That his cockpit and sleeping cubicle were lead-lined, like a dentist’s X-ray offices, to protect him from the risk of seeping radiation. (There was no mention of whether some radiated exhaust or contaminated expelled coolant posed a danger to those outside the vehicle.)
That the vacuum-sealed capsules of freeze-dried coffee stored deep in the Blue Streak’s bowels actually had a gauge of their own on Todbaum’s dashboard, and it showed that at the current rate he still had five months’ worth of espresso. (He’d however polished off all the Macallan scotch before crossing the Susquehanna River.)
That the portal through which he’d admitted Journeyman was designed as a bladed trap, if necessary. It could cinch closed and murder someone who’d been lured up inside. Had Todbaum ever had to use it? “No, but I did crush a couple of jerks under the treads one night out around Santa Fe.”
That the Blue Streak had endured numerous attacks. Those scuffed and singed places Journeyman had noted: each marked some assault, by medieval-style catapult or trebuchet, flaming arrow, or, before the guns had quit working, an Uzi or Glock. Todbaum indicated a place where a tracer bullet had lodged partway through the dual-layer safety glass of his windshield. The bullet was a perfect brass souvenir, its tip just through the glass to make a sharp little nipple. The glass was sealed tight around it, and uncracked.
That the only other person he’d admitted into his safe space, before Journeyman just now, was a woman he’d met in Pittsburgh who’d traveled with him as his companion as far as the outskirts of New York City, a locality into which Todbaum had refused to enter. She was looking for someone in Manhattan. She continued on foot. He, needless to say, had no idea what had become of her, but it wasn’t likely to be good.
At some point in this initial telling, long after Journeyman had drained the tiny coffee, they found themselves interrupted. One of the Cordon men below—Eke, perhaps—began a loud rapping at the flügelhorn speaker, a sound that made its way up and drew their attention to the situation on the road. The rapping wasn’t Morse code, but their message was clear. They wanted negotiations to resume.
16.
Founder’s Park
TODBAUM SHOWED JOURNEYMAN HOW HE opened the channel to listen and speak.
“You need our help, Mr. Duplessis?”
Todbaum grinned, and offered the microphone to Journeyman.
“Help?” said Journeyman.
“Just wanted to see if you’re okay. Sounds like it.” To Journeyman, Eke sounded stunned now, in the face of the supercar. Stunned or spooked, and seeking to tamp his anxieties down into the range of the normal.
Or it might be Journeyman who felt this way. “I’m fine,” he said. “We’re—old friends.”
“Like the fellow said.”
“Like he said, yes.”
“Well, I guess if you want to consider him remanded into your custody or suchlike, me and these others will probably get going.” Remanded into custody? Had Eke turned Default Cop back in the other direction now? The system of powers on this road felt unstable, perhaps booby-trapped. Was Journeyman meant to certify Todbaum as his prisoner? If Journeyman refused, might he instead be considered Todbaum’s co-captive?
Todbaum leaned in, shouldering Journeyman aside. “Gobble a plate of dicks, Harley-Davidson Man. I’ve never been in your custody for one minute and you know it. I guess you might be a custodian in the sense of the guy who swabs the halls and changes light bulbs at the junior high. That’s obviously the kind of career you got cheated out of by the end of the world. The toilet attendant. Or suchlike.”
“Mr. Duplessis?”
“Yes?” Journeyman said.
“Would you mind telling the other fellow that we’re through talking with him for now?” Eke seemed to be restraining himself from harsher speech.
“Oh, sure.”
“The elders just wanted me to be clear I’d passed him along to you. He’s not to come back our way, least not unless some arrangement’s made. If you don’t want to climb down, I guess I can take your word that he hasn’t got a gun to your head or—” Here Journeyman detected Eke restricting a final utterance: suchlike. Todbaum had gotten under Eke’s skin, into his head. In this Eke stood in celebrated company. If only he knew.
“No,” Journeyman said. “No gun to my head. So, you’ll just go?”
“As I said at the start, there’s interest in the operation of this car, Mr. Duplessis. At some point a contingent will want to come see what use could be made of it.”
“Okay,” said Journeyman. “Meanwhile we’ll see your people at the usual time, then?” Journeyman meant for the food drops, the ordinary tribute.
“Imagine so.”
“We’re always glad to see you, Eke.”
“Good day now, Mr. Duplessis.”
At that, the Cordon horses and the two motorcycles unsurrounded the Blue Streak and retreated up the road. Todbaum and Journeyman watched. Journeyman noted again the puzzle of their bandages, their recent injuries: had Todbaum, and his Blue Streak, inflicted these? At a certain distance the Cordon men stopped and turned. Perhaps they wished to see the supercar begin to progress deeper into Journeyman’s territory, and farther from theirs. Then they were gone from sight. Todbaum was Journeyman’s problem now.
What should Journeyman propose? The only answer was to pilot south into Tinderwick. There were no other directions. A mad impulse seized Journeyman then, to turn Todbaum right, onto the road to the Lake of Tiredness. Could he hide him there, with Jerome Kormentz? Persuade him this was the entirety of the survivor’s community? What would they make of one another? But this was idiotic. Todbaum knew of the towns, of Maddy’s farm. He’d had confirmation from the Cordon.
Now Todbaum set out, in any event. The whirring and seething of the machine was accompanied again by the grinding sound of the treads, that grim hum Journeyman had detected when the thing was still out of sight. Over his shoulder, too, Journeyman saw that it had a mapping capacity. Journeyman hadn’t seen a working GPS since the Arrest. Did satellites still orbit the Earth? Anyone with a good telescope could know, but if Journeyman knew anyone with a good telescope, he wasn’t aware of it.
The line representing the road to Tinderwick throbbed blue as the supercar’s transit resumed. Journeyman was a mere passenger. Yet, no matter Todbaum’s expectation, Journeyman wouldn’t be party to bringing Todbaum’s Blue Streak to Spodosol Ridge Farm, to implant its feeding and pooping tubes in his sister’s precious soil. Todbaum’s map already indicated the turn, east off Main, toward East Tinderwick.
So Journeyman formed his intention: to steer Todbaum and his craft toward a mooring by the water, near the boat landing behind the old post office, at the center of the smaller town, on the acre of land they called Founder’s Park.
17.
Island and Lighthouse
THE BLUE STREAK RUMBLED INTO Tinderwick, carrying Todbaum and Journeyman. The settlements on the road thickened, as they passed Brenda’s Folly Farm and Proscenium Farm, until suddenly revealing the high street of the old village—the Presbyterian church, the bookstore, the music conservatory. Tinderwick was tumbleweed-quiet at midday. Farmers in their fields. Tinkerers and canners in their barns or summer kitchens. Children up at the old school. Journeyman felt sealed in doom, atop the Blue Streak. Unable to hear the crows or bees, the blue-spangled canopy of trees mediated by the cockpit’s bubble, revealing not a whisper of wind. They hit Main Street. Todbaum piloted leftward, toward East Tinderwick, without any help from Journeyman. Soon, past the old cemetery, the Civil War monument, they’d returned to forested road, the supercar brushing silently through branch tops. No one had tried to halt them in town. No one had seen them at all.