Twenty Two
The next day, when Jessica and Duncan met NAME in the warehouse, Jim was there with supplies scattered around the Jeep. There were stacks of water and fuel cans, packs of food, and stacks of ammunition, along with ancient weapons. The Jeep was already heavily covered in supplies, and Jim was tying things to the hood and stacking crates in the back seat. He was obviously preparing for a long, dangerous trip, and Duncan wondered why he hadn’t said anything to him about it.
“Where are you going, Jim?” Duncan asked.
“The council agrees with your theory, Duncan,” he said. “And they feel that it’s an interesting enough proposition that it bears further investigation. I’m to travel to the areas around as many of the Magician cities as possible and attempt to judge the relationship between the fading of their magic and the spreading of the Creeping Death. If at all possible, I’m to travel to New Atlantis and investigate and destroy the Source of Magic.”
It was a mighty mission, more for an army than one man, no matter how capable that one man was. It wasn’t even a mission. It was more of a quest. Duncan was instantly angry at the Council, whoever they were, for putting so much on this man who’d rescued him from the Wastes. It just wasn’t fair or right. The only way he would ever actually know how the Magic was fading in the cities was to actually go to them and ask around. If he did that, he’d be captured, and then his life would be suspended forever, placing him in the realm of the Golem minds.
“That’s a heck of a mission,” Jessica said. “They put the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
Jim shrugged with that perpetual smile. “It’s the same as always, I suppose. I don’t have their preconceived superstitions so I get the jobs that require going near the Magician cities. It’s what I do.”
“You can’t go out by yourself,” Duncan insisted. “Give me a few moments and I’ll get some stuff together. Jessica?”
Jessica started to agree but Jim interrupted them. “No. You’re not going, and neither are you, Jessica. This isn’t what I promised your mother, Duncan. It’s not what I…it’s not what I promised myself would happen to you. Here, in Shreveport, you’re safe. Both of you are. There aren’t Magicians to abuse you, and the dangers of the Wastes are kept firmly out. You can spend your days in here, in the warehouse, with the things I’ve found over the decades and brought here. You and Jessica can be happy here.”
Duncan was even angrier. “What did you promise my mother, Jim?”
“I promised to keep you safe, Duncan. Just that.”
“And I don’t get a decision in this? I’m supposed to just stay here for the rest of my life? You know I’m thankful for what you’ve done for me. I would have died out there with those dogs the very first day if you hadn’t rescued me. And I love this place. But all this stuff, all these things from a time before our kind, just makes me hunger for more. I have to know everything. I have to explore, and I know there’s danger out there, but I’m not the guy who’s going to run away from it. I’m not going to run away from the Magicians and the Creeping Death. I’m going to stop them.”
Jim held Duncan’s shoulder like a proud father might a son. “I know you would, Duncan. I don’t have any doubt about that in the world. You are…you are everything I could have ever asked for in a son. Your mother, though you might not know it, has always been proud of you. Her letters to me…I wish you could read them. You were her shining star, and even though she always had Albert and was surrounded by the Magic, she always hoped for you. She hoped that you would one day leave the Magician city and become someone grand. You can’t do that if you’re traipsing around the Wastes with me, chasing after the deranged man who was born into the wrong millennium. I couldn’t face your mother, Duncan. I couldn’t face myself.”
Duncan burned with rage despite the encouraging words. “You can’t leave us here. What if you fail and the Creeping Death arrives? What happens then? I’m supposed to live the rest of my life in a hole in the ground? How is that different than living out my life in New Dallas?”
“Duncan, I’m sorry,” Jim said, a tear streaming down his cheek. “You must not leave this place. You must not leave Shreveport. I know this is hard, and it’s just as hard for me. I’ll instruct the guards, son, and you will obey it.”
“You’re not my father, Jim. You can’t order me around that way.”
“But I am your father, Duncan. Why do you think you were born without the power of the magic? The fighting Albert and I did over your mother when we were young…he didn’t win. I did. I married your mother the day before my first trip into the Wastes. You…you were born then, Duncan, in that three years I was away, but your mother waited for me. She waited all those long years while I was gone, alone and without anyone to help her. I abandoned her, Duncan, and when I returned, after the things I’d seen out here and understood what the Magicians had done to the world, I couldn’t stay there. I knew the Restorers where a sham, I knew what I had to do. So I left, Duncan. I left you there with your mother.”
“That can’t be. Albert Cade…” Duncan pleaded, not wanting to believe the man. It just wasn’t possible.
“Albert is a good man. After my trial, he helped me escape. You see, Duncan, he understood how dangerous his kind were, and he understood what I had to do. After I left, he took care of your mother, Duncan, he took care of you. He was more of a father to you than I ever could be. I never begrudged him for that. How could I?”
Duncan’s anger faded to tears and he hugged Jim tightly.
“I left you, son, and I’m sorry for that. I thought you’d be safe there.”
“You’re leaving me again.”
“And again I think you’ll be safe. You stay here, Duncan. Stay here with Jessica. The two of you could be happy here, even if you have to go underground. You can be happy, Duncan, and you can be safe.”
“No,” Duncan insisted. “I won’t ever be happy unless this fight is finished. No one will be.”
“I’m sorry, son. It has to be this way.” Jim pulled away from his son and steeled himself. “NAME, lock the doors until tomorrow morning, after I’m gone. Don’t let them leave here, do you understand me?”
The computer rolled forward and the camera nodded in agreement. “It will be done, Jim.”
“Try to take care of them, NAME. They don’t know enough yet.”
“Good luck to you, Jim,” the machine replied. “You will need it.”
Jim hugged his son once more and then turned to Jessica. “I’m sorry, Jessica, that all this has happened to you.”
He turned from the three and then finished packing the Jeep as Duncan looked on, speechless. He smiled at them once more and it was a forced sort of smile, the smile a father gives his son when he was, once more, abandoning them. He started up the Jeep and pulled out, leaving Duncan to think that he might never see his father again.