Christopher

"How did you ever find this place?" asked Special Agent Martha McElroy, braking as a hump in the road appeared. "What's that?"

"Just a bridge." Sam said. "There are quite a few of them on these roads. Lots of small creeks, irrigation canals. They're usually raised like this."

The bridge was smooth, made of heavy planks about a foot wide. She looked out the window as they passed over, saw a small stream flowing lazily beneath.

"When I was a kid we lived on the farm, in a place like this." Sam said. "We'd drive our trucks on these roads, usually there would be a long stretch where we could get up some speed, catch a little air as we crossed. Wouldn't be a good idea to to it if you didn't know the road - hit that bridge above eighty you wouldn't make that curve."

"You were going eighty on gravel roads?"

"Probably faster sometimes. For sure on paved highways, jumping railroad tracks like that. I've probably hit one or two at a hundred or better."

She glanced over at him. She wasn't sure how old he was, not having had time to check his background. All she knew, or had heard about him, was that he was something of a legend in the department, and that she probably wasn't the only one who did not know much about him. She wondered who, if anyone, did. He had to be in his fifties at least, though he didn't look it. He was tanned as if from frequent outdoor activity, his hands looked tough and strong, a couple of scars were visible, and a recent cut that might become another. Arriving at the office that morning she had been told to accompany him, that he would brief her on the way. Thus far it had been an hour and a half of driving through the middle of nowhere and very little briefing. None at all, in fact.

"How much further is it?" she asked.

"Two or three more bridges." he said. "Let me check."

He looked at a map on his phone, scrolled and tapped a couple of times.

"Turn right at the next crossroads." he said. "There should be a white post at the intersection."

The crossroads was apparently some distance away, and she was about to speak when she saw the white post. She turned onto another of stretch of road that looked much the same as all the others they had traversed. Sure enough there were two more bridges, another like the small one before, and later a much longer one. She slowed almost to a stop before driving onto it.

It was constructed like the others, of wide thick planks. Looking to her left she saw that they were crossing a wide and deep ditch that must have been fifty feet deep. She kept her eyes straight ahead after that. She suspected Sam was smiling but didn't dare look. Safely across she did look, and he was.

"It's quite safe." he said. "These roads and bridges are well maintained."

"I'll take your word for it. Presumably you don't want to get killed any more than I do.

"Just ahead is another side road." Sam said. "Go on past it, and the road will go downhill slightly."

It did, running between two wide ditches. Wider than the road, more like long ponds, with cattails and vegetation over much of the surface. They crossed three more bridges, over channels connecting the water on either side.

"Folks fish and hunt frogs around here." Sam said. "Lot of wildlife around. We're just about there."

The road went back uphill ahead she could see several buildings.

"Just stop in front of the house, on the edge of the road." he said.

She parked on the roadside, not having much choice as the road abruptly ended. To the left was a modest house, a couple of large buildings behind it. They were the type of metal buildings generally found on farms. Large trees stood around here and there, a group of them covering the house in their shade. The garage doors were closed, and no vehicles were outside.

"What now?" she asked.

Sam put his phone away and opened the door.

"Let's go." he said. "Follow my lead"

She checked the pocket that held her ID card and badge, adjusted the crossdraw holster holding her gun, zipped her jacket up about a third of the way. Sam did the same, and they walked toward the house. She saw that Sam had his binoculars, reached back into the car and got hers.

"Should I lock it?" she asked.

"No, no need. We might have to egress quickly." He grinned, and she hoped he was joking.

"Whatever you do," he said, "don't touch your weapon or reach inside your jacket. We're being watched, and as long as we don't alarm anyone we're in no danger."

He rang the doorbell. After a couple of minutes he rang again, waited.

"Either no one's home or they're ignoring us." Sam said. "They've had plenty of time to size us up, let's take a walk around. Casually."

Martha couldn't quite identify her feeling. Not fear, but certainly closer than she had ever been before. Her time outside the city had been limited to driving from one city to another, and on a few occasions when she had stopped in a small town some distance away she felt a little strange. She followed Sam as he walked around the house, then behind the two large buildings. There were a couple of pickup trucks, several tractors. Two of them were the very large ones of a type she had sometimes seen from the highway while driving through farmland. Two more were smaller, but still large enough to require climbing a small stair of several steps to reach the cab.

Behind the buildings the land was mostly open fields, here and there a patch of trees. Far off, perhaps a mile - she wasn't good at guessing distances in the open - was what looked like a forest. Sam walked out into the field, looked around.

"There." he said, pointing. He raised his binoculars, and she used hers to look in the same direction. Several hundred yards away a man was walking about the field. Shirtless, but wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. He looked fit, stocky but with no fat. His shoulders were wide and his arms muscular, but not like a body-builder. Perhaps a construction worker. She had always found the shirtless, sunbrowned men she sometimes saw working outside more attractive than the ones with unsightly bulges created by obsessive gym workouts probably augmented with drugs.

"Don't get excited." Sam said. "He'll put his shirt on before he gets here."

"Is he coming?" she asked.

"Eventually." Sam said. "Patience, young grasshopper."

"What?"

Sam glanced over at her. Grinned.

"Never mind." he said. "Before your time, I guess. Almost before mine."

"Where'd he go?" she asked. He seemed to have disappeared when she had lowered her binoculars.

"He walked behind those trees." Sam said.

She looked at a small group of trees near where she had last seen him. It was one of several groves, perhaps a few hundred feet across, separated by wide open areas.

Sam took out a small cigar case and took out a small brown cigar, put it in the corner of his mouth and lit it.

Martha tried to remember if she had actually ever seen anyone smoke. She couldn't, and was surprised to see a colleague doing it. She wondered how old he was.

"If he's not going to be here anytime soon," she said, "could we get to the briefing they mentioned?"

"Sure. You got his name, Chris Duncan."

"Yeah. Nothing else. Except we want him. To do something, apparently."

"Correct. You could say he's a man of rare talents. We need him, you might say, urgently."

"Anything to do with the Dunham situation?"

"Everything. We wouldn't be out here for anything less serious. I suppose... looks like he's decided to notice us."

Martha looked back at the field. A small green tractor had emerged from one of the groves, or perhaps behind it. Seconds later they could hear its engine as it approached at little more than a walking pace. She involuntarily reached inside her jacket to adjust her holster.

"No need for that." Sam said. "If we needed weapons they wouldn't do us any good. Even out here there are several rifles on us."

"He seems to rate rather highly with someone." she said. "Who? Or do I need to know?"

"Sure. You probably already do. He's the de facto leader of the Mantis group. He'd probably prefer not to be, but they all look to him, and will do anything he suggests."

"Mantis? That's pretty heavy."

"Yeah."

As the tractor approached the driver turned in a wide circle, going around behind them and returning to stop a few yards away. Although it was not large, the engine sounded like a small jet engine at idle. The driver cut the engine and prepared to climb down. The smell of diesel exhaust drifted over them.

The man who dismounted and approached them was shorter than Sam, she guessed about five seven. He had put on a sleeveless T-shirt, as pure white as a new one just removed from its packaging. It contrasted sharply with his bronzed skin. The wide shoulders and muscular arms, making her think again of the construction workers. He wore jeans, moderately faded as if from numerous washings, rather than prefaded. The knees were stained brown with dirt, and what was probably grass. They were tucked into unusual boots. A little taller than a roper, they had a roper heel, rounded toes, and two straps around the top of the shaft, with buckles on the outside. He stopped just outside the normal distance one normally would for a conversation. At least with someone who was trusted.

"Long time no see." he said. "Who's your sidekick?"

"This here is Special Agent Martha McElroy." Sam said. "Might want to ask to see her badge, keep things businesslike."

"Usually we shoot first and check IDs later" Chris said with no trace of humor, "but might as well. Ma'am, could I see your credentials?"

She extracted the small wallet and handed it over. He studied it briefly, looked her over and handed it back.

"What brings you out here in Injun country?"

"Injun country?"

"You're a few miles from friendly territory." Chris said. "We may be inside the official lines, but the League is in charge here. They just don't bother marking the lines. In any case, once you leave the cities you're out of your element anyway. Most of you, anyway. You might get around without getting nailed, but your sidekick there..."

"I don't plan on trying," Sam said. "We knew you'd have us under surveillance from at least the river."

"We did." Chris said. "So, what's up?"

"This is unofficial. For us at least. What's your situation?"

"I'm autonomous," Chris replied. "I'm nominally in command of Mantis, as you know. And you probably also know we've got no operations in progress. We're waiting, as you are."

He took a small cigarette case from a pocket in his jeans and extracted a cigarette. He put the case away and produced a lighter. He studied Martha for a few moments, then lit the cigarette.

"Is everyone I meet today going to be a smoker?" Martha asked.

"A lot of us do," Chris said. "Sam's a bit of a misfit among you people. They put up with him because of his unique talents."

"Where you get your cigarettes?" Sam asked.

"That's a dumb question." Chris said.

"I guess you can get just about anything if you want it."

"Not just about. What you doin' on their side anyway?"

Martha noticed both men slipping into what must have been a shared vernacular. She wanted them to get to the point.

"Someone's gotta do it." Sam said. "Try to keep the destruction to a minimum. You know me well enough you shouldn't need to ask. Anyway, I am where I am, so to speak. And a good thing."

"Let me guess," Chris said. "Dunham?"

"Naturally. Figured you were on top of it, if not involved. What you doin' out here anyway? Farming?"

"You could say that. We're not involved with Dunham, and as far as I know - and I know anything worth knowing - none of us are."

"As far as you know?" Sam said. "What's the chances anyone on your side could be as successful as he was at not being found out?"

"Slim," said Chris, "but not necessarily non-existent. Your side is full of holes as..."

"Seems that way." Sam said. "But I have to..."

"Why don't you give it up? Whether you join us or just retire, you won't have to be there at the end."

"That's why I don't. I want to try to keep it as painless as possible. Minimize the damage."

"Your colleague there seems perturbed." Chris said.

Sam glanced over at Martha.

"She's kinda new at this." Sam said. "Why I brought her along. See some of the real world."

Chris looked at Martha for a moment, then back to Sam. I could as well be a tree, she thought. She'd heard stories about him, wondered if they all true. He seemed to be lacking something, something she couldn't identify. She wondered of some of his humanity had been lost, given some of his adventures.

"What's you assessment?" Chris asked. "You're obviously here for something. You're scared, and you're right to be. But if you're expecting us to solve the problem, you may be disappointed."

"You won't help?"

"Why would you think we can? Damn it Sam, do you know what you're asking?"

"I know. And I know I'm probably looking at the only man on earth who can do it."

Chris regarded the pair for a minute, then turned back to the tractor.

"Go on over to the house. I'll be with you in a few minutes."

---

"Martha, if you don't think you can handle what's coming," Sam said, "you can get out now. You can take the car back, and Chris will bring me in when we're finished."

They were walking back to the car. Chris was putting his tractor away before joining them.

"Whatever it is, if I couldn't handle it I wouldn't be here." she said. "The fact that we're out here discussing Dunham with the enemy, Mantis section no less, I'm in pretty deep."

"The question is, are you ready to be sacrificed it it proves expedient?"

"Sacrificed?"

"What did you think you were getting into? When you signed on with NSA, I mean?" Sam asked. "If you're that naive.."

"What are you saying? Spit it out."

"How much do you know? I'm guessing it's not much. What I'm saying is that your masters will heave you over the side so fast you'll never see it coming, if they start thinking you are a liability, or even might be. I know how compartmented everything is, but you must by now have wondered. About what happened to certain people. 'Transferred to undisclosed duties, need to know only'. But the rumors are there. You think it's a coincidence?"

Martha was silent. Sam was the counterpart to Chris on their side, she guessed. If he was on their side. They stopped in front of the house and waited. Sam took out another cigar and stuck it in his mouth but did not light it. He studied her, she found his stare unnerving but did not speak.

"Do you think we're the good guys and they're the bad guys?" he asked. "We're right and they're wrong?"

"Aren't we?"

"You were a political science major." he said. "Minor in ecomomics. Right? Preparation for what? A government job?"

"That was the plan. Or journalism, maybe."

"Two of the most useless, and pernicious, professions."

"I understand your, or anyone's, distaste for politics." she said. "But why journalism?"

"In a perfect world, or something approaching it, journalism is one of the most beneficial. As far as anyone knows, the world has never been perfect. Or at least not for a long time."

"So we shouldn't try?"

"Those who try are invariably shouted down," Sam said, "and eventually beaten down.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-six. In a couple of months."

"You've barely completed your indoctrination. But education is irrelevant to whether you ever come to the realization that human beings are universally evil. Except maybe to make it take longer."

"Including you?"

"Especially me." He grinned. "But I know it and admit it. Knowing you're by nature evil, and choosing to resist it - first within yourself and then in others, those who surrender to it, embrace it - is the first step."

"You believe people are intrinsically evil?"

"Broken is probably a better word." Sam replied. "But whether you were created that way or were somehow made that way, you are what you are. It looks like Chris has decided to join us."