-30-

"Revelation"

John Henry leads him to a far corner of the recreation yard, a few yards away from the other detainees.

"There's no reason to get chummy with them," John Henry says. "They'll be here a lot longer than you will." He turns and leaves, footfalls quick and impatient over the gravel strewn cement.

A man in his fifties peers at House over his wire frames as he plods along. Wearing a bow tie and a gray woolen suit, he is the picture of professorial splendor. Beside him a chubby twenty-something woman matches the professor's footsteps along the circular path. On her shoulders is a papoose in which she carries a sleeping infant. They follow the thirty or so others, who keep their heads down, not speaking or singing or crying. Most dig their hands into their pockets, even though the weather has turned balmy. House can almost believe it is late spring or early summer.

Dusk has arrived.

Wasn't it just morning?

Time flows differently here.

House walks his own path, staring up at the barbed wire, wondering what transgressions these losers might have committed to be shoved into this hole.

When looks their way again, he sees her. The woman who seemed so familiar is gazing at him, dark eyes shining with recognition. She almost smiles but catches herself, as if a grin might break the spell and cause her to forget...

House turns away. He doesn't need any more problems. As it is he's made enough bad choices for one day.

Should have headed for the city lights rather than trotting off toward the great unknown.

Right now he could have been in the heart of Nova City, enjoying whatever pleasures those women with the odd phallic looking sticks had to offer. They would have kept him occupied for a good long-

"Hey, neighbor."

He feels her behind him; her touch is feather light, drifting from the center of his back to the collar of his jacket. Despite how his memory has turned traitorous of late, her name comes to him, like a beacon through the fog. Jayda.

"Go away." His steps bring him closer to the fence. There he presses his brow against the wire and stares out at the ice glazed field. In a moment, Jayda joins him.

His impatience flares. "Do you enjoy coming up with new, exciting ways of making trouble for yourself?"

"What make you think I've got trouble."

"This doesn't seem to be the type of place you'd come to party hearty." The dusk is deepening, shadows are long, reaching past the fence and turning the sparkling ice to a blackish-gray mass. Still, the light is enough to allow him to see Jayda's pupils are dilated. The corners of her mouth tremble and her hands fidget with the buttons of her jacket. She can't seem to stand still.

"What do they have you on?"

She giggles like a little girl. "Oh, a little of this, a little of that."

The throng has stopped their circular trek and now mill aimlessly around the yard.

"A misdeed does not go unrewarded," he says, narrowing his eyes. "What brought you here?"

"You." She giggles again and does a little two-step. "I was temporarily ousted because I opened my yap, yap, yapper."

The carelessness of the reply rankles him. "Talk straight or shut up," he snaps. His patience has come to the end of a long road. "If you don't want to tell me-"

"I do." Her voice is a rasp, the bare trace of a whisper. Those dark eyes grow huge, dragging him down. "They're watching. They can send me back to first world if they want. Quick as a flash." She makes a couple of pitifully lame attempts at snapping her fingers, then huffs out a defeated breath.

"Alrighty then." Clinging to the fence, House makes his way to the opposite side of the yard and tries to think lovely thoughts to mask the growing ache: baseball in the summer, the warmth of a fireplace in the dead of winter. No pain...

"I'm sorry."

House turns slowly, which is a grand effort, and mentally prepares to shoo her away. But the way she tilts her head and reaches one hand to touch his sleeve causes him to reconsider.

"It doesn't matter," she says. "They'll never send me back, anyway."

Who cares? "Why?"

She seems a bit more grounded now, leaning against the fence, staring at the sky. "It was my blueprint, my architecture that was the basis for these cities. They like keeping me around in case there's a problem they can't fix." The corners of her lips curl into a weary smile. "I came up with this grand notion twenty-five years ago, when I was a research assistant at NASA. Chas was six; I was a single mother without a lot of time to spend with my kid."

She has been chemically skewed. Talking crap through the drugs. He doesn't want to listen anymore. But he does.

"When the project kept me away from home for weeks at a time, my mother took care of Chas. But mom was getting on in years."

You can walk away. It's easy. Join the zombies in the center of the yard. Swing your partner near and far...

"One afternoon, she fell asleep in her chair watching "General Hospital", completely forgot Chas was in the bathtub." She nods as if replying to some question that has yet to be asked. "He slipped trying to get out. Cracked his skull on the faucet. By the time Mom found him he'd been dead for an hour."

Her eyes shine much too brightly, and House wishes she would look away again. He wishes she would just...stop...talking...

"But here he's with me, and life is like it was before all that bad stuff happened. Better even." She sniffs and swipes a tear from her cheek with the palm of her hand. "Here I can spend time with him. Play with him. Read to him."

"You can't watch him grow."

"No."

"He'll never get any older."

She confirms this with a single nod of her head.

"They still need me for my insights, for my knowledge." she says slowly and softly, like she doesn't want to believe it. "So they've make it impossible for me to turn my back on them."

"How do they do it?"

She gives him an incredulous look. "Does it matter? You don't always need to know why to know that something just...is."

He considers the ramifications. People are so easily ensnared by their emotions and regrets.

"This place is all you'll ever have," he says.

"It's better than the alternative."

"You're a prisoner here."

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

"I'm free to go. Anytime." House has never seen a sadder smile on anyone. "But I can't leave him and they know it. Now and then they find reasons to oust me, just as a reminder of what it would be like to not to have Chas. They know how much it hurts." She runs her hand through her hair and stares through the fence at the desolation. "They know how to keep you here, Greg, so don't think your smarts can save you. Now it's all interesting and wonderful, a puzzle you may never solve but is too mesmerizing to stow away. Eventually they'll find something that they can use to hold you here. Something that will make it impossible for you to leave." Her fingers dig into his arm. "You need to get out before it happens."

Out on the ice, Amber smirks and tosses him a curt little wave.

"Go home, Greg," Jayda whispers, easing her grip and letting him go.

From the corner of his eye he sees the throng being herded back inside the facility.

Two members of the security staff weave through the crowd, occasionally offering a shove to some unfortunate straggler. House presses his back against the fence at their approach, fully prepared to be hauled inside with the others, but they pass him by. They're here for Jayda. One of them grabs her arm, the other brings up the rear, wielding his club. She manages one last backward glance at House before being taken away.

Somewhere calypso music is playing. The singer's tone is rich and alive, yet filled with melancholy. "Jamaica Farewell", is the song.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, House gazes up at the starless sky, realizing with an unshakeable certainty he will never see Jayda again.

Not that it matters. He won't remember her anyway.