Chapter 10

For a change, Sophie's pace on the motorcycle as she headed back to Phoenix was almost sedate. It wasn't the same, riding without her constant companions, but that wasn't the reason for slowing down. The events of the last couple of days had been, to put it mildly, monumental.

With her mind in turmoil over Linda's injury, and her and Kyle's announcement that they were leaving the regulars, Sophie was almost on autopilot on the bike. She knew that Linda loved her - had for years. She also knew that Kyle loved Linda. Linda loving Kyle - that was a relatively new thing. Sophie had known it, of course, and felt that it was good. She just hadn't expected it to lead to this.

Did Sophie and Kyle love each other?

You can't be that intimate with someone, Sophie thought to herself, without feeling something more than friendship.

Still, she knew that her relationship with Kyle was peripheral to the other connections in their little triad. Sophie had pretty much engineered it by making sure that Kyle was never left out when she and Linda got together - much as she had done when she insisted that he be included in their tryst after ERE.

Still and all, while they would no longer be constant companions, nothing had been said about the three of them not getting together now and then.

Sophie quickly skipped past the non-productive guilt-driven thoughts about how Linda should have gotten out before she got injured. She knew from painful experience that those would lead nowhere but depression.

Seeking something more positive to pin her thoughts on, she came to the assessment by General Carson and the momentous revelation to which it had lead her.

All her life, since Father's disappearance, Sophie had been driven. She thought she had known the purpose of her quest: to make sure no other little girls would have to wonder what became of their fathers. Now, in just a few hours, she realized, the nature of her quest had changed.

As the motorcycle hummed up the Valley highway, the new road that connected San Diego and Phoenix, Sophie explored this new revelation. Her motivation, she realized, had not diminished, but her purpose, now, was different. It was no longer about dealing with the scav problem. That, she now knew, would work itself out over time. Her father had started something, though, and her purpose, Sophie began to understand with growing certainty, was to further that vision.

But isn't that what Gav's doing? she asked herself. The more she examined what her brother had done as President, though, the more she realized that that wasn't the case at all.

He's been managing the institution of the new government, she thought with growing excitement, and consolidating the gains we've made, but he hasn't really had time to further Father's vision!

Her brother, she realized, had been the right man for the job of first President, precisely because he had not been as in tune with his father's thoughts as she. Instead of pushing for the ideal that Father envisioned, Gav had simply taken what was handed to him out of the Constitutional Congress, and made it reality. He was good at that and had done a great job of bringing the new nation of Phoenicia into being, but things were changing in the world around them, as she well knew. Heretofore, foreign policy had consisted of basically running roughshod over any scavs that got in Phoenicia's way. As the scavs themselves grew and formed what amounted to nations, Phoenicia was going to have to find better ways of dealing with them. Furthermore, the policy that Father had instituted, of banishing scavs who refused to become Phoenicians to somewhere beyond its borders was becoming less and less feasible.

Now that she knew what she should be doing with her life, her thoughts turned to ways and means. Certainly her military career had given her a world view that those who stayed in Phoenix and only fought during their military rotation could never acquire. Gav, as President, had a deferrment until he was out of office, and as far as she knew, had never been to the frontier.

Maybe that could be a step in the right direction. Maybe she could advise him about what was going on and get him to make adjustments. But weren't his military leaders doing just that? Surely there wasn't much that she could add to what General Lee and his Generals had to say. So what could she do? Perhaps it was a matter of gaining experience, first.

She would, she decided, have a talk with Gav when she got to Phoenix. Maybe he could give her some ideas.

Sophie's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden slowing of the motorcycle, without her having done anything. A quick check of the instrument panel showed the cause.

Have I already reached Phoenix? she thought, scanning her surroundings for the first time in many miles. Damn! I must have really been out of it!

Sure enough, the traffic control system had taken over her bike's speed controls and was guiding her through the outskirts of Phoenix at a sedate 30 miles per hour. Her mind must have been on autopilot for a couple of hours. She now noticed, realizing that she had been dealing with it automatically for several miles, that there were more vehicles around her. The drivers of the cars, apparently accustomed to relinquishing control to the TCS, were reading or carrying on conversations with their passengers, completely disengaged from the job of driving. As a motorcyclist, she had a bit more responsibility, since she couldn't take her hands off the handlebars. The TCS had control of her braking and acceleration, but she was still responsible for steering. That was the problem with two wheelers: The TCS couldn't yet be trusted to keep them upright and the riders in the saddles.

It chafed a bit to crawl through town at the snail's pace dictated by the TCS but like all of those around her, she could do nothing but put up with it. She had already entered the bike shop into the guidance system as her destination, and she mechanically followed the TCS' directions as they appeared on her instrument panel. It wasn't as fast as she would have liked, but there were no delays or traffic jams. There weren't, in fact, any traffic lights or stop signs in Phoenicia except as preserved relics of pre-Sickness times. The TCS managed traffic flow through intersections by timing the arrival of each vehicle to exactly coincide with a 'window' in the cross traffic. It could be a bit nerve-wracking to those unaccustomed to this feature. This was one of the reasons motorcyclists had to undergo extra training before being licensed to drive anywhere where a TCS was in control.

Sophie's bike threaded its way between closely spaced vehicles which neither slowed nor sped up as she approached. At times, she thought the bike would run head-on into a crossing vehicle, and had to consciously remind herself not to brake, only to have that vehicle slip out of the way at the last moment. As the bike slid through the gap between cars, she cringed a little as the car behind the one she just missed seemed about to T-bone her bike. Regular commuters, she guessed, got used to it, but she hadn't spent that much time in the city since the system was put in place.

She pulled into the lot at the motorcycle dealer, and seeing that the dealer was busy with another customer, took her helmet off and sat in the saddle with the intention of waiting until he was free. To her surprise and embarrassment, when he recognized her, the dealer asked the other customer to wait and came to greet Sophie.

"Doña!" he said warmly. "I didn't expect to see you back here so soon!"

"I just came to swap this loaner for my bike," Sophie said. "Our mission didn't take as long as I thought it might."

"I know! It's been all over the news!"

"It has?" Sophie asked in surprise.

"Yeah. Everybody's talking about how your team wiped out a much larger scav group, sinking ships at sea, then finishing them off when they anchored," the dealer could barely contain himself. "Amazing! Just amazing. Say, where are your two friends? I never see you alone."

"It's what we were trained for," Sophie shrugged, unwilling to talk about her exploits until she knew more about what had been released to the public. She was slightly irritated that the emphasis seemed to be on the killing she had done rather than the peacemaking. "One of my friends was wounded and is recovering at Coronado. The other is with her."

"Anyway," she changed the subject, "can I get my bike back? I'm afraid you'll have to pick up the other two in Coronado, since their riders won't be back anytime soon."

Picking up on her distress, the dealer turned contrite. "I'm sorry to hear about your friend. I'll send someone down there tomorrow with the truck and their bikes. Lenny's kept your rides in the showroom so they won't be out in the weather. I'll have him bring yours out. The red one, right?"

"Yeah, thanks," Sophie answered. "How much do I owe you?"

The dealer waved her money away. "Can't take it, Doña," he said. "Just the fact that you and your friends do business here will bring me more customers after today than I've had since I opened. The weird thing is, I don't even have to advertise it. That kind of thing just gets around these days."

"Yeah," she prodded him, "you can advertise that you got your ass kicked by one of the people who fought the Battle of Maui."

"The word of that has already got around, Doña," he grinned but noticed she was still a bit irritated. "Look, I don't hold any grudges over that, and I hope you don't either. I'm just trying to make a credit or two here and if people come in just because you got your bike here, who am I to turn them away?"

"Yah," she grumped, "I've got nothing against you. I'm just a little tired and kind of pissed that people missed the point about what happened in Hawai'i."

"People are going to be people, Doña," the guy shrugged. "You can't change 'em, but you can figure out how they're going to react in a given situation and use it to your advantage."

He was right, she realized, and if she was going to make her father's vision reality, she'd better take the lesson to heart. She guessed she owed him something, not just for the bike repair, but for the life lesson.

Sophie grinned at him and said, "Well, if you're not going to take my money, the least I can do is help 'that kind of thing' get around a little more."

"Oh, that would be wonderful!" the dealer gushed.

When she finally had her own bike between her legs, Sophie made a beeline for home. As she parked the motorcycle in the driveway, the screen door banged open and she was suddenly under attack by flying twins. As she tried to calm the excited twins down, Scooter came out and stood watching them together, a smile on her face.

"It's only been a little over a week," Sophie laughed, "but I swear I think these two have grown an inch!"

"As much as they eat," Susan replied, "I wouldn't be surprised. Come on Crystal! You and Ramon give Aunt Sophie a break! She's just come back from one battle. She doesn't need to be fighting with you two!"

"But she's been gone over a week!" Ramon complained as Sophie picked up one in each arm.

"I'm so happy to see you little monsters," she told them, giving them each a peck on the cheek. Crystal leaned into the kiss, but Ramon tried to fight it off. They may have been alike as two peas in a pod in other ways, but they were still girl and boy.

"Do you mind if I crash here for a while, Scooter?" Sophie asked, well aware that it was no longer her house. "I've got a week and a half to kill while the higher ups decide what my future holds, and this place is more like home than your mom's house."

"Your room is still your room," Susan answered, "until you no longer need it. Go on in. You've still got clothes in the drawers and if they don't fit, you're welcome to borrow some of mine. Crystal, you and Ramon stay with me while Aunt Sophie freshens up. Dinner will be ready in about half an hour, but I don't think Gav's going to be able to join us."

"Thanks, Scooter," Sophie said, releasing the twins and giving their mom a hug.

It felt good to get into civvies again, though most of her civilian clothes were worn and patched pre-Sickness military uniforms that had been modified a little to suit her taste. More and more people were showing up in clothes newly made from cloth woven in Sillyvale, but she had never learned the fine art of sewing and the only clothing factories she knew of were busy turning out stuff for the military. There were a few seamstresses about Phoenix these days, as evidenced by Susan's clothing, but until Phoenicia caught it's breath, so to speak, from the phenomenal expansion it had been experiencing, the military still got priority for most manufactured goods.

Dinner was a noisy affair with the twins insisting on knowing everything that had happened to her since she left, and filling her in on the important events in their lives - skinned knees, a black eye given in fighting class, and beginning baseball where they had to hit the ball off the end of a stick that stood up from home plate.

Sophie delighted in the kids' enthusiasm and candor, but was glad when Susan finally chased them off to bed, holding fast to her insistence that they sleep in their own beds and not with Aunt Sophie. When they were finally tucked in, Susan returned to find Sophie rummaging through the far reaches of the pantry.

"Can I help you find something, Sophie?" Susan asked. "I'll have to admit that there's stuff back there that I don't even know what it is. What with Gav getting elected to a second term and all the things apparently expected of a President's wife, I haven't had time to inventory what's in there, but I can usually find things that I'm looking for."

"Aha!" Sophie cried, emerging from the pantry clutching a dusty, almost full bottle of amber liquid. "I knew he had a bottle back there somewhere!"

"What in the world?" Susan asked perplexed.

"Scotch!" Sophie answered, "Eighteen year old Highland Malt, to be exact. At least, that's how old it was when it was bottled. It must be ancient by now. Did you know that this stuff came from a small country on an island across the Eastern Ocean? I can tell you the whole history of it sometime, but tonight, I just want to enjoy it. This was my father's only vice besides my mother, and I think I want to drink with him tonight. Would you like to join us?"

"Are you okay, Sophie?" Susan asked, concern showing on her face.

Sophie's grin answered better than her words. "I'm speaking metaphorically, Susan. I realized something about myself and about my dad this morning - something very important. This is both a memorial to dad and a celebration of a couple of important revelations."

"In that case, perhaps I will join you," Susan smiled, grabbing a couple of glasses from the cabinet. "Ice?"

"Not for me," Sophie shook her head. Her dad never drank his scotch with ice and neither did she.

"In that case," Susan said, "I'll try it your way."

Sophie poured a healthy inch or so of the precious liquid into each of their glasses, then carefully corked the bottle and returned it to its hiding place in the pantry.

"To Gavin Thompson," Sophie said, bumping her glass carefully against Susan's. "May his vision continue to guide us."

Sophie took a sip and swirled the burn around the inside of her mouth, savoring the subtle flavors of the peat and the sherry oak from the barrels in which it had been aged. Susan emulated her, and her eyebrows flew upward.

"Oh my!" she gasped upon swallowing. "That's got what we distill beat all to hell! It goes down so much more smoothly, but you can tell it's still got plenty of kick."

"Yeah, and it's damned near impossible to find these days," Sophie sighed. "The liquor was one of the first things the scavs consumed after the Sickness. We make a passable whiskey, but Dad said that the only place that could make this before the Sickness was this little country called Scotland. I sure hope that by the time we spread out that far there's still somebody there that knows how to make it."

"So what are we celebrating, anyway?" Susan asked before taking another sip.

"In a way," Sophie gave her a lop-sided grin, knowing she was being cryptic, but not caring much at the moment, "we're celebrating my father's resurrection."

"Okay, you're scaring me again..."

"Still speaking in metaphors, Susan," Sophie told her as they settled into comfortable chairs in the living room. "But I'm also saying farewell to a couple of dear friends, and that's not a metaphor. Linda lost a leg in the battle for Maui, and she and Kyle were planning on leaving the regulars anyway. He's been in love with her since we were kids, and over time, she's grown to love him too. When she gets out of the hospital, they're going to settle down somewhere, and it's going to be strange going on without them. We've been together for a long time."

"I'm so sorry!" Susan said, leaning over to put a hand on her leg in sympathy.

"Don't be," Sophie said. "Yeah, I'm sorry Linda lost a leg, and I'm going to miss both of them, but they deserve all the happiness they can find, and I'm happy for them. To Linda and Kyle!"

They touched glasses again and Susan asked, "I'm very curious about this resurrection of your father. Are you planning to fill me in?"

"Well, sister-in-law, it's like this: You know I had some problems when Dad didn't come back from that trip he took just as the elections were getting under way, right?"

"Yeah," Susan nodded. "I always wished there was something I could do to help, but you kept to yourself and your little threesome so much, and we were so busy after the elections that the opportunity just never arose."

"Don't worry about it," Sophie waved away the implied apology. "It's just that I spent a lot of time agonizing over why Dad didn't come home, and even blaming him for not coming back to me. Well, I realized something this morning. I realized that before he went away, my father spent so much time with me that he'll always be with me. Instead of wasting time and tears worrying about him not coming back, I should have been celebrating what he gave me. So, in a way, by coming to that realization, I have resurrected my father and put his ghost to rest. That's what I'm celebrating."

"That certainly seems worth celebrating," Susan agreed, raising her glass again. "To Gavin Thompson, the father of Phoenicia!"

"To Dad!" Sophie agreed, matching sips of Scotch with her sister-in-law.

"Oh!" Susan said, snapping her fingers. "Would you like to watch television?"

"Television?"

"Yeah, just like pre-Sickness! Some of the people up in Sillyvale got some of the old broadcast transmission equipment working, and we hooked an antenna up to the old TV in the other room and wouldn't you know? It works! Well, it does now that we got the insects and the mouse nest cleaned out of it."

"I remember something Dad used to call a TV but I just thought it was some weird pre-sickness furniture," Sophie said, puzzled. "He said something about it showing pictures or V. D. O. whatever that is."

"Video!" Susan laughed, "Not V.D.O.! It's pictures transmitted over a distance like radio."

"Oh, like the stuff on DVD's that we watch on the computer sometimes?"

"Kinda, only they transmit it like radio and the antenna receives it and sends it to the set ... Oh, just come watch. It's cool!" Susan said.

They went into the old family room and Susan pointed a plastic device with buttons on it at the old TV. In seconds, the glass part that had always been a dull gray lit up with a moving picture of a man.

" ... for the Phoenix area tomorrow will be sunny and warm, a typical summer day. Low temperatures overnight will be in the seventies, rising to the high 80's to low 90's in the afternoon, so stay hydrated. Looking further North, the Sillyvale area will be overcast in the morning, clearing in the afternoon. Lows will be in the sixties with highs in the seventies..."

"I'm afraid there's not that much programming yet," Susan said, pushing a button to turn the set off. "We've missed the news, and the weather's pretty much the same every day in summer. Later they'll probably put on a pre-Sickness DVD, but I'm not much of a history buff and don't really get much out of those. It's kind of hard to relate to those times, you know?"

"Yeah," Sophie agreed, gazing longingly into the bottom of her empty glass. "I'm pretty tired, anyway, Susan. I really appreciate your hospitality, and your helping me celebrate Dad's resurrection, but I'd better get some sleep."