The man who fell, p.28
The Man Who Fell, page 28
Things were starting to look interesting again!
Chapter Thirty Three
It was good to be home again. To be out of the hospital. To be done with the physiotherapy as well. And most of all to feel whole again. The doctors had kept telling him that they were pleased with his recovery. But they weren't nearly as pleased as he was.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt strong again. Whole. There was no more nameless dread lurking in the corners of his mind waiting to leap out at him when he wasn't expecting it. No more horror in his soul. No more dreams. No more need for beer. Maybe this was what the Ng, Patch, had meant when he'd told him he was tougher than he knew. Psychologically stronger.
Then again it could be the glowing!
He wasn't sure why he did that. The doctors were even less sure. They'd talked about infections and radiation and a lot of other things. All he knew was that sometimes when he went to sleep he glowed, and when he woke up he felt more refreshed than usual. Maybe it was some freaky healing thing. It would be good, he thought, to have some actual magical gift instead of just an immunity to being controlled. It wasn't flying perhaps, or x-ray vision, but it was something. Or maybe he just had the super power of enjoying a good night's sleep!
The other thing he had was a career. Since coming out of the hospital he'd returned to his work as an architect, designing new homes. A lot of them. It might not be project managing multi-million dollar builds, but it was good to just get back into what he loved. He could spend day after day in his office, just working at his computer, and scarcely notice the time passing. Eventually, when he was doing more than hobbling around on sticks, he thought he would start working with clients again. And the rest of this nightmare he'd been through would be nothing more than a bad memory.
For the moment though he had coffee and sunshine and a comfortable seat on his front porch. He had the gentle rustle of the wind blowing through the trees – which he should really have trimmed, he supposed. And other than that he had peace. That was probably all he'd ever wanted.
Things were working out for the families too. Though not as he would have expected. He would have expected that after so many months of negotiations with so many families and so many governments, that some deals would have been reached. But that hadn't happened. Instead the quarantines as people called them, continued.
But what had happened was that even without any deals being reached, bits of the quarantines were being lifted. People were leaving their restricted areas to go shopping or carry out all of the other routines of normal life and the soldiers standing guard just seemed to be happy to watch them go. It was as though a lot of the tension had died away and people had just given up being scared.
Maybe that was the plan. Drag out these negotiations for as long as possible, all while letting the world adjust to the fact that there were people in it who could do wondrous and sometimes terrifying things. It would explain why nothing ever seemed to happen and yet things still seemed to be getting better.
The Ilans were the only exception. But then they were the people that everyone feared. Of course, a lot of them were murderers and mass murderers and the rest were crazy, so it would take time. And then they still had to find all the bodies and link them to the killers – not to mention begin the trials for those who could stand trial. The chances were that most of them would be dead long before they saw a prison cell. And hopefully the younger ones, the ones who hadn't been treated with the human growth hormone, would be better citizens. Less murderous ones anyway.
Personally it was the husbands he worried about. Not much was spoken about them. But he did wonder how many of them had died at their wives' hands. They were the innocents in all of this. Born screwed. But there was nothing he could do about them except hope that most of them had got away. He doubted they had though.
The sound of a car driving up his dirt drive pulled him away from such maudlin thoughts, and made him look up, just in time to see a police car pulling up. It made a change from army vehicles he supposed.
And there was another change. The officer when she got out turned to be someone he knew.
“Voice!” he called to her, and almost managed a smile. “Aren't you in the wrong uniform?” And then he remembered that she had been up on charges along with her soldiers. The defence lawyer had visited him while he'd been in hospital hoping for a character letter, and he'd been happy to give one. But he didn't know how the trial had ended. Everyone had seen the irritating girl's magic trick in the courtroom, but not much had been reported after that. The trial had been adjourned.
“It's not as comfortable,” she replied. “But the pays better. And I got an honorary discharge, letter of recommendation and a twenty year pension.” She stopped at the edge of his house. “Is it safe?”
“Yeah. Everything's off. After I got out of hospital there didn't seem to be much need for my security perimeter.”
“And that?” She pointed at an extension cord running from the porch down into the dirt at the foot of the house.”
“It runs the water feature,” he answered her, hoping she wouldn't guess the truth. That it powered up an entire electrical grip under the dirt drive which would fry anyone who stood on it.
“You have a water feature?” She looked around curiously.
“Not any more.” He pointed to the cement bird bath at the edge of his grass before the trees. “It used to work, the spray went up a couple of metres into the air, but some roots wrapped themselves around the plumbing. Now it just sits and gathers moss. It's not a weapon.”
“Good. Because that's why I'm here.”
“Oh?”
“You're a licensed gun owner so you can keep the shotgun and the shock rifle. But everything else goes in the boot. Starting with,” she pointedly stared at the fake wood pile, “the stun grenades.”
“There's a box in the hallway closet,” he told her. “About a dozen of them. Smoke grenades too. And a couple of shock sticks. Pepper grenades too. A few other bits and pieces.”
She didn't reply, just shook her head in seeming dismay and then walked past him into the house. Thirty seconds later she was back with the box in her hands. “Damn it you're lucky. If you were anybody else you'd be up on charges for this lot!”
“If I was anybody else I wouldn't have needed them,” he pointed out. “So things are good with you and your people?” He changed the subject.
“Extremely. Say what you will about Lara Clarke –.”
“That she needs a damned good kicking?!” he interjected.
“But she knows how to pull a stunt,” the Voice finished. “I've never seen so many high ranking officers looking as though they've knocked for six. After the stunt she pulled in the court, they were left with both hands tied behind their backs. My people have all been reassigned and I got an honorary discharge. You?”
“Recovering. I've started glowing in my sleep. It's probably radiation. But other than that … you know.” He shrugged.
“You glow in your sleep?!” She stared at him in surprise.
“That's what they tell me. But I wouldn't know – I'm asleep at the time! But it freaked the doctors out!”
“Only you!” She managed a small laugh. “Definitely only you!”
“Probably,” he agreed. “But it doesn't bother me much. In fact I sleep pretty well. And I'm starting to get back into my work.”
“Good. You're a morose bastard. Work's good for you. And maybe you should start seeing some girls. Galena's still alive and free I hear!”
“Yeah, that's what I need. A genuine back breaker and ball buster!” He laughed, amused by the thought – and a little freaked as well.
“What? It's only the truth!” she protested with a laugh of her own. “You have a type! First it was Celeste. And then Athena wanted to marry you. And according to Lara Clarke, Adria was on her way to see you too before her untimely death. She was probably going to propose! If they're super strong and mad as a meat axe – you're their man!”
“I'm thinking of becoming a monk! I'd look good with a bald patch on the top of my head!”
“And you could paint it with red and black circles. Give the pigeons a proper target to aim at!” And with that she was off, heading to her car and dropping the box off in the boot as she'd said. But at least she gave him a wave before she got in the car and drove off. And unexpectedly he waved back.
That left Dale still sitting there with a nearly empty cup of cold coffee, and wondering what he should do next. But also with a smile on his face.
It was a simple thing but it had been a long time since he had known a laugh with a friend. In fact it was a long time since he had had a friend he realised. Somewhere he had lost that part of his life.
He had had friends. He remembered being happy at university. Laughing with mates. Enjoying life. And even after that when he'd started work he'd seen them. And he'd become friends with many of his clients. And then Celeste had come into his life, and whether it was her intention or not, that part of his life had gone away. Probably that was the Ilan way. Cutting off the husbands from their friends. The people that knew them. It would make them easier to control.
Now, he knew, he missed that. He wanted those easy going, happy times back. And maybe that was a sign that he was on his way back to somewhere better. And why shouldn't he be, Dale thought? He was still young enough to go out with mates. To share a laugh with friends. To return to the man he had been before the Ilans had come into his life. After everything he'd been through he deserved a little happiness.
But more than that, he deserved a future. And now it seemed, he had one again. A future filled with possibilities and one thing more – hope. The thing that had been missing from his life ever since he had been thrown out of the penthouse.
That day, he had died in a way. Now he was alive again.
Greg Curtis, The Man Who Fell
