7: BELOVED_ROADS

They flowed out and were covered mainly with spiders. They looped in strange pathways, always offering a way back if a wrong turn was taken. There were some built along the same paths traders had walked for centuries, bearing armfulls of silk and spice. They were the heart of everything. The rest of society was built to accommodate them.

Adelaide had once gone down these roads with Jisako. She'd always held the map and read off directions to wherever they were going. If they already knew the route, she'd sit with her head just a bit out the window, like a dog. She was beautiful with windswept hair and the sun shining off her skin. She always kept her focus on the world, espousing how beautiful she thought it was. She was thankful for everything. Adelaide understood why now.

On occasion, they would walk the roads. On days like those, Jisako was truly blessed by the touch of the sun. To Adelaide's recall– there was never an unflattering angle at which the sun had caught her. There was never a moment where she caught the sun and seemed less than a goddess. Never a single blemish or wart. She only had a single beauty mark just under her left eye for anyone to point to for the sake of degradation.

The sun was in cohort with her. When they walked at night, the moon and stars formed a coalition to illuminate only her glory, and hide any potential flaw. She must have been Pygmalion, formed from the hands of an ancient goddess and brought to life by a sculptor.

When the sun would catch on the corners of her hair, it would shine copper or gold. Precious metals flooding all about the world, if only they dared reach into her hair. She was the Earth itself in the sunlight. Under a jewelled sky she was the moon itself. Even surrounded by beautiful things, she was the only thing worth focusing on.

She was all the things civilizations needed to rise at all. The bronze which formed to tools, and iron, which formed to weapons, and copper, which formed to circuits, and gold, which paid for nuclear apocalypse.

When Adelaide walked beside Rainmaker, there was nothing worth looking at. Jisako would've been gorgeous even amongst a torrent of falling ash– but Rainmaker was just there, with patches of shadows framing his face in the most strange way imaginable. As though they were intentionally attempting to sabotage his appearance. Adelaide chuckled to herself about it, even if it wasn't really that funny.

He had insisted on coming with her. "Just a little further," he'd insisted, with a shaking voice as they walked away from Solko's body, and the demonic force which had inhabited it. Adelaide was sure he was just scared to be alone. So he was finding an excuse to travel with her for "just a little further". Rainmaker seemed to think himself a hero to her for staying. He had convinced himself she was quite an old woman who needed quite a lot of help. Adelaide saw him like a lost child, clinging to the closest thing it could call a responsible adult. Unfortunately, Adelaide was about as far from a responsible or trustworthy adult to walk this Earth as possible.

Rainmaker walked quickly. He didn't have any interest in watching the world around him. He was simply holding his cross, and walking with a single minded focus on its motions. He was a model exorcist. Centred on the task at hand and devoted completely to its completion.

"Is the hanging man telling you there's anything around?" She hoisted the black box relay awkwardly along with her. She had been pulling it along in her car, and it hadn't caused her any trouble then, but it was obviously not a machine made to be carried by hand. It was awkwardly sized, and quite heavy. She shifted uncomfortably, to try and find any way to hold its weight in a comfortable position.

"No, but they might be in clumps." Rainmaker held a hand toward the horizon in a strange 'L' shape, as though he were attempting to survey the land. He ran forward a few steps, before slowing back down, seemingly disappointed. "Nothing there. False alarm. I've been having a couple of those lately…"

"I doubt there's going to be a clump of them so close together. You're wasting energy being so focused on it for the sake of paranoia."

"It's not paranoia. Come on. It's in our basic studies. You're not meant to relax just because you killed one conduit. There could always be others nearby. Cults always have more than one person. That's what makes them a cult and not just a single looney causing trouble."

Adelaide laughed. "You're very committed to the things schooling taught you."

"I don't want to make mistakes."

"Being too dedicated to one way of doing things can also mean mistakes."

"I know. But… it feels more right to follow what I was taught to do. I'm… I only graduated last year."

"You looked too young to have graduated," Adelaide commented, with a small chuckle. "When I first saw you, I thought you were still in school."

"I graduated early," Rainmaker answered, and Adelaide was fairly certain that was the sort of thing he would've bragged about in any other conversation. Or at least used in order to fish up compliments. The shine in his eyes as he answered made her want to tease him. She resisted the urge.

She decided to leave him be, and instead focused on attempting to peel off as many of the strange substances from within the tub as she possibly could. They had attached themselves firmly to her skin, absorbed into her clothes, and tangled themselves within her hair. It was maddening. And utterly disgusting. In a different way to how Solko and her mania were disgusting. In a different way to how Adelaide's behaviour to Jisako had been disgusting. This type was far more visceral.

The cross flashed hot on her chest. She cried out, and Rainmaker stared at her. "What? What happened? Did something attack you?"

"No– I… My cross it just– it burned me. Back there."

Rainmaker frowned. He ran his fingers along the area of his own cross that wasn't enclosed in his first hand's grip. "There's no heat on mine."

"Something must have run by."

Rainmaker frowned. "Are you certain? Or might it just be some sort of… you know, maybe you just 'felt something' from stress."

"It's not hysteria." Adelaide grabbed onto her cross.

"Of course it isn't," Rainmaker replied.

The two of them wandered down the road in silence. Occasionally, flies landed on Adelaide, feeding on the remnants of the Aherzade family's filth. She swatted them away– but for every one she swatted off, two more landed on her shoulder, or her face. She gave up after a while, resigned to her dirty fate.

They arrived at a fork in the road which bore with it a green sign. The sign labelled the roads. It was covered in ash. Adelaide ran her hand over it to clear the sign's face enough to be read. She recognized the names. One of them was the road she'd met Jisako on.

They'd travelled that road practically a thousand times. The memories it brought with it were special to the both of them, in a way that was difficult for either to explain, yet so utterly present. It hadn't been a meeting under remotely good circumstances, but it had been their meeting. And so it meant the world to the both of them. It helped that the road was a major one anyway. It led into one of the major cities nearby. One Jisako had been planning to head for originally.

She'd spoken of vague plans to find work over there, but really, Adelaide wondered if Jisako would've become much of anything. There wasn't much work at the time they'd met. Especially not for women. Adelaide could imagine Jisako perhaps becoming a waitress or a secretary, and catching some rich man's eye with her humble grace. She was the kind of beautiful that demanded a ring. Alternatively, she could imagine Jisako winding up on the streets, and freezing to death in the night. There were a myriad of other, worse fates, of course. Adelaide didn't want to think about them.

Rainmaker tossed his cross once again. He regarded it quietly as Adelaide lost herself in her mind once again. When she was finished thinking of the past, she began, "I need to head left here. Are you heading the same path?"

"No, ma'am. I'll just keep going straight. I think there's something up this way, if I take this route."

"How can you be sure?"

"It's just a hunch– but I have some strong hunches. The road leads a similar way. If you want, we can go together," he offered. "You could fight it with me."

"I have a strict route to follow. And… I couldn't go down the road you're going down even if I didn't."

Rainmaker seemed to debate asking her about that. He held his finger near his lips, tapping the lower one, as though he were punching in a code. Finally, he confirmed to himself he would not. "Right then. Here's to hoping our paths cross again someday."

"Cheers," Adelaide replied.

#

"I met Solko today."

"Solko?"

"Yes. I met a woman named Solko. She told me she was a coworker of yours and knew me through you. She acted so familiar with you. It was utterly bizarre."

Forrest's voice took a moment to come through from the other end of the line. "I don't think I've ever worked with anyone named Solko. But… Then again, we all work on a surname basis."

"Solko Aherzade," Adelaide replied.

"Aherzade…" There was an extended silence, filled only by the faint buzzing of the line itself. "No. I've never worked with anyone by that name either. I'm sorry. It does sound familiar in a different way."

"It was Jisako's maiden name." Adelaide wasn't sure if he would know that. They had interacted so rarely that she frankly wouldn't trust Forrest to even recall how to spell her name.

"That explains where I've heard it. But I've never worked with anyone with that name. Maybe she was using a fake around me. What did the woman look like?"

Adelaide paused. "Ugly. Quite hideous. In both visage and soul. She was still in uniform when I met her and talking about… Duties to earth. Hair up– I don't know if that helps any. Dark hair. Dark eyes obnoxiously wide. A bit taller than me. Round face."

A silence fell once again. On the other side of the line, Adelaide could hear Forrest shuffling paper, with some delay and echoing over the relay. She picked up a rock on the side of the road as she waited for him to search through his files. It was small, grey, round, and smooth. The kind that children loved to skip in rivers.

The silence continued on without end for a few minutes. Finally, Forrest spoke again. "I think I found her image. A woman… about fifty. Similar looking to Jisako now that I think about it. Her name with me wasn't Solko. I suppose she wasn't using her real one."

"Cult bullshit."

There was a loud puff of air, and the ringing of the microphone as it was rattled by said air. Forrest had guffawed in disbelief. "Pardon me?" he asked, after the microphone's rattling came to a slow. He forced a serious tone, but it was undercut just the slightest bit. Just enough that Adelaide was tempted to laugh too.

She forced it down. "Cult bullshit. They don't like outsiders. I doubt she was given a free pass to join the military and work just because. The identity strikes me as some trickery. A perpetual distance between herself and the outside world which may never be closed regardless of her want for it. A false identity. A life a lie."

"Maybe," Forrest replied. "Maybe."

"How much did she talk to you?"

"Well, she was usually pretty self contained. She didn't really socialize. When she did talk to me… I guess I never thought much about it. She always seemed a little uninterested no matter what I said, so I stopped talking much to her. I never assumed it was anything deep. I just assumed we didn't get along."

"Mm. Well, I can certainly say she's not the type of person I can imagine being easy to get along with under any circumstances. She invited us into her house. And she threw me in a tub full of blood, entrails, and… most likely other things." Adelaide shuddered. She'd been trying to avoid thinking too much about the contents of the 'healing tub' which had gotten all over her due to the fight.

"What?"

"That isn't humour. I'm dead serious. And that tub was utterly disgusting."

There was a long pause, before one word came through. "Jesus." Muttered in a low tone, filled only with a strange mixture of both disappointment and humour.

"Oh– is someone with you over there?"

"No– I'm saying– Jesus, that's disgusting." Forrest sighed over the line. Adelaide was an expert in making him sigh or pinch the bridge of his nose. She couldn't see the latter, but she could certainly hear the former.

"Oh. What a strange reason to call for the hanging man. And I did not realize you were so devout you were on a first name basis with the man."

"I can't tell if you're doing that on purpose or not." He pulled in a breath, and Adelaide prepared herself. She knew what it meant. "There's still some ships in bay that haven't launched yet. They'll pick you up if you want to be pulled on board."

"I don't want to be," she replied. "I'm sorry. I understand. It's not a pleasant turn of events but I can not come with you."

"Would Jisako really want you to die for her? Was Jisako really ever that cruel? Or are you just putting your own meanness on her shoulders for the sake of–" The relay cut out with a loud crack. Adelaide stared, wide eyed at the box– she fiddled with the buttons– and above her soon appeared a figure. Silver and beautiful.

Jisako's ghost was back again.

She stared down at Adelaide. There were scarabs in her hair. The shine of a blue hue among the silver indicated a necklace. Jisako was utterly beautiful. Her expression was stern. Colder than it had ever been in life. She was angry. Of course she was angry. Forrest didn't know her so well as Adelaide did. Jisako must have been angered by even the suggestion she didn't want to see the one who had harmed her so horribly in life suffer.

The ghost vanished as quickly as she had come. The black box relay connected again, with some whirring and stutter. "'Laide–? –Adel–"

"I hear you. Sorry. I– technical issues over here," Adelaide said, eyes wide as she stared at where her bride had just been. "I heard a crack and then the relay went dead. I don't know if something blew or…" She frowned. "Are you still… fine?"

"Fine?"

"Are you still– can you hear me across the relay? I'm sorry– my mind is scattered. I thought I saw someone familiar."

"You saw Jisako, didn't you?"

Adelaide sighed. "Yes. I saw Jisako. She was… so much more regal this time. But she was angry with me. She wasn't… She wasn't how I'd seen her last."

"Your mind's playing tricks, Adelaide. Be careful of them."

She sighed. He could never understand the supernatural, and he would never try, much to her endless chagrin. He only believed in what was right in front of him. To him, the only things which were real were the immediately conceptual. That which one could measure with a ruler or a scale.

Everything which could not be reduced to numbers, was to him, utterly unworth investing in. Emotions were for women, and therefore not worth being interested in. Religion was nonsense that was only worth the money you could squeeze out of the faithful. The non conceptual was best when it was made literal. A song was only worth analyzing for technique, and emotion was some secondary thing which was experienced on occasion but entirely unimportant. It irritated her.

"There's only so many things with which you can say that. And what I saw must have been so close to real I could touch it. My mind isn't so sharp– I– I swear…"

"It's true your mind isn't very sharp," Forrest agreed. "But I still think you've just been seeing things. Perhaps your eyes are going bad, and such you can't tell between what your mind's constructs and your eyes."

"You're just playing with me now."

"Somewhat," he replied. "If we only talk seriously, I don't think we'll feel right about it. I know where you are. You know where I am. You know why we're even in contact like this in the first place. But it's not something I want to speak about every time I speak to you. At least, not without any gaps. It's bad timing, and inappropriate, but I wouldn't be able to speak with you the same way otherwise."

"I'm fine with that," Adelaide replied. She was a bit surprised, frankly. Forrest had never really been the type to explain himself that much. He had changed recently. For most of their lives he had expected Adelaide to just figure out whatever was on his mind at that time, rather than ever explaining much himself. It wasn't an intentional thing, he was just prone to small faux pas like those. An expectation of a shared understanding that was much greater than how much they understood each other in reality. "What's the trouble in paradise up there?" she joked.

"It's nothing but trouble up here. Everyone's got some complaint about living up here. Everyone wants to go back to their old lives already. As though that's feasible at all. I've had people tell me they want sunflowers and fresh fruits as though that's somehow possible," he said. "It's utterly stupid. Everyone's gone stupid."

Adelaide laughed. "It must be cabin fever. Or the pain of the change."

"Both, I guess. Still– if only I had days off. The other men are married and get to have extra days off because their families need them in these trying times. I'm saddled with the work they leave behind. Every single time."

"Maybe you'd rather be down here. It's really not too claustrophobic on earth, I'd say. Not quite as great of a view as the celestial choir, but I'd say there's a lot less to worry about. A slow, painful death by radiation would probably be something you'd prefer to menial labour if you're anything like the man I've known for so many years of our lives."

"I wouldn't mind the menial tasks so much if I ever got a break from them," Forrest said. "Is walking through a wasteland somehow not a menial task?"

"There's lots to see."

"Such as?"

"Erh–" Adelaide glanced around. "There's ruins and burnt buildings. And nuclear ash."

"It's still falling?"

"Less so than before. But it's definitely made things inconvenient. A cloudy sky means colder weather. And I'm not getting along too well with the cold today. I'm soaked to the damn bone because of Solko and her cultist nonsense."

"It would be warm up here," Forrest joked. "If you just used your ticket." He spoke with the same cadence as a little brother insisting on some random loophole in a parental rule. It was just so bizarre Adelaide couldn't help but be amused by it. He wasn't someone known for his sense of humour, in the slightest. When they had been growing up, most of the others their age had assumed he was just a stick in the mud who had nothing of value to add to a conversation but complaints about rule breaking.

"I think I've heard something forbidden." Adelaide smiled wide enough to make the corners of her mouth sore. "You're actually sounding funny."

"Really I've been on a bit of a decline in my character ever since I got up here. I've become so much more crass and easily entertained. Even I'm being driven mad by how weird it all is," he noted. "It's really something else to have your day filled with the sound of velcro and echoes in the metal."

"Velcro?"

"Well, they haven't been able to develop a system for artificial gravity yet. So their next best solution was to velcro or belt ourselves to the ground if we didn't feel like floating around. Really. It didn't bother me before– but the sound– the sound. Velcro ripping and tearing every single day with every step I take– its noise will drive me mad. I swear, sometimes I consider coming down to die with you just for the sake of escaping the sound."

"I would be very happy if you came down here."

Forrest sighed. "I didn't mean that seriously." His voice distorted strangely as the black box relay stuttered. There wasn't a single moment where he felt close by. The relay was intent on making sure the distance was clear as day.

"Of course, I know that– but if there were ever a world where you were willing to die with me, I think that would just be nice," she said. "Even if you have nothing to repent for."

"Well, I have plenty to repent for, but dying of radiation poisoning is far from being any sort of redemption to me."

"There's always a hanging."

The connection cut again. So she stood to her feet, and decided it was time to go.