Breaker

Chapter 5-1

Chapter 5

Kaeva

Mecken shut off the ATV’s motor, and he and Kaeva climbed out of the vehicle. Mecken blurred up the sandy dune and onto the dock. It took Kaeva longer. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and on keeping his gorge from rising. By the time Kaeva’s foot touched the dock’s Plastamine boards, Mecken was blurring by him. The kid paused just long enough to say, “Later, man,” and then the boy was down the dune, on the beach, and in the ATV. Kaeva watched Mecken drive away, and his guts churned with more than nausea.

Kaeva might not be the smartest man on the planet, but he knew a setup when he was in one.

“Where’d he go?” Kaeva asked Oberon and Lake as he got closer to the men, and he didn’t give a good damn if he sounded as frustrated as he felt.

“It’s good to see you, Kaeva,” Lake said. Lake was about an inch shorter than Kaeva, but far slimmer. His thick, curly dark hair blew across his eyes in the wind.

“I wish I could say the same,” Kaeva replied.

“Don’t be angry at the boy,” Lake said in a maddeningly soothing voice. “He didn’t know until he arrived here that he wasn’t supposed to wait.”

Kaeva’s head began to pound in time to his pulse. “I’m an equal opportunity rager, Mr. Perricone, and with all due respect, I’d like to know what this is all about before the suppressors have time to wear off.”

Lake’s mouth twisted in distaste. “So you did take them.”

“You knew he would,” Oberon said. He’d been standing on the edge of the docks, facing the water with his hands in his pockets. Now he turned and walked over to Kaeva and his partner. Oberon was shorter than Lake, just as thin, but with thick red hair and beard and a darkness to his pale-green-eyed gaze that called up kinship in Kaeva.

“No, you knew he would,” Lake accused. “You said there was no other way.”

“Because there isn’t,” Oberon said.

Lake ignored his lover. He turned his attention back to Kaeva, who wasn’t sure he’d seen Lake this rattled. “You realize they likely aren’t effective. There’s never been any tests to prove they work beyond a level three, and even at the lower levels—”

“Lake.”

“Don’t ‘Lake’ me, Oberon. Those things are murder in a syringe. Blood pressure, heart strain, kidney issues, not to mention headache, nausea, dizziness. In someone already compromised, even the Cure could—” Lake bit off his words and shook his head. “I shouldn’t have to tell you this. You’re the medic.”

“Exactly,” Oberon said, evidently unmoved by Lake’s anti-Suppressor speech.

“I didn’t want him to have to—”

“They got him here.”

“I can see that.”

“And they’ll allow him to stay here,” Oberon continued.

“Stay?” Kaeva said, working to get a word in edgewise.

Oberon glanced at Lake, who made an exasperated sound and flicked his hand dismissively. “Walk with me?” Oberon said to Kaeva, gesturing with his chin toward the end of the dock.

“You have to forgive Lake,” Oberon said. “He doesn’t like handing out orders he knows the recipient will hate.” Oberon glanced at Kaeva. “He cares about you.”

“Why?” The word burst from Kaeva’s mouth before he could stop it. Being this close to Oberon, to anyone, was making Kaeva more than nervous. Add the suppressors and his anxiety over what orders, exactly, they didn’t want to give him, and Kaeva had to tell himself jumping off the dock and swimming to the mainland wouldn’t solve any of his problems.

Half of Oberon’s mouth formed a smile. “Because he cares about everyone on the island.”

“What do you care about?” Kaeva asked.

Oberon’s gaze was frank. “Lake. The island. The islanders. In that order.”

“Mr. Favara, look.” Kaeva ran a hand through his hair. “I’m too used to being on my own to be any good at people, anymore. I don’t mean any disrespect, but level with me. What is it you need me to do?”

“You’re going to do an intake.”

Kaeva couldn’t have heard that right. “I’m going to what?”

“Welcome wagon. Engage, assess, escort.” Oberon was grim. “We’ve got a new islander on his or her way, and he or she is coming from that direction.” He pointed west over the water.

“How do you know?” Kaeva asked, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

“Lake saw it,” Oberon replied, confirming Kaeva’s suspicions.

“Are they dangerous?”

“We don’t know.”

“Armed? Sick?”

“Unknown.”

“Government?”

“Same answer.”

Kaeva gnashed his teeth in irritation. “Well, then are you putting me on population control?”

Oberon looked sharply at Kaeva. “Be more specific.”

“Do you want me to kill this person the second they hit shore?”

“No,” Oberon said immediately. “Of course not.”

“Then why me? I’m in food supply, not intake. For all kinds of good reasons.”

“You don’t need to tell me that.”

“Then do I need to remind him?” Kaeva hooked a thumb at Lake. “Because if somebody shows up, and I’m what’s waiting, then it could get deadly in a hurry.”

“We know,” Lake said, coming to join them. “We know what we’re asking, and we know it’s not easy. But it must be you.”

“For God’s sake, why?” Kaeva asked, horrified at the idea of having to deal with a soggy, sick stranger.

“It’s what I saw.”

Kaeva struggled to understand. “Could you walk me through this vision of yours?”

Lake fidgeted. “I’d rather not.”

“Well, I rather you did. If you’re asking me to take this kind of risk—not to mention the poor schmuck who’s coming our way—then I think I at least deserve to know the whole story.” If for no other reason than to give me something to tell the dying man or woman I’m supposed to be intaking, Kaeva added to himself.

Lake squared his jaw. “I saw someone swimming to shore. I was too far away to see any specifics of face or features. You were there, camping and waiting.”

“And?” Kaeva prompted.

Lake cast a glance at Oberon. “Tell him the rest,” Oberon said.

“I saw you being physical with another man. Slamming someone into a wall.”

“The intake?” Kaeva interjected.

“Maybe.”

“What else?”

Lake took a breath. “I saw a black cross standing in the middle of a crossroads which intersected in the middle of a field. The sky was dark, but a ray of light pierced the clouds. When it shined on the cross, I could see there were scales hanging from the ends of the short beam. A skull was on one side of the scale, and its weight dragged the pan to the ground. Then lightning struck the other pan, and the scales balanced.”

Kaeva’s brain was too foggy even to begin deciphering any of that. “What does it mean?”

“I’m not sure,” Lake answered honestly. “Usually when my visions are nothing but symbols, the outcome of events can still be altered. When I see people’s faces, it means fate’s already made up her mind.”

“So, what, you think I don’t have any choice about meeting the new islander?”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

Kaeva snorted. “Sorry, Mr. Perricone. I believe in you, I do, but I also believe in me.”

Lake shook his head. “It’s not a matter of belief. Even if you were to walk away, head home, there would be something that would call you back to the shore where the new islander would land.”

“Like what? A hurricane? The hand of God?”

“Like Mecken getting himself in the kind of trouble only you’d be able to fix,” Oberon said impatiently. “Something, Kaeva. It’d be something. A cruel something. Because fate doesn’t like it when you’re forewarned and you try to buck the system. It’s why Lake doesn’t share his visions with the people they involve very often. It’s why he didn’t want to have this meeting.”

Kaeva eyed Lake, who stared at the dock, and then Oberon, who met Kaeva’s gaze with matched intensity. “Then why did you call me here? If I was going to meet this guy no matter what, why tell me and give me the chance to try to bail and make things worse?”

“I’m concerned about the rest of the vision,” Oberon said. “With the pieces not yet set in stone, and Lake and I believe you will have some part in their outcome. For good or ill.”

Facts and speculation joined hands in Kaeva’s mind. “You know more about what the vision means than you’re telling me.”

“No we—” Lake began.

“A black cross usually means death,” Oberon said, overriding Lake.

“Whose death?” Kaeva demanded.

“We don’t know,” Lake snarled. He looked ready to make Oberon the victim and solve the vision’s riddles right then and there. “And we don’t even know if the cross means—”

“It has before.”

Lake shut his eyes and pressed his lips into a thin line.

“Who?” Kaeva asked.

“His parents,” Oberon answered softly.

Kaeva pushed down the bile trying to rise out his guts and into his mouth. “You saw your own parents…?”

“No,” Oberon said. “He didn’t. I did. I had the dream when I was in the fever brought on by the Cure. It’s why I woke up and lit the candle. I was going to call him. I didn’t know what the dream meant, but it was vivid enough to mean something.”

Lake smiled without mirth. “I was avoiding visions. I believe they found me through Oberon. They choose me, the things I see. I don’t get to know what I want, but what fate wishes me to confront.”

“That’s shitty,” Kaeva remarked.

Lake uttered a brief laugh. “Yes. Yes it is. And my usual consolation is that I can keep the visions to myself.”

“Not when they’re undecided and concern unknown islanders who may end up dead,” Oberon said as though they’d gone over the point a few times. Maybe more than a few.

“Is there…do you think this new islander will try to kill me?”

“No,” Lake said.

“Maybe,” Oberon said at the same time.

“Great.” Kaeva was powerful and tough to hurt. Other men had tried and regretted it, but so had Kaeva. He remembered life before Estrangement. He wouldn’t step on insects, much less hurt a human. The Cure, though, had changed everything.

Kaeva spent a few moments trying to think of an Estrangement that would trump his. He wasn’t immortal, not by any means. Lightning from the sky would do it, if that part of the vision had been literal. So would some sort of insta-death touch. Lasers from the eyeballs? Some kind of pestilence spreader? The possibilities were endless. Kaeva had spent ten years being a nomad on the mainland. He’d met a woman who could make someone orgasm with a single touch, but every time she did it, she visibly aged. When Kaeva had met her, she wore a full body suit and beneath her mask, she appeared to be about six hundred years old, plus or minus a few centuries. Kaeva had also met a man who could make smoke take shape and send the beasts out to do things for him. They always fulfilled their tasks and reported back to the guy like soldiers. Then they tried their best to kill their master. So far, the guy had been able to slay all his literal demon spawn, but he had scars not even the Cure could fix.

Those two were just a minor sample of the weirder Estrangements Kaeva had come across, and he’d not ventured off the North American continent. Who knew what they were growing in Asia or Africa or wherever the hell? The populations had taken a massive beating, sure, but those who were left had to be tough as nails. And angry, scared and occasionally starving in darkness, just like the rest of the world. The plagues had crippled civilization into a bizarre second Stone Age full of misguided magic and littered with technology that rusted without the manpower to run it. Even with the Cure, everybody was scrambling and wanted to be the one to rise out of the ashes new and powerful. There were plenty of rumors that the American government was finding and keeping Estranged to see if their powers could be enhanced, hence the nightmare of boosters. It wouldn’t surprise Kaeva if another country had gotten ahead of the curve. If somebody like that had escaped or, hell, been sent to destroy Exile on government orders…

“I gotta ask again,” Kaeva said. “Why tell me all this?”

“Several reasons,” Oberon answered. “One, it was a comfort to know you are in the vision. You survived for years in mainland hell. You know more about the world than many living in it. You’re tough, smart, and strong. You’re a planner. You can foresee possibilities and the consequences of actions. If trouble is coming, then I hope the vision means you will foresee it and choose to fight it.

“Two, you’re a part of Exile, no matter how dysfunctional a role you feel you play. Your Estrangement excuses you, and rightly so, from many political and City matters, but not this one. Every citizen of Exile has proven himself worthy of it and will be ready to provide that worth whenever it is called upon.

“Three, I know you.” Oberon stepped closer. His gaze was completely without fear. “You’re a good man. You deserve a warning of what is to come if it involves you. You deserve our help and our support if you need it. I know some of what you’ve been through in your life, Kaeva. I know asking you to look after another person is asking most people to affect the Earth’s rotation. So while I will not excuse you from this duty, I will tell you I am by your side in it.”

“As am I,” Lake added. “I know exactly how it feels to be picked for tasks by fate in which you want no part. You have my sympathy and empathy, for what those are worth.”

Kaeva studied his boots and the sandy dock. He remembered the day he’d decided to find Exile. He’d been in a shelter, one much poorer than the one Lake and Oberon had once run. Kaeva had drawn numbers like the rest of the urban homeless in some mid-Western city, and his number had been picked, which meant he’d had food and a cot for the night.

His cot had been next to a young boy’s. The kid’s parents were nowhere to be found, dead mostly likely, and the boy was Cure sick. The boy had been Cure sick for months. Maybe years. The boy didn’t remember. He didn’t even know how he’d gotten to the shelter, but he’d been there, shivering under his blankets, pale and thin with sunken eyes and white, chapped lips. Kaeva had covered the kid up with his own blanket, tucked in the boy as much as he dared, and Kaeva had tried to get the kid to talk. The boy hadn’t been interested. He had a scrap of paper covered in phrases that Kaeva had seen sprayed on the sides of abandoned buildings and carved into subway tunnels but had never taken seriously.

Over and over, the kid had used a stubby pencil to trace the words: Believe. Seek. Prove.

“I’m gonna go there,” the kid had said to Kaeva, teeth chattering. “When I get better, I’m gonna go there.”

“Sure you will,” Kaeva had answered, scared to touch the boy’s face, but dying to wipe away the sweat and grime. Instead, Kaeva had stayed up with the kid, sacrificing a night of sleep to offer a little comfort.

The boy had died the next morning, and Kaeva had set off for the southeastern coast.

“Orders received,” Kaeva said. His head throbbed. His body ached. The world spun too fast. “Where do I need to be?”

“On the beach, nearby.” Oberon gestured to a pile of gear next to one of the dock’s posts. “Tent, sleeping pallet, food, water, and emergency supplies.”

“How long will I need to be out here?”

“We don’t know,” Lake said.

Kaeva blanched and massaged his temples. “Are there med supplies?”

“Yes,” Oberon answered. “Plenty of suppressors.”

“But you won’t need them for yourself,” Lake insisted.

Kaeva shook his head, stubborn, maybe, but he knew his Estrangement better than the kings. “The Barrier. If I’m out here, this close to the perimeter, and something goes wrong, I could short it.”

“No, you won’t,” Lake said firmly. “We’ve got extra manpower on it in shifts for as long as it takes the intake to arrive and you to get out of range.”

“Even when I’m not this close, I’m a risk,” Kaeva pointed out.

Lake sighed. “The only time you’ve ever affected it was when you first arrived.”

“I remember,” Kaeva said gruffly.

“And since then we’ve made modifications,” Lake said. “The original infrastructure Miracle installed has been combed over and updated, thanks to Collins and the Techs. The Barrier does more now than the military ever intended with its original manufacture.”

Kaeva’s patience with the kings’ lack of foresight, however ironic, was wearing thin. “I know what it does. I still don’t think you—”

“Listen to him, Kaeva,” Oberon instructed. Kaeva shut his mouth and frowned hard enough to make his eye twitch.

“The Barrier’s initial intent was to cloak military ships and planes,” Lake explained. “Miracle acquired it to mask Exile from radar and other methods of detection. Since we’ve taken over, though, we’ve enhanced it. Our detection of movement is now a full ten miles off our shores. We are completely invisible to the normal naked eye until one comes in contact with some part of the island, be it the reef or the sand. And most would never make it that close thanks to our Deflector, whose effects are graduated and range for a full five miles off our shores.”

A Deflector Estranged could make people not want to be somewhere. Be that near the Estranged, him or herself, or near a building or location, it varied, and so did the Deflector’s physical effects on their target. Such Estranged were rare, highly valuable, and Exile had one. Nobody ever got physically close to Mithra. She was even more isolated than Kaeva, but most of that was her choice. She had much more control on her Estrangement than Kaeva had on his. She could let people close when she wanted them. Getting close to Mithra when she didn’t want it, though, felt like dying.

“I understand all that, but no matter what you do, it’s still electrical,” Kaeva said.

“True.” Lake smiled. “But what you don’t know is that we’ve inverted the charge.”

“I don’t understand,” Kaeva said.

“He means the Barrier now pulls energy not only from the generators, which the Energy Estranged power, but from any Estranged who manipulate it. That’s how we could add Deflector abilities to it in the first place.”

“Smart,” Kaeva said begrudgingly.

“No, accidental.” Lake laughed. “Mithra was part of the Tech team who inspected the Barrier after you arrived. Her Estrangement jumped, just like Oberon’s fire, only hers went to the nearest electrical current. The techs who were monitoring the Barrier at the charge sites close to the base where Mithra was working immediately felt the effects and reported in, and we took note.

“We knew using the Energy Estranged to power the Barrier was giving us the ability to enhance the system as a whole. It can run faster, farther, and more efficiently than ever using magic as well as normal battery power.”

“Makes it harder to take down,” Oberon said. “Even for somebody like you. It’s not just electrical anymore.”

“Right,” Lake agreed. “And we also regularly juice it with the Deflector charge. We combine the Energy Estrangement infusing and boosting abilities with Mithra’s skills.”

The Barrier’s defenses worked outward, not inward, so once somebody was inside the Barrier, there were no side effects. But anyone who got within range of the Barrier from the outside was going to have a very bad day. Kaeva had known the Barrier was the island’s main form of defense in addition to the Estranged that lived on it, but he’d not known all the specifics. “Doesn’t that mean any intake’s in for a seriously rough ride?”

“Yes,” Oberon said. “But it’s necessary for island defense.”

“And it’s not impossible,” Lake added. “We’ve been perfecting the Barrier’s craft since your arrival eight years ago, and we’ve had plenty of people make it to our beaches.”

Kaeva stared at the water. He’d give the Barrier this much: at least if a truly dangerous Estranged was coming, he or she would be seriously weakened by the time they crawled onto dry land. Unless, somehow, the Estrangement fed on that kind of energy. One never knew.

“I’ll still need suppressors for the intake,” Kaeva said after a moment of consideration. “And for myself, if something goes wrong. I know the Barrier’s better, faster, strong, but I’ve not been out of control for a while. Rather not take the chance.”

“You’ll have a radio,” Oberon said. “Should we detect any fluctuations in the Barrier, we’ll let you know to use the needles.”

“I can live with that.” To avoid another long-winded discussion, Kaeva didn’t add that he’d need suppressors to escort the intake to the Med Center. He’d take Oberon and Lake at their word that the Barrier was being managed. He wouldn’t take anyone’s word over his own experience that he was a danger in crowds. The Med Center was in the center of the City.

“Any other questions?” Lake asked.

Kaeva walked over and picked up his supplies. He sighed as he shrugged the pack onto his shoulders. He didn’t mind the idea of camping on the beach for a few nights. He’d done that on his own for fun more than once. Hell, Lake might be right. He might have decided to do it to celebrate his birthday, and he’d be in this mess whether he liked it or not.

The thing was, though, that Kaeva was pretty sure if he saw a swimmer come up on shore, he’d let the person wander off to be somebody else’s problem.

“No,” Kaeva said at last. “But, a request, maybe?”

“What’s that?”

Kaeva let resignation settle into his bones. “Mind sending Mecken back with something to read?”