grown so quickly and into such a raging thing that the only solution was to destroy the world as they knew it?
“Were you here for all of this?” He waved his arm at the carnage that opened up before him as they crossed the tracks. The landscape was pocked with signs of destruction that he hadn’t seen from the highway.
Baila tightened her grip on the reins at the question, staying quiet for so long that he thought she was never going to answer. The wagon bounced down the other side of the tracks and was back on the sun-drenched concrete before he heard her suck in a deep breath.
