The Book of Dema

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO + You're Alive and Have a Soul

Jenna gritted her teeth as Tyler hit the third pothole on I76 east of Cleveland. Especially bad outside of the city, she shook her head at the condition of the roadway. "This is going to wreck your suspension, Tyler. We pay enough taxes, why can't they fix these things?" He nodded at her, but did not take his eyes off of the road. She was not prone to complaint, but seven more hours of this was going to put her in a bad mood, and she knew that Tyler was already grumpy that they were driving to New York City. Josh turned down the offer to ride with them and was already there.

The road trip had been her suggestion. These sorts of decisions seemed to proceed from the most mundane things. This one was because of a box in her closet. It belonged to her grandmother, and Jenna had had it for too long. It was worn and the lid was crushed on one side, but the contents were precious. Full of photo envelopes, a small quilt, and three 1960's-era party dresses, her aunt in Cleveland had been asking for it for months. It's only two hours, her aunt had persistently reminded her. It was really four hours since she would have the return drive. Plus, her aunt would insist she stayed for the night. That trip would become a huge commitment. She thought if they drove to New York City, they could stop along the way to deliver it. She and Tyler would get hours of quality time together, and her aunt wouldn't be able to pressure her into a prolonged visit. This jostling was not what she had in mind by quality time, and Tyler's silence only put the exclamation point on his own growing irritation.

The trip had started as one of his quarterly visits to New York, where Tyler would uphold his end of the bargain he had made with Rogers Hamlin. The label had agreed to all of Tyler's conditions, embarrassed they had allowed the key-man clause to be included in the contract of an unproven band. It was a bad precedent for them to set, and they did not want Hamlin's failed gambit to become common knowledge. The artists could be difficult enough to deal with. The recording contracts should give them no additional leverage the way Twenty One Pilots' had. A few days after the meeting with Hamlin, a director and a lawyer from the label had called Tyler to assure him that the marketing executive had not accurately represented their intentions. The first ten minutes of the call consisted of them insisting their only concern was the success of the band. Tyler knew this was half-nonsense, but he had the control he wanted, and it made him feel charitable to both the label and Mr. Hamlin. He dismissed their concerns, swore he would not make any public comments about the matter, and promised to follow through on all of his promotional commitments. They got off the call as his best friends in the world, and Tyler went back to putting the finishing touches on their latest album.

In the city, he and Josh had been scheduled to do a series of interviews and host a small streaming performance session. He liked the second part of the itinerary. Live performances, especially the smaller ones, were a tonic. They gave him a punch of good feeling that he could ride for a couple of weeks if they went well. He took advantage of the informal settings to experiment with his sound. He overlaid new loops he might later use in a concert. He sang a little differently. He especially liked coaxing Josh off of the drums to play the keyboards or sing.

The thoughts about his band mate led his mind to the phone call from Josh the previous morning. Before flying out, he had gone to the woods to check in with Debbie. Everything was proceeding as planned with Carter. He had already been inside Dema on a reconnaissance mission. She reported that he had confirmed the layout of the city and had made a map of it for the leader of the rebel band.

Tyler had laughed when Josh told him the leader was called "The Vulture."

"Very dark and mysterious," he had quipped. But he was speechless when Josh had told him what the rebels called themselves: The Banditos. The echoes of this word from his childhood rolled over in his mind. Banditos.