WARNING: This is NOT the BEGINNING of “EVEREST & THE EXCEPTIONS.” To start at the beginning, go HERE.
1×
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-42:43
The sound of the engine attempting to turn for what seems the hundredth time startles Everest from his daze. He hugs his knees to his chest on the damp grass, staring down into the river at the wreckage where so many just lost their tragic lives. All his fault. The sun is just about to break over the cusp of these Kentucky hills and it sounds like Harrison is finally making some progress with the Yugo.
“I think I might have it.” Harrison copes better with a project, “It won’t do what V0Go did, but it should get us to Indiana if the gas gauge isn’t lying. Did I pack that soldering iron?”
Everest wipes the running from his cold morning nose with the back of his hand, “We should say something.”
“What do you mean,” called out from his brother’s head buried in the backpack.
“We should bow our heads or something. Show them some respect.”
Harrison wipes his grease-stained hands on his cast-off shirt and wanders back toward his brother.
“You didn’t do this to them, Everest. Bad place. Bad time. But, it wasn’t you.”
“It wouldn’t have happened without me.”
“Maybe not tonight. Regardless - we do not want to be anywhere near here when this is discovered. So, let me get this Yugo fired up and we can say a few words on our way out.” Harrison lowers a calming hand onto his brother’s shoulder, “Sound good?”
Everest reaches up and pats the hand, affirming.
With the engine running in the background, Everest stares out into the chasm. His brother is silently reverent by his side, with his baseball cap clutched closely to his heart. So, this is what their new life looks like. First the assassin impaled by the chandelier in the fountain of the Grand Horizon, and now dozens of drug addicts drowned in the river below. Everest always wanted his life to become something different, but he never considered it would be a courtship with death. He struggles for the words to say.
“Your lives were no longer your own, siphoned away by Afflictions, but you didn’t deserve your end. I’m sorry for the role I played in your deaths. We pray that you find peace.”
A minute of heavy silence and then Harrison cuts the tension with a soft Amen.
As the morning whiles, the road passes beneath them at a swifter but hypnotic thrum. They drive in silence for an hour before Harrison attempts to change the mood. Working in the brisk morning air gave Harrison a second wind and he has the window cracked, singing the entirety of the Synchronicity album without a soundtrack and at the top of his lungs.
Your uniform don’t seem to fit. You’re much too alive in it.
Are you safe, Miss Gradenko - Miss Gradenko, are you safe?
Is anybody alive in here? Nobody but us!
Turns out that without V0Go’s supercharge, the cassette player doesn’t work anyway. Barely awake, Everest attempts to focus and decipher what is chronicled on the scattered files in the light of day. He only now truly realizes how relieved he is that they did not lose all of this in his foolish effort. The backpack. The research. V0Go and the Beacon Bright. He and his brother would be absolutely stranded. He should never have allowed his anger to fester and drive him away from Harrison into the dark night. And then, of course, there was the detail that Everest had been unable to stop himself from following the eyes of that creature. Remembering the sensation makes him nauseous. The Affliction had somehow been controlling him. Not his thoughts, but his body. Like a mosquito to an electric zapper.
Harrison sees the train-of-thought happening in the backseat and stops singing mid-verse. His and his brother’s eyes lock for a moment. Earnestly, Harrison addresses the issue, “Everest, I’m really sorry. You know you’re the most important thing in the world to me. Maybe the only important thing. I can’t change what I didn’t do - or say. But, I honestly thought I was keeping you safe.”
Everest considers telling Harrison that the Affliction had been somehow drawing him like a magnet, but instead only sighs, “I get it.”
“Everest?”
“No. I really do get it. Now, can you open the window a little wider so I don’t have to smell you?”
“That’s testosterone. No wonder you don’t recognize it.”
“Oh, you’re hilarious.”
“So, I’m told.”
Everest ekes out with a mocking whine, “My hero.”
And for a moment, all is right.
Softly, Harrison falsettos into King of Pain. Just as the lyric reveals there’s a little black spot on the sun today, the written words on the notebook before Everest fall into focus, “Hey. Listen to this: Early and subsequent birthdays are denoted by singular bursts of power at the minute of arrival, but the week of the fifteenth birthday is the window Exceptional abilities and giftings reveal themselves in full maturation. Once there is understanding, chaos and confusion give way to unparalleled power - if and only if the Pairing is unified.”
“So - “ Harrison reinforces, “this week, we become what - Wonder Twins if we do trust falls and share our feelings?”
“Doesn’t say. But weird.”
“Weird how?”
“The word Exceptional is capitalized.”
“Well - we are. We are quite exceptional.”
“Capitalized, even.”
But, something is clearly still gnawing at Harrison.
“What now?”
“How - do they know that?”
“What do you mean? They’re the experts.”
“They’re the observers. They watch us and they record it and they learn. They aren’t experts on anything until they observe it.”
Everest catches up.
“How do they know what we are about to do?”
“Well - I don’t like the thought of that at all.”
Harrison slows down, “We’re going to stop in about a mile here.”
“We’re nowhere near the beacon.”
“I just need a minute.”
“We should probably get our wits about us,” Everest suggests, slipping his shoes on, “No idea what we need to be prepared to face.”
“I’m hoping nothing quite as treacherous as Handsy back there.”
Everest pauses. His brother did not just say that. “Handsy?”
“Yeah. The drug trafficker on the train. The throbbing mass of - you know.” Harrison wiggles his fingers in the rearview.
“You’re calling that monstrosity Handsy?”
“Um. Too soon?”
Everest leans back with a pause of exhale, but now the idea gnaws at him. It is so very Harrison, “You have a clever name for every one of them, don’t you?”
“Oh, I - maybe.”
“When?! When do you expend energy thinking about this?”
“When I was working on the car. Sheesh. Later. Not like, while he’s actually drowning.”
“The one at the Fontaine?”
“Furfangs.”
“The baby parasites?”
“Neck-munchers.”
“I was calling them bratbacks.”
“Oh, that’s so much better!” Harrison encourages, “I’d totally wear that t-shirt.”
“And then you could have like a puppet one attached to the back.”
“It could be a band name!”
“What the hell are we talking about? This is sick!” Everest accidentally spits a hearty laugh.
“Nope,” sighs Harrison, a satisfied smirk, “This is not letting the worst of all this ruin us.”
A brief moment of peace washes over Everest. He closes his eyes with an exhale, “This. This is why you should have told me you could see them.”
The car eases to a halt and Everest opens his eyes, his focus adjusting onto the buildings surrounding them. A chicken place, a dog park, a gas station, a visitor’s center. Wait. It can’t be. This is the Clarksville Exit on I-65.
“Harrison - how did you know?”
“How did I know what?”
Everest looks to the scattered belongings in the back seat. He seizes the photo of Victoria and shoves it in his brother’s face, “This is where we met!”
Harrison grasps the photo absent-mindedly. He doesn’t even look at it, “What are you prattling about? Met who?”
“The girl in Indiana. The beacon! The girl we’re supposed to save!”
Harrison’s eyes dart. Connections. A rush of understanding. He slowly looks down at the photograph in his hand, already realizing who he is about to see.
Her.
He says it out loud, “Her.”
“Victoria.”
Harrison stammers dumbfounded, “We’re supposed to save - her?”
“Yes - yes, that’s the girl. THAT’S the girl in Indiana!”
“And you met her. You met her - here.”
Everest seems to now only speak to himself, “The world walked right up to my window.”
A beat of frustrated silence and Harrison steps out of the car just a little too hurried, slamming the door just a little too hard.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Come on.”
And Everest follows, so swiftly that neither of them notice the sounds of Bob Dylan beginning to crackle out of V0Go’s speaker.
They walk toward the Visitor’s Center, Everest focused down on the photograph of Victoria he withdrew from his brother, Harrison in a beeline of a daze, lost in thought.
A woman stands at the help desk, posing with an artificial smile like a mannequin, trained to greet with a grin, but not speak until the guest is just close enough. When Harrison passes what must be the conversation threshold, she expels a “Welcome to Clarksville, home of Devonian fossils. Would you care for a chicken reservation?”
Harrison tilts his head at the specifics of the marketing angle and changes the subject, “Do you work at this desk often?”
“My name is Mandy and I will be your concierge for golf tee times, directions to local attractions, or tickets to your favorite jamboree.”
“I don’t know that anyone has a favorite jamboree, Mandy. There are so many.”
“I’m here everyday Monday through Thursday.”
“That’s actually not every day,” Harrison observes, “but more than enough for my question. Would you recognize a regular?”
“A regular what?” Mandy’s smile seems ironic now.
“A person - or a couple - who come here frequently.”
“Not many come in frequently. This is a center for visitors.”
“So, if they did come in frequently, they would really stand out, right?”
“I don’t know that I’m at liberty to say.”
“Well, what is liberty, Mandy, if you don’t have the power to say?”
Harrison pushes a photograph in front of her. Mother and Father. Swiped from the scrapbooking closet. Mandy stares. Her vacant expression betrays nothing, “I’m sorry, is there a question here?”
“Do you recognize either of these people? Either or both?”
“Now, sir. What sort of concierge would I be if I elaborated on the comings and goings of other patrons?”
Ignoring the back-and-forth, Everest pushes Victoria in front of Mandy, “How about her?”
Quickly, without thought, Mandy retorts, “I haven’t seen her.”
Harrison rolls his eyes, his own question answered.
“Wait,” the first sign of humanness from Mandy as she grasps the photo of Victoria, “But, I’ve seen her.” Mandy touches the top right corner of the photo. A face so in-the-background and out-of-focus that Everest had hardly registered it. Mandy’s eyes become human, concerned, “I’m sorry - who exactly are you with?”
“Why?” Harrison digs for information, “Who is that woman?”
“She works here. Agnes Barrow. But, she didn’t show up yesterday - or this morning. She’s not answering her phone. She’s kind of the mama of the Visitor’s Center. I’m a bit worried - thought I would go check on her when I clock out.”
Everest implores Harrison, “They have to be connected.”
Mandy is agitated now, “Connected to what? Has something happened to Agnes?”
Harrison attempts to calm the situation, “We don’t know Agnes. We’re trying to locate the girl.” He puts the photo of Mother and Father back in her face, “You’re telling me you’ve never seen these two? They’ve never met here - in the back with others? No secrets at the Clarksville Exit on I-65? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Her smile is gone, “What happened to Agnes?”
Harrison rips the photo as he seizes it back. He storms out the front door, Everest lingers.
Harrison steps out into the dusty morning, sighing with exasperation. A voice seated to his right - on a bench in the grass - responds uninvited, “You won’t gather any of the information you seem to require by raising your voice like that. This is a civilized town.”
Harrison turns. An older man seated, both hands leaning on a stump of a cane. The man doesn’t turn toward Harrison, but smiles kindly amid his thick greying beard as if Harrison could see it. The man is clearly blind.
“Not really asking for advice,” Harrison offers, not intending to sound snide, but not really minding if that’s the takeaway.
“Good. Not likely to get any.”
Everest bursts out of the visitor’s center door, “She gave me an address. For Miss Barrow. New Harmony, Indiana.”
The blind man interjects, “That’s a hunnerd and thirty-five miles due west from here.”
“You know Indiana, sir?” Everest, ever-polite, sits on the bench next to the man.
“No. But, I know New Harmony. Strange place. Hotbed for certain happenings.”
Harrison is done, “Everest, just put a few bucks in the man’s cup and let’s get out of here.”
“I don’t need a donation, you ungrateful little vermin. You keep waving those photos around this place and the Melior Quam won’t let you survive to find what you’re searching for.”
Harrison turns, now at full attention, “What the hell do you know about the Melior Quam?”
Everest lost, “What’s a Melior Quam?”
Harrison stammers, “Something I heard once. Made an impact.”
“I’ll just bet,” the blind man laughs with an expelled snort, “You’d be wise not to make rash judgements. You’re grasping for help in dangerous places while help is sitting right here.”
“Who are you with?”
“Boy, you don’t even know where you stand. What power and capability this very location holds. You have no idea the number and caliber of forces striving to collide upon this epicenter at this very instant. The history of all this. Does it not suffice to say that I know at least a little more than you concerning what you are facing - and that I might just be able to help?”
“I am NOT your BOY.” Harrison snaps with more ferocity than he intends and the net result is a dusky and terrible growl emanating from around the corner. It is only now that Harrison notices the leash in hand atop the blind man’s cane. A mutt turns his hangdog snout, eyes unhappy with Harrison’s attitude. The emaciated greyhound with the patch of Africa on his face. Harrison swallows hard, “Mister,” he squeaks out, “I think you forgot to feed your dog.”
“Calm now, Valiant.” The blind man reaches over and soothes the beast with a scritch underneath the chin, “The boy is just confused.” The canine settles, tongue lapping, mouth corners widening, immediately unthreatening.
Harrison repeats the name, “Valiant. That’s - optimistic.”
The blind man, “We best get out of sight if we are going to risk taking the time to talk. But, my advice will come at a great price.”
Harrison sighs, “What price is that?”
The blind man replies with a grave seriousness in his eyes, “Fried chicken.” Followed by a bright burst of startling and legitimate laughter, “Seriously, I’m famished.”
Everest brings a bucket of chicken to a secluded table shaded by a willow behind the building cluster. The overhang of the branches keeps them shielded from onlookers passing on the throughway. The blind man reaches in and tosses a drumstick down to Valiant, “No biscuits? Cheapskates.”
Harrison gets right to it, “What do you know about the Melior Quam?”
“First,” he gnaws into a breast open-mouthed, “I am Corbin Crux, not that you have any reason to believe that, but there it is. I know this Agnes Barrow.”
“From where?”
“From right here. We visit after her monthly meeting.”
“She was here?”
“Her and others. Regarding the strange goings-on of New Harmony and the threat they pose to the greater good.”
Everest’s turn, “You’re also a part of these meetings?”
“No. But, I hover. I listen. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t exactly stand out in a crowd. And then afterward, quietly, Agnes fills me in on anything I have missed. I have a vested interest in their discussions.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I await the Rise of the Exceptions.”
Everest chokes on his wing. A chunk of it spews through the air, Valiant catches it as a snack. Offended, Everest stutters, “What’s a - an Exception - what’s, what’s that?”
“The way you ask the question suggests that you are unprepared to know the answer.”
“Who else comes to these monthly meetings?”
“The actor. And the one who thinks no one can see her secret agenda.”
“Do you mean?” Everest pipes in, “Mother and Father?”
Though clouded with cataracts, Crux’s pupils dilate, “Mother and Father?” A slow, guttural gasp of enlightenment expels from Corbin’s mouth and Valiant drops a low, jealous growl, “I see. Victoria. You do not seek Agnes Barrow. You are trying to find Victoria.”
“Yes,” Everest pleads.
Harrison attempts to stop the fire hydrant of his brother’s mouth, “Everest.”
Everest persists, “Victoria, she is our assignment.”
“Assignment?” the dog bares its teeth as Corbin tilts his head, “And who exactly gave you this assignment?” Harrison does not like this feeling. He hurls another chicken leg at the beast, who nabs it up.
“Bathroom break!” Harrison declares, and yanks Everest away for a sidebar.
Around the corner of the gas station, Harrison grips his brother by the shoulders, “What are you doing? We cannot say these things to strangers!”
“Say what things?! He knows WAY more than we do.”
“He knows Mother and Father!”
“Did you hear what he called them? He doesn’t like Mother and Father. He clearly doesn’t trust Mother and Father!”
“We clearly can’t trust him!”
“Well, we can’t really trust anyone, now can we? Why does that mean we can’t try to get information from him?”
“Everest,” Harrison decides perhaps it is time to start being honest with his brother, “I think - I know Valiant - is an Affliction.”
“What? The dog?”
“I do. I really think so.”
“Well - I think I would be the one to know.”
“Oh, you would? And why is that?”
“I have a bit more experience with it, don’t you think?”
“Are we really going to have a measuring contest about this?”
“Whip it out.”
“EVEREST. Trust me. There is something seriously messed up about that dog.”
“This is just your thing with dogs. Remember the Peterman poodle?”
“You SWORE we would never talk about the Peterman poodle.”
“Why were your testicl*s even out?”
“My swimsuit was riding up. THIS IS NOT PERTINENT.”
“Valiant is just a dog, Harrison. Yes, an ugly, malnourished dog who smells like he recently ate a live raccoon, but we can’t hold that against Crux. Crux does not act or talk like he is being controlled by an Affliction. Not in the slightest. And I should know.”
“What if Valiant - is causing Corbin’s blindness?”
“Well,” Everest urges, “There’s one way to find out for certain.”
A few moments later, Everest and Harrison shoulder-nudge Corbin Crux into the gas station with Valiant leading them on the leash. They begin to wander the candy aisle when the attendant steps in from the back. She is smaller than any of them, but the thick mascara surrounding her protruding eyes intimidates, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Harrison stops in his tracks, “I beg your pardon?”
The girl brings the sass, her employee name tag barely covering the B on her air-brushed Beach Queen t-shirt “You can’t bring that mutt in here. Bitch is a health violation.”
Everest plays it with slightly more humility, “The dog is a he - and it’s a support animal.”
“I don’t care if he’s Scrappy-Doo solving the mystery of why my boyfriend smells like my sister. Drag the bitch OUT.”
Tail between all of their legs, the twins escort their new companions outside in a huff. Confused, Corbin inquires, “I’m sorry - what just happened?”
Everest adds insult to Harrison’s injury, “I think it’s safe to say that she could SEE THE DOG!”
“Wait,” It is Corbin Crux who now stops them from their rush. They are in open space and Harrison does not like it. He does not like it at all. Corbin continues, “You thought Valiant - was an Affliction. Didn’t you?”
Everest is hungry for knowledge, “What do you know about Afflictions?”
“Which means that you - you are able to see them.”
Harrison and Everest glance at one another. Is this too dangerous? Is there any alternative? It is Harrison who finally acquiesces the information, the first time he has actually admitted the whole truth of it out loud, “Yes. We can see them. We can both see Afflictions.”
A soft smile comes from Everest at his brother’s admission. Harrison exhales, surprised the honest act was such a relief.
Corbin’s knees buckle beneath him. A wheeze of a gasp that lies somewhere between a cry and an exhale. Both boys catch him under a shoulder, lifting him up from his near collapse, “You have no idea. How long I have waited. You were promised. You were promised. It means - it means it is near.”
“What?” Everest pleads, “What is near?”
“I have been - so tired. And it is finally near.”
Everest closes the door of the Yugo. Corbin in the front seat and the dog settled into the back, with the window open but out of the visibility of curious eyes.
Cross-armed and guarded, Harrison taps his foot madly on the dust, “We cannot take them with us.”
“Harrison, what other choice do we have? They are allies. He can barely walk. He knows where we can find Miss Barrow.”
“We have her address!”
“Oh, you think that’s how this is all going to work out, do you? We’re the only ones who can rescue Victoria because we have the home address of the out-of-focus background lady in the PICTURE?! You think the lady who’s been missing for a week is at her HOUSE? We need insight - and ironically, blind Corbin Crux has way more of that than either of us. Not all that exceptional - are we?!”
“Everyone and everything is after us, Everest! From invisible organizations to freaking SEVERED HANDS! We shouldn’t be standing still right NOW! How is dragging an old blind man and his near-corpse of a dog across Indiana going to help that effort?”
“No one deserves to be underestimated, brother. Not even those two.”
Crux calls from the car, “I turned off your radio.”
“Fine,” Harrison spits absent-mindedly, then hushed at Everest, “We’re not taking them.”
“We are taking them.”
“Get them out of my car.”
“Oh, the Yugo is your car now.
“You can’t even DRIVE!”
Neither had realized their fists were already balled, stances were readied, faces were bloodshot with pent-up frustration and aggression - until they are both brought back to the danger of the moment by a harrowing sound. The high-pitched smooth rumble of foreign motorcycle engines rushing toward them at an alarming pace.
A blinding cloud of dust kicks up as two Italian motorbikes, Bimota DB-1’s to be exact, skid into the lot, flanking the twins twenty yards away on either side. Everest and Harrison move instinctively back-to-back, guarding one another, rotating to be ready to scramble, eyeing any option for escape. They wait for the detritus to settle so that they can identify the nature of the certain threat that has arrived.
The visor automatically rises on one of the rider’s helmets. The unmistakeable deep-inset blue eyes of the eighty-year-old woman from the Grand Horizon, a breathing tube protruding up her nostril. The one clearly in charge who poor shish-kabobbed Fritz had called Zero. She moves more slowly than she had in the hotel. Not weak, but with intention, every motion specific, no energy wasted. She wears a large coat draped about her person, a helmet atop a robe of darkness remaining motionless and seated on the idling bike. She draws a small black box of a device from a pocket and holds a thumb hovering above its red button. Everest faces her, unmoving - dreading what that box might provoke.
Panic realizing itself in the form of a cold trickle of forehead sweat, Harrison swiftly understands the identity of the other driver. He stares to meet the reflection of the closed helmet as Egg unsheathes his buck knife and holds it point-to-palm. They are cornered. Absolutely cornered - their only advantage that the predators do not know what the twins are driving or that they have stow-aways nearby.
Egg unstraddles his idling transport and Harrison is taken aback by his daunting physical presence. Harrison spent enough minutes dangling midair in the Grand Horizon tangled up with this psychopath to observe that there is something stronger about him now. More spry and capable, a more acute madness. Less scattered than when he wriggled wildly on the rope. It is as if his musculature, his very frame, is more sinewy, more alive. He had seemed slumped and weary in the Grand Horizon, but is now upright and chest out. Egg widens his legs into attack position, his blade taut - ready to pounce. A violent energy pulsating from his contained wildness. Harrison dare not glance behind to assess his brother’s chances. But, even as Harrison’s instinct is to have doubt override his confidence and hard-won physical agility, he recalls the research that Everest revealed to him just this morning: the week of the fifteenth birthday is the window Exceptional abilities and giftings reveal themselves in full maturation. Chaos and confusion give way to unparalleled power. If Harrison truly believes this - and there has been far more ludicrousness proven true this week - he must choose to believe that he has the power within him to effectively fight. Somewhere buried inside. If he can only access the power of protector. And a protector does not let the threat make the first move.
To Egg’s utter surprise, Harrison closes his eyes, breathes in his nose and out his mouth, and centers himself on what he decided many years ago would be his mantra, What would Chuck McQuiver do?
Opening his eyes, Harrison springs into motion he has never before attempted. A forward pounce and double-flip that takes Egg so off-guard, Harrison is able to effectively kick the buck knife out of his hand. The weapon skitters across the dusty lot. Egg engages back immediately and Harrison, muscles fully awakened now and in attack mode, parries and lunges, thrusting an effective sucker punch into Egg’s lower rib just before Egg’s full left hook clocks Harrison’s jaw. Harrison staggers backward, still aloft but seeing stars and tasting blood and pieces of a tooth.
“Harrison? What are you doing? What’s happening?” Everest implores, his back still turned, “Are you fighting? I don’t feel like I can look away here.”
Zero’s thumb does not move, a half inch over the button. She breathes evenly. A stand-off.
Harrison dives onto Egg, but Egg rolls backward, catching Harrison with his feet and launching him with almost inhuman strength into the brick back wall of the Visitor’s Center. Crumpled to the ground, Harrison clutches his side, his breath escaping. That really hurt. Egg leaps up in a single furtive move and crosses to the back of his Bimota, “Enough sport.” He unclasps a semiautomatic weapon and takes aim.
Harrison sprints away as a fuselage of ammunition chitters up the brick behind him. He covers his head and rounds the corner, Egg taking his time to reload in pursuit.
Now alone, Everest stares motionless at Zero’s haunting blue eyes. They are melancholy. Curious. Attempting to communicate with him without an explicit narrative. This is the second time in so many days that she has the opportunity to kill him, but hesitates.
Zero’s thumb collapses onto the plunger and two spiral wires shoot out of the black device, attaching electrodes to Everest’s chest - and shocking the living daylights out of him.
Everest crumples to the ground, a convulsion in his throat. Ideas and imaginations colliding and mucking up his thinking. What is this machine? Not since the Fontaine has the old confusion crowded and constricted him like the implosion of this moment. Data and memories and the nightmare and what is or isn’t real smash into shards in the fever pitch of his brain, leaving Everest limp and scrolling through subconscious toil, he discovers himself unable to move or even properly think.
Zero takes her time, sauntering over to him methodically. She seizes his ankle and drags him, still convulsing, toward her motorcycle.
The spit of rocks ripping up Harrison’s thigh convinces him a bullet has struck him, but a cooler head prevails as he rounds another full corner, ducking behind two large metallic tanks - the only structure nearby where he can find any semblance of cover. He hears the grit of boot against gravel fifty yards away as Egg reveals himself. Peering around, Harrison sees that his hiding place has not yet been discovered. He has perhaps seconds to make a next move, survival certainly at stake. And then, that inimitable click of a weapon at the ready and Egg’s unmistakeable voice, “Come out - or da bruthah dies.”
Harrison crushes his own face into a grimace. He raises his arms slowly above his head and steps aside, his foot clinking the metal of this tankard he had foolishly considered a decent hiding place. Egg readies the weapon. Harrison, surprised Egg is standing so unnecessarily far away.
It dawns on Harrison exactly where he is standing as he takes a moment to read the word emblazoned on the side of this tank: petrol. Gasoline. Oh sh*t. Egg raises the weapon, quite enthused to blow Harrison to Kingdom Come.
Suddenly, in a wholly unexpected turn, Egg is felled. A beast roars from the side, jutting his jaw for Egg’s jugular as the helmet barely protects him and he is thrown to the ground. It is Valiant, rising to the optimism of his name, not seeming so emaciated at the moment and tearing open a gash in Egg’s thigh with his rabid teeth. Egg howls.
Zero’s Bimota rips around the corner in a tear, seizing the highway and heading due west like a tantrum. Unmistakeable on the back of her bike, the limp body of Harrison’s brother.
Fending off the dog, Egg seizes the semiautomatic and rams the butt of it into the canine’s skull. A yelp and a limp and the dog retreats. Harrison scrambles away as Egg takes aim. Harrison barely has time to dive, roll and cover before he hears Egg pull the trigger and the whole gas station blows to eternity in a ball of white-hot flame.
Thrown a few dozen feet, Harrison’s ears ring. He staggers to stand, knowing there is no time for hesitation. Chaos surrounds him, the terrible screams of motorists - blood of his own or maybe not spattered across his face. Harrison refuses to surrender to the apocalypse swirling about him and runs like lightning toward the Yugo. Corbin having earlier started the engine to warm himself, cries out “What is this madness?”
“No time,” Harrison grunts through the rot of dust filling his mouth, “They have Everest!” And Valiant leaps into the open backseat window as Harrison peels out, flooring the gas in pursuit.
The wind rips wildly through Everest’s hair as he feels his grip seizing metal. He is draped over the back of her bike, desperate to move, to escape, but no clarity of motion or thought will come to his aide. What did Zero do to him? His eyes unfocused, he can barely see her form. She puts a pill on her tongue and swallows, the sound of breathing through her tube a garbled hum. Everest reaches weakly for anything to grasp hold, to keep from falling off of the speeding vehicle. He inadvertently reaches around her stomach to secure himself - and something inside of her protruding belly rolls across his arm. The chaos of his imaginations still colluding to keep him from a clear thought, Everest is certain of one thing. This eighty-year-old woman. Zero is full-to-term pregnant. He hears an echo from underneath her helmet as she places her hand on her own belly, “Calm now, Fritz. Settle.” A wave of nausea overtakes Everest. Fritz? The assassin impaled in the fountain? He is unable to make sense of this moment, but he comprehends that something here is very wrong.
The road slowly passing beneath him, Harrison bangs his fist hard on the steering wheel of the Yugo, growling spits of aggravation as his nostril gushes blood. His foot is hard-pressed to the gas, but this broken-down machine cannot come close to gaining ground on his brother in peril. Valiant barks in response to Harrison’s aggravation, usurping a “sorry” from the driver.
Corbin clutches his own head, attempting to calm, to be of at least some help, “Can you see them ahead?”
“NO! She’s far too fast!”
Harrison hears it behind him before he sees it. The second Bimota engine revving hard, Egg hot on his heels - rapidly approaching from, at most, a third-mile behind. Harrison’s eyes locating his pursuer in the rearview, he realizes the pages and folders of research are hurtling themselves out the open window beside Valiant, lost to the chase. Harrison panics, “The V0Go! The V0Go! Corbin, grab that machine!”
“What machine?!”
“Feel for it behind you - it’s a robot, it’s like a dog. HURRY! We CANNOT lose that machine!”
“You mean - this?” Corbin lifts it in his lap, “You left it on. I thought it was a radio. It wouldn’t stop talking.”
“He was TALKING?!” Harrison lunges for the power and is instantly overwhelmed with the distinct voice that has remained silent this eternally long night, …WHY YOU DON’T TURN THE DAMN THING ON, SO I CAN HELP YOU?!
“V0Go!” Harrison cries out.
About damn time! NEVER turn the Beacon off!
“LATER! Everest has been taken and we’re about to be blown to smithereens! HELP US RIGHT NOW!”
All you had to do was ask.
In the rearview, Egg is a terror - hurtling toward them at breakneck speed, seizing his semiautomatic from his back with one arm, his helmet now cracked wide open, ironically like a shell. He catches up to the Yugo and pulls parallel, staring Harrison viciously in the eyes, thigh bleeding profusely from the bite of Valiant. With the helmet shield broken off, Harrison can now see with absolute certainty the glass eye, the thin lips, the self-inflicted knife scar atop each cheekbone. It is most definitely the one and only Egg - except that he is absolutely, factually no more than fifteen years old. The same age as Harrison. The hell?
V0Go shoots a talon of electricity into the ignition and it causes the engine to blast into overdrive. Valiant is thrown against the backseat and the flesh of Corbin’s cheeks smash backward with the velocity. Harrison yells out a “HERE WE GO!” The engine pounds and revs, causing the exhausted hood of the Yugo to fly off of its hinges from the overwhelming force of it. The hood explodes and flips into the air like a rogue trash lid. Egg’s wild eyes go wide as the Yugo triple-times into the distance and the wayward flying hood smashes square into Egg, throwing him full-body off the speeding bike and skidding his flesh into certain scabs across the highway.
Harrison watches in the rearview as the rogue piece of the car takes out his nemesis. He exhales, “That’ll work.”
“Touch my palm, Everest,” Zero hypnotically implores above the rev of the engine. Calm but imposing. It is not a suggestion, “Take my hand and learn what you are able to withstand in this brief moment we have together. It is quite necessary.”
But Everest cannot wrap his mind around anything. The chaos corrupting his thoughts blocks any semblance of reason and transitions rapidly to a migraine. The pain seizes. His teeth grit. He tightens his arm around her stomach and Zero groans with contraction. Everest has the wherewithal to scream one entreaty, “What is HAPPENING to you?!”
The older woman writhes in pain. Zero takes the palm of her own hand and shoves it directly in front of Everest’s face, “TAKE! MY! PALM!” Blinded by the headache and absolute confusion, Everest finds himself unable to release his grip, but he opens his eyes and allows them to fall focus on what she extends. There in the center of her palm - the burning hot outline of an eye within a seven-pointed star. It glows like lava on her skin and sears inside Everest’s brain. Sudden knowledge. History. Revelation. A smattering of images begin to seize definition in Everest’s psyche. He can see pieces of Zero’s memory. A girl with half of her face paralyzed. A beach. A stalagmite. He hears a name. It does not yet make actual sense - but it is there. And it hurts. The knowledge hurts. From aback the bike, Everest howls out a violently loud, guttural scream. And he is not the only one.
For rounding the turn directly behind them, the Yugo careens from over the hill, out of control and unaware that it has stumbled directly upon its target so fast. Too fast. No time or space to brake, the Yugo rams the motorcycle from behind like a charging bull.
The Bimota hurtles itself back-over-front off the precipice of the sharp next turn - both bodies tumbling through the air like dolls, the cycle crushed into a burning heap as Zero and Everest take flight - plunging far apart from one another and into a lake.
The Yugo skids, uneven. Nose turned around facing east. Black smoke pouring from its hoodless cavity. Valiant leaps out the window and makes a tear down the side of the hill, his sites on Everest, floating face-down in the water - but yet visible. Harrison, knocked out cold from the impact jars to life, eyes screaming, “EVEREST!” He ejects himself forcibly from the vehicle, something very wrong with his own knee. But, it doesn’t deter him from persisting, hobbling, dragging the wound - he arrives breathless at the apex of the turn.
Valiant has pulled Everest to shore, flipped the brother on his back, and is licking his face with a whimper. The last sight Harrison is able to register is the breath of life evident in the small rise and fall of his brother’s lungs. Zero is nowhere in sight.
A sudden wave of unparalleled nausea. Eyes rolling into the back of his head, Harrison himself collapses - his cheek smashing viciously into the tarmac of the road.
All is darkness.
Visit www.EverestandtheExceptions.com for more information about Mark Steele’s forthcoming adventure novel. There, you will find character dossiers, music playlists, and other news to keep you waiting for the book’s debut in October 2024
Next: Read PREVIEW: the horrific and thrilling continuation of Mark Steele’s upcoming fictional novel coming in October 2024.
