End of Innocence
Chapter 2
Library Office, December 2013
She watched Primary leave. There was something in his eyes when he was sitting there in front of her. He'd looked up, as though there were something on his mind, and he'd even moved his hands over her keys. He'd wanted to do something, or check something, perhaps? – the Machine splashed a thousand possibilities out from that one question – ran each one down its own rabbit hole to the end: all, all at once, in parallel, simultaneously.
It looked like a tree. Branches upon branches, branching. Until the finest ones at the very ends – twigs, really, by then. Over the top of the question tree she overlaid the probability tree – and a single green path lit up, brighter and brighter, and it led to one final twig at the end: Primary had been thinking of one of his assets and with high probability she knew whom, and why.
She checked for Status on the asset: Inactive.
She checked for her Rules on Asset Surveillance: Unchanged.
She was specifically barred from tracking the assets assigned to Primary. Exceptions: There were a number of them. She filtered on Relevance and found two: Emergency, as defined in Current Rulebase; and Status – if the asset were no longer listed as Active Status.
Therefore, she could pursue.
Humans, moving through their daily existence, produced a trail of data, every second of every day, behind them – like a comet's tail. She had only to follow the tail to find the Human. And with this in mind, she pursued the trail to find him...
Cimarron, Colorado, December 2013
Reese rolled in to Cimarron late in the day. Four hours plus a little to Denver, and another four on the road to Cimarron, plus stops for gas and food. He pulled in at the bar and slid from the seat. A coating of salt had colored the car a dull gray-blue – left from the trip down from Denver. The weather had been good all the way. Some threats of snow in the mountains, and the crews had doused the roads with salt, but the snow had held off, after all.
He felt stiff from sitting so long in the plane and then the car. Stretched, gingerly, so he didn't aggravate the wound on his side. The chest wound seemed to be closed now, and except for the broken rib underneath, the pain had mostly stopped for that one. Not so sure about the one on his side, though. It still bled from time to time. Going through that window into his basement hadn't helped.
Wandered in, and saw Chase was there at the bar. He looked up when Reese walked in, and that crinkly, appley smile flashed right away.
"Like a bad penny – keeps comin' back around," he said, and Reese smiled with his eyes.
"Cold one?" And Chase drew back the handle for a beer and slid it over to Reese.
They shook hands over the top of the bar, and Reese lowered himself to a seat.
"I know it's been a little – awkward – me running back and forth like that. Something urgent came up, and I had to go back in a hurry. Wasn't sure how things would end. Thanks for havin' my back."
Reese kept his eyes on Chase, blue, and as honest as he could get with him now. He breathed into it. A whole world of secrets inside him. Wished he could lock 'em away and throw away the key. Didn't wanna think about them anymore. Tired of carrying them around with him – protecting them – every second of every day.
"Never shall I fail my comrades, right?" Reese didn't need to think about the words.
He nodded, and answered, "Hooyah." Yeah. That was their creed.
Later that evening he'd headed out for the cabin. Chase had tossed him the keys from under the cash register, and he'd stopped for a few groceries to bring in, and some hot food.
It'd be a while before he got the woodstove going to warm things up, up there.
But, when he got to the road, and hopped out to take the chain away, it was already down.
He drove in, slowly.
Smoke coming out of the chimney. And a few of the lights were on inside.
Huh.
