Day 8

- II -

4: Haven

"I talked with the outside regularly and - this is still amusing to me even now - it was an accident. They gave me a computer here to keep me happy, and the last person who had it had managed to form a link out. After testing to see that it was, in fact, a genuine link by sending out subversive mail that if monitored should have gotten some attention, I forged some friendships on the outside. Even had a real conversation or two. My captors had no idea, they just thought I was enjoying the games they'd installed. Of course, with the video surveillance now, it's a little harder."

That first night in Haven was something to remember, that was for certain. By the time the ambulance came there were already a number of people with us. Jamie and I were out of the van at that point but John refused to leave Dana, even when the paramedics came to take her away. He rode in the vehicle with them. The entire time everyone kept their distance, mainly because they hadn't wanted to seem as though they were crowding in on the newcomers in such a tense situation. Once John and Dana were gone, that's what they proceeded to do. There had been some initial confusion before they figured out that Jamie wasn't a telepath and I was, but everything settled down quickly. Introductions were given, dozens of names which I promptly forgot. Eventually the sheriff sent everyone away and offered to give us a ride or at least drive ahead of us toward what he'd termed the "visitor's center". This turned out to be an empty house kept that way for newcomers, and that night I slept on the most comfortable bed that I have ever experienced.

The next day I met Orin. He'd been waiting downstairs for me to awaken, and had spent the time talking with Jamie. To hear her tell it, he'd been acting at being mysterious by trying not to explain everything at once, but by the time I woke up they'd covered nearly everything of what he'd intended to tell me. That shortly went out the window.

I hadn't been expecting a visitor, so I must have seemed utterly disheveled. I'd fallen asleep in my clothes and done nothing upon waking to improve my appearance, but if he noticed he didn't let on. He just stood up as soon as I entered the room and moved to shake my hand.

"Orin Haste, town founder." he said by way of introduction.

"Orin? Orin, is that you? You need to say more."

It was just me, Jamie, and this newcomer whose town we'd invaded in the room, and none of us had made this reply. It had come from my PDA, and it was a voice I'd never heard before but could only be one man. My father - my dead father - was speaking from a device I hadn't even known could make a noise more complex than a beep.

"Keith?" Orin seemed extremely confused, and I could tell this was a state that was very unfamiliar to him. He'd been expecting just to greet us and tell us a bit about his town, and I'd thrown the plan into disarray.

"Orin. I've got your voiceprint now. Forgive me if any of these replies sound canned, it's because they are. If you're free to speak, say so. If you're not safe, don't speak. Or just lie and say you are, I've got a voice stress analyzer in this thing." I stood completely still, the irrational feeling that if I moved, even to take the PDA out of my pocket where I'd slept on it the night before, I'd break the spell.

"I'm free to speak. I'm safe." he replied, looking at me warily. His gaze seemed to ask the question - was he safe? He'd blanked his mind to me the moment that my device started to speak but I could tell he was wondering the same thing I'd been wondering the night before: Was this a trick by the Troopers? I felt bad - this man had been welcoming, and now somehow he was becoming my enemy.

"Good. Okay, I'm decrypting the rest of this thing. It'll have the location of where I'm being kept, directions, layout of the place, what I know about guard layout, that sort of thing. I'm in trouble, and I'm sending this out with someone I trust to get it to you. I know you probably can't come yourself, but maybe you can get the news in on this or something. If you're threatened at any point, say so and this'll erase itself. Otherwise that's the end of my speech. Hopefully next time we talk it'll be in person."

Silence descended upon the room. It seemed absurd, three people standing around while the sun shone in, looking at each other with distrust.

Finally, Orin broke the ice. "How do you know Keith?" he said to me pointedly.

>> He was my father. >>

I was counting on my telepathic message to carry the truthfulness of this statement; if he didn't believe me I was likely to be in trouble.

Orin's eyes widened. "You're Derek?" his previously cautious attitude had evaporated, replaced with something approaching wonder.

"I am." I replied, feeling inadequate to the situation. I was a bit taken aback myself; I'd always known there was a large part of the PDA that'd been encrypted and sealed off, but I'd thought it to be unimportant system files. All along there'd been a message from my father, and it hadn't even been for me.

Orin stepped forward to me again and shook my hand with vigor, completing the gesture he'd begun to do what seemed like ages ago. "I'm very glad to meet you, Derek. I never met your father in person, though I'd hoped to. We spoke a number of times. Clearly he thought whoever he trusted that device to would get it to me far sooner than now. Where did you get it?"

"Dana gave it to me. She's the woman you took to the hospital yesterday." With this statement, fresh worry crept in. "How is she?"

"My apologies for not saying so earlier, she's recovering nicely. There appears to be no permanent damage. She woke once last night and has been sleeping normally since." Orin appeared to be more comfortable now that the conversation had turned back to what he'd prepared for. I could tell he wanted to ask more about my father, but I wasn't prepared to tell my life's story to a stranger.

"So where is this place?"

Orin nodded, gesturing to the sofa that Jamie had been sitting on until recently. "Have a seat, I'll be glad to explain." he said, sitting in a chair opposite it and taking a drink from the water bottle he'd apparently been using.

I sat down, feeling some of my tension evaporate. What I really wanted to do was to take the PDA out of my pocket and read through it, see what it was my father wanted the outside world to know, see where he'd been kept. I'd settle for solving the lesser mystery of where I was and how there was a city in the middle of nowhere.

"We call this city Haven, for obvious reasons." he began. Jamie sat down beside me, and I could tell she'd gotten this much out of him already. She didn't want to leave, though, and didn't seem to mind hearing it again.

"The city itself is nearly a century old. It was built as part of the nuclear program, specifically it was built to be blown up as part of the nuclear program. They built it as big as they could afford to and as big as they needed to for their models. Their aim was realism, they made houses, businesses, everything. They went so far as to fully-furnish the houses; that's the kind of realism they were looking for. But up in the mountains is a horrible place for nuclear testing - specifically, fallout gets even more distributed than it would at ground level - so they moved operations down to the proving ground and took as much as they could with them. When I found it, it looked a lot worse than it does now; the desert does wonders to ghost towns. But me and the folks I brought with me, we got to work with the restoration, and after a while more people started coming in. Now we're the city you see today."

He paused to take a drink of water. "Me and the other founders, we came here when the plague came. We didn't come to escape it - I was already sick at that point, as were many of my companions. We came because we could tell what was going on, what kind of government was going to arise out of the chaos this caused. We didn't know it'd be the Troopers specifically, but if it hadn't been them it'd be someone like them. Someone released this virus - it was engineered, not natural - and they did it likely to destabilize the prior situation. So I decided to take myself out of the society before it could decide to take me out on a more permanent basis."

"The Troopers never caught on to this place?" I said, somewhat incredulous. "It seems that there'd be a flyby or something; everything was suspect back during the war." I'd been maybe three years old when the war happened but John had filled me in with enough background that it felt like I knew at least a little.

Orin nodded. "There were many flights over this place in the heat of war. But to everyone we appeared to be merely an abandoned test facility. We had stricter rules about lights during the nighttime back then, of course, but even then there were more important targets. Afflicted weren't an issue then, and it wasn't until later that our own rebellion began to take form."

This last bit just confirmed what I'd been hoping ever since we weren't shot on sight the night before. "So you're with the rebellion?"

Our host smiled. "In a very real way, we are the rebellion. The closest it's come to having a center. We don't give orders to the cells, of course, but we do our best to keep them informed."

I felt relaxed - I was finally in a place where I wasn't prevented from leaving, and yet wouldn't be outcast for being a telepath. A place I could stay. Orin had chosen well when he'd picked the name "Haven."

Orin moved a bit in his chair and took another drink of water. "I'd like to drive the two of you to the hospital to see your friend, if you'll accept."

I paused, wondering why we wouldn't accept until the memory of the earlier awkwardness came back. Of course, he still wondered if we trusted him. I did have questions, foremost about my father, but his trustworthiness was not among them. I nodded and stood.

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