Gabriel’s Watch - Book One: The Scrapman Trilogy (31 page)

A
lice would visit Hazel regularly, as we’d been given the ability to come and go from the Vahana at our leisure. There were times Hazel would request Alice’s presence, a request to which Alice was most prompt to respond.

Alice and I talked endlessly about her origin aboard the Vahana, and the fact that Gabriel had created her separately from the others of her kind. She was an advanced version of them—a side-project, forged by Gabriel, that the other Travelers had known nothing about. He’d openly called them foolish, challenged their methods, and created Alice to prove them wrong.

And Alice, the female hybrid he’d linked to a human male, had indeed thrived beyond debate, developing by leaps and bounds. Her superior genetics were sure to anchor themselves to the base of a new obelisk of evolution. It was a process that had already started to take form—a chain reaction that would sprout from the cluster of cells within her.

Life was on its way.

As for me, several days passed before I mustered the courage to tell Alice of my apparent illness. To say she was furious would hardly do justice to the way she reacted to the news. She was on the Vahana the next minute, screaming at Gabriel at the top of her lungs:

“This is how you repay him?!”

Gabriel allowed Alice her fury, even seemed to empathize with her, but continued to insist upon the impossibility of releasing me from the cancer that would soon conquer my body.

“He will be comfortable,” Gabriel tried to ease her. “I can give him that.”

But it would have been better to say nothing at all.

I, too, allowed Alice her fury, for anger is said to be one of the first stages of grief, and I didn’t want to disrupt that for her. I thought the faster she was able to release that energy, the more time the two of us would have to focus on what was really important.

I seemed to have skipped the anger stage completely, however, for I’d been down that road more times than I could count, knew it intimately, and it was possible that I’d boarded that route up long ago. Alice had not been conditioned for loss as I’d been, and I wanted to respect that, but it was the knowledge of the baby within that led to her sudden shift of acceptance.

“Let him live long enough to see his child,” she pleaded with Gabriel, through red and tear-soaked eyes she pleaded. “For the love of God, just let him see his baby.”

Just the day before, prior to the knowledge of my sickness or of her pregnancy, she had wanted to surprise me. Alice sensed I was troubled, that I wasn’t myself, so that morning she tossed the Gyges glove at me.

After slipping my hand into the device, I noticed that she had my shoulder bag slung over her arm. “What are you doing with that?” I asked.

But Alice shook her head. “If I were to tell you, it would ruin the surprise.”

She’d then hopped into the driver’s side of the Jeep and I climbed in beside her.

“This, Miles,” she’d said, “is the freedom you wanted for me.”

She opened the freight door and drove us out into the sunlight for all to see. It wasn’t until we entered the city that she switched on her shield. I wanted to ask her where we were going, but I had a feeling I already knew.

She pulled off onto a side street and exited.

“Come on,” she said, and I followed her.

She walked down that street, entirely visible, as I walked beside her. It wasn’t long before we were seen by the survivors in the area. They seemed to be at an immediate loss for words, although able to motion for others to come and look. Many who saw us came to trail at a generous distance, accumulating members with every minute that passed. They were a dumbfounded and silent mob, like a herd of lemmings who would have gladly followed us off a cliff.

It was a woman who said something first, stepping out of Dingy Pete’s to see us there.

“It’s her!” she screamed. “It’s her!”

It was one of the women Alice had rescued at Cherrybrook. She ran back inside to alert the rest, but it was Saint John who came to meet us at the door.

“Well, Jesus Christ,” he said, coming to stand before us. “I didn’t want to believe it.” Claire came out as well, her hands clasped over her mouth. “It seems I owe you a debt of gratitude,” Saint John continued, extending his hand to Alice, “for saving the lives of these women.” But his hand had struck her shield and he’d pulled it away. “That isn’t necessary,” he assured us. “We’re all friends here.”

“Indeed we are,” Alice said with slight sarcasm. Our shields remained in place for the time being.

“Did it come to pass?” Claire asked, looking to me. “What I said before. Did it come to pass?”

“It did.” I nodded, pointing up toward the Vahana. “And you were right.”

Her eyes grew wide. “So what is that thing up there? That creature?”

“He is no more a creature than you or I,” Alice told her, but given the shifting expressions of those around us, surely they had perceived her as a creature indeed. “He is ... our guardian,” Alice concluded.

Saint John nodded, though he seemed unsure what it was to which Claire had been referring. “Tell me, Miles,” he said, coming closer and lowering his voice to a whisper, clinging to a hope that caused his voice to tremble momentarily. “They say my daughter—Kitten, they call her— is still alive. Is that true?”

I looked at him, pausing for a moment, unsure how he would take the news of his abducted daughter, but nodded nonetheless.

He smiled softly, but soon grew concerned, pointing upward. “Why has he taken her?”

“She’s pregnant,” Alice shared for all to hear. “She’s up there where she can be safe.”

“Safe?” Saint John’s forehead crumpled. “She’d be safe here ... with me.”

Alice shook her head. “She needs constant medical attention to be sure this child enters the world healthy. I’m afraid that is something you cannot give her.”

“Pregnant?” Saint John rubbed the back of his head. “Well, can I see her?”

“She’s been through a lot,” Alice said. “She’s not ready for visitors just yet.”

“I am not a
visitor!”
Saint John spat at her. “I’m her father, and who the hell are you to tell me I can’t see my own daughter?”

“I’m the one who saved her,” Alice insisted, “and I’m the one she trusts. If you have something you want to tell her, then I will tell her for you.”

Saint John’s lip went to curl itself into a vicious snarl, but Claire lightly placed a hand atop his shoulder. His lip settled instantly. “Tell her,” he began, “just tell her I love her.”

Alice nodded.

“And call her Hazy,” Saint John added, a hefty lump building at the back of his throat. “She will know it’s me.”

Alice nodded again, then looked to Claire. “Sorry about your neck,” she offered. “You understand.”

Claire waved it away. “You’re forgiven, Sweetie,” she said. “I’m Claire, by the way, and you are?”

“How rude of me,” I interjected. “Claire, this is Alice. Alice, Claire.”

They looked at each other as the four of us appeared to forget that we were at the center of a large group of people—making time for awkward introductions.

“I doubt the government will be much trouble for you anymore,” I told Saint John as a few people behind us began to clap. “They know now that their actions will no longer go unpunished.”

Their applause then grew to a symphony of voices, chanting a name that had meant the world to me—a name that I’d chosen ten years before.

“Ah-liss! Ah-liss! Ah-liss!”

Saint John raised his own hands to clap along with the small crowd, but there was reluctance in his effort—a hesitation to give her such satisfaction, as if it meant his own resignation. I understood that, even sympathized with it. Saint John was the man of the house, and here was yet another woman who had done the job better than he ever could. I watched him swallow down the bulbous substance that was his pride and spread a half-decent smile across his face.

And I commended him for it.

Alice reached into my shoulder bag, retrieved a small bottle, and tossed it to Claire. Our shields, clever as they were, would allow objects or energy to pass out, but not into them, therefore allowing the bottle a smooth and unhindered transit into Claire’s open hands. She caught it with a questioning look.

“A refreshment,” Alice clarified, smiling a bit.

Claire’s face was priceless. She twisted the lid off and hung her nose over the bottle’s opening, nearly collapsing as I’d seen her do before.

Root beer.
Claire’s lips sculpted the words, but not a sound was emitted. She took a swig and snuck the bottle deep within her shirt, tucked safely away from the dangers of distribution.

We said our farewells and turned away from the diner, finding the small crowd parting at the sidewalk. Certain ladies came to whisper phrases of gratitude to Alice as we passed. They held out their hands with tear-soaked faces, wishing to touch her, as their fingertips appeared to glide across a sheet of glorious velvet. Alice smiled at them, ignoring not a single one, as we made our way back to the Jeep.

Saint John must have instructed the group to stay where they were, because no one followed us beyond the street. They simply gathered there along the curb, gazing at us expectantly, as a league of Egyptians might have gazed upon a departing pharaoh.

It was a magnificent experience for me; I can only imagine what it meant to Alice.

For now the magic of that experience had vanished, replaced by the harsher reality I recently shared with Alice:

“Just let him see his child,” she pleaded, hardly able to keep herself upright any longer. Strings of her black hair fastened themselves to her cheeks as she cried, until finally she could say no more.

Gabriel hesitated, his pale lower lip pulling inward as his black eyes appeared more intense beneath the folding of his brow. The Traveler exhaled with an air of frustration. “Very well,” he said dryly, turning away. “The treatments will stop when the child is born.” He took a lumbering step forward as a desired hatch slid open. Gabriel stopped to look back. “He has until then.”

And he was gone.

I’d preferred the cavern to the chill of the Vahana any day, and, therefore, was not a regular aboard the hovering craft over the next several months. Those alien surroundings were just a constant reminder of the fact I was dying—or would be dying shortly. The notion of death in itself was not a terrifying thing. Gabriel was right to say that. Death had been an object of desire for the longest time, and now it seemed it had finally come to collect.

Alice remained rather distant during that time, continuing to care much for Hazel. I watched her try to piece together exactly what it was she should be feeling for me. It seemed she was building a wall between us, a wall that might protect her from the devastation my passing would inevitably bring. It was the calm I depicted that seemed to frustrate her most of all, for she saw it as nothing more than giving up.

Soon there was a small bump atop her belly and I’d catch Alice running her hand thoughtfully over it, a look of concern present on her pretty face. She would let me embrace her in those moments, let me whisper words of optimism and encouragement, the wall she’d constructed receding a bit.

There was a day, not too far from then, when she found herself no longer afraid of loving something that was broken, something frail and temporary. There was a day when she discovered something divine and unconditional within herself, something I knew had been there the whole of her existence.

That was the day I got my Alice back.

And ... even in death,

I promised to never lose her again.

I
was startled to find someone entering the cavern, unannounced, through the molecular-door. It was a slender figure, one that had never been in my home before. She found me sitting by the table and smiled at me.

“Hi,” she said bashfully.

Alice entered a moment later and greeted me, then explained the reason behind the young woman’s visit. “Hazel wanted to see the place I’ve been talking about.” Alice spanned her hand out to the workbench area and the cavern beyond. “And she wanted to meet you, of course, the one who rescued me.”

I got to my feet and held out my hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, Hazel. I’m Miles.”

She placed her thin fingers within my palm and trained her blue eyes toward the floor.

“You’re looking very well,” I told her, squeezing her hand.

And it was true; her complexion was much more vibrant and healthy than last I’d seen. Her skin tone had graduated from an almost-grey to a soft and milky cream, and I could see the slight bulge in her waistline, same as Alice, where new life was fighting for another chance.

“Thanks,” she said.

Months had passed since we rescued Hazel from Cherrybrook. Alice, mindful of Hazel’s trauma, had been incredibly patient as she introduced her to this new and different way of life. Despite Hazel’s freedom to move about the Vahana, she decided to stay in the places that had become most familiar to her; for the ship, unlike what Arcturus’ dimensional scan had previously recorded, was extremely massive on the inside.

Alice claimed she could feel slight differences in pressure and gravitation while walking through its many corridors, making her theorize that the thing was operating on more than one plane at any given time. Just as the molecular-doors could leap you from one place to the next, certain channels of the ship seemed to venture beyond that which was currently logical, at least in my mind. The thing was a labyrinth, an enigma of twisting passages, which appeared quite capable of collecting lost souls. I couldn’t blame Hazel if she’d rather call just a fraction of it home for the time being—it was an intimidating vessel.

Besides, she still had yet to meet her mysterious host. Although she knew his name quite well, the Traveler had remained absent of any social interaction with Hazel, beyond, of course, that which was conveyed to her through Alice or Mohammad. Gabriel kept himself away, no doubt observing her progress from a generous distance; and I wondered if that was at all eerie for Hazel.