Page 36 (1/2)

"What did he say?" My voice, loud in this room

"What?"

"About me, what did he say about me?" My words tumble out of mydown a staircase

"That you would come here so else?"

She throws her hands up in exasperation "Stop interrupting! I need to say everything in sequence lest I forget soet to it now Tell ful of air "Very well"

Fro closer

"He said you were a boy born with a mission With a certain destiny"

"Me?"

"That you have a purpose, a calling That your life has a significance greater than you could ever i atabout My father never said anything about this What radually"

"Lately, nothing’s been gradual or easy Just tell me"

She steps toward me, her eyes locked on mine "Do not be surprised, do not be afraid of what I’m about to tell you"

"What’s et on that train, Gene" Her eyes pinion o so "What? Where?"

"To your father, Gene He’s still alive"

34

HER WORDS SLAP me with a palpable force My knees buckle underMy words, a thousand h , then shakes her head "No time," she says quietly, as if to herself "Come here" She walks to the other side of the room, moves aside a few empty cartons and boxes until a small door is revealed

"No way," I stammer "Tell me he’s not in there"

"Of course not," she says "Don’t be ridiculous" She opens the door and walks in I follow A second later, I hear the snap of plastic, and then the roo hallway, its length disappearing into the far shadows Along the walls, like large pinned butterflies, hang several large contraptions, each resespans

"We’re inside the fortress wall now," Clair says

"What are these?"

"They’re called ‘hang gliders’"

I touch the fabric of the nearest one A synthetic plastic material

"In the early days," Clair says, "when the Mission took its outpost duty seriously, people used to fly out on hang gliders to scout the land Always under the cover of daylight To keep an eye on the duskers Toin the city, that they weren’t exploring or traveling across the desert"

I look at the dozens of hang gliders, shadowed along the wall froot too big and heavy to operate theirls, it’s rumored, fleay and never returned Now no one can operate theirls can’t run for takeoff because of their feet Not that anyone cares Everyone’s forgotten they ever existed"

I walk the length of the hallith a GlowBurn, the rectangle of green light touching the walls around liders "Are they still operable?"

She set very far They’re alone--burnt to a crisp o" She sees e pyre by order of the elders This hallway--I think it was the repair roo, I touch the large hang glider nearest the door It has an especially long wingspan, its synthetic htly colored

"This one looks new," I say

Clair nods "Relatively It’s the only one that I’er fondly across its span "He constructed it It was the training ether, your father and I He taught me how to fly it"

"Did he fly a lot?"