“Locke? Who’s there?”
I turn to see Raine walking in from the kitchen, large with our third child. She stops when she sees Jenna out in the cold. She knows what that means too. She tries to persuade her to come in, but Jenna is firm in her decision.
“It’s already done. I’ve been outside for hours. I just need a little time with an old friend.” Her voice is fragile.
Raine touches her belly, perhaps understanding more than I can, and walks over to hug her. There are no more words between them, just an exchanged look of understanding. I grab my coat and give Raine a kiss. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back. You’ll be okay?”
“Hap’s upstairs, and Mother and Father are right next door if I need anything,” she says, and she pushes me toward the door and Jenna.
* * *
The wind has stopped like the world has sucked in its breath for Jenna, and snowflakes flutter as delicately as white butterflies in no hurry to land. Jenna hooks her arm into mine as we walk, leaning on me more with each step. We’re the only ones on the street, the only ones with a reason to be out late in weather like this.
“You and me again,” she whispers. “Just like in the old days. Almost.”
Kara’s name doesn’t have to be said. She’s always present.
She sighs, serene and content. “Such lives we’ve lived. Lives we never could have imagined.”
An understatement. “Never,” I agree. “My imagination isn’t that good. But we’re probably not so different from anyone else. We all envision one life and live another, don’t we? I’m probably lucky my other imagined life never came to pass.”
She laughs and pulls my arm closer. “You’ve done a lot of good, Locke. Your parents would be proud.”
I smile. “I didn’t exactly become the president or scientist they had hoped for.”
“Better,” she says.
Change came relatively fast by most people’s standards but never fast enough for me. Jenna was right, it was molded over time by people who refused to give up. I was one of those people. I pushed and pushed and realized I had become a member of the Resistance. A leader even. Raine and I together, along with Karden, Miesha, and Xavier. It wasn’t easy, but I guess things of worth rarely are.
Raine and I lived on the run for the most part, just about everywhere, even in the room under Jenna’s greenhouse for a while, but we didn’t have to wait ninety years for change the way Jenna did. The money helped our voices be heard, but it was still people who made the biggest difference. Each one made sacrifices, some contributing in large ways, others in small, everyone helping as much as they could, but all people who never lost sight of the goal.
Ian proved true to his character, and years after we had last seen him at a Collective meeting, he became part of a core Citizen group who helped push through legislation. He worked closely with Xavier and other key Non-pacts to draft the final wording of the bill.
Ten years from the time we began running, the country was reunified and the whole class of Non-pacts ceased to exist. After a lifetime of living on the fringes, Non-pacts were now Citizens like everyone else and could openly walk wherever they chose. Raine and I were both overcome with emotion the first time we saw Karden and Miesha walking hand in hand toward us through cheering crowds at Faneuil Hall for the official signing, two new people in so many ways.
A short time later that freedom was extended to all sentient beings like the one Dot had been. They were given basic rights, the circumstances of their existence no longer tied to their worth. We even dare to dream that those worlds could be ours one day. Escape is not about moving from one place to another but about becoming more. Life it seems is precious, no matter how you come by it. In appreciation for the work I’d done, they allowed me to name the bill that secured these rights, now known as the Dot Jefferson Act.
We never found Livvy. The Reformation and Reassignment camps were disbanded. She wasn’t in them. There were trials for crimes against humanity—LeGru was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment—but the Secretary escaped the trials, enough of the old system still in place to protect him. A pardon. He retired in disgrace, an old man on a government pension, absolved of his crimes by an outgoing president. My only consolation is that he’s utterly alone in a prison of his own making, still holed up in his rooftop fortress, knowing that the child he stole—his daughter—helped to topple his secret empire, and a lab beast like me was his final undoing.
Like Karden and Miesha, Xavier became a new person too, refocusing his energies on employment and decent housing for former Non-pacts. Because of him, the abandoned tenements on the south side of Boston have been cleaned up or bulldozed, and every man or woman willing to work is paid a fair legal wage. But there’s always more to do.
* * *
The world has changed. It’s gotten better. It’s gotten worse. After all these years, Jenna’s words still echo in my head, just as one problem is solved, a new one is created. The work never ends. If there’s one thing you can always count on in this world, it is change. I don’t fear it the way I used to. I try to be ready for it. One day, maybe, all the changes will be only for the good. I can dare to dream. I can always hope for more.
We turn the corner. The Commons is just ahead, but I watch Jenna’s strength ebbing, her steps slowing. I know that Allys’s death a few years ago was a blow to her. True to form, Allys had married again, this time to an adventure seeker. Allys said seven was her lucky number, but on one of their ocean adventures near the tip of South America they were both drowned at sea. At least we all knew she died doing what she loved and was with someone she loved when it happened. Jenna’s arm shakes in mine, and with a sudden wild desperation I’m ready to sweep her into my arms and run, save her, keep her, turn back a clock that always moves forward, but the unthinkable stops me. What if I outlived everyone that I love? Raine. My boys. I wouldn’t want it for myself. I can’t force it on her.
“Can you make it?” I ask.
She nods. “Remember when we used to come here when we were supposed to be in seminar?”
“Hiding behind the Washington Monument. How could I forget? This was the first place I was ever kissed. By you.”
She laughs. “But it certainly wasn’t the last.”
“No.” I smile, thinking of Raine, my first kisses with her not far from this spot. “Not the last by a long shot.”
“Even with all the hard times, we have a lot of good memories.”