The Zygan Emprise: Renegade Paladins and Abyssal Redemption (62 page)

I’d snuck one of the Billy and Andi pictures
out of the album and tried to catch each of my sibs in private and
see what they saw in the photo. No, I didn’t lead them on, didn’t
hint. They all claimed—pretended--to see our parents.

The photo went into my jeans pocket, right
under my Ergal, saved for Spud and his eagle eyes.

Because of my ‘illness’, Connie suggested we
wait another day before the hike to Sugarloaf. I wouldn’t have it.
I was dreading the memorial, and the bitter barbs I expected to
hear from Connie and George about John’s decision to strike out on
his own. “Let’s do what we have to do,” I insisted, pulling on my
sneakers and donning my windbreaker.

We set off, Connie carrying the ornate urn
with John’s ashes. I noted some runic symbols in the design—one or
two reminded me of characters I had seen on Benedict’s planet ship,
on the non-Zygan communications equipment we’d tried to use to
escape our captors. I took a quick photo with my Ergal. Another
item to file for further study with Spud.

At the base of Sugarloaf, Connie and George
scattered the last of John’s remains. I was grateful that, despite
my fears, the eulogies remained positive and inspirational, and no
one sang “Dust in the Wind”. And, that I didn’t cry.

I let the gang know at dinner I’d be
returning to Malibu the next morning. Glancing in the direction
from where John’s plea for rescue had emanated only a few days ago,
I saw that Tom, Connie’s fiancé, was sitting in John’s chair at our
table. Life moves on, and so must I.

“Can I come see you?” Andi whispered.

“Won’t have time to hang with you in
Vegas—I’ll be marketing our show the whole time at the Con,” I had
to answer, but I promised her she could spend a few weeks with me
at my beach house as soon as her school year was over, and that we
could fly back together in July for Connie’s wedding.

Kris declared that she’d stop by our booth at
SingularityCon and market her new album—I mean ‘say hi.’ Her
boyfriend, Mettle singer Elijah DiFiero, had just been cast in a
few webisodes from the zombie graphic novel
Hideous Undead
,
and would be manning one of the nearby display tables for a few
hours during the weekend of the convention.

“He’ll be scoring, too,” Kris gushed.

I smiled politely, and returned an “Of
course.”

I hoped they didn’t pick up that I just
couldn’t sell it—the warm, fuzzy family thing; I felt as if this
entire day, all my conversations, this dinner, was actually on the
set of a streaming reality show, and I was going up
on—forgetting--my lines.

Maybe Connie was right. Maybe I still had
that fever and this whole family scene was a delusion--that sudden
thought made me scan the room for any sign of the Plegma’s Mel.

I hadn’t even realized I was shedding tears.
To my shock, it was Kris who put an arm around me and gave me a
worried hug. I shook my head and dabbed at my eyes with my napkin.
“I’m okay. Just tired.” I excused myself from the table with a
forced smile and headed upstairs.

* * *

No, I couldn’t resist a last look at John’s
room.

Empty. Everything was gone. Well, except for
the curtains, the desk, and the bed. But, John’s books, his files,
his disks, his mementoes. Nothing. The room was clean, and recently
dusted, “ready for its next occupant”. Lives—like hotel
guests--move on.

The only trace of my brother remained in my
memory. And in the urn that someone—Connie?—had lain on its side in
a dark corner of the room.

I took the urn to my room, and hid it under
my windbreaker. Driven by a sudden thought, I snuck back down the
stairs without disturbing the vibrant jabbering at the dinner
table. Alone in the den, I dove for the photo album that had had
the most pictures of John.

A sigh of relief. Still there. Still smiling.
Still “alive”. The Moto Guzzo photo joined the other snapshot in my
jeans. Just for me to cry over and remember.

* * *

Las Vegas—two and a half weeks later

I’d agreed to meet Spud at the exhibitor’s
check-in table at the Las Vegas Convention Center at 7:30 am on
opening day of SingularityCon. He seemed to have grown another inch
during the three weeks he’d been in England, I observed, as he bent
down to meet my eyes with a questioning gaze.

I patted his arm and let him know I was doing
okay.

“Of course,” he responded to my nosy question
about passing his finals. “And I shan’t be taking a gap year
either. I have placed at Sidney Sussex.” A beat. “The University of
Cambridge.”

“All about networking,” I muttered, adding
upon catching his frown, “The old school tie.”

He snorted. “No, rather, my
vitae
,
building my
repertoire
.

Ergal, do your work. “Getting skills and
adding to your resumé?”

A hint of annoyance. “That is what I just
said.”

“Escott, Rush,” cried Simon Carter, the
“hawt” star of
Bulwark
, dressed in the uniform of successful
Hollywood, a black turtleneck and tailored slacks and jacket. “Our
booth is near the morning panels; hurry and you’ll be just in time
to start your pitching.”

Spud and I both rolled our eyes. For once, we
were exactly on the same page. Marketing’s a pitch.

* * *

Apparently,
Bulwark
fans weren’t the
type to show up—or even
wake
up—before lunchtime. We only
saw a trickle of passers-by in the first hour we staffed the booth.
A few stopped to ask about our show, which network it was on, what
time, etc,… With all this underwhelming enthusiasm, I started to
wonder how we even got renewed for a second season.

But the downtime did give me a chance to
broach the subject of John’s revelations with my partner. Spud’s
brilliant brain might give me an insightful interpretation of
John’s…theories and speculation.

Happy to leave Simon out in front to flirt
with the fangirls, I pulled Spud back towards a couple of folding
chairs on the far end of the booth, out of earshot of the associate
producer that had drawn the short straw and been stuck with booth
set-up and first marketing shift.

As soon as I sat down, I realized I didn’t
know how to begin.

Spud sighed and came to my rescue. “I wasn’t
listening, but how could I not hear you. You were both sitting five
feet away from me.”

I nodded. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“What do you think? About the, uh, clone
thing? About me?”

Another sigh. “Though improbable, it is
certainly not impossible. Whether it is the truth, I do not know.
Perhaps that is a question your brother would be able to answer,
but not I.”

I fished in my jeans pocket and pulled out
the photos, handing them both to Spud.

He studied them with a raised eyebrow for a
few minutes, then returned them to me. “Yes?”

“What do you see?”

“I observe a young man in the prime of his
life straddling a powerful motorized stallion and shaking a fist of
defiance at the world he has dared to engage and hopes to
conquer.”

“And the other one?” My voice trembled a
bit.

“Two small children. With a family
resemblance, so I am assuming they are Rushes? You?”

I shook my head. “Andi and Billy.”

“And there is something missing.”

I flinched.

He pulled the photo out of my hands and
indicated the open space on one side where George’d said he could
see my parents. “Your brother and sister are far off to the left of
the frame. The angle of this shot implies that the photographer was
aiming to include something else on the right.”

“Grandpa Alexander must’ve taken the picture.
George insisted he could see my mother and father.” I choked on the
words.

“Then I am inclined to believe he was telling
the truth. Why I.” he looked at me, “and you cannot do so is yet
another mystery I am unable to solve.” Casting down his eyes, he
added, “I can only apply my methods to the material.”

“I don’t understand.”

“To the concrete world which we inhabit,”
Spud explained, leaning back in his chair. “My dear Rush, I shall
tell you a story of a man I once knew. An acquaintance from my
childhood.”

I shifted in my chair, and slid the photos
back into my pocket.

“He was an artist, a painter, and, as are
many who embrace the arts, a man of many passions. His mien and
demeanor ebbed and flowed from ecstasy to the abyss, tides enslaved
by the phases of the moon.”

A gaggle of fans costumed as vampires and
werewolves closed in on Simon outside our booth and pretended to
attack him—to his obvious delight. Simon never missed a chance to
ham up a death scene to entertain an audience.

“Great timing,” I joked. “Full moon out?”

“Didn’t quite mean
that
extent of
transformation,” Spud held up a hand. “More in the line of what you
call ‘bipolar disorder’. Untreated and severe.”

Serious again. “Oh.”

“In a state of mania that likely bordered on
psychosis, he k-killed his wife and wounded her illicit lover.”

Very serious. Was Spud talking about his
father?

“He was, of course, arrested.” Spud
continued. “The gallows loomed.”

I frowned. “But it sounds as if he was
mentally ill.”

“Judges and juries were not quite so
forgiving in those days. Unless one was entirely
non compos
mentis
, there was an assumption that one could perceive and act
on the difference between right and wrong.”

“Oh.”

“He was sentenced to hang. I only saw him
once before his execution.” Spud’s eyes glistened, and he paused to
clear his throat.

I gulped.

“He seemed astonishingly at peace, convinced
that the entire crime had been merely an evening of theatre, and
that after the curtain would fall, it would rise again, bestowing
him with applause, happiness, and joy. His wife would be in the
clapping audience, waiting to welcome him with open arms—she had,
he was convinced, told him so, and implored him to hurry and finish
Act III so that they could reunite.”

I reached out my hand and laid it over his.
He waited a full minute before pulling his away.

“I was told he’d had many conversations with
the spirit world of his imagination, and that he continued to
converse with these spirits even as the noose was tightened around
his neck.”

Spud sat up in his chair and clasped his
hands in his lap. “I could not, I
should
not, corroborate
his faith--or his delusions. In truth, I castigated that faith for
what it provided him in his last hours: solace and reparation, a
reprieve that his actions had caused no one pain or grief,” his
voice dropped to a whisper, “or death.”

I hid my face in my hands and turned away so
no one could see me cry.

* * *

Spud retreated into his stoic armor for the
rest of the morning shift. I’d dried my eyes and fanned my face,
hoping to minimize my puffy lids and Rudolph-ian nose, and taken my
place next to him at the front of the booth. By ten, the crowds had
begun to build, and traffic at our table was growing, even without
Simon’s overblown thespian antics to draw attention.

Spud’s stamina for, as he put it, “the
adoring overtures of our obsessed muliebrous claque”, had faded by
eleven, and, as lunchtime approached, he set off to “study the
bacchanalian eruptions of the conference attendees.”

I was ready for a break myself. It was almost
noon, and we’d greeted and meeted hundreds of fans, vendors, PR
shills, and Hollywood-wannabes. My smile was frozen in place like
I’d OD’d on botox. I was hungry, and eager to put something in my
mouth that didn’t give me a bad taste.

Spud’s tale still weighed heavy on my
conscience. He didn’t know that I knew that his father had killed
his mother—so maybe he’d just been trying to explain why the
spiritual and non-material were so disturbing for him. But, I
couldn’t completely erase the worry that Spud’s story hid an
accusation targeting both John’s behavior and mine. Had my dramatic
rescue of John and its consequences brought pain and grief to an
entire world?

Most of the food stands near our booth
already had long lines, so I skirted the edge of the exhibit areas
and made my way to the other side of the convention hall where the
latest speakers’ sessions wouldn’t let out for another ten minutes.
Should be less of a crowd over here—nothing worse than being caught
in a queue where you’re trapped making small talk with
Bulwark
admirers, especially when you’re struggling to
process ethical dilemmas involving life and death.

The Ike’s Deli station seemed to have the
fewest customers. I grabbed a paper menu and got in line.

“All’s well that ends well.” A familiar
voice, not entirely unwelcome, behind me.

“Half right, Les.” Stuffing the menu under my
arm, I shot my hands out, palms up, as I turned. “But, I lost my
brother.” A polite smile. “As I’m sure you know.”

Lester Samuel Moore sighed, “I have to admit
I
did
peek at a few of the highlights of your progress on my
monitors. I was drawn to catch the conclusion of your…adventure.”
He reached out his hand to shake mine. “Glad you made it back.”

My grip was limp. “John should’ve made it
back with us.”

“As much as I like happy endings, Shiloh,
that could only happen for one of you.”

I frowned, confused. “For Spud? His brother
‘returned’.”

“For
your
brother. John got what he
wanted more than anything—a path to Level 3.” Moore’s eyes
twinkled. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if he joins a kindred soul
there who has also returned home.”

“You don’t mean Aliyah?”

A hint of a shrug and a broad smile.

“But, she, she--her body disappeared. After
John--after we reinstated our timeline,” I shook my head. “We dug
up her grave and it was empty. She never existed.”