At the same time, Gilbert was acknowledging Dylan's quick thinking in the field; by taking action, Dylan was getting them closer to the end of this mission.
“Okay,” Gilbert said. “Let's blow it and roll it in one minute.”
Dylan nodded and turned, noticing a farmer walking his donkey along the road behind them toward the intersection of Death X. As if nothing were out of the ordinary.
And in an odd way, nothing was out of the ordinary; hundreds of these missions, Humvees bunched together as soldiers detonated explosives, happened every day. For the farmer, as much as for them, this was just a typical day.
But it didn't feel typical.
“Sarge,” he said, jutting his head in the direction of the farmer and the donkey on the road.
Sergeant Gilbert shook his head, spat in the sand. “Ain't this grand?” he said. He made a call on the radio, asking one of the other Humvees to move into position and stop the farmer.
“Got it,” the reply came.
Those two wordsâ
got it
âwere the last two words Dylan would hear as an active duty soldier. The last two words Claussen would ever hear as a living soldier.
Because at that moment, in Dylan's vision, a hundred yards behind Claussen on the potholed roadway, the farmer and his donkey suddenly evaporated in a white-hot blaze.
Dylan felt his consciousness, his thoughts return. For a moment, for many moments perhaps, he'd been pushed under completely.
He stood over Quinn now, a full bag of blood clutched in his hand.
“I can feel you trying to connect with Dylan,” he felt his mouth saying. “But he can't hear you; he can't hear anything. He's dying, and you're going to sacrifice yourself, the secrets of the Falling Away, for nothing. That's what I so love about all this.”
Quinn smiled. “Trying to convince me, or trying to convince yourself?” she asked. “I can see Dylan again. In your eyes.”
“Shut up!” Li screamed.
Li found the connection to Quinn's IV, affixed it to the bottom of the blood bag. He put his finger on the clip to release the blood, glanced back at Quinn.
Quinn's eyes were closed, peaceful. Her mouth moved slightly, murmuring.
Praying
, Dylan realized.
As Li watched with Dylan's eyes, Quinn slowly moved her right hand to the palm of her left, pressed at theâ
(paper clip)
âembedded beneath the skin.
Her way of controlling her emotions, her world around her
, Dylan thought instantly. Just as he did the separations and the kill box.
Dylan's mind shifted, enough to make Li pause for another moment.
The separations and the kill box. That was why he'd been inside the box with Joniâbecause the kill box was the answer. That's why Claussen had somehow sent a message through Webb, after Quinn performed the exorcism.
Remember the kill box
.
Kill box
? he heard Li's voice ask.
Your green box? You think I'm interested in that now? I'm about to open a much bigger box
.
Dylan looked at the scene before him: Quinn, sitting in her chair, and the IV, with an attached bag of blood. He stared, letting the left half of the image fold across the right, erasing everything to the left of the IV bag.
Inside Li screamed, unable to stop the deep-seated compulsions of Dylan's brain. Just as he couldn't force Dylan's lungs to stop working, or force Dylan's blood to stop flowing, he couldn't force the well-worn patterns of compulsion to stop.
Dylan folded the image again, felt control of his body beginning to come back toward him, ebb away from Li. He stepped away from the IV, and Quinn opened her eyes, looked at him. Trusting. Almost as if . . . she'd expected this.
Dylan slipped back into control of his brain, feeling Li turning, constantly turning inside like a wet drill. He opened the top of the kill box, felt the light pouring out, felt Joni slipping into his mind.
Need a little help, big bro
? she asked.
All I can get
.
Dylan pushed his mind again, forcing Li to half of his size once again and sliding him toward the kill box.
Li babbled, unable to form complete words or sentences, feeling true pain and fright for the first time since time itself began.
Once Li was in the kill box, Dylan shut it and locked it tight.
He felt it rattle, but it stayed shut.
Li was trapped.
Dylan realized he'd clenched his eyes, so he opened them, saw Quinn looking up in wonder.
“You forced Li into the kill box?” she asked, hesitantly. “I heard Joni; is that what she was helping you do?”
“Joni?” Webb asked. “Who's Joni?”
“In a minute, Webb,” Dylan said. Then, to Quinn: “Yeah, he's in the kill box.”
She smiled. Dylan returned the smile. “My therapist always said compulsions can be overpowering.”
A knock came on the door. Dylan glanced from Quinn to Webb; Webb shrugged his shoulders.
“Come in,” Dylan said.
The door opened, and Nancy entered, followed by Jeff and Elise. “I'm . . . I'm sorry, Li,” Nancy said, all but bowing down. “But I thought I should get some help. I thought there might be something odd happening.”
Dylan looked for a few moments, felt Li shift inside the kill box. Then he smiled broadly. “Thank you, Nancy,” he said. “That was very thoughtful. You are a great asset to HIVE, and to the Earth itself.”
Nancy beamed.
“Looks like we won't be doing the transfusion right now after all, though,” he said. “But we can welcome Webb back into the fold, and put Quinn here up for the night. We've had a long discussion, and I think they'll do some big things for HIVE.”
He turned to look at his two friends again. “I think they'll do some very big things for HIVE.”
The next morning he called Quinn and Webb to breakfast in the dining hall. All around them, members of HIVE stared in wide-eyed wonder; usually Li, the Great Sower, didn't eat with the other HIVE members, preferring to take his meals in his room or offices.
Today, it seemed, was a special occasion. Li was eating among them.
“So,” Webb said as he dug into some hash browns. Evidently, the demonic infection hadn't taken away any of his appetite. “Everyone here thinks you're Li. I mean, sure you look like him. But you're still Dylan.”
“People see what they expect to see,” Quinn said. “I bet if you ask anyone here, they would tell you Li has always looked like this. Because for them, he has.”
“Drugs probably help,” Dylan said.
“Drugs?” Webb asked, a fork filled with hash browns almost to his mouth.
“That's why everyone has the dopey grins on their faces. Li's drugged the water system in the whole community; everyone here is doped up, willing and compliant.”
“Did you say in the water?” Webb asked, eyeing his coffee.
“Until last night,” Dylan said, and smiled. “There will be a few changes around here.”
“What . . .” Quinn began, then seemed unsure how to continue. “How . . .”
“Sounds like you're going to skip right over that
what
question,” Dylan said.
Quinn laughed. “Touché,” she said.
“I'm guessing you're trying to ask me what's happening inside.”
“Like I said, demons are practically immortal.”
“Not immortal,” Dylan said. “But yeah, close to it.” He paused. “I can . . . well, I guess I can access Li's memories, Li's thoughts, Li's . . . network. Like he was hoping to do inside you.”
“His network?” Quinn asked.
Webb was still more interested in the food on his plate.
Dylan nodded. “All the . . . well, I guess you can call them all the infected. The people who have been sent out to infect others. I can page through them, almost like this mental Rolodex or something, get a sense of where they are, what they're doing, what they're feeling. When I do, I can feel Li inside the kill boxâI can feel him trying to feed, I suppose you'd say. Trying to pull the energy from the people spreading the infections.” He shook his head. “It's all so . . . alien,” he said. “Hard to explain.”
Quinn put her hand on his, and he didn't flinch. “Sounds like you're explaining it well to me.”
Dylan nodded. “Anyway, I thought about this all night. I started . . . I don't know . . . cataloging the others. The people infected by the demonic virus.”
He saw Quinn smile. “You're saying we're going to be doing some exorcisms?”
He returned the smile. “Yeah.”
Dylan sensed a flinch from Quinn. “What?” he asked.
“What else?” Webb asked as he continued eating.
“What do you mean, what else?”
Webb stopped, looked at him. “There's something else you're wanting to tell us. I can see it on your face.”
Dylan looked at Quinn. “Well, like I said, I've been cycling through all the people. Maybe a hundred of them or so.” He felt his voice trying to crack, but he held it. “And I think there's someone I need to visit first. Someone I need to meet.”
“Who?”
“You could meet her, if you want to come with me.”
“Where to?”
“She's in San Francisco. Tenderloin district.”
Quinn narrowed her eyes in confusion. “Okay,” she said.
“What about me?” Webb asked.
“What about you?” Dylan returned.
“Want me to go along?”
Dylan studied his friend, smiled. “Webb, didn't you tell me once you were a city mouse?”
“Yeah. I'm one of those urbanites.”
“Ever thought about life in rural America?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should start thinking about it.”
“What do you mean?” Webb asked.
Quinn laughed. “Are you really that dense, Webb? He's asking if you'll run the farming and ranching operations here at the HIVE.”
“Ain't that what you're gonna do?” Webb asked.
“Not much into farming and ranching,” Dylan said. “And when the people start coming down off the drugs, when they start waking up from their bad dreams, they're gonna need someone to explain it to them. Maybe some will leave, but I think most will stay. After all, that's why they came: they wanted to simplify, work the ground, be part of the earth.”
“And you think I can do all that?”
“I'm willing to find out.”
Webb pursed his lips a few moments, looked deep in thought, then smiled. “Don't suppose I have anything better to do, at the moment.”
Two days later Dylan knocked on a bright yellow apartment door with a purple number 9 affixed to it. The building was in the middle of a long hill, one of those brightly colored Victorian things always pictured on San Francisco postcards.
After a few seconds, the door opened. A woman, her long black hair glistening in two braids, looked at him quizzically. Then anger clouded her eyes.
“I don't want anything,” she said, her voice full of rage and hate. But it wasn't her hatred boiling inside. It was Li's. The demonic virus.
“Joni,” he said. “Don't you recognize me?”
Her eyes cleared again for a moment, and Dylan thought he saw a bit of a tear forming in her eye.
“Dylan?” she whispered. Then the anger returning: “You forget what happened? You forget you abandoned me, left me to die?”
It was the virus inside speaking again, and Dylan could feel the anger, the virus itself, trying to find its way inside his own mind through buried guilt.
But that guilt was locked away in the kill box now. Along with Li.
Dylan reached out, put his hand on Joni's arm, spoke softly. “This is my friend Quinn,” he said. “We're here to help you.”
Joni pulled away, tried to release his grip and back into the apartment. Dylan kept his hold on her arm, let her pull him inside, then led her gently to a sofa and helped her sit. Beside him, Quinn dropped to her knees in front of the couch and put both of her hands on Joni.
“We're here to pray for you,” Dylan said, and he felt Joni go limp, collapse.
Quinn began to pray, and Dylan prayed with her. He didn't know how to pray, really, but what did that matter? Praying wasn't about what you said, but what you felt. He understood that now.
Just as he understood that being a Biiluke wasn't a curse.
It was something special.
He had wandered, had found himself crippled long before he had a leg mangled, because he'd never accepted being chosen. He'd done his best to fall away from all of it, but now he realized he'd really been falling away from what he'd made himself.
Joni's mouth opened; he could see a dark cloud being pulled out of her. Hanging in the air for a few moments, hovering, then breaking apart and dissipating.
Her eyes fluttered, then opened again. “You came for me,” she whispered before fading away into a deep dream. A dream, he knew, that would not be filled with dark thoughts for the first time in three years.
Yes, he had come for her. And he'd found her.
She'd been snatched off the rez by one of Li's infected, pulled away from her own life and toward an existence filled with lies and hate, wandered as a restless soul who infected others with the delusions and pain. Once, that would have filled him with anger and rage.
But there was no room inside him for rage. All he had inside him was the kill box. Inside that kill box was Li. And inside Li were secrets he and Quinn would reveal, with time.
But first, there were other things. First, he wanted to hear more of his sister's voiceâto actually hear it, rather than feel it inside. First, he wanted to help Joni gather all her things, return to the Crow rez in Montana, help put her in contact with all the family and friends she'd left behind.
Help put him in contact with the family and friends he'd left behind.
First, he wanted to stand at the edge of that cliff, pause for a moment, then dive. Because he now knew there was no archer waiting there for him with a bow and arrow.