<But if you are within twenty minutes of some allimportant somewhere, I have no right to say don’t try. Just make sure its worth-it. If you get in a car now you might carsh and die, or drop into the wilds and starve, or be captured by an unknown enemy. Those are the probabilities Weigh that against a slim chance of reaching your destination. If that tiny chance of reaching your somewhere is genuinely worth risking likely death, then go. Now. But only if you’re compleely ccertain.>
It was done. My imagination showed me fiery deaths, faces frozen against walls of flame, a child screaming as they see smoke rise from the woods. I told myself fewer people would try it now than if I hadn’t warned them off, but some would try—a selfless doctor hoping to reach the hospital was the image paranoia settled on—and some who tried would die, because of me.
The Prince restored me. “What has thy species named the place where stands thy flesh, chiot?”
Where was I? I hadn’t thought to check. I was in a place, one place in the world, and what if it was far from friends and safety? I could feel a flimsy mattress under me, rumpled sheets. I cleared my lenses enough to see a dark, cramped space, more closet than room. The walls were all shelves and jumble: boxes, folders, freezer crates, square canisters labeled in scrawl, half a coatrack, a katana, shoes and clothes in clear bags, paper notebooks, all in a sea of pack-rat detritus, some of which had rained down to join the loam of trash and laundry that filled the edges of the little room. A dented crate served as bedside table, and on it I found a stash of instant breakfasts, espresso candies, tangerines, a paper book, Cannergel handcuffs, and a cheap replica bust of a bearded man so badly sculpted it could as easily have been Darwin as Plato. A label claimed Victor Hugo. I leaned across to verify the book was Holmes. “I’m safe,” I said. “In Papadelias’s office.”
A new voice signed in now. « Seigneur ? »
« Ma brave Heloïse, » the Prince greeted.
Martin: “Heloïse! Good. Don’t get in a car. Whatever you do, don’t—”
Heloïse: “I’m in a car now.”
Martin: “What?”
Heloïse: “I’m mid-flight. Aunt Bryar called me back to—”
Martin: “It doesn’t matter.”
Heloïse: “But—”
Martin: “Land. Now. Wherever you are, just land.”
Heloïse: “I’m over the Sahara Desert!”
That knocked the breath from all of us. “What?”
Heloïse: “I was in Kano. Wonderful meeting with the U.N., they’re preparing to accept our refugees.”
I: “The United Nations . . .” I whispered it, awed by this dreamlike reminder that, even locked within their Reservation boxes, these vestigial ‘nation-states’ still have their embassies, and hospitals, and borders.
Heloïse: “The African Union is—”
Martin: “Later. You have to land, now.”
Heloïse: “It’s fine. I saw the Anonymous’s message. I’m less than twenty minutes from Casablanca.”
Not Heloïse too; my words killing imaginary doctors was already too much.
Martin: “It’s not fine. Someone’s hijacking cars. What’s the nearest city? Head there. Check your maps.”
Heloïse: “Ubari? Someplace called Ubari’s—”
I: “No good. 70 percent Hiveguard at least, you’d be a hostage in no time.”
Martin: “How do you know?”
I: “You think Su-Hyeon and I haven’t counted every rooftop flag on Earth? Even with people off at work, it’s risky.” I brought up the map. “Let’s see, Illizi is Mitsubishi majority . . . most of these oasis towns are dangerously small, if supply chains fail . . . no . . .”
Martin: “Can they reroute to the coast? What’s closest? Tripoli?”
Heloïse: “Tripoli’s only barely closer than Casablanca. If—”
I: “I don’t like the mix of flags in Tripoli. There’s nothing majority Remaker between Ubari and—”
« Alexandrie, » Dominic finished for me. « Va à l’Alexandrie, Heloïse. Immédiatement. »
Heloïse: “Alexandria’s as far as Casablanca.”
« Notre Maître est à l’Alexandrie ! » Dominic barked back. « Seul ! »
« Seul. » The Prince repeated the word, slowly, softly. It made me think of a kid at an aquarium, watching a strange new creature undulate behind the glass and mouthing its fresh-learned name.
« Seul ! » Heloïse shrieked in horror. “Alone! Martin, is Nôtre Seigneur really in Alexandria alone?”
“Don’t worry,” Martin answered. “The palace is better staffed and defended than anywhere on Earth. We need to concentrate on you now. If you can get to the coast you can reach Alexandria by boat.”
Evasion from Martin set off all my warning bells. “Where are you, Martin?” I asked.
“On the ground, safe.”
More evasion. “That’s not what I asked. I’m in Romanova, Dominic’s in Tōgenkyō, where are you?”
For three seconds we all listened to Martin’s too-rapid breathing. Fear breaths? Running? “Heloïse first,” they answered.
One Questioner Martin must always answer: “What has humankind named that place where stands thy flesh, My Martin?”
Almost no hesitation: “Klamath Marsh Secure Hospital.”
The doom couched in the answer seemed to grow as logic unpacked it. Of course poor Martin was hard at work, off chasing O.S. and Perry-Kraye, combing through the hospital carpet for hairs, or counting footprints. But now the distant hospital-prison where we had raced for Cato Weeksbooth promised a different kind of crisis. Klamath Marsh had no roads, no neighbors, not out in deepest Oregon, a wilderness preserve, Greenpeace’s once, now Mitsubishi, verdant and teeming with the dangers of raw nature. And if Martin survived the mountains, nothing waited beyond them but the infinite Pacific, or, to the East, the deserts and Great Plains, and there no help or shelter but a peppering of isolated wilderness bash’houses, almost all Greenpeace Mitsubishi, or, beyond them, the proud cities on whose towers fluttered Sniper’s flag. The vastness of it felt spiteful, this huge, fat planet, as if Earth had planned this, knowing that no wall or battlefront could be so dispiriting a barrier as the cruel width of America.
I scanned my Sahara map again, since Heloïse we might still save. “There’s nowhere I’d call safe closer to Heloïse than Alexandria. Nowhere I’m confident will turn majority Remaker or neutral. But Alexandria’s close-ish, in reach, in theory.” I checked the video of Cielo de Pájaros again, but the smoke and crouching figures had advanced only one trench. We still had minutes.
“Alexandria, then,” Martin concluded.
“What about Casablanca?” Heloïse challenged. “They’re equidistant at this point.”
« Il est seul ! »
“I know,” Heloïse more yelped than spoke, “but there might be a coup!”
“What?”
“In Casablanca. That’s why I was going up. Cookie’s assembled the Cousins’ Board, and all the Nurturist leaders are there, and Aunt Bryar says the balance is very fragile! I’m making all the calls I can, but I could do so much more in person.”