3: The Black Road
The days that immediately followed Tom's awakening in the infirmary passed as more of a long blur for him than a series of distinct events. Between the dehydration and badly sprained ankle, he was under orders not to leave the infirmary for a few days – it had been injured enough to keep him down for a while even before he'd walked several miles on it, according to Doc Sumner, and as it was he'd still need a cane for a while – and every twinge of pain reminded him all over again that Anne and Alexis were out there, in danger, and he couldn't go to them.
It had been bad enough when Ben had been the one missing; when all they'd known was that he was out there somewhere, bearing one of the harnesses the Skitters used to turn human children into mindless slaves. He'd already been old enough to look out for himself a little, and Tom had seen that the Skitters did at least physically care for their slaves, even if he hadn't then known why. But the Espheni and their Skitter minions had never bothered with infants before; kids too small to work were useless to them. And that was even without taking into account Alexis' alien-influenced DNA. He couldn't imagine what they wanted with her.
Whenever he got too far down that line of thought, he'd drop his pen and rub his hands over his eyes; no need to broadcast his distress to every citizen who walked by. On the one hand: Anne had been right. She hadn't been crazy. All the things he'd said to her when he'd finally prodded her into bringing up her concerns ... he must have sounded pretty damned patronizing, in hindsight. It was no wonder she'd been so defensive about it, her body language as closed and challenging as her words. If only Lourdes hadn't spoken to him first, poisoning him against Anne's very justified panic with all her alarmist talk of post-partum psychosis...
But no; that was a road he wasn't willing to walk down. He wasn't going to blame others for his own mistakes. He should have given the concerns of the woman he loved, the battle-trained doctor who had helped hold the Second Massachusetts Militia Regiment together with little more than her two hands and the strength of her will for nearly two years, a little more credit. He'd screwed up. But by the same token, he couldn't entirely blame Lourdes for Anne's actions, either. He still couldn't believe Anne had just taken Alexis and run without so much as leaving a note for him.
He'd asked her, he'd begged her not to let the aliens take their beautiful daughter from them the way they had so much else. Even if the Skitters hadn't found Anne and Alexis immediately, even if she'd escaped clean and found refuge somewhere ... the result would have been much the same from Tom's perspective. And for his sons, who'd barely begun to get used to having a little sister.
Tom had missed the signs for that, too, so absorbed in his job. He'd tried, but ... well, it wasn't exactly unusual for him to get all caught up in yet one more important aspect of his work even before the invasion. He'd never quite broken the habit, probably partially because Rebecca always gave him a swift kick in the ass when he needed it, and he'd been unconsciously waiting for Anne to do the same. And now that he had all the time in the world to think about it, she had: only her cues were different enough that he'd completely missed them.
'You knew what you were getting into when you took this job', she'd said, when he'd tried to apologize for his twenty-five hour a day, eight day a week schedule. And when he'd caught her on the radio that last time, to try to explain that President Hathaway wanted he and Cochise to explain the Volm's plan to save humanity to the rest of the scattered communities still answering to the American flag, she'd told him, 'No, I don't understand; but I know you have to do what you think is right.' He'd paid more attention to the 'I love yous' than the content of her concerns, always thinking he'd be able to make it up to her.
No wonder she'd never responded positively to his occasional hints about reinstituting the office of marriage by example in their new community. It had been about more than respecting their previous partners who'd died in the initial attacks, or keeping her name for professional purposes, hadn't it? Even if they did manage to get her back from the Espheni, he wasn't sure they could ever go back to the way things had been.
Unbidden, he recalled the day the Liberty Tree had been christened: writing Rebecca's name in permanent marker on a shiny metal leaf and hanging it on the scrap sculpture Jeanne Weaver had created among all the candles and mementoes of others' deepest loss. Anne's leaf had borne only one word: Sammy, the name of her lost son. Had she ever put up another for her husband, the artist? Tom was ashamed to admit he'd never asked.
He loved Anne. Even amid all his doubts and fears, that hadn't changed, and he doubted it would any time soon. He was pretty sure he'd loved her since the early days of the Second Mass, when he'd come back from a scouting party with a single hard-won can of tuna in his pocket and in return she'd tell him about Matt's latest drawings and joke about losing widget accounts at work. They'd been a source of light to each other in those days. But somewhere along the line, the light had been snuffed out, and he hadn't noticed. Love wasn't always enough, was it?
Tom tried to keep focused on other concerns as much as he could; a President sick with anger and grief would do the people of Charleston little good. There was paperwork piled up from his sudden departure for the secret summit at Keystone, for one thing; Dan, as his closest military aide, and Vice President Peralta had taken care of some of it, but a lot of things still required his signature. And there was more he'd been planning to take care of over the coming weeks: projects awaiting authorization, disputes from separate groups who wanted or needed the same limited resources, and the thousand and one other minutiae of his hybrid, makeshift, all-consuming job. The minute he had a clue where Anne and Alexis were – the very second he could go after them, on a horse if not his own feet – he was going, come hell or high water. Making sure he wouldn't have to turn the office over in disarray was only the responsible thing to do.
He barely noticed the others that came in and out during those days, beyond taking reports and sharing the occasional meal with Dan or his sons. But he did notice that John wasn't one of them; there was always a Berserker in the chair at the foot of his bed playing guard, but after that first evening it was never their leader.
He wasn't sure how he felt about that, either; he'd thought they'd actually managed to find common ground at last. Tom had been nearly as pleased to see him there when he woke as he had been to see Dan before the latter gave him the news about Anne. But as long as Pope remained a vital cog in the functioning of Charleston after Tom was gone ... well, that was all he could allow himself to be concerned with at the moment.
The afternoon before Doc Sumner informed him he'd finally be free to go, Ben finally came in with word that the rebel Skitters had news, and that their leader would be arriving for a meeting the following day. Tom closed his eyes for a moment in relief – at least they'd know something, whichever way it went – then gave his son a wan smile. "Thank you, Ben. I know it's been hard on you too, these last few days; Dan tells me you and Denny have taken over virtually all of the burden of our alliance with the rebels, since so many of the other kids had their spikes removed."
There was a part of him that would always mourn the loss of Ben's childhood; before the spikes, the legacy of a harness imperfectly removed via makeshift human methods, he'd been short-sighted, prone to asthma, and very much the bookish one of Tom and Rebecca's three sons. But there was a part of him that was very proud of Ben as well; for taking what the Espheni had done to him and using it as a weapon against them. It sometimes took him down paths Tom would prefer he never had to walk, but it had also given him confidence, maturity, and a sense of responsibility beyond his years. He wouldn't grudge Ben the right to make his own decision.
"Yeah," Ben made a face. "I can't blame them, really; after they told us about the negative side effects, a lot of the kids thought they outweighed the benefits. But I couldn't just give up because the going got a little rough, you know? I couldn't just sit on the sidelines when I could be doing something; that's not who I am anymore. And it's not like our lifespans are likely to be all that long anyway."
"You know what they say about when the going gets tough ..." Tom smiled at the sentiment.
"Yeah, yeah; the tough get going, I know, Dad," Ben grinned back. "Good to hear one of your anecdotes again, by the way; I've been missing them."
"Really? Never thought I'd hear one of you boys say that," Tom snorted. But then something else about what Ben had said hit him, and his mood faded into a thoughtful frown. "What's this you're saying about side-effects, though? I thought Anne had said they still didn't have enough information on long-term mutagenic consequences of partial deharnessing to speculate about them."
Ben blinked at that, looking startled. "But ... when Lourdes explained the deharnessing process to us, she said ..."
A sudden chill washed through Tom at Lourdes' name, bringing him fully alert. The mole. Dan had had people covertly watching their junior doctor ever since his and Pope's return, but hadn't yet gathered any conclusive evidence one way or another for their suspicions; hence the constant guard. He snapped up a hand, gesturing to Ben to stop there, and cast a glance at Sergeant Murphy, currently occupying the visitor's chair.
"Just a minute, Ben. Tector? Could you go find Colonel Weaver for me? And ask him to bring Dr. Sumner along? Quickly, but on the quiet."
Tector came immediately to attention, dropping the unevenly printed newszine he'd been reading in the chair. "Yes, sir. You'll be all right here 'til I get back?"
"Ben's here; I'll be fine," Tom nodded back at him.
Ben watched the Berserkers' sniper hurry out of the room with a curious expression, then raised his eyebrows at Tom. "What's going on? Is it something to do with the mole? Pope kind of hinted that he and the Colonel were worried something would happen to you while you were in here, but he wouldn't give me any details, either."
Tom hitched himself up a little further on the bed, as close to formal bearing as he could get while his ankle still refused to bear much weight, and gave his son a searching look. For once, Ben seemed ... surprisingly non-hostile about Pope, a rare circumstance outside the battlefield, and it sounded like Pope had been civil to him as well. A fierce surge of ... something, vindication maybe, went through him at that realization; he pushed it aside as irrelevant at the moment and tried to decide how much would be safe to share.
"They have their reasons," he said, soberly. It stung to have to evaluate his own son as a risk, but he couldn't afford to let emotion interfere; this was too important. "Can I ask you to keep it secret for now, even from your brothers? Or will I have to worry about the rebel leader finding out when you meet with him tomorrow?"
Ben swallowed, his eyes going huge in his face, but he seemed to grasp the seriousness of the issue. "You remember how I said when that Espheni looked into my head, I might not be able to stop him, but he couldn't stop me from looking back? It's the same with the Skitters. They know it, and they know we know it. They can't afford to lose our alliance, so they don't try, and we return the favor. They only connect deeply enough to speak through us. The leader might overhear a few surface thoughts, but nothing I'm actively trying to keep a secret."
Still not a guarantee; but better than Tom had feared he'd get. He nodded. "Then I'll trust you with it, as soon as Colonel Weaver and the doc arrive. Is anyone else in listening range?"
He watched his son tilt his head, in that eerie way that meant he was using his harness-supplied sensory enhancements to listen in on the surrounding rooms; then he shook his head. "No. Just Tector, I think. They've been keeping the rooms on either side of you empty. I guess now I know why ...?"
Tom nodded wearily. By now, he could hear the tromp of approaching boots himself, and soon enough Dan was ducking through the curtain again, the doc behind him, wearing a pinched, irritated expression. Tector glanced in after them, then let the curtain fall closed again, remaining on the other side; Tom guessed he'd appointed himself external guard for the moment. Good man; he'd anticipated Tom's next order.
"Gentlemen, thank you for coming," he nodded at his friend and Charleston's most experienced surgeon. "Dr. Sumner, is there a problem?"
Prior to the arrival of the Second Mass in the camouflaged city, Sumner had been the new administration's unquestioned chief of medicine. But he'd never faced active combat, and still had the titanium ego and dismissiveness toward patients of a pre-invasion surgical diva; Tom hadn't bothered to interfere when Anne had challenged the man for supremacy on his own turf. For all that she'd been primarily a pediatrician before the first Espheni attacks, Anne had quickly refreshed her more generally applicable medical skills, and had the fierce loyalty of everyone she'd ever treated. Lourdes, as her apprentice, had ridden easily and almost invisibly on her coattails, making herself as indispensable there as she had been on the Second Mass' much smaller med bus.
"Dr. Delgado is beginning to get suspicious," the man replied, indignantly. "But it goes beyond her attempt to play on friendship in your case, regardless of my hints about conflicts of interest; she seems to think she should be chief of the infirmary entirely with Dr. Glass ... absent. I've had to correct half a dozen of her attempts to order my nurses around just today. I grant that she may have a great deal of practical knowledge, and she's the only one capable of using the Volm equipment at the moment, but she never even earned a bachelor's degree. What does she know of hospital administration? At least Dr. Glass was willing to listen."
"And on that note," Tom interrupted the man's diatribe, gesturing to his son. "Ben tells me that she took charge of arranging the spike-removal surgeries for the externally deharnessed kids?"
Sumner nodded. "The Volm machine's not used for much else, and she didn't seem likely to be able to do any harm there, so I didn't try to stop her. And the kids came through it just fine; more than fine, if the tests Dr. Glass had Dr. Kadar do to hide her investigations into ... well, if the DNA tests are any indication."
He cringed slightly at the almost-mention of Alexis; Tom swallowed hard and forced himself to ignore it. "But he also says that she manipulated as many of them into doing so as she could," he pointed out.
"And why wouldn't they want to anyway?" The doctor seemed puzzled.
Dan cleared his throat. "Ben? What exactly did she say?"
"Uh ... that the nucleus of the harness was constantly regenerating the spikes and putting stress on our skeletal structure? And that ... they thought, the doctors thought, that it was interfering with stem cell production and probably shortening our lives. How significantly, she couldn't say. But ... but it wasn't what she said, so much as how she said it," he added, thoughtfully. "She kept adding things like, she knew it was scary, and that it was okay if we weren't ready for it. I guess I didn't see it at the time, but it was like, you know how parents tell their kids the exact opposite of what they mean sometimes, to goad them into doing what they want?"
When facing a bunch of middle- and high-school aged kids, most of whom had become used to thinking of themselves as stronger, faster, and better during their service with the rebellion, but still faced fear and distaste from other human beings as often as not due to their difference? Tom couldn't even say he'd have disapproved of the gently manipulative tactic if he hadn't had his reasons to suspect Lourdes' motives, even given his pride in Ben's decision not to have his spikes removed. They just weren't normal.
It would take a long time to truly internalize the new definition of 'normal' in this world, he suspected.
"Doc?" he raised an eyebrow at Sumner. "The thing about the stem cells; is that true?"
Sumner frowned. "It ... was a theory Dr. Glass and I discussed, looking at the x-rays of the way the harness nucleus nestles against the spine; but the backbone is hardly the only source of stem cells in the body. It seems more likely than not that the harness will have a reductive impact on a human lifespan, but to single that out as the cause...? We simply don't know enough to say," he shrugged. "Neither the Skitters nor the Volm have been able to tell us, either; according to Dr. Glass, they've never encountered a race that figured out how to even partially remove a harness on their own before without killing the being it was attached to."
Tom took a deep breath, then let it out, glancing at Ben and then Dan. Ben looked as confused by the conversation as Dr. Sumner did, but there was a dawning awareness in the colonel's eyes.
"And what would have happened to our alliance with the rebel Skitters if all of you had chosen to have your spikes removed?" he asked his son softly.
Ben took a sharp breath. "They'd have had no way to communicate with us anymore," he said, aghast. "I – I wasn't thinking about it that way, and neither was Denny. We just thought ... we could still do some good."
Dan growled, low in his throat. "Decapitatin' us didn't work, so Karen decided to try the divide and conquer method. Damn near managed it, too. And we never saw it comin'."
"And worst of all, it's still not anything we can present as proof that she's the mole," Tom pointed out.
"You think the mole is ..." Ben blurted, then stopped himself and reduced his voice to a whisper, rough with betrayal. "Lourdes? Are you crazy? She's been with us since the beginning!"
"I'm not saying she's doing it willingly," Tom replied. "And that reaction is exactly why we wanted to make certain before moving to act; the last thing I want to do is get it wrong, or inspire the population of Charleston to a witch hunt if we can't provide conclusive proof. But the circumstantial evidence is piling up. Do you understand why I want you to keep this a secret for now?"
Ben swallowed hard, but finally nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I get it. This is going to upset Hal. They've been friends since ..."
"You can't even tell Hal," Tom reminded him, sharply. "Not yet. I mean it, Ben."
Ben nodded jerkily, looking even more shell-shocked than before. "I understand," he said, subdued.
The impromptu meeting broke up swiftly after that. He realized only after Ben left that he'd failed to clarify anything about Ben's conversation with Pope; but in light of the other news, he dismissed that as unimportant.
Dan was last to leave, after an admonition that Tom was supposed to be resting after his ordeal, not subjecting himself to more stress. Then Anthony came in; whatever shift schedule had been cobbled together had changed, and it was his turn to take over from Tector.
Tom filled him in briefly – Anthony's previous undercover police work made him a good sounding board for certain strategies, as Manchester had realized before him – then turned back to his paperwork with a sigh. For every two steps they took forward, they were taking an equal number back, it seemed. How long before Karen found a weak spot and pushed through? What if that was why she'd taken Anne and Alexis?
He couldn't think about that right now. There were only a few weeks left until Project Orange was completed, and the Espheni dealt a serious blow; until then, the people of Charleston would just have to endure.
The doc finally bid good riddance to him that evening. He couldn't completely stop Lourdes from interacting with Tom; she made sure to be the one to bring him his cane and give him his discharge instructions, full of sympathetic smiles and sensible advice about accepting his limitations. Tom was hard put not to shudder or cut her off too quickly; in that one thing, at least, the numbed affect of his already-ravaged emotions helped more than hurt his efforts.
It didn't make the empty bed in the presidential suite feel any smaller, or keep the empty bassinet in the corner from clawing fresh wounds in his heart. He refused to pack it away, though, even knowing how small the chances were that Alexis would lie in it again. Doing so would be ... giving up, in a more profound way than he was willing to accept.
Fortunately, he wasn't left in limbo very long. The rebel Skitters came through; when word came late the next evening that their leader had joined Ben in one of the converted underground mall's meeting rooms, he hastily collected Dan, Marina, and Hal and made his way there, barely even slowed by the hitch in his stride.
"Are they alive?" he barked, bursting through the opaque glass door.
The rebel leader was in full face paint that day, a red swath drawn across his face in place of the naturally red eye that had distinguished his predecessor. "Yes. Your mate and child are being held by Karen," he replied through Ben.
"Where?" Tom demanded.
He felt Dan's hand come down on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort; he was hard pressed not to shrug it off in frustration as the Skitter replied.
"Unfortunately, we do not have that information."
"She's probably planning on using them as bargaining chips," Dan said grimly, voicing Tom's fear.
"Quite possible," the Skitter agreed, head bobbing in an approximation of a nod in concert with Ben's voice.
"Possible?" Tom objected. He was in no mood to discuss the darker options presented by Alexis' unique heritage; but he didn't think the rebels knew about that particular twist. So what did they mean by that?
"Our operatives are trying to learn more, and should have further information in a few days," the Skitter assured him, its platitudes falling even flatter with Ben's lack of intonation.
"A few days?" Tom had expected this to be the meeting that decided his next actions, one way or another; he couldn't take much more waiting. "They could be dead in a few days."
He stormed back out of the meeting then, unable to stand still for Marina's cautionary words or Dan's sensible advice ... or think too much about the suddenly eager note in Hal's voice encouraging Tom's impulse to immediate action, regardless of their complete lack of information.
None of it mattered. Not one thing mattered at the moment apart from his complete inability to live with himself if he didn't do something. He understood why Marina was worried about him going off half-cocked, and why Dan was so concerned; but he'd made provisions for the continuation of the administration and the war effort, and Dan would still have Jeanne to anchor him. Charleston and Project Orange would survive without him; he'd made sure of it.
But he was the only one who could save Anne and Alexis. He'd made all the wrong choices between his job and his family time and again; this time, he would do the right thing for once. Even if it did seem crazy. After all, as he told Dan: crazy was where he lived right now.
Twenty-four hours was the most he would agree to; and even that admission was like pulling teeth. Combined with Marina pulling him aside afterward and questioning the alliance with the Volm yet again – this time, with information stolen out of his desk and apparently shown to Dr. Kadar of all people, yet more potential leaks for the mole to pass to Karen – he was already in a toweringly foul mood when Hal tracked him down again, a defiant expression on his face.
Couldn't anyone in the entire city see the forest for the trees? Even without knowing the details, his reasons for going along with the Volm should have been obvious. Briefly, intensely, he longed for Pope's presence. Not that John approved either; but he would have understood what a stupid stunt that was to pull.
He barely had time enough to marvel at himself for that thought, and wonder where Hal fell in the rotation of Presidential guards, when his son unexpectedly pulled a gun on him, clubbed Marina to the ground, and bullied him into a vehicle.
The less recalled about the long hours that followed, the better. Only Maggie's quick hand with a 50-cal to wreck the stolen Humvee, Dan's swift mobilization of Second Mass veterans to surround the building Hal dragged him into, and his younger sons' knowledge of Charleston's tunnels kept Tom from being taken immediately to Karen or tortured into spilling his guts about the planned deployment of the Volm weapon.
He didn't think he'd ever forget the strained note in Hal's voice as he fought against Karen's control, or the anguish on Maggie's face when she, Matt, and Ben had snuck into the room to try to talk him down. Or the blunt ugliness of his own pistol, muzzle pressed against the underside of Hal's chin, when whatever force had been in charge of Hal's actions had realized that there was no further way to salvage the plan.
Tom had thought there was no way for him to hurt worse, with Anne and Lexie gone. Now he knew better.
He leaned heavily on Dan as he made his way back to the infirmary less than forty-eight hours after leaving it, cane lost, ankle reinjured, and one of his sons strapped down with a bullet burn across his temple, and felt his fragile grip on his emotional state loosen even further. The sight of Lyle, Pope's right hand in the Berserkers, skulking in a chair outside the room next to Hal's only made things worse.
Of course Hal hadn't been part of Pope's detail. John had hinted about the source of Lourdes' infection on their trip, and Tom hadn't wanted to hear it. Was he even right about Lourdes being the primary mole? Could it have been Hal the whole time? Tom gritted his teeth and ducked his head as he passed Lyle, ignoring the man's nod.
Several people came in and out of the infirmary room after that, muttering platitudes or advice; Tom paid attention to none of them. So much for his decision to put his family first for once. Which family was he supposed to choose? Should he have gone along with Hal, and hoped Karen would remove the eyeworm if he gave her the information he wanted? For once, he was out of answers; all he had were questions.
Finally, Matt came and pulled a chair up to his side, curling up against him as best he could. Tom lifted out of his misery long enough to run a hand through Matt's hair, smiling wanly down at his youngest son.
"Hey, I'm okay," he said. Physically, aside from a few fresh bruises from the Humvee flipping and a reinjured ankle from Hal's not-so-tender attentions, it was even true. "And your brother will be, too. Ben thinks the rebels might have a way to remove the thing that's been controlling him."
"Is it true that Hal's the mole? That he killed the old Vice President?" Matt replied in a very small voice, face buried in his shoulder.
"No. No, Matt; I don't think he was," he replied, tugging his son closer.
"That's what Pope said. But my friends didn't believe me. They said he should be arrested. Or even shot," he continued, plaintively.
"Hush; that's not gonna happen," Tom tried to comfort him. "And even if it had been him, he wasn't in control of his actions; it's Karen's fault, not his. But when did Pope say something about it?" It seemed he couldn't turn around without the man getting tangled up in his business, these days, physically present or not.
"When we were all outside, guarding the building. Right before Colonel Weaver went up and tried to talk to Hal. Miz Peralta was wondering what was going on, and Maggie said he'd been having nightmares about Karen. That he thought he was the mole. Pope got pretty mad; he yelled at her for keeping it a secret. But then he said that the real mole must have been feeling the pressure, if Karen was activating her sleeper agent already. I wanted to ask what he meant by that, but Colonel Weaver told him there was no place on the line for hotheads and sent him away before I could. Then Hal shot at him, and the other Berserkers shot at Hal, and the colonel sent them away, too. That's when me and Ben and Maggie came up with our plan."
Tom looked up, and caught sight of Hal's girlfriend seated across the bed, curled up on herself in another chair; she nodded despondently as he met her gaze.
"This is what he wanted to talk to me about before I left for Keystone," he said, flatly.
Maggie nodded again. "I'm so sorry, Tom."
He swallowed, thickly. "Don't. Don't be. If he had, I might never have thought it all through, and realized ..." He cast a glance at the curtain where Lyle sat, and suddenly found himself drawing very different conclusions about the man's presence. "Wait. Is Pope ...?"
"He's fine, too." She wrinkled her nose. "I guess he thought the real mole might take advantage of the distraction Hal provided; Weaver's order gave him an excuse to go and confront her. None of the rest of us had any idea, except Lyle, who covered for him; we all thought he'd gone back to The Nest to open up a betting pool. But if someone hadn't found that Volm-modified weapon in the storeroom and replaced it with a dud a long time ago, Lourdes would have got away clean. Have you really known all this time?"
A wash of relief burst over him; Tom leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes briefly, and took a deep, shaky breath. Lourdes had condemned herself, partially cleared Hal, and inadvertently made everyone in Charleston safer. Triggering her had been a risky move on John's part, and not one that Tom would have expected of him. Nor anyone else, judging by the note of betrayal in Maggie's voice.
"We ... suspected," he said. "But we had no proof, and no real idea how she might have been infected in the first place." He let his gaze fall to Hal's unconscious form then, pained by the sight of the fresh scar across his right cheek. "I guess now we do."
"You told Pope, but you couldn't tell us?"
"And risk Karen finding out?" He shrugged, helplessly. "There are no simple answers here, Maggie."
She looked away. "I'm just glad Dr. Sumner's x-rays prove it was an eyebug," she said, grudgingly. "One's bad enough; I don't even want to know how long Lourdes has been living with a whole swarm of them."
"A swarm?" Tom replied, aghast. No wonder Karen had been so responsive to the slightest change of plans in Charleston; she could keep Lourdes under the heavy hand of her programming and have messengers flying back and forth, carrying updates, at the same time. "Probably ever since she treated Hal after Karen knocked him out, all those months ago. Everything that's happened since – we have to assume Karen knows."
"And on that cheerful note," Dan said, poking his head through the curtains. "The rebels are here again; Ben says they do have a way to remove the eyebugs. But it's risky."
"Do we have a choice?" Tom sighed, rubbing a hand over his eyes. Then he chivvied Matt out of his chair. "C'mon, Matt; why don't you go with Maggie for a minute? You won't want to be in here when Hal wakes up."
"But Dad ..."
"It'll all be over soon, Matt, don't worry. Then we'll go after Anne and Lexie. It'll all be fine." He nodded to Maggie; she nodded back, biting her lip, and put a hand on Matt's shoulder to guide him out.
"I don't think I can take much more of this, Dan," he murmured to his friend as he climbed to his own feet, balancing painfully with the help of his new cane.
Dan gripped his shoulder, sympathy etched deep in the lines around his mouth. "I can't think of anyone else who could have held up under all this half so well as you. Don't give up on me now."
A pang of guilt went through him; if Dan knew what he was planning ... well, that was why he hadn't brought it up with him. He'd understand, though; he had his own daughter to think about now, and Tom knew the trials they'd gone through rebuilding their relationship. He'd stay, and see through what Tom couldn't.
It really would be for the best. For everyone.
Tom nodded in wordless reply, then followed Dan to the meeting room.
By the time their Skitter allies came through with bionanite hunter-killers to eliminate the eyebugs, and Hal and Lourdes recovered from the trauma of the removal process, it was late into another night. The Skitters had also finally received word of Anne and Alexis' location, in an Espheni camp near Mechanicsville, halfway to Boston: a good four hundred thirty miles or so as the highway drove. In a car, it might have taken them six or seven hours. On horses? There was no telling.
Tom went back to his room to think the news over, running his hands through his hair and staring at Lexie's bassinet. Then he talked to each of his sons, and went to his office to finalize his preparations.
He expected Marina to come looking for him at some point. Hoped for it, really; it would make it easier to turn over the reins. Or General Porter, perhaps; it was probably time to read him in on the Volm plan to bring down the Espheni defense grid, and it would be better coming from him. Captain Weaver might have been subordinate to Colonel Porter when the Massachusetts Militia Regiments first formed – Porter had been the one who'd originally assigned Tom as Dan's second in command, in fact – but ever since their arrival in Charleston, Porter had been content to remain in more of an advisory role. Dan would need him, though, with General Bressler dead and Tom ... gone. So Tom didn't look up when he heard the door of the office open behind him.
It wasn't his Vice President or any of the military staff who was there to challenge him, though; it was a rougher, more familiar voice that interrupted as he tucked his resignation letter into the Project Orange file.
"So. After all that. You're the one who's giving up," Pope drawled, closing the door behind him.
Tom swallowed, then looked up, meeting the other man's dark, serious gaze. A fresh bruise marred one cheek, but he otherwise looked much the same as he had the last time Tom had seen him, several days before. "You don't know what you're talking about, John."
"Oh, I think I do," the other man said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Karen took your little alien daughter to draw you out of Charleston. When you didn't take the bait immediately, she tried to use your son to force it. So now you're just gonna give her what she wants?"
"I'm going to rescue Alexis. And Anne," Tom shook his head. "I can't leave them out there. Not when I know where they are. Not while I have breath left in my body."
"Never mind the fact that your Anne ran in the first place because she was afraid of what people would think. Or that Mason Junior's probably worried people are gonna paint him with the same brush as Lourdes and blame him for everything that's gone wrong around here, never mind who's actually responsible. Or that your next youngest son's now one of two kids in the whole of Charleston still able to connect to the Skitters, and that leaves him a pretty limited pool of friends. So why not take your whole alien-loving family on the road, huh? I can see the desperation written all over you, Professor. You're not planning on coming back."
Tom glanced down at the resignation letter still in his hand, and set his jaw. "And what if I'm not?"
John chuckled, low in the back of his throat, as he circled through the office. He trailed fingertips over Manchester's row of liquor bottles, still standing on a cabinet in the corner, then over the stained painting on the wall behind the desk. He paused there, staring at the painted figures of Revolutionary War heroes, then turned to Tom with a narrow, heavy-lidded stare.
"How about I try this again in your language," he said. He pushed away from the painting, then gripped the back of the swivel chair – the chair Arthur Manchester had died in, pursuing the investigation into the mole – and began to quote, in the sonorous tones of one used to speaking in front of others.
"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain."
A lump formed in Tom's throat; he wavered, then leaned heavily against the desk as the familiar words from the Gettysburg Address rolled off John's tongue. "Pope ..."
"I'm not finished; this should be your favorite part," John waved him off. "That this nation shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
"It won't perish," Tom insisted, suddenly furious. "I'm leaving it to Marina, and Dan. I've done what I needed to do. All the months of deal-making, diplomacy, construction, and struggle – I'm tired, John. They can see it through without me. It's time I put my family first."
"Do you really think this place will last six months with Marina Peralta at the helm? Hell, three weeks?" John snorted. "She might know her way around a legal document and a meeting schedule, I'm not arguing that. But she wasn't the one who won a popular election around here, and you damned well know it."
"Since when do you care?" Tom glared at him. "You're out for yourself first; you always have been."
"Shit, this argument again? I thought we buried that out in those damn woods," John scowled at him. "What the hell did I even bother to go and confront your mole for, anyway, if this is the thanks I get? Quid pro quo, Professor. You owe me an honest answer, at the very least."
"I am giving you an honest answer!" Tom replied, the words almost torn from him as John – as usual – rubbed his face in what he was trying his hardest to ignore. "Why is all this my responsibility, anyway? Maybe it just finally occurred to me to ask myself, how the hell did a history professor from Boston U with no desire to play politics end up the civic leader of a whole new nation? Of all people, why me? And why am I letting it control my life, when it keeps putting the people I care about in the crosshairs?"
John's scowl faded as what looked like surprise, then sharp-edged sympathy tempered his anger. "Wait. Wait, you're tellin' me you haven't figured that out yet? What the hell have you been doin' all this time?"
"What needed to be done. What else could I do?" Tom threw up his hands. "You're telling me you've figured it out? Enlighten me, then."
"Just ... just give me a second here. This is seriously winding you up?" John stalked closer, until they were well into each other's personal space.
"I'm just one man," Tom replied, lowering his voice as he abruptly recalled where they were. The whole of Charleston didn't need to hear this.
"I guess you're too close to see it," John cocked his head. "The fishheads, the Espheni – they're supposed to be these giant mega-brains, right? Whole computers in their heads. Conquered one world after another by predicting every move their opponents made before it happened and manipulating the outcome."
Tom nodded. "Both Karen and the rebel Skitters said as much. And considering how much they hate each other, I'm inclined to take that as gospel. What difference does that make?"
"Obviously they took one look at the way the situation was unfolding, saw one Tom Mason cropping up again and again, and realized the same thing the rest of us did," John replied, poking a finger at Tom's chest.
"Porter hung you around Weaver's neck like a lead weight, and look at you now, pulling in harness like a matched pair. Two days in Charleston and you upended the existing government twice over. You believe there is a right thing, and you're determined to stick to it, come hell or high water; and your sons are all chips off the old block. Me, I'm all about revenge and survival, screw the consequences, but those boys of yours? They don't follow patterns, they make 'em. Just like their daddy. You've been forming a cult of personality around you since the day you walked into that school in Acton dragging a captured Skitter, and it just keeps growing. The question isn't why you, Professor; the question is, how could it be anybody else?"
Tom looked away, a tremor shaking through his hands as he fought to steady his emotions. "So how does any of that translate into saying I shouldn't go after my daughter and Anne?" he demanded.
John snorted. "You're missing the point, Tom. Again. I'm not saying you shouldn't go after 'em at all. I'm just saying, don't abandon the rest of us – and what you built here – while you're at it. Manchester might have set this place up, but it took you to forge it into a nation. Dump it on Peralta, and there'll be riots in the streets. Hell, I might even lead one myself." He punctuated the last statement with a wolf's smile.
Tom scrubbed his hands over his face, caught between conflicting desires. John had a point. He always had a point, as unpalatable as it often was. But ... he was just so exhausted.
"You missed something, you know," he said, quietly. "In that little recitation of yours."
"Go ahead. Fill me in, Professor," John stared at him expectantly, probably anticipating another argument he could poke a hole through. And maybe he would. But Tom felt compelled to say it, anyway.
"You want to know the real reason why the Espheni let me go last year, after I walked willingly onto their ship? Why the rebel Skitters picked us, of all the remaining human settlements, to approach? Why the Volm landed in Charleston, even?"
John's eyes glittered avidly at that. "I've only been wanting the answer to that question since the day you turned back up like a bad penny," he said. "Ridiculous Mason luck, I've always figured."
"More like reckless," Tom shook his head. "I thought I was going aboard that ship to negotiate. But all the Espheni wanted from me was a promise to lead my people to a place of their choosing, where we could live in peace and not cause them any further trouble, and vice versa."
"The hell you say," John snorted.
"Yeah, that's what I said. So I grabbed the torture stick from his guard, the one they'd been using on me for days, and turned it on him. It was a futile gesture, and I knew that before I did it; I had no way of escaping, or even any hope of really hurting him. But as it turned out ... that guard was Red Eye, the first leader of the rebel Skitters. And when the Espheni put him in charge of getting rid of all their captives ... he killed all of them, except me, then put an eyebug in me, let me go, and tracked me back to the Second Mass."
Tom turned and started pacing the office as he continued, cane tapping against the floor, venting things he hadn't allowed himself to speak of to anyone else. "He was impressed with me because of my essential barbarity, Pope. Not my knowledge, diplomatic abilities, or any of the rest of it. And the Volm might pretend to be more civilized, but that's the only reason they're here, too. The Espheni are planning to raise a defense grid that will ward the entire planet from space; you know that much. What you don't know is that it will also fatally irradiate all non-Espheni life on Earth within three months. The Volm scouts knew they wouldn't be able to take it down alone before then; I was just the first human leader they thought might be crazy enough to agree that helping them build their experimental weapon might be a good idea.
"So maybe I got the ball rolling. Maybe I've made a few inspiring speeches and had a few lucky breaks. But that doesn't make me the right person to sit in that chair long-term. Others can pick up and carry what I started."
John made a considering noise. "You know, if you meant that little speech to be discouraging, you've forgotten who you're talking to, Professor," he mused aloud.
The tone of John's voice curled up Tom's spine like the touch of heated fingers; he stopped in his limping tracks and turned to look at him with an incredulous expression. "What?"
"I said, I think you're being a little hard on yourself, Tom," he replied, now faintly mocking. "Me? I wouldn't have admitted it if you'd asked me two weeks ago, but I think you're exactly what this place needs, as long as you don't let the power go to your head. But you're kind of going to the opposite extreme at the moment – seriously, you really think your nearest and dearest aren't going to understand your concerns? If you really believe I'm the one that keeps you balanced ... then get over yourself and let me do it." He reached for the folder on the desk and, before Tom could move to stop him, removed the resignation letter and tore it in half.
"Take Hal along for a breather, sure," he continued. "Take Ben; you'll need him to talk to the rebels when you meet up with 'em. But leave Matt here, so the people have hope you'll be coming back. And maybe take along a volunteer or two a little more seasoned than an eleven year old with a gun."
Tom stared at the crumpled scraps of paper as John let them flutter to the floor. "Where was all this concern when you were avoiding me the last few days?" he finally asked, softly.
He half expected some other sneering answer – but John paused instead, looking away. "Chalk it up to a rare attack of conscience. Don't worry, it won't happen again."
"So who are you expecting to volunteer, then? You?" He limped back over to the desk, stooping carefully to pick up the paper scraps, then turning to drop them in a waste can under John's lingering gaze.
"Was actually thinking you might talk Junior into letting Mags come with. She won't thank him if he treats her like she can't make her own decisions. But I wouldn't rule the idea out, either." He glanced down at Tom's wounded ankle, and for a moment Tom felt the pressure of the man's hands against his skin again like a sensory ghost, both supporting him and demanding everything he had to give.
The contrast with his last argument with Anne was like a slap in the face; he'd been trying not to draw comparisons for the better part of a week, and the failure curdled in his stomach like sour milk. What was wrong with him, that a part of him thrilled to the challenge John represented, so soon after such a loss?
"You need me, Professor," John concluded, in a tone a lot softer than the rest of his needling diatribe ... almost a question.
Tom couldn't find it in himself to respond. The words stuck in his throat, and he was forced to look away, breaking the intensity of the moment; a few seconds later, he heard Pope turn to walk out of the room, making his own retreat without further comment. The door opened, then shut again, and he sighed, closing his eyes in frustration.
"Is everything all right, Tom?" a new voice broke in on his thoughts. "I thought I saw Pope in the hall."
Tom blinked, startled, and looked up to meet Marina's gaze. So she had come to him upon hearing that he had further news, just as he'd expected ... for a meeting that was now going to go much differently than he'd planned.
Yeah, I think I do, he finally answered John, silently. God help me; I do.
Then he picked up the file, and began briefing the Vice President on the details of Project Orange that she'd need to know to keep the war effort on track while he was gone.
Tom made one more, previously unplanned stop before leaving the city. He took the stairwells down to the power plant beneath the city center, a copy of all the documentation he'd gathered on the Volm over the last several months in hand.
He'd worried about the true motivations of the supposedly kinder, gentler alien race ever since they'd landed. Of course he had; he hadn't forgotten about the other consequences of the American Revolution, whatever John may have once assumed. The people with flint knives and deerskins very rarely came out ahead when facing visitors with gunpowder and uniforms, no matter how benevolent those newcomers might purport to be. He'd simply seen no other way to defeat the Espheni; until the grid went down, the Volm were necessary.
Dead was dead, while life meant hope, he'd always believed. But Marina had reminded him that day while discussing Hal's troubles that death wasn't the worst of all evils; and the reports he'd read on the full scope of what Lourdes had been up to had made him question a conviction he should have examined more deeply from the start. That in turn had made him reconsider John's comments about survival and wishful thinking ... perhaps too little, too late, but maybe just enough to ward off disaster if the Volm did turn on them.
He'd been taking reports all along from the men and women helping build the Volm weapon – none of them had been allowed to see the full schematics, or work on the most sensitive parts of its control systems, but they knew what materials went into it, how each part went together, and some useful speculation about how it related to other equipment the Volm had loaned them – and filing them away, in case disaster struck and they needed to rebuild it on their own. And he also had access to the safe where Cochise had secured his personal weapons before their flight to Keystone, in both handgun and rifle sizes. He carried them down to Dr. Kadar's lair with the file, then explained very carefully what he had in mind.
It was a five-person party that rode out before dawn the next morning: the President of the New United States; two boys that had been enslaved by the Espheni in different ways, seeking their revenge; the elder's fierce fighter of a girlfriend; and the ex-con who'd defined his existence by Tom's, one way or another, since the day they'd met.
They rode to rescue a daughter, a sister, a lover, a mother figure, a doctor; stand-ins for all the family members the people of Charleston had lost to the aliens since the initial invasion. The crowd that came to see them off was ... not small. Tom nodded to or shook hands with several people as the boys finished packing the horses, and knew John had been right when he'd said many of them hung their hopes on his return.
His parting hug with Dan was heartfelt. Denny seemed cheerful as she waved to Ben. And Matt's teary farewell from Dan's side would have been all that was needed to light the fire in Tom's heart again, if he'd still needed it.
He wasn't giving up. Not now, and not ever.
So Karen had summoned him, had she? She might be fighting from a position of strength, but he would be fighting for people he loved, with people he loved.
It was finally time to play ball.
-(3/5)-