Infinity's Reach Page 14

  And I did believe that he would return. That was never a doubt in my mind. The question was whether I wanted him to return. I had spent the past two years fending for myself, and in many cases, fending off men just like Mack Hawley. I hadn’t seen a lot of humankindness, and after meeting Faithful, I didn’t want more of the same.

  And so I took off, probably two hours after Mack did. I followed his example and siphoned gas from one of the Humvees there, and dumped it into the small tank of the dirt bike. Then I cranked it and was on my way.

  I didn’t stop to consider that I had never ridden a motorcycle before. It took a good three hours for me to learn how the headlight worked, how to shift up and down and where the brake and clutch were. It also didn’t help that I was leaving in the middle of the night.

  But on the other hand, I was glad there was no one on the roads. Riding a noisy motorcycle on the road gathered enough attention as it was. Add to that the fact that my wanted poster was on every fencepost, bulletin board and wooden shed from Cincinnati to who knows how far west, and you have a pretty good idea why I chose to stick to the back roads.

  And that also explains why it took me a week to travel what would have taken a little over four hours if things would have been normal again. It was only 250 miles, Hot Springs was a straight shot southwest from Poplar Bluff as the crow flies. But I’d learned a thing or two in the past two years. Going fast was not always best.

  Riding a motorcycle was a luxury, I knew, and chances were it would catch up with me. Some dark night someone would hit me over the head to get my bike, or maybe someone would shoot me out of the saddle when I was riding by.

  I had to learn discretion to survive. And that’s why I took my time. Each day I almost left the motorcycle behind, knowing how obvious it made me. But I’d become attached to riding instead of walking. And so I kept it.

  When I hit Hot Springs a week later, I found a nice ravine overgrown with vines and saplings and hid my bike. I covered it with greenery and then felt a lot more comfortable about leaving it behind. Then I grabbed my backpack and walked into town, just as most everyone else was, just as I had been doing for two years.

  I stopped at the first tavern—yes, they had resorted to turning bars into taverns again, since most of them also fed you and put you up for the night—and asked if they could give me directions to House of the Interpreter. After surviving the predictable comments about what a skinny kid like me wanted with the House of the Interpreter, I finally got a straight answer from the sixth person. Hot Springs—the new Hot Springs—was pretty locally organized, and it wasn’t more than a couple of miles walk to get me to where I was going.

  When I finally got to the building that locals called The House of the Interpreter, I was sure someone made a mistake. It appeared very similar to what I had seen back at Fort Campbell. Blackened beams and piles of ash were all that was left of what once had been a very large, and apparently very impressive, building. A wrought-iron fence surrounded what used to be a three-story building. It had been white; that much I could tell, but only a little remained of the white walls that once stood. There had also been brick, and stone, and those were scattered haphazardly across the yard. From what I could tell, the house had been decimated about a year ago, and empty ever since. Its rubble stood at the foot of a tall hill, with a white cross at the top, as if the cross marked the death of a sacred landmark.

  I looked around. Makeshift cardboard and plywood houses had cropped up throughout the area, indicating that whatever had destroyed the House of the Interpreter had not destroyed the town—or the nature of its business. In the distance, I could hear the cries and laughter of a marketplace. I wondered if anyone there would know what happened, but even if they did, that wouldn’t help me now.

  The only thing I could think to do was climb the grassy hill to the foot of the cross. Somehow I got into my mind the idea that if I got up there, I would either be able to see where I should go, or someone would see me and come rescue me.

  A beaten path led through the green grass to the top of the hill. From the tall hill, I could see all around Hot Springs. I stood there at the top for a long time, staring at the surrounding countryside. And finally I did what I knew I had come there to do: I cried.

  Crying made me remember Ellie, and our time in the Swamp of Despair. I missed her. And missing her made me miss Kimmy and Marcie, and then Damien, and then Evangelist. And finally, I realized that I missed even Madrigal and Mack Hawley.

  “Is this going to be my life from now on?” I cried out, looking up at the big white cross. “Will it be one long line of meeting people, bonding with them, only to leave them behind?” I thought about how this all started because supposedly I was someone special, the daughter of an important man, who needed to be rescued. And from that point, everyone who tried to rescue me was either dead or left behind.

  “I don’t want to do this anymore!” I shouted to the cross. “I just want to live quietly somewhere.” I never asked to be a pioneer woman, a pathfinder crossing a wild frontier. And then I thought of the codename Daddy had given me: Pilgrim.

  “Is that what I am? A pilgrim?” I thought about it. Pilgrims leave one place to go find safety and freedom somewhere else. Somehow Daddy had known what I would survive. How had he known?

  Why was I chosen to do this pilgrimage? Weren’t there better, more qualified people out there? Why were the people I cared about left behind? As I thought of Ellie, and Kimmy, and Evangelist, and all the rest, I felt as if each of them was another weight in an imaginary backpack on my back. And the weight of their memory was pressing me into the ground. I was being crushed.

  “I can’t do this!” I said again, and shook my head. And then just as quickly as the weight had crushed me, it left.

  And then it struck me. My journey was my own. Others may travel on it for a little while, but in the end it was my own—alone. What made me a Pilgrim was not the destination but the journey. And without really realizing it, I accepted that journey as my own.

  As if magic, I looked at the white wooden cross and realized that a note had been pinned to it, with the familiar ∞ drawn on the outside. I turned it over and saw one line of numbers: 1-5-31-8. I quickly pulled my small Bible from my pocket and found Deuteronomy 31:8: “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

  “Daddy,” I said to the white cross. “I don’t know why you wanted me to take this journey. I don’t know what good can come of it. But I trust you. And I believe that you know best. So I am going to stop complaining, and start trying to help you and your people.”

  “That sounds like a great idea,” said a voice behind me. Even though it had been two years, I recognized it immediately. I turned and saw Evangelist walking up the last few steps of the path. In two years, he looked like he had aged five. And a new scar ran across the left side of his jaw. But at that moment, he couldn’t have looked more beautiful to me.

  I threw myself at him, even though there was still 10 feet of open air between us. He laughed and we fell into each other’s arms. Finally he pulled away.

  “You’re here,” I said. “You’re really here.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Did you doubt that I would be?”

  “No,” I said, then grinned. “Yes.”

  “Well, I almost didn’t make it. Apparently you and I have made a few enemies in this part of the country.”

  “Yeah, what happened to your face?”

  He grinned. “After all the close encounters I have had the past two years, I did this falling off a horse.”

  I laughed. “You should try my horse.”

  “Really? What’s his name?”

  “It’s a her,” I said. “Her name is Kawasaki.”

  “Kawasaki? What kind of name is that for a horse?”

  “It’s a motorcycle, silly,” I said. “What did you mean when you said, ‘That was a good idea’?”

 
; He smiled, then grew serious. “It sounded like you finally discovered the nature of things,” he said. “Parts of life used to be transitory before—things would come and things would go—but today, well today, life is even more that way. You’ve already gotten used to me coming and going.”

  “I don’t think I have, but I’ve accepted it, sort of,” I said.

  “Well, it’s necessary. And other things are just as tentative.”

  “Like the House of the Interpreter,” I said, looking back down the path.

  He smiled again. “Yeah, well, it was a good place to meet, because it was pretty well known. But there wasn’t anything significant about the place. Come with me.” He started heading down the other side of the hill.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To the real reason why you’re here.”

  He led me down another path to what looked like an old Denny’s restaurant. Behind it was a transmission shop that was nestled against the side of the hill. We entered the front door and then crossed into the service bay area. Evangelist went through some double doors beside the service bay and I discovered a spiral staircase on the other side. I was reminded of the bunker we had come from a week ago, as he and I descended into the ground. He paused at one point to let me catch up.

  “The House of the Interpreter was hit by Coalition drones about a year ago,” he said. “Somehow they got the idea that this was a headquarters for our forces. What they didn’t learn was that the real headquarters was on the other side of the hill, and below it.”

  He stood on a platform two levels below the surface. I noticed that they also had fluorescent lights glowing in the ceiling above us. He gestured down a long hallway, which I imagined ran beneath the hill with the cross.

  “That way is where all the strategy rooms, offices and barracks are located. We have enough facilities here for about a battalion.”

  “This is like the bunker we discovered,” I said quietly.

  “What we don’t have are people for those barracks and supplies and equipment for them. That is, until you and your friend Mack Hawley discovered that secret arsenal.”

  “You know about that?”

  He nodded. “The Missouri National Guard emptied it out pretty quickly. If word gets out to the Coalition of any arsenal, it usually doesn’t stay hidden very long. They are quick to strike with their drones. But we may have a solution for that. Finally.”

  “So what are you going to do with our discovery?” I asked.

  “Missouri has asked for and received permission to use the arsenal to take back the Mississippi and St. Louis,” Evangelist said. “They promise they won’t fail this time.”

  “And there goes any supplies you need,” I said.

  “Not necessarily,” he said. “Your discovery led to something else. A list of three other similar sites that as far as we know are still undiscovered. Those supplies are headed west.”

  “West? Where to?” I asked.

  “Where we’re going. West to Oklahoma City and then eventually, Camp Zion.” Back to ToC

  23. damien’s task

  DAMIEN: DAYTON, OHIO, DAY 1583

  My father—the Colonel—is a determined individual. He is also a pragmatist. Two years of searching for Infinity without success led to frustration, anger, then finally resignation. He came to the conclusion that no girl—raised in privilege as she was—could survive on her own for that long, invisible to all our efforts to find her.

  And other priorities came our way. Despite our best efforts, the war was heating up. The patriots who still lived here and there refused to accept the new order of things. Father—Colonel Apollyon—felt it best to send me for further combat training and his superiors agreed. Finding people to betray their country wasn’t hard, especially if you offered them a hot meal and a bed. But the quality of the person we were recruiting left a lot to be desired. Since I did have a formal education—father embellished a bit—I was sent to officer’s training, followed by special forces training. It took me away from combat for about six months. When I returned, I was sent to Georgia to quell a rebellion there. It was there that I received my captain’s bars.

  I knew that Father had never really forgotten Infinity—neither had I, for that matter. Even though the Colonel had concluded that she was dead, I didn’t think she was. I knew that she was a lot stronger than she put on, and even though her Daddy was a government big shot, that hadn’t changed who she was deep inside. I knew that I would see her again.

  That knowledge came back to me when I received orders to return to Dayton. It had been close to two years since I had served under Colonel Apollyon. I was surprised when I was flown in and discovered that his temporary headquarters had been replaced with some nicer, more permanent ones. The offices were humming with secretaries, clerks, and junior officers, all going about the business of keeping track of the Coalition army spread across the United States. I was shown into my father’s office. This time, I didn’t make the mistake of being informal with my father. Instead, even though he was smiling, I marched in formally, saluted the Colonel, and waited for his response.

  His smile faded and he returned my salute, perhaps remembering himself that decorum was especially important for us in light of our relationship.

  “Sit down, Captain,” he said crisply, and I sat down at one of two chairs in front of his desk. I sat silently, waiting for his comment. He stood over his desk, perhaps remembering something, perhaps deciding how to begin. Finally he spoke.

  “You have been reassigned to me for special duty,” he said. I didn’t answer, but nodded, and he continued. He turned and pointed to a map of the United States behind him.

  “Two years ago, the two last pockets of organized resistance were blotted out,” he said. “Minneapolis-St. Paul was destroyed by a nuclear weapon, and St. Louis was taken over by a warlord named Ajax, with a little help from us. Coincidentally, those were the last two locations where power had not been interrupted. With the taking of St. Louis, as well as automated emplacements along the Mississippi River, we have controlled the middle of the former United States, as well as all traffic east and west, and north and south.

  “Yesterday, a new campaign was launched against St. Louis by loyalist forces. We had thought that they were without supplies and ammunition, but apparently they have received new weapons. They are taking heavy casualties, but they are making progress. The general staff is presently considering how to respond to this new threat.

  “In the meantime, I am intrigued by the information filtering in from our sources within the resistance. We have captured a few lower level officers and learned that the source of the new supplies can be traced to a hidden arsenal that was recently discovered and made use of. It was located…here.” He pointed to a dot on the map in southeastern Missouri.

  “There are rumors that the arsenal was discovered by a middle-aged former truck driver and a teenage boy,” he continued. “There are also rumors that the locations of other underground arsenals have been discovered as well.” He paused and stared at me, as if he was waiting for me to draw a conclusion from this information. Then he continued.

  “We are very close to wrapping this whole thing up. But the key of our success has always been superiority in technology and having weaponry that the other side doesn’t have. They outnumber us 30 to one, but for the most part they don’t have armor, vehicles, automatic rifles or ammunition. We have to stay ahead of them. If they get access to modern weapons….” He simply shook his head.

  “Let’s just say that I will have regretting the day I decided to stop teaching history.”

  I cleared my throat, and he looked up and nodded for me to continue.

  “Sir, I understand and appreciate the fragile situation we are in,” I said. “But you did say you had an assignment for me.”

  “ I do. It’s here.” He pointed at the map and I saw the words, “Oklahoma City.”

  “The general staff is concerned about the Mississippi Valle
y, but I suspect that many of the new supplies are headed west. The resistance has formed a central fortified location in Oklahoma City that is acting as a communication and transportation for all points west, north and south. From there, I predict they will be sending weapons to forces located in the west, the place they call Camp Zion. Right now, those forces are being isolated by General Lao-Tse, whom you know as General Despair. If those weapons get to the resistance forces, we could lose the entire west.”

  I nodded, the wheels turning in my mind.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “I have a strike team ready to hit Oklahoma City in a week. In the meantime, I need you to infiltrate the fortress and see what information you can gather about the plans the enemy has.”

  I nodded, aware that the meeting had come to an end. I saluted, and Colonel Apollyon saluted back. I spun on my heels and turned to leave. Then I paused and turned back.

  “Sir, has the thought occurred to you that Infinity Richards could be traveling as a boy—a teenage boy?”

  The Colonel pursed his lips and nodded.

  “That thought has crossed my mind. You have your orders, Captain. But Captain, as always, if an opportunity presents itself…take it.”

  I nodded and left the office. Back to ToC

  24. CROSSROADS

  EVANGELIST: OKLAHOMA CITY: DAY 1585

  We had traded stealth for speed. The enemy knew that we were on the move, that we’d discovered a cache of weapons, and that we were eager to strike and strike hard. The discovery of the arsenal had a triple reward for us. First, knowing that they now had the weapons they needed, National Guardsmen from a dozen states were gathering to take back St. Louis, and with it, the entire Mississippi Valley.

  Second, the secret list of three other bunkers that had been discovered at the arsenal was quickly escorted to Command at Hot Springs. Command had determined how best to use the weapons and then had sent quick response units out to gather the weapons before they were stolen by the Coalition or bombed into uselessness.