She shook her head, and asked, “What did you say? Have you been drinking?”
Lori examined his skull for a head wound. He raised a hand to his forehead, held it there as if checking for a fever, and then moved it to the back of his neck and massaged.
Let’s try this again.
“Okay, um, what time is it? Did you understand me?”
Lori did.
“Well, you don’t look injured. Just hung over or something.”
“Lori, what time is it? Did I miss the meeting?”
“Miss it? Oh no, it’s about quarter of twelve. I came early because I wanted to talk to you.”
Trevor stood straight, breathed deep, and took a few practice steps. The room did not spin quite as much.
“You? Early?” He cracked despite standing on wobbly legs. “Now that’s something.”
She followed as he walked in an effort to clear his head and gain control over his body.
“Yeah, well look, it’s not a big deal but I invited a guest to the meeting.”
Trevor still concentrated mainly on finding his balance, but he did hear her.
“A guest?”
They did laps around the conference table.
“A consultant. I wanted someone who could give us a little more insight into things going on at the front. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Trevor knew that the meeting would include several Generals as well as himself, all people who fought on the front lines. Therefore, her statement sounded off. Furthermore, the hesitation in her voice made him suspicious.
“What? Lori, listen, this is a-a-” he stopped and put a hand on the back of a chair at the empty table, breathed deep again, and then continued walking and talking with her following a step behind. “This is an important meeting, not some damn focus group. It’s not for outsiders.”
“I know that,” she sounded offended. No, actually it sounded as if she had forced the tone of offense. “This person has been in these meetings before, just not for a while. I’m telling you, it’s not a big deal.”
Trevor stopped so abruptly that Lori nearly walked into him.
“Lori. Who did you invite to the meeting?”
“Well, Captain-I invited Captain Forest to the meeting.”
Trevor slowly turned to face his old friend. His eyes widened.
“You’re joking, right? That’s a bad joke.”
“Look, Trevor, she’s hitching a ride with Shep so she’s in town. I bumped in to her yesterday and she was, well, scoping out the estate. Sort of visiting her old stomping grounds.”
“Lori,” Trevor pinched his nose. “I don’t need this right now.”
Her eyes drooped a little, then narrowed, and her head tilted in the slightest. This served as her counselor’s face, and it meant she was either prepared to listen or preparing to preach.
“Oh, really,” and as she usually did, Lori Brewer opted for preaching. “Maybe it’s exactly what you need right now.”
“I’m not in the mood to be lectured.”
“Tough shit. You spent three years bending my ear about how you were so afraid of yourself; of what you could become,” she struck a sensitive nerve. “Look at what’s happened in the last year, Trevor. The executions, the purges-what’s left of the Senate is just your rubber stamp now. There are no voices of dissent.”
He growled at her, “The treacherous bastards got what they deserved. It was bad enough what they did to me, but they let it happen to my son, too. They fell for that give peace a chance shit and now we’re on the verge of being wiped out. Hell, I had no choice but to weed out the traitors. Get out from behind your desk, administrator, and take a good look at what’s coming at us and then maybe you’ll know why we can’t afford distractions or political bullshit.”
She shot back, “I told you once, a long time ago, that if you plan to save humanity you had better start showing some humanity yourself. The only person in this whole world who managed to bring that out in you since all this started was Nina. You need to see her again.”
“Don’t preach to me.”
“All righty, then, how about this-you owe her,” Lori added a new element to the argument. “I see ‘thank you’ is not a word you’re good with, is it?”
His eyes burned into her but she pushed, “She didn’t need to go into the wilderness after you. She chose to. Not out of duty or loyalty to ‘The Emperor’, but for Trevor Stone. I don’t know everything that happened out there but something big did happen. She sacrificed for you, Trevor. She pulled you from the brink. Whatever it was that went on, I think it’s made her start asking questions about that first year again. She remembers something. I don’t know how much, and I don’t know how she knows it. But there are memories and feelings bouncing around in her head that she can’t explain, she only knows that they all tie together here and with you. It doesn’t take much, you know, to stimulate memories. A smell, a sight, a sound like a song-things may be coming back to her, I don’t care how impossible that might seem.”
He had worried that perhaps Nina learned more during their connection via the Old Man. That maybe his memories of their love slipped into her mind, perhaps ignited her emotions. He did not think it possible for her to ever truly remember that first year on her own, but if the bridge she had used to stabilize his emotional state worked in both directions then possibly some of his memories went into her head.
Part of him wished she would remember. Her memory loss had been a convenience to make their separation more palatable. The Old Man had insisted that he could not be with her, that she did not walk the same path. So when she forgot, he did not pursue even though he desperately wanted to.
Trevor’s anger toward Lori wavered. His eyes found the floor.
“It’s not that easy, Lori. You know how I feel about her. That hasn’t changed in all these years. Nina has a daughter. She has a life. And I have my duty. The truth is, even if she could remember everything-even if she had never lost those memories-we still could not be together.”
Lori did not argue the point. Instead, she threw in a new consideration.
“I think we all know that his is going to be the last meeting. When it’s over, we’re all going our separate ways. And I know things don’t look good. The point is, Trevor, you may never see her again. Do you want to miss this chance?”
He kept his eyes down. Lori slipped her arms around her friend’s shoulders and gave him a squeeze.
“Besides, she’s the best soldier you’ve got. What did you say she was once? Oh yeah, your sword. And that’s stayed true all these years. For the big jobs you turned to her, like she is an extension of your power kind of like the K9s. That’s why I think you owe it to her. Besides, she used to be in on these meetings, way back when. She’s a part of the original group.”
“Okay, okay,” he answered, although he realized he never really had a choice. With Lori Brewer, most seldom did.
Gordon came last, his arrival announced by the electric hum from the lift chair installed on the stairway after his injury. As far as Trevor could remember, this was only the third time Gordon used it.
He watched as the Intelligence Director move from the lift to his wheelchair with the help of Lori Brewer. Trevor otherwise kept his attention focused on a file folder open at his place at the head of the table.
In the past, the meetings in the conference room at the estate included Trevor’s advisory council. The events of last year had decimated the ranks of that council. Dr. Maple had died in a cemetery outside of Wilkes-Barre while serving as an unwilling investigator into the circumstances of the assassination. Trevor had impaled Evan Godfrey on the White House lawn with Stonewall McAllister’s sword. Moments later, Dante Jones had taken his own life. Most recently, Anita Nehru’s psychological condition made her unfit for service.
Of course, Reverend Johnny had been gone for four years although Trevor often thought he heard Johnny’s voice echoing in the room like a ghost reciting Bible passages.
The meeting on the afternoon of Thursday, May 21, included a less formal congregation but no less an important one. Jon Brewer sat to Trevor’s right. His wife, Lori, sat further down the table sandwiched between General Jerry Shepherd and Lori’s guest, Nina Forest, who wore an expression of a wide-eyed child beholding the wonders of FAO Schwartz.
