Pilgrimage -- A Novel of the Sovereign Era: The Sovereign Era, #5

From The Journal Of Nate Charters – One

About a year later, I was a celebrity.

It was stupid.

It was bad enough people would do a double take when they saw me in the grocery store, or passed me on the freeway. I was used to that. It’s how it’s been my whole life. When you look like me, it’s just what happens.

A year after Declaration Day, I was lucky if I didn’t see myself as a badly airbrushed artist’s rendition on the cover of The Weekly World News in the checkout line.

Me and Bat Boy, tabloid superstars. Except he’s not real.

I don’t think.

Hard to know for sure, these days.

On Friday, April 11, 1986, a week before the first anniversary of Declaration Day, the lawyers decided it would be a good idea for me and my mother to be guests on The Azarrio Show.

So there I was, Nathan Andrew Charters: household name, boy freak, full-on metahuman and fake Sovereign, roasting under the lights and sweating in a big sticky vinyl chair across the stage from the parents of my childhood rival, who were also trying to sue me and my mother into the poorhouse at best or help the feds throw us in jail at worst.

It was stupid.

My throat clenched as the host, Hank Azarrio, strode across the stage. Okay, gang… we’re back from commercial in thirty seconds. He oozed an oily, gunky stink of hairspray, sweat, makeup like swampy clay, and really terrible cologne. I was the only one in the room bothered by that, of course. Just one of my little gifts. Everybody all set?

My mother’s Yes slipped out of pursed lips. She had righteous indignation to maintain.

Marc Teslowski, doughy and pink, nodded his square head up and down and blinked his piggy eyes. His wife, Jeri, was either terrified or starstruck or maybe both. She smiled with her lips closed and bounced her clenched, knobby little fists in her lap.

Our lawyers straightened their ties and stuck out their chins. The firm had sent Drake Ottman, a young dude with a soap-opera name, to sit in our corner. The name of Teslowski’s guy had slipped out of my head a second after I broke off our cold handshake.

What did stick with me was how he’d tried to avoid my fingernails by curving his hand, even after I’d gone to the trouble of clipping and filing them down for the occasion. I scared some folks. This guy was part of that club.

It bugged me, sometimes. Not so much, that day.

The red light over the studio audience blinked. Azarrio ran his hand lightly across his salt-and-pepper-and-cement hair, licked his bushy gross mustache with a thick, pale tongue, and addressed the live camera.

"We’re back on The Azarrio Show with four people at the center of a controversy directly connected to the story of the century: the remarkable phenomenon of the Sovereigns."

Azarrio indicated me with a wave of his hand that pushed his stench up my sinuses. I suppressed a gag. As much as I didn’t want to care, I tried to look cool when one of the cameras zoomed in on my face.

This young man, despite the fact that he probably needs no introduction, is Nathan Andrew Charters—your friends call you Nate, though, right?

All the makeup in the world couldn’t hide the acne-scar pockmarks cratering his cheeks. I wondered if that acne had made him a pariah when he was a kid the way my… nature… had made me. I felt the corners of my lips twitch up at the thought of a junior Azarrio having his backpack emptied into a trash can.

Nathan’s fine, I said.

Azarrio’s eyes narrowed slightly, but the grin beneath his bushy lip stayed steady.

Nate, here, is at the center of an ongoing legal battle that has captured the fascination of the entire world. How does it feel to get all that attention, Nate?

Asshole acted like I was six, not sixteen.

Fine. I was getting really good with confrontation.

Imagining my girlfriend, Lina, in the front row of the studio audience of housewives and unemployed middle-aged twits, I pushed down a little flurry of butterflies in my belly and kept my eyes on Azarrio and off the cameras.

Are you asking how it feels to know the same people who turned my dad into a crazy freak and then tried to kill him are trying to pin two murders on me and him and my mom?

Azarrio’s eyes glittered. It occurred to me that I was feeding him just what he wanted, but screw it. This whole thing was lame. In for a penny, or whatever.

I guess it’s gonna feel great, once those people end up in prison and PrenticeCambrian and the government cut us a big check and stuff.

Red light for me, green light for Azarrio. He addressed the camera.

Nate’s referring to allegations from PrenticeCambrian—which, by the way, the powers that be want me to mention, is the parent company of some of our affiliate-station sponsors—that his dad, the former scientist Andrew Charters, killed two PrenticeCambrian employees and that Nate himself assaulted a high-ranking executive of PrenticeCambrian subsidiary Tyndale Labs.

My mother’s scent drifted on the currents of the studio air-conditioning. It was barbed with tension.

Call them what they were.

She leaned forward in her chair. I imagined someone in the control room giving the word to put her on camera. Assassins.

Alleged assassins, as I’m sure PrenticeCambrian’s legal team would want us to note. Azarrio wore a mask of concern and empathy that didn’t match his almost-predatory scent.

I wondered if that was what this was for him—if he looked at his guests like prey to corner so he could extract reactions that would bring high ratings for his time slot.

I hoped my mother kept it together, even if I felt my own irritation scratching like bugs multiplying under my skin.

Ask Marc Teslowski if there’s any question on that point. She acted like he wasn’t eight feet away from her. Dude was suing us, too, after all. "It’s his son those assassins, she hissed the word, drawing it out, nearly gutted in my mother-in-law’s driveway."

I don’t think Azarrio liked my mother directing his show for him. Instead of turning his attention to Teslowski, he addressed the camera, smooth as sculpted shit.

Ms. Charters refers to young Byron Teslowski, the teenaged boy hospitalized after the incident at Kirby Lake left two dead under circumstances that are at the heart of the Charters’ legal battle with PrenticeCambrian, the government, and, in a related but separate case, the Teslowskis.

Now he faced Marc Teslowski, who held the arms of his chair in a white-knuckled grip. Teslowski didn’t look at me in the same way my mother didn’t look at him.

So, I made sure to stare, hard, at him.

Marc and Jeri Teslowski, Azarrio said, you contend that your son Byron, who the Sovereign claim as one of their own under the controversial Sovereign Compromise, is being illegally held at the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies near Missoula, Montana.

That’s right. Teslowski spoke through gritted teeth. Everybody knows that.

And you hold the Charters—including Nate’s father, Andrew Charters, a fugitive and suspect in the killings—responsible. How, exactly?

Teslowski turned to look at me at last. I let the shit-eating grin I’d been holding back push slowly at the corners of my mouth. I kept my eyes on his.

That punk helped my kid make a break for it—

Teslowski’s lawyer put his skittish hand on Teslowski’s shoulder. We intend to show that Nathan Charters, he made his voice project, very likely with the cooperation of his father, and on behalf of the Sovereign, conspired to create an opportunity by which the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies could apprehend Byron Teslowski.

Our boy Drake spoke up. He had a voice like that DJ on KLOS who plays whole albums on Sunday night: deep and slow. It didn’t fit his face. As our suit brought against PrenticeCambrian and the United States will show, those accusations have no basis in fact.

I looked away from Teslowski to glance at the audience. They were getting into our little circus.

Azarrio acknowledged both attorneys with a nod of his head and turned back to Teslowski. Marc, you and Jeri also have a civil suit against the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies to get your son back. Why isn’t this a case of criminal kidnapping?

Teslowski’s face darkened. The goddamned Sovereign Compromise. I imagined someone in the control room hitting the bleep button.

Azarrio shook his head and looked as if he wanted to tut-tut into his microphone. His sympathy didn’t reach his eyes.

Mrs. Teslowski…Jeri… She went as white as her husband was red. How long has it been since you’ve seen your son?

She swallowed and looked at her hands. My smarmy grin felt a little tired. I didn’t have a problem with Byron’s mom. She still had to live with her husband.

At least Byron got out.

It was… She glanced past me, I guess to my mother. I didn’t see any blame in her face. Figured. The Teslowskis might be suing us, but it must be all Marc Teslowski’s idea.

It was May fourth, last year.

Azarrio seemed to actually soften for a second. That’s a long time.

She nodded, birdlike.

Azarrio turned to me. What about you, Nate? Byron’s a friend of yours…the Donner Institute is assisting you and your mother in your legal battles…have you heard from Byron Teslowski? Maybe chat on the phone?

Nope.

I think Azarrio expected me to say something else. When I just looked at him, he ad-libbed, Do you think he’s being held against his will?

My mother said, You don’t have to answer that—Drake, should he answer—

Knowing how things were, I said quickly before Drake could speak up, I bet Byron’s fine.

Marc Teslowski grunted. Azarrio met my eyes like we were partners in his little show.

Why do you say that?

Byron Teslowski had made my life hell for years. He somehow made it okay to pick on the weird kid with the odd bone structure and giant eyes when no one would even think of making fun of Tom Harper in his wheelchair or Keri What’s-her-name with one leg all bent and shorter than the other one.

We hit high school, and he filled out, and girls liked him, and he kicked ass at every sport he tried. All along, he kept pushing at me, making sure everybody kept thinking I was the weird kid. He ended up with a whole little gang of jocks and cheerleaders in orbit around his smirking face. I could count my friends on one hand and not need my thumb.

Declaration Day changed everything. I learned some things about Byron. About his dad.

Which is why I helped Byron a year before, but not in the way the Teslowskis thought. It’s also why I answered Hank Azarrio the way I did.

Because his dad’s a prick.

A groan of disapproval flowed off the audience. Azarrio, his back to them and fully aware the live camera was on me for the moment, actually gave me a wink. He was quick about it, and made sure he closed his left eye—the one the Teslowskis couldn’t see.

Asshole.

He turned his back on me and faced the audience while a different camera put him in frame.

Strong words from a young man in the eye of the storm. His tone hit perfect notes of concerned disapproval. When we come back, we’ll hear what our audience thinks. After this.

The lights turned red. We had two minutes. Teslowski made the most of it. He flew out of his chair and loomed over me.

You little shit. Who do you think you are?

His belly strained beneath his button-down shirt. It was kind of a stupid move, really, putting his gut right in front of a guy whose fingernails can slice through aluminum cans and still cut tomatoes like this, as they say on the knife commercial.

I fought the urge to see how good a job I’d done blunting my nails. I stayed seated. Fucker wouldn’t dare try anything, not with the lawyers all there, not with the studio security guards moving in…not knowing what I could do.

Mister Teslowski, please sit down. Azarrio probably wished Teslowski had waited to perform this little show when the cameras were live.

My mother stood up. You even think of touching my boy…

I looked over my shoulder, up at her. Seriously?

I saw she was as irritated with me as she was with Teslowski. Great. What had I done, other than say what everyone on our side of the stage all thought?

Marc… Jeri Teslowski’s protest, if you could call it that, was a little peep.

Teslowski stayed where he was as the seconds ticked away. We looked at each other. The smell of his sweat was thick on my extra-human olfactory glands. He reeked of anger and…yep. There it was.

Fear.

It made my own crawling irritation and frustration with this whole stupid ordeal ratchet tighter. The dense muscles in my thighs bounced with the urge to leap. My peripheral vision blacked as my focus narrowed.

This guy had no idea.

Jeri Teslowski, too quiet for anyone but Marc and my own sensitive ears to hear, said, Please stop, in a whisper that was way more disgusted than I thought she had the guts for.

Teslowski slumped in his chair, glaring at nothing, and acted like he hadn’t heard a thing.

Azarrio moved up into the audience. He was unruffled and ready when the lights changed.

"Welcome back to The Azarrio Show, where we’re with two families at the center of a number of legal battles sure to affect relations with the people calling themselves Sovereign for years to come, he said into the camera. Let’s see what the audience thinks of all this."

He found a bald man even softer and fatter than Teslowski. Hello, sir. What’s your name?

Frank.

And what do you do, Frank?

I’m a corrections officer.

A public servant. Good for you. Azarrio put a hand on Frank’s shoulder. Do you have a thought you’d like to share, or a question for our guests?

Frank’s gaze swept past me in the want-to-look-don’t-want-to-stare way I’m very, very used to. My question is for Mister Teslowski…

We’d been coached on this. Teslowski grumbled, Hi, Frank.

Frank nodded. He had that weird air of bashful excitement I’d seen on so many television audience members; it was strange to watch it in person.

Hi. Um…why do the Sovereigns say your son agreed to stay at their…headquarters, or…

Institute, Azarrio said helpfully.

Yeah, their Institute? I mean, if they kidnapped him, what are their demands?

I almost laughed out loud, which made my mother nudge my chair: a subtle warning for me. How awesome. I couldn’t help but wonder if our lawyers had planted this guy.

Well…Frank… I watched Teslowski lick his lips and flare his nostrils. They’re not going to come right out and say they kidnapped him. Right?

Frank scratched the side of his head. I don’t know… I mean, their whole thing is they don’t care about our laws, I thought.

Azarrio said, Perhaps the Sovereign would be reluctant to admit to kidnapping, given the somewhat negative opinion of them held by the majority of Americans, according to one recent poll. He looked at me. No offense, Nate.

The camera was on me again, ready for a reaction shot. I tensed my legs to keep them from jumping. The butterflies came back.

A memory from almost a year ago popped into my head. My friend Jason, standing up to Byron Teslowski, even though Jason was about a foot and a half shorter and fifty pounds lighter. That helped.

None taken. Everybody knows I’m not a Sovereign. Hank.

Azarrio had a twinkle in his eye that made me want to rip one out and feel it pop between my teeth.

That’s the assertion of your legal team—funded in part by the Donner Institute for Sovereign Studies itself, we must remember—but doesn’t PrenticeCambrian contest that?

This particular time, I didn’t mind my mother speaking up. I don’t think there’s a single person in your audience who doesn’t know the basics of our legal fight.

Azarrio inclined his head briefly. You claim there’s evidence PrenticeCambrian conducted human experiments that provided Andrew Charters—your husband—with Sovereign-like abilities…and that Nate inherited some of those abilities.

Conducted, and continue to conduct. My mother’s face twisted with disgust. The assassins they sent after Nathan and Byron had been turned into…monsters.

These…assassins, as you call them…were killed by Andrew Charters, according to the police report filed by an eyewitness—

My mother kept her tone firm, but civil, like when she tried explaining why I really, really needed to take the trash out for the good of all mankind. That’s not correct, Mister Azarrio. Andrew killed one of them, in self-defense. The other one died when Lester Brenhurst, she said the name carefully, as if it was a rotten piece of fruit with a pit that threatened to break a tooth if she bit down too hard, tried to kill my husband.

Allegedly, Azarrio smiled. He took control of the exchange by turning back to the camera.

"Immediately after the events in question, Andrew Charters disappeared. He remains at large, despite the fact that his testimony could resolve many of the questions at the crux of this drama of corporations, our government, the Sovereigns, and these two families.

Now, we extended an invitation to both PrenticeCambrian and the Donner Institute to be part of the show today, but their respective representatives declined. Azarrio put his attention on us again. It makes me wonder, though: have any of you met the leader of the Sovereign and, it’s said, the most powerful metahuman known…Dr. William Karl Donner himself?

As if. I shook my head. I heard my mother exhale with exasperation. To my left, the Teslowskis shook their heads as well.

Azarrio moved to stand near Byron’s mom. Jeri Teslowski, William Donner, quite possibly, has been in daily contact with your son for nearly a year, while you’ve literally counted the days since the last time you heard Byron’s voice. If you could say one thing to William Donner, what would it be?

I was developing a real healthy hatred of Hank Azarrio. Byron’s mom seemed like she wanted to fold in on herself. Her eyes were wide enough to fall out of her narrow face.

What…what would I say…? She looked quickly at her glaring husband, then at her own lap. She shrugged her shoulders.

A vein along Marc Teslowski’s jaw thumped. I found myself fixating on it. I wondered what it would be like to grab it and pull it right off his face like a magic trick with a ribbon…just pull and pull until he unraveled.

My stomach grumbled. It had been too long since I’d fed my hyper metabolism.

Teslowski stepped up for his wife. I’ll tell you what I would say. He looked from camera to camera until one moved closer. Listen up.

He leaned forward, red-faced, and faced the camera.

You’re just…you’re just a suit, Donner. You’re a little, small man. I’ve seen the pictures. I could snap you in half.

Azarrio stage-chuckled. Those are some harsh words, Mister Teslowski. No doubt under—

I’m not done. He jabbed a fat finger at the camera, at the demigod who, we could all pretty much assume, wasn’t watching.

You put aside that shit you do, Donner, and let’s see what happens. You be a man, and you give me back my son, and you answer to me. He stabbed at the camera again. Then. Then we’ll see, won’t we?

Teslowski sat back in his chair. I had to give it to him…even if he was an abusive, puffy asshole, if he had any anxiety about threatening a guy who could pretty much literally do anything he set his mind to, he sure didn’t let it show.

Azarrio looked at the audience and shrugged before turning his attention back to Byron’s dad. Mister Teslowski…are you saying you would challenge Doctor Donner to a…to a physical fight?

Teslowski’s lip curled. What is it with this ‘doctor’ thing, anyway? Why does everyone refer to this guy like he deserves our respect? What’s he done to deserve that?

A few low voices in the audience seemed to agree.

I mean, do we give that kind of respect to the Ayatollah? To Qaddafi? To Idi Amin? For a second I thought Teslowski was going to spit on the stage. He swallowed, sneering.

He’s a punk.

Azarrio didn’t let it go. So, you really do want to fight him.

Teslowski’s fingers pressed the vinyl of his chair. Jesus! Why don’t we all want to fight him? Why don’t we have all those freaks rounded up and locked away before they do something worse than Philadelphia, or whatever else they’ve got up their sleeves?

Outright cheers in the crowd at that. Who would have thought Marc Teslowski would be a voice of inspiration, even if it was for a bunch of idiots?

Hell, Marc said, there’s gotta be a few hundred of them at that camp of theirs. Once I get my kid back, why don’t we just firebomb the place? Let ‘em burn.

Now, Mister Teslowski, Azarrio said, I know the tabloids, talk radio, blame the flooding in Pennsylvania on a Sovereign with elemental powers, but do you really believe that? People controlling the weather?

Teslowski looked at Azarrio for a beat, then he looked right at me. He spoke slowly.

"They’re…not…people."

I admit it. Even though I’m not a Sovereign and really didn’t like being lumped in with them, the fucker got to me. I forgot we were in the studio. I forgot we were on television. I forgot about the cameras.

It was just me and this prick.

I was still more or less in my chair, but my ass was off the seat. I leaned forward, knees bent, balanced on the balls of my feet. My arms were out; my fingers curved. I could cross the stage and be on him with one easy leap.

I pulled my lips back, revealing unusually long canines.

I did something I’d only recently learned how to do on demand.

I growled.

I heard the ripple of gasps and exclamations from the audience as they freaked out. My sensorium—the combined input of my hearing and sense of smell—told me the big guys in black T-shirts were emerging from the wings, ready to step in if they needed to. If they did…well, dealing with me would be a lot harder than handling the usual paternity-case dads and jilted lovers.

Marc Teslowski looked about as ready to go as I was. The fact that the guy was so full of frustration he was willing to physically attack a sixteen-year-old kid on national television pulled me out of my own semi-bestial state.

After all, much as I didn’t want to, I could relate.

I flopped back in my chair and shot the audience a nice, friendly, goofy-kid grin; no teeth. Gee whiz, guys, I’m just joshin’!

The security bruisers faded back offstage.

Azarrio’s chuckle was a lot less hearty than last time. That was a pretty convincing display, Nate. His hard eyes were just for me. You’ve reminded us: while the reasons may be in dispute, you are not an ordinary teenager. Do you mind if I ask you a question?

I shrugged.

Do you feel human, Nathan?

My mother snapped, That’s a ridiculous question. Do you feel Hispanic?

Azarrio didn’t hesitate. One hundred percent. He didn’t look away from me. Let me be clear. I’m not judging. I sincerely want to know how you, personally, feel.

The cameras were close. I felt a sweat bloom and cascade down my spine.

I…I don’t know what that means.

I found out later we were in the shot together, and he looked a little bullying, until I said that.

To be human?

Yeah.

I really, really wanted that moment to be over. Thankfully, I picked up a little buzz from the little thing in Azarrio’s ear. He turned, straightened up, and faced a different camera.

That may be the question we all have to answer, for ourselves, before this story is over, he intoned. We’ll be right back.

We were at commercial.

My mother leaned close to me. What was that?

My shirt was sticking to the chair. I leaned forward gingerly. What?

The growling. She lowered her voice. Provoking Teslowski. This isn’t going to help in court. Jesus Christ, Nathan.…

Apparently her voice carried farther than she expected. Marc Teslowski said, Your snotty son doesn’t scare me, woman.

She sat up, stiff. What did you say to me?

Teslowski gave me a dismissive nod. The kid. He’s a punk. He’s what you raised. Your fault.

Jeri Teslowski, just over her husband’s shoulder, looked pitifully apologetic.

My mother was good in a fight, I’ll give her that. She didn’t miss a beat.

My son is still at home, she said. Where’s your boy, Marc?

It was a pretty great shot. Even if it was barely true.

From The Journal Of Nate Charters – Two

I left the television studio feeling okay, all things considered. Since my mother barely spoke to me from when we left the studio lot until we were well down the 405 freeway, I could tell she had a different view.

Just inside Long Beach, she said, I don’t know if that did us any good or made things worse.

I took my third Tiger Milk bar out of the glove compartment. I thought we did okay. I unwrapped it. I mean, I never want to do that again, but at least Byron’s dad ended up looking like a crazy man, all told.

Marc Teslowski would have done that regardless, my mother said. We could have done without your theatrics, though.

He…pushed me. I tore off a mouthful of the bar and chewed it down. Fuel. You heard what he said.

She nodded. That was uncalled for. But…really, Nathan. Growling? When did you start that?

I smiled and chewed, remembering Lina and me making out a few days before. We still hadn’t gone all the way, but we pretty much did everything else. She was playing with me, and she surprised me by using her fingernails. The growl came when I did.

We laughed about it, and I’d practiced it—without the extra…stimuli—a few times since then.

I told my mother the G-rated, abridged version, of course.

Tried it out a few days ago. It just sort of…came to me.

You can see why it’s better not to mess around like that, I trust.

I was just giving him what he deserved. I didn’t bother mentioning that I was only half-aware of what I was doing at the time. I thought…I thought it was funny.

My mother sighed quickly. No. It really wasn’t. She focused on changing lanes of a couple of seconds. Listen to me. They would like nothing more than to show that you, and so, even more so, your father, are somehow less than human. Capable of violence. She glanced at me. Give them any rope at all, they’ll make a noose. You get it?

Little speeches like that from my mother made me feel cornered. I stared out the window and focused on the last bite of my bar.

Nathan?

Yeah. Sure.

What is it.

I swallowed. Nothing.

Try again.

There was a time when her firm but sympathetic tone would have been enough to get me to spill it all. Since the battle of Kirby Lake, I was far less interested in sharing anything with the woman who had kept so much from me my whole life.

On the other hand, I knew my grudge hurt her. Sometimes I felt like she deserved a little hurt.

Look, Mom. I’m tired of worrying how to act, trying to figure out how this side or that will take my every move. I’m…I’m not human, I’m not Sovereign; I can’t just pick one or the other or something in between to make things all pretty for the lawyers, or the reporters, or whoever. They just need to deal with me.

You’re sixteen years old, she said. You don’t even know who ‘me’ is yet.

That’s my freakin’ point!

We didn’t say anything as a couple of off-ramps slipped by.

Nathan, sometimes I don’t think you understand just how—

"Oh, come on, Mom! I get it! I know how important it is! I know what’s at stake! Jesus Christ!