Текст книги "Hollow World"

Автор книги: Michael J. Sullivan

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“Quit your gawking, and get the food on the table,” Warren snapped, coming in behind Ellis. “Have to excuse them. To the baldies we’re like Marilyn Monroe, a unicorn, or maybe even Jesus. Been two years, and I still catch them looking up my skirt. Isn’t that right, Yal?”

Yal was the one with the apron. Despite each of them wearing the same Amish-style black pants and white button shirt, Ellis could tell them apart because each had their names stitched on their right breasts like old-fashioned gas station attendants. Yal had been the one peeking out the door, who now turned away sheepishly to resume stirring a big blackened kettle.

“Have a seat,” Warren said, dragging a chair. Then he walked to the butcher’s block and began sharpening a big knife on a strap that hung from the wall. “I slaughtered the fatted lamb for you.” He grinned. “Except that ole cotton ballwas ancient, and I butchered her early this morning before I even knew you were coming—but hey, let’s not squabble with details, right?”

The table was already set with several homemade bowls filled with thick-cut carrots, potatoes, sausage and sauerkraut, and a basket of big fresh rolls. On a plate was a clump of butter, and it took Ellis a moment to recognize it, not having seen butter that didn’t come in a plastic tub or wax wrap. The fist-size glob had finger prints.

“You’re in for a treat, Ellis,” Warren declared. He covered his hand in a towel and threw open the oven’s door. “This is how a man was meant to eat. Everything’s fresh from the garden, the barn, or the woods.” He hauled out a big pan, holding what looked like a quarter of a lamb, the flesh golden brown. As he set the roast at the head of the table, the others took their seats. Besides himself and Warren, there were five—each with Pax’s face but not quite—too somber, too blank.

When they were all seated, Warren folded his hands, and the others imitated him.

“Dear Lord, thank you for this food, and for not frying Ellis’s ass like we’d thought you’d done,” Warren said briskly, followed by, “Amen.”

“Amen,” the others replied in chorus.

In all the meals Ellis had eaten with Warren, his friend had never said grace before. To his knowledge, while the man had always proudly declared himself a Christian, he’d never been to church—not even on Christmas. Thinking about it, Ellis wasn’t sure what denomination Warren was, and he wondered if even Warren knew.

“May I get you more tea?” one of the others asked from across the table.

“We also have milk and wine,” another said with eager-to-please eyes.

They all stared in anticipation of his next word.

Ellis didn’t care. “Ah—tea’s fine.”

The one who suggested it failed to suppress a smile and jumped up as if having received a great honor.

Standing at the head of the table, carving the meat, Warren smirked and shook his head. The scene reminded Ellis of a Norman Rockwell painting, if the artist had grown up in a community of identical Mennonite gas-station attendants.

“I didn’t think religion existed anymore,” Ellis said as Yal passed a bowl of carrots into his hands.

“One of the things I’m working at fixing,” Warren said. “Never thought I’d be a missionary called to spread the word of God among heathens. I guess that comes with that whole being-born-again experience. Got Dex to dig me up a copy of the Bible, and I have them all reading it. Oh—right. Guess I should introduce you.” Warren pointed with the carving knife that was dripping grease. “Dex, Hig, Ved One and Ved Two, and Yal. Dex is our resident surgeon and my third in command. He popped a new heart in my chest not long after we first met. Took care of the cancer and inoculated me against the new viruses too.”

“I was a member of the ISP team before coming here,” the one with the DEX stencil said.

“Was part of the problem, now part of the solution.” Warren slid out mutton chops to a parade of plates. “Hig was a tree hugger or something.”

“A bio-doc,” Hig said. “I was a member of HEM.”

“That’s the tree-hugger movement,” Warren added.

“The Hollow Earth Movement,” Hig said softly, passing Ellis the potatoes.

“Whatever. Hig is now our best fieldhand—great with the crops and the animals. Ved One plays a fiddle.”

“I was a composer of holo symphonies,” Ved One said. “But yes, I also play a violin.”

“Ved Two—no relation.” Warren laughed. No one else did, but Warren didn’t appear to notice. “Was a tattoo artist.”

“I interpreted internal personal expressions into outward identities.”

“And last there’s Yal—our newest convert. Yal is our cook. So if you don’t like the food, blame Yal.”

Ellis looked at Yal and waited, but no correction or clarification was forthcoming. Yal sat at the foot of the table struggling to eat left-handed and not doing a good job. Yal’s other hand remained hidden under the table. Ellis noticed for the first time that the order of food passing was consistent. Warren dished out the meat to Ellis first, then to Dex, then Hig, the two Veds, and finally to Yal.

The meal had all the wholesome purity that an unevenly heated stove could provide. The gravy had lumps, the bottoms of the rolls were burned, and the potatoes undercooked. The carrots were tasty, the sheep tough but savory, and the sausage and sauerkraut was wonderful, and Ellis didn’t think he liked sauerkraut. Imperfection bore its own virtue. Just as a concert album littered with technical errors was filled with more life than a perfectly tweaked studio production, the meal possessed more simple honesty than Ellis had experienced in years. This was what all those characters in movies had spoken of when they yearned for a home-cooked meal, back before the McDonald’s revolution, before the quintessential American meal came in a box.

“Had four new lambs arrive this year,” Warren was saying. “Funny as hell to watch Hig and the Veds experience the miracle of birth.”

“Doesn’t seem natural,” Ved One said. “More like a sickness.”

“See what I have to deal with?” Warren sighed. “Oh—and a great job burning the rolls, Yal.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve only worked with a Maker. I’m not used to a stove.”

“We don’t want excuses here. Get your shit together. It’s a stove, not a rocket ship, and your days of relying on a Maker are over.”

“I will do better next time, Ren Zero.”

“The name is Ren!” Warren raised his voice. “Just plain Ren. We aren’t numbers here—we’re people, dammit.”

Several shifted their eyes to the Veds.

Warren looked annoyed. “I’ve been meaning to change your names, might as well start now so poor Ellis doesn’t get confused. From now on Ved One will be called…Bob, and Ved Two…” Warren twisted his lips, thinking. “Ved Two will be Rob.” He nodded, agreeing with himself. “Restitch your shirts right after dinner, understand?”

The two nodded in perfect unison, which appeared to irritate Warren.

Conversation dried up for a few minutes, the vacuum filled by the ticking of the clock and forks scraping plates clean. Warren glared around the table while the others stared at their food.

“Just the six of you maintain this whole farm?” Ellis asked. He didn’t really care, just wanted the silence to disappear. He needed noise, the flow of words to knock out the thoughts crowding their way into his head, thoughts about Peggy and a photograph with the word sorrywritten on it. Warren said it was written in a Sharpie marker, but Ellis imagined it was scrawled in blood. He should have left a note. He should have said goodbye.

“Just the six of us live here,” Warren said. “We add new converts by invitation only, of course.”

“Mib will be moving in soon,” Hig said. Ellis noticed that this Firestone fieldhand had a slightly darker tan than anyone else at the table except Warren.

“Which is good, because we could use someone who can run the glass shop,” Warren said.

Dex pointed at Yal. “We’ve lost several glasses lately.”

“Yes, it will be wonderful when Mib arrives.” Yal stood up then, and with a restrained look began to clear the table of empty bowls.

“Yal’s tired of being the new kid,” Bob said—or was it Rob?

“Six live here?” Ellis asked.

“Technically there are seven, but Pol doesn’t live here anymore. Used to, but got picked for the underworld High Council. I gave him permission to serve. Thought it would be in everyone’s best interest to have a”—he formed air quotes with his fingers—“ manon the inside, as it were. Pol was one of the original three who found me. You’ll meet Pol tonight. Great organizer. If I died tomorrow, Pol would take over.”

“Take over what?”

Warren just grinned.

Yal came by and picked up the bowl of potatoes, and Ellis noticed the bloody bandages on the stumps of the last two fingers on Yal’s right hand.

As night arrived, Warren lit the hurricane lamp near the door and escorted them into the living room, leaving Yal to handle the cleanup. “It takes a long time to break them of the bad habits they pick up living in the underworld. They think everything is easy. They get here and find they’re wrong,” Warren explained with his new wise man’s voice—the Detroit Dalai Lama.

The living room’s décor was right out of the Civil War, with a couch and two matching black upholstered Queen Anne chairs that looked like something Lincoln might have been shot in. Pea-green-painted walls and dark mahogany only added to the formal funereal atmosphere. Everything had the smell of old books, old wood, and old people that might have been some form of rot. The place was hot too. The sun had baked the house, and the heat lingered in the wood, stone, and plaster. Dex and Hig shoved the windows open, hoping for a breeze, but got only the loud racket of crickets. This had been the life of pre-air-conditioned homes and why so many houses had porches.

Ellis, who felt his shirt sticking to him, was about to suggest moving to the porch when Warren took a seat in the big chair near the dormant fireplace. He put his bare feet up on a stool and said, “Don’t you love this room? I can’t walk in here and not think of Washington and Jefferson and all the others that created our great country.”

“I don’t think the United States exists anymore.”

Warren’s eyes lit up. “That’s just it—it does. This room—this farm is like one of those seed banks they created to allow us to rebuild the world after a global disaster. This village is the seed—the cutting—that will help us regrow America. We’ve got everything: a producing farm, blacksmith, glass, and pottery shops. Hell, we even have Edison’s lab here. This is the heart and soul of America.”

Hig sat on the couch. Ellis sat beside him.

“As we repopulate, we can expand outward from here. We can clear the land, build more farms, and then send some men to start looking for old mines. Maybe we can get a refinery working again.”

“Hard to repopulate without women.”

“Dex has that covered, right, Dex?”

“The ISP kept all the patterns going back to the first ones. They won’t be exactly originals, not like the two of you,” Dex said with reverence, as if speaking to twin popes. “They were altered for disease resistance, and aesthetic appearance, but natural selection should erode these initial genes back to a random state.”

“Still, a pretty small gene pool, right?” Ellis said. His mind filled with thoughts of royal families and jokes about rural West Virginia.

“Hey, the whole world started with just Adam and Eve, and we did fine with that,” Warren said. “So the plan is for Dex to grow us a little harem of women. We’ll be like two old pride lions, like the biblical patriarchs of old begetting a whole new nation of Americans. Go forth and multiply, you know? Think about that. We’ll literally be the founding fathers of the new United States.”

“And what if these women don’t have any interest in being human incubators? You ever consider that?”

“Outdated thinking, my friend. That’s the product of a feminist movement that doesn’t exist anymore. We’ll teach them it’s a sacred duty and great honor. They’ll be thrilled to contribute in such a vital way.”

“Even so, you’re in your sixties now, right? By the time these women are of age, you’ll be in your eighties.”

“Not a problem. Dex says he can extend my life for another hundred years at least.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you…you got your new heart and clean pancreas. I don’t think I’m gonna be around much longer.”

“Jesus, didn’t they fix you already?” Warren asked.

Ellis felt the crackle in his chest—wind across a field of steel wool. “No.”

Warren turned to Dex and hooked a thumb at Ellis. “Needs a new set of lungs.”

Dex nodded. “Absolutely. Not a problem.”

Are all major surgeries dispensed out of vending machines now?Ellis was thinking to ask when he noticed a flash outside. No one moved—no reaction at all. Just as Ellis was thinking they didn’t see it, he heard a creak followed by the slap of the screen door.

“Pol is here,” Yal called.

Pol-789—or fake Pol—Ellis didn’t know anymore—entered the living room. As youthful in appearance as all of them, and still dressed in the flamboyant orange robes of state, Ellis thought the Chief Councilor looked a bit like a college freshman attending a Halloween toga party.

“Aha!” Pol said the moment he saw Ellis, and added with a big smile, “Wonderful. You made it. I’ve been looking everywhere.”

“You’ve met?” Warren asked.

“Yes,” Pol said, smiling. “Briefly, at least. Ellis Rogers was in my office yesterday with Pax-43246018.”

Ellis was impressed the Chief Councilor remembered Pax’s full name. Ellis had never been good with names, particularly foreign ones with odd-sounding vowels and double consonants. Memorizing a series of numbers after a single telling was hopeless. He imagined Pol was the sort that could have recited his license number—if only they still had them.

“We’d just been introduced, and I was making plans to come here to reunite old friends, when events transpired beyond my control.” Pol stared at Ellis, marveling, studying him until Ellis felt uncomfortable.

“What kind of events?” Warren asked, indicating Pol should take a seat.

Pol turned back to the kitchen. “Yal? Can I get a glass of wine?”

“Of course, right away.”

Pol smiled at all of them before sitting in the other Queen Anne chair, which Dex had promptly vacated. Hig got up from the couch to let Dex sit there. Then Rob, or Bob, got up in turn to shift position. Ellis felt he was watching a silent version of musical chairs.

“We have a seating order,” Warren explained. “In the down-under they’ve forgotten all about authority, hierarchy, and structure. People just do whatever they want. I’m getting them familiar with discipline and the pecking order. Pol is number one, then Dex, then Hig, then—” Warren squinted at Ved One. “Are you Rob or Bob?”

“Bob, you said.”

“Okay, then—Bob, then Rob.”

“Do Ihave a place in this order?” Ellis asked. “And does it require me cutting off my fingers?”

Warren looked uncomfortable, but only for an instant. Then the serene face of an old master returned. “The fingers…well, the finger cutting is necessary for a few reasons. Identification, for one. My way of making certain I can tell the good ones from the bad. These underworlders change their shirts and you can’t tell one from another. Tattoos are easily put on and taken off. Fingers are a different matter. Plus, sacrificing them shows a commitment to the cause. I don’t want anyone here who isn’t in one hundred percent, and these people don’t understand real commitmentanymore. They do something for a while, then change their minds and try something else. They don’t have marriage, don’t have countries. How can they understand the concept of loyalty? People won’t sacrifice two fingers without giving things a lot of thought. It’s the dues they pay to join me—to be special.”

“And me?” Ellis held up his right hand, wiggling his fingers.

Warren shook his head. “You’re a Darwin like me.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Means you’re not one of them. You’re above the law.” Warren raised his voice a bit. “And in case there’s any doubt, Ellis stands equal with me, and you will show him the same respect and recognize his authority just as you do mine.”

They all nodded. Ellis was sitting in a huddle of dogs that idolized a wolf.

Warren turned back to Pol. “So tell me who this Pax is and what happened in your office.”

Pol sighed. “Pax is an unusual case. Works as an arbitrator to some effect, but…well, there have been complaints of strange behavior.”

Strange behavior?Ellis wondered what normal was in a world where people walked around au naturel, danced in the rain, no one worked, and their world leader dressed like Julius Caesar.

“Then a few years ago, Pax tried to—”

Yal entered and handed Pol a glass of blood-red wine.

“Tried to what?” Ellis asked.

Pol took a dainty sip. “Pax opened a portal to the vacuum of space and tried to walk through it.”

No one said anything for a heartbeat. Each pair of eyes tried to process the sentence as if it were a riddle, one of those logic problems where a hunter who lives in a house with four windows all facing south shoots a bear, and people try to figure out the color of the dead animal.

“What?” Ellis felt the empty sensation rock him again. He was beginning to feel a little punch-drunk, an emotionally battered fighter unable to put his arms up to defend himself.

“I thought that wasn’t possible,” Warren said. “Thought those things—well, you said they had safety features blocking people from doing stupid shit like that.”

Dex, who was nodding, spoke. “They do. Living tissue is blocked from passing into hostile environments.”

“They do now,” Pol corrected. “The original CTWs had fixed destinations, so no one thought anything about it, but the first few generations of portals—they could go anywhere. After a few accidents, safety features were added.”

“But that was centuries ago,” Dex said.

“Pax, it turns out, is an antique collector of sorts,” Pol explained. “If it hadn’t been for the residence’s vox blocking the field, Pax would have committed suicide.”

Ellis felt guilty. He hadn’t had anything to do with the portal incident—didn’t even know how long ago it had happened—but he had just sent Pax away, crying. What is Pax doing right this moment?

“Are you saying this Pax person is insane?” Warren asked.

“Mentally ill,” Pol said. “Unstable. It’s why Pax lives with Vin-3667, a renowned artist. Vin volunteered to watch over Pax. I talked to Vin two days ago. Vin felt the excitement of being with Ellis Rogers has caused Pax to slip, and suggested Pax bring Ellis to me. Felt that Ellis Rogers was an upsetting influence.”

“So what happened?”

“The two arrived on schedule, but then Pax began venting, going sonic.”

“Leave out your underworld slang, Pol,” Warren said with a growl. “We speak proper American here.”

“Forgive me. Traveling between cultures is—”

“Get on with it.” Warren shuffled his feet, recrossing them on the stool in a manner as decisive as a judge banging a gavel.

“Pax became very upset,” Pol went on. “Acting threatened and frightened of me. Completely irrational. Before I could act, Pax had hauled Ellis Rogers through a portal, and the two disappeared. Thinking Ellis Rogers had just been abducted, I gathered people to help with a rescue. We chased them to Tuzo Stadium and into the jungles of the surface. Then we registered Pax stepping out into space.”

“Again?” Warren asked.

“To be honest, I thought the worst, for both of you.” Pol looked back at Ellis with a smile. “But here you are, safe.”

“Pax is fine too,” Ellis replied, although he wasn’t at all convinced that the Chief Councilor’s concern was sincere. Seeing the confusion on Warren’s face, he added, “We ejected Pax’s chip through a portal into space to avoid being followed.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Pol said. “Now we have no idea where to look. Pax really should be found and helped. Do you know where Pax might be?”

Ellis shook his head. Maybe it was his long bias against politicians, but he didn’t trust the wine-sipping Buddhist monk.

I’ve looked after Pax for centuries, wonderful, wonderful person, and not at all crazy, you understand.

He remembered the tear running down Pax’s cheek.

I’m not crazy.

Was he being blind just because Pax was the first friend he’d made?

He focused on the statesman monk. “How did Pax know about Ren? In your office, Pax asked if you knew who Ren was, and you said you didn’t know. Why is that?”

Pol shrugged. “I have no idea how Pax knew. To be honest, I had no idea who Pax meant. The question was so completely without context. Like you said, how could Pax know? I’ve never spoken to anyone about Ren.”

“None of us is allowed to,” Hig said.

“Shut it while your better is speaking,” Dex snapped, and Hig cowered into the upholstery, looking at the floor.

Pol ignored them both. “I suppose if the question had been about a Darwin named Ren living at Greenfield Village, I would have given a different answer, but I was caught off guard and downright confused.”

“And what were you talking to Geo-24 about? Pax asked about that too. I didn’t catch your answer.”

Pol glanced at Warren briefly as he sipped from his wine again. “How much do you know about Hollow World?”

“A little. Spent about two days there.”

“Do you know about the geomancers?”

“They’re like weather forecasters, only they predict seismic storms, right?”

“Wonderful, but that’s only part of what they do. Geomancers are the descendants of the old energy corporations. Dyna Corp founded the Geomancy Institute in the years just before the Freedom Act.” Pol looked concerned. “How much of Hollow World history are you familiar with?”

“Very little,” Ellis said. “I watched a show where a dancing hourglass told me about how everyone moved underground. Didn’t get all the way to the Great Tempest, though. I fell asleep.”

Pol looked at Warren.

“Go ahead and fill him in. It will save me the trouble.” Warren got up, heading for the kitchen. “Hey, Yal, why don’t you bake cookies or something? Make your lazy ass useful.”

No one moved to take Warren’s seat, and Ellis wondered what would happen if he did.

“The thing you have to understand is that the Three Miracles changed everything: the Dynamo, the CTW, and the Maker.”

“CTW?”

“Controlled Terrestrial Wormholes. Most call them portals.”

“Oh—yeah, I know about those.”

“The Dynamo was invented first, and initially the technology was tightly controlled by Dyna Corp, which supplied the world with limitless energy.”

“Wait a second, what do you mean limitless energy?”

“A Dynamo is a…” Pol looked at Ellis, searching for the right words. “Well, it’s like what you might know as a battery, only it never runs out of power. Well, not never. Never is a very long time, after all. The Dynamo is mostlyself-sustaining, although it does lose a small percentage of power each cycle, given that even a tiny Dynamo generates enough power to operate a whole quad of Hollow World for years, it’s as if they are eternal. Similar principle as the sun. It has a finite lifespan, but since that is so long, we never really think about it running out.”

“Fascinating.”

“Ellis used to work on batteries and solar power back in the day.” Warren mentioned, returning with a ceramic cup of something.

“Lithium-ion cells mostly,” Ellis clarified. “At least until everything was moved to LG Chem in South Korea.”

“How interesting all this must be for you then,” Pol said, and smiled. “But getting back to your question—along with the agro businesses, Dyna Corp built most of early Hollow World. They were the first to put their headquarters underground. People were out of the weather, but now had to be concerned about seismic shifts, and that’s when they established the Geomancy Institute. It is devoted to the study of not only seismic activity but also prevention of dangerous shifts.”

“How do they do that?”

Pol started to speak, hesitated, then held up a finger. “I’ll get back to that. We have two more miracles to get through.” Pol took a sip of wine. “The Dynamo was created as a result of the Energy Wars of 2185.”

“You can always count on a war to move along innovation,” Warren said, retaking his seat.

“Another group had been working on solving the transportation problem. Traffic on the surface had become unmanageable, and elevators into Hollow World were jammed, dangerous, and cut into the workday. But it wasn’t until Dyna Corp bought the CTW technology and applied the unlimited power of their Dynamo that the portal was made practical. This threw construction in Hollow World into a frenzy, because portals allowed for easy transportation of heavy equipment and the easy disposal of dirt and rock. All strictly controlled by Dyna Corp, which built portal booths everywhere, allowing people to pay to travel. This also coincided with the Great Tempest, a worldwide nonstop storm that killed millions of people left on the surface. There’s a wonderful holo that was made recently about the heroic evacuations called Ariel’s Escape.”

The others all nodded enthusiastically.

“I loved the part where Nguyen opens the portal as he’s falling,” Hig said.

“Great holo,” Dex agreed with a big grin. “Completely unrealistic, but a great holo.”

Warren yawned.

“Anyway,” Pol went on. “The Great Tempest caused the invention of the Port-a-Call that we know today, but it wasn’t sold except to a very few. Now, the Great Tempest was followed by the Famine. The storms had wiped the surface of usable soil, and there just wasn’t enough food in Hollow World to feed all the refugees. And that’s when the Maker was invented. Created by Network Azo—known to the world as Net. She was an employee of Dyna Corp. Almost overnight Maker booths popped up alongside the portal booths. They had a touchscreen menu—think they only had about a hundred patterns at the time, and after a retinal scan that deducted money from a digital bank account, you could use the Maker to create anything from a chicken dinner to a new shirt. Only problem was that few people had any money. Most had evacuated the surface with nothing. They were starving in the old tunnels while an unlimited supply of food was right at hand. All that dirt and stone could have been turned into vegetables and loaves of bread. Net was appalled, but the patent was owned by Dyna Corp, and when she protested they fired her.”

Warren started to scowl as he shifted uneasily in his seat, sipping from his cup. The others, in contrast, were leaning forward, listening intently. They all must have known the story, but Ellis assumed that in a rural farmhouse that lacked even an old radio, story time was grand entertainment, even if it was a rerun.

“That’s when she did it,” Pol said. “Net wrote a pattern for her own invention and made it public—a free download. People could walk into any Maker booth and create their own Maker. Net was arrested, but the dam had burst. From her cell, she called on everyone to revolt against the tyranny of a system that artificially forced restrictions that led to the deaths of thousands. It wasn’t long before a Dynamo and a portal pattern were stolen and released to the public. After that, everyone could go anywhere and make anything and all for free. Dyna Corp and the agro companies—well, just about every business collapsed. Net became a hero, the mother of Hollow World, and the first Chief Councilor.”

“And the destroyer of humanity as we knew it,” Warren said.

Pol nodded solemnly. “But the Geomancy Institute remained untouched. The last vestige of the Dyna Corporation, they continue to indulge in secrecy, divulging their knowledge and techniques only to fellow geomancers and only after they pass the long and grueling initiate process. They are followers of the Faith of Astheno, and no one who isn’t a geomancer really knows for certain what they do down there. It’s suspected that they track the currents in the asthenosphere, determine where pressure is building up, and—using portal technology—relieve the pressure before it causes a damaging shift in plates. Which means they are all that stands between Hollow World and certain destruction.”

“So what do you think happened to Geo-24?”

Pol looked toward Warren, who nodded.

“That was an unfortunate incident. You see, one of our associates was speaking to Geo-24 about our plans to settle the surface—just general questions concerning long-term climate and such. We weren’t sure if Firestone was the best place in the world to start such a project. Geo-24 was less than encouraging, and there was concern that the geomancer might urge the HEM to interfere with our plans. Since geomancers have considerable influence, this was a real danger. We hoped this would not be a problem, but one of us wasn’t satisfied with just hoping for the best. This ex-memberwas—well, there’s no other way to say it—a zealot. The idea that the geomancers were plotting to stop us became an obsession. We don’t know all the details, but it seems that the unthinkable happened…but you saw that for yourself, didn’t you?”

“And you were okay with this?” Ellis looked at Warren.

“Hell no, and that psychopath knew better than to come back here.” Warren said.

Pol looked at Ellis. “I believe this person tried to become Geo-24, but you and Pax saw past the disguise.”

“Why do you think Pax accused you of being an impostor?”

“Pax has been called in to help arbitrate a number of deaths. I can’t express enough how unusual and stressful that can be. I suspect Pax is suffering from paranoia and sees conspiracies around every corner. As we’ve already established, Pax is not of sound mind.”

“And the scar on your shoulder?” Ellis asked.

“This?” Pol exposed the mark. “Hig actually gave me this almost a year ago with a scythe.” Pol pointed at Hig, who displayed a guilty look.

“I remember that,” Warren said. “Lucky Pol didn’t lose the whole arm. Hig was still learning the ways of the farmer. But it’s proof that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

“Survival of the fittest,” Pol said, smiling.

“Now to the real point of this meeting,” Warren said.

This is a meeting?Ellis had thought the point was to digest the food they’d just eaten.

Warren stood up and, setting down his cup on the green tablecloth covering the little oval table, hooked his thumbs under his suspenders like some old-timey preacher. “I’d all but given up hope of finding Ellis, but God has guided him to us, and I feel more certain than ever that the Almighty has sent both of us. It’s just like when he sent John the Baptist and Jesus to set mankind—who had gone astray—back on the path of righteousness. It’s an abomination what mankind has done to itself. Ellis and I are here to help guide you in ridding yourselves of your sins. Abandoning Him, and His teachings has led to a self-made hell, but we’ll create paradise.” He turned to face Ellis. “I’ve already begun to tell my friend of our plans to reintroduce women. How is that going, Dex?”