jedibuttercup | Fic: Now That the Dawn Has Come, 4/5 (R; Falling Skies; Mason/Pope)

<< Parts 5 & 6

7. A Revealing Experience

"He didn't do those things just so there would be one single lord, a being of genius, but they had the effect of humbling all the tribes when he did them. It was just his way of revealing himself, but because of it he became the sole head of the tribes."
— Popul Vuh, Part Five

Epictetus, his favorite Greek philosopher, had once said, 'It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.' Tom wondered what it said about him that he would far rather be the one taken by the enemy, than the one left behind, watching a loved one be taken.

Selfishness, perhaps: that he'd rather cause that pain than experience it himself, ever again. Ego: believing that he could bear up under the challenge better than the rest of his family would. And, yes, a little desperate love as well: to willingly cast his body between theirs and danger. He knew what people said about him — why John said people followed him so willingly — but he knew he was no hero. Except in the most cynical sense of the word: 'someone who gets other people killed'.

He could bear anything other than watching that happen to yet another person he cared about, even endure another round of Espheni hospitality. One moment he'd been screaming in denial, watching a flying Skitter drag John up into the sky; the next, before he'd even finished catching his breath in relief that the other man had fought his way loose, another hornet had taken advantage of his distraction to grab him. And now ....

"You're brooding again," a familiar voice murmured, and Tom blinked, his line of thought completely derailed. The hornet-thing was gone, and with it the choking grip of its tail around his chest, the dizzying sweep of sky and cloud, the distant snap of sudden thunder; he was standing in the middle of a very familiar room instead. One several hundred miles — and several years — away from that bridge in Charleston.

He couldn't possibly be there, but it was also impossible to mistake his surroundings for anything other than the clean blue walls and orderly furnishings of his bedroom back in Boston. It hadn't actually looked that way since before the invasion, he knew; he'd slept in its decaying ghost only the month before, during his and John's retreat from Karen's tower, and there'd been almost nothing left of the haven it had been during the years he and Rebecca had raised their sons there. Only dust, debris, and desolation. But the sight of it restored tugged at his spirit with a nostalgic yearning he couldn't quite block out, even knowing that it couldn't be real.

"He'll be fine," the soothing voice repeated, and Tom glanced toward the open doorway, swallowing hard at the sight of Rebecca. Why did they always have to use Rebecca?

"I know he will," he said — then blinked at the utter familiarity of it, how automatically the words had fallen from his mouth. Maybe this wasn't so much like Karen's virtual programming, after all; this was the memory he'd been dreaming variations of for weeks now, though it was the first time it had felt so vividly real.

"Boys. He was upset too, you know; just didn't want his daddy to see it. Nine years old, and his first time away from home. So I told him to look up at the moon tonight." His long-dead wife walked closer, sliding her hands up his chest with a soft smile. It was hard, so hard, not to lean forward and sink into that touch.

"Because as long as the moon is up, he isn't alone; chances are, someone else in the family is staring up at that same moon," Tom said stiffly, cutting the conversation short with the words she would have spoken next.

Her smile brightened at that. "You're beginning to get the picture," she said approvingly, then reached up to press one palm against his cheek. Her hand was warm, and yielding, and utterly, utterly wrong in some way he didn't have the words to explain. "It's so easy to get discouraged, when you first realize how small you are and how very big and scary the universe is. Knowing you're not alone can make all the difference in the world."

...She'd said that to him once, too; or, at least, the real Rebecca had. But not in the same conversation.

A frown dragged Tom's brows together as he stared down into that pale, beautiful face. "Why are you telling me this? Why these games? You have to know by now that interrogating me this way won't work."

Rebecca pulled back a little at that, giving him the arched brow that had always meant, 'Dear, don't be so obtuse.'

"Nice try, Tom," she said in chiding tones, shaking her head. "You promised me we'd talk before dinner."

What was going on? "I'm not interested in ..." he started to say, then groaned, bending over to wrap an arm around his ribs as a stabbing ache flared up in a band around his chest. "What ...?"

The word caught harshly in his throat; Tom coughed, then blinked his eyes open again and flinched as his center of gravity abruptly tipped over, literally on its ear. Rebecca wasn't there anymore — and he wasn't standing up, either; he was lying on his side, on a hard, leathery-feeling surface, curled around the bruising left by the flying Skitter's vicious grip. He'd lost consciousness less than a minute into the flight, and clearly, something had seized the opportunity to disturb his mind in that vulnerable state.

Something — or someone? It hadn't felt as harsh as his previous encounters with Espheni mental influence, and too detailed to be pure flashback or the invention of an unconscious mind. But there was another possibility, given recent discoveries. One he'd have to put some more thought into when he wasn't under unfriendly eyes.

A pair of feet moved into his line of vision, human feet clad in worn work boots. Tom wondered for a moment if he was going to be kicked, but they stopped a few yards away, and he slowly tipped his head back for a look at their owner. Trousers, shirt, worn jacket, the face of a boy in his late teens or early twenties — and the swell of a harness visible between thin shoulders. This would be the voice of his captor, then.

"Welcome, Tom Mason," the boy said, tone measured and flat: parroting the words of an Overlord somewhere out of sight. Someone had cropped his hair brutally short, and he had just a hint of dark fuzz above his lip; he was older than Ben, probably closer to Hal's age range, and fairly freshly harnessed by the lack of other visible alterations. Probably out of one of the new city-camps — one of the children Cochise had told him had been taken.

"You know my name," he said, stating the obvious as he sat up. He didn't feel any other notable new wounds, just the ache in his chest, and somehow he doubted this was where the Espheni took their usual captives. Was he on one of those ships? Maybe even the one tethered over Charlotte, that he'd just been plotting how to take down? He sort of doubted it — solely on the grounds that things were never that simple.

"I do," the boy replied, eerily serene like every other actively harnessed child he'd encountered.

Some days Tom felt incredibly guilty for what he and John had done, killing Karen — she may have chosen to join the Espheni when given the chance, but surely she never would have done so without the brainwashing she'd undergone first — but she would have returned the favor, if they hadn't stopped her. Right now, all Tom could hope to do was to one day give all the Espheni's slaves, human or otherwise, the chance to make choices of their own.

He glanced around again as he pushed to his feet, hoping to catch sight of the puppeteer, but there were too many shadows to guess which one it occupied. There was enough open space in the ugly, organically textured room to be sure they were definitely on something bigger than a beamer or one of the courier ships, though; several glass screens were suspended along one wall, lit up with surveillance imagery showing people going about their business inside one of the laser-fenced enclosures.

"Do you know his name?" Tom asked pointedly. "This poor kid you're using as a mouthpiece?"

"He's not important," the kid in question replied, blandly.

It was statements like that that wore down on Tom's determination never to act solely out of anger; that made him wonder whether genocide of another group of sentients ever could be moral, and what he'd do if that option was ever made available to him. What he would become, if the war wore on for much longer.

"And that belief, right there, is why you haven't yet won this war," he replied, gritting his teeth in impotent fury.

"Perhaps," the Espheni continued, implacably. "Your complete inability as a species to accept the logic of your situation has, at times, rendered the course of our conquest ... unpredictable. But that will not save your people from its inevitable conclusion."

"We've proven you wrong so far, we'll prove you wrong in this as well," Tom insisted, craning his neck to peer further into the shadowed nooks and crannies of the ship. "So are you going to show yourself, or are you too afraid to come out and do your dirty work?"

"There is nothing dirty to be done," the speaker replied, eyebrows arched as if in surprise. "I have a simple proposition; one that might serve both our goals. You have proven yourself a leader. Assist us with the next stage of our war effort, and we will exempt you and your family from what is to come."

Did he honestly expect Tom to respond positively to that? "I've heard this offer before. 'In exchange for sanctuary, we will set aside a protected area where human survivors will be relocated.' If this is what sanctuary looks like to you, then I definitely made the right decision, and nothing you can say to me is likely to change my mind." He shook his head, gesturing toward the images playing out on the screens.

"They remain alive, do they not?" the Espheni countered. "Had there not been traitors within the ranks of the guard, the inconvenience you represent would have been removed when the original offer was refused. It would be fitting were we to gift you with the same reward as they: genetic alteration into a more useful, mindless form. But that would be a waste of your potential. Agree and turn over the weaponry acquired from your Volm allies, and we will return you to your city and spare those closest to you from the transformation to come."

Useful. Mindless. A chill swept through Tom; he normally believed in choosing the option with the greatest chance for survival, but if ever there was a fate worse than death, that would be it. "What happens if I refuse this offer?"

"Have you willingly gone along with anything we've chosen to do so far?" The young man's voice was practically dripping with disdain as he conveyed the Espheni's rebuttal. The shadows shifted again, and the alien itself finally emerged, staring down at Tom as if to underscore his ultimatum. "You will have forty-eight hours to consider your choices. Until that time, you will join those below."

"And when I say no a second time?" Tom tipped up his chin, staring at the slender being towering over him. Like the Espheni he'd seen before, it wore some kind of skin-tight clothing; unlike most of them, however, this one's garments gave off the impression of a uniform, something stiff and probably armored.

"Then your family will be first in line for alteration as we perfect our new frontline soldiers." The kid delivered the ultimatum without so much as a hint of hesitation. "It is a shame the testing process is so prone to error."

He said nothing more, but he didn't have to. Tom swallowed through the rush of nausea, then inclined his head, playing for time. "I will consider ... very carefully," he said, forcing the words out through clenched teeth.

"We shall see," it replied, then turned its face away, stalking back into the shadows. "Forty-eight hours. Do not forget."

Tom opened his mouth again, unwilling to let the alien have the last word — then closed it again as the floor fell away under his feet, dropping him into a space choked with threads and cords of Espheni biotech. It was like being trapped in a coffin-sized capsule wrapped with stretchy black licorice; one that kept descending at a steady rate, not quite faster than his stomach could keep up.

His breath came short in his chest for a long, panicked moment — until he realized what it was doing. This wasn't another cell; it was an elevator. He laughed, the sound a little frantic and breathless even to his own ears, and braced himself to meet whatever challenge was coming next.

From ground level, the inside of the Espheni prison was even less appealing than the views that had been transmitted back from Charlotte. They really had spared no effort wrecking anything left whole from the original invasion; all buildings more than a few stories tall gaped like broken teeth against the skyline, leaving every street choked with rubble. Even given the destruction, though, it was easy to tell he wasn't in the prison closest to Charleston; John was going to be furious. And his kids were never going to let him out of their sight again.

Tom dwelled in that thought for a moment, picturing the faces of each of his family, then sighed and folded all that fraught emotion away again, taking in the loose crowd staring back at him from several paces' distance. None of the prison's inhabitants looked very welcoming, though he really didn't blame them for their mistrust. If they'd seen that elevator thing before, it probably hadn't brought anything beneficial; the Espheni would have make things easier for him if it had sent him down in the grip of another hornet instead.

Which, actually, had probably been the point. Everything those beings did had some logical reason, and often more than one, as abhorrent as they often seemed to human ways of thinking. He wouldn't be surprised if their line of thought this time had gone something like: if Tom Mason didn't survive the next forty-eight hours, he probably hadn't been worthy of their offer anyway, and either way, he'd be one less thorn in their side.

"Who are you?" someone said; and another picked up the question. "What are you doing here?"

"The same as any of you," he said, raising his voice and holding his hands up placatingly as he met as many of the judging eyes around him as he could. "My apologies; they didn't exactly give me time to pack when they snatched me out of Charleston, or I would have brought gifts for my new neighbors."

Some of the ragged, hungry-looking refugees shook their heads and drew away as he proved himself less interesting than they'd hoped; some of the others narrowed their eyes, undoubtedly assessing where he'd fit into their pre-existing chaotic hierarchy. Preferably on a lower rung than they did. One of the onlookers looked genuinely upset, though; a man around Dan's age, who stepped closer at Tom's words.

"You came from Charleston?" he asked, in a voice worn raspy from illness or overuse.

"Yes. Is this Greensboro? Or Richmond? Or did they take me west or south after they got me away from the city?" He could probably piece it together himself eventually, but it gave him something to say, some room to establish a working relationship with these people whose goodwill he'd depend on for the next couple of days. He didn't have any preexisting bonds to rely on, here.

The older man didn't respond to the question, though; he shook his head sharply, the distress in his expression sharpening to something painful. "Are you saying Charleston's fallen? I was on my way there with my family when the hornets found us — we ran into one of those friendly aliens, the Volm, who said it was still free. I drew the hornets away from them so they could make it — but if they took them anyway —"

Tom shook his head as the man's voice rose in panic, trying on a reassuring smile. "No, no. Charleston was still standing last I saw it; I'm sure your family's fine. I was just ... unlucky. Where are we, by the way? I know this isn't Charlotte."

"No, it's Greenboro ... or was," one of the others said sourly, a woman in her mid-thirties with her dark hair shorn off close to the skull and an infected scratch marring one cheek. "It's just another Espheni ghetto, now. Even if they don't have Charleston yet, they will soon; we're all gonna die in here, or someplace just like it."

"I don't believe that," Tom said, meeting her gaze evenly. "I can't believe that. If I know my family, they're already on their way to find me, no matter how many other prisons they have to tear down to get here."

"Feel free to delude yourself," she spat back, "but don't expect the rest of us to buy it. Especially when you came from up there."

"Not by choice," he began to explain — then sighed as she turned away, striding off with a huff.

"It was nice to meet you!" Tom called after her, then shook his head in frustration when she threw a finger back over her shoulder in response. Several of the remaining onlookers had lost interest after her reference to the ship as well, turning their backs on him with unease flickering in their expressions. Only a few remained behind — and of those, around half seemed more hostile than genuinely curious. Though again, he could hardly blame them.

If the camp had a leader, he or she didn't seem to be there at the moment; hiding somewhere within line of sight to keep off the Espheni's radar, perhaps? Regardless, there didn't seem to be any point in standing around until someone pressed the matter. He looked around again, turning slowly in place to identify which direction was south, then strode casually out of the open square where the ship had set him down. The few people standing in that direction backed off rather than interact with him, though, looking away rather than meeting his gaze. Maybe if he could find the nearest edge of the laser wall, and pinpoint a weakness in it somewhere .... well, it might be futile, but it would keep him busy until either someone did approach him, or the cavalry arrived. One way or the other, he was going to get out of here; that was all there was to it.

Tom oriented himself by the direction of the sun and shadows as he walked, nodding politely to anyone he passed. Even those folks he didn't recognize from the square looked wary until he passed them by, though, huddled in makeshift shelters or whispering to a close companion. Very few bothered to meet his eyes; one of those was a solitary man with dark skin and a sharp, assessing look, but he didn't ping Tom's danger sense and he didn't give any sign he wanted to speak to him, so Tom kept walking.

It took him maybe ten minutes to reach his goal. Part of a university had been within the boundaries of Greensboro's fence; a fallen 'LIBRARY' sign caught his eye as he picked his way through the rubble, but the bricks that had been part of the building were soot-stained and crumbly, not a hopeful indicator that there might still be anything useful inside. There was a lot of brick construction in that area of the city, actually, mostly discernible now by the dull red particulate mixed with the ever-present concrete-and-asphalt grit. Laundering that out of his clothes was going to be a real chore when he got back to Charleston; it stained nearly as badly as rust.

The fence was visible from that spot, but he couldn't see any sign of the tether. He'd probably have to walk the circumference of the fenced area to find it, and that could take a while. But what other option did he have? After all the planning they'd done for Charlotte, he knew that the power line's location would be where to expect any attempt at rescue. And its proximity, or lack thereof, to the rail lines would also tell him whether there was any chance that that would occur within the 48 hour grace period the Espheni had offered him.

The scuff of a boot behind him told him that further exploration would have to wait for later, though. Someone had finally decided to bite. Tom didn't want to fight any of the other prisoners, but he couldn't just assume whoever it was would feel the same, and he knew he couldn't be seen as a pushover, either; this first solo confrontation was going to be key. He might not have John's experience behind bars, but he didn't need anyone to tell him that apparent weakness was no protection when faced with a bully determined to assert their position.

"Can I help you?" he asked, throwing an unhurried glance back over his shoulder.

His guest was the lone watcher from earlier, the one who'd stared as he walked by. The stranger still didn't look hostile, but he definitely wanted something if he'd tracked Tom all that way.

"Perhaps," the gentleman replied, tilting his head thoughtfully. He spoke English with a slight accent; not quite British or Australian. Maybe South African? "Back there, you said that you were ... unlucky. But you do not act — or dress — like one who relies on luck."

He'd been in the square then, too. Tom had to admit, he probably did look suspiciously clean and well-fed, compared to someone who'd been living in a place like this ever since the Volm left Earth, regardless of his idle worries about laundry. He supposed that was what passed for a first world problem, these days.

"I guess that depends on how you define 'luck'," he said carefully, keeping his hands easily visible. "I was unlucky enough to draw the attention of a particular Overlord a couple years ago, and escaped when he meant to kill me. Then I compounded the error by allying my group with the Volm when they first arrived. After we turned the Beamers dropping fence posts away from our city, the Espheni must have watched and waited for their opportunity to catch me above ground, hoping to disable Charleston's defenses by removing me. They're going to be very disappointed, if that's the case."

The stranger frowned at that. "I had heard that there was a settlement in Charleston; my last community was visited by a woman in a prop plane over a year ago. But we found her claims difficult to believe, and yours are even more outrageous. I don't suppose you have any way to prove them?"

"I'm afraid they took my weapons, although ...." Tom's brow furrowed as he realized he was still wearing all of the clothes he'd been abducted in, and they didn't seem torn or rumpled. Taking care to move slowly, he slipped his hands into his jacket pockets, and swallowed hard as his questing fingers encountered the slick curved surface of the Volm communicator. He'd taken to carrying the comm everywhere since John and Hal had left, not wanting to miss a call from them or Cochise; he couldn't believe it hadn't been found on him. And if the Espheni hadn't searched far enough to take that ... had they left him anything else of use?

A crinkle betrayed a folded piece of paper in one of his other pockets, and Tom huffed a disbelieving laugh. Of course he'd have one of the those on him; he still thought the damn things were ridiculous, but in the absence of high tech anti-counterfeiting measures and their stringent requirements, his advisors had argued, why not paper certificates with a likeness drawn on them? Literally drawn: there was a guy in the administration whose sole job now was to sketch illustrations by hand for people who'd grown up with computerized 3D imaging technology.

"I don't know if I'd call this proof; more like an embarrassment. But, here." He pulled one of the slips of paper slowly back out of his pocket, gesturing with it toward the stranger.

The other man took it, glancing perfunctorily down at the rectangular shape — then looked again, sharply, glancing between Tom and the New US Credit bill. "This is ... you?"

"Unfortunately," Tom replied, grinning ruefully. "I told them it should be Manchester, because he's the one that made sure the settlement there was more than just a militia in the first place, or even Porter, because there wouldn't have been any Boston militias without him. But they insisted — for the same reason George Washington was on the one dollar bill, or so they claimed. But it was only after I was elected that the city managed to get a semi-functioning economy up and running as more than just a barter system again, so ... yeah. Tom Mason, at your service, though I still answer easier to 'Professor' than I ever will to 'President'."

That wasn't to say he hadn't reconciled himself to the new title over the last couple of months; he was even reluctantly fond of some of its variants, particularly John's 'no-shit President of the New United States'. But those were stories for another time. His babble seemed to have served its purpose already; the stranger looked much more open and less suspicious, now.

"Just how many survivors are there in Charleston?" the man asked, incredulously.

"Somewhere between five and six thousand now," Tom shrugged. He was well aware of what those numbers would sound like; that was as much and more as all the original Massachusetts militias together, before they'd been split apart and whittled down to under two hundred by time and Espheni malevolence. A drop in the bucket compared to pre-invasion populations, but more than most survivors they'd found had ever expected to see again. "I wish I could be more precise, but it's been a couple of months since we last took a census, and not everyone wants to identify themselves to the government. Given the givens, we usually just mark those down as officially unnamed residents, but I think some of them are either getting double-counted or not counted at all."

The stranger whistled lowly, shaking his head. "Perhaps I'm a fool, but — I cannot believe anyone would make up a lie that outrageous," he said, handing back the note. "I don't suppose you'd have any use for an electrical lineman in that city of yours? Dingaan Botha."

It was Tom's turn to widen his eyes. "Actually, believe it or not, we just might. We've only got the one guy in Charleston running our entire power plant, and he has other responsibilities as well — he'd be thrilled to have some assistance, particularly given the demand created by the continuing expansion of our population. One of the many points of stress in the lashup we're currently calling a government. We have quite a few people who left their white collar jobs behind to become warriors, but there are some interesting gaps among the nuts and bolts professions."

"Then I think perhaps we might have something to talk about," Dingaan smiled back, extending a hand for a quick, firm shake. "This is not the first alien prison I have been in, you see; I escaped from the one in Richmond, before a black hornet found me again and brought me here. If I can get us out, can you keep us free?"

If his new friend was telling the truth — that was terrific news. "I can't absolutely guarantee anything, until I can contact my people. But after that — yes. The Espheni had to make a special effort to get me this time; it won't happen that way again. How do you propose to get us out?"

Tom didn't like the idea of leaving so many people behind in captivity — but this wasn't Charleston, the people here weren't the Second Mass, and he had to get back to the Second Mass before he would have the resources to be able to free everyone else, anyway.

"Very carefully," Dingaan replied with a smirk. "But the details can wait — they'll be dropping food in a few moments, and I've only been here a few days longer than you have. If we miss the drop, no one will save anything for a newcomer, and food isn't so plentiful that we can afford to miss a meal."

Tom could understand that; even in Charleston, even now, they didn't have enough that they could afford to waste even a crumb. If he never saw another starving child, it would be too soon. "Lead the way," he said, gesturing back over the path of footprints marked out in silhouettes of grey and red dust.

Dinner turned out to be a single can of Spam, salvaged from a bag full of preserved food dropped from a Beamer. Tom had never been a big fan of the processed meat, but it was still in date, and it was better than some things he'd had to eat over the last couple of years; he still smiled every time he remembered John's diatribe about canned goods stashes and the apparent ubiquity of tuna. In a way, opening that can also felt like a back-handed victory; after turning them away from grocery store after dry-goods warehouse early on in the resistance, when he'd still been mostly just a scout for the militia, the Espheni were being forced to give up all that jealously guarded food after all. Sometimes, it really was the little things.

Dingaan ate a can of refried beans, and apologized in advance with a wry grin. Tom really hadn't expected to make a new friend that day, and he still wasn't just going to trust the man out of hand, but he already appreciated Dingaan's pragmatism and sense of humor. He'd be a good addition to Charleston if he really could do what he promised.

Once they were done eating, Dingaan graciously showed him to a relatively cozy retreat on the second floor of a half-destroyed building to continue their conversation. One corner of the former office space, twice the size of a standard bedroom, was open to the evening sky; there was enough ceiling left to keep the sleeping corner dry, however, and the damage seemed to have kept other prisoners from coveting the space. It was better than he'd had a time or two on the hike south from Boston, not to mention his plane crash adventure, so Tom wasn't about to complain about his new friend's hospitality. His definition of 'luxury' was highly context dependent of late.

Dingaan had furnished the room with a couple of chairs; one of them had clearly seen some recent use, but the other was still thickly layered in dust. He brushed at it perfunctorily with a worn sleeve, then gestured Tom toward it. Almost without thinking, Tom checked the position of the ceiling breach and the door, orienting the chair so he could keep an eye on both; then he sat down, gratefully taking the weight off his feet.

"So. Tell me about your escape."

Dingaan took a seat in the other chair, leaning forward to brace his weight on his elbows as he took a deep breath and began to explain. "There are many differences between the two camps I've seen — but many similarities as well, the most important of which is the green barrier."

Tom nodded. "They tried to set up a similar barrier in Charleston, but we were able to drive them away before they could complete it. And our scouts have seen a fence like that around downtown Charlotte, as well."

"It vaporizes anyone who touches it. But it is based upon electricity, and I know electricity. Do you know the concept of a Faraday cage?"

The word sounded familiar, like something Tom might have read in a science fiction novel, but not enough for him to define it. "Sorry, I taught history, not physics," he shrugged.

"A Faraday cage, or Faraday suit in this case, is an enclosure formed by conductive material or by a mesh of such material, used to block electric fields," Dingaan explained. "I made a sort of armor based on this principle — strips of metal attached to an insulating fabric to cover as much of the body as possible, including a helmet. It's not perfect; it's impossible to shield every square centimeter of skin, given the need to grasp things and breathe, and the limitation on available materials means it will begin to fall apart right away. You can't just put the suit on and walk through the wall. But it will protect you long enough to climb one of the fence posts, if you are quick."

Tom tried to imagine gambling his life on whether or not a scientific principle learned in theory would save his ass in a real situation; brave man. Although he supposed that was more or less what he'd done with historical principles, the very beginning of his involvement with the Second Mass. His original thesis — that making the occupation difficult enough for the invaders would eventually drive them away — might not have been proven, but the facts of Charleston's situation otherwise more than spoke for themselves.

"How long will it take to construct a suit for both of us?" he asked. It didn't sound particularly complex — but finding the materials, and assembling them in secrecy, would probably be more difficult.

Dingaan shrugged. "I think I have enough fabric already," he said, nodding to a mound in one corner that Tom had taken for torn curtains at first glance. "And the tools to make them. I've secured enough strips of metal for one suit, as well. We will need enough for another, two helmets, and copper enough to wind around both suits. It is not a great amount of material — the challenge is locating it, not assembling it. We could find it right away, or it could take many days."

"We don't have many days — or, at least, I don't. The Espheni in the zeppelin up there gave me a forty-eight hour deadline before they force me to make a choice I have no intention of making." Tom nodded at the hole in the sky, noting absently that the moon was up, and nearly full; it would be fairly bright out until it set. "Have you asked anyone else if they know where to find the materials you need?"

Dingaan grimaced. "I did not wish to make anyone suspicious, and I had little to trade in any case. But if you're on a deadline, it might be worth it to try. And the search will go more quickly, with two of us."

"All right, then. Tomorrow," Tom nodded, then glanced back up at the sky again.

Despite what he now knew — that humanity was far from alone in the universe, and that one of those sparks of light out there had given birth to a superpredator even deadlier than they were — it still looked the same from down below. The stars still shone; the moon still rose and set, looking down on every member of his family.

The moon. Tom froze as he remembered the vision he'd experienced before waking on the Espheni ship, and narrowed his eyes at the bright, gibbous shape hanging above. If that visitation really had been a message from the Dorniya — what had they been trying to tell him? What did they want him to see?

"Tom? Is something wrong?" he heard Dingaan ask.

"I'm sure it's nothing, it's just ...." he began, then sucked in a sharp breath as something did change. A brilliant green dot appeared on the surface of the moon, held for a breath, then blinked out as swiftly as it had come. "Did you see that?"

"What, the moon?" Dingaan replied, skeptically.

"No; there was something on the moon," Tom shook his head. That color — it had been almost the same shade as the fence. That had to mean something, didn't it?

"I don't see —"

"Just give it a minute," Tom insisted. There was no way he'd just happened to look up at the one and only time that was going to happen; even in a world where aliens had advanced predictive abilities and/ or ESP, that was unlikely. But it couldn't be something that had been there ever since the invasion, either; someone would have noticed something long before now. Unless he was going crazy; he wouldn't bet against that, either.

He waited, and waited, counting slowly under his breath — then almost at the minute mark exactly, the green dot appeared again, bright and unmistakable. "There!" Accounting for the scattering effect of the atmosphere, it was probably a lot smaller than it looked at the source, but even so ... if that light originated on the moon, how powerful would it have to be for them to see it all the way down on Earth?

Dingaan swore under his breath. "Lasers," he said, vehemently. "Of course."

"What?" Tom frowned at him.

"I had wondered how they could power these walls, and all the beamers and mechs, when everything was at a standstill such a short time ago! But there are theories — before all this happened, NASA had been researching the idea of beaming power down from solar satellite collectors for years, based on Nikola Tesla's theories. We know wireless power transfer is at least possible on the small scale; people were working on charging stations for personal electronics that didn't require plugs, that sort of thing, before the invasion. There! Sixty seconds, just about," he concluded, pointing up at the moon. "They would lose better than half of the energy in the atmosphere — but with the help of a few satellites, they could hit the whole world from up there."

Tom swallowed, stomach sinking at the idea. "Do you really think that's possible?"

It would explain a lot about the Espheni's sudden and rapid re-expansion ... but at the expense of putting a solution to the problem way out of humanity's reach. Did the Volm even have any spaceworthy craft still on Earth? He'd have to ask Cochise, but he thought they'd disassembled most of their single-passenger landing pods to build their bunker. And then there was the fact that this was proof that the dreams weren't just a product of his own imagination; just like when he'd seen the DNA report, he wasn't sure whether to feel relieved that he wasn't going crazy, or terrified of what it meant for the future.

"The technology may be far beyond our grasp — but the theory? We've known its potential for more than a hundred years," Dingaan shook his head. "It's obvious, now that — ah, there it is again; definitely a regular pulse. My only question is why now; why didn't they set this system up from the beginning? Did they think they wouldn't need it? Or did it merely take that long to construct?"

"I don't suppose it matters either way," Tom shrugged. "What matters now is getting past the fence."

"True, true," Dingaan sighed. "Well — you're welcome to sleep here, if you like; there isn't much in the way of amenities, but it's better than anything else you're likely to find before nightfall."

"That sounds great, actually — though, do you mind if I stretch my legs first?" Both for the reason Dingaan was likely to assume — it wasn't as though the structure had any running water — and to give him a chance to use the communicator in private.

"You hardly need my permission," Dingaan chuckled, shaking his head. "Mister President."

"Didn't I tell you? Call me Tom," he grinned back, then headed for the doorway. "Back soon; and thanks again."

He tried the communicator he'd left with John first, but neither John nor Hal, who'd used it to speak to him last, answered. He tried not to let that worry him. The last he'd seen of them, they'd both been alive; but they were both sure to be very busy, given the attack Charleston had just repelled.

He gave it a few minutes, then switched the frequency and tried Cochise next. There were times his scout team was in a position where he couldn't answer, but fortunately, that wasn't the case that night.

"Professor Mason. It is good to hear from you," the Volm answered, immediately.

Tom gave a low, relieved laugh. "Better than you know, my friend. The Espheni sent a lightning raid against Charleston — I'm in the prison camp at Greensboro, now. Fortunately, they didn't empty out my pockets."

Cochise said something pungent in his own language. "Was anyone else captured?"

"No, don't worry. It's just me. I think they followed a group of refugees to us; the remains of the Keystone group. John found them while he was out scouting. They said Hathaway was taken to one of these camps as well, but it must be Richmond, because I haven't seen anyone I recognize here."

Something else to think about later — had they offered a similar deal to the one they'd offered him to Hathaway? Could it be Hathaway who'd tipped the Espheni off where his people would have gone? Tom hoped not; the last thing the city's morale needed was to find out the last leader of the old order had turned collaborator.

"I am sorry, Professor. I am afraid I will be very little help; we have not yet discovered a way to circumvent the green barriers, short of flying over them."

"That's all right; I made a new friend today who might know a way out. That's not why I called. Look. Last week, when we talked — you said you'd figured the Espheni had constructed a new power source, but you were having trouble tracing its location."

"That is correct," Cochise replied, with a sigh. "We have determined that it produces a measurable increase in background microwave radiation on the planet's surface; unfortunately, we have yet to discover a way to track that radiation to its source."

"Radiation ....?" Tom blinked, momentarily knocked off course by the specter of the defense grid. "Is it harmful?"

"It is less than a quarter of the average electromagnetic radiation absorbed from the sun," Cochise said. "It is not enough to be harmful to the Volm; I thought it unlikely to be more harmful to humanity. Though of course, we can breathe chlorine, where you cannot, so my supposition may be in error; I should have mentioned it sooner."

Tom blew out a breath, scrubbing a hand over his face in relief. "No, no; that's all right. The important thing is — I think I know why you're having such a hard time tracking it."

"Oh?" Cochise perked up at that. "What have you discovered, Professor?"

Tom cleared his throat, glancing up at the sky and counting in his head. "Are you outside? If you are, then look up right ... now."

Puzzled silence was the only answer from the comm for several long seconds ... followed by a lengthier spate of Volm cursing that made him wish the device had a recording function.

"Yeah, that was about my reaction," he replied with a dry chuckle. "I don't suppose you have any spaceships still hanging around somewhere we could use?"

"Unfortunately, we do not," Cochise replied, grimly. "I will have to contact my father for assistance — but these smaller communicators are not adequate to reach the greater Volm fleet. I shall have to return to the master cache and unearth the long range unit; it may take some days to accomplish, and a high-power transmission of that nature will be difficult to conceal."

Tom grimaced; he supposed that answered the question of why the transmitter was buried in the first place. "I'd like to say that I wouldn't ask you to risk yourself for this, but given how important the power source is ...."

"Even if you did, I would insist," Cochise confirmed, then paused. "Before I inform my team of our change in course ... I have news for you as well. In our recent search, we encountered a school populated by what I must assume are children from the nearest detention camp. They were all of eligible age, but I observed none with harnesses; they wore uniforms instead, and chanted nonsensical words about brotherhood with the Espheni at the behest of one of their number. The buildings were fenced, and guarded by mechs and Skitters."

An appalled shudder worked its way up Tom's spine. Just how long had the Espheni spent studying the planet before they invaded, anyway? "It seems they're taking inspiration from the worst of Earth's history again; the Hitler Youth, this time. Brainwashing the kids to get to the last hold-outs among the adults."

Teaching them to love the shining wire; his kids would have understood that, he thought. But anyone could break, given enough grooming and pressure — he was so, so grateful that none of them had ended up in that situation. He was a terrible role model, there, too; always rescued or able to escape before it came to that point, the worst of the consequences heaped on other people's shoulders. Hopefully, they wouldn't ever have to find that out the hard way — like the kids in those camps were, right now. One more worry for the post-war future.

"I am sorry, Tom Mason."

"No, no, don't be — at least we know they're alive," he replied, wincing. "And that they'll probably stay that way until the Espheni have done whatever it is they're planning to do to all the adults they're rounding up. Let's just hope your father gets your message before things get that far — or we find some other way to reach the moon."

"I will do so," Cochise confirmed, solemnly. "You are certain you do not require more immediate assistance?"

"No, I'm good. The news about the power source is definitely more important than waiting around to escort me out of this place. Though if you hear from my family before I do — let them know I'm all right?"

"I will do so. I wish you luck in your escape; I will contact you again once the transmission has been sent."

"Thank you, Cochise," Tom replied, equally solemnly, then sighed and signed off.

His sleep was shallow and fragmented that night. Tom had been expecting that: new place, new worries, new company. There'd been studies done in the old days about how it took at least two nights in a new situation before the human brain fully shut down in rest, and adding all the current stressors on top of that was too much for even his exhaustion-trained sleep habits. He gave in about halfway through and sat watch for the rest of the night, staring up at the sky and racking his brains for ways to trade nothing for something.

It had sounded like copper was the most critical fail point in Dingaan's plan, and the people who'd been in the camp since the walls went up would have a much better idea than he would where to find the wiring or piping or whatever they'd need to strip to get it. But could they mine that resource without anyone figuring out what they were up to? Regardless of the odds, he didn't exactly have much choice.

He sighed, watching the thin clouds slowly scudding over the stars, and thought about his family. How they'd finally turned a corner with his daughter's condition, and how proud he was of his sons. And John. If John was there too, he would probably ....

The thought trailed off as Tom quirked a smile. If John was there, he'd be the one they'd need to go to; the one who either knew where everything was, or knew who would know. Whether he could be persuaded to help a stranger would be another story, of course. And if he did have copper to hand, he'd probably be using it to make some new brewing system to keep his control over the drinking business, not saving it against a rainy day.

...Could that be his angle? Tell the people talked to that he was planning to make alcohol? Moonshine, to blunt the sharp teeth of the cold nights and make the wasteland of their daily lives a little more bearable. Now that might be an idea they might even be willing to extend credit on. Tom hated to tell a blatant lie for his own gain, but he would do anything to get back to his family, and if the Volm did manage to hit the power station on the moon thanks to his intel, they'd all be free soon anyway.

There were no perfect choices here; only the least worst. And if his life had taught him one thing, it was how to make the most of what he'd been given.

He pinged the communicator one more time before daybreak, when his host stirred and closed the window of privacy. There was no immediate response that time either, though given the early hour he still refused to jump to conclusions. Hal had probably left the thing in a jacket pocket while he and his girlfriend reintroduced themselves to showers and clean sheets; there was no point borrowing trouble just yet.

Dingaan laughed ruefully when Tom laid out his plan, proclaiming it worthy of a politician indeed. For once, though, Tom didn't mind the comparison; it was a use for those skills that he didn't have to feel guilty for. They struck out with the first several people they approached — some uninterested, some unable, and some too untrusting to help — but it was only a matter of time before they turned up a guy who knew a guy who'd worked maintenance in the area before the explosions, and had an idea where to find a bike shop as well. The bikes themselves had long since disappeared, but helmets still thronged the dark, dusty shelves in plenty.

There were other hazards in the camp besides uncooperative human beings, of course; Skitter patrols were a regular presence, and the ship slowly circled the entire perimeter of the camp, focusing its cameras on any event of interest. They seemed to ignore humans cooperating with each other, or keeping out of each other's way; but any hint of a struggle or suspicious activity, and alien attention would descend on the unfortunates below. He even witnessed a hornet fly down to pull one particularly argumentative guy away; he'd been fighting over the last can of creamed corn with a young woman carrying a child too small to be useful to the Espheni.

Tom didn't want to know where that guy had gone; he paid careful attention to the patrol patterns, and to Dingaan's stories of the things he'd seen, moving the copper stocks they found from doorway to doorway carefully between circuits of the ship's cameras. It would be even more of a problem when they actually had to approach the fence, so better to learn the timing in the day before it became a question of survival that night.

In many ways, those hours reminded him a lot of the earliest days of the Second Mass: dodging aliens he didn't yet know how to predict or efficiently kill, approaching people raw from fresh loss to convince them that what he asked of them would benefit their future as much as his. Only this time, he didn't have his family with him, nor any orders to follow other than his own. He was very glad he'd already found an ally and made a plan; being locked up on his own for any longer than a couple of days was not likely to be very good for his mental health.

Once again, he was struck by the sheer cruelty of the setup; it was more even than a mostly-logical and unromantic mindset could really justify. The Espheni clearly had the capacity to understand human behavior on a macro scale, even if the finer details of emotion-based cause and effect occasionally escaped them; that suggested their own motivations should be roughly intelligible in return. But the only rationale Tom could think of was, frankly, even more terrifying than the idea that they didn't mean anything to the star-faring species. That they did mean something to them .... and that that something was entirely negative.

How could they possibly defeat an enemy so much more advanced than they were if the material benefit was only the bonus — if the whole purpose in coming had been to erase them from the face of the Earth? Somehow, he didn't think there was the equivalent of a death star exhaust port just waiting for a lucky rebel to fire a torpedo through, here; or if there was, no one had yet managed to slip the plans to the resistance.

Tom dismissed that train of thought with some difficulty, prying open a can of water chestnuts for that evening's bare bones meal and taking direction from Dingaan on putting his suit together. It didn't make a very satisfying supper, not nearly enough of it and far too bland, but at least it crunched satisfyingly between his teeth while he 'sewed' wire through the backing material to secure larger pieces of metal together like a jigsaw puzzle.

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," he muttered, shaking a pricked finger and sucking away a drop of blood that welled to the surface.

"Hmm?" Dingaan looked up from his own work, wrinkling his brow at Tom.

"Oh — nothing. What do you think, will this work?" He crimped the last bit of wire into place, then held up the torso piece for Dingaan's perusal.

Dingaan eyed it thoughtfully, then nodded, flashing a wry smile at him. "I think it is — you would say, close enough for government work?"

Tom gave a rusty chuckle, nodding back to him as he set the armor back on the floor. "What now, then?"

"Finish the helmet — then stow the pieces in the duffel bag from the bike shop, and we'll take a walk down to the fence after dark," Dingaan shrugged.

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. It's not complicated; only a matter of life and death," he snorted. "I'd worry more about what comes next: getting away from the camp once we are outside it. So now that I have shared my plan — will you share yours?"

Tom tilted his head at him, thinking that through. "And if I said I'd prefer to have proof the suits work before revealing that information?" he asked, keeping the question light rather than confrontational.

"And if I prefer to be certain there will be more than a trap waiting for me on the other side?" Dingaan replied with lifted eyebrows. "I am sure the details of my escape would be valuable to our captors."

"Fair enough," Tom admitted with a nod. "We've got to trust each other at some point; that's the only way we get out of this. So why not now?"

He reached into his pocket, then pulled out the communicator and thumbed it on. "Hal? John? Anyone there?"

Dingaan's eyes widened at the sight of the comm. "That's no alien technology I've ever seen — but it's not human either. Is it from the Volm I've heard about?" he asked.

"Yep." The comm made a faint staticky noise; Tom nodded to Dingaan, then transmitted again. "Hal? John ...?"

"...Dad?!" Hal's voice transmitted back. There was a rhythmic metallic sound in the background, punctuating a loud rushing noise, but the words came through clearly enough. "Holy shit! Where are you? Are you all right?"

Tom sat back in his chair, relief rushing through him at the sound of his son's voice. "In Greensboro, actually. Looks like my scouting days aren't completely behind me after all."

"Just wait 'til Marina hears about this," Hal laughed in disbelief. "Forget about getting out of the office ever again. Wait — you're in the prison there? Then how'd you get your hands on the comm? Are you out already?"

"I think that would be a little quick, even for me," Tom replied, shaking his head. "Would you believe they took my guns, and the knife off my belt, but didn't search my pockets?"

"You're kidding me," Hal laughed again. "God. Dad. You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice. Lexie completely freaked, and Pope spent most of the last day ripping strips off people with his tongue and staging an armed occupation of the kitchen."

The mention of Lexie worried him, but asking if it had something to do with her abilities probably wasn't wise with a stranger listening in on his end, and who knew how many others on Hal's. He could easily imagine John's behavior, though; and for once, reports of his prickly obstinance only filled Tom with relief. "John's all right, then? I thought I saw him get back up — but he fell pretty far."

"Yeah, he's fine. Limping a little, but he got the all-clear from Anne. Some of the rest of us are banged up a little, but not bad, and we only lost a few — mostly Marshall's people, and you. It'll be a few days before we can get to Greensboro, though; we were sort of hoping you were in Charlotte. D'you think Cochise could help?"

Oh; was that what that noise was, in the background of Hal's voice — a railcar, clacking along at a good clip. "Dan went ahead with the plan, then?"

"After Pope yelled at everyone for awhile," Hal snorted. "We're on our way now; we'll be there sometime after nightfall. I'm here with Maggie and about half the Berserkers; Pope's at the front of the train with Lyle, Anthony, and Weaver, and Ben's in the back with the rebel Skitters. Most of Captain Marshall's people are with us as well, and the rest of the Second Mass fighters. We're expecting to get ambushed, once they realize where we're headed, but we've got enough firepower we should be able to blow right through them."

Dingaan made a disbelieving noise at that; Tom shrugged at him, then continued. "Bring any alternate transportation along?"

"'Course we did; just like when we went to Jacksonville. Just in case. Why?"

Tom grinned. "Cochise is busy elsewhere — but I made a new friend, too. An electrical lineman; he's figured out a way over the fence. Sounds like we'll be climbing our way out of here around the same time you're taking Charlotte. I know it's ninety miles or so, but —"

There was a scrabble of noise, and then another voice: Maggie's; Hal must have dropped the comm. "Are you serious, Tom? We ought to change your name to Houdini. Yeah, of course we'll set out the minute the shooting stops. You'll be okay in the woods 'til we get there?"

"Better than trying to walk all that way, that's for sure," he admitted.

"Yeah, I get that," Maggie chuckled. "Put your friend on, would you — no, get off me, Hal, like you wouldn't do it too if you weren't so busy being Mason Junior."

Somehow, Tom didn't think she'd meant him to hear that last part, but he handed the comm over to Dingaan anyway with a lifted eyebrow. "Touch here, to transmit."

Dingaan shook his head, then thumbed the button. "Ah — this is Dingaan Botha? Of Phoenix Utilities, Johannesburg."

"Well, Dingaan Botha of Phoenix Utilities, Johannesburg: my name's Maggie, of the Second Massachusetts Militia. Currently of Charleston. I've got a lot of armed and motivated soldiers here, and you've got precious cargo. Take care of the second, and you won't end up on the wrong end of the first, you hear me?"

Dingaan chuckled again, in disbelief. "Yes, I hear you. I feel a bit like I wandered into someone else's hero's journey when I wasn't looking; but, I hear you."

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it. I look forward to meeting you tomorrow," she said, tone only half a threat; and then there was a rustle of noise again, as someone else scrambled for the comm.

"We'll all be wishing you luck, sir — and we'll pass this on to Pope soon's the train stops, don't worry," Tector came on the line.

Tom shook his head, warmed by everyone's concern. "Better wait 'til the fight's over — getting distracted's the reason I'm here in the first place, I'd just as soon we don't add any complications to this particular rescue," he replied, then cleared his throat. "And — thanks, Tec. Keep an eye on my boys for me?"

"You know I will," Tector replied. Then Hal filched the comm back.

"Good luck, Dad. See you tomorrow."

"Good luck to you, too," Tom replied, then took a deep breath. "Mason, out."

"Well?" he added, tucking the comm away as he glanced at Dingaan, lines crinkling around his eyes. "Satisfied?"

Dingaan shook his head. "I don't know if satisfied is the word for it. Amazed, perhaps." He didn't say that despite deciding to trust, he'd been taking Tom's claims with a grain of salt — but he didn't have to; it was only common sense. "I think I look forward to meeting these friends of yours. That was your son?"

"My eldest, yeah; and his girlfriend, and that last was our best sniper. A good friend," Tom nodded.

"And this — John you asked for? They mentioned him several times, as well, under another name," Dingaan observed, curiously.

"John Pope is ... complicated. But the short answer is, he's my ... partner, I guess I'd say. Or boyfriend; though that sounds ridiculous to me for a pair of guys in their forties." Tom wrinkled his nose.

He didn't ask whether that would be a problem; he didn't think it necessary. Dingaan seemed the type to have a much more practical grasp on his priorities.

"New relationship, then, I take it?" Dingaan replied casually, proving him right.

Tom chuckled. "By way of having been friendly enemies for a couple of years first? Pretty much. Like I said ... complicated." He thought about saying more, but cut himself off there; no need to offer a further apologia to someone unacquainted with any of the other parties involved. A lot of people had a right to be pissed at John; it would be nice to have a friend who didn't.

Dingaan nodded at that, an amused quirk at the corner of his mouth. "Too wise to woo peaceably, eh?"

Tom was in the middle of taking a swig out of a water bottle when the Shakespeare reference registered, and he choked, hastily coughing into his fist. I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts did thou first fall in love with me? "Maybe. Anyway. Moving on .... what do you think, just after moonset sound like a good time?"

"Should be. I know the patrol schedules; there'll be several seconds when no Skitters are in sight and the ship's over the far side of the compound. From there, it'll just be a matter of making it to the fence and waiting for another window. It'll be a bit of a lightshow — that can't be helped — but it'll take them some time to get a crew outside the fence to look for us. Particularly if the boss upstairs is a bit distracted by other nearby events." Dingaan jerked his thumb toward the roof.

Tom grinned at him. "Sounds like a plan, then," he said. About as much of one as he ever had, at least.

"Sounds like a plan," Dingaan agreed, then stood and stretched the kinks out of his back. "All we have left to do is ... wait."

8. Gathering Together

"They were not a numerous people then; their numbers were not equal to the numbers of the tribes. There were just a few of them on the mountain, their fortress, so when it was said that the tribes had planned death for them, all of them gathered together."
— Popul Vuh, Part Four

It was almost a relief when the klieg lights came on and the hum and stomp of Mega-mechs sounded from the tracks in front of the train. John had never been a big fan of waiting.

"It's about time!" he yelled, firing the big Volm gun out the window at the nearest of the incoming droids.

The energy bolts were scaled up to take down Beamers; the shot was a solid enough hit — damn he was good — to send the mech staggering back, one of its weapon arms blown off at the shoulder. A second shot from the top of the next train car back — one of the spiked kids, probably, braced up there and waiting all this time — struck it a few seconds later, taking out a leg; it collapsed on its back, twitching, as the train rattled on.

"Uh, Cap, should we start throttling back?" he heard Anthony ask behind him.

Weaver's response was vehemently negative; John could see the colonel's fierce battle-grin out of the corner of his eye, though the exact words were drowned out by the cacophony of shouts and energy weapons waking down the length of the train behind them. The rest of the snipers who'd been waiting for their cue were getting their asses in gear; the paltry pack of six mechs really didn't stand a chance against all that. Not unless they threw themselves bodily on the tracks to gum up the works, and that particular method of sabotage apparently hadn't occurred to the Overlord in charge of the blocking force.

Half the mechs were out of commission, and the rest temporarily knocked back, by the time the train's engine carried them out of range; whoops of elation went up from several of the other cars as they passed them by.

"That's the first hurdle, passed. Someone tell the good doc it's time to spool up the BFG!" John chuckled, leaning back in and bracing himself against the train car's wall. He'd brought the cane, but he hadn't been using it; he'd needed both hands for the Volm weapon. His ankle and backside were both starting to ache again despite the ibuprofen he'd been taking, but he'd refused to take something stronger and risk knocking himself out of the fight.

"Already done; or don't you feel that?" Weaver grimaced, glancing down at the floor.

Now that he was paying attention, yeah, John did feel it: a low vibration getting stronger by the minute and easier to separate from the train's natural motion. "How much longer to the fence?"

"Not much longer," Lyle said, squinting out the front windows. "Now it's time to start throttling back."

John stuck his head out the window again as they went about that business, narrowing his eyes at the smudge of livid green light approaching in the near distance.

He heard Weaver throw the brakes, and braced himself as the train started to slow and the sound of the grid gun grew louder under the noise of screeching metal. Ready or not, there they were. Time to rock and roll.

The sight of the Espheni ship going down in flames like a latter-day Hindenburg was a thing of beauty to behold. So, in its own nasty way, was the wave of rebel Skitters breaking over the line that had previously been the fence, sweeping away all the six-legged prison guards charging toward the train from the ruined city center. It hadn't been that long since killing Skitters and their masters had been the only thing he'd lived for; John let the tide of battle carry away all his aches, worries, and frustrations, narrowing his focus down to the next mech to fall under his fire and the next batch of terrified looking refugees needing an escort back to the nearest empty train car.

He even found a satisfactory use for the mech-metal RPG he'd brought, when a cloud of hornets joined the fray and stooped low over the crowd, like they meant to salvage as many prisoners as they possibly could. It wasn't the primary intended use for the thing — the whole purpose of sheathing a rocket propelled grenade with the alien alloy was so it could penetrate the armored surfaces of the aliens' machines — but it did make for an absolutely glorious show when it detonated. There wasn't much left of the one it hit, and the cloud of razor-edged, unstoppable shrapnel that followed bit the heart out of the pack; only a few bugs escaped unscathed. The rest exploded in a rain of limbs and black-blooded gore just beyond the hurrying crowd of cringing refugees.

Tick, tick, boom. He doubted he'd ever get tired of that part of the job.

Such a plan as there was hadn't survived the shock of battle; it rarely did. But the broad strokes of it went off with barely a hitch. There probably a few stubborn hold-outs somewhere in the ruins, but the majority of the refugees had been roused by either the bullhorns or the firefight and had mostly filed eagerly into the emptied train cars by the time half an hour had passed. John caught glimpses of Marshall's people carefully guarding the loading points, scanning the faces of every thin, dirty, exhausted survivor they boosted into the cars; presumably looking for any of their missing, though he couldn't tell if they'd found any. His own people — and wouldn't his brother have mocked him, if Billy had lived to hear him claim them — stayed mostly out on the bleeding edge, seeking out the least sign of movement and pouring fire into any exposed mech or alien not marked with the rebels' colors.

It wasn't quite like shooting fish in a barrel. But it was the best odds they'd had in a firefight, yet. John still believed that the only way humanity was going to survive long-term was if they either found a magic bullet, or the aliens fucked up royally ... but Tom's plans did seem to have a genuine gift for encouraging and capitalizing on both forms of luck. Chalk up another in the win column, and another few hundred residents for Charleston, SC.

"All right, people, pack it up!" he heard Weaver yelling hoarsely, as the rate of fire began to fall off. "That's everyone we could find, and the scouts have spotted a fresh flight of Beamers inbound from the north! Time to get our behinds out of here before they drop a bomb on us or try to throw another fence across our path!"

The Second Mass began shouldering weapons and hauling ass back toward the train, clapping one another on the back and binding minor wounds as they went. John pressed a hand to his back and grimaced as the adrenaline began to fade, then looked around to do a quick headcount before everyone mounted back up.

The colonel, of course, was in one piece, up by the used-to-be-back of the train, where the reverse-pointing engine would now be leading the way home. Lyle was still close to John, checking his gear as he waited unobtrusively for him to decide what he was doing next; John had never quite figured out what he'd done to earn that degree of loyalty, but he surely had grown to appreciate it. He caught a glimpse of the middle Masonet crouched over one of the more-intact hornet corpses, with a Skitter looking on; John stared just long enough to make sure Ben seemed unhurt, before shuddering and moving on. The other Berserkers were over by the train, passing around a flask of some kind as they kept at least one eye and a rifle on the sky at all times. And Mags and Hal were ... huh, calling his name, picking their way through the detritus of the battle in his general direction.

It was pretty damn dark out there since the emerald-city glow of the fence had gone out; the train's lamp and the soldiers' flashlights threw sharp-edged shadows everywhere, and any place out of direct line of sight was shrouded in deep shades of grey and black. It took John a long moment to realize they were having trouble spotting him because he was in one of those deep-shadowed areas ... and another to overcome the sudden temptation to hold back until they gave up and left without him. Who knew how long it would take for Peralta to get up the gumption to try for Greensboro, and the next prison, and the next, until they finally found Tom? Might as well just take Lyle and do it himself. But the thought passed quickly: he had Tanya now, and besides, what was he supposed to do, limp his way more than ninety miles through Skitter-infested country?

He sighed at himself, then stepped forward and waved a hand to catch the battle couple's attention.

"There you are. Where've you been, man?" Hal exclaimed as they zeroed in on him.

John snorted. That was a turn-around; Mason Junior looking relieved to see him. "Contemplating my growth as a human being," he drawled. "Why?"

Hal rolled his eyes. "'Cause we've only got a couple minutes to offload the spare bikes if we're going before the train heads back to Charleston. You in or not?"

"...Excuse me?" John blinked at him. Now that he thought about it, he did remember something about a few extra motorcycles being loaded for purposes TBD; but why bring that up? "I think I must've missed a couple steps in this conversation. You're encouraging me to do the irresponsible thing and take off on my own?"

"Not alone; with me and Maggie, plus I figured one of the Berserkers will be going, too. There's only three bikes — but they can all carry two in a pinch, and it's probably not a good idea for you to be driving with your, ah, bruises and all anyway," Hal said, smirking at him.

"Are you serious?" John asked, incredulously. Not that he wasn't all over that idea — he'd just talked himself out of going alone, after all — but that in itself made him suspicious. "Where are we even going to go? Unless you've suddenly had some psychic vision of where we're going to find your father ...."

"Better," Hal's smirk grew into a shit-eating grin, and he pulled a familiar little piece of Volm tech out of his pocket. "They forgot to frisk my dad. He called in. He's breaking out of Greensboro tonight, and asked if we could pick him up on our way home."

John caught the comm as Hal tossed it over to him, a wave of relief nearly sending him to his knees. "Tom called in? He's all right?"

"Even made a new friend. Ask him yourself — once we get the bikes offloaded. They aren't gonna shift themselves, and Weaver's anxious to get out of here."

John clutched the comm to his chest, and threw a glance at Lyle. "What do you think, Lyle? Feel like taking another road trip?"

"'Course, Boss." Lyle adopted a thoughtful expression. "Better be quick, though; bikes put out less heat than trucks, but noise carries, and the fishheads aren't gonna be distracted for long."

"We aren't planning to stop for anything but fuel," Maggie nodded to him. "So you're in, Pope?"

He bared his teeth in an anticipatory grin. "You really gotta ask?"

"Just checking," she grinned back. "Let's go!"

It was the work of a moment to rope the other Berserkers into helping lower the bikes from the car behind the grid gun; Weaver glowered at them and wished them good luck in gruff tones, and the others clapped them all on the back and told them to bring Tom home before hopping up on the train themselves as it began to roll.

"Tanya's gonna be pissed," John shook his head as Maggie and Hal mounted up. "Littlest Mason, too; promised 'em both I'd be back in the morning."

"Somehow, I think they'll understand," Hal replied, wryly. "Weaver'll tell 'em what's up. Or Tector; he was there when Dad called in. Besides, we can take a more direct way back, and the bikes go faster than the train; we won't be all that far behind if we don't run into any major obstacles."

"Yeah, speaking of which — you said he was going to be escaping tonight? Before we get there?" John shook his head, bemused. Man, the miracles that guy could pull from his ass, when push came to shove; like the mythical rabbit out of the book he'd given Tanya. Prince with a Thousand Enemies: a trick for every occasion.

"Provided everything goes as planned," Hal shrugged. "Which means, knowing my dad — it won't, but he'll somehow make it anyway, so I'd really like to be there by the time he needs us."

"No need to talk me into it," he said, then gestured with the comm. "Get a move on; me and Lyle will catch up with you in a minute."

"Don't take too long," Maggie cautioned, "or we'll come back for you."

"Now why does that sound more like a threat than a statement of concern?" he replied dryly.

She rolled her eyes, then jerked her chin at her boyfriend in a piece of nonverbal commentary that didn't need translation and took off, headed for the freeway leading north and east out of the city.

She hadn't needed to warn him, really; he didn't much want to be there when the Espheni responded in force to what they'd done in Charlotte that night. But he had the comm, and he had the opportunity; he wasn't moving from that spot until he'd heard Tom's voice for himself.

He cleared his throat, then raised an eyebrow at Lyle; but instead of moving, the man rolled his eyes and crossed his beefy arms over his chest. "You're kidding me right? How's that leg feeling, now you're not all amped up on adrenaline? If it's all the same to you, I want to be sure we can get away quick if we gotta."

John glared at him a moment, but Lyle wasn't going to give, and he didn't feel like trying to force it. Not after the incident with the chalkboard and the entirely awkward meltdown Lyle had handled without a single mocking word. And, all right, the stabbing pain that shot from hip to ankle every time he moved. Tom was going to take great joy in reminding him of any number of things he'd said on that long trek out of the woods on Tom's badly sprained ankle, he just knew it.

"Fine," he said. "But I don't want to hear one goddamn word about this later on."

"Sure thing, Boss," Lyle said with a smirk, then leaned back against the bike, very obviously settling in to wait.

John sighed, then thumbed the communicator on. "Mason. Tom, you copy?"

A long moment passed; he scratched at his mustache, then keyed it again, chest tightening as he waited for an answer. "Tom. I know you're there, so pick up already. Unless your kid was lying. In which case, you might want to speak up anyway, or his ass is gonna be grass when I catch up with him."

"...John?" The voice that carried back was almost whisper-soft, but John would have known it anywhere. He'd sure spent enough time responding to it, like Pavlov's dog, over the last few years.

He bent forward, bracing one hand against the thigh of his good leg, and took a deep breath. "Thank God. You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice."

Tom chuckled softly. "Oh, I think I do," he replied. "Not quite the reunion I had in mind for after your mission, but I'll take it. You're coming with Hal? I'm guessing the battle went well, then?"

"What do you think? You're the one who planned it," John replied, then frowned. "And of course I'm coming. Something wrong? Why are you whispering?"

"We were almost to the fence when the guards all boiled out of their holes like someone had kicked an anthill — I'm guessing that's when you guys hit Charlotte. We're waiting for the coast to clear before we climb over."

"Climb over?" John blurted. Surely he hadn't heard that right. "Did you suddenly go crazy when I wasn't there to stop it? You saw what one of those fences did to Zack!"

"It's a long story," Tom replied. "I made a new friend; an electrical lineman, he's done this before. I'll be fine!"

That was supposed to be reassuring? "That's as may be, but you better make him climb over first. Your kids'll kill me — and my kid'll help — if you get yourself fried just shy of a rescue," John said, vehemently.

"Have a little faith in me, why don't you?"

"It's not faith that's the problem," John growled in return. "You're the one of us that still believes in the power of hope, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember," Tom said, more softly.

What was he supposed to say to that? John cleared his throat, conflicted. Sometimes, it felt like every step he took toward Tom was playing chicken with himself, with his whole life as the stakes; other times, it felt like the easiest thing in the world. In this case, it was definitely more the former than the latter. "So ...."

"So ...?" Tom echoed back.

The faint whine of incoming Beamers interrupted the silence as John struggled to finish the sentence, and he gruffly took the out. "...time's wasting; and I'd rather not get caught any more than you do. See you in a couple of hours," he said, signing off.

Lyle gave a put-upon sigh, then started the bike and patted the seat behind him without further complaint. John grimaced, but tucked the communicator away and climbed on, carefully shifting so he wasn't putting too much weight on the bruised portions of his anatomy. That meant clinging awkwardly to the back of Lyle's jacket — but it wasn't as though he had much dignity left at that point, so he sucked it up and dealt. By the time the flight of Beamers screamed into view overhead, Lyle was opening up the throttle, following in the others' wake.

They'd barely got out of sight range of the former prison when John looked back and saw the craft bank over the city behind them. One by one, the Beamers passed over the prison site, objects falling from their undersides: the glowing orbs of their neutron bombs this time, not more fence posts to replace the ones the Second Mass had taken out. It gave him awful flashbacks to the beginning stages of the war, when they'd thrown energy spheres around at the least provocation, evaporating flesh and frying machinery. He swore quietly as a mushroom of light and heat swelled up from within the boundaries of the deactivated fence, and then turned to watch as the Beamers headed further south along the line of the tracks, not bothering to hang around for further cleanup.

Just as with those harnessed kids at the beginning of the war, they were scorching the earth of any survivors rather than let the humans think they'd got away with their small victory.

"If anyone was still alive in there, they aren't anymore," Lyle observed, scowling at the fresh devastation. "I didn't think they had any of those bombs left."

"Must have built some more. Or saved 'em for a special occasion — they might've been worried about the EMP side-effects interfering with their new power system. Anyway, I think that was probably the point," John replied grimly. "Weaver better be ready."

He could only hope they wouldn't do the same at Greensboro, after Tom got out ... but he wasn't going to bring that up, if no one else did. The last thing he wanted was Tom deciding to stay behind out of some preemptive sense of guilt. It might be cold calculus, but Charleston and the resistance — not to mention John's nearest and dearest — needed Tom Mason a hell of a lot more than some random collection of Espheni prisoners.

Hal and Maggie looked equally grim when they caught up to them a few moments later; probably thinking similar thoughts. Neither one was an idiot. But they didn't speak of it, either.

They rode on in silence, as swiftly as they could manage in the unforgiving dark.

By the time they were close enough to the center of Greensboro to see the same green glow illuminating the horizon that they'd just extinguished in Charlotte, John was heartily wishing for his cane and half a dozen Vitamin I, or at the very least a flask of scotch. But they were there. He dismounted Lyle's bike on the verge of the leaf- and vehicle-strewn asphalt thoroughfare marked as US 220, just short of a bullet-pocked sign announcing their approach to the Coliseum Area. He hissed at the stretch of strained muscles and tendons, then limped in a stiff circle to get the blood flowing again as he made another call.

"Mason? You there?" he asked, frowning in the direction of the Greensboro fence.

"John? Yeah, I'm here. We — we're here." Tom sounded exhausted; but as continued proof of life went, it was music to John's ears.

John glanced at the signage again, wondering where 'here' was. "We're on the 220 coming into town, just shy of that big cloverleaf. You make it over the fence in one piece?"

"The I-40 interchange?" Tom's voice lifted. "Yeah — the Skitters all went back to their patrol routes about an hour ago, and we climbed one of the posts with no problems. We're just a few hundred yards from there, actually — you said you're on the south side of it?"

"You're here? Where?" John turned in place, scanning both sides of the highway — then glanced back toward the soaring span where the highway crossed the interstate. The overpass: extra insurance to block detection from infrared sensors passing overhead. He should've thought of that himself.

"Here," Tom said again — just as a shadow moved against the glow of the city, climbing up alongside the road.

John made a low noise in his throat, lowering the comm to his side — and then Hal Mason caught sight of the same movement he had, jogging forward with his weapon half-raised to either confront or hug the intruder.

"Dad, is that you? Dad!" Hugging, fortunately for all of them, proved to be the order of the day.

"Dad," Hal repeated hoarsely, burying his face in Tom's shoulder. "God. I knew you'd be okay — you're always okay — but it scared the shit out of me, seeing them grab you like that. Never do that again."

The young man's voice was muffled against Tom's dusty coat; Tom had one hand wound in the back of Hal's jacket and another cupping the back of his head, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I didn't voluntarily walk onto the ship this time, you know," he said. "But I'll try my best not to get kidnapped again, I promise."

Maggie had followed a few paces behind Hal, her thumbs tucked in her belt loops, shifting her weight a little from foot to foot as she looked on. "Well, that's all anyone can ask, really," she interrupted. Her tone was desert dry, but her expression as soft as John had ever seen it. "Though you gotta admit, it's a pretty bad habit to have, intentional or not. What's it been, a month and a half since the last time we had to come and get you?"

Tom looked up over Hal's shoulder to meet Maggie's teasing words with a wry grin. "What can I say; the Espheni just can't seem to get enough of my company," he joked back, voice thick with emotion.

"Yeah, your milkshake brings all the aliens to the yard," John drawled, moseying over slowly in an effort not to show off his limp. "Well, and at least one human, I guess."

Tom's face did something complicated when he caught sight of him; amusement draining out of those familiar features in favor of something more intense that John was still trying his damnedest not to name.

Hal took the hint fairly quickly, slapping his father's back and then stepping back out of Tom's loosened hold to stand beside Maggie.

"John," Tom greeted him, hoarsely.

John had been trying to keep it professional in front of the others this time, he really had; but the exhausted lines in Tom's face and the wrecked tone of his voice pressed all kinds of buttons John usually liked to pretend he didn't have, and he lurched forward into the professor's embrace, fisting his hands in the back of Tom's jacket.

"You asshole," he murmured, pressing their foreheads together. "What did I say about going off on one of these trips of yours without backup?"

Tom's fingers had automatically tangled themselves in the layers of John's shirts; he chuckled tiredly, then lifted his head again, dark eyes boring intently into John's. "You say that as if I had any choice in the matter."

"Tom," John growled at him.

Tom swallowed at that, gaze dipping toward John's mouth. "You said that already," he said, then grinned, teeth flashing dimly in the dark. "Oh wait, you didn't; you insulted me instead, after weeks of keeping your distance and a traumatic experience on my part. Maybe I should take that as a hint ...?"

"You're a pain in the ass, Mason," John growled again, then clashed their mouths together the way he'd been wanting to do since he'd caught sight of him across that bridge a day and a half before.

He could have happily forgotten about everything else in the world at that moment: the fire in his leg, the battle behind them, the enemy mechs and Skitters that would no doubt be patrolling that stretch of road at some point during the night; and their coterie of human onlookers as well. The heat building between them drove the chill out from under his skin and made all the niggling little worries that had been chewing at him since before the Charlotte trip seem irrelevant. But it felt like no time at all before Hal interrupted, clearing his throat.

"Not to spoil the reunion and all, Dad. But we're kind of on a timeline. You said you had someone with you?"

Tom clenched his fingers more tightly in John's shirts, then nodded and sighed, pulling away from the kiss. But he kept one hand on John as he turned to his son, fingers resting on his forearm like he couldn't stand to let go of him. Practically holding hands; another crack in the armor of John's hardened persona. John let it go, though; there seemed increasingly little point to fighting it, at least in Mason's presence.

"Yeah, you're right. Dingaan?" Tom raised his voice a little, calling to his new friend.

"Here." A dark-skinned man melted out of the shadows; about John's height, with a closely trimmed mustache and beard and an appreciative glint in his eyes as he nodded to the group in greeting. Despite the suspicious circumstances of their meeting —seriously, the one guy in Greensboro that could help Tom escape an Espheni prison had just so happened to befriend him within hours of his arrival? — John was inclined to give the stranger the benefit of the doubt. He'd saved Tom. And if he was genuine ... well, they could definitely use another electrical specialist in Charleston. For more than one reason.

"Everyone, this is Dingaan Botha," Tom continued the introduction. "Originally of Phoenix Utilities, Johannesburg; lately of Greensboro, and Richmond before that. Dingaan, this is John; that's Hal and Maggie over there, you spoke with them over the comm several hours ago; and Lyle, John's second. All originally of Boston via the Second Massachusetts, and now of Charleston."

"All family, then," Dingaan replied. "Good to meet you all in person."

"Likewise, man. Thanks for helping my dad," Hal said, stepping forward to shake Dingaan's hand.

"It was no problem. We helped each other," Dingaan replied, easily.

John thought he caught Maggie mouthing something to Dingaan behind Hal's back, with a smirk on her face, but it was too dark to tell what; whatever it was, it made Dingaan incline his head to her, smile widening.

It was all very nice to meet you, new neighbor; friendly and welcoming, almost heart-warming. Except, you know, for the fact that it was still the middle of the night, right next door to a big ol' bunch of hostile Skitters. How had the Masons not got their asses killed long before John came on the scene, again?

"Yeah, yeah, nice to meet ya," he drawled, extending a hand for his own exchange of grips. "I'd appreciate it if you wait to fill in the rest 'til later, though; my leg hurts like a sonuvabitch, and there's a whole lot of people in Charleston waiting anxiously to find out if this one's still alive and kicking." He tipped a thumb toward Tom.

The corners of Dingaan's eyes crinkled — but proving himself sensible as well as useful, he nodded and turned to address Lyle next, unprompted. "Of course. Though as there are only three motorcycles — I assume I am to ride with you?"

Lyle automatically looked to John, one eyebrow raised over an amused smirk, but didn't object. "Figured," he replied. "You got anything else to bring along?"

Dingaan shook his head. "No; the suits are good for only one use. We dropped them a few miles off to hopefully distract the first of the search parties."

"Sounds like we're good, then," Hal said briskly, then addressed his dad. "We figured we'd take the 74 south, break off toward the 95, then go the long way around the forest north of Charleston — out Georgetown way, then down along the coast. Hopefully, the Espheni won't be watching that route, especially if they're following the train back from Charlotte. We'll have to make at least one stop to scavenge for gas, since we weren't expecting to need the bikes — probably in Asheboro or Rockingham — but it shouldn't be too big of a problem."

Provided they could find some non-ethanol stuff, of course; preferably gas that had been stored with a stabilizer. A lot of the regular gasoline they'd scavenged lately had evaporated so many of its high-volatile compounds that it ran very raggedly, if at all. But it wasn't as if their particular apocalyptic wasteland came equipped with a Gastown still pumping and refining the good stuff to trade for water or bullets. If you asked John, that was the probably the real reason the Espheni had waited so long to switch over to their mysterious new energy source; they'd wanted to soak up all the consumables they could to fuel their war machine before deigning to set up their own — probably more expensive, and more vulnerable — resources.

And of course, they hadn't expected humanity to resist this long. Found fuels had probably always lasted until the fishheads were ready to get to the colony phase, before; something else to chew over, later.

"Sounds like a plan, then," Tom approved. "John, I'd ask if you want to drive, but ...."

John gave a put-upon sigh as the other man gestured toward his ankle. "Don't worry, I've already resigned myself to the inevitable. You good for a few more hours?"

"Yeah. As long as you don't mind helping me stay awake. Maybe we can try out that moving and talking thing again?" Tom replied.

"C'mon, really?" John chuckled at the disgruntled sound Hal made, shaking his head at the teenager. "If you were under the impression any part of that was a euphemism, I really don't want to know what you and Mags have been up to on a motorbike, now do I? Maybe I should submit a request for the public works committee to sanitize the city fleet."

Tom lifted an eyebrow — and Maggie blushed, of all things, looking away. Lyle smirked, and even Dingaan chuckled as they all moved to the bikes.

"That wasn't — I just —" Hal sputtered, then gave up and shook his head, walking over to Maggie's bike and leaving the one he'd previously ridden for Tom and John. "Whatever, man, shut up."

"Wait. Just a sec before we go ...." Maggie interrupted with a hand to his arm, then opened her arms to the professor. "I know I'm not the kid or the boyfriend, but I haven't had my hug yet."

That made Tom smile at her, a little bashful but affectionate; John rolled his eyes and kept waiting while she folded Tom into a clasp of arms and muttered something in his ear. Tom frowned briefly, but hugged her back, nodded to whatever she was saying, then clasped a hand on her shoulder and walked over to join John.

"Now are we ready?" John groused mildly.

"That is the question, isn't it," Tom said obliquely, eyes serious as he smiled back. Then he threw a leg over the bike and patted the seat behind him. "But, yeah. It's time to go."

John wrapped his arms around Tom's waist as they rode south of town, chin hooked over the other man's shoulder, and ignored his aching bones as he contemplated that 'moving and talking' request. It was a dark night, and they didn't dare use the headlamps lest they attract a nearby Espheni patrol; that meant they were traveling just slow enough to actually hold a conversation if they raised their voices a little over the sounds of the engine and the rushing wind. They wouldn't beat the train back that way, but better safe than dead or picked up by hornets for the second time in as many days.

"So how 'bout we start with whatever it was you kept saying you'd tell me after I got back," he finally began.

Tom's jaw shifted in a grimace, but he answered gamely. "You're not going to like it."

"Story of my life. Tell me anyway," John snorted.

Tom sighed, the discontented gesture felt more than heard as the slipstream whipped mingled strands of their hair into John's eyes. "Thought you'd say that. It's ... well, to make a long story short. One of the rebel Skitters asked to meet me after you left; it turned out he'd been at the Boston tower. And from what he had to say, I think I've figured out what Red Eye was up to."

John stiffened. The alien DNA thing again; oh, joy. What now? He'd just about successfully repressed all that shit, at least where Tom was concerned. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," Tom replied grimly, shifting into a story-teller's cadence. "You see — once upon a time, there was a race called the Dorniya. They specialized in the biological sciences. After the Espheni conquered their planet, their new rulers used their techniques to make the Dorniya themselves into the first Skitters. Except, according to the Skitters, they missed a few; the ones who remember those days tell myths about the return of the Last Mothers. But the harnesses block whatever native communication ability they once had; so they've been looking for someone they could trust to talk to the Last Mothers for them."

"You," John said, then swore, feelingly. Even beyond the confirmation that there was yet another alien player in this war with yet another set of expectations, he could easily see where this specific thread was going.

"Yeah. Like I said, a long story. It was always about me being useful to them; Lexie's abilities, as distracting as they were to Karen, were mostly a convenient side-effect as far as the rebels were concerned." A current of anger deep enough to match John's simmered audibly under the strain of making himself heard.

"Just how long have they been looking for someone to do this to?" John wanted to know.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Tom shook his head, beard brushing against John's cheek, then added something that pissed him off even more. "The Dorniya themselves — if that's who they are — aren't very forthcoming."

"They've contacted you?" John demanded, staring at Tom's profile. His skin tone looked unhealthily grey in the dark; his eyes were deep and unfathomable, fixed on the unspooling ribbon of the road ahead. Was this why Mason had looked so wrung out even before his involuntary flight to Greensboro? "When?"

The corner of Tom's mouth dragged down. "You know those dreams I've been having? About Rebecca? Not actually Rebecca, as it turns out; it's their method of contact."

...If they had the ability to poke into Tom's head, shouldn't they know that picking on anyone he cared about was a good way to shoot themselves in the foot? Both the Volm and the Espheni seemed to have absorbed human history like they'd swallowed an encyclopedia, or vacuumed it up off the Internet; but they had a very weak grasp of individual human behavior. Apparently the Dorniya were no better in that regard.

"And they expect you to intercede for them?" John objected. "Have they even met you?"

"...I'm not so sure that's what they have in mind, regardless of what Red Eye intended," Tom shook his head. "The only thing I do know for sure is that they're not on the same side as the Espheni. Yesterday's dream was a little clearer — it seems the Dorniya have been trying to tell me where to find the new power plant."

That didn't necessarily mean they were on humanity's side; just that it was in their best interests to prolong the conflict. But Tom would know that as well as John did. They'd just have to deal with that potential ambiguity later, the same way they had the Volm Commander's condescension. But first, they had to survive to have that fight.

"So where is the damn thing? The sooner we blow it off the face of the Earth, the better."

Tom chuckled darkly, shaking his head again. "You're not going to like part that, either."

"If I folded that easy, I wouldn't have lived this long. Just rip the Band-Aid off already." John rolled his eyes.

"Okay, then." Mason took a deep breath, then lobbed the answer at him like a live grenade. "The reason we've had such a hard time finding it ... is that it's not on the Earth. It's on the moon."

"...It's where?!" John glanced reflexively up at the sky even though the moon had already set for the night, then back down at the back of Mason's head, aghast. "You have got to be joking."

"I'm afraid not; Dingaan even confirmed that it made sense. Something about Nikola Tesla's theories."

Dingaan and John clearly had very different definitions of 'making sense'. But the name did sound familiar. "Tesla ... he was Edison's rival, right? Something about electrical currents?" John remembered the name more from a graphic novel his son had liked and those novelty lightning globes of the 80's than from any actual history classes, but the AC/ DC thing had stuck because of the Australian band by the same name.

"Not my historical specialty; but yeah, that sounds about right. I got in touch with Cochise and asked him to call his father — we'd run into serious problems trying to destroy it on our own."

"Great. Yet more favors we'll owe the Volm. If they choose to show up," John replied.

"Plan B right now is to fix one of the crashed Beamers outside Charleston, so ...." Tom let that horrifying thought trail off, shooting a wry smile past his shoulder at John. "Six of one, half a dozen of the other."

"Moving on, then," John shook his head, unwilling to touch the idea of following Mason into outer space in broken Espheni tech with a ten-foot pole. Because Tom would insist on going; John knew that already. And he'd never be able to let him go alone. "Anything else world-shattering you need to tell me?"

...He'd meant the remark flippantly, but the pause before Tom replied, and way his back tensed up against John's chest, told him he'd hit close to the mark after all.

"Great. What now?" he sighed.

Tom took a deep breath, then answered. "I also figured out that I've been wrong about the war, this whole time. The Espheni aren't here for resources, like I thought; they're here for us. Humanity. It's the only thing that makes sense. I've still got no idea why, but it's increasingly obvious that they want all of us gone, and they don't really care how many casualties they take to do it. Wearing them down isn't going to work, no matter how many camps we liberate or how many Beamers we shoot down."

Was that all? John snorted, remembering what he'd told Marshall outside Charleston — that as pragmatic as Tom was, he still wanted to believe the best. He still hoped. For better or for worse, that wasn't a failing of John's. "Hate to tell you this, Mason, but most of us pretty much assumed that outcome from the beginning. Like I told you before — reestablishing democracy's your goal. Mine's killing all of 'em I can, for as long as I can. If we actually make it out of this war in one piece, I'll be very pleasantly surprised."

Tom took a deep, shuddering breath, one hand briefly coming off the handlebars to squeeze one of John's wrists where his arms were wrapped around him. "They tried to make a deal with me yesterday to give up Charleston in exchange for protecting my family. But when I called them on the whole 'live in peace' concentration camp dichotomy, they didn't deny it. And then they implied that what they plan for the survivors in the camps is ...." He trailed off there, swallowing thickly. "Well. If you were wondering why we haven't seen those hornet things before? It turns out they used to be rebels, before they were tortured and reprogrammed."

"Well shit," John replied, shuddering in revulsion. The threat of eyebugs was bad enough; and this DNA crap with Tom rode right up to the line of do not pass go, do not collect $200. But getting everything that makes a person, a person, overwritten both in body and soul ... that wouldn't be surviving, even if your heart kept beating. "I guess I can see how kowtowing to the Volm might seem like a lesser evil, compared to that. Hell, I'd even kiss Cochise's boots to keep that from happening."

"Now that would be something to see," Tom said, dryly.

John winced at the defeated note in Tom's voice; it reminded him of the look on the professor's face the day Crazy Lee had died, when he'd refused to react to any of the accusations John hurled at him, or the complete blankness to him that misty night in Boston after they'd seen what they'd thought were Anne and Lexie's bodies. The man just did not respond well to that level of emotional baggage; it was like a vital part of him shut down, waiting for someone to give him permission to feel again. A legacy of always suppressing his anger, instead of giving it free rein like John, probably. But at least the anger let John know he was still alive.

He cleared his throat and leaned closer to drawl in Tom's ear. "...Not his dick, though. One part-alien schlong is more than enough for this ex-con, believe you me."

The crude joke surprised a hoarse chuckle out of Tom, like a ray of light cracking through his emotional gloom. "You are such an asshole. How do you always know when I need a kick in the ass?"

A smug smile curled at the corner of John's mouth. "Long experience; though I admit, using that power for good's a pretty recent development. Don't tell me you've already forgotten how our conversations used to go."

Tom snorted again, the lines around his visible eye crinkling up in a subdued smile. "Perhaps I think only of the past as its remembrance gives me pleasure."

That sounded suspiciously like a quote John should recognize; it was also such a blatant lie that John felt no compunction in snorting in return. "You must have a lot of holes in your memories of the last few years, then."

"Oh, more than a few," Tom replied, lightly. "Which reminds me, who are you, again?" He threw a brief flash of white teeth in John's direction.

"Ha, ha, very funny," John replied, grinning back at him, then sobered. Now that he'd poked a hole in the black cloud over Mason's head ... he was reminded of another that hadn't been mentioned yet. "Speaking of genies we wish we could put back in bottles ... you're gonna need to have a talk with your daughter as soon as we get back to Charleston."

Tom's spine straightened automatically at the shift in topic, going into Concerned Father mode. "Hal said she freaked out when I was taken ... though he also said you staged an armed occupation of the kitchens, so I wasn't sure how to take the news. I'm guessing it was something serious, then?"

"I wasn't actually armed — well, any more than I usually am," John shrugged. "The Lexie thing, though; yeah, it's pretty damn serious. She went full-on X-Men on us; called up a wall of clouds and fried a bunch of hornets with lightning. Just missed the ones that had you, then collapsed and cried her little eyes out. I think I cheered her back up a bit before I left, but she wasn't the only one to react poorly to what happened."

"Lightning?" Tom blurted, eyes widening, then swore under his breath. "I thought I'd heard thunder before I passed out, but I thought I was imagining things. It must be the frequency issue; I'd almost forgotten about that, after everything else."

"What frequency issue?" John frowned.

"In the infirmary, after Anne did the procedure to clear the infection out of her blood, Lexie said she could hear energy. Like light sources; they all resonate on different frequencies. I guess Dr. Kadar explained it to her by talking about how the right note can shatter glass — which has some pretty unnerving implications."

"Unnerving's definitely the right word for it," John agreed. He hadn't done as much self-study in science as he had in other fields, but he thought he got the gist of what Tom was talking about — and it was some pretty scary shit. "The physical changes were one thing; creepy as the spikes are, folks have sort of gotten used to ex-harnessed kids bouncing around like your friendly neighborhood Spiderman. This energy manipulation stuff is a whole new ballgame, and nobody seemed to have any idea how to deal with it. So ... I told her to practice."

"You did what?" Tom's kneejerk reaction — literally kneejerk, the bike actually veered briefly off course — was about what he'd expected, but he honestly didn't see how he could have done anything else.

"The kid was well on the way to being afraid of herself already; she's definitely your daughter there, Mason. She was wearing that 'world of woe' angst-face I just had to resort to dick jokes to jar you out of, and I knew better than to go there with her. I've seen Star Wars, same as the next guy; what happens after fear turns to hatred's not a pretty prospect. Better she's in control of herself, I figured, than something — or somebody — else is."

"Does Anne know you told her to do that?" Tom said, jaw tight.

"I'm sure she does by now," John shrugged. "Lourdes was there, and Anne said she'd check in with her afterward when I asked if I could talk to Lexie. If she didn't think I had some kind of point, she could have yanked me from the mission, or had a little talk with Weaver before we left; and she didn't. Draw your own conclusion."

Tom sighed. "I just got through promising her that I would always respect her rights as Lexie's mother; that I'd go to her first about anything that affects our daughter. If she thinks I put you up to that, or that I'm okay with your doing an end-run around her ...."

"So what if she does?" John growled, unconsciously leaning back to leave as much of a gap as possible between him and Tom. The 'our daughter' comment had dragged up memories from that last trip back from Boston; he'd never quite got Lexie's childish words out of his mind, that first time she'd called him Uncle John. She'd run to him, asked him to pick her up ... and then said she couldn't wait to meet his other daughter. Maybe that was the real reason he'd never really been able to see her as the enemy; because she'd claimed him before she'd ever reached for her actual daddy.

"You know what Alexis said to me yesterday?" he continued, temper sparking under the words. "When I found her crying in Lourdes' lap? That she could feel how scared people were of her. And that she'd thought I would be, too. Five'll get you ten she's just as worried that you and her mom and her brothers are gonna feel the same. What was I supposed to do, tell her the assholes are right, and she should turn the other cheek and let them lock her up so they could feel better about themselves? Fuck that. 'Normal' might have been your refuge after you got away from your father; it sure as hell wasn't mine. If she doesn't own this now, it's gonna own her, and then we'll all be sorry."

"Oh, is that what happened to you," Tom replied, in stung tones. "You let your circumstances 'own' you? You'll have to forgive me for thinking that might not make the best role model for my daughter."

For a long second, John almost couldn't believe Tom had actually said that; then the blood rushed to his face, and he smacked a hand against the back of Tom's shoulder. "That's it! Stop the bike. Stop the bike right now!"

"Look, John ...." Tom started to reply defensively, wincing as he glanced back at him.

"I am not going to have this argument with the back of your head," John replied, in clipped, furious tones.

At least the man had that much common sense; he slowly pulled off into the verge, behind a cop car long gone to weed. Not that they had to worry about the other bikes coming up on them — they'd pulled ahead to let Tom and John have a bit of privacy — but to make them less visible to any overflying Beamers. They couldn't entirely forget the danger of their surroundings, no matter how involved they were in their personal business.

Tom set the kickstand on the bike, then got up and put a little space between them. Then he squared his stance, lifting his gaze to meet John's. "You know I didn't mean it that way. I'm sorry; I'm frustrated, and I shouldn't be taking it out on you," he said, through clenched teeth.

"Damn right, you shouldn't have," John replied, staring back at him. "I might've expected a crack like that out of you before Keystone, but I thought we understood each other a little better these days. And there's some things you just don't say and not expect to sleep on the couch for at least a week, no matter how good you are in the sack. What the hell's going on with you, Mason? I could have sworn you were glad to see me."

Tom's expression dropped further at that; he looked deeply unhappy, as though it was tearing him up to be upset at John. But he was upset with him; that was pretty obvious. And yet there'd been no hint of it in their greeting. That could be part of why he'd backslid so quick on the 'burden of the world' issues, before John had even brought up Lexie — but John had no idea what the root problem was. If this was some nonsense about him almost getting kidnapped by the flying Skitters, Tom had zero room to throw stones on that score.

Tom rubbed a hand over his beard, then sighed. "I was. Am. I'm sorry; I said I wasn't going to do this."

"Do what?" John scowled, crossing his arms over his chest. This was starting to sound like a breakup speech, and if that was the case, Tom deserved a punch in the face from all the mixed signals.

Tom swallowed. "Test you again. You said that you were in this, whatever this is, until you're ready to give up on me," he said, gesturing between them.

"So what the hell made you doubt that all of a sudden?" John replied, sourly. Damn it; he'd noticed Mason's habit of verifying before trusting, but he thought they'd passed that stage already. "Was it something I said about Alexis? Because she claimed me first, in case you've forgotten. Even if you kicked me to the curb for no reason, she'd be the last Mason I took it out on."

"It's just that Maggie said ...." Tom began, then grimaced as though he'd suddenly realized something and shook his head. "She said I should take the opportunity to talk to you, because you seemed to be under the impression that this was a temporary thing. I was thinking that if it was just me ... hell, I'd take as much as you could give me, but it struck me wrong that you'd put so much effort into Alexis — and Matt, too — if you were just going to be one more person to disappear on them."

"Maggie said? Is that what she whispered in your ear." John stared at him, aghast at both the interference and the level of fuckup just those few words had caused ... then laughed, darkly amused, as he realized why she'd said them. Damn; he'd underestimated that woman more than once, but trying to warn her off on the way to Mechanicsville by threatening to spill her secrets if she bad-mouthed him to Tom had probably been right up there with asking her to hang back with Billy and Cueball that momentous day in Acton.

"This has to be about what happened after we picked up Sara — that scavenger who stole Tector's horse on our way up to Charlotte. She was hitting on me, and our Mags there thought I wasn't shutting her down quick enough to suit her. So she did it for me, and then we had us a little dustup about expectations in post-apocalyptic domesticity. I told her that so-called 'true love' is a luxury; very few people in this world are gonna be lucky enough to fall ass over teakettle in the first place, never mind build some mythical happily ever after out of hormones and wishful thinking. Most people just settle for 'good enough' and hang on until it isn't. So she got it into her head that I think that you're settling."

"She thought I'd leave you?" Tom replied, tone affronted enough to almost be called a yelp.

John chuckled again mirthlessly, then began closing the distance between them, one slow, deliberate step at a time. "No. She probably thought that if she poked the hornet's nest, either you'd correct me — or we'd break up, and that either one-upmanship would suit her just fine."

About an arm's-length of leaf-strewn asphalt separated them by the time John stopped walking. Tom shook his head again. "Somehow I doubt you have any more unbiased a picture of her motives than she does of yours. But was she right about this? Do you think I'm settling?" he demanded.

"I don't think that you think that you are," John shrugged. He hadn't ever intended to bring the subject up; he hadn't seen how discussing it could possibly lead to a positive outcome, and so far the conversation was proving him right. "So what difference does it make?"

Tom's lips thinned as he locked gazes with John, his expression cast in shades of dim blues and dark greys in the deep night, like carved granite. "It makes a big difference — at least, to me. Settling is what my mother did; what I swore I'd never do, when I finally got out of that toxic environment. Maybe it was a miracle that I found Rebecca when I did; that I managed to break out of that cycle. But do you honestly think I'm desperate enough to reach out again without knowing my own mind? Just because I failed with Anne doesn't mean I went into either relationship expecting to put anything less than my full effort into it. I know you heard me when I told Anne you're what keeps me going these days — did you think I was exaggerating for her benefit?"

John scrubbed a hand over his face, and felt suddenly very tired. "No; more like I thought you were fooling yourself. It's not like I haven't noticed that every time we split up, for whatever reason, and I come back — you open up just a little bit more. Call it whatever you want; I was just expecting to take whatever you were willing to give me before you finally came to your senses and realized I'd been using you."

Tom's face finally softened. "What a pair we make. Me afraid that I'll hold on too hard, you determined not to hold on hard enough. I'm using you every bit as much as you're using me, you know."

"Yeah? And how's that, then?" John asked sharply, wondering what qualified as 'using' in the Mason dictionary.

"What do any two human beings in love use each other for? To not feel so lonely. To find a little joy in this world. To make ourselves better people," Tom shrugged, closing that last distance with an almost hesitant air, reaching for one of John's hands. John let him take it, watching him warily as Tom gave him a pained smile.

"In love," John scoffed automatically at the word, feeling the scrape of Tom's gloves against his palm as he tightened his grip. Both word and sensation sent a shiver up his spine entirely unrelated to their cold, dark surroundings. "That seems like an awfully loaded phrase for, what, thirty-eight days or so of wartime companionship?"

About enough for one round of Survivor, ironically enough, back when reality TV was still a thing.

"Maybe — if those thirty-eight days were all there was to it," Tom shook his head, rubbing a thumb over the back of John's knuckles. "But you know as well as I do that this is more than just 'hormones and wishful thinking'. The tenor of the emotions may have changed more recently; but the intensity's always been there, and you know what they say about the flip side of hate. So here's another quote for you; unattributed, this time: 'Love is two imperfect people refusing to give up on each other'."

They did have the 'imperfect' and 'refusing to give up' parts down cold, didn't they? John got what Tom was trying to say. He'd recognized that from the beginning of this trainwreck, when he'd finally stopped bristling and realized he was already halfway gone on the guy; he'd been drawn to him in one way or another from the get-go. It was just that he still had a hard time believing Tom was actually using that four-letter word ... or that John wanted him to mean it so badly.

Like it or not, John had found himself at a crossroads; one of those poetic byways diverging in a thorny wood. Whither thou goest, he'd muttered to himself back in Boston, at another; and whither thou lodgest, unspoken but very much present, when he'd brought that duffel bag full of clothes to Tom's room. He was already living the thy people shall be my people part. So why was the rest of it sticking so badly? Whither thou diest ....

...In other words, 'til death do us part. Right.

"You asked me once to be patient with you," he said quietly, impulsively lifting the hand clasped around his to press his lips to the callused skin where Tom's fingers emerged from the distressed fabric of his worn half-glove. "We've spoken a lot of the same language from the start, despite the different lives we've lived; but that's caused as many problems as it's helped, I think. You're a words guy; there's certain things you just want to hear, but words never did me a damn bit of good until I met you. There's some things I just don't know how to say, and some things I won't trust anyone else to say to me until I see them proven, first."

"Patience," Tom said, eyes roaming hungrily over John's face. "I can do patience, if I know there's a reason."

John smiled crookedly at him. "How about a few words I can say, then? 'Intreat me not to leave thee', Mason. Will that be enough for now?"

He saw the second Tom remembered the rest of that particular verse from the Biblical book of Ruth; the one that had been bouncing around in John's mind for quite some time now. Tom heaved a shaky sigh, then lifted his free hand to brush a few strands of hair back out of John's face. "John Pope Mason," he replied obliquely, referencing the whole clan conversation they'd had the week before.

"Still not my name," John said, the corner of his mouth tugging upward.

"I'll take the hint for now; but I reserve the right to ask again later," Tom said, confirming the hint with a warm crinkle around his eyes. "Think you'll be all right with that?"

"Bullets before food before fuel before entertainment," John smirked in reply, reminding him pointedly of his oft-stated chain of priorities.

"Might have to demote bullets on the official scale, just for that," Tom snorted. "Or rank you as a bullet, maybe?"

"Deadliest weapon in the President's arsenal?" John affected a considering look. "Think maybe I could live with that."

"We're good, then?" Tom asked, smile fading away as he searched John's face.

"Mason ...." John shook his head, then relented. "I don't know what we are, but good's probably somewhere in there, yeah."

The expression Tom made at that practically begged to be cut off with a kiss; it was the only reliable way John had found to keep Tom from saying something even more disruptive to his peace of mind. He shifted his weight to lean in — then gasped and doubled over instead as stiff, injured muscles seized at the motion, and grabbed for Tom's arms to keep from hitting his knees.

"John?" Tom asked, clutching him back, voice sharpening in alarm.

"I'm fine, I'm fine — don't suppose you have any ibuprofen on you, though? Don't think the doc planned on me zipping around on a motorcycle for hours," he joked, hissing as he took his weight back off the leg.

"No; all I've got on me is a few credit notes and the comm. Damn, I should have asked Hal to bring another one; I could've called him back."

"No, no; just — let's get back on the road. I'll be fine. Sooner we're back in Charleston, the better, though."

"Right. Here; lean on me." Tom shifted one of John's arms over his shoulders, in not-quite-ironic echo of that day on a river bank nearly six weeks before, and helped him back to the bike.

The quality of the tension between them was entirely different now, though. And much as he hated to admit it — that was a conversation they probably had needed to have.

Not that he'd tell Maggie, when they caught up to them at whatever gas station they'd picked to wait at.

He wrapped his arms around his partner, then settled in to endure the ride.

>> Parts 9 & 10