Consort, but . . . I can’t. I don’t know anything about being a Walker.”
“You’ll learn,” I said. “If the other Simon can do it, so can you. I’ll be your personal tutor.”
“Oh?” He grinned. “What if I’m a slow learner? You know what they say about jocks.”
“One-on-one private sessions,” I said. “Lots of them. It’s the only answer.”
“I like the sound of that.” He kissed me, then rolled off the bed. “Come on. Time to go for a walk. A regular one, to see the sights.”
“Now? Why?”
“This could be my last chance to know more about the Walkers than you. I’m not wasting it.”
Gingerly I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. “Shouldn’t I be meeting with someone? Debriefing, or giving a statement?” A thought struck me. “Where’s the other Simon?”
His mouth twisted. “You mean the real one?”
“You’re real,” I said firmly.
“Am I?” Doubt diminished his voice.
“Yes. It isn’t about strings. Being you makes you real. And mine.”
“Definitely yours.” He pointed to the door connecting my room to the next. “There’s a medic in there. We should keep it down.”
I nodded as he opened the door to the hall and checked both directions, beckoning when it was clear. My legs felt a little wobbly, but that was common, considering the frequency poisoning.
My room was at the far end of the hallway. We crept past the medic’s closed door and toward the lobby. Away from my room, the true frequency of this world asserted itself, a low droning that vibrated against my skull.
“Pool’s empty; the fitness center has, like, one elliptical and a few weights. Laundry’s there; kitchenette’s on the other side—but it’s really just a microwave and a sink.” He pointed to each one in turn. “Conference room is there, but it’s usually locked.”
“Do you always stay in hotels?”
“Not as far as I can tell. One place was a school; another was an apartment building. Nursing homes, storage units . . . I keep hoping for an IKEA, but they’ve never found one that’s not packed all the time. I think the base camp moves around a lot—they’ve only been here for a month or two—and they keep the location a secret, even from most of the local Free Walkers.”
“Where is everyone?” The lobby was empty. A fake Christmas tree, dusty and forgotten, stood next to a cold fireplace. No one was at the front desk, but behind the office door I could hear voices.
“People are always holed up in meetings or going out on jobs,” he said. “Usually I’m training, but not since you came in.”
“How many people are staying here?”
“Thirty, maybe? Forty?”
“That seems like a lot. I thought Free Walkers operated in small groups.”
“We usually do,” said a voice behind us. “But now is a time for amassing forces.”
I twisted around. An old woman stood in the doorway of the conference room. She was dressed like she’d raided an army surplus store—olive drab pants, stout boots, a flannel shirt. A long, silver braid fell over one shoulder, reaching past the hem of her cargo vest. Her skin had the appearance of crepe paper, thin and soft, spotted with age. But her eyes were clear and curious, the sort of green-brown that some people would call hazel and some would call mud.
Eyes like mine.
She must have been watching for a sign that I knew, because she smiled, her face crinkling all over. I’d seen that smile—minus the wrinkles—every day on my way to breakfast, in her wedding portrait.
“Grandma?” The word trembled in the air, hanging like the opening note of a performance.
“Rose,” she corrected me, in a rusty voice. “It’s a little late for me to start playing granny.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
AS A CHILD, I’D DREAMED of finding my grandmother. Of restoring my family to the way it was supposed to be. My daydreams always included a grandmother with a soft lap who wrapped me in her arms and smelled like fresh-baked oatmeal cookies, whose voice was a lullaby to keep shadows at bay.
Rose was none of those things. No lap to speak of—she was thin to the point of bony, even in her baggy pants and layers of shirts, and her manner was equally sharp. She held herself with an unnatural stillness, watching everything and revealing nothing, studying me as closely as I studied her. Despite the lingering smile, the tension between us turned the air thin, as if we were on two, equally high mountaintops—with a hell of a lot of valley between us.