Frightened Boy

Chapter Fifteen - Enigma

15. Enigma

I sat at the base of a towering oak tree Erika enthusiastically clambered up. She asked me to join her, but there was no convincing me to climb that high.

I knew I didn’t have faith. It explained why I wasn’t an optimist—or a sucker, for that matter. Erika seemed to be able to willingly trick herself into believing things, so I wasn’t sure if she was either or both.

Strangers began trickling into the overrun forest camp only an hour after Escher started the black smoke signals.

I was surprised that I was beginning to recognize the members of this private army. Mal stalked through, and the knife-wielding woman with green hair, and the same Speedo-clad hulking figure from before, with Rush in tow.

I figured Rush was a part of the Homeland Security Department—except, the Federal Government wasn’t any more powerful than the Strangers or any number of militias and cities that’d sprung up after the Collapse. Just another roving gang.

“What do you think about him? Do you think he’s insane?” Erika called down from on high. Who the ‘he’ was needed no explanation.

“I don’t know. You have to see it through his eyes, and then it starts to make a lot more sense. He thinks we are merely a part of his own imagination, pieces of his fragmented psyche. How would you act in that situation?” I asked.

“But he’s saying he owns reality. He’s saying nothing you’ve ever experienced is real,” Erika said. “How pompous is that? Doesn’t that kinda piss you off?

And they’re telling me everything Little Brother has ever told me is a lie. Either way, my own reality is fabricated. “I guess,” I said instead. “He seems sure of it.”

Erika dropped down out of the tree above me and dusted off her tight blue jeans.

“Let’s go back,” I said, directing my eyes to the ever-thickening flow of Strangers entering the suburbs. “We want to get a good seat for whatever is about to happen.”

“Wait, Clark—what about the other stuff? Whisper and the disappearing guy and Escher never getting shot? How do you explain all that?” she asked curiously, her eyes wide and inviting me to impart some secret knowledge.

“I don’t know, obviously,” I said. “I don’t think I exist purely in Escher’s head, because I remember growing up and existing a long time before I met him. On the other hand, it’s like the Voice says – reality does seem to respond to what Escher wants. Maybe the truth is somewhere between the two.”

She looked disappointed. So, in a rare moment for our relationship, I told her what I really thought: “I think reality is a democratic process, and Escher counts for way more votes than the rest of us.”

*

Strangers filled what was left of the mega-church, hundreds of them standing shoulder to shoulder and watching for their leader. All was silent, save the shuffling of leather and the clinking of ammunition.

The Red King stood atop the grassy mound that’d overtaken the stage of the mega church. Blooming flowers drooped down like lights from the ceiling, and draping vines made makeshift cables. A line of Strangers fed into the epicenter of the suburb, and the bulky soldier who drug Rush along set the captive on his knees at Escher’s feet.

Sweat dripped down from the silver bangs that’d congealed like tarred feathers over his forehead. His hands were tied behind his back, and his head tilted upwards at Escher, held there by the edge of his hand.

The leader stood stoically in the center of the stage, staring down at Rush. The other thousand-plus people in the room were just observers.

“Rush, I want you to tell me about Little Brother,” Escher said.