CHAPTER 79

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Arafa walked the last few hundred yards to the cave. She could drive most of the way from the settlement, but the last bit was too rough, with too many big rocks. There were no roads leading up the mountain, but Arafa had learned to drive at an early age, and she had learned to drive almost as often on roads as off of them.

She wore a loose wrap, light and cool. It covered her dark skin, keeping the worst of the heat from soaking into her. Hassan wore a little tea-shirt bearing the words "Paw-Patrol" and a slew of images of cartoon dogs in various ridiculous outfits.

Up here, in their settlement in the mountains, Arafa did not have to suffer the same restrictions as many women had to. Their community was isolated, purpose built for the purpose of foreign "business" interests. There were Muslims, Christians, and assorted others in the group. None of the practices, common in so much of the rest of the north of Chad, practices that reduced women, existed here. Arafa could drive, she could dress as she pleased. There was no judgment on her for having a little boy who had no father. Arafa did her job, a job that involved sorting certain specialty products for discrete export. She also did her share of time maintaining their private runway for the planes that came and went and were the lifeblood of their simple but idyllic life in a country where so many had to struggle so hard for basic necessities.

She walked up the steep sandstone incline towards the cave. She could hear water dripping already. She looked forward to the coolness of the cave’s interior.

In one hand she held a basket. The basket contained an assortment of food. In her other hand, she held the little fingers of her three-year-old son, Hassan.

They meandered up the path, both feeling secure, even though they were many, many miles from home. There was a blissful kind of serenity about them as they walked.

Arafa was aware that this sense of peace was not of her mind's making. She understood that the being in the cave projected it on her. Consciously, and subconsciously, she knew this. And she did not really mind. Once, every few weeks, she would feel the other mind reaching out to her, across many miles. The other mind would coax and cajole her's. It did not force it. It suggested and tweaked her neurons, persistently but patiently. And once, every few weeks, Arafa would cede some control of her mind to the force and she would take one of the rugged pickup trucks from the settlement, pack a basket with non-perishable food, and drive for more than two hours cross country to this place.

As they neared the cave, the entrance came into view. The big male lion was there. Arafa felt no concern for her safety, or that of her son’s. The lion did not move. It turned its massive, majestic head, to follow her movement towards it. Otherwise, he sat completely still. A beautiful sentry, a borrowed pair of eyes that looked out onto the world.

They walked past the lion, Arafa barely casting a second glance towards it, as they entered the cave. Hassan reached out his little free hand to drag it gently through the powerful animal’s fur. He giggled lowly, almost a gurgle, at the feel of the fur. The lion was like a pet to him, like a big immobile dog. Little Hassan loved dogs.

Powerful African sunlight was suddenly replaced by cool and soothing shadow. Now Arafa could hear the voice of Metis. Her physical voice, not the mental whispers that sometimes crept into her mind as she drifted to sleep at night.

Arafa understood that Metis lived here because she had to. Metis had explained this in a primal sort of way. She had explained it with thoughts, and mental images, but without words. Metis could not live too close to too many people. She could not filter their thoughts and, when they were too near, she could not filter her own projections to them.

With Arafa and little Hassan, it was okay. They were only two. And Metis only compelled them to come so that she could eat, and survive. Hence, the basket.

Metis often spoke with words when Arafa and Hassan visited her. Metis was broken in many ways, and distracted by the distant beacons of millions, if not billions, of minds. She didn't really make sense. She spoke in fragments, voicing part of a thought here, part of a thought there. She always mustered the concentration to thank Arafa for coming. She also, almost always, managed to focus on Hassan long enough to tell him a story or sing him a song. Hassan's little brown eyes were full of pleasure when Metis paid attention to him. He would spend the following days regaling others in the settlement with his own simplified version of Metis's story, or rhythmless cover version of a song. On the occasions when Metis was too scattered to do this for Hassan, the sparkling little brown eyes would be sad for a day, and Arafa's heart would bleed for him.

Their eyes took a while to adjust to the darkness. Outside had been bakingly bright, inside was damply dark. But the exterior was covered in bright sandstones and sand, the light reflected well, and after a time they could see enough. And they could see her.

Metis sat, cross-legged, on a boulder by the little pool that the water ran into. She was the frailest creature Arafa could imagine. Frailer. She had a body that was somewhere between that of an undeveloped little girl and a long weathered old woman. Her thin, whispy hair was long and hung over her face, draped over the faded dress she wore. Arafa had never seen her move. She must move, because the packages of food she had delivered on her last visit were empty. It was hard to imagine how her tiny, skinny limbs, could support movement.

Metis was muttering to herself. This was not unusual. Her head was twitching. This was less unusual, but not strange. As Arafa drew closer to her she could hear the distress in Metis’s voice. Metis did not look up to them. Arafa did not think there would be a song or a story today. She would leave the food and she would go.

She placed the basket on the ground and turned to leave. Metis was having one of her reasonably infrequent spells. Arafa had a sense that these spells were not of Metis's own making. She had come to associate them with outside events. In the Spring and Summer of 2013, Metis had frequently been like this. At that time, thousands were dying in the civil war in far off Syria. In August of 2014, she had been almost paralyzed with some kind of pain. That had been the day after more than 600 people had been killed in an earthquake in China. The list went on from there. Some things, it seemed, even distance couldn't dull for Metis. Pain was something she seemed to feel most keenly of all.

As she tried to leave, Hassan planted his feet. She turned to look down at his little brown face. It was pleading, his eyes already shining with the beginnings of tears. She glanced back to Metis. She was very agitated, but there didn't seem to be pain.

‘Pwease, Mama,' Hassan said. Pwease, not please. He could pronounce it correctly if he tried. He knew her heart was softer when he didn't.

She glanced at Metis and then back to her boy. She said, ‘Okay. But be quiet. Don’t shout.’

Hassan flashed her a beautiful smile. He skipped over to Metis and stood in front of the boulder.

‘Mettie,’ he said, a little peep of a noise.

She did not respond. He looked over his shoulder, showing Arafa the sorrow on his face. Then he turned back to Metis. He toed the sandy cave floor with his shoe, shy, embarrassed. Then he said her name again, his own personal version of it. ‘Mettie?’

Metis seemed to come awake, as from a dream. She blinked her eyes and saw them, her eyelids slowly descending and ascending. The woman seemed lost.

‘Mettie?’ Hassan said again, more hopefully.

Metis settled her eyes on him and a peaceful smile spread across her face. She looked up to Arafa and said, in a voice as weak and fragile as frost on a blade of grass, ‘Thank you.' It was like a whisper.

Arafa smiled and nodded her acknowledgment.

‘Stowie, Mettie?’ Hassan said. Story Mettie?

Metis’s head continued to loll around on her neck, rolling slightly in unpredictable directions. She smiled again, sadly and sincerely.

She spoke, a little more strongly, ‘Once upon a time… Four journeys started. Two from one place, two from two places. One journey was good people going to do something good… To protect a lady who might need help… One was good people going to… Two journeys were bad people… something bad… to hurt the lady, who needed protecting…’

Arafa saw Hassan sink to a sitting position on the floor. This was a classic Metis story, barely connected thoughts and sentences, vague notions that didn’t seem to mean anything. Hassan was always fascinated. Sometimes he added names to the stories when he retold them at the settlement. Sometimes he found parallels between Metis’s stories and the fairy tales Arafa told him at bedtime.

‘One journey was in the air… Secret, secret, secret. Can’t let them see him. He’s too big, too strange… One journey on a metal road, shooting fast… Two old friends, going to see another old friend… One journey was in the air, secret too… On steel wings… Bad people, broken people, who want to hurt the lady… One journey, last one… In the air… Whirling blades lift them, carry them to the lady… These are not bad people… These are not people… They are bad…’

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‘Three journeys point to the same place… A quiet place… A quiet place for a quiet lady… She wants to be alone…’ A tear, sparkling in the light reflected from the cave pool, escaped from Metis’s eye and meandered down her bony cheek. Arafa felt a dread fall over her.

‘Three journeys… One good… Two bad… They come to fight… The bad ones will fight the bad ones… The City of Troy?... Troy… Zeus… Zeus doesn’t come for the lady… He sends his little fingers… His little not-people…’

Hassan leaned forward as Metis fell silent. He said, ‘And?’

Metis sighed, sinking lower in her posture. She said, ‘The good will fight too… All for the lady… Some to keep her free… Some just to keep her…’

She fell silent again. More tears joined the first. Hassan leaned further forward, peering at her. ‘What's the end?'

‘End?...’ Metis asked, wearier even than usual.

‘What's the stowie end?' What's the story's end?

Metis's head stopped its lolling long enough for her to hold Hassan's eyes. She said, with two coherent sentences, her voice suddenly clear, suddenly there, ‘I don't know. It hasn't happened yet.'

CHAPTER 80

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The hum of the propellers was the only thing more constant than the cold. The interior of the cargo compartment of the plane was bare, well-worn and uncomfortable. The lighting was too white and too bright beneath the lights and too dark in the spaces that the sparse lamps could not reach.

Slayer sat alongside Abraham, on the floor of the compartment. The former was staring into the shadows, eyes distant and disengaged. The latter was quickly and efficiently reassembling an assault rifle.

‘Quite the way to travel,’ said Slayer.

Abraham grunted, his eyes flashing to where Homer and Ardia sat, away from them. Homer was crouching low alongside Ardia, the space between them almost nil. In the privacy of the cargo compartment Homer had shed his clumsily assembled shoes and his prehensile toes clasped and unclasped against the smooth floor as he continued his low conversation with Ardia.

Abraham said, ‘Thank him for that.’

Slayer shifted and said, ‘Ah, I don’t mind, really. I’ve gotten around in much worse ways than this. And it’s private. It’s nice to be able to bring real gear along.’ A small assortment of firearms were arranged around the two men and Slayer patted a rifle respectfully as he said this.

Abraham just grunted again.

Razmik emerged from the door that led to the pilot’s cabin. He looked down at the two men with the weapons, then to Ardia and Homer. He nodded very slightly to himself.

To Slayer, he said, ‘The pilot says we have an hour or so left. Before we land, I think it would be best if you shared a little more about this woman that it is so essential we go to.’

Slayer spread his palms on his lap and said, ‘What do you want to know?’

Razmik hunkered down with them and said, ‘You said she has certain… mental powers?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what confuses me is this. If she has these powers, and you say that they are extensive, then why can't she protect herself? First, you would lead me to believe she is very dangerous, then as though she is helpless. I'm afraid she really needs to be one or the other.'

Slayer said, ‘It’s not as simple as that, Razmik. Metis is strong. Maybe the strongest of all of the things I’ve ever seen.’

Razmik caught his eye and then looked towards the woman and the beast conspiring at the other end of the compartment. He raised an eyebrow in a gesture of disbelief, of scorn even.

‘No,’ said Slayer. ‘I mean it. Metis isn’t like them. Metis isn’t like anyone. The kind of power she has, and I have no real idea of its limits, Razmik, it’s almost unbelievable. She’s like a weapon of mass destruction.’

Razmik looked to the ceiling and inhaled deeply. He said, ‘Then why does she need our help? Be clear please, Damien. You rushed us into all of this, and I mean no disrespect, but I feel like I'm in the dark. That leaves me exceedingly uncomfortable.'

Slayer said, ‘It’s hard to explain. Metis’s powers. Her ability to feel what others feel, and her ability to make them think and do things… The ability, I think, is bigger than she is. She can’t filter what comes in or goes out. She has this incredible weapon, but she doesn’t know how to use it. Hell, it mightn’t even be something that can be learned. It might be bigger than a human mind can contain. It’s hard to explain, Razmik. Until you’ve been touched by it, you can’t understand it. I can understand your skepticism.’

Razmik batted the air as if to ward off the notion. He said, ‘I did not say I was skeptical. When beings like our two friends over there can exist, psychic powers are not such a stretch.’

‘Still a bit of a stretch, though, I can tell.'

Razmik smiled, bobbed his head, shrugged. He said, ‘I believe it. At least I can conduct this effort as though I believe it. Yes, I may have to experience this thing before I really believe, but I can suspend real doubt for a time. Ardia is very much invested in this notion, that’s good enough. Now, tell me, if she can’t control this power then is she a danger to us.’

‘No. Not really. She has some control. Stress. Stress and crowds. These are the things that make her abilities dangerous. Not just her own, but the stressful feelings of anyone can make her less stable. Proximity to too many people sets her off. That’s why I moved her into the mountains. She needs distance from people. I think other minds, too close to her, create a background noise that she can’t control. With that comes too many emotions. But, it’s all guessing.’

‘And again, Damien, why can’t she protect herself. If someone or someones are going to hurt her, are they not in the greatest danger of all.’

Slayer looked away from Razmik and pursed his lips. His eyes darted around, searching for words. He said, ‘You won’t like my explanation here, but it’s a gut thing.’

‘You’re right,’ said Abraham. ‘Raz won’t like that.’

Slayer said, ‘I’ve spent time with her. A fair bit of it, when you add it up. I believed, and continue to believe, that she comes from the same source as your special friends over there, as the thing that attacked me and the same source that produced the creature I call Prowler.’

‘The thing that killed this Penny,’ said Razmik.

Stryker nodded. He said, ‘I spent a long time with her, in her cave, trying to interrogate her. No, that’s the wrong word. Trying to coax information out of her. She speaks in little bursts, little bits of thoughts, and those thoughts aren’t always very well glued together. But I’m fairly certain of a few… I won’t call them facts… Let’s call them concepts.’

Razmik had been drumming his fingers on his thighs for a time. Abraham, noticing this, produced a cigarette from some unknown source, and passed it to the older man. Lighting it, Razmik's agitation seemed to dissipate.

Slayer continued, ‘Okay. So, she escaped from someone. I have heard her use one name on more than one occasion. Troy.'

Razmik nodded, watching him intently now.

‘Troy is some figure from her past. She speaks of him mostly with fear, sometimes with affection. Mostly fear. I think Troy has a way of hurting her. The way she reacts to the idea of his presence, I’d have to be certain of it. He has a way of neutralizing her. He must have, if he kept her captive in the past.’

‘And this Troy, that’s who we’re going to protect her from.’

Slayer nodded, ‘I think so. It would make sense, wouldn't it? If he had her, wouldn't it stand to reason he might have others like her? Like that thing, Prometheus, that got inside my head. And the other one, Hyperion, the one like Homer.'

Razmik’s head was nodding along to its own rhythm now. He was assembling the ideas himself. He said, ‘So it stands to reason that Troy has something to do with Homer’s origin as well.’

‘And Ardia’s,’ said Slayer.

Abraham shook his head fervently, ‘You have no reason to say that. She’s not like any of those freaks. I mean, look at her. She’s perfect. You have no reason to think she’s got anything to do with them.’

Slayer said, ‘Yes I do. Homer, her and Stryker. They all have the feel of The Crucible.'

‘Yeah,’ said Abraham, ‘you’ve mentioned that before. What’s it got to do with?’

Slayer cocked an eyebrow. He could feel bad humor in the Israeli man's voice, but he couldn't imagine its source. It was counter to the impression he'd already gained of this usually jovial man.

‘I think it has to do with everything.’

‘Everything?’ Razmik asked.

‘Everything. The Crucible, whatever it is, is the source of all of them. Prometheus and Hyperion, I can remember feeling it off of them too. During my long hunt for Prowler, I’ve felt it many times.’

‘And how does this feeling it thing work?’ asked Abraham, disassembling the last rifle.

‘I don’t know. Metis put it in my head. Even though she couldn’t quite get the details across, I can tell she feels that the Crucible is something very, very important. She got that much across, and she went to a massive effort to do something to my mind, to give me that ability to detect traces of it.’

‘Important how?’ Razmik asked, eyes narrowed.

‘Think about it. The Crucible played some kind of pivotal role in making Homer, and Ardia. And it made a real monster when it made Prowler. And Metis, she's got a good heart, but her powers can be something a little less pleasant…'

Razmik nodded suddenly, understanding, ‘Or put it to work making ten things like her. Or a hundred. For that matter, make a few hundred Homers. Good God, you're talking about a weapon.'

Slayer said, ‘And, talking to Metis, a big one. A terrible one. She doesn't get complete ideas across well, but the idea she's left me with, it's that The Crucible might be one of the most dangerous things in the world.'

The three men were silent then. They huddled together, each thinking. Slayer staring at his boots, marveling at the comfort he felt in sharing these things with someone again, after so long. Razmik puffing lazily at the cigarette, mental gears spinning rapidly as they processed the new concepts. Abraham's face stolid, his eyes narrowed, staring down the length of the compartment to where the other two figures were immersed deeply in their own conversation, oblivious to the rest of them.

When the voice came, they all heard it crisply and clearly. It was not exactly that it was louder than the buzz of the engines and the vibrations of the craft. It was as though it eliminated those noises for a few moments. The voice was weak, and each of them gained the impression that it came from a long distance away. Only Slayer knew the voice, recognizing the touch of Metis's mind immediately.

‘Please help me…. Come quickly, please. They are coming too... Quickly…’