Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps (25 page)

“He can hear you, you know, even if he doesn’t respond.”

“Yeah. Sorry, Remy. Man, look at that.” He took a swallow of water, still watching the display. “Think of what he could do. Throw switches. Jam guns. Maybe even do things inside a man, like monkey with blood vessels, or whatever.” He paused. “I guess they want to breed him, huh?”

“Or dissect him. Or both.” They paused, as the thought set in. It was Stephen who broke the silence.

“Okay, Matthew. You don’t understand me-I don’t understand you. We keep fighting this fight, but where is it all going? Eventually , even friendly countries are going to say enough is enough. Right now we just shuffle people around, from here to there, but in the end nothing really changes, does it?”

Matthew leaned back on his elbow.

“Maybe we are the same, in a way. It’s not about winning-not right now, at least-it’s about the fight. As long as we let them know we won’t go quietly, we keep the idea on the table that we are people, that we have fights, that there should be a place for us. I don’t know where. Maybe here, maybe in the stars—all I know is, when you give in, when you let them put you in a hole, it can take a long time to claw your way back out. So we stay out, make them take notice of us, keep the idea of freedom alive until we can see a way to fill the hole in.”

“By which `hole’ you mean Psi Corps.”

“By which I mean all of it. The normals who won’t accommodate their lives to fit us in. The senators who only use us as chits in a political game. The corporations who exploit us, the bigots who kill us. And yes, Psi Corps, who would try to forge us into mindless weapons.”

“We’re beatin’ ourselves into weapons. We kill, Matthew.”

“Yes. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Trying to keep from becoming the thing we hate.”

Stephen didn’t answer. What could he say? The show was over-Remy had somehow dropped off to sleep in a sitting position.

“Poor kid. He doesn’t know what kind of life he’s in for, does he?”

“Sometimes,” Matthew replied, softly, “not knowing is better than knowing.”

Stephen snorted.

“That’s the kind of thing I’ve come to expect to hear you say. Makes me want to twist your head off, sometimes.”

The next day the clouds blew in, along with a few snow flumes. It got colder, and they drew the blankets they had taken from Remy’s house tight around them. They didn’t see any choppers until nearly sundown, when Matthew spotted one near the horizon . By that time they had worked their way down out of the mountains and were in high plateau, a mix of spruce forest and open grassland. It made for better time, but when the choppers expanded their search pattern, hiding would be a lot harder.

“Fire?” Remy asked, hopefully, as the dark drew down upon them.

“Sorry, Remy,” Matthew told him. “The bad guys will see it.” As he said it, he listed in his saddle a bit.

“We better halt here,” Stephen said. “You need the rest.”

The Moon drizzled milky light into the clouds, but beneath the high trees, darkness lay unchallenged. Remy huddled against Matthew. Everybody loved Matthew.

“How did you end up being a priest?” Stephen asked, to distract himself from the marrow-chilling cold.

“Monk,” Matthew corrected. “You’ve never asked me that. You’ve never asked me much of anything, Stephen. Five years we’ve worked together, and yet we’ve never become friends.”

“Yeah? But you keep tryin’. Too hard sometimes. Why?”

“Because Fiona loves you.” Stephen knew he didn’t hide his shock, not all of it. He felt his throat close up.

“What?”

“She cares deeply about you. You’re important to her, and I trust that.”

“That’s no good reason to trust somebody.” The wind hissed in the trees, and his body began to shiver uncontrollably. “We’re all going to have to huddle together or freeze,” Matthew said. “Come over here with us.”

“No, thanks.”

“Not just for you. Remy and I need you.”

“Maybe I will in a minute.”

“You really don’t like me, do you?” Matthew said.

“What’s brought all this up?”

“You don’t want to answer?”

Stephen gnawed his lip for a moment, and then he said

“All right, no, I don’t like you. You took advantage of Fiona, and you won’t let her out of it. You’ve used her to make yourself a big man-everyone in the resistance loves you, and it’s because you’re married to her. Hell, the whole underground would fall apart without you guys. Everyone does what they do for you, not because it’s right, or best, or sensible—but because they want to be you.”

“What are you talking about? How did I `take advantage’ of Fiona?”

“They were brainwashing her. It’s an old technique. Cut someone off from everything outside, wait till they start to go crazy in their own heads, then step in with a sweet voice and nice promises. They fixate on you like a baby bird. Only you got to her instead of Psi Corps, didn’t you? She would have fallen in love with anyone in that state.”

“You forget I was in that state, too. When I lost her-when they took her out of the hole-it nearly killed me. I broke. I’ll break again without her. Think what you want, Stephen, but if you think all we have is fixation, then you haven’t been paying attention for five years.”

“Shut up.”

“Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe you wish it had been you, there in the hole with her. You jumped like a scared cat when I told you she loved you. Have you ever admitted just how much you love her?”

“Shut up.”

“Why didn’t you kill me back there? You could have. You know you wanted to.”

Blinding, murderous rage pulsed through Stephen, came and went like a flash of lightning.

“You scanned me?”

“No need. Why didn’t you kill me? I think that’s a fair question.”

Stephen stared up at the grey clouds. His voice felt oddly detached from his throat, as if it were a bird flown from it, singing on its own now.

“I didn’t kill you because it wouldn’t have changed anything. Believe me, if I thought killing you would get me Fiona, I’d do it so fast-” He broke off, started again. “But it wouldn’t, you see? She wouldn’t love me any more than she does, and maybe she would hate me for lettin’ you get killed. So you’re safe with me.”

Matthew reached over and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“I know that, Stephen. I knew it before I asked the question. I’m just not sure you did. Now, please, come over here and keep us from freezing.”

“Please?” Remy added.

He awoke, crouched against them in the grey dawn. Quietly, quietly he untangled himself from Remy’s arm, stood and walked off among the trees and mist so they wouldn’t see him cry. It had been a long time since he had slept with anyone. Oh, yes, sex he had had. He wasn’t worshiped like Fiona and Matthew, but he was a hero of the revolution, and there were always women passing through willing to bed a hero. But he had never slept with them, never stayed the night. Telepaths dream. And when telepaths touch, and dream, they dream together … Remy. His mind was a kaleidoscope, broken, each thought refracted so many times it made no sense. But he knew he had lost his papa and mama, knew it in his bones, and his loss was no less terrible because he couldn’t express it. No, it was more terrible. And Matthew-Matthew dreamed only of Fiona, of her dark red tresses, the sweetness of her lips, of melting against her body, of the worlds within worlds they shared. All of the things Stephen could never have. But those things were nothing-even hair and skin and flesh were just things, things he might possess if he killed Matthew and stole her away, despite what he had said the night before. But he could never have what Matthew felt. Stephen had believed he loved Fiona, but compared with Matthew he was a firefly hovering next to a supernova. What Matthew felt was so big, so powerful, so absolutely real it made him ashamed of his own pale emotion. It’s what she felt, too. Thousands of miles apart, in their dreams, they still somehow touched-lighter than a ghost’s eyelash, below the level of thought and image. Maybe even they weren’t aware of it. But he was, now.

And so he wept, there among the spruce, as a new snow began to fall, and it felt as if his heart were contracting, understanding suddenly how empty it was. Collapsing, fading-even his hatred of Matthew was a lie. Even, really, his love for Fiona. And so he had nothing left, did he? Except his mission. He should have kept that knowledge close to him all of the time, kept focused on his mission. The problem was, he didn’t know what his mission was anymore. To stay with the underground forever, always the traitor, yet always doing his best for them, too? Would he never be released, taken back into the Corps? Couldn’t he just end it now, turn Matthew and the kid in, go back home? It wasn’t what the director wanted, but who knew what that crazy old man was up to?

A thought more chill than the weather struck him. What if the old man was dead? What if his reports were going into nothingness , and no one even knew who Stephen Walters had been, that he was undercover, any of it?

The snow answered none of his questions, so he went back and woke Matthew and Remy. With luck, they could finish the trip by the end of the day. Midday they sighted a mile or so of glittering train on the horizon , watched it vanish in the distance. They rode parallel to the tracks, knowing that would bring them to a town. It did, though not much of one. Matthew, of course, managed to remember the name of the contact. Stephen—the least suspicious of the lot, being unwounded and capable of speech-walked into the local general store, a thirty-year-old prefab building crusted in antlers, furs, and old traffic signs. A vid blared loudly as he walked in.

The owner was a bored-looking man with a seamed, square face the color of old leather. He wore a baseball cap. Stephen told the man he was looking for Russ Telling, whom the man didn’t seem to remember until he bought a pickled egg for twenty-five Northam dollars. He got directions, and by a few hours after sundown, they had followed them to the end of a dirt road, a log cabin, and a yard full of dogs that were suspiciously close to wolves in appearance.

“You guys are in a lot of trouble.” The man peered down at them from his front porch, a shotgun slung casually under one arm. He was old, with close-cropped silver hair and the nose of an eagle.

“You know who we are?”

“Murdered a bunch of Psi Cops up in the hills, I hear. Is that you?”

Matthew cleared his throat.

“Yes. That’s us.”

“Did you kill ‘em?”

“Yes.”

“Come on in, then.” He gave them hot coffee and roast venison. “I’m called Russ Telling,” he said, as they ate. “It ain’t my name, but it’s something to call me. I don’t much care for those guys, the Psi Corps. They got my wife. Tried to get my sons.”

“Did you send your sons away?”

“Yes. Into the hills. There’s plenty of land here to hide in. The only reason they got my wife is because one of our people went over and helped track her down. We killed him, though, so now they don’t have nobody that knows the land. It costs too much to hunt them down.” He wagged a finger at them. “You, they will hunt down, whatever it costs. We’ll hide you for a while, move you around-but in the end you’ll have to go. “In the morning, the brushmen will come for you, keep you safe. You got here just in time, you know. There’s a Psi Cop in town, waiting on you. We’ve been giving him the runaround.”

“You knew we were coming here?”

“The brushmen felt the boy. He’s a loud one. He can move things, can’t he?”

“I move things,” Remy confirmed.

“We don’t want ‘em to have you, do we? No, not you.” He turned back toward them. “We’ll set something up, don’t you worry.”

The “brushmen” turned out to be twins, two young men about twenty years old. They wore heavy coats made of some kind of animal skin and looked like they came out of some ancient book. They ate eggs and hash with the old man, saying little-little out loud, anyway, and Stephen kept a polite distance. No point pissing these people off.

“Here you go,” one of the brushmen said, dumping a bundle out on the floor. “You guys change into this.”

Matthew went through the stuff. It consisted of long underwear, jeans, shirts, and heavy coats like the boys wore.

“We have our own coats,” he pointed out.

“Not warm enough, and too much metal in them. You want to hide from helicopters, you’d better listen to us.” So they changed, and headed out into the woods.

“Why do they call you brushmen”” Matthew asked the boys, as they walked along.

“An old legend,” one of them said. “The brushmen were sort of supernatural people who went off to live in the wilderness. They didn’t live in houses. People were sort of scared of them, but also came to them when they needed favors. That’s us. Teeps. When we get word that the Psi Cops are around, we just hit the woods, hunt for a while.” He turned to confront Matthew.

“You’re Matthew Dexter, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’s an honor to have you here. We-“The two seemed to confer for a moment. “We admire you a lot.”

“You’re the admirable ones,” Matthew said. “Taking in strangers , eluding the Psi Cops.”

The twins laughed, in tandem.

“I’m Mike-this is Jimmy. How many strangers have we taken in? A few. We’ve helped some get from one coast to another. But you, Mr. Dexter-you and Fiona make it all happen. All of it.”

Stephen just listened, dully. Even here, among the last of the hunter-gatherers, he couldn’t escape. At least he didn’t care anymore. Real snow came, and they moved from shelter to shelter. He and Matthew spoke little-it seemed they had exhausted everything they might say to each other. After you admitted to a man that you wouldn’t mind killing him, what else could you say? The brushmen, sensitive to his moods, sent him out to hunt, alone. He rarely got anything, but then that wasn’t the purpose of his expeditions. His modern rifle notwithstanding, he fell into a Paleolithic rhythm. Alone, in the woods, tracking prey, he found a purpose to keep the emptiness at bay. Until the call came.

The first day it was only the merest whisper , but by the second it had gained strength. Clarity came on the third day, when the touch resolved into his name.