Then
A few weeks later Cal had mostly recovered physically. The scars were already fading. The headaches were gone. The mental wounds were another matter.
He sat listlessly with a mostly ignored bottle of cold beer in his hand in Remy’s backyard, while his nieces were sparring with an alarming level of intensity. Remy manned the grill, burgers. The sight and smell of the red meat gave Cal an uncomfortable feeling in his gut. He loved meat, especially burgers, but he just couldn’t handle it at the moment.
Nila and Megan where in the kitchen, probably doing stuff with fruits and vegetables.
“You’re not looking too good,” Remy said.
“PTSD,” Cal grunted.
“Don’t even joke about that.”
“I’m not.”
Remy nodded. “Veronica!” He barked. “I thought I told you to go no more than fifty percent.”
“But dad! Tessa’s going harder.”
“Tessa! Fifty percent or no more sparring!” Remy warned.
“They should probably be going harder,” Cal said. “There’s a lot of dangers out there. I underestimated the level.”
“Agreed, however this is a family barbecue day. They can go a hundred percent during actual training sessions,” Remy sighed. “Did I tell you about Tessa taking a shot at one of those wyverns?”
Cal’s eyes widened. Life came back into him, if just a little.
“Yeah, my reaction too.”
“Did… did she hit it?”
“Missed. Luckily she was in city limits and the wyvern didn’t chase.”
“I wonder if she could’ve taken it down.” Cal tried to do the calculations in his mind and gave up. His thoughts were too distracted.
“Probably. You can cut their skin with your flying knives. She can accelerate chunks of metal at a significantly faster speed.” Remy’s tone was a mixture of exasperation and pride.
“I guess we have to work on her aim.”
“Yeah, just don’t tell Megan.”
“Don’t tell me what?” Remy’s wife came out of he house bearing a large bowl of salad.
“My plans,” Cal said with a sad smile. “I can’t share the details. Plausible deniability for you guys.”
“Cal, maybe you should take some time off. No plans, no fighting. Just recharge your batteries. You’ve done more than enough,” Megan said. “The kids would love to hang out with their uncle more.”
“I’ve been trying to tell him that.” Nila appeared with a bottle of juice in one hand, a huge stack of plates in the other and a tray of freshly sliced fruits balanced on her head.
“You look ridiculous,” Cal grinned up at her.
“Powers aren’t just for fighting,” Nila shrugged.
“Alright, these burgers are almost done. Anyone want toasted buns? Melted cheese?”
“Me!” Tessa and Veronica said in unison.
“No cheese for me.” Nila started setting the table.
“Can you do both for me, hon?” Megan took the tray from Nila’s head.
“Sure thing.” Remy looked to Cal. “What about you?”
“Both… but can I get my burger well done?”
Remy raised a brow. “Weird and blasphemous, but no problem.”
It was a pleasant afternoon. The sun was shining. It was hot, but that was what the water balloon fight was for. Cal cheated, naturally. Hard to get a guy when he could send the balloons right back with the power of his mind. He stopped using his power when he realized that those getting drenched in cool water weren’t the actual losers.
Cal smiled for the benefit of his family, but a part of him wasn’t fully present. He couldn’t take his mind off what he had done to Flo and her family.
The day passed to dusk. The kids had to clean themselves. The adults had to clean up.
Cal sat at the backyard table with Remy sharing some beers.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do if the grocery stores stop working.” Cal took a long pull.
“It’s just beer, dude. People have been brewing forever. I’m sure someone will keep it going in that scenario,” Remy said. “Wait? Didn’t you use to make your own beer?”
“Nah, it was more of starter kit thing. The hard parts came prepackaged.”
Cal fell silent as Remy glanced at him with worry.
“Listen, Cal. I know you’re blaming yourself over everything that happened with the girl and her family, but don’t forget that I was fighting on the street with you. It’s at least half my fault. I mean we have no idea which one of us threw the gremlin alpha into their house.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, Rem. It was me. I sent the alpha crashing into their house. I was directly responsible for three deaths that night and dozens more over the last year or so. I was careless, should’ve checked for innocent bystanders first and after. I took the power for granted.” Cal held a hand to forestall his brother’s protest. “Detective Ordonez confirmed it. Her skills give her a Sherlock-like vision. She pieced together what happened with all the evidence we left on that street.”
“Okay. That’s pretty… definitive. I guess.”
“Thanks for trying.”
“You still can’t take this all on your shoulders.”
“Kind of do. That’s what comes with the power. I can’t be selfish. Can’t mess up. The effects ripple. I owe it to the Brownings and all the innocents that died as a result of that night.”
“So, I guess I can’t talk you out of what you’re planning for later,” Remy sighed.
“Is it that obvious?” Cal frowned.
“I knew something was up, but credit Nila for figuring it out. I just want to remind you that you are currently banned from crossing the river and that I agreed with the temp governor that they got the… bodies.”
“Well, they can’t stop me and I didn’t make that deal. Besides, they’ve had them for a couple weeks already. I don’t believe that your agreement carried any length of time specifications.”
“Look, man. I agree with you, but just be prepared for some political blowback.”
“Good thing I don’t care about politics.”
“Yeah, if only we were all so lucky,” Remy said. He considered it and finished the rest of his bottle in one go. “So, how’re you going to get past the checkpoint?”
“I’m not. I’m going over the river. It occurred to me that I need to get over my fear of heights. I’ve got enough power now. Had I done so sooner, I might’ve caught up to Flo before she tore through the capitol.”
----------------------------------------
Cal didn’t look down as he flew over the wide river. He wasn’t particularly concerned about being spotted. The night was dark and people stayed indoors after the sun dropped down into the west.
He knew exactly where he was going and traveling in a straight line took less than a couple of minutes.
The county coroner’s building was lit up more than most. Torches lined the outer perimeter and he saw lantern lights in some of the windows.
This time Cal had no choice but to look down as he floated above some one hundred feet in the air. The air was cooler than at ground level, not that it made a difference to him. A hundred degrees felt like the high seventies. While a fifty degree night felt about the same.
He noted a pair of guards posted at the front entrance while more patrolled around the building. He reached out with his telepathy and confirmed that there were guards inside as well. The interim government was definitely going to be upset after he was done here.
Cal used his telepathy to mask his presence from the guards. It was simple enough once he figured out how to do it. He felt a little guilty about the violation of their personal privacy. After all was their anything more sacred than a person’s own thoughts? He walked right by them. He blocked their minds from registering his presence even when the front door squealed loudly as he pulled it open.
He did the same to all of the guards he encountered inside the building. All the way to the morgue where he knew the bodies were kept. He had gleaned the information from the guards’ minds. He went full big brother on this particular night. It was a worthy cause. The Brownings deserved peace. They deserved to be together.
As he walked down the long, empty corridors toward the morgue room he sensed two people waiting for him. He pushed the double doors open and a blast of frigid air hit him, it felt like a cool breeze.
“So, I didn’t see this coming. I’m legitimately interested in hearing how you knew I was coming,” Cal said.
Detective Ordonez glared at him.
Jake shrugged.
“I’m honestly glad to see that you’re okay… mostly,” Cal said. He didn’t glance at the prosthetic at the detective’s left knee, nor at the phone on the end of Jake's left wrist. Cal pointed. “Why a cell phone?”
“It’s better than a hook. Plus I got my mana shield ready at all times. Don’t have to pull it out of my pocket.” Jake grinned weakly. He was noticeably thinner. His face had lost the remnants of baby fat.
“Sorry I didn’t check in on you guys,” Cal said.
“Because you’re banned, Cruces,” Detective Ordonez said. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
“You probably already have the answer to that question. It’s why you’re waiting for me, right? Seriously, your Skills told you exactly when I was coming?”
“Sorta,” Jake shrugged. “We’ve actually been freezing our asses off for like the last five days, like all night long. So, I for one, would like to thank you for finally showing up.”
“How did you get past the guards?” Detective Ordonez stared intently at Cal.
“Don’t blame them. Guard duty is dull and tedious. It’s easy for their minds to wander and get a little confused.”
“Oh my god!” Jake smiled. “I knew it! You’re a Jedi!”
“Yeah, no,” Cal laughed.
“You totally Jedi mind tricked them! These are not the droids you are looking for,” Jake waved his right hand across Cal’s face.
“Gates, shut up.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Sure, why not?” Cal snorted. “I pulled a Jedi mind trick.” He waved a hand in front of the detective’s and Jake’s faces. “You will ignore my presence.”
“I don’t like repeating myself, Cruces,” Detective Ordonez said flatly.
“I’m here to take Flo and Freddie away for a proper burial. I know exactly where Flo buried the… remains of her family and they should be together. You’ve had them for a few weeks now. I figure you’ve done enough autopsies and got enough info for whatever research purposes you have. I’m taking them away.”
The silence stretched for several long seconds, but Cal wasn’t concerned. He wasn’t sensing any real aggression in the detective.
“There and there,” Detective Ordonez pointed at two closed morgue cabinet doors. “Their bodies are in there.”
Cal didn’t waste any time. He opened the doors and pulled the slabs out with his telekinesis. The body bags were zipped up. He unzipped them to confirm their contents. The Browning siblings where still in their Eater forms. His heart sank. No peace in death. He noticed the stitching across their torsos.
“The organs. Where?”
Detective Ordonez frowned.
“They’re in the other room,” Jake jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. The detective shot him a displeased look. “Sorry, boss. It’s messed up to just treat them like science projects. That was Flo and I know she was actually the Midtown Mauler this whole time, but she basically only killed bad dudes and she killed a whole bunch of monsters, which saved people. So, I guess there’s like a balance. The good outweighs the bad sort of thing.”
Cal wasn’t entirely sure if he agreed with the assessment. Part of him did, but part of him felt that it was wrong on some level.
“They’re in a bunch of jars and…” Jake waved his cellphone hand.
“Just point them out to me and I’ll take care of it.”
Cal followed Jake into the next room. There were a couple of dozen specimen jars with various organs floating in a preservative liquid. He felt sick looking at them. Jake was right on that account. The sum total of two people treated as something to study and exploit was just wrong.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Cal gathered them with his telekinesis. He floated them back into the main room and proceeded to place the organs into the body bag that they belonged to. The meticulous labels made it easy. When he was done he zipped up the bags and levitated them with his telekinesis.
“Thank you. If you get in trouble, tell your bosses that I forced you to help,” Cal said.
“We’re going with you,” Detective Ordonez said. “Don’t give me that look. What’re you going to do? Walk all the way there while floating them behind you? Don’t be stupid. I’ve got a truck.”
“Actually I’m not planning to walk. I’ve got a faster way and if you want to come then you’ll have to really trust me,” Cal said.
“I trust that you won’t act against your best interest,” Detective Ordonez said.
“Okay. Good thing you’ve got those parkas. It’s going to get cold.”
They went out the back way. Timed exactly between the two roving patrols. Cal telekinetically picked everyone up and rose into the air.
“Holy ballsacs! This ain’t no Jedi shit!” Jake waved his arms and legs in panic.
“Relax and enjoy the flight,” Cal said.
Detective Ordonez crossed her arms and glared.
Cal looked away to hide his smirk. A slight tinge of pain in his brain signaled that perhaps he shouldn’t take his time. He went up to about fifty feet and took off at the fastest speed that wasn’t harmful to his two living passengers.
As the crow flies truly was the quickest way to get to a destination.
They made excellent time and the flight was over almost as soon as it started. Cal brought them down near a high point above a lake. Down into a thick copse of trees. He had seen the exact spot when he was in Flo’s head.
“Oh man. That was awesome, but scary.” Jake patted the grass as soon as his feet touched the ground.
“Folsom Lake,” Detective Ordonez said.
“You don’t miss a thing do you?” Cal shook his head.
Cal pointed at the base of the largest tree in their immediate area. Underneath its sprawling branches three graves marked by makeshift crosses and stones that had been pounded into the ground.
Detective Ordonez hobbled over to shine her lantern light over the graves. The names of the Brownings had been cleanly cut into the largest, flattest stones at the head of each grave.
While the detective and Jake took in the graves, Cal raised his arms and started gathering dried twigs and branches from the ground in a wide circle around him. When that wasn’t enough he pulled pulled branches from each of the trees. He didn’t strip them bare, just took a branch or two. He broke the larger ones into smaller pieces as he floated them into a large pile. He then swept a wide area of ground clear of fallen leaves.
“What are you doing?” Jake ambled over to stand near Cal.
“Building a pyre.”
“Can’t we just bury them?”
“He thinks there’s a chance they might not actually stay dead,” Detective Ordonez said.
“That’s kinda crazy.”
“I can’t rule out the possibility,” Cal said. “Also, I’ve grown paranoid over the last few years.”
“True, can’t rule anything out now that magic is real,” Jake nodded. “Can I help? My dad used to make me go camping a lot when I was younger. I can probably get the fire going. Looks pretty dry out here. Probably use my shock spell on low.”
“Thanks, but I got it covered.” Cal pointed to the can of gasoline on the ground.
“Where’d that come from?” Jake narrowed his eyes. Then came to a realization. “Jedi mind tricks. I never saw you carrying that.” He pointed a finger at Cal. “You were masking it from my notice.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Gates. You just weren’t paying attention. The can was out by the back door. He picked it up when we were leaving.”
“To be fair I had other things on my mind, like the flying through the air thing.”
“What did I tell you about paying attention to your surroundings?”
Jake narrowed his eyes. “To pay attention to my surroundings?”
Cal didn’t waste any time. He piled the wood up and doused it with the gasoline. He then took the body bags that contained Flo and Freddie, opened them and respectfully placed them side-by-side on top of the wood pile. He did the same with their organs, making sure to place them with their rightful owner. He couldn’t remember if the preservative liquid was flammable. It would be helpful if they were, but not critical.
He took the matches out of his pocket and started the pyre by lighting small fires around the bodies.
“Okay… I’m seeing you moving shit around without actually moving. That’s totally what Jedi do.”
Cal ignored Jake. “Anyone want to say anything?” There was silence. “I guess I’ll go first then. I didn’t know Flo and Freddie. They did horrible things. Hurt and killed many. But they were children and I can’t hold them fully responsible. I was responsible. I’m an adult. My actions led to all of this. Even if it wasn’t my intent, I have to accept that I failed them. Flo, Freddie…” His gaze drifted over to the silent graves. “All the Brownings. The innocents on that block. All the others. All on me. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that don’t judge them too harshly.” His gaze went up to the sky.
“Um… I’ll go next.” Jake cleared his throat. “Flo was cool. She fought a lot of monsters for us. We couldn’t have cleared most of the bigger encounters and spawns without her. She hated my guts, but it totally makes sense now. We did her family wrong. I’m not saying I’m cool with her being the mauler and all, but I guess I can understand it. I don’t know much about Freddie, but he was basically a baby. It’s messed up what happened to him. So, even though he ate my hand I can’t really blame him too much. Like you said.” He glanced over at Cal.
“I’m pretty sure it’s alright for you to still be pissed off about it,” Cal said. “Just put the blame on those that deserve it.”
“Nah, dude. I don’t blame you. If anything it’s the spires’ fault for turning them into monsters.”
“She wasn’t a monster. Not entirely.”
While he stoked the flames from a distance, Cal turned to Detective Ordonez. “What do you mean?”
The detective hesitated. There was a troubled expression on her face. “You need to understand, Cruces. That I’m not absolving you for your role in this.”
“It’s funny that you still think I’m looking for absolution. Let alone from you,” Cal said.
“My Detective abilities have improved as a result of successfully completing the Quest.” Detective Ordonez didn’t hide the distaste on her face. “It led me to a clearer picture of the entire Midtown Mauler case. I looked at the evidence again, discovered some things. Spent the last week looking deeper into the mauler’s vics. There was a pattern, which led me to believe that not all the killings attributed to the mauler were her doing.”
“I saw as much in her memories,” Cal nodded. “The warriors and magic users she killed weren’t exactly innocent people. They did or were doing some bad things to others. She killed them and only took enough… meat… to satisfy the barest minimum of her hunger, while the rest she brought back to the basement where she kept Freddie locked up. Made the remains look like monster attacks. She thought it’d hide her tracks. Except it worked the opposite way. Every monster attack became the newly-christened Midtown Mauler’s fault.”
“Which put me on the trail,” Detective Ordonez nodded. “Why didn’t you mention this?”
“You wouldn’t have believed me. You would’ve assumed I was trying to lessen the blame on me. I knew you had to come to the conclusion on your own.”
“Then tell me if the rest of what I discovered is factual. Flo had an ulterior motive the entire time. She signed up with us because she was looking for the ones responsible for what happened to her family. When my task force to find the mauler was formed. She was a natural pick. She was the only one with the strength to face the mauler once we found it. It also allowed her to keep ahead of the investigation. It wasn’t a coincidence that the killings moved away from the core areas of our territory as the investigation went on.”
Cal nodded.
“Except, she was starting to lose control of her other side. When you joined it tipped her over the edge. She knew about you and your brother, but she didn’t know which one was to blame. And there you were. She had to work with you on an almost daily basis. A reminder of what she had lost. The investigation was getting too close, so she tried to move Freddie out of her family’s basement. Something went wrong. He escaped.”
“He surprised her with his speed and strength,” Cal said. “She lost him.”
“The first gang massacre?” Jake said. “That was him, right? That’s why it was so different from the others.”
“Freddie was like an animal caged up for a long time. All the scents, tastes and sounds drove him into a frenzy.” Cal didn’t say that he had experienced the entire thing from Freddie’s point of view. “He ate his fill then went to sleep it off. Flo was frantic. She had to balance searching for him, while still fulfilling her task force duties.”
“That’s why she decided to kill the other gangs in the same way. She figured they were bad enough people and she needed to confuse the trail. That’s when Freddie got hungry,” Detective Ordonez said. “Which is where we found him in that block.”
“So, when Flo showed up and chased him down. She actually caught him and put him in that house across the street from theirs. Why not take him further away?” Jake said.
“Despite everything, Flo was still a teenage girl,” Detective Ordonez said. “She couldn’t leave the last reminders of her family.”
“And Freddie did better, which might not be saying much, by being closer to home. A part of him still remembered,” Cal said softly.
“Okay, so I get she attacked us cause we found Freddie, but why didn’t she finish us off? Why’d she attack the capitol?”
“That was my fault, Gates,” Detective Ordonez ground her teeth. “I must’ve drawn her attention somehow when I started digging into her history.”
“It was probably as simple as her overhearing you say something. She had superior hearing, could probably hear you talking from outside the building,” Cal said.
“That was one of the possibilities I considered. In the course of that investigation I discovered that you got bad intelligence from us. That the entire neighborhood the Browning’s home was in was abandoned when it obviously wasn’t. I can only suspect that Flo was somewhere close enough to listen in on that entire conversation.”
“That’s when she got confirmation for what she had started to suspect about the interim government and my involvement in what happened to her family,” Cal sighed. “It was the last straw.”
Silence fell over the group as the flames continued to rise. It wasn’t until nearly an hour later while Cal continued to feed branches into the fire that the detective spoke again.
“What would you do if I arrested you?”
“For?” Cal raised a brow.
“Negligent homicide.”
“Will you arrest your leaders as well?”
The detective’s silence was the answer he expected.
“I suppose that’s my answer.”
“Then what of your talk about responsibility. The moment you get a chance to live up to those words you refuse,” Detective Ordonez snapped. “Society doesn’t work when people place themselves above the law. It’s the only way to maintain order. Otherwise it’s anarchy and chaos. Just because you have power, you place yourself on the outside. And this is what happens.” She swung an arm toward the blazing pyre. “People died.”
“Look, I’m too tired to get into a debate about law and order versus control. Suffice to say, people with power have placed themselves outside the law for all of history. It’s no secret that there were a different set of rules for people depending on how much money or connections they had or even something so stupid as the color of their skin.” Cal locked eyes with the detective. “I know you’re smart enough to acknowledge that as fact.”
“Will you turn yourself in if I also arrest those responsible for your faulty orders?”
“No,” Cal said flatly. “The reality is you’ll just serve up a bunch of scapegoats. Your leadership will skate on by like always. Then I won’t get a fair trial. You’ll put me in jail. Then you’ll come up with an offer I can’t refuse. Work for you and my sentence gets reduced. Kill a monster, that’s a few weeks off. Got a problem with people refusing to fall in line? Send me out to scare them into compliance. That’s a month off.”
“That’s true, bro,” Jake chimed in. “You’ll totally get Task Force X-ed.”
Detective Ordonez shot him daggers.
“Errr… sorry…”
“It might be about law and order for you, but for most everyone you’re taking orders from it’s about power and control,” Cal said. “Despite my mistakes in this case. I think I’ve proved that I’ve done more good for more people than if I had been blindly following orders from randos.”
The truth in his words struck Cal like a bolt of lightning on a clear day. For the first time in weeks the clouds shrouding his mind parted a little.
“A government’s legitimacy is determined by their ability to force it on their populace. Isn’t that a saying?”
Cal’s words were about as subtle as a clumsy punch to face, but he decided to leave it at that. He remained silent the rest of the night as the cleansing fire burned away Flo’s and Freddie’s bodies until only ash and a few bones remained.
Cal scattered the ashes to the wind with a powerful gust of telekinesis. He dug two graves next to the other Brownings and placed Flo and Freddie’s remains inside. While he filled the soil back in he pulled small and medium-sized stones out of the nearby lake and shoved them into the ground over the graves, copying what Flo had done. He did same for the wooden crosses. Lastly, he took a hammer and chisel to a pair of large flat stones and carved their names. It was a bit cruder than what Flo had done for her family. When he was finished he fixed the stones at the head of the graves.
Cal did everything without moving from where he was standing.
“I know this is a solemn moment,” Jake began, “but your Jedi powers are awesome! Master level!”
“Not a Jedi,” Cal said. “Any last words for them.”
“Rest in peace,” Jake said.
Detective Ordonez opened her mouth. Then closed it. She bowed her head and clasped her hands together.
Cal made the sign of the cross and said several silent prayers. Basically all the ones he remembered from his Catholic school days. It was fitting. The Brownings happened to be the same as him. He hadn’t shared this fact with the other two.
With that done, Cal buried the last of fire’s embers and lifted up into the air with Detective Ordonez and Jake in tow.
Cal dropped the two off a block away from the coroner’s office. His brain was starting to hurt and he didn’t want to risk revealing his presence to the patrolling guards now that he wasn’t confident he had the strength to fly and conceal himself at the same time.
“Hey, man. I don’t want to sound ungrateful or anything, but could you maybe drop us off closer. We’re not exactly ready to fight any monsters that might be lurking in the dark,” Jake said. “We’re crip—” His eyes darted to Detective Ordonez. “I’m kinda disabled.” He waved his phone hand.
“Don’t worry. No monsters anywhere nearby,” Cal said. A thought struck him. “Can I borrow your notepad?”
Detective Ordonez narrowed he eyes, but handed it and a pencil over. Cal scribbled down a name.
“She’s part of Davis’ research team.”
“What are you researching?” Detective Ordonez’s instincts told her that Cal was revealing something important.
“All things spire related,” Cal shrugged. “Anyways. She was a robotics student at the college or something like that. Point is maybe you guys can collaborate and come up with some sort of magical science prosthesis.”
“I don’t get it,” Jake said.
“Dude, you’re basically a magical programmer. I’m pretty sure that there are magical limb spells out there. Combine that with cybernetic prosthesis.”
“Magi-tech!” Jake brightened. “Yeah! I bet there’s a mage hand-type spell. If that exists then why not a mage leg?” He grinned at the detective. “We can even add weapons and shit!”
“I’ll let her, them, know you’re interested in a project together,” Cal said. “Good luck.”
Cal flew up into the night sky. The darkness swallowed him up quickly.
He landed in front of his home and walked in the door. Nila was waiting for him. She was eating a big bowl of fried rice at the table.
It was already on the wrong side of midnight.
“I smell wood smoke…” Nila sniffed, “and gasoline. I guess everything worked out.”
“Yeah,” Cal nodded. “How was the patrol?”
“Boring. Mutant animals and little gremlins run away from me. Didn’t run into any of the human-sized gremlins.”
“I guess that’s a good thing.”
“Things have definitely gotten quieter with how much stronger our people are getting. The actual weapon training is really starting to pay off.”
“We got lucky Hannah decided to come down here,” Cal agreed. “An actual Swordswoman was a godsend find.”
“Hey, Cal. We’re taking a vacation,” Nila said abruptly. “No arguments. I’ve settled it. They can do without either of us for a few weeks now that thinks are quiet and,” she hesitated, “the mauler case has been resolved. I’ve planned it all out. Now that you aren’t scared to fly we can bypass all the check points in the city and head straight to Tahoe. We can grab whatever supplies we need from the stores up there. I even got one of the satellite phones so that Remy can contact us in an emergency.”
“Thank god for satellites still working… most of the time,” Cal said. “But Nila. Tahoe is under the interim government’s control. I’m banned.”
“Not the northern half. I’m sure there are a ton of empty homes up there,” she pushed a sheet of paper over to Cal. “I even got the addresses for properties owned by companies since I know you’re leery about using privately owned places even if the owners are gone.”
“We have no way of knowing if they’re dead,” Cal sighed. “It just feels wrong to live in a house that belonged to someone else. Especially if they were killed. I’m not staying in a murder house unless there was no other choice.”
“Cal.” Nila took his hand. “You need a break. We need a break. It’s been one fight after another for over four years. You can’t do that forever. Look at it this way. How useful are you if you’re head is in a dark place?”
“Okay… agreed. When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow. After that headache of yours is gone.”
“Nila, you do know that if there hasn’t been a human presence in the wilderness that there are probably a lot of mutant animals. Bears, mountain lions and coyotes. I can’t even imagine how big the mutant fish in the lake have gotten.”
Nila shrugged. “So, we get some Universal Points while we’re on vacation. Win-win!” She smiled.
The darkness in Cal lifted a bit more as a small smile lifted his lips.