“The Catalyst” Series
		“Touring Under Pressure”
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18:  A Little Bird, a Pit Bull and a Spirit Go Into the Desert and…

           

“Hey, Cate, aren’t these mice getting a bit… fat?” Alex asked, not sure how to phrase a question about tiny rodents delicately.

Cate wandered over and glanced around her brother to see what he was looking at.

“Oh, those are Allison and Shani. Allison is one of the Seers, that is, she gets a dosage equivalent to what a Seer would get over her lifetime. I’ve noticed the Seer mice have been putting on weight. I suspect it’s because they handle food more efficiently, drawing more nourishments from the same amount of food than the others. I’d cut back their feed, but that could potentially skew the results of the experiment. But then again, not cutting them back could skew it as well if their life spans are reduced by their being overweight. I’ve been meaning to discuss it with Becky to see what she thinks about it.”

“Don’t you think you should mention that to the human Seers?” Alex asked.

“Well, the mice are adjusting themselves, voluntarily cutting back on what they eat, but they haven’t changed enough to counteract the effects to their metabolism.”

“Still…,” Alex said, before refocusing his attention.

‘Hey, this is Alex. Cate noticed something unusual in her research you might be interested in,’ he said, reaching out to each of the Seers. ‘She says that your metabolism has likely changed significantly and you’re likely to gain weight as a result.’

‘Hey, Alex, this is Allison. I’ve talked to several of the girls about this already. We’ve already noticed it and we’ve each cut back on our eating pretty dramatically. If I’m not mistaken, the Watchers have had some problems as well, but only after they spend time with you. They seem to return to normal within a week of your leaving.’

‘Really? You already knew this and didn’t think to mention it to Cate?’

‘Well, the girls have been contacting me, since I’m the resident medical expert, and I discussed it with Liv. We figured out pretty quickly on our own that we needed to cut back what we eat, so it wasn’t too hard to figure out it was tied to our activation. Frankly, about all I eat nowadays is a small appetizer anytime I go out to eat. It’s more nutritious than a salad, but I can’t eat much more than that.’

‘Have you noticed any modified responses from the boosted Seers and Watchers?’ Alex asked. ‘I mean, does that boost the effect, as well?’

‘Not that I’ve noticed. We think it has to do with how we utilize the extra BCM we’re exposed to via the link you created in our brains during our activation. Since you don’t do that to the Watchers, they don’t seem to be affected. What they’re affected by is simply being exposed to your energy. That effect lasts for a while after you’re gone.

‘There’s the ongoing question of whether you increase the size of the link when you boost the Seers, so it might be useful for us to measure exactly what the different amounts each of the Seers eat, but since we haven’t noticed a difference in their BCM it just never occurred to us.’

‘OK, that makes sense, though you’ll have to talk to Cate about doing any further tests. But as long as you’re aware of the problem I’m happy. I was afraid you’d all blame me for getting fat.’

‘Believe me, the only ones blaming you for getting fat have more specific reasons for it than this,’ Allison teased him before saying goodbye.

“Are you finished?” Cate asked.

“Yeah, I was warning the Seers about it, but it seems they already knew about it.”

“That’s what I figured,” she replied, “but it brings up another topic I was meaning to discuss with you. You’ll notice Shani is thinner?”

“Yeah, I noticed they’re all different sizes, but Shani and Allison are kind of two extremes. One’s huge and the other is thin as a rail.”

“That’s what I was meaning to discuss with you,” Cate responded. “Shani is one of my ‘Alex mice’. She’s been getting a dosage commensurate to your lifelong exposure to BCM, and frankly, she’s thinner than the others because her metabolism is much higher. I’ve made adjustments in their case, because I figure they need the extra nutrients, but like you, they eat a LOT more than normal mice and they still lose weight.”

“That makes sense, after all, you’ve seen me eat.”

“Well, I just wanted to point out that it’s an issue. I’ll be watching them to see if they show any other symptoms, but that’s not real likely for some time.”

“Hey, and here I was thinking you’d want to limit my calorie intake to try to extend my lifespan, after all, that’s what they’ve been finding in lab animals.”

“Yeah, I can see that. If I were to cut back your food, you’d likely be a skeleton within a week. I don’t think those rules apply in extreme cases like yours. Basically your metabolism is racing as your body tries to deal with the effect the BCM has on it. Don’t worry, I’m being very careful with what you’re consuming. Why do you think we’ve been eating such rich food in fancy restaurants? I’m trying to get some more fat on you as a protection, giving your body something to fall back on during emergencies.”

“Hmm, so that’s why we don’t stop off at McDonalds anymore,” Alex replied with a grin. “Man, speaking of which, I could go from some fries right about now.”

“Well, you’re not likely to get it out here in the middle of the desert,” Erica called out from the front of the van where she’d been listening to the conversation.

“Still, if you see someplace to pull over and grab something, I’m getting kind of hungry as well,” Sammy commented.

“Hey, we’re in the middle of the damn desert. We’re not likely to pull over for some crappy gas station warmed over hot dogs. I’ve got some stuff for Alex to eat, but you can stand to skip a meal or two, Sammy,” Cate informed him, looking his pot belly over.

“Ah, man, you’re no fun,” he playfully complained, remembering as he said it that his life hadn’t been anywhere near this exciting before he’d met the siblings.

“Alex,” Mac Schumacher, who was driving the tour bus at the moment, called out. “We’ve got something here.”

Alex focused his attention on her as he started to get up. “What is it? We’re pretty far from any populated areas.” He noticed she’d already started applying the brakes, though, so he knew something was up.

“There’s somebody standing in the middle of the road, trying to get us to stop,” Mac warned him.

“This far out in the country, that might not be such a smart idea,” Gail warned. “If they’ve got someone else hidden nearby, they might be looking to rob us.”

“Or more likely, it’s another Seer who’s detected you as we’re approaching,” Patricia countered.

“Yeah, and who the hell is going to be wandering around in the middle of the desert without having a car nearby?” Gail asked, skeptically.

“I agree with Patricia,” Alex said, coming to his own decision. He’d gotten close enough to see out the front of the van, and he could see a slightly heavyset woman in colorful but muted earth tone colors. “If it makes you feel better, you can take whatever precautions you want, Gail, but we’re stopping to see what she wants.”

Mac slowed the large bus and pulled onto the dusty embankment. While they were still in the desert, they were now in what they called the ‘high desert’, near the higher isolated peaks rather than in the sandy isolated areas, thus is was marginally cooler, but Alex wondered what this woman was doing way out in the middle of nowhere. He saw no other signs of life nearby. No truck stop, no stores, no houses, cars or much of anything, yet this woman was standing in the middle of the road holding her hands up signaling for them to stop as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

As the bus pulled to a stop, Alex opened the door, exposing them to the billowing clouds of dust they’d kicked up, as well as to the oppressive heat outside. As he moved down the stairs, Gail was right beside him.

“I thought you wanted to stay back and watch out for anyone nearby?”

“Hey, I’m guarding you, not everyone else. But if there’s anyone else here, they’re very cleverly disguised,” she advised him.

“She’s coming by the side now,” Erica called out, so Alex quickly exited the vehicle and held the door open for the woman, who despite her size was pretty nimble. As she approached, Alex recognized her hair was straight and black and her skin was a coppery tan color. Between that and her dress, which was adorned with several tribal motifs, he gathered she was a Native American. That might explain why she was here, but not why she was wandering in the middle of nowhere with no way to come and go.

“I’m glad you stopped,” the woman said as she drew near. “You were traveling pretty fast, and most people don’t pay much attention when they drive past here.”

Gail wondered why she was speaking with Alex normally, if she was a Seer like she suspected. Watchers, while they were attracted to Alex, usually didn’t go to such lengths to stop him. However, Alex was hampered by the sun, which was now shining directly in his eyes from behind the woman approaching them. Thus, according to Cate’s premise about how he performed his activations, he’d be unlikely to do it yet.

Beside the native dress she wore, he also noticed she had a full backpack and a water bottle strapped to her side. He could see that much, at least, since it was in silhouette.

“My name is Alex. Do you have a car nearby or—?”

“No, I like to wander the desert every now and then to maintain my roots in my native environ—” she said, halting abruptly when the angle she was facing Alex from changed and his eyes connected with hers. But instead of stumbling back, she simply stopped and regarded him, as if taking in whatever was happening to her, almost like she’d been expecting it.

“Are you OK?” Gail asked from slightly behind and to the right of Alex.

“I’m fine,” she told them. “I was expecting something exceptional, but when I saw you, you looked just like a normal gringo. But now you look like what I expected you to, like a spirit.”

“Well, look, let’s get you inside where we can discuss this in some air conditioning. While you may be used to this heat, we city folk aren’t,” Alex said, already feeling himself sweating heavily. The woman simply nodded, stepping in front of Alex and climbing the stairs into the tour bus.

“If you could, I’d like to refill my water bottles,” she said to those inside the van as she entered, without bothering to introduce herself. “I’ve been waiting for you for a while, and I’m running low. I was afraid to leave to refill them.”

“You’ve been waiting for a long time? Not just since you felt Alex approaching?” Cate asked as Chelsea got her some water.

She waited until Alex and Gail followed her into the van before responding, figuring they’d want to hear her response as well.

“It’s an interesting tale,” she said. “I come up here to commune with the spirits of my ancestors and to reacquaint myself with the old ways of my tribe. But, as I was packing up to return home I saw a running bird, what you’d call a roadrunner. It stopped near my campsite and just stared at me, which isn’t like them at all. We both watched each other, until it finally turned and ran off a ways, then turned back to watch me again, as if challenging me to follow it.

“Now, what’s peculiar about it is the running bird is my spirit guide. Although my American name is Robin Peters—my father was from outside my culture—my tribal name translates to ‘morning bird’. It seems everyone associated birds with me, though they seemed to have gotten the wrong birds. I had my first encounter with the spirit of running bird when I was twelve, and it was so momentous I decided I would study to become a medicine woman of my tribe so I could better learn what it was trying to tell me.”

While she was talking, Cate offered her a seat and she happily took it. Despite being used to the terrain and her being there voluntarily, it was clear she was tired from having been exposed to the elements for so long. Chelsea handed Cate a glass of water as she handed Robin her water bottle. She took a long drink of the water, pulled her oversized backpack off, revealing it contained both a folded tent and sleeping bag combo, and she pulled out another couple of water bottles.

“Since that time I’ve served my tribe, the Hualapai, as their official medicine woman. We’re a very small tribe, with only a couple thousand members scattered over a range only several hundred miles across both Arizona and Nevada, and many of those I serve live off the reservation, in non-tribal cities across the country. But they often ask my advice about a number of things, so I like to return to the mountains here to commune with the spirits to ask them how best to answer their queries.”

“Well, I don’t mean to interrupt your story, but I’d like to introduce everyone,” Alex said. “What’s your real name, just so I’ll know what to call you?”

She laughed a short bark of a laugh. “My ‘real name’ is Robin. I’m as American as the rest of you, only I also live in my native world as well. You wouldn’t be able to pronounce my native name, and I don’t consider it important that you do. Everyone I know speaks English, and while Hualapai make a fair amount off of the tourists visiting the Grand Canyon, which is only spread amongst a small number of members, our native language isn’t widely used anymore, so I only use it on special occasions to remind people what it sounds like. But it’s rarely used for everyday speech.”

So Alex made introductions all around, and Robin ‘morning bird’ stopped with each introduction to stare at the person. Alex wasn’t sure whether she was trying to figure out what her new visions meant, since they varied with each person she looked at, or whether she was trying to peer into their souls using her normal vision, but she took the time to evaluate each and every one of them.

“Anyway, as I said, the running bird drew me from my campsite,” she said once more, not bothering to explain what she’d been looking at in each of them. “I figured, as strange as this was to have my spirit guide come to me as an actual bird, she wasn’t likely to wait for me forever, so I quickly packed everything up. Once I started, the bird ran off, but once I’d gotten everything squared away and set off in the direction she’d run off to, she showed up farther on.

“Now I have no idea if it was the same bird or not, but I felt confident it was my spirit guide speaking to me through them, something she’s only rarely done in the past. But she continued to guide me in the same manner, showing up occasionally, staring me in the face, then running off in a new direction for me to follow before running off again. I knew better than to run after it, simply following in the direction it set out, but it drew me, eventually, to this site.

“When I got to the highway I wasn’t sure where to go, thinking my spirit guide wouldn’t be concerned with the ways of the white man, but as I was running across the road, another running bird showed up farther down the highway. It ran out in the middle of the road, once again staring at me, as if saying ‘No, I want you here,’ so that’s what I did. When I returned to the road, it ran off, disappearing once again. So I waited. And it was a long wait. I waited two full days in the hot sun. I’d set my tent just off the road so I wouldn’t get overexposed. But today the running bird showed up one more time, this time calling to me. I didn’t know what it was saying, but I chose to interpret it as meaning that this was the day we’d been waiting for, so I packed up my supplies once again so I’d be ready for whatever happened.”

Robin stopped speaking when Chelsea brought her water bottles back, once again drinking a fair amount, trying to rehydrate herself, and then putting them back where she’d gotten them. It was obvious she was dehydrated from sitting in the sun for so long, so they gave her time to recover.

“Eventually I could feel your presence approaching, and I could tell it was a strong spirit, and not just another car. I decided I couldn’t afford to let you pass, so I got in the road, intending to flag you down in case you didn’t know I was there.”

“I didn’t,” Alex explained. “While you can feel my energy, I have no such abilities of my own. I give off the energy you feel, but I have no way of interpreting it on my own.”

“That may be, but your energy isn’t so much physical as spiritual. I’ve felt the spirits of my ancestors and of my spirit guide before, and yours feels similar, although it’s much stronger. I’m now thinking I’ve been such a successful medicine woman because I’ve been able to feel the spirits of my people, and I’ve used that to evaluate them.”

“That makes sense,” Cate said. “The energy Alex gives off, which we call BCM, is given off by all living things, but only a tiny percentage of people can detect it.” She then proceeded to give Robin a full explanation of what was involved, and she listened very patiently, absorbing everything she told her, but she didn’t seem to be overly convinced.

“As I said, you can explain it anyway you like, but your energy feels just like that of other spirits, but theirs isn’t as strong, probably because they’re reaching out to me from the land of the dead, whereas yours is from a living source.”

“Actually, we’ve got an alternate explanation,” Alex replied. “We have a Vietnamese woman who views it along similar lines, interpreting it from her cultural basis. Her theory is that my spirit found a way to tap into this BCM energy source as a way of crossing over from the spirit realm. She thinks I used the energy to bring over many of my followers, and that’s why I’ve found so many supportive people around me.”

“She sees me as one of his generals in the spiritual realm,” Cate said with an obvious pride in her voice.

“That makes more sense,” Robin observed, “and it fits in with what I both believe and feel in my bones.”

“It also fits in with what we’ve been trying to tell him,” Gail suggested, “that he’s being led by a higher being, or possibly by a number of them. We’re thinking he’s here to do more than just educate a few random people.”

“The bigger mission, as much as we can make out,” Patricia offered, “is to create a new branch of humanity with these particular abilities, and if he crossed over to do it, then he must have seen a unique opportunity to help humanity, and then found a way of doing it.”

“Well what are we doing here in the hot sun?” Robin asked, looking like she was ready to head off.

“Huh, what do you mean?” Alex asked in confusion. “Don’t you need to gather your supplies? Return to your car? Meet whoever brought you here?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m used to the desert. I come out here often, and I travel the high desert during the day and the low desert at night. I’m comfortable catching rides with passing traffic, and I know how to get from one location to another. I can’t rely on telephones, since there’s no wireless activity out here.”

“But isn’t that dangerous?” Alex asked, worried about her catching rides with complete strangers in the middle of the desert, where it wouldn’t take much to hide a body if someone wanted to.

“Don’t worry, I’m a capable woman who knows how to defend herself. And while I may not be able to fight off a fully grown man, I know how to extract revenge, if nothing else,” Robin said, as she reached into her hair and pulled out a very small needle of some kind.

“It’s a cactus needle, dipped in the venom of a number of poisonous animals from the desert. I keep several hidden on me. It may not be enough to save me if I’m attacked, but it’ll incapacitate anyone. And I’m not so afraid of death that I’d try to save myself by not defending myself. All I need to do is scratch their face enough so when they seek medical attention for the poison, whoever treats him will see the scratches and call the police. As you can see, I’m well aware of how dangerous life is. While I can’t prevent the danger, I treat it like the other dangers of living in the desert. There are any number of ways you can die out here. You just have to be aware and keep your eyes open.”

“That fits in with what we’ve learned about your kind, the Seers that is,” Gail said. “They’re pretty good at evaluating people based on what they feel from them, thus you’ve probably been able to avoid the worst cases.”

“That makes sense. I’ve avoided a lot of people over the years, and if I recognize someone is dangerous, I can usually manage to defend myself. Stabbing someone with this,” Robin said, once again indicating her small needle, as well as revealing a knife in her belt, “is more effective when you first meet someone than after they’ve already attacked you.”

“But wait, you want to leave here and follow us, wherever we head off to?” Alex asked, still not able to keep up with the various divergent discussions.

“I was led to you by my spirit guide. They had something for me to accomplish, and I believe it was more than just this ‘activation’ you talk about. I have to believe I was meant to help you, as much as you have helped me. So if I am to do that, I must follow you to whatever you’ll need my help with.”

“But how will you ever get back?” Alex asked, trying to figure out how she could just take off with a bunch of strangers on a moment’s notice like that.

“I have a phone and a lot of contacts. My friends are used to my wandering ways. It may take them some time to reach me, but they’ll find me eventually and take me home when the time comes. Now let’s go. There’s no sense waiting. If you have a rendezvous with fate, there’s no sense putting it off.”

Still confused, they got everything straightened up and got back on the road, not sure how this was going to eventually play out.

---

“So what’s up with all the mice?” Robin asked after she finished talking to Anh. “If you’re interested, I could find you a few wild specimens.”

“No, they’re part of an experiment,” Cate explained. “We’re testing to see what the long term affects of exposure to BCM is. Since these are lab mice I know what their typical lifespan is, whereas I wouldn’t with their wild brethren.”

“Well, if you ask me, the chubby ones look pretty healthy, despite how fat they are, but the skinny one doesn’t look so hot.”

“The skinny ones represent Alex, while the fat ones represent the Seers, like you. The lethargic middle ones are the control group,” Cate explained.

Robin tried to glance at Alex again, but immediately realized she couldn’t tell how he looked because she couldn’t see either him or his aura clearly. “That doesn’t sound good for Alex,” she said in response.

“That’s why I’m doing the test. We’re worried about his health. Tremendous power comes at a cost, so far Alex hasn’t been corrupted by it, but it’s costing him in other ways.”

“Well, I’ll admit the skinny ones looks healthy, so they’d probably do better in the wild. Frankly, I wouldn’t let those chubby mice out of here, as they wouldn’t last long out in the wild. I can imagine all the foxes salivating over them now.”

“I’d be willing to bet both of them would likely survive longer than the control group mice,” Cate said, sticking up for her tiny test subjects.

“Hey, there’s a gas station coming up,” Sammy announced. He’d taken over the driving when they’d stopped to pick up Robin.

“Ah, that’d be Billie D’s place. He’s got his own receiver, so I should be able to get a signal. I’ll call someone and have them pick up my car.”

“If it was nearby, why didn’t you have us stop by and get it for you?” Alex asked.

“Because it wasn’t nearby. It was over on the far side of those hills back there. You’d have had to drive a good fifty miles to reach it,” she answered. “While it’s a relatively short walk, it’s a long way by road.”

“Oh, OK, as long as there was a good reason,” Alex answered weakly.

“Something tells me it isn’t such a short walk, either,” Gail commented, taking into account Robin’s tough girl image.

Robin made her phone call, making her arrangements while Sammy pulled in to the quaint but worn down little roadside stop. Sammy pulled the bus up to the gas pump as everyone else got ready. Although they had their own mobile bathroom, no one really liked using it much, since using it meant they’d have to empty it more often, something none of them liked to do often. As a result, everyone was ready to make a break for it.

“Man, I’m ready for this. I’ve been trying to hold my knees together for the last half hour.”

“That serves you right for drinking all those sodas,” Jordan teased Erica.

“Me, I’m ready to get out and walk around,” Mac said. “I wonder what they sell inside?”

“Billy doesn’t sell a lot. He’s got a lot of fast food, most of it pretty old. The drinks are all lukewarm, and the road maps don’t show shit, but he’s got the basics. But I wouldn’t get your hopes up about the bathrooms. They’re not as nice as the one you have here.”

“You know this Billy?” Patricia asked.

“Yeah, I know him. He’s a Paiute from near here. He’s gotten close to the members of my tribe, to keep anyone from getting upset about his setting up shop in their territory, but it’s government land and it’s off the Hualapai reservation, so they really can’t complain.”

“Billy D? That’s some Indian name, is he from Mississippi or was he named for the actor?” Chelsea asked.

“Well, if you insist on knowing, his native name is ‘Burrowing Fox’, that’s a ‘wannge’e’ if you’re interested, but everyone knows him as Billy D. He picked it up when serving in the military, where no one could pronounce his name. He found it so much easier to use, and it generated so many fewer questions, he kept it after he got out.”

“Are you two friends?” Chelsea asked, out of curiosity.

“I wouldn’t say friends, but we know and respect each other. I stop by occasionally when I’m up here in the high country, and he knows of my role as the local medicine woman.”

When they stopped, everyone climbed out, and Alex went to help Sammy fill the tank. Robin stuck with Alex, as did Gail, but Gail only stuck around for so long until her bladder got the best of her, so she excused herself and trotted off.

Alex was pumping the gas while Sammy checked out the van, Robin was testing the wind as if it had some private message for her.

‘Alex, you’d better get in here. There’s someone waiting for you by the register,’ Gail warned him a few minutes later.

“Uh, SAMMY, could you take over the pump for me. I’ve got a situa—”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t bother explaining. I should’ve known you’d get called away as soon as you offered. Go on, I’ll take care of this,” Sammy said as he took the pump from Alex. “Just remember, though, we only have so much room in the bus with all those damn animal cages.”

Alex wiped his hands off and headed inside, Robin following right along behind him. When he entered the little shop attached to the gas station he saw rows of supplies, several older refrigerators holding various sodas and beers, and a few people around the cash register. However Alex made a point of not looking at their faces, wanting to save that moment until he was closer.

“Mornin’, Robin.”

“Mornin’, Billy,” she answered simply.

“Interesting group of friends,” Billy commented.

“Just wait. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

“You can look, Alex,” Gail advised him, “I’ve told her what to expect.”

“I fel—” the new woman started to say until Alex glanced up and looked in her eyes. After their discussion of the other day, Alex took the time to watch what happened. He couldn’t see anything specific, but Cate, who’d noticed something was up and who was watching from one of the nearby aisles, saw what was happening. Since she knew what to look for, having discussed it with her sister Becky, she could clearly see the woman’s eyes dilate then immediately contract again. It was quick, and hard to notice, but it was pretty clear if you were looking for it.

She’d also observed, before Alex arrived, that the woman’s pupils were already pretty large, and they got larger the closer Alex got to her. Thus by the time Alex reached her, there wasn’t quite as significant a response.

The woman, a tough looking girl, looked like she was built like a linebacker. She was beautiful, with long straight brunette hair with a few blonde streaks. She was buff, clearly having more muscles than Gail, and she wore camouflaged military pants and a simple green muscle T. She was clearly a weightlifter, and knew how to work out. Alex assumed she must be in the Army from her outfit, but couldn’t figure out what the hell she was doing out here in the middle of nowhere.

“Are you OK?” Alex asked.

“Hell, yeah, I’m a soldier. I’m always OK. I… what the fuck did you do to my eyes?”

‘Easy there, soldier. Let’s not say too much out loud. I’m trying to keep this type of stuff quiet.’

That produced a reaction, whereas her initial activation didn’t. Her head snapped up and she tried to stare Alex down, but was unable to so for longer than a few moments.

Billy D glanced at her and then at Alex, trying to figure out what she was seeing.

‘It’s OK. I’m speaking to you telepathically. We’ll explain everything, but I don’t want to do it here. Come out with me to our bus and we can discuss it.’

She just stared at him, and both Billy and Robin figured something was going on. When she didn’t respond, Alex had to prompt her.

‘You OK?’ he asked again. She simply nodded, so he simply turned and walked out, having not said more than five words during the entire exchange. As the woman followed him out, with both Gail and Cate trailing along behind her, Billy turned to Robin, who stayed behind.

“Let me guess, the spirits led them to you?”

“Nope, they led me to them. I had to flag them down in the middle of the highway. But I figure I’m supposed to be helping them. I’m judging from the woman’s expression and attitude, that it has to do with her past, but we’ll see.”

“They got blood?” he asked.

“Nope. As far as I know they have no relation to the people at all, but the spirits know them. My totem brought me to them. That’s how I know they need my help.”

“Did he do the same to you?” he asked, still not sure what had just occurred.

“Yep. He’s a spirit. And not just a spirit, he’s a major spirit. He’s got more power in him than that soldier has ever witnessed in the army.”

“Then you’d best get along and help,” he advised. “They aren’t going to get any better without your help.”

She simply smiled, grabbed a coke from the nearby open container and walked out.

“I’ll pay you next time I come by. Talk to you later.”

The door shut behind her, keeping at least a little of the cooler air in the building.

“I’ll pay for her,” Patricia said, plopping a couple of sodas on the counter. “If you can get to Vegas this weekend, you should catch the show.”

Billy D just looked at her, then couldn’t keep from smiling. “Yeah, I think I may need to see this show. You gringos never stop surprising me.”

“Hey, we’re not so strange. As of today, Robin is our sister,” Patricia said with a smile. “And we look out for our family.”

---

As Alex followed, the new woman preceded him into the van, before turning and confronting him as he entered.

“What the hell do you want from me?” she demanded.

“Me? I—”

“Pardon me,” Gail said, as she hurriedly slipped by Alex. “I wanted to be here for this, but clearly I never got to pee, so just continue while I take care of business.” However, before she entered the van’s bathroom she turned and confronted the new woman, still holding herself a little knock-kneed. “And you, I’m watching you. Hurt a hair on his head and you’ll have me to contend with. You may be ex-military, and you may be able to snap both of us like a twig, but not before I’ll be able to inflict some serious damage on you.” With that she jumped into the bathroom, pulled down her pants, sat on the toilet and let go, leaving the door open so she could overhear what was occurring between them.

Alex just looked at the space Gail had left behind, not quite able to form a response to her little tirade. Cate, who was now standing behind Alex by the entranceway, couldn’t help but giggle at the odd confrontation. The new woman, however, seemed to be fairly pissed at Alex, and having Gail threaten her didn’t set her mind at ease any. It took Alex a few moments to get his thoughts in order again.

“Look, I don’t know what you want from me, and it doesn’t look like I can keep avoiding you since you keep following me, but—”

“Wait a second, me following you?” Alex protested, as he waved his hand in front of him as if trying to erase that fallacious thought from the air. “I’m not following you. You can sense me, and thus you seek me out. I can’t sense you, and have no idea where you are, nor even who you are. So I haven’t been seeking you out.”

“Uh, Alex,” Cate said, trying to get Alex to focus on what was important rather than getting sidetracked down a potential rat hole.

“No, I think this is important,” Alex replied without turning around, still regarding the woman before him.

“You’ve been following me. When you showed up in Texas I felt you, and I knew you represented trouble, so I left town rather than face you. But when you tracked me down here I—”

“Wait, back up a minute,” Alex said, making more meaningless hand motions as he tried to figure out what she was talking about, “when did I ever—”

“I’ve always been able to detect trouble, to predict when it’s likely to occur. For a long time, as a young girl, I used it to avoid difficult situations, but it always grated on me. It felt like I was running away, something I never liked. So I decided to take a different tack and decided to confront it instead of hiding from it. I got several guy friends to accompany me whenever I felt trouble approaching, and we’d confront it head on.”

“Wait, wait, this sounds like you’ve got a long story to tell. Could you at least tell me who the hell you are? I’m Alex, by the way. This is Cate, my sister, behind me, and that’s Gail, my bodyguard, in the bathroom, an ex-cop.”

The woman just stared at him belligerently for a moment, and then shrugged slightly.

“Fine, my name is Gini Connolly.”

“OK, it’s always easier talking to someone when you know what to call them,” Alex answered in a calmer tone of voice. “I’m sorry if we got off on the wrong foot, and I’ll admit the way I handled the scene in the store may have contributed to it, but I haven’t been following you.”

The door opened behind them, and although Alex never turned around, Robin entered, quickly taking in everyone’s body language, trying to figure out what she’d missed.

“This is Gini,” Cate explained to her. “Gini, this is Robin Peters, a Native-American medicine woman we just met.” However neither Gini nor Alex reacted to this interruption on her part.

“I was in San Antonio when I felt you approach, I could feel you, and I knew you represented trouble. And not just a little bit of trouble, but a shit-load of it. As a result I left town, since I no longer had any ties there. But here you are, having followed me to this God-forsaken piece of nowhere, so I’ve got to assume you’re following me.”

Before Alex could respond and potentially alienate Gini even more, Cate tried to intercede on his behalf.

“He wasn’t seeking you out. As you’ve seen from the bus, he’s traveling the country as part of a music tour. He showed up in San Antonio for a two night concert. We just finished playing in Phoenix last night, and we’re on our way to Vegas today, preparing to head to Utah afterwards.”

Gini’s eyes shifted off Alex, who she couldn’t see anyway, to regard the diminutive little girl standing behind him.

“So you’re saying this is just a chance encounter, despite the fact trouble has always sought me out, and he feels like much greater trouble than I’ve ever faced before?”

“Look, I’m not trying to cause any trouble,” Alex protested, but no one seemed to be paying him any mind.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Cate insisted, despite it being obvious that Gini was trying to bully her with both her physical size and her belligerent attitude. Cate could see her nostril flaring, which she knew wasn’t a good sign, but she had no intention of backing down. Instead she stepped in front of her older brother, trying to get between him and this giant woman.

Gail took that moment to exit the restroom. She took one look at the scene, which she’d been listening to all along, and realized she’d better move to protect both Alex and Cate before it was too late. But before she could move, Robin stepped in to defray the situation.

“Look, I don’t think anyone was seeking anyone else out. I think what we’re facing here is the fact that we’ve all been brought here by an outside force. None of us sought this situation out, but now that we’re here, we need to consider why we were brought together, and what those that did it were trying to tell us.”

Gini turned her sharp look on Robin, glaring at her, and then turned to Gail.

“Who is this, again?” she asked.

“She’s a medicine woman,” Cate said, speaking up to assert herself against the overly aggressive woman. “As such, she sees things on a much more spiritual basis than the rest of us. But in this case I’d advise you to consider what she has to say, even if it doesn’t make sense initially.”

Strangely, Gini seemed to do just that. She glanced briefly at everyone, including Alex, although she seemed to wince a little when she did, then she sighed, shrugged and seemed to accept things as they were, as she visibly relaxed somewhat.

“OK, so what are we all doing here?” she asked.

“Before we get to that,” Alex said, holding his hand up, trying to slow down the rapid exchange of different voices, “I think we should hear your story so we can understand where you’re coming from, and why you’re feeling so defensive about me. I’m sure Gail would appreciate hearing that, as she doesn’t take aggression directed at me particularly well.”

Gini turned to regard Gail, seeing she was looking just as belligerent as she’d been only moments earlier, and saw he had a point.

“OK, as I was saying, I’ve had a history with both avoiding and seeking out trouble all my life.”

“That’s not unusual,” Alex interjected. “As we’ll discuss, you’ve got a genetic anomaly which allows you perceive things others can’t. But go on.”

This newest information made Gini regard Alex oddly for a moment before she continued. “Once my guy friends and I started confronting the local troublemakers, one of them mentioned how they all worked out so they could defend themselves, and invited me to come to their gym with them. They were all your basic football types, by the way. I didn’t think much of it, but because I’d come to rely on them so much I went along. But once there, I ended up in the weight room, and soon I was bench pressing weights, doing chin ups and running laps. I loved it. I discovered a way I could bulk up and defend myself, so I didn’t have to wait for others to back me up whenever I encountered potential trouble.

“I started working out regularly at the gym, and I started backing down less than I had before. However, the response wasn’t that people trusted me more, or thanked me for defending them, instead my girlfriends started avoiding me, telling me I’d changed.”

“It’s a difficult time,” Robin said. “Teenage girls aren’t known for accepting behaviors that are considered outside the norm.”

“As a result, I spent more time with the guys and trying to add muscle mass and agility. I took up Kung-Pow, Karate and boxing. By the time I graduated high school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to confront trouble head on. I thought the best way to do that would be to enlist in the army, so I’d be trained to handle the worst the world has to offer.”

Alex, seeing the potential confrontation had lessened, moved back from Gini and sat down, hoping to give her enough room to continue opening up. Cate, seeing his response, did likewise, as did Robin. Gail, however, feeling guilty for abandoning Alex to a potentially hostile situation once again, positioned herself just behind him, standing over him, ready to defend him if things escalated again.

“Of course the guys tried to put the moves on me, but I’d bat them down as quickly as they’d try anything. I didn’t want sex to confuse the issues between us, so I never let it come between us, even if I had to do it physically. There were many times I’d back some guy at the gym against the wall, ready to punch him out if he didn’t back off. However, I also didn’t want that to impact my life, and being around guys all the time, I started thinking like they did, so I started seeking out some male companionship on the side, with people other than my friends.

“When I joined the military I thought I’d found my home. They pushed me, they trained me, and they represented a world view I could understand, and I did well. However, as I’m sure you know, they aren’t terribly open. I’d wanted to join the Special Forces, but they don’t allow women into those areas.

“I was sent to Afghanistan, where I excelled enough I was paired up, unofficially, with several Special Forces units. Although I wasn’t warmly welcomed, they soon realized I had a knack for anticipating trouble, so they came to rely on me.”

“Sounds like Caity,” Cate commented as an aside. Alex quickly waved her comment aside, not wanting her to distract Gini from her tale, since this seemed to be so important to her that they needed to hear it out, but Gini was already distracted.

“You know Caity?” she asked. “She’s good people. Like me, she exists in a man’s world. But unlike me, she’s managed to save her femininity, while I’ve gone in the other direction. I respect her. She’s not afraid to stand her ground, and she’s seen some trouble.”

“Yeah, we…,” Cate started to explain until she noticed Alex glaring at her, so she quickly fell silent.

Noticing her reaction, Gini glanced at Alex to figure out his reaction, but couldn’t see his response.

“Here, this might help,” Robin said, stepping up beside her and pulling her phone from her pocket. She pointed it at Alex and took a quick photo of him, then showed it to Gini.

“Thanks, that does help. It’s hard to know how to react to a brilliant glare.”

“There are tricks you can use,” Gail advised her. “But we’ll get to that in good time. Go on.”

“Anyway, the guys in my unit figured out I’d know when things were likely to get messy, so they started to listen to me. That went well, as they started to treat me better, but it had its downside as well.”

The other girls nodded at this, easily able to imagine just what those downsides were.

“During my stretch in Afghanistan, I changed how I reacted to the guys around me. Figuring we were all on the same side, and I couldn’t very well find anyone else while I was in a foreign country, I started sleeping around with the guys in my unit. I wasn’t looking for anything serious, but I was looking to let off steam. And it worked well for a while, since the guys opened up to me more after that.

“But that started to wear thin. The guys became guarded. They started giving me names. Like ‘Lucky’, ‘Gifted’, ‘Clover’, or more likely, ‘Horse’, short for horseshoe, or even ‘Bwitch’, which was a combination between Witch and… well, you can guess the rest.”

Alex and the others felt for her, having an inkling what that must have felt like, but they didn’t think they could honestly relate to it closely enough to offer their own opinions on the subject.

“Excuse me,” Robin asked, “but, Gail, could you explain to me how to do that telepathy thing?”

‘It’s not quite as easy as that,’ Alex answered her telepathically, ‘but just talk to her like I’m doing to you now and she’ll hear everything you say.’

‘Alex is correct,’ Gail told her. ‘It’s a little complicated, because you’re technically only able to initiate communication with Alex. You have to go through him to reach anyone else. But you don’t have to worry about it, once you get used to it, you can do it whenever you want and he won’t listen in. He’s gotten quite good at tuning out the other conversations in his head. Personally I don’t know how he does it, as his head must sound like an angry beehive with all the conversations taking place in the back of his head.’

‘I’m sure that will be an interesting discussion,’ Robin replied, ‘but right now I want you to tell me how to interpret the various things I see flashing across Gini’s, uh, aura.’

‘Ah, that I can do, though for now I’ll simply describe what she’d feeling, rather than trying to train you from scratch.’

That little telepathic exchange took place both quickly and silently, so it didn’t disturb the rest. Gini managed to resume where she’d left off.

“Whenever I’d catch them calling me that to my face, I’d usually bend them over the bar, threatening them with a bottle. They stopped calling me those things directly, but I knew they continued to behind my back.

“It turned out that while I saved their necks time and again, they felt I was at fault for not saving them each and every time, and they suspected I wasn’t so much good luck as I was a lightning rod for bad luck. Despite our unit having a tremendous record for successes and an outstanding reputation, everyone started to recoil from me.

“And they weren’t alone. I started to internalize the very same feelings. I began to take each injury, each death, personally. As If I’d led them to it and then couldn’t protect them from the very dangers I’d warned them about. As we started to lose more and more people to either hospitalization stateside or death, I started retreating from the others as they did from me. Pretty soon it was me against everyone else.”

“See, Alex, that’s what comes from this obsession you have with—” Cate started to tell Alex before he quickly shut her up with a quick hand motion. Alex was well aware of the parallels between them. How she saw her role as protecting each and every one in her unit, while he saw himself as being responsible for each of his followers. He too knew it wasn’t realistic, but it was a hard tendency to fight. But he didn’t want to get distracted by that discussion now. There would be plenty of time to discuss it later. Now, he wanted to know what it did to her. He’d already begun to accept Robin’s view of their situation, even after the short time they’d been together.

“This happened over a long time, of course,” Gini continued. “It was over several tours in Afghanistan, yet each time, things were changing stateside as well. Each time I’d return, people would treat me differently. I now had no female friends, and now the guys who I used to hang out with, my ‘Army buddies’, no longer wanted to be around me. So instead of turning to strange men as a release, I started cutting them off, not wanting to be cut off when they rejected me, just as the guys in my own unit cut me off when I was saving their damn lives.”

Gini didn’t look pleased as she recounted these details, but Alex recognized she needed to deal with this on her own basis. He didn’t know if it would help, and he figured she’d probably already talked about it plenty before then, but he figured it was important for him to hear, especially since she’d offered it up so freely, even when she’d been so guarded about him to begin with.

It was then Alex idly wondered where everyone else was. He quickly glanced around and saw no sign of the others, the members of Patricia’s band who were traveling with them. He couldn’t imagine them still sitting on the can, or buying enough to keep them busy for this long, but Gini demanded his attention as she continued with her tale, so he couldn’t worry about it then.

“It was during my last couple of tours that things came to a head. Things at home had become rough. My family claimed I was ‘different’, and they didn’t feel comfortable exposing their children to me, and I was getting into more fights than normal, even though people avoided me most of the time.

“Overseas, the missions got more and more difficult, as we were called upon time and again to accomplish what the other units just couldn’t do as well as we could. I stopped sleeping, I stopped socializing, and I’d fly off the handle at the smallest provocation. Finally, after one difficult mission, one where I lost three men, this officer from another unit walked by, making a smarmy comment about my unit having trouble as a result of my practicing witchcraft in a religious based country. Well, that was just too much. I took the man down and beat some sense into him. It took over a dozen men to pull me off of him, and when they did he scampered off like a frightened rabbit, but the damage was done. I was immediately shipped back home to San Antonio for ‘medical observation’.

“They kept me there for a long time, trying to figure out why I had so much trouble ‘coping’, as if they could understand something they’d never experienced themselves. Not only had none of the civilians ever been exposed to combat, even the other soldiers hadn’t experienced it to the degree I had. None of them had ever had to deal with this physical sensation of oncoming trouble like I had, and they couldn’t understand why I felt so responsible for being unable to protect the people around me from things they saw as being ‘outside of my control’. But I knew better. I knew what was coming, and I tried as hard as I could to protect everyone, but I’d been unable to shield them enough.

“As a result I simply stopped talking about it. I stopped going home. I stopped going to the bars with my Army buddies, and I stopped talking to the idiot shrinks. That was when I met Caity, and for some strange reason we hit it off. She was my first ‘girlfriend’ in ages, but even she wasn’t able to help me much.

“Eventually they declared I was ‘unfit for continued military service’ and put me out of the service. Although I was invaluable to them overseas, my having slugged an officer just wasn’t forgivable. I got a nice disability settlement, but I had no intention of doing anything else. Because I had enough to live on, I stayed on at the Brooke Medical Center, but when I felt you arrive a couple of weeks back I knew what that feeling you brought meant. While I didn’t feel threatened by you personally, I knew I only felt those things when terrible things were about to happen, and given how strong the feelings from you were, I didn’t want to wait around and see what happened. So I packed up and took off.”

“So you’ve been living out here on your own ever since?” Robin asked.

“Yeah, the military trained me to live off the land, and surviving in the hills in Afghanistan without being able to rely on any of the locals makes living in the desert by myself a piece of cake. And I feel better living without anyone around me. I can take care of myself, and I don’t have to worry about protecting anyone, or how they’re going to respond to me.”

“Do you have dreams? Panic attacks? Flashbacks to your combat experiences?” Alex asked.

“Duh! Of course I do. Why do you think they shoved me out of the Army? While what I did to that officer was bad, they didn’t think I was safe to be around anyone else either. But their response was to have me talk to a whole string of doctors who had no idea of what I was experiencing. Personally, I couldn’t see that helping.”

“Look, I’ve had some success with a few things other doctors haven’t been able to deal with. I also talked to both Caity and Dr. ‘Lists’ at the Brooke Army Medical Facility, and we discussed this very topic. Right now, I think we need to get out of here before we attract any more attention, and I suspect the other girls would like to get back in here with us, or else they’ll all be visiting the little girls’ rooms again. If you don’t mind, how about if you take us to your little mountain hideaway and we can see whether I can help you.”

Gini just looked at him, but once again couldn’t figure out just how serious he was, and also couldn’t see what his attitude was either.

“I’ll explain how to interpret those visions you have now. If nothing else, that’ll help you learn how to evaluate people, which will help you in the future,” Gail offered.

That, more than anything else, made up her mind. She was used to training to increase her fighting efficiency, and with always wanting to be better so she could better protect herself and those around her. The idea of more training with a whole new set of tools was more than she could resist.

“You’ve got a deal. Let me get my motorcycle and I’ll lead you there. But be warned, though, you’ll have trouble getting this monstrosity there. It’s well off the road, off in the hills where no one goes.”

“I’m well familiar with the back country around here,” Robin assured her.

“I also don’t think there’s any need to take a bunch of people with us,” Alex told her. “If you’re not comfortable with people, having all of us invading your private space won’t make you feel any more comfortable. We’ve got a car hooked on the back, and while it’s not exactly a back country vehicle, I think if we drive carefully we can make it there safely.”

He turned to the others, issuing a set of commands. “Gail, you, Robin and I will follow her out. Cate, as much as I know you want to come along, I think you’d do better here.”

“The hell I will,” she positively hissed at him. “Alex, no one know your health issues like I do, and no one is better at covering all the details in these girls’ educations like I do. I’m coming along as much to protect you from yourself as I am helping Gini here. If you want me to stay outside once we get there, that’s fine. But I’m going to stock up on supplies for you before we go, because I have a very bad feeling you’re talking about spending a long time away from modern conveniences like food and water, and if you’re going to be stressing yourself, you’re going to be needing a LOT of supplies.”

Alex simply nodded that he could accept that, so everyone started making plans. Alex and Gail got out to unhook his car, while Robin accompanied Gini to her bike to get it ready. Alex didn’t know how long it would take, but it looked like Robin was correct. Her little roadrunner spirit guide had drawn them all here at this one moment for him to help Gini, though he didn’t know how long it would take or what it would involve.

           

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