Into the Light

Chapter 26

Chapter: 26

"Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The intercontinental roads are more than numbers. They are lanes of freight, they are the hopes of finding something more than travel brings, even if deafened by traffic. Missouri is momentary just as Indiana was just a sign on the road. The rate of speed is only hastened by the weather in flux. Skies roll and undulate with pressure and heavy ambitious condensation. Blake no longer speaks unless it is to chastise inconsiderate drivers with a scream that scares deer for miles.

The four gray lanes are stamped with reflective orange dots and hypnotic green signs do battle for attention with local billboards. Every town is a franchise. Red roofs, taco take-out and cardboard cutouts that pretend to spill cups of coffee over ancient hunting grounds. The homogenous milky-white villages run parallel and perpendicular to the path of commerce.

Stiggy goes through fifteen different ways of breaking the news and Blake notices Stiggy's new found reticence. He watches Stiggy squirm in the back and feels something is very wrong. Seeker sleeps with his face to the window. The glass fogs in three second intervals.

"Blake, I can't wait until we stop in two hours. I have tot ell you something."

"I figured as much. Spit it out."

"Here it goes," Stiggy says and leans back and cracks the window. This cold air slaps across Seeker's face. He scratches his chin as he sits forward.

"Say it Stiggy."

"Stiggy, who's Stiggy?" Seeker asks.

"I am. Long story. Blake, I called Archie the last time we stopped and I found out some sad news," Stiggy says but then Blake puts his hand up.

"Hold on. I can feel this is bad," he says.

Blake changes lanes and pulls off an exit and rolls into a gas station. He jams on the brake, puts the car in park and turns off the engine.

"Seeker, please get out for a moment," Blake says.

"What? Why?"

"Leave."

"It's cool, I'll get out."

Surges of electricity pulse through Blake's limbs.

"What is it? What the Hell is it?"

"Juli was killed. The cops found her dead."

"What?"

"She's gone. Archie said it was ruled a murder suicide."

"Those fuckers did it to get me," Blake says. He can't stop his lips from quivering. Wrath slices through his skin.

"They are more dangerous than we though Blake."

"They will pay. I was only going to go after the targets with a visible presence and let the rest of the world purge the Riders. No longer. I'll take out any I cross. Get Seeker and we're not stopping till Colorado."

...

A lion of a man with long blond hippie hair and worn out yellow work boots thumbs it as his new dark blue jeans stretch as he walks proudly like a drunk. He is a gregarious Goth striding the borders of the Roman Empire chewing on a piece of straw looking back on the lanes without fear of speeding cars. Blake decides to pull over to pick him up as they pass the Colorado state lines.

"Thanks for stopping guys," he says and rips open the door and is instantly seated and buckles his seatbelt with almost imperceptibly quick movements, "I'm Clark Huxtible, no not related to the Cosby's. Man you all look like lemurs on millipedes, so where we offta?"

"How can a lemur ride a millipede?" Seeker asks.

"Lemurs get high on the insects by biting them and the centipedes release a chemical. Really gets them in a trance and you fellas look like you needed some waking up."

"That's for sure, been sleeping," Stiggy says.

"How the Hell you fall asleep on such a bumpy road is beyond me. For some people roads are bumpy and for other, not so much."

"What's that Flaubert?" Blake asks.

"I don't know much Flaubert but, 'The pearl is the oyster's sickness, and a style maybe thus be the product of a deep seated pain' or something like that. Oh well, thanks for picking me up," Clark says.

Clark looks out the window to the road speeding by.

"Why are you on the road?" Blake asks.

"There are multitudes of reasons, some mathematical, practical and oblique. I'm a scientist without a lab and decided to make the world my new lab space. No grants needed. All the observations I can make and no double blind studies for now, trials and tribulations. Then the next expanse can be traversed," Clark says.

"What kind of scientist?" Stiggy asks.

Clark's face changes from a serious stare into a childlike joy as if a kid is asked about his favorite toy.

"Physics, the primer to all sciences from biology to chemistry and even philosophy. All things are physics really. I love thermodynamic and aerodynamics and did R&D in the private sector that subcontracted for the less than private sector. No privacy with those GOV types around. They never think they can get caught with their hands in the cookie jar though. I used cookies to track them so I got in trouble."

"What kind of research?" Seeker asks.

"I designed energy storage systems and was into semi-conductors. Some research was stolen and the accusations I made toward the GOV types got my funding cut like a throat like a Colombian smuggler that drops his load. Some of the stuff was way out there but that's what I do. I guess I wanted to be a Buddha and free man from suffering. Suffering is like sickness that will, you guessed it, be a pearl. I was motivated to stop oil companies. Their greed make them short sighted."

"The oil companies need to change. We all do. And, it will happen soon," Blake says.

"Hallelujah!" Clark says.

Ten miles and then they stop for a bite. Another couple hundred and the edge of the continent beckons where the rivers fall into the Pacific. The depths of the sea floor ride on a conveyor belt of stone, a place of synthetic dreams and tectonic tension.