Homicidal Aliens and Other Disappointments (20 page)

“Like the master race?”

He doesn’t answer. “We’re still the future, and I’m still the leader. I’m the one chosen to unite us. I’ve known it since I was a child.”

“You’d be like a king,” I say.

“You can help,” he says. “I would be grateful when I’m the head of the houses.”

“Who doesn’t want a king to be grateful to them?” I say.

“Think about it,” he says. “Think about your friends. These are dangerous times. I will be the head of the houses. It’s going to happen. You can be my friend or my enemy. The choice is yours.”

“What was that all about?” Michael asks when I come into the meeting-hall tent.

“He wants to be my blood brother,” I say, “or he wants my blood. I’m not sure which, but I’d bet on the second.”

Sam says, “He’s dangerous. I’d be very careful.”

“Did you know he had this big plan,” I say, “for uniting the houses and becoming king? He thinks it’s his destiny or something.”

“I’m impressed,” she says. “I didn’t know he had that much imagination.”

“Oh, he’s been imagining all kinds of things,” I say.

“It’s not much of a kingdom anymore,” she says.

“It’s a disappointment, but he’ll take what he can get.”

“On another topic, I have an idea for a second suicide mission,” Sam says, clearly done talking about Dylan. “Your friend here has already volunteered.”

“I did?” Michael says.

“You’re probably still having memory problems,” she says. “You were all for it.”

“That doesn’t sound like me,” he says.

“We all surprise ourselves sometimes.”

“What is it?” I ask.

She wants to attack Denver, where the aliens have a base. This time we’ll do it right, she says. We’ll take two trucks with soldiers, some of them pilots. We’ll do more damage, get more ships.

“But first we need more explosives,” she says. “Lucky for you, it just so happens I know where to get them — the safe house for the Wind Clan just outside the square in Santa Fe. We’ll take the two ships, but just four or five people total. A quick in-and-out without anyone seeing us. We’ll go tomorrow night, and then the next night we’ll blow up the base in Denver.”

I see Catlin making her way over to us. I see Lauren whisper something to Zelda from across the way, but I keep my shield up so that I don’t have to hear whatever it is she says.

Sam lets Catlin know she’s volunteered for a suicide mission. “Congratulations, you’ve been accepted.”

“Lucky me,” Catlin says.

The town meeting is shorter than the one last night. Everyone seems weary at first — camp life and the strain of being hunted, I think. I do hear a lot of buzzing about Michael, which becomes almost deafening when Doc calls him up to the stage to be introduced and welcomed into New America. Then there’s news about our successful attack in Austin and some cheering over that. It’s a small victory, but every victory makes us feel a little stronger. There’s a moment of silence for all we’ve lost.

When the meeting is over, Michael, Catlin, Sam, and I walk back toward our campsite, but Sam turns off before long. Her tent is in the neighborhood closest to the food.

“It’s where the best people live,” she says, “but your hill is nice, too, if you don’t mind walking.”

As she walks away, Michael stares after her. “I’m in love.”

“I thought you were in lust — I mean in love — with Zelda,” I say.

“Who’s Zelda?” Michael jokes, still staring at the spot where Sam was.

When we reach our campsite, I notice that Lauren’s tent is gone, which isn’t exactly a surprise but still bothers me. Catlin looks at the empty space and then says she’s going to turn in. She’s exhausted. We say good night. It feels a little awkward between Catlin and me now, which bothers me, too.

“You think she likes me?” Michael says.

I’m thinking about Lauren and Catlin.

“Who?”

“Who do you think? The Amazon woman.”

“Sam? Not particularly, but maybe you’ll grow on her.”

“I think she sort of likes me,” he says, unzipping his tent.

I wish I had his confidence sometimes. I’m really tired. I don’t realize how tired until I get inside my tent. I don’t even take off my clothes or unzip my bag. I just lie on top of it fully dressed, and in a second I’m asleep.

At breakfast the next morning, I see that Lauren has joined Dylan and his sidekicks at the Dylan-and-his-sidekicks table. They seem very cozy, sitting there beside each other, talking — making plans, I suppose. Lauren is always making plans.

“Why is Lauren sitting over there with that creep Dylan?” Zack asks. He was released from the hospital tent first thing this morning, and we haven’t had the chance yet to catch him up on what he’s missed.

Zelda, who is sitting next to him but looking none too happy about it, tells him to be quiet and eat his breakfast. He’s taken two helpings of everything, which seems like a good sign to me.

“What’s that saying about a woman scorned?” Michael says.

“I didn’t scorn her,” I say. “If any scorning was done, she did it.”

Zack gets it and doesn’t seem all that upset. “She wasn’t right for you anyway,” he says with his mouth full.

Zelda scolds, “Stay out of it, Zack.”

“It’s true,” he says defensively.

“It doesn’t matter,” Zelda says. “You don’t necessarily say something just because it’s true.” Then she looks at me. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” I say, and then I look at Zack. “It’s all right, Zack. I’d rather hear the truth.”

“Sure you would,” Michael says.

Catlin gets up. “I’ve got to get to the hospital.”

I hear Lauren laugh. Lauren’s laugh is one of those musical ones. She could give a concert with that laugh. Right now she’s giving a concert for Dylan.

“I’ve never heard Dylan be funny,” I say to Michael. “Does he look like someone who could be funny?”

“Not intentionally,” Michael says.

One thing about Michael: he’s a good judge of character. Another thing: he’s loyal.

That afternoon I train the faithful again. There are even more rebels at this session. Over a hundred, I’d guess. Zack’s been telling everyone how I defeated (this is so the wrong word, but that’s the word he uses) the great alien hunter and how I saved him. He claims he felt something in me that was like a sudden explosion of power.

“Like the spirit,” he says.

Once again, I try to link the physical moves (roundhouse kick, tiger mouth, knife-hand strike, palm-heel strike, elbow strike, punches) with the moves of the mind. People do make the connections, but they make them imperfectly. I try not to be too disheartened. In tae kwon do it was the same. You have to do thousands and thousands of side kicks before you start doing them well. We do get a good workout, at least. This is my kind of sweating, good physical exercise, not sitting around nearly naked in a sweat lodge with a fat old dreamwalker.

After the punches and kicks, we work on hapkido moves. I’ve partnered everyone up so they can practice different techniques. We’re working on a simple way to twist a wrist so the opponent is disabled.

One of the pairs is a guy named Lucas and a girl named Marie. I’ve seen Lucas hanging around with Dylan’s group, though I’m not sure if he’s really a part of it. I keep an eye on him because he’s aggressive. I’m watching him when he twists Marie’s wrist too much during the exercise. Marie stifles her cry of pain, but I can hear it in my mind.

I send someone to go get Catlin, and then I ask Lucas what happened. He says it wasn’t his fault; she moved when he had her in the hold and twisted her own wrist. Marie rolls her eyes.

“What’s the big deal?” Lucas says. “It’s not like it’s broken.”

Things like this do sometimes happen in a martial-arts class. They shouldn’t, but they do. It’s the way Lucas acts like it’s nothing that irritates me.

I say I’ll be Lucas’s partner for the next technique, which is throwing. We’ve practiced how to fall, but I still make everyone go slowly. I help people get the throw right first and then come back to Lucas, who decides he’s going to show people he’s powerful, too, and throw me hard. I hear him think this. He has his shield up, but I hear right through it.

He steps into me and turns his body as I’ve shown him to do and grabs my arm, and then I do something that I hadn’t planned: I use my mind to counter the move. He falls, exactly as he would fall if I had done the counter physically. But I didn’t do it physically. I did it with my mind.

Lucas looks up at me. I think he’s going to be angry, but he says, “Awesome, dude. How’d you do that?”

I try to teach them, but while some of them can use the move to stop another person, to put them down, none of them can actually flip someone.

Still, the group’s progress is undeniable. In just a few days, they’ve gone from barely being able to do roundhouse kicks to being able to affect others with just their minds. I feel good about this.

After the training session, Catlin and I do our latrine duty. We’ve been shown how to use bleach and lime and the other cleaning materials. It’s terrible work, but it makes me feel better to do it, like I’m paying something — not enough, but something — for stealing the ship and putting Zack in danger.

When we’re done, Catlin and I wash up in the stream down from camp and then walk up the trail a ways and stretch out on some flat rocks in the late afternoon sun. I close my eyes and enjoy the feeling of the sun on my face.

“So,” she says, “you and Lauren are over?”

“Seems like we barely got started,” I say. “She said I was too selfish. And I can’t be trusted. I don’t know, maybe she’s right. Maybe I am selfish. I could have gotten Zack killed.”

“You didn’t, though. Zack’s fine. And Michael’s here.”

“We were lucky.”

“It’s more than luck,” she says. “You need to quit saying that. You saved Michael, and you saved me, too. I thought I’d never get out of Lord Vertenomous’s. I didn’t think it was possible. So maybe Lauren doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

I turn my head to look at Catlin. But before I can say anything, it happens again: we join. We don’t mean to; it just happens. Maybe because we’re lying on this big flat rock, side by side, so close we’re almost touching. And it’s not like joining for fighting or hiding either. It’s different.

“Am I interrupting?” a voice asks.

We both jump back. Mentally, I mean. Physically, we just sit up. To anyone who sees us, it doesn’t look like we were doing anything. But it’s not just anyone who sees us. It’s Running Bird. And he sees more than just the physical.

“What?” we both say at once.

“Of course not,” we both say at once.

We aren’t joined anymore, but it sure sounds like we are. Catlin blushes and says she’d better go get cleaned up for dinner.

“You don’t have to leave,” I say to her.

“I definitely need to wash off our punishment more thoroughly before I go anywhere near food,” she says. “I’ll see you down there.”

Running Bird says, “You both do still smell a little.”

“Thanks,” Catlin says.

She walks off down the path.

“So, what can I do for you?” I ask.

“I think the question is, what can I do for you, Warrior Boy?”

I frown. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Then I realize I do want to talk to him. How did he know before I knew?

“Fine,” I say. And I tell him about what I saw at Lord Vertenomous’s place, about how I saw a lot of different possible futures and was able to choose the best one.

“You saw alternatives?”

“I guess.”

“Can’t be,” he says. “The book is the book. What’s written is written.”

I shrug. “Maybe it’s open to revision.”

“The book is the book,” he says.

“I saw different versions,” I said.

“You making this up? You mad because I caught you and that pretty girl making out?”

“What?” I sputter. “I wasn’t. I wasn’t doing anything with her. And I’m not making this up.”

“You finally ready to admit you got the Warrior Spirit in you?” he says.

“It could just be another talent,” I argue. “Like dreamwalking.”

“Never heard of any talent like the one you’re talking about. I have heard of a talent that a great holy man had once, though. He was able to move things with his mind. If you can walk through time, maybe you can move things with your mind.”