Thuraya Known – Hmmm… interesting thought about cluster headaches and brainwashing… definitely going to check into how that might work. There's a pretty specific process for this sort of thing and I wonder how something like that would affect Riley. As for the plot obstruction, I now have something to work with, but it doesn't involve Ben and co. for a while… But we'll see. Thanks for the help and suggestions!

The Randomist – Haha, review when and how you want, I don't mind… although I do love your reviews… I get it about homework, I'm kind of swamped too! Bleh. I'm glad you like the 'bad' guys. I'm not too fond of purely evil villains and such. They make no sense. If they're going to be really evil there'd better be a dang good explanation for that. But I'm going to be integrating one of those pretty soon! For the sake of fun and plot.

Disclaimer: Ben & Riley aren't mine.

Riley had stopped his throes fifteen minutes ago. They had gotten alarmingly violent midway through and the only way I kept my eyes on the road and foot on the accelerator was because I knew he'd be ok. Ben would have sounded very worried if he hadn't known what was going on, so I could conclude that there was something about Riley that we didn't know, and that was, assumedly, non-fatal. Even if he made it look fatal. We'd have to do some checking of records when we got back, see if we could discover what was going on.

Riley was now a clam. He wouldn't respond to anything we said, staring dejectedly out the window, probably sick with nerves. I had been thinking I would tell him everything, but now that he was so unresponsive, I decided to tell him later, a while after we got there. One more hour. At least it was sunny out. Cloudy days in the desert have a very ominous quality about them, and while I like a good dreary day now and then, I preferred the sun lighting the red rock on fire and contrasting with the sapphire sky. Things were tense enough as it was. We still hadn't discovered why Ben knew what was going on. Or how much he knew.

This whole thing could have been done so much more cleanly if that upstart Jeremy hadn't ruined everything. Sure, he and his mother had alerted us as to their presence, but blowing up the clinic? That was a bit over the line. Now the whole town and police department knew something was going on. They'd be suspicious.

Jeremy. Where was he right now? Had he been caught? He wouldn't tell them anything, I knew that much. He was supernaturally dedicated. He was like a robot. It was good to have such unshakable members on your side, but I don't think Jeremy even ever considered the other side. He isn't willing to stand in another's shoes, making him very dangerous and unpredictable. Know your enemy, I told myself. He didn't know his enemy. He didn't understand his enemy. All he knew was that they were the enemy. I wouldn't go so far as to call everyone the enemy. I understood where they were coming from, I understood their views. I had done some deep and prolonged thinking on the subject and knew what I believed. Why was Jeremy the way he was? Why didn't he question his own actions, why didn't he consider the other side? Or had he already? He was a very angry individual and I wondered how he had come to be that way – he certainly hadn't gotten it from his mother.

Laudes wasn't really supposed to be part of this, though. She seemed loyal enough so I wasn't worried, but my faith in her, if she ended up being caught, wasn't the highest.

Hopefully I wouldn't have to worry too much longer, though. If Riley did what we asked, things would go a lot smoother. From what Laudes had told us about her conversation with him, he was quite an avid fan of Ed Abbey, therefore this probably wouldn't be as hard as it would have otherwise been.

Ed Abbey now. What would he have said? That was a favorite musing of mine. I liked to think he would have supported our efforts. From his books, he didn't seem as if he had been a people person. Of course, that wasn't what this was about. I liked people, but I'd put other things in front of them. I'd put our mother in front of them.

Kind yellow sunlight poured through the window as if the glass wasn't there, hitting my face and kissing it with welcome warmth. I smiled.

Riley finally, finally removed his eyes from the passing landscape, stared at my eyes in the rear view mirror. I knew they were smiling eyes. He thought I was crazy, smiling to myself. He was probably terrified. He'd been kidnapped by an insane smiling Chinese man that wanted to kill everybody. Was that funny? My smile widened. Then in fell. I stared at the road ahead.

Ten minutes until Ben called.

"Ten minutes," I said to myself. Ten minutes until we called again. Half an hour until we got to Price. Not enough fuel to get there though, or so I told myself, although it was probably just more negativity due to lack of everything essential for survival. I had said it was time to plan. So we had hummed and hawed and contemplated using Riley's computer, contemplated trying to kill whoever it was that waited for us in Price, contemplated hiding once we got there, calling the police, calling Abi, calling the Chinese man and bugging him. The only plan we came up with that we were seriously considering executing was the one where we call the Domino's in Price and ordering a large pepperoni and green pepper pizza. And there were no subtle plots associated with that one.

Blackwell had told me that I was having trouble thinking because I'd gotten knocked on the head, and I didn't argue. I was, however, annoyed by that. Which lobe was it that dealt with planning? The parietal? I hadn't been hit in the parietal lobe. Brains. I had always thought that brains were so weird. Who would have thought that all those weird little glands and organs were shoved up the center of their brains? Where the heck had the amygdala come from? Hippocampus? Wasn't that a mythical creature? A hippocampus was a horse-fish, right? Or something. But first it was a thing in the brain. A longish curly thing.

"Ben," said Blackwell, pointing at the phone. Finally. I had mostly been putting off thinking because I really just wanted to call. See how Riley was doing. Maybe notice if they were still driving or not. I dialed. It rang. Someone picked up.

"It's Ben," I said.

"Hello, Ben," said the Chinese man.

"How's Riley?" I asked.

"Why don't you tell me, Ben? It's in his own interest. Whatever it is, you can be sure we won't use it against him."

"No, actually, I can't be sure of that. You've kidnapped Riley and you're going to kill everyone. I don't trust you and I don't know what you're capable of."

"I'll just check his records anyways. May as well make it easy."

"No, I may as well not make it easy. Why would I want to make it easy for you?"

"You have a point, given the situation. Ben, I don't hate you personally. You're a good man. Riley's a good kid too, I hold nothing against either of you. We don't see eye to eye and that's unfortunate, but I'm just trying to deal with it." What was he doing? I hated him. Why did he have to act so friendly?

"Let me talk to Riley."

"Sorry, Ben." What?

"Sorry? What do you mean, sorry, is he dead or something?"

"No, he's… he seems to be ok now… I can't let you talk to him though." He sounded almost apologetic. I closed my eyes.

"Why not?"

"Just part of the process. I'm sorry, Ben. Maybe you'll see him again before the end." Now, if that wasn't an ominous statement. Before the end. That brought to mind that quote in the Return of the King, "here at the end of all things". Because whenever I thought of 'the end', I thought of that scene. Abi always got teary-eyed at that scene.

"Look," I begged, not knowing where I was going. He was silent on the other end.

"I don't know… what you're doing, or why… but… do you even understand what a bond is? Do you have a wife?"

"No, I don't. But I believe human bonds are weaker than those associated with wilderness. I understand that people think that their human relationships are the most important thing in their life. That's why we're doing this, Ben, that's what's killing us. Humans don't understand their priorities and that's going to lead the Earth to ruin."

"So you're an environmental cult?"

"If you want to be crude, I suppose."

"Look, you just don't understand… you've never experienced what it's like to know someone like I have, like most other humans have. You can't just assume that everyone else on Earth is-"

"Ben, I know. I've thought about this. A lot. I understand you. I've made my choice and you can't change my mind." No, I wanted to tell him, you don't understand! He didn't know what I felt! He'd never loved anyone as much as I love my parents and Abi and Riley. Wasn't love the only thing that mattered? Isn't that what all the philosophy classes told you? Isn't that like the underlying message of anything deep that's ever been written?

Before the end.

What if he succeeded?

What if everyone died?

He had the upper hand at the moment, it was entirely possible. I had no plan whatsoever. There were things I wanted to tell Riley, just in case. Important things.

"Please… let me talk to Riley, just this once. To say goodbye."

"Would you like to talk with Riley, Ben?"

"Well, yes, I would…"

"No? Why not?"

"I said yes, yes I'd like to talk with him." There was a silence on the other end. Was he seriously going to let me talk to him?

"Well, ok, Ben, if you're sure…" he sounded concerned for me. He wasn't handing the phone to Riley.

"What?" was all I could really say. The Chinese man started talking to me again, something about Price, but there was another sound in the background, far away but I knew what it was. Riley's voice. Asking what was going on, why Ben didn't want to talk to him, what was Ben saying.

The Chinese man wasn't quite as friendly as I'd grudgingly thought. He was making Riley think I didn't want to talk to him. Surely Riley would figure it out. There was no reason at all I'd not want to talk to him. But Riley would find one. Look for one. Because I hadn't wanted to talk to him. Had to be a reason for that.

"You son of a bitch," I told the Chinese man, who finished his sentence as if I hadn't said anything.

"Want to give the phone to the Blackwells now, Ben?" Numbly, I handed the phone over. The sound of the Blackwells assuring the Chinese man of their presence fell on deaf ears, fading into the noise of the engine and the air whooshing past.

They were already starting to hurt him. The process. It wasn't fair. I hated them.

"What's going on?" he asked after I'd shut the phone. I mused. Felt bad about what I was doing, but not bad enough to stop. It was part of the process. It was important to follow the steps.

"Nothing, Riley."

"Why didn't Ben talk to me?"

"I offered, but he didn't want to."

"Why?" His voice was injured. I paused for effect. Gathered my will and mentally apologized to Riley.

"Well, he… Never mind."

"What?"

"I shouldn't tell you." That probably would have been sufficient enough to leave him adequately miserable. He had an active imagination and would come up with something equally as sad as what I'd tell him, or maybe the same story I'd come up with.

"Please tell me." He didn't really want to hear this, I could tell by his voice. He didn't want to know, but he felt he had to. Good.

"Ben… Ben thinks this is kind of your fault. And he's a little mad at you." Rear view mirror. I could imagine I could see misery settling heavily onto his spirit through his eyes.

"I know it isn't your fault, Riley, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have let you know." I sounded apologetic. It wasn't that hard. Riley hadn't heard me anyways. He slowly sat back in the seat, pushed himself against the door, leaned his head on the window and let his eyes wander absently over the spotty glass of the window. Or focusing beyond the sky. I couldn't really tell. It took a few minutes for emotion to register on his face, and while he tried to push himself further into the corner, away from my gaze, I still saw the tears. Sighing, I left him to his misery. It had worked. It had started.

They didn't understand why I was so quiet after hanging up. Had I really hoped? Had I really been clinging to the hope that everything would turn out ok? Slight possibility, right? Now that it had started, I knew it was real, I knew they were serious, and I knew they weren't just going to give him some superficial bruises. How far were they going to go… I didn't bother putting a question mark on the end of that. That would make it a question, and then I'd wonder what the answer was.

I was depressed. I forced myself to imagine what Riley was feeling, and after a few minutes I began to sink deeper into misery, and I kind of resented Ben. Ben who thought he was so miserable, Ben who wasn't about to be tortured, Ben who didn't want to talk to me, thought it was my fault we were in this fix. Didn't he understand better than that? Yes, I did. But did Riley?

There was only one way I could tell him the truth. And there was only one way I could save him. And that involved me crawling out of this tarry soup of sadness. But there was no rope for me to hang onto. There was nothing dangling in front of my face for me to grasp. Nothing was even out of my reach. There was nothing. Nothing but Riley, sunken beneath the tar, hanging onto my ankles and pulling me in too. Just an hour ago he had been holding my hand. What had happened?

"Price," pointed Century. A sign whizzed past. 2 miles.

"What are we supposed to do when we get there?"

"Check into the Pricecut."

"Pricecut?"

"Yeah. I'll bet they think it's a really funny name for a hotel." I didn't.

"Then what?"

"They said we'd know."

"Are we getting pizza?"

"Yes," I said decisively. It felt really good to be decisive. It was most definitely pizza time.

"Are we getting lost too?" Why not?

"Sure. Let's get lost for a while. Everyone keep your eyes peeled for important looking details." Around the corner, there was Price. It looked funny, sitting there in the middle of nowhere. Although it wasn't quaint and charming like Henrytown had been. It was too big and too industrial looking,, although there wasn't really anything industrial about it. The buildings were all so grey. Like the funny little grey mountains around us.

"What if there's not a Domino's in Price?"

"They have a pizza place in Price, don't worry." Blackwell sounded as if he knew what he was talking about. He was good at that.

"How do you know?"

"We're in America. They have a pizza place in every city except Henrytown." We were passing some farmland and I wondered what on Earth people were growing out here in the desert. Some little neighborhoods. We came up to an extremely peculiar overpass system.

"This could be where we get lost," I said.

"It could be… thing is, I'm already confused, so we may accidentally take the right route."

"Oh well. Give it a shot." He nodded. Took a left. After a minute I was convinced we'd managed to skirt the whole town altogether, but another branch of the community appeared quite suddenly in front of us, which we drove along the edge of. We ended up near some odd white giant bubble structures, the truly industrial part of Price. Where anyone who ever gets lost inevitably ends up. Turned right. Left. We passed the baseball fields, a strange block of open grass, lots of neighborhood, more industrial activity, and soon found ourselves pleasantly lost, but having a vague idea of the scope of the city. No pizza place yet.

The phone rang. I picked it up.

"Why aren't you three at the hotel yet?" I wanted to yell at him. What he'd done to Riley hit me in the face again – I'd forgotten as we'd driven through Price. That wouldn't do any good, though.

"We're lost. There was a really weird overpass earlier. And we're trying to find some pizza."

"You'll get room service at the hotel and I assure you it won't have any congealed melted cheese or puddles of grease. Which street are you on?"

"We are on… 45th. Approaching Gertrude."

"Turn left, go for about six blocks, turn right, it's on the right. Pricecut."

"Alright. Thanks for saving us."

"Later, Ben." He hung up. I repeated the instructions to Blackwell.

"I bring tidings of good news from Chinese Man, who prophesizes about the glorious lack of congealed melted cheese and puddles of grease that we will find when we reach our destination. We will feast upon the flesh of non-pizza, and it will be good."

"Poor Ben," said Century, patting my shoulder, no doubt blaming it on the lack of aforementioned survival essentials. She was right. Poor me.

There was a parking spot right in front of the hotel, which could be thought of as finally a bit of luck, but I took it as a sign that this hotel was crap and no one wanted to stay there. We all stumbled out of the car, joints stiff, various body parts numb. The hotel really looked terrible. The sign "Pricecut" looked as if it had been glued there by a third-grader, and written on by a four-year-old. Were it not for the circumstances I would have avoided the place on principle. Especially since there was a Radisson across the street. What was a Radisson doing here? There were Radissons in Chicago and Duluth and Honolulu. Not in Price. Well, yes in Price. If I was to believe my eyes, which I usually do.

Into the hotel. The minute I stepped in I knew we weren't really in a hotel. It smelled like melting iron, which also smells like blood, but I preferred thinking about melting iron. There were no carpets or fake plants. No check-in desk. No nice-looking clerks. Just four big men, all wearing plaid flannel shirts. All staring at us.

"Ben and Blackwells?" they asked.

"Yeah. Hi."

"Please follow me," said the man in the purple and brown plaid. We followed him. Was he about to kill us? With trepidation I noticed the handguns all four of them had strapped to their redneck belts. No choice but to follow. He went through a door, down a very scary hallway that lacked any type of interior decoration, stopped.

"Each of you in a separate room." He opened three doors. I peered into one of them. They were like cells. One of them had an old water heater in it.

"Why?" I asked.

"Just following orders. Get in."

"What are you going to do? Are you going to kill us?"

"If you don't get in." He put his hand on his gun, the universal gesture for 'I'm not in the mood for any tomfoolery,' except in different and definitely not PG-13 words.

"Ok, ok, whatever." Four armed and plaid-wearing men against me and two old people. Into the rooms we went. They locked the doors behind us, with a nerve-splintering 'click'. It's not that it was loud, it was just very final. Like a coffin shutting.

"Wait, what about our food? He said you would feed us!" I shouted through the door.

"Ain't dinner time yet," one of them responded, sounding completely serious. Well, it was only… what time was it? There were no windows. A light switch? Yes. I turned on the light. The water heater lurked ominously in the corner. Some pipes stood out from the ceiling like grey varicose veins. I felt like I was imprisoned in the chest cavity of a dead alien. One of the grey ones. I may as well have been in X-Files. I wouldn't be Mulder, though. He would have figured out what was going on by now. And what to do. If Riley had been Mulder's sidekick instead of mine everything would have been fine.

They didn't call for the next hourly check-up. Finnegan had called instead. Said they were all three safely locked up. I could finally stop worrying about that issue. They'd been scoping out the town, I knew, and they may have a small sense of their bearings, but now it didn't matter. Now Finn had taken down that 'Pricecut' sign and the building was once again an old abandoned building that no one used, except the drunks and the kids. But now there were guards in flannel shirts. Everyone would assume they were the drunks and hopefully the building would be left alone.

Riley had fallen asleep, sagging against the car door, arms crossed over his middle. It hadn't taken him too long to gain control over what I knew must have been overwhelming feelings, of abandonment and hopelessness and helplessness. He probably felt like a shell right now. Almost. Experienced the emptiness. I'd felt that before. I'd had somewhere to turn, though. Riley was trapped. I felt uncomfortable putting someone through a process that I'd never experienced myself, but it was necessary.

Here we were. Finally. I didn't like the little city, but this is where we were based for this operation. Bigger than Henrytown but not by much, we had soon passed all the farm fields and were in the heart of the place. Approaching the northern end I pulled over into an empty spot, gathered my things, stepped out of the car. The guard in back got out, locking his door. Together we approached Riley's door. I slowly opened it, Riley's head following it open for a second before he jerked awake.

"We're there. Come on," I said. He crawled out of the car, not bothering to stretch. Personally, long car rides killed my back, and I did my best not to wince as we approached the door. I wasn't even that old yet. And I never would be. I should be grateful I wasn't going to allow my back to get any worse than it already was.

The guard laid a hand on Riley's shoulder, nonverbally telling him not to run. Riley didn't appear too enthusiastic with moving at all, eyes glued to the ground. Were they even open? I couldn't see. We entered the building, familiar smells wafting around me. That weird organic food smell. Dry beans and dehydrated vegetables, essential oils. I wrinkled my nose at the hint of clove oil. I could never stand clove oil. Riley's eyes still at the ground, he allowed us to guide him to the back storage room, through a door, where there were no lights on. The smell was leaving now. His head came up and he started to take notice of his surroundings, if not sluggishly. Worry in his eyes.

Through one of two doors that branched from this room, down a set of stairs with a ceiling low enough to endanger only the guard's head. Turning left at the bottom, I had to search around with my hands for the right doorknob. There were no light bulbs at this level. I didn't permit them. The door clicked open and I entered first, hearing Riley's breath coming faster through the intense silence. No sound pierced these walls either. Specially sound-proofed. Chill air surrounded us in the darkness and silence and I longed suddenly to leave the rest to the guard, let him deal with what was to come. I didn't really want to be a part of it, and yet my role was essential. I had planned it, after all.

I reached to my left, felt along the wall. My hand encountered something hard and awkwardly shaped hanging from a nail, and I took hold of it, slipped the contraption over my face. These things had been damned expensive, they'd better be of good use. I messed with some knobs and it made some odd clicking noises, but I was familiar with the sounds. I had made sure I knew what I was doing.

Vision.

I could see three bodies in front of me. The guard next to me had found his pair of thermographic goggles. Riley's blue and yellow and red form was backing away in confusion, hearing the strange sounds of our goggles but not seeing anything. The guard reached out and grabbed his shoulders. Riley almost seemed content with knowing there was someone behind him, but still held his hands slightly out in front of him, as if expecting something to come out of the darkness and do something to him.

He was right.

He couldn't see Tomas approaching because Tomas had, as the elementary school teachers are so fond of calling them, marshmallow feet. He could creep up on anybody. It was even eerie to me, watching Tomas walk towards us, fists curling and uncurling, blue, yellow, blue, yellow. What I knew to be brown hair was ultraviolet, dangling over his shoulders, hanging around his goggles. He had been awaiting our arrival, probably sitting in the corner salivating over this opportunity, now he was slinking towards Riley, why? So intent on scaring the kid. Tomas couldn't just do it without terrifying him any more than he already was.

I didn't understand Tomas either. He was like Jeremy times ten. I had the sudden urge to jump in front of Riley and protect him, tell him to run. But I was the one who had planned this. It was necessary. Necessary. Tomas was the only one to do it, right? I grimaced to myself as Tomas's hands reached out for Riley, who was completely oblivious, that is until he felt the iron clamp of Tomas's wiry fingers on his lower arms.

Was I doing the right thing? This is what Tomas lived for.

Riley gasped, struggled. His bluish arms flashed through the purple surroundings, trying to rip loose from the unknown attacker. Tomas was too strong. The guard let go of Riley and Tomas wound one arm around Riley's neck, flipped Riley over and threw his sense of balance. Riley was trying to speak but no words would come out, no air for them to form. He was asking what was going on, what were we going to do, who was this new threat, where were they taking him, where's Ben?

"Goodbye, Riley," I said, my voice gentle. "You're going to be ok." That was more of an obligatory phrase, to get my voice in his head one last time. I hoped it was a guarantee.

I watched Tomas drag Riley across the shadowy purple room, over to the large shed-shaped box sitting in the corner, drinking in all color around it, watched as Tomas wrenched open the door and shoved Riley into complete blackness, as Riley hit the ground hard, struggled to get back up and find the way out, but Tomas slammed the door shut.

Riley was trapped inside the only true darkness these contraptions on our faces could show us.

I was sickened. I stormed out the door, ripping off the thermographic imaging goggles, truth-tellers, hanging them up. I was up the stairs, through the hallways, out on the street in the sunshine. It wasn't warm but at least there was sunlight. It was warm compared to some places I could be at the moment.

Do you get everything that happened in this chapter? I didn't want to make it too obvious but sometimes I'm too vague. So Ben and co. really haven't planned anything yet but I kind of know how things will fall together… for a while, at least. It may involve kind of ignoring Ben and co. for now. Bork. Oh, and I know nothing about thermovision goggle things or if they exist. I was going to do night vision, but for various rather important reasons I decided on these handy thermo thingies!