THE FAR SIDE OF EXILE

PART TWO:

The twelve hours it would take to cross the Pacific ocean felt like it would be a lifetime of sitting...and sitting...and wondering, but it seemed the tension of just getting the Qantas plane had worn them out enough to settle into their chairs and drift into a gray space.  Rachel awoke to the sound of stewardess serving meals, and her stomach growled.  Their mad dash into escape had depleted her of more than just spirit; it had drained her of any fuel.  She took trays both for her and Cort, and began digging in her bag for food for Hope, who was fast asleep...and even snoring gently.  Just like her father.

"I think it's okay for us to eat before she does," she told the groggy man beside her.  "I was thinking, if she sleeps a bit longer, we might be able to look at some maps."

Cort ate slowly. The food seemed tasteless to him, though he figured just about anything right now would seem the same. They would be crossing the international date line. Flying into tomorrow. It was almost as though Sid had come up with the concept. Flying into tomorrow. It still was all too strange to Cort.

Rachel unfolded a large map of Australia. It was a big place. Had lots of empty-looking parts, too. They would be landing in Sydney, but he wasn't at all sure he wanted to stay there. It was a giant metropolis, bigger by far than he liked or felt comfortable in. His eyes roamed the map. There was always the bush, but that didn't seem the place to take Rachel and Hope. Was pretty green, though, in a lot of the east. A place name caught his eye.

"I know we need to tend to business and all in Sydney for a time, but what about this?" His right index finger rested just under the words 'Cathedral Rocks.'

Livin' in the land down under... Rachel sighed and tried not to sound too forlorn.  She only knew of the country what Terry had shared, what she'd seen on the internet, and on television specials, knew only what others had said.  To actually be going there felt so strange, especially since she had no idea of where to begin or end, or even if Australia was big enough to hide from Sid.  Right now, the moon felt like it wouldn't be far enough away.  Smiling gently at Cort's choice, as the word 'cathedral' was so very like him to notice, she replied, "Right now, any place sounds good, although I like the idea of getting away from the big cities.  You know, I’ve worked for him for several years now, but I can't for the life of me remember where Terry said he had grown up. Or," she added, with a rueful laugh, "where he remembered growing up."

A slow grin crossed Cort's tanned face. "Thorneton," he said, moving his fingertip just a fraction east from Cathedral Rocks. "Just over a couple of hills this way.  I know because there was this time back, well, back...there...when he and I were waiting in his office together and I asked him about the validity of my memories of my Grandmother's farm since nothing about it is mentioned in The Quick and the Dead. Kinda worried me, you know. But he said whatever character is in a movie, it doesn't matter if it's onscreen or not, 'cause the person comes to that point of the time period of the movie carryin' all that he is, all that's gone into gettin' him to that place, and when we're taken out of the movie, we bring all that we are with us. That includes our memories of all that came before. So, just like I've got my Grandmother's farm, Terry's got Thorneton. Real nice house from what he said, kinda nestled below some hills, stream on one side." He paused a moment. "Wonder if Sid knows about the place?"

Rachel put her hand over Cort's and squeezed, a shot of hope making her eyes widen.  "I seriously hope not.  He didn't tell you there in his office, did he?"

"Let me see. It was a while back, right after I first got there and was so full of questions. Nope,

I remember it pretty clear. Asked him about the memories and then we left his office because

he was going to drive me to the blue house. Just sort of talked on the way. Knowin' how Terry feels about the robot," his lip curled as he said the word, "I'm hopin' he never mentioned Thorneton to him. Seems like Terry'd consider his personal memories somethin' private, you know, 'specially where Sid was concerned. I sure never said  a single damn word to him about my Grandmother's farm."  The mere thought of even mentioning that to Sid was repugnant.

"Then Thorneton it is.  We head there, and pray we aren't found," Rachel breathed, leaning back in her seat, still holding Cort's hand, drawing strength from his rough fingers, wanting to be clasped in their protection, but airplane seats were built only for facing forward and stiff repose.  "Do you think Hope will like it?" she asked softly.  The perpetual flow of pressurized air lulled her like white noise and the skies outside were beginning to get dim.  They had long since given up looking out the window as the vast stretch of blue covered horizon to horizon and they were too far up to see any odd island or atoll that might be stranded in the expanse.

Finally they saw the far outline of the Australian coast ahead and soon had landed at Kingsford Smith Airport on Botany Bay.  They were tired and stiff from so many hours in the air and after a slow haul through customs, fell gratefully into the car Terry had waiting for them. The driver, a pleasant man with a much broader Aussie accent than Terry's, drove them north into the city, turning through several narrow side streets and coming to a stop in a small alley behind a three-story apartment building.

"What's this?" Cort asked peering out the window at the yellow brick structure.

"The flat Mr. Thorne arranged for your use while you're here in town." He handed a set of keys back to Cort. "Through that door there, up the stairs, door's on the right."  He grinned at Cort, his tanned face, creasing into lines on his flat cheeks. "Rest up a bit, Mate. And then," he tossed Cort a small cellular phone, "give me a call if you want me to take you anywhere. It's all programmed with numbers you'll need. Just run down the list. Name's Cody." He nodded and tipped a non-existent hat. "At your service."

"I'm ready to collapse," Rachel announced once the door to the apartment closed behind them.  She put Hope down on the floor  and looked about her.  "I want to explore and see what Terry has set up for us...but I just cant."  She saw a king-size bed through the door, a bed piled with pillows.  The skies outside were lightening up approaching dawn, but she did not care.  With a grunt, she fell upon the bed and buried herself in the mound of pillows.

"Jet lag," Cort grinned tiredly, rather pleased he knew the correct word. He picked up Hope and walked to a large window in the living area, pulling back the heavily lined drapery.  He sighed. Couldn't see the harbor at all. The building wasn't tall enough and was tucked back behind St. Vincent's Hospital in the Darlinghurst section of the city. Terry had opted for inconspicuous rather than anything with a nice touristy view. Cort didn't like the place. Was it going to be like this from now on? Going from place to place, each one worse than the last? Was this what Australia was going to be like for them?

Hope was nestling sleepily down into his arms, so he walked with her softly to the bed, lying down with her still on his chest, his arms locked around her.  He fell asleep wondering just how quickly they could leave this place.

About three hours later he was roused by the cell phone vibrating in his chest pocket. Hope had slipped off and was cuddled between her parents, so he got up quickly and quietly, taking the phone out of the bedroom and closing the door before answering.

"You settled in?"  It was Terry.

"Not a bit," Cort yawned. "Not stayin' here."  He pushed his hair back off his face, going to the small kitchen for a glass of water as he listened to Terry.

"Look, mate," Terry continued, "I know it's all damn strange and new for you, but give it a bloody chance. You might find you like it."

"Not here, not this place," Cort replied stubbornly. "I want...I...."

"What, Cort, what do you want?"

"The city, it's not goin' to work for me. Only been here a few hours and it's smotherin' me, Terry. How long were you plannin' on us bein' here?"

"Just a few days, Cort. That's all. Get used to your new names, to handling Australian currency, that sort of thing. And Cody's there. Good man. You can trust him. Let him help you, all right? Show you around. I know the flat's not much and the location stinks, but it's safe. Will you do that?"

"You know I'll do whatever I need to keep Rache and Hope safe. I just...."  His voice trailed off.  He wasn't sure what it was he wanted to say. He hadn't felt this disconnected from his foundations for a long time now.  He swallowed several long gulps of the tap water before he continued. "Could...Thorneton...do you...?"

"Thorneton? You want to go up there?"

"Yeah," Cort breathed softly. "Sounds the best of anything I've heard so far."

"Look, I'll call Cody and give him a head's up on that. It's fine by me. In fact, I like the idea. Should've probably just gone ahead and made arrangements for that anyhow. Cody'll see you get up there by the end of the week. Just keep a low profile and explore Sydney a bit. Go to the Botanic Gardens, take a boat ride. Let yourselves get the feel of being in Australia. It's a damn sight better than here right now." His voice was low, quite grim.

"You have some sort of news?" Cort asked.

"Sid's alive. Maximus caught a brief glimpse of him in the woods on back campus. He left Caroline's melted necklace for Maximus to find."

"He...?"  Cort turned away from the sink, then leaned back against it, one hand clamped over his eyes. He literally couldn't speak, so he flipped the phone closed and reached blindly back to set it on the counter, missing the edge, and the little phone fell with a clatter to the tile floor.

Rachel remained in bed, although she  had come awake at the movement of Cort leaving, letting her brain readjust to the cold reality that they were on the far side of the world from their friends and family.  Then, she heard something fall to the floor, loud against the tile.  Alarmed, Rachel abandoned her position and curled out of bed, taking wide steps to thrust open the door and find that Cort was frozen himself in a posture that screamed hurt and anxiety, hand over his face.

"What did he tell you?" she croaked as she joined him, knowing that it probably had been Terry on the other end.  Her mind searched for anything that could be worse than what the two of them had already experienced.

He didn't answer her immediately, he was still trying to unthicken his throat that seemed to have almost closed together. But he'd dropped the hand from his eyes and was looking at her,

his green eyes large and filled with something very akin to desperation. His lips parted and he tried to tell her, but still the words stuck halfway up his throat. So he turned to the counter

and gulped down the rest of the glass of water, his left hand gripping the rim of the sink.

Almost laboriously carefully he set the glass back down, not wanting to turn, not wanting to say the dreadful words. But she'd come closer, had laid her hand on his shoulder, and he knew he must.

"He's alive," he said, his voice very low, rather hoarse, as he started to turn toward her.

It made sense, logically speaking.  Somehow in all of it, the brain had refused to believe that destroying Emerald City and the hidey-hole Sid had created for himself  would do much good, and there had been no guarantee that Sid would even be where they had wanted him.  In the face of it all, if that virus could not have permanently sealed him away, what could a few pyrotechnics do?  But the way Cort said it, the way it entered her ears, drove it home more than any thing, and Rachel found her knees weakening, so she slid down to the floor.  The silence in the little room was palpable.

"How does Terry know?"  She could already guess, but it seemed like a necessary thing, since the reality of it was already pooling around them and choking them.  The words were probably the most unintelligent thing she could utter, but it helped cushion the stark two words Cort had just offered.  She leaned back against the wall and looked up at him, wondering if she could get back up again

"Oh, Rachel," he said, the words coming out more as a sigh than actual words. He knelt in front of her on one knee, placing a hand on either of her shoulders, his eyes probing hers, hating the dark pain he saw clouding in them. "It was Maximus." His gaze shifting briefly to the ceiling, his eyes closing for a moment before he looked back at her. "Sid's playing games with Maximus' grief. Somehow...I...I don't know...anyway...he got the necklace Caroline was wearing when... when...and he hung it on a tree where Maximus would find it. It...it...must've been...so hard. So damn hard." He tried to swallow the large lump that had formed deep in his throat, but without success. "Then Maximus saw him...right there in the woods behind the ruins."

The next few moments were silent as Rachel let his words paint the picture for her, the knowledge of that horrible moment hanging in the air between them.  Maximus.  Always Maximus!  A low rage warred with the sick feeling in her core - Sid brought him out only to

find ways of destroying him, and yet never quite achieving it because he wanted it to go on and on.  And they, the ones who could offer Maximus comfort and support, offer some kind of shield, they were scattered to the winds.  Even in the kitchen of a little apartment in a country far

far away, Rachel felt the desperation of being blown apart in more ways than one.  How much would they have to endure, how far would they have to go, how long would they have to be separate from the others so that Sid's hold could finally be broken?  Here, so very far away, she was sensible of a sense of despair that they had all come to the end of the rope.

Something inside her wanted to buck up the courage by saying to make a knot and hang on...but that something had apparently forgotten how fond Sid was of cutting that rope. Sadness for Maximus filled her as she closed her eyes and laid her head against her husband's arm.

"Mama?  Daddy?"  The little girl crawled toward them and pulled herself up when she got to the corner of the cabinets, her eyes dark with worry.  "Mama and Daddy all right?"

Cort slid both arms around her. "Yes, little darlin', Mama and Daddy are fine. We were just in the kitchen for a bit. How're you doin', Peaches? Did you have a nice nap?"  He kept his eyes on Hope, knowing that if he looked directly at Rachel, he wouldn't be able to maintain the smile he was flashing for their daughter.

"Dream, Daddy. Bad dream."

"You had a dream, Peaches? Well, it's ok now. Dreams won't hurt you."

She stared at him, a gleam of intellect in her gaze that shouldn't be there. "Peaches 'member dream."

He sighed. "What do you remember, little darlin'?"

"Blue," she said firmly. "I 'member blue again. Lots of blue."

"Like you told us about before...that kind of blue?"

"Blue follow Peaches to Oztralya."

"Follow...?" Cort did look at Rachel then. "What do you mean, Hope?"

She patted her chest. "Blue. In here. Follow Peaches to Oztralya."

Rachel stood by Cort, exchanging looks with him, love piercing through the sorrow and anxiety at the term of endearment he was now using for his daughter.  His grandmother was known as Granny Peaches and he was passing on the fierce and deep love he'd had for her onto Hope. He never seemed more real to Rachel than at that moment, and out of the black hurt they were feeling, that alone gave her heart sustenance.  She reached up to play with her daughter's curls, still feeling the shattered dismay of Terry's news, of the awareness of the blue - there was no safety!  But it seemed flashes of the same were there in the back of her eyeballs, an amorphous blue, that was a living blue, but so out of reach, without any ability to make it go away.

"Does it still hurt, little bird?"  She wanted fold Hope back into herself, as she did when they were in it, back when Sid warped her while she'd been pregnant.  Had she ever told Cort about that?  That was the weird thing; she couldn't remember.  "Does it hurt here?"  She placed her own hand on her breastbone.  That wasn't exactly the spot, but she could feel it hurt, too, sometimes.  Impulse made her take Hope from Cort's arms and wrap her own arms around her.  Fold her back in...do not separate...  "Oh, Hope, I'm so sorry..."

"It wants out," Hope said.

Cort's head jerked around. "It wants out?" he repeated. "What? The blue?"

"Yep, Daddy. Is too big."

"Too big...how?" he probed, biting his lip hard.

"Not fit. Too big."

He wasn't sure he understood, that he could even begin to understand what she meant. "Too big inside you, baby?"

"Not baby," she corrected again. She pinched a fold of skin on her belly, pulling it out. "Not big enough. Blue wants out."

"If...," he shuddered visibly, "if, little Peaches, the blue wants out...can you stop it? Can you keep it...in?"

Hope looked at her father, her eyes wide and clear. "No, Daddy."

Cort swallowed hard. "And...if it does come out...what then?"

"Stuff," Hope shrugged. "You know...stuff."

"No, Hope, I don't know." His voice was getting hoarse again. "What kind of 'stuff'?"

"Just...things."  She looked down at her little hands for a moment. "But I think I could grow maybe." She met her father's eyes again.  "If I did that, I could be big enough...for a while."

He closed his eyes. Her ability to use words, to express herself, was changing even as they talked. And Sid was still somewhere, polluting the world with his presence. He looked grimly at Rachel. "We need to get out of Sydney...now."

"Call him," Rachel croaked, meaning the man Terry had hired to escort them through Sydney.  Part of her wanted to argue the point that they would be taking the blue with them, but it didn't matter now.  It was either do something or blow apart, right here in this room.  Just completely fall to pieces.

Cort was already punching numbers into his cell. Damn tiny little squares! He had to start over twice.

"Cody," he practically bellowed into the small instrument. "Make arrangements now. My family and I are leaving for Terry's Thorneton within the hour.  Yeah, you heard me. Now."

He looked back at Rachel. "I have no idea if Sid knows we're even in Australia. But we've got to make it as hard as we can for him to track us down."

Fortunately, they had not unpacked much and there was a twinge of regret on Rachel's part for not having at least taken a shower before calling Cody, but she'd only had time to change out Hope's diaper and clothing before Cort was hurrying them out the door and down into the lobby to meet with the man hired to take them wherever they wanted to go.

"There a fire or somethin'?" Cody asked as he spied Cort's brisk pace.

"Yes, there is a fire," Cort replied grimly, "and the whole world's aflame. Now, what's the safest way you can get us out of Sydney?"

"I'm takin' it you don't want to be traced, that right?"

Cort nodded.

"I'd suggest, then, you let me drive you north in my car. No tickets, no reservations, no nothing. Take a bit longer, but it's probably the way to go."

"Is is here...now? Your car, is it here?" Cort was absolutely single-minded in his desire to get out of the city.

"Yeah, parked out back where I let you off. You got everything you need?"

"We have what we brought. Now can we go?"

Cody opened the trunk of the large, black car, helping Cort hoist in the luggage. "Sure sorry you didn't get to see Sydney," he remarked.

"Some other time," Cort replied. "Some time when maybe the fire's out."

"Too right!" Cody replied.

As they got settled in the wide back seat, Cody drove down the small alley toward a larger road that would eventually take them across the Sydney Harbor Bridge. "Talked to Terry. Says he has a cleanin' crew already goin' up at Thorneton."  Nobody in the back seat replied.

A few minutes later he tried, "Look out to your left in just a sec and you'll see the sails of the Opera House. Really worth a gander."

Early evening and the sun was slanting so that the scooping edges of the Opera House were illuminated, dominating the visual of the harbor so that it imprinted itself on her mind.  For this Rachel was glad, as she thought sadly that it was very possible this was the only time they'd ever really see Sydney.  Cars and people rushed past - funny how their faces said so much of their own troubles or joys.  Rachel found herself watching them as she went by, wondering if they would ever appreciate how blessed they were to not have an egomaniacal super-intelligence haunting their every moment.

"It's beautiful," she murmured.  "I've seen so many pictures of it, but that's not as good as the real thing.  When was it built?"  The more she spoke the more she found she did not want to sink into silence.  If they couldn't have a personal experience of Sydney, maybe Cody would oblige by sharing what he knew.  She'd always liked taking new comers around the little town she grew up in.  Cody couldn't be any different.  Thing was, it would have been so much better if Terry was the one doing it.

"Ah, have you asked the right bloke that question!" Cody beamed, casting a quick look over his shoulder at Rachel. "If there's anything we Sydneysiders like to do, it's talk about what we've got here that's the best in the world."  He slowed the car a little to give Rachel a bit longer view of the Opera House. Cort started to protest, but clamped his mouth shut when Rachel lay her hand on his leg.

"You see that long spit of land it's sittin' on? That's Bennelong Point. Used to have the Fort Macquarie Tram Depot sittin' there. Back in '55 they had a world-wide competition for the design of the new buildin'. 233 entries they got, but they chose this Danish guy's. Jorn Utzon, that was his name. Thing was, he'd designed something so unique they didn't know how to build the thing, mainly the roof."  He nodded to his right. "Ain't that roof a sight! Most folks think it's supposed to be sails because of the harbour 'n all, but that's not the case. Segments of a mandarin orange, that's what inspired ol' Utzon. Segments of an orange."

The Opera House disappeared from sight for a moment, then reappeared. "Even though they demolished the depot in '58 and started construction in '59, they didn't figure out how to build the damn roof until '61. Was one of the earliest uses of computers in structural analysis, it was. They finally figured out they hadda create all the roof shells as though they were sections from a sphere. Changed the face of architecture after that. Computers were the way to go."

"I know a computer I'd like to get rid of," Cort muttered, thinking of Sid.

"1000 rooms it's got. Sucks enough electricity for a town of 25,000. You want me to pull over so you can walk out and see it up close?"

"No thanks," Cort said. "Let's just keep on our way."

"All righty," Cody continued agreeably. "Queen Bess the Second came herself to open it back in October of '73."  They had passed any easy view of it at the moment and were heading on toward the harbor bridge.

"Gotta cross the Coathanger to head north," Cody explained. "That or the tunnel, but I'm takin' you over the bridge so's you can get the view of the harbor."

As they started across the huge structure, Cody explained, "This is the Bradfield Highway, folks. Now just look to your right and you'll see the full length of Bennelong Point. Nice view of the Opera House. That's the Royal Botanic Gardens, all that green, just beyond. And just past that is Woolloomooloo Wharf.  Got us a famous movie star lives out at the end of that. You ever seen Gladiator by any chance? That's the bloke."

Cort closed his eyes. Maximus. What must he be going through? He shut out the drone of Cody's voice, only beginning to hear him again as they neared the end of the bridge.

"Six million rivets," Cody was saying. "That's what it took to fasten this thing together. Six million. And all made in Lancashire, England, too. Demolished 800 homes and a high school to make the ends of the bridge. Gave a lot of work to men in the early years of the Depression, though. 'Course when it was all done in '32, hundreds of still-depressed folks began jumpin' off the thing."

Cort looked at Rachel wearily, not really in the mood for suicide stories.

"Sounds like what happened with the Brooklyn Bridge," Rachel responded, silently pleading with Cort in return.  "And I don't think I have crossed a bridge this big since the Mississippi.  What's coming up next?"

"We head north on Highway 1, Mrs. Wells, all the way to Coffs. Gonna take several hours, so you just sit back and get comfortable," Cody smiled. "You'll catch views of the ocean from time to time directly right. Let me know if I need to stop for the baby or anything."

"NOT baby!" Hope frowned.

"Ok, then," Cody laughed, "if the big girl needs anything."

Cort was tired and the stress of the day had given him a headache. He leaned his left temple against the side window, closing his eyes. But instead of a pleasant curtain of darkness he could rest in, he saw Caroline's face pressed against the green glass, heard the strangled moan in Maximus' throat followed by a burst of hilarious laughter by the nanotech. "No," he whispered, "no. You'll not harm my family."

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