The Void 9 - Postscript. (Patreon)

The sun ascends like an earthquake, the sky vibrating with effort to hold back the rays. No clouds today. Would it be better or worse if there was? Would they add a vibrato to the imaginary baseline? A promise of escalation? Growing thunderheads flattening against unseen limits, turning the light... Breathe. No need to remember. You rest your forehead against the fencepost. Warm. Slightly rough. Some hairs are stuck there, and for a moment you have a flash of murder but there's no blood and it smells of horse. Scratching. Yes. You've seen that. Horses trapped, rubbing their heads against the wooden posts. They don't have hands, some part of your mind supply, and no trees here. They're not captive. They're tame.

Tame. Are you?

You release the breath. Pull it in. Listen to the horse's mind. Calm. Pleased. The brush is rough, the bristles more broom than you'd like, but it suits it well. Gets the right spots. Strong hands. Trust. Heat rises on your cheeks as you open your eyes, seeing Ortega fuss with it. A hard pat, a small cloud of dust rising, followed by a laugh.

"Yes, yes, I have been neglecting you. I know." Ortega's voice is soft, not intended for your ears, not intended to break the comfortable silence. The horse doesn't understand, you want to say, but you don't. Instead, you keep looking, quietly cataloging everything that's wrong with her.

Crutches leaning against the fence. Looser clothes than normal, the dress farmgirl chic with no belt to be easier on the ports. Burns still healing, but bruises fading into mottled shadow, cuts neatly stitched. Third day out of the wheelchair, third day after being cleared for neural engagement once more. Not fully booted, but enough to walk. Third day since grabbing you and asking you to come. Recuperation.

You said yes because the city was killing you. Ortega was asking you because people's looks were killing her. Sentinel agreed to fly your car here because, as he put it, neither of you two idiots are fit to drive. Go heal, I'll hold the fort. Not foreseeing any emergencies, we beat the bad guy.

You lean against the fence post once more. Breathe. With the drugs washed out of your system, there is nothing standing between you and everything. You can do it. Out here, it will be safe; everything is small under the scale of this sky. With effort, your shields relax once more, opening your mind to the world. A bruised muscle unclenching. Horse blinking back into existence, skittish alertness calm under Ortega's hands. Others, elsewhere in the paddock, exist without worries in the sunshine. Fed. Watered. Safe. 

Safe. You breathe. Ortega keeps brushing, soft little nothings meant more for her own peace of mind rather than any listener.

The dogs are distant. Sleeping. Daytime is safe time; it's during the night they come alive. Coyotes. The chickens are secure, a hive of activity you stay away from, a mental beehive you don't want to jostle. You can hear them too well now, too present, too close to touching strangeness. But you are nothing to them, no threat, no source of food. You are content to ignore each other.

Snowball doesn't. The goat is a quiet sun of a different sort, a wolf in goat's clothing learning that it's fine to just be. She's been on guard since you arrived, reacting to your fear, looking for the threat. The threat is gone, you try to say, but she keeps looking at her with those strange goat-pupils. She doesn't believe you. You're not sure you believe yourself. 

Are you the threat? With closed eyes, you search your heart for anything but tired love and fear of the future. You don't want to hurt anybody here; at this point, you have to be satisfied with that. Snowball is. She brought you on a walk around the Ranch when you came here, a little bouncy Nigerian Dwarf Goat covered in enough dust to turn the white coat creme. Proudly showing off the threats eliminated. The dogs can be lazy these days. The coyotes know better. She likes the dogs. They have an understanding.

Listen. Smell. Bark. Eliminate. A good night's sleep for everyone and a meal for the scavenger birds come morning.

You send her a mental okay sign, and she returns to breakfast with her unboosted kin. Everything is fine. You're just not. Every time you close your eyes, you see green. You feel the fall.

"You need a brushing too?" Ortega holds up the brush, lightning-strike silence a magnet pointing you towards north once more.

"Thought the point of being here was not looking presentable," you reply, running a hand over your scalp. "Not that I'm not tempted." It's not a joke or an innuendo. Maybe brushing hard enough would let you shed your skin like a rattlesnake and let you fit into your new one better. Your head feels tight and cramped.

"Lucy swears by it," she looks back fondly, little Lucy in the sky with diamonds named by a previous owner with a bad taste in music. You stifle a laugh. "What's so funny?"

"This." You gesture vaguely to the dusty paddock. "Us."

"Considering the punchline is going to be a homemade meal for lunch, I can't complain." She leans against the fence as well, on opposite sides, watching each other's blind spots. Neither of you are adept at peace after what you went through. "I'm hungry." And then, in a lower voice. "You're alright with her being here?"

"Yes," you say, unsure if it's a lie or the truth. "Your mother is one person. I can handle one. Just not a city." On your knees on the bathroom floor, shaking fingers counting pills, how many would be enough to make them stop. Be quiet. Let you sleep. You shake your head, dispelling the memory.

"We both got fucked over good this time, didn't we?" Ortega chuckles, her shoulder touching yours briefly. "But we're still here. And the Void is not."

"Any crash you can walk away from." You don't bother finishing the saying; you know she knows it intimately. "How's your legs?"

"Not getting on a horse today," she admits. "Running on minimum charge is nothing I like, but irritating the ports is something even I won't do. Everything back there itches like mad."

"Maybe you're the one that needs a brush," you joke. And then, in the awkward silence that follows you whisper, "I'm glad I didn't mess them up for good."

"You weren't the one that nearly did that." Ortega sounds normal about it. Calm. Confident. "Besides, it's not like we had much choice."

"Yeah." Your mouth is dry. The sun heavy on your shoulders. Once more, she has shown herself to be what you should have aspired to be if you had been more like the horse. Stayed at the Farm. Been at peace with being handled. A good Re-Gene. Do what needs to be done; no regrets afterward, bodies secondary. The mission everything.

"It worked out in the end," she says as if she's trying to convince you that's the truth. "In a month, we'll laugh about this."

"I plan to forget about it," you admit, her shoulder warm against yours. "Nothing happened down there that I want to keep." Bury toxic waste deeper than bodies and hope it doesn't seep into the groundwater.

"Sounds like a plan," she agrees, voice upbeat in contrast to the tension in her body. "Sentinel can deal with wrapping things up. I'm on vacation."

"Technically, sick leave."

"Shush, don't ruin the illusion. Vacation sounds nice; sick leave is something hurt people take." Her laugh is light and pearly, with an edge you recognize. 

"Nothing happened. We can't just walk off." You don't join her laugh but recognize it for what it is. A hand reaching out for help. The only thing you can do is hand her a shovel so she can bury things with you.

"Can walk, yes." As if to prove it, she climbs the fence at last, ending up on your side. Neither of you remarks on the fact that she would effortlessly have swung herself over it three weeks ago.

"I'm amazed you're actually using the crutches." It's not teasing. It's a testament to how hurt she was.

"Helps to have something to lean on. Walking is fine, standing still less so." As if to prove her point, she leans against the fence once more. Side by side now, facing the same direction. 

"We need rest," you acknowledge, to give you both permission to just be. Maybe if you do it, she will. For your sake, if not her own.

"We do." You catch the motion before she stops it. The wish to turn around so you'd watch each other's back again. She breathes a laugh and stares ahead instead, at the nothing your eyes have been fixed on for a while.

"Nobody close," you say. "I would sense them."

"You would, wouldn't you." She breathes a whistle but stops it before the horses pick up on it. This moment is private. For you. "How are you holding up?"

"About the same as you." No lies. You are both doing rotten, pretending to do good. "It's the Nanosurge all over again."

"You're not bleeding this time," she points out, leaning closer in sort of a friendly shove with her shoulder. "That's good, right?"

"It is." You wipe your nose regardless. At that point, you had been terrified of permanent brain damage. Now you're just terrified. "Just need to work on my shields." Speaking it makes it true.

"Still can't read my thoughts?" There's more curiosity than worry there.

"As far as I know, you still have rocks for brains," you supply with the first grim smile in what feels like weeks. "Nothing going in there but a rattle."

"You know, some might take that as an insult." She doesn't; she is smiling, too. "But I don't mind. Rocks are dangerous. Can smash someone's head in."

"Please don't headbutt anybody. Snowball might take that as an invitation to play."

"How she's settling in?" Both your eyes go to the goat pen next to the barn. Large stones are in there, and a dead tree is resting on the side for them to climb. The goats are resting in the shade of the barn; the drought has left little grass for grazing adventures. Only the kids are running around, filled with a bouncy energy you both envy.

"Good. She gets to roam free with the dogs at night, so she's not bored."

"Huh, surprised my mother would allow that."

"You try to contain a goat who doesn't want to be contained. And it's not like the coyotes can hurt her."

"True." Ortega shifts, bracing her weight against the fence. "I have to say, it makes me feel better about my mother moving here for good."

"Agreed." Neither of you comments that some might feel that letting a boosted goat stay with their mother might be a bit risky. So were the dogs. Or the horses. It's easy to kill a small woman. You know how hard it is to kill an Ortega. Or, a García, you suppose.

"She normally has help running this place. Gave them a week off."

"So we're the help now." It feels good. Something simple to do. Physical. Useful. "Or, well, I am. At least when it comes to carrying."

"Unfair." She lets out a breathy laugh. "Horses need brushing, too."

"First time you've let me carry anything for you," you point out.

"Not true. You've carried me. Or, well, mostly dragged me."

"It counts. You're just unwieldy."

"I make an effort to be." Her laugh is real this time. Present in the moment. "And thank you."

"For what?" You turn to look at her; you don't understand what brought that on. Her face is shadowed by the hat, but her eyes are bright and shiny.

"For not treating me like glass." The way she looks at you makes you look away fast before the moment holds and turns. "For keeping it real."

"I don't know what you're talking about." You look up at the sun, wondering if you do. If she knows she's doing the same for you. "And I smell bacon."

"You don't." But she tentatively smells the air. "I don't smell anything but horse."

"We should get cleaned up," you say because Ortega is right. You did not. But you caught Ortega's mother thinking about preparing lunch. "Everything is done out here, and the sun is too heavy."

"Don't you mean hot?" A quizzical glance.

"I..." you pause, realizing the truth of that. Heat of sunlight. Not heaviness. Light. Not vibrations. And yet everything feels stranger than it used to. "Figure of speech." You push away from the fence, pushing the crutches at Ortega.

"What kind of figure of speech is that?" But she accepts them with equanimity.

"Not one you've heard, obviously." You start walking, the feel of feet on the ground anchoring you to the spin of the earth. She follows, then catches up.

Side by side. As things are supposed to be.

...

The shower was refreshing. The meal was filling. The conversation awkward with errors, things heard not said, but everyone pretended it went well. You didn't leave. Or throw up. Or have Tía Elena hate you.

Which brings you to... "Why does your mother want me to call her Tía Elena?" You're doing dishes while Ortega is resting on a chair. Mother's orders. She's taking a post dinner nap. Not a lie, an indulgence giving you privacy.

"Why not?" Ortega rests her arms on the back of the chair, sitting the wrong way around, a delinquent looking for a cause.

"Is that how it's usually done?" You can't be sure. There are nuances to polite behavior you never understood but aped unquestioningly. But you picked up on the weight that the name García had the first time you used it. And Ortega might be her maiden name, but you can't uncouple that from the woman next to you. Julia Esperanza Maria García Ortega. Enigma.

"We don't speak ill of the dead in this house." Ortega has the slight lilt to her voice that tells you she's impersonating her mother. "Let's put it this way. My family name has baggage I'd rather leave at the bus stop. I think she wants to spare me that. Or maybe spare herself the argument."

"I see." You rinse the final plate, emptying the water in the sink once you're done. Ortega's father. Military man. You've seen the picture in the black frame. Stern. Tall. An echo of the woman next to you, closer to the mark than the slight, intense woman taking an afternoon nap upstairs. "What's the plan now?"

"Sleeping off the hot hours would be a good idea, I suppose." Ortega sounds surprised, as if she had been expecting you to dig for the truth rather than help her stomp the ground flat so nobody can see where the bodies are buried. "But I think I'll get back on the treadmill. Need to get these babies back in working order." She slaps one of her thighs.

"You want company?" You ask because you can't read her. Not right now. She might want to be alone even if you don't.

"If you don't mind," she says with relief.

"I'm not going to sleep, and I have nothing better to do." You shrug, unwilling to make a thing of it. Instead, you wipe the counter, then your hands. "Grab me some water; the back room is hot as hell this time of the year."

"Good for aching muscles." She did not say beer. She's taking this seriously. "Better than cold."

"Damn right." She doesn't comment on your clothes. Always too many for the heat. Covering up. Out here, you're not alone in that. It's in the city that people strip to show their skin instead of protecting it against the sun.

You grab two bottles of water from the fridge, following Ortega. The treadmill is in the back room extension, and you try not to let your gaze linger on the pictures you pass. Tía Elena, young and elegant, up and coming Olympic gymnast. Ortega with a brilliant smile, winning some school competition, medal around her neck. A family picture in a heavy frame, Ortega a pre-teen tomboy wearing a dress like a punishment. Her chin stern, her father's hand on her shoulder, already as tall as her mother. Her smile is a challenge to the photographer: take the picture fast, or I'll kill you. At least that's the emotion you take from it. Ortega passes it without looking. 

As expected, the back room is hot. You start up the air conditioner, it vibrates to life, but it will take a while before you notice the difference. Ortega leans the crutches against the wall, walking over to the treadmill. It's less of a gym than a rehab facility, you doubt it's the first time Ortega has spent time here recuperating from various injuries.

"Aren't you going to change?" You take a set on the padded bench, the bottles on the floor beside you.

"I'm just going to walk." She steadies herself against the frame, lowest setting, an ambling limp supported by her arms. "Better than outside." Better than the crutches.

"Less sun," you agree. "No dust."

"Hopefully it will rain soon." She gets a worried wrinkle you do your best to ignore. "I was used to this place being greener."

"Things returning to normal." Something you picked up from Ortega's mother's thoughts. Drier. Hotter. Before the quake and the volcanoes. 

"I don't even know what normal is any more." The laugh is mocking, not aimed at anything but the world. "Why do we even do this?"

"Do you want to quit?" Quit what? Being a Marshal? A hero? The quiet panic in your stomach is a surprise. Where would that leave you?

"I can't," she admits, slowly increasing the speed to a normal walk. "I'm not built for the quiet life." The latter has the flavor of filler. Both of you know that's a truth, but neither of you wants to dig into what it's standing in for. "Just wishing all the crazies out there would take a vacation for a change."

"Sentinel can handle things for now. And with the Void gone, there are hardly any big bads clamoring for the Rangers' attention."

"Yeah. I get how Hood felt now." She smiles that little fond smile that's reserved for her dead mentor. "Would you believe things used to be even worse in the old days?"

"Don't lie. You would have loved it."

"Not the repair bill." She lets go of the handles, walking on her own now, trying to find a comfortable gait. "Like it or not, I can't live out of a backpack on a motorcycle for weeks."

"Maybe if you invited the right mechanic to go with you." You're teasing; Ortega's mods are advanced enough that you can't do anything but keep them running. Though you bet you could keep them running for quite a while with the right tools.

"And a long extension cord." There's a wistful smile as she stretches, both of you cataloging the winces and sprains. Better than yesterday. Not as good as three weeks ago. "Not like I got an integral generator or anything. Still need my daily top-up."

"So does your bike. Doesn't run on air."

"Hah. Can you picture the poor gas station attendant if I walked in with a cord and asked to use the outlet instead of a toilet?"

"Would probably charge you for it too." Nothing is free on the road. You know that.

"A bit slower than filling up a gas tank," she says wistfully. "Not much voltage in an ordinary outlet."

"Hmm. You're right. And nobody wants to be stuck at a gas station for long." You have been in the past. Waiting for the right ride to take you were you need to be. Not that the destination mattered then. Only the safety of the driver. "And I suppose prancing around naked in the rain with a lightning rod is out of the question?"

"Lightning is even less reliable than rain, I'm afraid." But Ortega is smiling now, walking easily, gracefully. "Even with a naked rain-dance. Why naked, by the way?" The words are tossed lightly, a hand grenade with no pin. Lucky you're an adept dodger,

"Clothes would catch fire. Your skin might conduct the charge safely to the ground, but good luck picking melted viscose off your skin."

"Hey, I wear quality clothes!" She holds out her hand for a bottle, and you unscrew the cap and hand it to her. "Now doesn't count. Nobody's watching."

"I am."

"You know what I mean." She hands the bottle back hurriedly enough that the water almost spills. "I don't have to be representative around you. But I suppose you're right about clothes being a fire hazard. The burns on my back still sting, and that was without clothes making it worse."

"Of course I'm right. I know these things." Fighting Emberfall had not been fun. That had been before you got your first bespoke Rangers' associate suit, and the cheap sportswear had bled into your skin like napalm. Luckily, the bastard hadn't expected you to punch him instead of screaming in pain. Glass jaw. Out like a light. Giving you enough time to roll on the ground and put yourself out, even if you picked plastic out of your wounds for days afterward. Deep enough burns to mar you in new ways, not extensive enough to threaten your health permanently. Still, you were out of commission for weeks, and the next time you showed up, Ortega pushed a package at you and told you not to be an idiot.

The skinsuit had fitted like a dream.

"Not sure if I could absorb lightning," she admits, uncharacteristically realist. "Would overload my battery capacity."

"Wouldn't the rest get safely shunted into the ground?" You know the Faraday wireframe protection etched into her skin. 

"Theoretically, yes, but it's not like it's a thing you can test." She scratches at her wrist port. "Some things are just for emergencies."

"I know what you mean." You still don't understand all the things shoved into your mind. How you dealt with the Nanosurge. What you did to the Void. Was that you? Or is your AI chip giving you an edge no human would have? What is happening now? How is it changing you?

"You did that, didn't you?" She can't read your thoughts, yet she acts like she can. "Caught the lightning. Again."

"I'll be fine," you lie, willing it to be true.

"That's not what I asked. I know you will be." She speaks with such confidence. More than you have. 

"You didn't ask anything, I suppose." Just gave you an opening to talk about it. "And I think you're more sure of that than me." A helpless laugh. Is this what she needs? To be the strong one? Is this what you need? Space to fall apart?

"You're still here." Her voice is soft, but she's not looking at you. "There's nothing the two of us can't handle."

"I don't understand what happened." You shiver; the air conditioning is working hard, but you doubt it's that. "I think it's safer if I don't."

"What do you mean?" 

"Look into the sun with your eyes open long enough, and you go blind." The sun is less loud in here, but you can't unfeel it. "Void did. I..." you try to pick the right words. "I forced her to. And now I need to forget."

"Forget what?" She asks before she can stop herself, then immediately backtracks. "Forget I said that. Void is gone. You're still here."

"Yeah." But what is here? The world feels like it has opened up around you, turned to glass fresh from the furnace, red-hot and see-through. Everything fits together in new ways, senses firing weirdly. Light is different. As are thoughts. You're glad Ortega is not well enough to spar. You hit your leg on a chair yesterday hard enough to bruise because you couldn't understand where it was. Where you were. 

"Hey?" Ortega has stepped off the treadmill, in front of you suddenly, worried with dark enough eyes to fall into and not stop until you hit the sky.

"I'm fine." You stand up, nearly hitting her chin with your head, sending both of you stumbling back, laughter anchoring the world once more.

"Hey, I'm supposed to heal," she says, placing a hand on your shoulder. Supporting you. Supporting herself. Anchor. You get it now. "And so are you."

"I am." You lean into her hand, into her mind, letting the electric storm strip your thoughts of context. In the far distance, the chickens resume pecking, crisis averted. "Just going to be weird for a while."

"I'm used to that." She doesn't let go. Instead, she turns the grip into a hug. You wince, as does she. Neither of you let go.