Homicidal Aliens and Other Disappointments (18 page)

If looks could kill, hers would. There’s no doubt about that. I’d be turned off in a second.

“He’s going to be okay,” Catlin says, though I know she doesn’t know that. “He’s unconscious right now, but he’ll wake up soon.”

“How could you take him?” Zelda says to me. “He’s just a child!”

“He begged Jesse to let him come,” Catlin says. “He wanted to fight.”

“Zack is just a child,” she says again. “You should know better.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “He said he needed to. I thought . . . I’m sorry.”

I should have put him to sleep down by the ships. I understood his wanting to go, and I let my understanding convince me to do something I knew I shouldn’t. My father used to say you learn more from mistakes than from anything else. I’ve been learning a lot lately.

Zelda looks like she wants to keep yelling at me, which I probably deserve, but Catlin directs Sam to take Zack to the hospital tent. When I start to follow them, Zelda tells me to leave. Just leave.

“She’s kind of cute,” Michael says once the others are gone.

“Who, Zelda?”

“The angry one, yeah.”

Typical.

“Maybe you should go in the hospital tent and get looked at,” I tell him. “Maybe you’ll get the chance to score some points.”

“I would never do that,” he says, but he heads for the tent.

As I’m about to go to my tent to sleep, I have the misfortune of seeing Doc. He motions me to come inside the tent where he sits. I consider pretending I don’t see him, but I doubt that is going to work. Doc definitely does not look happy.

“I presume that is the friend you went to save?” Doc says, gesturing to where Michael disappeared into the hospital tent.

“Yeah. Michael.”

Doc nods. “And Zack?”

“I don’t know yet. Catlin’s been working on him. I’m sorry.”

“You’d better tell me what happened.”

And so I do. I tell him about putting Lauren to sleep and bringing Catlin and Zack along. I tell him about rescuing Michael and our run-in with the Hunter. I tell him about the multiple moments and how I seemed to be able to follow the one in which we survived. And I tell him about Zack getting injured and Sam coming to find us. Finally, I tell him about the explosion back at the palace and how I think we managed to blow up most of the aliens ships parked there.

I try to explain why I had to go back for Michael. I don’t know if I’m making much sense in my current state — I’m so tired I can hardly see straight — but when Doc tells me my punishment, he doesn’t seem nearly as angry as I expected.

He assigns me a month on toilet-cleaning detail. Catlin, too.

“I talked her into going along,” I say. “It wasn’t her fault. It was all mine.”

“Now she’ll go along with you on toilet-cleaning duty. She should have had better sense. Lauren did.”

Yes, she did,
I think.

Doc lectures me about being a leader and about how I have to think about all of New America now. He reminds me, as Sam did, that my selfishness could have cost lives. His lecture isn’t as impassioned as Sam’s, but I feel even guiltier somehow. I don’t like letting Doc down.

“You’ve got to grow up fast, Jesse,” he says. “We won’t make it if we don’t start acting like a unit. Like a family.”

I tell him I’ll do my best. I mean it. But if I had to make the choice all over again about going to save Michael, would I change anything? No.

As I come out of the main tent, Michael comes out of the hospital tent. I ask him how Zack’s doing.

“He still hasn’t woken up. Catlin says he’s fighting, but the longer he stays asleep, the less likely it is he’ll wake.”

“And Zelda?”

He looks uncomfortable. “Let’s just say there’s one less member in the Jesse fan club.”

Then he tells me that the healer in there had a look at him and said she didn’t think there was much she could do to help him recover his memories.

“I got the feeling Catlin disagrees, though. Our girl is a lot better doc than the healer they have here.”

I’m not surprised to hear that. I take Michael to the check-in area to get him a tent and a sleeping bag.

“Michael!”

We turn and see Lauren, clutching her yellow pad and walking with a small group of people. Either New Bloods or SAFers, I imagine. But she quickly says good-bye to them and rushes over to us. She throws her arms around Michael and kisses his cheek.

“I can’t believe it! We thought — I can’t believe it. I’m so happy you’re here!”

She doesn’t hug me. She doesn’t say she’s happy I’m here. She says, “I guess you managed not to get yourself killed. Where are Catlin and Zack?” She looks around as if she expects them to follow me wherever I go from now on.

“Catlin’s in the hospital tent,” I say, “looking after Zack.”

For a second, she looks concerned and sympathetic, but then she just looks pissed. “He’s hurt?”

I nod.

“You shouldn’t have taken him. You and Catlin going was bad enough, but taking Zack was stupid.”

“I know,” I say. “I screwed up.”

“And I told Doc, in case you’re wondering, that you’d taken a ship. He had to be told.”

“I know,” I say. “Look, I’m sorry about the . . . you know —”

“Knocking me out?”

“Yeah.”

She says, “You should be sorry.”

“I am.” I am smart enough not to tell her that I’d do it again if I had to, but I think it. I shield the thought.

The conversation ends there. We have nothing more to say or too much more to say, and we stand there awkwardly, the silence just making everything more awkward. Finally I say I need to sleep and we need to get supplies for Michael.

“We’ll meet up later,” Michael says to Lauren. She tells him she’s glad he’s here, and then she turns and walks back toward the little group waiting for her.

“Was it my imagination, or was Lauren a little cool toward you?” Michael asks as we walk up the trail.

“You don’t have an imagination,” I say.

“That’s what I thought. I guess she doesn’t like you running off with Catlin.”

“I didn’t run off with Catlin.”

“Dude. It looked like that was who you were with to me.”

“Lauren was going to tell everyone we were leaving. She —”

“Was just being Lauren, Tex. I get it. Do you?”

“Did I really just save your butt?” I say. “What was I thinking?”

“You need a little reality check from the truth teller. You don’t put girlfriends to sleep and then run off with other girls. It makes them mad.”

“That’s not the way it was.” Though it’s not factually incorrect. “Not reality,” I insist.

“I think it’s Lauren’s reality.”

He’s probably right, which is totally irritating. But he doesn’t get a chance to gloat because on the way up the path a bunch of people stop me to say they hope the Warrior Spirit is guiding me well.

Michael gives me a condescending look. “What’s with all this Warrior Spirit stuff?” he says. “Zack acted like you were some kind of god.”

“Well, half god,” I say.

“Right,” he says, and smiles but stops when he sees I’m not joking. “You’re a half god now?”

“He’s in me — sort of.”

I tell him about the legend. “People are desperate,” I say.

“They must be,” he says.

I can’t argue with that.

We get supplies for Michael and bring them back to our campsite. All I want is to get in my sleeping bag and sleep for a month. Michael, though, says he’s going for a walk. He wants to breathe a little fresh air.

“Don’t get lost,” I say, unzipping my tent. “I don’t want to have to come looking for you again.”

“You get your sleep, Chosen One,” he says. “You’re gonna need it.”

“The Warrior in me says good night,” I say.

You’d think I’d be asleep in about two seconds, but I’m not. Lots of thoughts buzz around in my mind like irritating insects and keep me awake. Regret and worry about Zack. Confusing thoughts about Catlin and Lauren. Worry about Michael. Finally, though, exhaustion does win out, and I slip away.

I wake up like I’ve never been asleep at all, like I’ve just closed my eyes. And maybe I have. I hear minds outside my tent.

It’s time for our training session,
I hear someone mindspeak loudly.

I hear the minds all thinking about my trip to Austin, about how I went and got my friend and brought him back and how I defeated the aliens. Again. I hear hope.

Then I hear something farther off. A familiar voice. Soft. Lauren? I reach for it. I want to say I’m sorry. Tell her that I feel bad about everything and especially about what I did to her. About what I thought about her. About what I
didn’t
think about her. Bad.

But I hear another voice close to hers. Dylan’s voice.

“He would risk all of New America for one friend. He would see us all die. That’s the person you think should lead us? That’s the person you trust, Lauren?”

“I used to,” she says. “When we were slaves and after we escaped, he was amazing. Now I don’t know.”

“New America needs a leader who thinks of everyone. I admit he’s strong; he’s a powerful weapon in fights with the aliens. But he can’t be in charge. He will get us all killed. You know I’m right.”

“I thought he might grow into it,” she says. “I thought I could help him. But he doesn’t want anyone’s help. He’s not ready. I can’t pretend he’s acted like a leader.”

“I’m ready, Lauren,” Dylan says. “I’ve trained all my life for this. We can agree to disagree about issues, but we agree about Jesse. You know we do. We have to protect New America. I can’t do it without your help, without your advice. I’ll need a group of advisors to help once I’m president, too. I’ll need you.”

Since when did Dylan become so patriotic about New America? He sounds so sincere I almost believe him. And Lauren — I can’t really blame her for thinking I’m irresponsible. Still, I feel betrayed. How can she believe Dylan?

The minds outside my tent are getting impatient.

“Excuse me, sir. Are you awake in there?” someone says, someone young enough to think I should be called “sir.”

I tell them to go to the training field, that I’ll be right there. I get dressed and come out. My body aches, and I feel like I’m still half-asleep, my thoughts slow and uncertain, like I’m moving through a fog. I look around and see Lauren and Dylan down the trail. Lauren sees me and turns and walks away. Dylan looks back at me with a big smile on his face. I wonder if he’s wanted me to hear them, if he somehow made it happen.

I go to the workout spot. I start off with some warm-up exercises. Everyone gets a good sweat going, and I encourage them to do these exercises on their own outside of class.

I tell them something I’ve been thinking about. “The aliens are slow. Physically slow. It may not seem like much of an advantage, but it is an advantage. It’s a way we’re better than they are.”

We work through a lot of martial-arts drills. Hand drills. Elbow strikes. We do some different stances to work on control. We try a few kicks.

And this time, when I try to translate some of the physical moves into moves of the mind, some people start to see what I’m doing. Their movements are awkward and slow to me, but they do make solid attacks with the mind. It’s a long way from what the aliens do, but it’s a start.

Maybe Lauren and Dylan are right. Maybe I’d be better just training people to fight — be that “weapon” Dylan thinks I am. It’s not like I want to be the leader of these people anyway. I just don’t trust Dylan to be a good leader. I don’t trust him, period.

The workout goes on for over two hours. Lauren shows up at some point, which makes me happy, and then Catlin and, at the very end, even Michael, though he just watches. I must have seventy or eighty people at the workout. Even some of Dylan’s supporters show up.

Afterward, everyone else wanders away until it’s just me, Lauren, Catlin, and Michael in the clearing. It should feel like a reunion, but instead it feels like we’re walking through prickly cacti.

Lauren gives Catlin the same frigid look she gave me earlier.

“I guess you think because you got Michael out, everything is fine, right? I guess you both think that.”

Catlin looks uncomfortable, but she doesn’t look away. “I don’t think that. But Jesse was right, and we got him back from them. You don’t know what it’s like to be in their power.” She looks close to tears. “I should get back to the tent. Why don’t you come with me, Michael? Let me examine you.”