Glitches
Chapter 27
We were assembled in a single Motel 6 room on the outskirts of Boulder, wondering what it was that we were going to do. It was an odd assortment of people. Filled with even stranger alliances and hatreds. I still wonder if I had been thinking clearly enough in those moments after we had picked ourselves out of the rubble of the hotel. If I should have agreed to this strange assembly of characters.
But I couldn’t be blamed too much for not thinking clearly enough, for my Dulcinea del Toboso was gone. I scoured the wreckage of the hotel like a mad man searching until Sumner finally pulled me physically out of the rubble. “She’s gone. He’s got her.” This English sentence didn’t make sense as English. But more a jumble of consonants and sibilants.
“Leif, he’s not here. Bea… isn’t here. They are gone.” Still no comprehension. And that is when my friend crushed a forehand into my jaw, snapping my jaw back and forth rapidly. “Leif has taken Bea, they are gone.”
I finally understood.
And so here we were. Sumner and myself had pulled Jacob out of the rubble in a lucky bubble of safety between two pillars that had collapsed beside him. Eventually the rest of our old group staggered out of the wreckage with harrowing tales of near death and lucky escapes. Cat was the one I worried about the most, but the one I needed to worry about the least as she had seen it all coming as the future solidified into reality. As it was clear what was about to happen, she blew us all a kiss and wandered outside to wait knowing that she could do nothing to help or effect the future. She was Cassandra, cursed to know the future but unable to do anything about it.
There was DJ, no worse for wear. He’d been a little slow to see what was going to happen – but he had been able to thrust his way up through the collapsing ceiling and ride the falling building down to the ground. He had been enraged at Bea’s absence and blamed me for it at first. But something resolved itself deep inside his brain and then an unlikely alliance had been formed between the two of us – an alliance dedicated to the recovery of our love. We were one in purpose. We were a force to be reckoned with.
Jacob was still wondering what had happened as he hadn’t been able to see any of it at all. A few voices. A yell or two. His friend being gutted like a fish. And then the next thing he knew the building was coming down all around him.
And there next to him, the biggest surprise of them all, was Yolanda. I still was unsure how she had survived, but she was clever enough. And I really didn’t care to hear the story.
I had tried to shake her. To tell her I would not have her joining us. But she vowed to track us and use every power at her disposal to ruin us. And I just couldn’t deal with that right now. Somehow I needed to get away from Boulder and then I needed to think. Leif had Bea. That’s all I knew. And every time those words flashed through my mind I shook uncontrollably in a mighty anger that boiled like a roiling river of lava.
—–
“Distance.” Sumner was saying. “What we need is more distance, and the sooner the better.” He was picking up speed now. “And I don’t care what direction we apply distance too – don’t care in the least – we just need more of it and we need it now.” I wasn’t disagreeing, but I just didn’t understand the logic necessarily.
“That’s fine. But I want a direction. I need a likely direction they went in… a trail to follow.” I replied.
Yolanda stepped in and was about to speak, but I cut her off before she had a chance to get a word out. “I want to be perfectly clear on this point. I trust you about as far as I can throw you. No, because that’s not true. Right now I could probably get a good mile or two out of you. So that isn’t right. I don’t know why you are here, or what you want. And so I’d appreciate it if you would just sit there and stare stupidly at the wall. We will talk later. Until that point, I don’t want your opinion, I don’t need your opinion, and the harmonics of my brain would appreciate it if you wouldn’t speak at all. Got that?” I may have been a little harsh. But if I could have left her behind right then without giving ourselves up I would have.
DJ chimed in then more to cover the awkwardness than anything else. “I see both sides. But I think I agree with Sumner here. If we begin investigating our possibilities here we will quickly be overcome by the authorities who will be refocusing their attention on Boulder once again. We have to get out of here. I say Denver. Its across the divide and far enough away to give us some anonymity. And its big enough that we’ll be able to hide in plain sight.” I saw the rationale there. It wouldn’t do any good to stay here only to find ourselves encountering more heat from local police and the FBI.
Yolanda put her head down and raised both her hands in a defensive posture. “I may have some light to shed on this problem.” I almost chucked the lamp sitting next to me into her head I was so angry but Sumner stopped me with a look and an eyebrow.
“Please. Be my guest. I’m dying to hear what it is that you have to say.” I answered cooly.
“Thank you my liege.” She fired back. “I don’t know how you guys are going to survive when you don’t even understand the most rudimentary things. Isn’t it clear where he would be going?” She paused a moment with a cock of her head. “He’s going to the Elders. Bea will be his protection from us. And will also be the bait to draw Mighty Mouse here in to them. It’s a brilliant play. They will pay him handsomely for his creativity. And it will ingratiate himself with some of the most powerful people on the planet.” She paused and reveled in the sudden rapt attention she drew from the group. She took a sip of water and then continued, “Leif is a political machine. Always has been. And his intentions to take over TK House, were either civilly via a vote, or in a hostile overthrow didn’t matter to him. This move sling him past all of that and now sitting in the cat seat. There is no way Bentley will be dissuaded from going after her. Right?” At this she looked at me with an accusing glance.
“Obviously.” I spat back her direction.
“And so that means he holds all the cards right now – and unless we play a masterful bluff game, or pull some master stroke out of our collective asses, he has us right where he wants us.”
She was right, I knew. It was clear that I had us all behind the eight ball and I couldn’t see any other alternative. I wasn’t going to not find her. Everyone in this room, save Yolanda maybe, would be hunted to our deaths, and so that made us ill-fitted companions. And I couldn’t not go after her. I just didn’t have it in me. I did think of striking off on my own. But I knew so little about this world I might as well have just put my head in a microwave and been done with it all.
Somehow I needed to figure out how to make this strange assortment of bedfellows work out. Somehow I needed to get Beatrice back. And I just had no way of even beginning right now.
