Urban Waite - Far Cry - Absolution

“What did he die of?”

“His heart gave out.”

“That right?” the sheriff asked.

“That’s right.”

“Where are you keeping the body?” the sheriff asked.

“The county coroner’s office, same as where they took Mamma and Daddy.”

She could see him studying her. He turned and looked to the two other graves then turned and looked back at her. “If I go in there and ask what happened to him are they going to tell me his heart gave out?”

“I don’t know why they wouldn’t,” she said. “The coroner seemed to give it to us straight when Daddy was in there. An accident, I believe.”

“That’s what they called it at the time.”

“Did they change their minds?”

“No, not that I know of. But it’s getting hard to look past the circumstances here before us.”

“What circumstances are those?”

“Three dead from the same family in nearly the same amount of weeks. That’s something that is a little hard to overlook.”

Mary May looked up at him. “You said it, Sheriff.”

“I know I did.” He was shaking his head and looking down at the grave again. “You think if I go in there and ask that coroner what happened he will give it to me straight?”

“Is the coroner still bearded?” Mary May asked.

“Last I checked.”

“Sure,” Mary May said. “I bet he gives it to you just as straight as he did when Daddy died.”

The sheriff turned and looked to where Jerome sat on the meager grass beside Mary May. He had taken his collar off. He sat sweating with the first few buttons of his shirt undone and his sleeves rolled up over his elbows. “What do you say about all this?” the sheriff asked.

“Faith is a powerful thing,” Jerome said.

SHE CLEANED A GLASS THEN SET IT DOWN ON THE BACK BAR ANDreached and brought up another. She was at this work five minutes before the double cab went by with four men inside, the truck pulling a horse trailer behind. The brakes were heard next and the muted tinge of the brake lights seen in the frames of the barroom windows.

There was a baseball bat she kept on a shelf below her, and she reached and stood it beside her with the handle leaning on the bar. The brake lights went out now and there was the sound of a door opening then the clap of it closing once again. She continued to clean the glasses and watched the thin figure move past in the shaded tint of the glass then come to the door and push it open.

“Hey there,” she said.

“You open?” the young sheepherder asked. She could see he was bruised badly about one cheek, but the bruise was fading and it didn’t stop him from smiling at her when he spoke.

“In thirty minutes.”

The young herder stood looking around at the place, then he stepped up and took a stool as if he had been in her bar a thousand times before. “I guess you found your brother,” he said.

“I found him.”

“And he was the same as you remembered?”

“He was my brother but he was not the same.”

“I hate to hear that.” He looked around the bar now, at the chairs that sat atop the tables, and then he looked back at her. “Let me help you,” he said.

“Help me?”

“Yeah, I can take down the chairs. How old were you when you started working here?”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“I wasn’t much older than you. My parents used to own this place.” She watched him move away and take one chair down after another.

“So it’s in the blood?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And you won’t leave it?”

“No,” she said. She was watching him now. He had taken the third chair down off the table and she told him to sit in it. She poured him a water and set it down on the table before him. “I grew up here, right in this bar.” She smiled at him now. “I had my first kiss out back with some dumb cowboy. I wasn’t much older than you then. Almost got caught by my dad. Fuck, he loved this place. He loved it so much he couldn’t see that it was staying the same and the world around it was changing. I see that now. I see that clearer than he ever did.”

“Then they haven’t scared you off yet?” the boy asked.

“No,” she said. “They haven’t scared me. They took my mom, my brother. Daddy did what he could but it wasn’t enough.”

“You’re the only one left now, aren’t you?”

“I’m not the only one,” she said. “There are others like me who see the world changing and want to do something about it.”

“And you’re going to do that here?”

“No better place,” she said.

She watched him look her over. He stood now from the chair and she knew he would leave. “I’ll tell them about this place when we get there. I’ll tell them about you.”

“Where is there?”

“ There is wherever this place isn’t,” the boy said. “It doesn’t matter to us. My father is driving me and a couple others out of here. I’ll find someone that cares and I’ll tell them about this place.”

“And you think that will make a difference?”

The boy shook his head. “I don’t know. All the things we’ve seen up there on that mountain, it certainly made a difference with me.” He looked away, out to where the truck was waiting for him. “That’s what you’re doing back here,” he said. “Trying? I guess all of us have to try in some way, don’t we?”

“Yes,” she said. “We do.”

This novel wouldn’t exist without the fans who have made all the Far Cry games such a success. Thank you for your faith in these worlds, and these stories, and the characters that lend them humanity.

For me video games have always been an escape from the real world, but as video games began to reach new heights, that escape seemed to matter less and less, and the real world and the world of the video game began to merge. In this way video games became something else, not an escape, but something even more powerful and valuable to me. Something that required not just the willingness of the player to be involved and engaged within these worlds, but also the knowledge and understanding of what it is to be human, to see that human condition from many different perspectives and to sympathize with and understand them all. In short, the world of the video game has in many ways become like that of another world I have long found my own salvation within—the world of the novel.

I want to thank Ubisoft for creating some of the best video games this world has ever seen, and for pushing that world ever further with each new iteration and release. I want to thank my team at Ubisoft, Caroline Lamache, Anthony Marcantonio, and Victoria Linel, for reading my past novels and bringing this opportunity to me. This has long been a dream of mine. Thank you for bringing it ever closer with each new draft.

For the people of Ubisoft Montreal who are innovators and leaders in this industry, I want to give a specific thank you to Dan Hay, David Bédard, Jean-Sébastien Décant, Nelly Kong, Manuel Fleurant, and Andrew Holmes for answering my many questions and bringing me behind the curtain. I am continually impressed by just how much work and effort goes into building not just the game of Far Cry, but the universe that surrounds it from the ground up.

I like to think I’m older and wiser now that I’ve made a living at this for the past eight years, but the truth is I’m still learning. And though this is my fourth novel, each time it is different, and each path to publication takes new turns and new directions and I would not have made it if it was not for the people who supported me and who gave me the space to write this novel.

Nat, you’ve been there through all of this. Even from the first story you read of mine in a small literary journal. Thanks for always giving me your best.