Unity And Destiny Pt 08

They were all grumpy and exhausted after the near-fiasco in Mexico. But Esther refused to let them put Jacob and Tomiko in danger by staying any longer than necessary. By the afternoon they'd returned the rental cars and picked up their own from the airport lot. While they made preparations for the next long drive, Esther sat with Jacob.

"Why go all the way to Oregon again?" Jacob asked. "Surely you'd be just as safe up in the mountains."

"It's the Mexican," Esther said unhappily. "I still don't know how keen his perception is, but we stick out for anyone sensitive enough, unless I constantly shield us. We'll be a lot less conspicuous among an established group of powerful Changed. I'd leave if I felt any danger to them, of course. They shouldn't pay for our mistakes."

Jacob frowned. "You worry so much, Esther," he said. "Remember what we talked about. You can't make everything your responsibility. You've already done so much good."

She nodded, trying to believe him. Javier said the same thing all the time now. But she didn't really want to think about it.

"Is Tomiko staying a while longer, then?" she asked. "I'm glad, for both of you."

Jacob smiled. "No secrets from you, of course. She's an amazing person, really. And it turns out we understand each other better than we could have guessed. I spent all those difficult years worrying about Abuela and her burdens, and Tomiko did it even longer with her great-uncle."

"And I'm going to do that to Javier," Esther said miserably.

Jacob put his hands on her shoulders. "You're not doing anything to him. He loves you, Esther. I'd never give up what I had with Marisol. Never. If Abuela had lived another hundred years I would have been there for her as long as I could have, as much as she'd let me."

They were leaving Grace and Kat behind. Kat promised to send them details of anything she found on the hard drives she'd stolen.

"I tried to mount one of them read-only, and I got a lot of errors," she said unhappily. "But I don't think there's irreparable damage. I'll get the right equipment and do it the proper way, you know, make an image and then work only from the copies. So if there's any evidence, the professional forensic people can be sure we didn't tamper with it. Assuming we decide to send the originals on."

"We'll be in touch about that," said Javier. "Probably it depends on what you find."

Then it was yet another long drive. Esther was feeling more rested, and she made a few hesitant forays into otherspace. She didn't like what she felt.

"The Mexican is incredibly strong," she said. "He's not even trying to mask his presence now, though maybe he can't while he's working this hard. He's some distance away from the place he usually is, a lot closer to the border. Still looking for us farther south, but he's certainly capable of finding us up here. Not if I have us hidden, but we have to be very cautious."

"He couldn't find you if you were on your own," said Nicola bitterly. "Maybe Selena could hide well enough, too. Or Mark. But not me. You have to protect me until I get my fucking act together on those concealment techniques."

"You will," said Mark, putting his arm on hers. "I know you will. And we're safer together anyway."

Nicola sighed and leaned against him. Esther was glad things were going a little better with them now. Maybe it was because Mark seemed more confident he'd eventually recover fully. She wasn't sure that was a fair expectation, but she hoped it was true.

Esther knew something was wrong when they approached the farm in Oregon, though it was hard to put her finger on it exactly. And then Diana stiffened when she sensed them coming. Esther stopped eavesdropping. She felt guilty enough about what she'd done with the information from Diana's visions.

They waited in the evening darkness, in the same spot on the side of the highway. Sure enough, Diana approached in a few minutes. But she had along Henry, and Henry's girlfriend, Carla.

"They're all armed," Esther said softly.

"We should leave," Selena said immediately.

Nicola agreed. "Something's wrong here."

Esther shook her head. "I need to hear what they say. Stay in the car, all of you."

The other car parked a good hundred feet away. Esther stepped out, knowing that they wouldn't shoot her. The three in the other car were silent. Grim, and she thought scared as well. But when they saw it was just Esther approaching, Henry and Carla visibly relaxed, moving their hands away from their guns. Not Diana, of course. But it was good news. It meant Diana had kept Esther's secrets.

"That's close enough," Diana said. Not loudly, but easy for Esther to hear. Would Henry and Carla know she was that sensitive? Nervously she walked a few more steps.

"No farther," Diana called more loudly, and she stopped.

"What's wrong?" she said.

"You're not welcome here," Diana said. "The elders agree on that."

"What's changed?" Esther asked. "We have no quarrel with you."

"Did you kill that woman in Mexico?" Henry asked.

Esther was shocked, and she knew they'd seen her reaction.

"Of course we didn't," Esther said. "We didn't want anyone to die. We were there to rescue some prisoners. Children among them."

Carla shook her head. "We didn't see anything like that. We did see all those people you hurt. The dead woman, who had been Blessed by the Way."

Esther finally caught up. The Mexican had retaliated, and he'd done it in a most cunning fashion.

"Are you sure it was us you saw? Are you positive you understand this vision properly?"

"Of course it was you," Diana snorted. "Your faces were concealed, but I know the way you all move, and you just admitted it besides. Perhaps we saw a limited view, as you suggest. Just as my own memories are limited. And yet you didn't hesitate to act on that limited information, did you? You were so sure you understood the Way. No, Esther, we're done with that sort of arrogance. We haven't forgotten what good you brought us, but that's not enough to allow you to drag us further from the Harmony we've been able to find here. Goodbye, Esther, and may you all walk the long road back to Harmony."

She rolled the window back up and drove off without a backward glance. Esther walked back miserably to the van.

"They saw us in Unity?" Selena asked, starting up the minivan.

Esther nodded. "Not a future vision, of course. I assume it was a reconstruction by the Mexican, maybe with the help of the guards who saw us. Or maybe he's good enough to have seen all that from afar."

"I bet it was the guards," said Javier. "He's powerful, but he's practical, isn't he? Kidnapping those skilled people to plan his attacks, rather than attempting to figure it out on his own."

"And using Unity this way," said Selena. "There's also something theatrical and heavy-handed about it, just like calling himself 'the Mexican.' He's powerful, but he's using every tool he can to make himself seem even more powerful. He's shrouded himself in mystery for a long time, but now that he's acting more directly, he just looks like another dangerous, clever man. Like Yau, or Gupta, or Franklin. Just a man, and he's finally acting scared."

"Let's not talk about him for a while," Esther said miserably. "I guess we have to go back to the Shack now. I can keep us safe there."

"What about the old camp?" Mark asked. "I miss it there."

Javier shook his head. "I don't think so. We're centered in Jackson's radar, and she knows about that camp. I feel a little better about her now, but not enough to trust her with our location."

When they finally arrived at the Shack the next morning, they discovered that a windstorm had blown a tree down, damaging the half-finished porch. It seemed a fitting sort of homecoming.

* * *

Javier sat on the rock, breathing hard. A few seconds later, Mark arrived, coming to a halt and swaying slightly, eyes closed. Listening to his body. Begging, cajoling, whatever it was. Teaching his nerves and muscles how to be flexible again, to reconfigure themselves best for whatever activity he needed them. To be efficient.

Javier hated this role reversal. True, Mark would soon surpass him as a runner, if only by diligence. But it was the quiet determination that Mark had, as though he'd accepted this journey that might never end. He never lost his temper anymore. And underneath all the calm, Javier was pretty sure there was a desperation so large Mark couldn't face it.

Mark would stop them before they went too far. Esther didn't like any of their Changed friends wandering too far from her. He knew Selena hated the restriction, and the older woman spent even more time on her meditations now, driving to attain enough concealment skill for Esther to declare her independent. That didn't seem likely any time soon.

All of a sudden, Javier was tired of being out here. Tired of being away from Esther, even though she'd been increasingly cranky and exhausted in the week since they'd returned. He could take her crankiness. He just wanted to lie down with her while she struggled with whatever skill she was working on. Maybe he'd make her practice immobilizing him, though she hated that.

"Javier," Mark said, breaking his train of thought. He looked up, but Mark didn't continue. Javier waited for him to get out what was on his mind.

"Nicola said I should talk to you," he finally said. "But I don't know what to say."

"Okay," Javier said. "I think it's a good time for lunch anyway."

He dug the food out of the little pack, giving Mark a chance to collect his thoughts. But as happened so often, Mark was stuck.

"It's about you and Nicola, I guess," said Javier. Mark nodded, and Javier started eating his sandwich.

"How can she still want to be with me, when I don't desire her?" he finally said.

Javier sighed. "Do you want to spend time with her? Protect her, make sure she's happy?"

Mark nodded. "Of course. I love her."

"Do you think she's attractive? The kind of woman you want to desire physically?"

He grimaced. "She's beautiful. Smart, and strong, and creative. It's me that's not working."

"How much have you told her those things lately?" he asked. "Do you think she knows for sure that you think all that?"

He frowned, thinking. After a couple minutes of silence, Javier continued.

"So you really do desire her, you see. It's only your body that's not working the way you want it. Something's not connected right, and maybe it'll start fixing itself soon. But you shouldn't be waiting for that. Sometimes Esther or I aren't in the mood, or our bodies aren't cooperating, but we try to make it work anyway. Sometimes it all falls apart and we feel terrible. But it's something we have to do together, and it sometimes feels like a lot of work. Mark, I know you're a good lover, and you could make Nicola feel wonderful in a hundred ways, with your hands and your mouth. Don't you want her to feel those things?"

Mark was breathing fast, the way he did when he was really upset.

"Yes," he said miserably. "But I can't do it. I just stop. I don't know where my mind goes, and then Nicola is upset, and it's worse than ever. Why doesn't she just have sex with you? Isn't that easier than all this?"

"Maybe," Javier said, swallowing uncomfortably. "But I'm not the one she wants to spend the rest of her life with. I know how hard this is, Mark. But it's like everything else. I've seen how hard you can work for things that are important to you."

Mark shook his head and started eating his sandwich. And soon he seemed to have put the conversation out of his mind entirely, in his unnerving way. Probably Nicola had told him all the same things Javier had, in different words. Maybe he'd listened, tried to understand, and then put it aside, never to revisit. His memory worked in strange ways. But Nicola loved him, and Javier would never get in the way of that.

But if Nicola decided that a little sex on the side was what her relationship with Mark needed, Javier doubted he could refuse.

* * *

It's a fucking treasure trove,

Kat wrote.

Glorious bunches of E-mails from people too incompetent to know how to be secure. They use cute pseudonyms, and then their E-mail headers give the whole game away. I'm already digging into all of it. And there are some accounting spreadsheets, all out in the open. I guess the idiots thought a single password on the machine was enough to protect all of it. You'd think the cartels could hire better people.

"That's fantastic," said Esther. "Is there any reason not to send on the original drives? It looks like everything we hoped for."

"I can't see why not," said Javier, starting to type his reply.

Kat, is there anything in the E-mails that might be dangerous to the Changed generally? Discussion of abilities, identities of unrelated people, that sort of thing?

I don't think so,

said Kat.

No obvious smoking guns either, like anyone saying "The Mexican says we have to bomb Cairo" or whatnot. But it looks like exactly the stuff the FBI or whoever could use to trace financial support, find conspirators, all that legwork. Any business the Mexican's people do over E-mail is more mundane than messages in Unity, but that's exactly the evidence we want the government to find, isn't it? Still, I only skimmed the E-mails. I'll send you all the stuff that looks important so Esther can zoom through it. Obviously, keep the files properly encrypted.

"Good," said Javier, starting to smile. "Maybe we really did it. The testimony of those witnesses, and all this information. This is going to bring down the Mexican's power, surely. And maybe we can keep our weird alliance with Jackson going strong."

Esther nodded. In Jackson's message last week, she'd been rather pointed about any evidence that they'd promised to turn over. Esther was glad they had Kat to figure all this out so fast.

Jackson hadn't said anything about the people they'd rescued, except that they were safe. None of them had trusted Jackson on this point, and Esther had finally managed to find the rescued group. She supposed they were still prisoners, but at least they were otherwise being treated well, with their own rooms and plenty of space in a disused building at an army base in Nebraska. A lot of people had been in and out to talk to the adults, but it was too far for her to eavesdrop on conversations among un-Changed people.

When Esther finished going through all the files Kat sent, she had to agree with Kat's assessment. They were missing a lot of context, but these were people who were conspiring and knew it. All sorts of references to one codenamed mission or another, coordination, even place names in Mexico. Nothing that seemed to call out the Changed as a group, or give away any of their special abilities. Some people they referred to were probably Changed like Castillo, and this information might lead to their capture. But that had always been their best scenario: find and punish the ones most responsible, and let it end there. She told Javier to make the arrangements to hand off the hard drives.

Afterwards they went to bed and had the best sex since in a long time. Esther knew this drought was her fault, and she knew that Javier knew it, but for once her fear of the Mexican didn't sit there gnawing at her mind, stealing the attention that Javier deserved. Like Selena said, the Mexican was just a man. And he could be taken down, if everyone worked together.

* * *

An hour later, Esther sat upright suddenly, causing Javier to grunt a little in his post-sex slumber. She knew immediately what was wrong: Mark was running off, and he was already farther than she'd asked him to go. Five miles, and he showed no signs of turning.

She'd vaguely known that he and Nicola were arguing, even while she'd been having sex with Javier. She'd kept her attention well away, of course. But Mark might be in danger. From himself rather than from the Mexican, as she could continue to conceal him with an extra effort.

She padded out into the hall naked. No one here minded, and maybe it would cheer Nicola up a little. But Nicola hardly seemed to notice when she came in to sit next to her on the bed.

She put her hand on Nicola's bare leg, but Nicola didn't react much to that either. Finally her friend turned her bleary eyes upwards, not quite meeting Esther's gaze.

"I can't talk about this with you," she said.

"Okay," Esther said, trying not to feel hurt. She waited to see if there was anything Nicola wanted to say, but they just sat there.

"Is he all right?" Nicola asked eventually.

Esther nodded. "Not moving very quickly anymore. Selena could catch him easily if he gets in trouble."

Nicola sighed with resignation, and then she curled up in bed.

"Leave me alone," she said. "Please. I'm sorry, Esther."

Esther wandered outside, feeling out of sorts. Everything had seemed so good earlier. Her body still tingled from that wonderful sex, and she realized she wanted more. The evening air was deliciously frigid, swirling around her torso, stiffening her nipples, caressing her buttocks and thighs like a lover itself. Her feet left no impression on the frozen ground.

She knew Selena was watching her, from her spot on the bench. It was Selena's meditation spot, when she wanted to be near the others, but farther than her little sleeping nook on the second floor. Esther wandered over to sit next to Selena.

"Is Mark all right?" Selena asked. "He looked pretty upset."

"He'll probably be fine," Esther said. "I might ask you to go fetch him, if he stays out too long."

Selena nodded, and then got up to stretch, before sitting down again. Two feet farther from Esther.

"Oh," Esther said. "I'm sorry, Selena. I just walked right into your personal space. I'm distracted."

"I noticed," Selena said wryly. "No, no, it's all right. This is companionable. Just a bit much to be that close."

Esther nodded. And suddenly, she needed someone levelheaded to talk to, who wasn't so close to the mess.

"Nicola won't talk to me," Esther said. "I got the sense it was personal, and I have no idea what's going on. Do you think she's jealous of Javier and me having good sex? I thought I was hiding all that pretty fully."

"You were, of course, like usual. It's obvious enough with you here, though. No, really, it suits you." Selena shook her head uncomfortably. "That's probably not what it's about, anyway. You really don't know?"

Esther was baffled. What was it she was missing? Did Javier know, too?

"All right," Selena said. "You really have remarkable control over your talents. I'll tell you, but only because Nicola surely assumes you know anyway. Mark's sexual function is starting to return. Erections, anyway. Maybe I noticed it first, when we were out running together. He obviously hopes I don't notice, but it's become pretty common. And lately, around you, it's been more than just erections. I'm sure Nicola has noticed it."

"But not around Nicola," Esther said.

Selena shrugged. "Not that I know of. I'm not the one to try to explain it, but obviously it must hurt both of them. And I guess that's all I want to say about it."

Esther knew Mark had always been uncomfortable about whatever degree of attraction he had to her, and now to have that, but not what he wanted with Nicola? What a mess. She thanked Selena and stood up, trying to figure out if there was anything she could do. Or at least if she could put it aside long enough to satisfy her body some more with Javier.

Selena smiled, perhaps noticing whatever subtle signs she usually did. Lately Esther had to work pretty hard if she wanted to fully hide her body language from Selena. Especially if she was naked like this.

"Thanks, Selena."

Selena nodded and closed her eyes, starting her meditation again. And Esther wandered back towards Javier, more confused than ever. But she was still horny, and Javier was awake. Masturbating while he lay on his back in the middle of their bed, the way he sometimes did when he wanted her to notice, rather than give him privacy. And it occurred to her that nowadays Selena would be able to see something like that.