Neil McMahon - Revolution No.9

“Where you going, man?” he said.

“To visit my son,” Monks said, continuing his walk toward Glenn’s cabin. He had been watching it from the lodge’s windows, and had seen Glenn a couple of times, hurrying to the washhouse or on some errand. But he had not seen Shrinkwrap. He was hoping that she was gone.

“I’m already fucking soaked,” Sidewinder complained. “I was outside all night and I haven’t slept. Freeboot’s making me stay on duty, ’cause-”

“Because you asked me that question last night?” Monks interrupted. Sardonic words came to his mind-Sorry I caused you trouble-but he had already made enough enemies here.

Instead, he said, “I’d have worried about eating that raw meat, too. I think Freeboot overreacted.”

“Yeah,” Sidewinder said, seeming slightly cheered by the sympathy.

“Look, I’m not going to try anything, are you kidding?” Monks said. “You can stay where you were and watch the door. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

Sidewinder glanced around nervously, as if fearing that Freeboot would materialize and smite him for this slackness. Then he nodded and hurried back to his shelter. But he unslung his rifle and stood at watchful attention.

Smoke was rising from the stovepipe of Glenn’s cabin, a thin plume barely visible in the rain. Monks knocked sharply on the door, and braced himself for the possibility of facing the hostile Shrinkwrap.

But it was Glenn who answered, opening the door just a few inches. He looked bleary, surprised to see his father. If he noticed Monks’s missing chunk of hair, he gave no sign of it. But, then, Glenn was a good enough actor to pull that off.

“Let me in,” Monks said. “It’s pouring.”

Glenn’s face turned reluctant, and he seemed about to object, but Monks pushed the door open and stepped past him.

Immediately, Monks saw at least one reason for Glenn’s hesitation. There was a woman in the room, but not Shrinkwrap. It was Motherlode, lounging on the bed, watching the screen of a laptop computer that was playing a video-a Tom and Jerry cartoon, it looked like.

She stared at Monks blank-eyed, then glanced furtively at the dresser. He followed her gaze to a syringe-one that had been pilfered from Mandrake’s supply-and a bottle of Percocets. There were other items that Monks recognized as being used to render the pills injectable-a porcelain coffee cup for grinding them up and mixing them into solution, a soggy wad of tissues for straining it, and a length of surgical rubber tubing.

One syringe. Two people.

“I hurt my back,” Motherlode said.

She was wearing sweatclothes, and Glenn was fully dressed; the situation did not appear to be a sexual one. Monks figured that was none of his concern anyway. He just wanted to get her out of here.

“Mandrake would really like to see you,” he told her. “Now would be a good time.”

Her eyes focused a little more.

“I can’t-” she began.

“Try to overcome your pain,” he said, with a harsh edge. He held her gaze, letting some of his anger show in his own.

Pouting, she got up and put on an anorak, not forgetting to collect her Percocets before she went reluctantly out the door.

Glenn slapped his own thigh in anger. “Now you come in and fuck up my party. This ain’t my room at home, Rasp.”

Monks stepped to a window and watched Motherlode hurry off through the rain. As he had expected, she did not go toward the lodge to visit her child.

“She’s been stealing these from Mandrake,” he said, showing Glenn the syringe. He set it back on the dresser. “You ever hear that it’s not smart to share a needle?”

Glenn shrugged, but he looked uneasy. “I hardly ever shoot anymore.”

“This must be a special occasion.”

“If you’re nice to her, she’ll share.” Glenn grinned slyly, displaying his black-spotted teeth. “Sometimes ’codes are a good way to chill out. Especially when you’ve been doing a lot of crank.”

“That’s what you’re using mostly? Meth?”

“Yeah. Shrinkwrap got me off junk.”

“By getting you on speed?”

“Sort of. Freeboot doesn’t like hard dope for the people he’s got to count on. It slows you down, makes you unreliable.”

“He doesn’t seem to mind with Motherlode.”

Glenn snorted. “He doesn’t care what she does.”

The casual callousness hit Monks with a pain so deep, it went beyond sorrow. It came to him that there was no point in worrying anymore about who was to blame for all that had gone wrong between them. They were like different, hostile species.

And yet, this was still the son that he had raised. That bond that went all the way down to the DNA in their cells-deeper than the rational mind could ever hope to penetrate-would never be erased.

It was impossible to break through to Glenn and impossible to quit trying.

Monks walked over to him and gripped him tightly by the upper arm. Glenn tried to pull away, but Monks, although decades older, was larger, stronger, and not wasted by drug abuse.

“I need you to call for help,” Monks said. “That kid’s going to die if we don’t get him out of here.”

Glenn’s eyes showed alarm. “No way, man.”

“If you don’t, his blood’s going to be on your hands. Let that sink in through your tough-guy shell, Glenn. A four-year-old.”

Glenn’s gaze flicked around, as if he were looking to escape. “I mean-there’s no lines up here, and cell phones don’t work.”

“Come on, you’re the computer ace. There has to be some way.”

“There’s satellite e-mail, but Freeboot changes the password every day. He only gives it to me when he wants something.”

“Is there a vehicle we could steal?”

“They keep all the cars at the security station up the road,” Glenn said, squirming under Monks’s grip. “There’s guards, twenty-four seven.”

Monks remembered with icy clarity the group of scalp-hunting maquis that he had seen last night-trained, violent, and well armed.

“Do you have a gun?” he said.

“Dad, you’re fucking crazy-”

Monks shook him hard.

“No,” Glenn muttered. “I don’t need one for what I do. Now, would you let me go, please?”

So-this failure was absolute. Monks had not really expected Glenn to suddenly come to his senses. By Glenn’s lights, he was making the sensible choice-staying safe. Still, Monks had harbored the faint hope of swaying him and made one last try.

“You’re strung out, at risk, maybe dangerously ill,” Monks said. “And mentally impaired. You’ve bought into whatever fanaticism Freeboot and Shrinkwrap are preaching, but all they’re going to do is take you down.”

He stared hard into his son’s eyes for another ten seconds, then released him. Glenn backed away, rubbing his arm and looking badly shaken. The tough-guy skin had been bruised at least a little bit.

“I can’t leave here,” Glenn said, with a whine in his tone.

“Of course you can.”

“You don’t understand, man.”

Monks exhaled. “I’m going as soon as it’s dark. Say, twenty minutes. Come over to the lodge if you change your mind.”

“Why the fuck did you bring this on me?” Glenn burst out, in misery and anger. “Now I’m part of it.”

“You don’t have to tell anybody.”

“I can’t lie to Freeboot.”

Monks shook his head helplessly. There was no answer to that. He clasped Glenn’s shoulder, more gently this time.

“I love you, Glenn,” he said. “Believe that, will you?”

He stepped out into the downpour, leaving Glenn standing there, pale and alone.

Through the deepening gloom, Monks could just make out the thin figure of Sidewinder. He threw a salute in that direction and walked on to the lodge, clamping off his surging emotions like severed blood vessels-no time to deal with that now.