Prodigal Son

the world with his machines of blood and bone."
        Arnie stared at his clenched fist-and smiled.
        "If you do not help me resist," Deucalion said, "he is arrogant enough to succeed."
        Again Arnie opened his hand. The pennies had reappeared.
        "Those who fight him," Deucalion said, "will find themselves in the struggle of their lives…"
        From Arnie's hand, Deucalion retrieved one of the two pennies.
        "Leave it to blind fate?" he asked Michael. His gaze moved to Carson. "Heads, you fight beside me… tails, I fight alone."
        He flipped the penny, caught it, held out his fist.
        Before he could reveal the penny, Carson put her hand on his, to keep his fist closed. She looked at Michael.
        He sighed. "Well, I never did want to be a safety engineer," he acknowledged, and placed his hand atop hers.
        To Deucalion, Carson said, "Screw fate. We fight."
        
        DARK, DRY, QUIET, the crawl space under the house provides Randal Six with an ideal environment. The spiders do not bother him.
        The journey from Mercy has been a triumph, but it has frayed his nerves and rubbed his courage raw. The storm had almost undone him. The rain, the sky afire with lightning and shadows leaping on the earth, the crashes of thunder, the trees shuddering in the wind, the gutters overflowing with dirty water awhirl with litter… Too much data. Too much input. Several times he almost shut down, almost fell to the ground and curled into a ball like a pill bug.
        He needs time now to recover, to regain his confidence.
        He closes his eyes in the dark, breathes slowly and deeply The sweet smell of star jasmine threads to him through the crisscrossed lattice that screens the crawl space.
        From directly overhead come three muffled voices in earnest conversation.
        In the room above him is happiness. He can feel it, radiant. He has arrived at the source. The secret is within his grasp. This child of Mercy, in the spidery dark, smiles.

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    THE END