John Barnes - Daybreak Zero

“You have to do what you have to do,” Quattro said. “Thanks for rescuing Bambi, and if you need a ride, the Gooney Express always has a free seat for an old buddy.”

“’Preciate it. Give my regards and apologies to Heather.”

Mensche had hunted and photographed wildlife as his main hobbies for decades before Daybreak, had good night vision, and had a career FBI agent’s knack for following people; he could have followed a trail marked half as prominently. In a saddle of the ridge, Debbie had laid a seven-foot arrow in dead sticks on an old recreation trail.

He laughed out loud. “Deb, I’m the one that taught you woodcraft.”

Just behind him, she said, “Yeah, but I’m in a silly mood.”

He turned and hugged her. They could still hear occasional gunshots, far behind them. She asked, “Are the Rangers shooting all of them?”

“Just the ones who refuse rehab, or try to escape.”

“You smell like blood.”

“It’s from Helen what’s-her-face.”

“Good, Dad. I’m glad. She had it coming if any of them did. But actually I’m sorry they aren’t just shooting them all. There’s not going to be any rehab that works. There’s a place up the trail where we can sit if you want.”

“Sure.”

At the base of a low rock cliff, she guided him to a bench by one of the old raised metal firebox grills. He said, “There’s something you want me to do or see.”

“There is,” she said. “It’s important and I realized this was the way to do it.”

“Good enough,” he said, “I’m sure you’re right.”

“You’re not my same old dad.”

“It’s not your same old world.”

“Yeah.” She reached out and threaded her hand into the crook of his elbow, the way she had when she’d been little and he’d been her hero. He just waited. Being here, in the starlight, with just Debbie, is about as good as life has been in a long time.

“So the runner came to let Michael know the plane was landing. I knew you wouldn’t be in an outfit that paid ransoms, and besides Bambi had squeeze-coded me that you were gonna beat the shit out of the Blue Morning People. So at first I thought, I want a special moment here for just Michael and me. ”

“No one would have begrudged you that. We wouldn’t even have filed an incident report.”

She leaned back in a stretch, extending her feet and wriggling them. “I knew that. But the whole reason I became a frontier scout for the People of Gaia’s Dawn was that I needed to escape in a way that would make a difference. I mean I knew right away I didn’t want to be a tribal—it’s dirty, nasty, and ugly enough now. Eating bark and twigs all winter, once the canned and dry food are gone—gah.”

“How’d you end up there in the first place?”

“A couple of nutty witch-wannabes in the group I broke out of Coffee Creek with ran into some would-be bush hippies, and I was hoping to find the guys with the good drugs. So I was one of the Seventy-Nine Founders of the People of Gaia’s Dawn. I hope you guys clean out all the tribes; I wish you’d just shot all the Blue Mornings.”

“Some of us favor that.”

“See, I knew I could count on my dad! And that brings me to the thing that I don’t think you’ll believe till I show you.”

“How about if I just believe you?”

She hugged him, very hard, and he felt hot tears on his cheeks.

After a minute, she whispered, “There’s still a reason why we need to do things my way, check me out and see if you agree, ’kay?”

“I’m listening.”

She sat still. Larry heard only the wind in the pines, and the soft scurry of something small moving through pine needle duff.

Finally she said, “I volunteered as a scout so it’d be easy to escape when the time came, once I figured out what I could take along as proof of what was really going on. And then of all the stupid things the lame-weenie Blue Mornings ambushed me. I must’ve been the only slave they ever took, which is why they were so hard to escape from—it was like being a miser’s last dollar.”

“Bad luck happens to the best.”

“‘Along with everybody else.’ I used to hate it when you’d say that to me about my driving and my partying. But here’s the thing. If the tribes were just a bunch of thieving-ass bush hippies with their heads full of prison-paganism and dumbass crystal-worship, I’d figure, hey, they’re just plain old social scum like I used to be. But they’re something a whole lot worse, and if we just went back to Pueblo, and I told my story, nobody’d believe me without investigating, and there’s no time to put an expedition together, let alone find a way for them to see what they need to see. But if you come along and I show you , they’ll take your word for it without any ‘further investigation’ or ‘more research needed’ or any of that bullshit which there ain’t time for. I just don’t want our side to lose three months we don’t have. That’s what it is.”

“It’s that bad?”

“Whatever ‘that bad’ means to you, it’s worse.” She stood. “We can make it to a Gaia’s Dawn scout post by midmorning tomorrow if we walk through the night.”

“All right. Lead me.”

Shortly after moonrise, she said, “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for taking my word.”

The moon rose higher. With more light, they made better time, half-sprinting over rises that were almost as bright as day, then plunging into hollows that, from above, brimmed with darkness, but down in them, the stars seemed to shine especially bright.

Arnie felt slightly silly about feeling as good as he did. He’d had a few beers. Samson and Ecco had accepted and welcomed him into the beerand-hanging-out circle of, as they dubbed themselves, Jedi Rednecks, and introduced him to the few other serious martial artists in the circle. It was so friendly and comfortable. Nobody asked him to judiciously frame an exact thought; it was warm and fun and there hadn’t been much just-let-your-hair-down in his life lately, or at all, ever, really.

Arnie had always liked country music (initially because it annoyed the crap out of his sophisticated parents). And it was so flattering that they wanted him to help teach the beginner classes.

The dark, empty street seemed so much friendlier, till Aaron fell silently into step beside him.

“I just came from martial arts practice and the bar. Maybe I’m not real controlled; startling me might be a good way to get stabbed.”

“Oh, Doctor Yang. Going slumming with the working class, I see. Looking for some bovine blonde in a cowboy hat—a cowgirl, or some might say a cow-girl—to fill the wide open spaces of your heart?”

“That’s none of your damned business.” Arnie was stalling as he tried to bring his list of questions to the forefront through the beery fog.

“Well, I can hardly fault you for enjoying respect, friendship—and who knows, maybe love—where you can find it, considering how things have been going with your friends and supporters.” Their feet beat out a soft rhythm for a block before Aaron spoke again. “So you are interested in how long Daybreak has existed, Doctor Yang? How long has God existed?”

“For those who believe in him, I suppose forever.”

“Do you believe in God?”

“Do your questions just keep getting more personal?”

Aaron tugged the blanket tighter around himself, and muttered, “Poor Tom’s a-cold, eh? The king and the fool. It’s the fool’s job to ask hard questions, that’s all. Not really personal at all, you know. At all. But if you don’t believe God exists, you do believe the concept or the image or the idea of God exists, don’t you?”