Node 0 – The Night of Waiting (One day before the trip begins)
I was crouched on the edge of a cliff, looking down at the camp far below. It was late, too late, but the overly bright moon illuminated it well enough.
Most of the assembled troops–far more than I had expected to see, actually–had returned to their tents for the night. Not that the camp was deserted. Guards walked the perimeter, and others passed through the center and through the crawler pad below me. The crawlers were silent, thankfully, but their boilers were still alive. In the dense air here, the smoke didn’t rise. Instead, it flowed along the ground and spread out into the camp.
I almost wished that it would rise and provide us with a bit more cover, but I was just as happy not to have to deal with the smell.
I looked towards the center of the camp where the lone wooden structure stood. I had watched them build it earlier in the day, using lumber they had dragged in on sledges from Groundbreak in the east. They had to drag the crawlers in too. Even steam-powered clockworks wouldn’t work over there. They barely did here.
But no one in Abenenth would be expecting anyone to come from the east either, which was why they were here, just on the other side of the Skyfall Shard from Abernenth.
We had climbed up the Aberenth side. It was said that this side was unclimbable, though I learned long ago that absolutes like ‘unclimbable’ were usually wrong.
Actually, always wrong.
I backed away from the edge and looked at our own camp. It was deep in a crevice in the cliff, out of sight from anyone on the ground. The large bundles of rods and cloth we had painfully lowered from above were carefully lined up along one side, while our sleeping bags and equipment were lined up along the other. I noted that Miriam had moved her gear over next to mine, away from Naomi’s. I guess that was another secret we weren’t keeping anymore.
Miriam looked up as I slid into the crevice and stood up.
“Did you see him?”
“Not since this afternoon when they got in. He’s been in that command post since they got it set up.”
She took a step forward, then stopped and hugged her arms across her chest. “I hope he’s OK.”
“He seemed to be.”
“I’ll feel better when he’s out of there.”
“I know. I’ll help you get him.”
“What about dad?” blurted Naomi. She had been heating up coffee over the jinn device. “We’re getting him out too, right? Or do you not care about him anymore?”
“I do care, sweetie. We’ve been through this. I don’t think he wants to come home anymore.”
“Do you?” Naomi’s voice was bitter, and I saw her glance at the sleeping bags, then look away. I heard her sigh.
“I get it,” she said quietly. “I understand. I just wish… we had never come to this place.”
Miriam quickly stepped over to her. “So do I, sweetie. So do I.” She hugged her daughter as I went to my pack and started putting my binoculars away. I then busied myself with rearranging my few items as they whispered.
—
Several minutes later, I heard a soft step and felt a hand on my shoulder as Miriam knelt next to me.
“Are you sure we can do this?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “If like you think, Nathaniel will leave Isaac at the camp when they start their move, then we should be able to be in and out before they realize what is happening. But, if Isaac goes with them…” I trailed off and shrugged.
There was a pause. “Yeah. I understand.”
I turned to look at her. “If you can think of any other way…”
She cut me off. “No, no. We talked about this. All of us. Me, and you, and Naomi. She’s just…” She looked back at Naomi, who was now engrossed in her proc. “She understands. But she’s also 17. You remember how that was, right?”
“Yeah. I guess. Though, when I was 17, there were a few other things on my mind as well.”
“Like?”
I raised an eyebrow at her, and after a moment, she flushed slightly and glanced away before returning her gaze to me.
“For what it’s worth,” I said. “I’m glad you came to this place.”
She looked down, but her lips turned up in a slight smile. She placed her hand gently on my shoulder again.
“Yeah. I guess… I guess I am too.”
—–
Node 1 – The Day of Beginning (17 days before the trip begins)
I had just checked the time and decided that I would be able to reach Juniper before dark. Then I rounded the corner and saw them. The packed gravel road wound through dense vegetation, and the local wildlife kept up a raucous chatter, so I didn’t see or hear anything until the SUV came into view. The driver was head down under the hood while his wife stood nearby watching. A young boy sat in an open door playing a video game of some kind while a teenage girl leaned against the side of the vehicle, tapping away at a cell phone in frustration.
I pulled my own proc out and tapped the display. No cell phone coverage, of course. I tapped again and checked the current levels. Most things were normal, but the chem triad was oddly depressed. I looked at the SUV again. Probably internal combustion. No wonder the driver was having problems.
My arrival hadn’t been noticed yet, and I debated stepping back around the bend. But I couldn’t. The first rule of the Road is that you never abandon someone needing help, no matter who they were. After all, the next time out that someone might be you. And I probably wasn’t making it to Juniper before dark either way. I sighed and stepped forward, calling out as I did.
“You people need some help?”
The man looked up sharply at my approach and stepped out into the road, motioning for the woman that I assumed was his wife to get behind him as he did. I noticed that he was armed–a holstered pistol of some kind hung at his wais–and his other hand dropped to it. My crossbow was still on my back, but I did not attempt to reach for it or the blade on my belt. Instead, I stopped and kept my hands out at my side. It wasn’t quite the reaction I had been expecting, and I started to wonder if that stopping to help everyone rule was a mistake.
“Miriam,” he said. “Get the kids in the car.” He unsnapped the release on his holster and took a grip on the handle of the handgun. “And why don’t you just keep walking along, boy!”
Yeah, I thought. Definitely going to have to rethink that rule.
I tried to get a better look at the gun. Hard to tell, given that I could barely see it, but it was probably a gunpowder-adjacent slug thrower. It probably wouldn’t work here, given where the chem triad was sitting, but the only real rule this far away from a node was that rules weren’t, so I didn’t want to take a chance.
Instead, I stayed where I was, with my hands held out and visible. “I didn’t want to cause any trouble. It’s just that…” I trailed off and looked over the SUV again. How in Gehanna had they gotten that here? They…
I sighed and closed my eyes. Tourists. No, worse. Accidental tourists.
Somewhere there was a road. A side path. A barely visible trail. Something inconspicuous. If you weren’t looking for it, there was probably no chance you would ever notice it, much less decide to go down it. But, for whatever reason, this family had.
And now they were on the Road.
I rubbed my eyes. I wasn’t getting to Juniper before dark.
“Hey, keep your hands out!” the man yelled.
I looked back at him. The handgun was now drawn and aimed at me. It was an almost-comically-large revolver, one designed more for intimidation value than for actual use. And gunpowder-adjacent. There was almost no chance it would work here.
“Look,” I said, trying to sound friendly. “I… This is going to sound weird, but… I don’t think you are where you think you are.”
“I know exactly where I am,” the man said. “I’m on my way to Flagstaff. And you are trespassing on private property! So you better have a good reason for being here.”
Flagstaff? That wasn’t any gateway city I had ever heard of. Where had these people come from?
I lowered my hands. “Look, like I said, this is going to be hard for you to believe, but… there isn’t a ‘Flagstaff’ anywhere around here. The nearest Nodes are Juniper, out to the west.” I gestured along the road behind him. “And Sitonis back that way.” I gestured behind me, then stopped and looked at the trail for a second.
“Tell me,” I said, turning back. “Did you drive this thing down that?”
The trail behind me was loose gravel, broken by trees and roots and with multiple washouts. He was driving an “SUV,” but one of those that was designed to look tough without ever really expecting to operate on anything rougher than concrete.
He looked past me and frowned. “Well, yeah. We had to. How else would we be here?”
I smiled and took a step forward. “Node Transition effect. When you move from one Node to another, the old trinaries cling to you for a bit before fully transferring to the new one. You probably were…”
He took a step back and brandished his firearm again. “You stay where you are! I’m ordering you to stay where you are!”
I dropped my hand to my own belt and pulled my blade free. “Look, I’m trying to help you. We all need to get to Juniper before nightfall. You can listen to me or not, but if you don’t…
He pulled the trigger and, even though I was pretty sure of what would happen, I cringed.
There was a faint hiss and a pop from the gun. The bullet cleared the barrel but landed less than two meters in front of him.
He looked at his revolver in annoyance, then fired off several more shots. None worked any better than the first. I strode towards him and got close enough to catch the last one out of the air before it hit the ground. I held up my blade, and he took several steps back.
“Hey, look!” he said stammering. “We don’t want any trouble. You just… you just go your own way and…”
I held up the bullet I had caught, then tossed it aside. “As I keep telling you, I’m trying to help you. Don’t you want my help? Fine. I’ll be sure to tell the authorities at Juniper where I found you, so they can send out a team tomorrow to bring you in. Or bring your bodies in; this really isn’t a good place to stay out at night.”
He was moving sideways, trying to circle me and get back to the SUV. “Look. Just… go. OK? You startled me, that’s all. Just… go.”
I clipped my blade back to my side. “You don’t know where you are, do you?”
He broke into a run towards the SUV, and I watched to see what he would do. He had depended on the gun he had carried for most of his confidence. Was he wearing it while trying to fix his car? I had been on the Road long enough that I was pretty sure I could defend myself if he kept being aggressive.
At the SUV, both of the children–well, teens now that I had gotten a better look at them–were now in the back seat, but his wife was standing beside the passenger door and looking in our direction. He ran past her and opened the back of the SUV.
I didn’t move but kept looking in their direction. The wildlife in this area was slightly aggressive, too used to wanderers coming in from off the Road. They might be able to survive the night by locking themselves in their SUV and hoping nothing managed to break a window, but it wouldn’t be pleasant.
His wife looked back at him as he buried himself in the back of the SUV, then glanced in my direction. She glanced away almost immediately, but I saw her eyes. She was confused and… questioning. She would be more receptive than he was.
The man suddenly pulled away from behind the SUV, brandishing a rifle of some kind. “You should have left when you had the chance!” he yelled, coming towards me and firing.
I didn’t flinch this time. This time the pop was before the hiss, but a dozen or so pellets came from the end of the rifle and dropped within a meter. He shook it, scattering more shots, and fired again. The results were no different.
He looked at me, and I saw fear in his face for the first time.
Tourists! I thought.
I held up my proc, angled so that he could see it. “Both Aleph and Beit on the Chem triad are depressed,” I said. “Chemical reactions can’t get beyond 50 or so potential. So explosives, which are what those weapons you are using are, can’t work. You couldn’t get a decent fire to burn here. That’s why your vehicle is stalled.” I gestured toward it. “Internal Combustion. No combustion, no engine. OK, now that you’ve gotten all of that out of your system, do you think you might actually listen to me? And do you try to shoot everyone you meet?”
“What? What is going on?” He was looking at the rifle in his hands in disbelief, then at me with abject hatred on his face.
I sighed. I’m not the Welcome Caravan. Why am I dealing with this?
“Again, I don’t think you know where you are. You’re on the Road, do you know that?”
He continued to glare as he waved a hand at the gravel path ahead of us. “Yeah, I’m on the road as much as this crappy path can be called one. What the Hell are you talking about!”
I shook my head. “Not a road. The Road. You… aren’t where you were anymore.”
“What the Hell does that mean?” He narrowed his eyes. “You on drugs or something?”
I decided to ignore that. “How did you get here? You weren’t on a regular road. Never mind how I know that. I know. You were on a side road. Probably one blocked off. What were you doing?”
His confusion had coalesced into hatred again. “Who the Hell are you to ask what I was doing? You don’t know who I am! I don’t have to explain myself to you!”
I sighed, but his wife spoke up. “We… we took a side road. It was a faster way to get to Flagstaff.”
He quickly turned to look at her. “Will you shut up! I’m talking!” He turned back to me. “OK, yeah. We took a side road. But I wasn’t going to waste any more time than I had to. I had to take Naomi here to look at a college.” He glanced at who I assumed was his daughter, then back at me.
“And then my car breaks down, and some wetback with an illegal knife and some kind of rifle shows up. I know how you illegals think. I’m sending a deputy out to take you in as soon as this is over. So you better just keep on walking and get out of here!”
Where in Gehanna were these people from?
I should have just walked away. I should have. But… I had been in trouble on the Road before. I couldn’t leave them here. That next person in trouble might be me, and I had to pay my debt in advance. The Architect wouldn’t notice me otherwise.
Instead, I took a deep breath, took a second to compose myself, then continued. “Look. You don’t like me for some reason. I get it. I don’t know where you are from.” I quickly held up a hand before he could say anything. “You are on the Road. A path that… well, it goes between different realities. And yeah, I know that just makes you think more that I’m on some kind of drug. But… think about it. Your vehicle broke down. Your weapon–two weapons, actually–don’t work. Something is wrong, right?”
I winced at that, but I could see that he was thinking. I continued.
“You’re in a transition zone—a place where two different realities meet. The physical laws of the universe are different here. Chemical reactions can’t proceed at high speed. So biology, like us, is fine. But they can only move so fast. So gunpowder doesn’t work, and engines won’t work.
“The problem with transition zones is that… things tend to show up. Guardians. Creatures that try to prevent things from moving from one reality to another. And they mostly show up after dark. Mostly. I’m willing to take you to Juniper, which is the closest Node, but if you want to stay here? Fine. You aren’t getting this vehicle moving again. I’ll let the rescue team at Juniper know so they can come out and retrieve your bodies tomorrow.
I made a dramatic show of resetting my pack. “Do y’all want help or not?”
He looked confused but didn’t say anything. The woman, apparently his wife, spoke up instead. “Are we… are we really in danger here?”
“Yes,” I said. Almost at the same time, the man said, “No! Of course not!”
I nodded. “OK. Well, good luck then. I’d advise staying in your vehicle tonight. Keep the doors and windows closed. And be willing to use that gun as a club.” I nodded towards the gun he was still holding. “I’ll still let the Juniper Patrol know that y’all are out here, and they’ll try to bring you in tomorrow.” I waved and turned back to the path.
“Yeah, run away. Boy!” the man said. I shrugged. At least I had tried.
“Wait!” It was the woman’s voice. I kept moving, but she yelled again. “Please, wait!”
I stopped and turned back. “Look, I…”
“Have no business being here!” the man shouted. “Miriam, shut up!” He turned back to me. “You just keep on going. That’ll be best for all of us!”
I shrugged again and started to turn back when his wife shouted. “No! Nathaniel, no!” She was looking at him but gestured at me.
“He can get us to a city. Or someplace we can get help. We’ve been stuck here for hours. Maybe we should just… go get help?”
He let out a long sigh. “All right. Fine. I’ll go with him. You and the kids stay with the Bronco.”
“Not a good idea,” I said, shaking my head. “They really don’t need to be out here overnight.”
“Oh, so you can take us somewhere, kill me, then rape them?”
Who in Gehanna was this guy? Without thinking, I unclipped my blade and tossed it to him. “Take that. If I get out-of-line, use it. But I’ll want it back once we hit Juniper. If you decide to stay here? Cut off anything reaching through your windows.”
I turned to walk away, but his wife yelled again. “Don’t leave us here!”
I glanced over my shoulder but kept walking. “I’d help if I could, but not my choice. Apparently.”
I got a dozen steps before I heard anything else. It was the husband. “Wait!”
I stopped, waited for a second, then turned back. They were a good two-dozen meters behind me at this point. “Yes?”
“You say… there’s a city nearby?”
“Juniper barely qualifies, but yes.”
“We can get help there?”
I hesitated. There were people there who could help them, but I seriously doubted if he would listen to him. “Yeah, there are people there who can help you.”
Far better than I can.
He nodded, then looked at his family. “OK, we’ll go with him. For now.” He stepped forward and picked up my blade. “But you better behave yourself.”
“Of course,” I said. “It’s a couple of hours away, and I set a pretty good pace, but…” I gestured at the trail ahead of me. “After you.”
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