Chapter Thirty

The weeks passed. Riley went on expeditions to the city, trying to find recruits. He loved that – the feeling of being trusted, and being a part of the action. He liked, too, the early spring air, brushing against his face and hands as he rode one of the motorbikes down the highway. Some days, when the sun shone, the ice everywhere would start to melt. The smell reminded him of his childhood. Sometimes he thought of trying to send a message to his parents.

Back at base, Riley took Jacob outside and walked around with him. For once, Jacob seemed to tolerate his presence. In those placid days between his rides down to the city, Quinn would tell him about her dreams for the world and how she thought things should be. Sometimes Tara would offer to read his palm or cast his horoscope. He liked Tara then, when she would laugh with them and her anger didn't come to the surface. Piotr and Gord were mostly gone. Riley only saw them when he went to the city and stopped in their safe house.

Hardy came back once. Riley heard Darlington complain that he brought nothing. "Why did he risk it?" She whispered to Quinn. Riley had had to turn away and pretend he hadn't heard.

The next morning he came across Jacob crying in the little room at the back of the base. It was the room next to the washrooms where he and Quinn had once laughed about communism and anarchy.

Riley bent down with what he hoped was a sympathetic look. Jacob's face was covered in crusted nose goo. He smelled of poop. "Where's your mom?" Riley asked.

Jacob was silent. His face was contorted with tears. Riley paused and then picked him up, trying to keep his snot covered face away from his shirt. He carried him to Quinn. "Where's Tara?" He asked.

Quinn glanced up from the book she was reading at the kitchen table and shrugged. "I think she went out with Hardy last night."

Riley nodded. "Okay. Um, Jacob's crying."

Quinn had gone back to reading. "So change him."

"Umm, where's his stuff?" He got no answer, as if Quinn hadn't heard him. Sometimes she could be difficult like that.

He wandered into Tara's room and found Jacob's diapers and a handful of clean clothes. He laid him down on the mat on the floor and began to change him. There was poop everywhere – over Jacob's shirt, over his pants. Riley sighed. "Come on, kid. How do you feel about a shower?"

He took Jacob into the bathroom and stripped his clothes off him, turning the meagre water pressure on. Once Jacob was clean and dressed, Riley sat him down on Tara's bed. Then he sank down next to him, looking around the damp cell. They sat in silence together for several minutes, as if both of them were trying to absorb some elusive, but important, fact about their shared situation.

Looking around the room again with a sigh, Riley noticed a familiar book spilling out from under the bed. He pulled it out, glancing at Jacob. He remembered this from his own childhood: "The Story About Ping," he muttered, reading the title. It came back to him suddenly – the little duck on a so-called 'wide-eyed' boat on the Yangtze River. He opened it to the first page. "'Ping lived with his mother and his father, and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty-two cousins,'" he paused. "Wow, that's a big family. I would always feel safe if I had a family like that."

Jacob nodded solemnly. Riley felt pleased. At least Jacob was listening.

Riley nodded, too, and went on reading. Eventually he got to the part he remembered from his own childhood – the central dilemma of the plot. He smiled to himself. Now Ping would have to make a decision, he thought. "And," he read on, "'as Ping reached the shore, the last of Ping's forty-two cousins marched over the bridge and Ping knew he was LATE again.'"

Jacob pulled his thumb from his mouth. "He's going to be in big trouble." Jacob understood the problem; he had obviously heard the story before. Riley smiled at him, almost proud of the kid.

Riley nodded. He felt his eyes starting to fill up with tears; he didn't even know why. "That's family, though," Riley muttered. "You have to accept the good with the bad. Look at all the problems he had out there on his own in the wide world. You know he has to go back to them, right? Even though they're going to spank him?" He laughed as he said it, trying to be funny.

"Where's my mommy?" Jacob asked sadly.

Riley put the book down and frowned. He sighed. "I don't know. She'll be back soon."

Jacob didn't respond; he just stared blankly at the wall. Riley was momentarily shaken. He swallowed and then continued reading. He thought of Corbin suddenly and wondered if Corbin was thinking of him, too.

All day Jacob followed Riley, his thumb in his mouth. At dinner, Riley watched as Jacob tried to spoon his gruel into his mouth, making a mess of the clean shirt Riley had put on him earlier.

In the early evening, Riley watched Jacob lay down silently on Tara's bed. When he was asleep he went to find Darlington.

He knocked on the doorframe of the lab. He had never been here before. "Darlington," he called out awkwardly.

"What are you doing here?" She said hurriedly, wiping her hands on her apron.

Riley stared at the workbench behind her. There was a microscope and several vials strewn about on the counter. In a ten inch by six inch glass container was something eerily familiar.

Riley took a step forward. He had seen this before – he had seen this in those news photos on Clive's computer. He glanced at the withered black body inside the container. It was as if his mind could not process it for a moment. Agol, he slowly thought.

"What the fuck!?" He finally cried out.

Darlington stared at him. There was a pause. "You're not supposed to come in here."

"That's Agol! What are you doing?" Riley whispered.

Darlington closed her eyes and opened them again. "This is a war. We have to take risks."

"Is this what Hardy brought?"

Darlington nodded. "On his first visit."

Riley looked away from her, around the lab, his eyes taking in the cabinets and the stacked crates, the cages with the mice and the general the messiness of the place. Out of the corner of his eye, on top of a filing cabinet, he saw a gun.

Darlington started to speak. "With the information you brought, Riley, on Edem anatomy, and now this – from Hardy – we are very index close to having a weapon that can wipe them out. Or, we could." She pressed her finger down on her worktable. "We have to have this. It is the only thing possible. We will design a virus to infect their claw system. That's the only thing that is unique to the Edem – we infect them there and it won't affect us."

"It won't work," Riley said, leaning forward, his face inches from Darlington's. "It will mutate. It will escape and it will kill us all."

Darlington didn't say anything.

Riley turned away. "What about Jacob? What about all the men who are innocent? What about –"

Darlington cut him off. "You knew what the price could be." She shook her head. "We have no other way to fight them. We can't defeat them with . . . the normal rules of war. We have to be willing . . ." She trailed off. There was a long pause. She closed her eyes and pressed her thumb against her forehead. She opened her eyes again. "Why did you come to see me?"

"I can't find Tara." It felt like hours ago that he had been looking for her now, not mere moments ago. It felt like it didn't even matter anymore.

"She went with Hardy yesterday." She looked down at a chart in front of her and licked her lips. "Having a romantic weekend, no doubt," she said, not looking up. "She leaves the kid with us. We're not a babysitting service." Then she turned back to her work. Riley didn't move. After a few minutes she turned back to him. "Now you know," she said softly, referring to the Agol.

Over the next few days Riley felt as if he was anaesthetized. He felt like he couldn't get a hold of the situation. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that he should be doing something but he wasn't sure what. He had rebelled against the Edem because of their imperial ways – ways that didn't necessarily plan to bloodthirsty and murderous, but had seemed to end up that way. Now, it seemed, he was finding that in trying to do right, he had become a pivotal player in laying the path for mass genocide. His heart ached.

He wanted nothing but silence now, as if he could calm the irritation and fraying of his nerves with a balm of muteness. The echoing emptiness of the bunker suited him. It felt like all decisions, all meaningful action, was in the past – the same place where all the rebels who had built this bunker were – gone, long gone. He wanted to hear his steps echoing in the emptiness and think about Corbin, and what he might say.

Instead he had Jacob trailing behind him and chronically distracting him, holding his arms up to be picked up, sniffling and crying with his nose needing to be wiped, his soft baby hand grasping his. He should never have helped him that first day that Tara was gone, he thought to himself. He should have just waited until Jacob's cries were so loud, and his diaper so bad, that Quinn and Darlington would be forced to do something. But he wasn't sure at what point that would be, and he didn't have the heart to let Jacob wonder the empty halls, sniffling, his eyes wide.

"Don't lead him to me," Quinn would say when he tried to get her to play with him. "I don't want to get stuck with him." She laughed. "If I take him I'll never get rid of him." That was so true, Riley thought.

This was the first time Riley had seen Jacob quiet, Riley realized. His face was pale and sad.

No one seemed concerned about Tara.

A few days later, Riley sat outside the base on a warm spring day, a cup of coffee in his hands. He had lead Jacob here, through all the snaking tunnels, to the edge of the Badlands, near where the forest started. Some instinct, maybe the feel of the spring weather in the air, had led him here. At another time, the view might have been beautiful. He felt like a ghost, separated from life and looking longing on it, as he watched Jacob play.

Here Jacob was finally more normal. Jacob briefly abandoned his pale silence and sniffling ways, and was holding a stick in his hand. He glanced up at Riley once as if for reassurance and then smiled. Back in the base, though, he was his more familiar self again: silent and strangely passive. He no longer asked for his mother.

At dinner that night, Riley badgered Quinn and Darlington. He felt a horrible apprehension for Tara. He wasn't sure she was the best kind of mother, but he still didn't think she would have left Jacob. "Would she just leave him?" He asked, within Jacob's hearing.

"Shh," Darlington muttered, glancing at the child. "She'll come back."

Later, when Jacob was asleep, Riley asked Quinn again, and again, trying to find out what she knew. Finally Quinn exploded at Riley. "I don't know! I didn't know her that well! I know you better. She never talked to me. Maybe she left."

"Maybe Hardy killed her."

Quinn wrinkled her forehead. "Why would he do that?" She paused. "No. Tara's gone somewhere. She didn't want to be here. She wasn't that reliable. She's . . ."

Darlington had walked up, then, drawn by the loud voices. They all stood in silence, staring at each other, their breathing audible in the small space. They were the last three adults left here.

Riley pressed his lips together and turned in a circle and then back. "What are we going to do with Jacob?"

Darlington looked away. "Riley," she said slowly, "I've been thinking. You could take him back to the city. You said once to Tara – I remember – that you could drop him on a friend's porch. Ring the bell and run. That he would be taken care of." She looked at the table in front of her and brushed some dust off. "I think what Quinn and I need to do is get across the border now. Here," she gestured around her. "Here, there is not enough. Not enough people anymore, or resources. In the U.S., it will be different. They have more . . ." She licked her lips.

Riley inhaled sharply. "What are you saying? Where's Gord?"

"Look, it's better for you not to know a lot of stuff. You brought us the information. Thank you. It matters. But," she smiled gently at Riley. "I know you want to go – go home, back to your husband. Maybe you still can."

Quinn parted her lips. "He can never go home. We all know that!" She turned to Riley. "They will never take you back. They will torture you." She glanced at Darlington.

Darlington sighed. "I had access . . . a little while ago . . . We have some systems and codes. Anyway, the warrant for your arrest . . . The statement says that you ran away from your husband because of abuse. It's not a political warrant."

Riley felt his heart speeding up. Corbin, he thought to himself. He had lied for him – played it another way, to save him yet again.

"Does anybody know about the information – the drive you brought?" Darlington asked.

"Jon does. I mean, a friend of mine. I mean, an Edem. But –"

"He obviously didn't inform on you. That's not on the warrant." She licked her lips. "Your friends are loyal to you. They did what they could to help you." She smiled sadly.

"Unless it's a trick," Quinn said quickly. She glanced at Darlington. "Riley knows where this base is. A lot of people gave their lives for this infrastructure here. We may need it later, in the future. It's still a secret."

"Mmm, Hardy knows where it is," Darlington muttered.

"Hardy is on our side!" Quinn said firmly.

"Is he?" Darlington said cryptically.

"I won't tell them about the base," Riley protested in a strangled voice. "They can torture me –"

"You can't say that!" Quinn shouted. "That's not true! You can't know that you could hold out. Nobody holds out on them!"

Darlington leaned forward. "They don't know that he knows anything," she said softly. "He's an escaped prisoner. He's married to a man – an Edem – who has claimed in an official statement that Riley fled because he beat him. Maybe they'll believe him."

"Where the fuck would he have been for the last three months?" Quinn shouted.

"Prostituting himself?" Darlington said with a raised eyebrow. "Doing drugs in the city? Not every missing person – not every runaway – is with the Resistance." She smiled at Quinn. "Let him go. He doesn't want to be here. Besides," she paused and looked away. "Besides, I thought of killing Jacob – I mean, if we launch the virus it's all one and the same. But, I don't have the heart. Not now. Not today – to do it. It is not necessary. Let him take the child away. Riley has already brought us what we need, Quinn. Let him go."

They stood, the three of them in a circle like that, for several minutes. Riley's heart was pounding. He wanted to go now with every fibre of his being – home. No one knew about the computer drive.

He thought about the prison. Corbin had once said that if he murdered Darryl he could get as little as two years in jail. What about for running away? He wondered now.

Riley was almost one of their own – almost Edem. Like Corbin, he wasn't from Edem, the planet. He was from an edge world. And he had fought for them. He had a medal.

He was just a runaway, right? What would he get – a couple of years at the prison again? He could do that. He could. He grimaced.

Maybe he would get caned. This was almost a civil matter. He winced. Not quite. He had broken his probation – his 'wardship'. Still, he was willing to risk it.

Maybe the general, Lanimdon, Corbin's father, could help him.

He thought of Jon's face when he kicked him; he thought of Clive and the money he had put up for the business. He almost felt like he couldn't face them. But, he thought, if he left the Resistance, he didn't necessarily have to go back right away to the Edem . . .

Riley suddenly felt Jacob pulling on his hand, suddenly having appeared next to him. Riley turned to face him, a distant smile on his lips.

"Fuck," Quinn muttered. "I used the last diaper this morning."

"Did you?" Riley asked, surprised.

"Look, go into town and get some supplies to get back to the city," Darlington said. "I'll make a list of what Quinn and I need. I want some hair dye. We'll leave, all of us, tomorrow morning. Quinn and I will head . . . " She trailed off. Then she nodded at Riley. "You'll take Jacob down to the city."

Riley nodded. "Okay," he said softly, hurrying away.

He left Jacob with Quinn. His heart was pounding with excitement now. He thought of Corbin; he thought of his parents. He took the motorbike and rode into town to get the supplies the supplies. One night, and he was leaving.

He parked the bike discretely just out of town and walked the rest of the way in. At the local drugstore he got diapers and hair dye. It was strange walking around amongst normal people again; it felt good. He smiled at a girl his age.

At the checkout, he stood in line behind an Edem. He rocked back on his heels. He couldn't help feeling nervous. He glanced at the newspaper display quickly, and then back at it again. 'Woman found dead,' he read.

There was a picture of Tara. He picked up the paper.

"Next," the checkout girl called out. "Excuse me, your turn." She waved him to come forward. The Edem in front of him had paid and was leaving.

He held out the paper to the checkout girl. "Who's this?" He gasped.

"Oh." The girl nodded. "So sad. She was found over the Cunningham church three days ago. So sad. From Toronto, apparently." The girl glanced at the picture and then away. "Did you know her?"

Riley stood with his mouth open. "Yes. Uh. I mean no, not really. Umm – "

The girl stared at him sympathetically.

Suddenly he started piling his things on the counter. "I'll take the paper."

Outside he thumbed through desperately until he came to the full story. Rape. Torture. "Oh fuck," Riley muttered. He had to get back. He had to tell Darlington.

He rode as fast as he dared. He rode inside the base and left the bike on the ground. "Darlington!" He called out.

Then he stood gaping at her and Quinn. He held the paper out. Darlington took it. Slowly she sat down in a chair at the kitchen table where Riley had found them. Quinn leaned forward, knocking her coffee cup on the floor. "Fuck," she cried out, beginning to pick up the broken pieces.

"What's going on?" A voice said.

Riley glanced up. It was Hardy. He felt his heart turn over with pain.

Darlington stood up, flipping the paper over expertly, covering the front from view.

Riley was keenly aware that he wasn't carrying a gun. He hadn't wanted to get caught with a gun in town. If he was questioned, he had thought, he could always try to come off as a motorbike thief and a man with a petty warrant out against him; he didn't need to look like a Resistance fighter who was packing. Now he had only his fists against this monster of an alien.

"Hardy," Darlington said smoothly. "To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?"

Hardy tapped the table and then turned away, pacing. "I need the sample back."

"I'm sorry. It's not in our possession at this time." Her voice was as smooth as silk, almost as if it was an automated computer program.

Hardy moved so fast. There was the bang of a gunshot and a sharp cry at the same time.

"Fuck you," Hardy said bitterly.

Quinn was down on the ground, bleeding from her leg. Riley heard a guttural groan. He could see the dark liquid pooling on the ground. He watched her press her hands over the wound. 'Oh God,' he thought. Hardy was so fast. 'We're gonna die,' he thought. He stared at Hardy and the gun in Hardy's hand. Everything seemed to slow down.

He felt infinitely sad, not angry or afraid. He wasn't ever going to see Corbin again, and Corbin would never know what had happened to him. Riley would just be one of the nameless disappeared. 'I'm sorry,' he thought. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please God, get me out of here.'

"Get the sample," Hardy growled at Darlington.

"It's in the lab," Darlington said, her voice still smooth and automated sounding.

"You think I'm stupid?" Hardy shouted. "I'm not going to get it! You'll fucking corner me! You go. I'll wait here, with Quinn and this faggot alien-lover. And if you try anything I'll kill Quinn and then I'll shoot him in his fucking knees. Then I'll torture him."

"Okay," Darlington said softly. She made no movement. She seemed stunned. She was staring at Quinn, whose eyes were pressed shut. Quinn's fingers were white with the pressure she was keeping on the wound.

"I'll get it," Riley said, moving towards the door.

Hardy glared at him. "No fucking stupid tricks or I kill both your friends, and not cleanly. Got it?"

"Okay," Riley said.

He walked quickly down the dim halls. 'Where's Jacob?' He thought to himself. He hoped Jacob stayed hidden and Hardy forgot about him. Could Jacob find a way to wander out of here? Or would he starve to death, lost and huddled next to their bodies? Riley licked his lips. He had to help him – he had to find a way out of this.

In the lab, he found the sample. He stared at it for a moment. Then he glanced at the mouse cages that Darlington kept. He set the sample down, and picked up an empty container from the counter that was the same size as the sample. He reached into a cage and shoved a mouse into it.

He glanced at the top of one of the filing cabinets where the gun had been the other day. It was gone. There was no point searching. Darlington wasn't that careless. "Shit," he muttered. He walked back briskly, trying to prepare himself. "Come on," he muttered. "You're Edem. You're a fucking soldier like Helmsley! You can fucking do this. Stay cool."

The thought of Helmsley was calming. It suddenly occurred to him that Helmsley would believe that Riley could do this; Riley had rescued him, after all. He had done this before.

He inhaled deeply. He felt something like Helmsley spirit, breathing on his back, watching him. If he died here, he would die a warrior. "I'll see you soon, Helmsley," he murmured quietly. He saw Corbin's face in his mind's eye, pained, and he tired to push the thought away.

He rounded the corner, his heart pounding. "I got it," he said breathlessly. He set it on the table in the dim light. Then he banged his hand against the table as if by accident. The sample moved.

"What the fuck?!" Hardy shouted. Darlington's eyes went wide.

Riley took advantage of the distraction and leapt at Hardy's hand, grabbing the gun. The basic training that Corbin had painstakingly taught him kicked in: he made a well-practised and fast twist of Hardy's arm. There was a bang as the gun was ripped from Hardy's grasp, and then another. He shot him at point blank range in the head. The whole struggled lasted less than four seconds.

Then he took a step back.

"The Agol!" Quinn called out desperately, pulling herself towards the table.

Riley glanced behind him. The sample he had brought in was teetering. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Darlington on the floor. There was a bullet wound in her face. He walked towards her, his stomach turning. He fell on his knees and picked up her, cradling her. The back of her head was gone, blown away. She was gone.

He pushed himself up from the floor. Quinn was still moving towards the sample desperately, dragging her bleeding leg behind. "Riley!" She yelled.

Riley glanced at Hardy's body – no movement. The back of his head was blown away, too. Riley glanced at Quinn again. "It's a mouse," he said simply. He moved towards the table and pulled the lid off the sample. The mouse ran out.

Quinn gasped, collapsing back onto the ground. "Fuck. Oh God."

Riley nodded, his heart still pounding. He moved towards Quinn and knelt down. Quinn was bleeding from her thigh. He pulled his jacket off and then his shirt and made a tourniquet with it.

"It's fucking bad," Quinn whispered. She grabbed Riley's arm.

"Come on," Riley murmured, helping her up. "We'll all get out of this." He propped her on a chair. "Stay here," he murmured. "I have to find Jacob."

"Jacob," Quinn repeated with a half sob.

He ran to the lab and picked up the real sample this time. Then he ran to Tara's room for Jacob.

He wasn't there.

Riley spun around in a circle. "Jacob?" He whispered.

He glanced under the bed and saw tiny hands clutching a teddy bear. He leaned down. "It's okay now," he murmured, looking into those huge blue eyes.

When they got back to the kitchen, Quinn was pale. "What are you doing with the sample?" She gasped. "We need that."

Riley hesitated, his hand sweaty in Jacob's. "I have to take it back."

"No!" Quinn shouted in a half scream. "We need that! It's everything!"

"It'll escape. It'll destroy the world. World destroyer," he murmured, as if in a trance.

"Riley, please." Quinn reached her sweaty, bloody hand up, trying to grasp his leg.

He moved away easily. "I can't help you with this. We have to go." He glanced around the room desperately.

Quinn grabbed his arm again. He yanked it out of her grasp and pulled his jacket back on. He picked Jacob up in one arm and held the Agol tube in the other. "I'll send help," he said quickly. He licked his lips. "I'll tell Piotr."

Then he slowly backed out of the room.

Out into the hall he broke into a run. Why had Hardy wanted the sample back? Was the Resistance not going to destroy the world fast enough? Was that it?

When he reached the Badlands, he shifted Jacob in his arms, that silent, pale child. He held the Agol in its clear tube up at arm's length, the spring sunlight silhouetting the shape, and stared at that black withered form. How old was it?

Just for a second he thought he saw one eye open.

He stared at it. No, that was impossible. "Shit," he muttered and started moving as fast as possible.

FINI

-The End-