Chapter 22 #2
“Dad. Jennifer, the soldier you met at my cabin, is my granddaughter. Your great-granddaughter. She took a different last name—Hayward—to keep from being too closely associated with me. But she is family, and she is an adherent of the Word. This is my gift to you, the one I knew you would never accept. No more guns, no more suits of armor. I didn’t tell you about her before you jumped because I hoped you wouldn’t jump.
And, beyond that, I knew you would never approve.
“I cannot live another ninety years to see you. Neither can Jennifer. But her children, or their children—they will. Jennifer will carry along the Word, and she will make sure my descendants—our descendants—find you. And maybe bring you…” A long pause, so long I thought perhaps the boxy audio device stopped working.
Then Lyle’s voice came again. “Never mind that. If any still live, they will be there, beyond the door, waiting for you. Turn the manual crank to disengage the internal locks and the door. Now that you’ve reengaged power via the elevator switch, it’ll open.
Whoever you find out there, they’re family.
Followers. Those who kept the Belief. They will help you.
They will protect you. They will guide you.
“I will remind you of your promise. See this through. Whatever end may come, see this through. I am an old man now, Dad. I had a life full of adventure, mental, physical, and even, dare I say, spiritual. For that, more than anything else, I thank you. No one in history has led the life you now lead. No one has faced the challenges you now face. And, because of that, because I am your son, no one in history has led the life I’ve led.
“I love you, Dad. I always have. And it has been my comfort to know that you, unchanged and loving me for me, exactly as you did when I was a boy, would be there before my end. If I don’t see you again in the next life, please know that, at the very least.
“I’m proud to be your son.
“Lyle.”
I knelt there in the flickering lights of the abandoned metal corridor.
I tried to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. They skittered across the still-present barrier of the tranquilizer Iron Maiden had given me.
So instead, I knelt there and tried to understand the enormity of what Lyle had done.
He’d had children. That sullen teenager with the fierce eyes I’d seen in the photo in Lyle’s cabin study all those decades ago.
And he’d had grandchildren. And he’d forced them to follow his made-up religion.
Follow his “Word.” My Word. All so there would be someone here, now, behind this very door, to meet me.
It was staggering. I never wanted him to throw his life away for me, and he’d not only done that to himself, but he’d also thrown his children’s lives away for me, and their children’s, and on and on down the line. How many generations? Three, four? Five, now?
I sagged against the wall next to me, the helmet thudding against the pitted metal. “Jesus Christ, Lyle.” And, finally, the tears came.
Some interminable time later, I pushed myself up.
I didn’t want to. The effects of the tranquilizer were gone, and the dark veil of despair lay thick and heavy across my mind.
I wanted to fall to the floor, to sleep and never wake.
Instead, I got up. I found the manual release, and, using the enhanced strength of the exoskeleton, I levered it down, grinding through the gathered muck and rust. Gears turned in the walls around me.
Dust and bits of dirt cascaded from the door as it swung open, a ponderous giant.
Air from the outside flowed in, billowing the falling dust into a rolling mushroom that engulfed me. Light spilled in as well. The pale rays of morning, spearing through the swirling clouds.
I stepped forward, bringing my hand up to shield my eyes.
My gloved hand thumped against the helmet.
Arid landscape spread before me, dotted with trees and sparse vegetation.
There was a figure. A woman in brown leather wrappings.
Her lower face was obscured by a cloth, but her green eyes were visible, opened wide.
She had red hair.
She knelt. She lowered her face. “T-Traveler?” she asked, her voice muffled.
I thought about what I must look like to her.
The military helmet, the pistols strapped to both hips, the exoskeleton suit giving me a second set of metal bones outside my body.
I pulled the helmet off. I thought, a heartbeat too late, that I should have asked Iron Maiden if the air outside was safe for me to breathe.
I didn’t choke to death, but the air did taste foul on my tongue. “Please. Get up. Don’t do that.”
Her head rose.
I saw Hayward in her eyes. And I thought I saw Amy.
“Are you Traveler?” the woman asked.
“I’m Scott Treder. Please, please, get up.”
She stood, her eyes still wide. She pulled down the cloth covering the lower half of her face, revealing dirty, freckled skin and parted lips.
Her expression was inscrutable, a complex web of emotions.
She was as tall as I was, but she looked young.
A teenager, fourteen or fifteen at most. “Traveler. I need your help.”