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Nash sparked up another joint. He looked in the back, but the Greta was out cold, so he handed it off to Bridger, who took it and inhaled deeply.

Bridger figured he was stoned because it was like he was sucking on oxygen. The paranoia was gone, and he relaxed for the first time in months. The man who had held a gun on him was now his friend. He thought of his wife. She would have liked the eccentric hippie. She would have liked his weed. She’d told him once while bed bound in the hospital that he should make friends while he still could. The boy needs to see you with friends, she had said.

Nash’s voice started playing like it came from an old phonograph, “Fourteen years ago, a tactical nuclear weapon was detonated within the city of Tbilisi, Georgia, in what we have immortalized with the epithet, The Battle of Tbilisi.”

Bridger remembered that day. He was a senior in high school looking forward to the last easy months of formative education. Instead of celebrating the end of that one great adolescent milestone, he’d sat in the mournful hush of a classroom as the televisions played the latest footage. Along with the citizens of that city, he’d known only through its connection with the war, tens of thousands of American troops, NGOs, and emergency health care workers had been turned to steam.

A boy he knew, a good athlete, started wailing, “My brother, my brother!” He was soon corralled and herded off in the clutches of grief counselors.

The blast on the other side of the world ripped a scar through the nation and caused severe political and social repercussions that were still being felt to this day.

“I had a friend there,” said Nash, “a monk, Brother Mike. He lived down at a little monastery in the old city where he studied iconography. They were all supposed to be dead. That’s how thermonuclear weapons work. Well, about a year before the Spokane concert, I received a letter. Like a real paper letter with two pictures inside. Here, it’s right here.” He reached into the center console and handed him an old, wrinkled envelope.

Bridger opened it and removed two polaroid photographs that appeared as though time had seen the better of them. One was of two men in front of a church. One of them was dressed in the garments of a monk, and the other wore the uniform of the allied forces.

“Is that you?” he asked.

“Yep. Back in my warrior days.”

The other photograph was of the same monk. This time, he was with a group of children; they were in the middle of an empty street, staring dour-faced at the camera. Behind them, like a unicorn’s horn, stood one of the most iconic buildings the world had ever known, Sky Tower. It was no more. It had been turned to ashes by the power of the blast.

He turned the photo over to find a solitary word in elegant calligraphy: Orphans.

_“_Maybe he wasn’t in the city,” said Bridger.

“No, he was in that city. By his vows, he was in that city. He had devoted his life to the study of his icons and helping, as he could, the decrepit and the homeless.”

“Could it have been faked?”

“I have considered it. Some damn scammer tryin to take me for my money. But I don’t think so. First, gettin your hands on a polaroid ain’t easy. Brother Mike had one to document icons. As a confirmed luddite, he wouldn’t touch digital. I remember it cause I’d never seen one before. I was curious to inspect his. Second, I had been homeless and nomadic prior to receiving that letter. I just happened to be parked at a KOA near the Northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. I found the letter one foggy morning tucked under Ol’ Betsy’s windshield wiper. Nobody could have known where I was. Hell, I barely knew where I was.”

He let that hang in the air as dense as the smoke from the joint, which the hippie finished with a perfunctory puff, dropping the roach into an empty soda can.

The implications made Bridger’s mind spin. That there might be survivors in that city was monumental. Not just survivors but architecture that should have been turned to dust. No. There were no survivors. There were no survivors within a ten-mile radius of ground zero.

“If they’re alive,” he said, “how?”

“I don’t know. I’m obsessed with this mystery,” said Nash.

Bridger gazed, stoned out of his gourd, upon his comrade. A man of his age, to be sure, but still vital, salt and vinegar.

Nash went on: “It’s become my raison d’etre, pardon my French. The mysteries of the universe are endless. I’ve fucked up much of my life. Wasted it falling into my own dark pit, but I aim to get over there and find Brother Mike. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but I know it has something to do with the Maji.”

“It’s incredible if it’s true,” said Bridger.

“It gets stranger!” The hippie shook his fist enthusiastically. “You remember that day, the day of the bomb. You said you were in high school.”

“Yeah, it was early in the morning. I was in English class.”

“You remember anything else besides the news of the blast?” asked Nash.

Bridger thought back hard. It had always been a torrent of tragedy in his mind. A day of chaos and sorrow. “I can’t say I do. It was all so crazy. A lot of it is like a blur.”

“Right. I know. But other things did happen that day. Check this out.” Nash tapped the dash, and Ol’ Betsy’s windshield went into monitor mode, displaying a home screen with the background of a huge marijuana leaf. He tapped in a file name, and a video began to play. “You’ll recognize the reporter.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Raven Maddox: On this tragic day for the country of Georgia, and many other countries around the world, we are here in Midtown Manhattan, where we’ve been getting strange reports. Here with me is Janice Owens, a waitress in a local cafe. Janice, can you tell me exactly what you experienced?”

The camera pulled back to reveal a pretty lady in an apron.

Janice: Yes. I’d just put the croissants in the oven when I heard… It’s strange to say… but I heard a baby crying. I looked around, but I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Our morning barista, Jason, heard it too. So, I went outside, and the air was full of this shimmering light, like silver, but then it would look like a rainbow. That’s when we got the news about the… I’m sorry. {sniffles}

Raven Maddox: The news that there had been a nuclear detonation in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Janice: Yes, I’m sorry. I’m too emotional, and I just want to say on behalf of Perky Beans Coffee, I’m so sad and so sorry. My friend had an uncle over there. They think he’s dead.

Raven Maddox: When you saw the lights, was there also crying?

Janice: You know, I can’t remember. I think we got so absorbed in the news that they just faded away.

Raven Maddox: Thank you, Janice, for giving us your story.

There are other reports around the city and the country at large. And they are all very similar: crying baby, crazy lights. I want to say in full disclosure that I too had an experience. I was getting out of the shower when it happened. I want to say the phenomenon lasted five minutes.

A NASA scientist has released a comment that the lights could be an atmospheric effect from the explosion. As for the crying baby, well, the jury is still out on that. Currently, on various internet forums and social media, #cryingbaby is trending along with #rainbowlights. Folks have reported being unsuccessful in capturing the crying or the lights on video.

The evangelical leader Pastor Tony has claimed that it’s both a sign from God and from the Devil, so we don’t know what’s going on there. Indeed, you can expect the charlatanry from this fateful day to extend for decades to come.

This has been Raven Maddox, reporting live. Now, back to coverage of events as they unfold in Georgia.

“Now check this out,” said Nash. He brought up a menu, and snippets from news articles and social media began to scroll across the screen.

Berlin Reports Cry

#DayoftheCry

Strange Lights in Paris

Soldiers on the EF Report Crying Noise.

“You know,” Bridger said, “I remember first thinking, rather selfishly, that school would be canceled. Then I remember the emotions. I cried that day, too. But I don’t remember any of this. I guess it wasn’t on my radar.”

“Right,” said Nash. “There’s a chunk of time there I don’t recall at all. About seven years. I ain’t proud of it. Regardless, it was written off, and now it’s faded from most people’s memories.”

“Yeah, like they do with UFOs,” said Bridger.

“Pretty much. The human mind is strange. You can experience a reality in broad daylight, and then an hour later, someone in authority will tell you that it was all a figment of your imagination, and you’ll buy that like they were sellin you chili dogs.”

“You think this has something to do with the Maji?” said Bridger.

“I do. The Maji have been around forever, but their enchantments are hidden from the world, kind of like you can’t hear the music until Francis has done his initiation thing.

“So you’re Maji then?” Bridger asked.

“I am. Ever since Spokane. No superpowers, as of yet. But I can hear the music, and that’s good enough for me.”

“So, Francis’s music can change you into a Maji. But that doesn’t explain Ty.”

“There are some theories. I found a bulletin board on the dark web. The young Maji sometimes leave posts there. There’s been a rumor going around that Escape can trigger it.”

“How the hell? Ty has never touched it.”

“Your wife, his mother,” said Nash.

“Trish?”

“Did she use when she was pregnant with him?”

Bridger nodded. “I suspected, but I didn’t confront her. I buried my head in the sand and focused on my career. Fuck me!”

“Come on. You have a great son, and I’m confident he has a special gift. Being Maji ain’t a curse. That’s what they want you to believe. Like I said, everything is a rumor. But it’s curious that to this day, nobody knows how the Escape drugs work. Nobody knows where they come from. That’s a lead. A place to start. I could use a partner on this endeavor.”

Nash held out his hand, and Bridger clasped it hard.

“I want to know the answers,” Bridger said.

“I know you do,” said Nash. “I’ve learned that around puberty, the Maji start to wake up to who they are. I mean, what a bogus deal, as if they didn’t have enough confusion already during those years. Some of them, not all, start to disturb the Veil.”

“The Veil?” asked Bridger.

“Right. Good question. It is a thing. It is there and not there. It’s everywhere at once. It is strong, and it is fragile. It has been there forever and is constantly becoming. Get it?”

“Not really.”

“Yeah, me too. No fuckin clue.”

“But the hunters get it. And nothing gets their ire up more than some punk-ass Maji pullin on its strings.”

“And these poor fucking kids don’t know what the hell just hit them,” said Bridger.

“Exactly. Considering at least one of the parents, if not both, are junkies, they have no support, no help. Nothin close to the help you gave Ty. Some of them wind up in the psych wards. A lot hit the streets, fall in with the People of the Earth, the refugees, even the Gretas—the girls do anyway.” Nash looked to the back where the quietly wrapped woman slept on the bench. He lowered his voice. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a not insignificant fraction of the Gretas are Maji. Say what you want about their movement, but they offer a support system for a confused kid who has nothing else.”

“I’m grateful we were able to find you guys,” said Bridger.

“Me too, cause what’s more, there’s been a number of disturbing reports on this forum of young Maji vanishing without a trace.”

“You think they were killed? Maybe suicide?”

“It’s possible, but during the concert at the jail, I talked with some of the kids. Several of them told me they’d been approached to take up with the hunters. They’re offering them money, drugs, whatever they want. But mostly, they’re offering them a way to stop the nightmares. One girl was propositioned at a gas station in Nashville, another at a bus stop in Bend, Oregon. A few of the boys confirmed that they’ve been confronted at arcades, shopping malls, skate parks.”

“It’s a recruitment drive,” said Bridger.

“Yeah, that’s what it looks like,” said Nash.

“And Francis, does he even understand what’s going on?”

“I’m gonna say he knows in an intuitive way. Also, he was raised by White Owl, the woman with feathers in her hair. He’s had her indoctrination for most of his life. For better or worse, she’s a player in this game. She has an agenda, and she’s making sure he plays his part.”

“This White Owl. Who the hell is she?” asked Bridger.

“That is another mystery I ain’t been able to unravel,” said Nash. “I’m thinkin that maybe she’s going to reveal herself at one of these concerts. She’s got to be keepin a close eye on the talent.”

“You know, I don’t really care,” Bridger said. “It’s important to Ty, so it’s important to me. I’m here for Francis all the way, cause I know Ty is devoted with all his heart.”

“I saw you kneel at the Jiffy Stop, Bridger Washington. You tell me what that was.”

“We’d come too far through too many hellish nights. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“And he healed your son. And for that, you’re going to follow him.”

“I am.”

Nash reached out his hand. “I’m here with you, brother,” he said, “and I’m here for Ty.”

They shook, confirmed on their intertwined paths.