THE NEXT DAY. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 9 AM MST. THURSDAY, JULY 17, 2025.
Arnie’s “interview
room” was a corner second-floor office space over a boarded-up
computer store in downtown Pueblo. He had furnished it with wool
and cotton blankets thrown over metal folding chairs, facing in a
semicircle toward an old writing desk, and a side table with
pitchers of water and some bread and cheese for
snacks.
He sat down at the
writing desk and opened his notepad, just as if he hadn’t been gone
for more than six weeks. “Well, it’s been a while since we’ve met
as a group. I’ve got some new questions; let’s see if they call up
any new answers.”
Jason Nemarec, his
wife Beth, and Izzy Underhill (who was actually Ysabel Roth, but
was still at some risk of being assassinated because of her
prominence on Daybreak day) were Arnie’s only “domesticated”
ex-Daybreakers—people who had been fully part of Daybreak and were
now reliably working for the RRC. The best estimate now was that on
October 28, 2024, at least sixty thousand Daybreakers had
participated in some act of sabotage within the United States;
perhaps a million sympathizers, posers, and dupes had been involved
peripherally during the year before.
Most Daybreakers were
now dead, like most of everyone else; most of the living ones were
in the tribes, but there must still be covert Daybreaker spies and
saboteurs, as well as ex-Daybreakers, afraid to expose themselves
to arrest or mob violence, hiding out the way Beth and Jason had
for months in the little town of Antonito, far from anyone who
might recognize them. It was a legitimate fear; every Daybreaker
captured in those first months, despite the pleas of Federal
intelligence and law enforcement, had been killed by mobs or
summarily executed by local authorities. Trying to protect captured
Daybreakers long enough to interrogate them simply got police and
soldiers killed with them; shortly, most officials began handing
Daybreakers over to mobs, or killing them themselves, as a matter
of personal safety.
Izzy was petite,
bony, and big-jawed, with long straight brown hair and deep sad
eyes. “I’m so sorry to hear about what happened down at Mota
Elliptica. It must have been terrible,” she said.
Arnie nodded,
thinking, Don’t cry. “We lost good
people. We did learn a lot about Daybreak.” He looked down at his
notes. “Everyone ready?”
They all
nodded.
“Then,” Arnie said,
“do you feel like you joined Daybreak after it already existed, or
do you feel like you helped create it?”
“Joined,” Beth said,
simultaneously with Jason’s “Helped create,” and they both
laughed.
“I’m not seeing the
joke,” Arnie said.
“We heard about it on
the same day from a guy named Terrel,” Beth said. “Ysabel was in a
long time before we were, so—”
Ysabel screamed and
fell from her chair, lying on the floor with her back arched and
arms flailing. They had all seen this before; whatever part of
Daybreak clung to individual minds, it still protected Daybreak.
They cleared the chairs away, and surrounded her with
pillows.
Beth said, “Well,
Arnie, you sure hit a button that time.”
Arnie said, “Yeah, I
guess so. How are you two doing?”
“Little bit of a
headache,” Jason said, “but that could be all the screaming and the
exercise.”
Beth nodded. “I’m
okay. I can feel Daybreak not liking me but . . . I don’t know,
maybe I just have more natural resistance. It was deep into Ysabel,
here. Real deep. So fuckin’ much more Daybreak in her than we got
in us, you know?”
“Keep telling me, I’m
learning.”
She shrugged. “We
used to kid around and call it Daydar, you know, like gaydar? One
Daybreaker tends to know another one real fast and easy, and know
how deep in they are and how long they’ve been. Some of those real
long-timers it’s like they’re all Daybreak, ain’t much of them
left, it’s like you’re talking to Daybreak direct without them
there at all.”
“And we used to laugh
at coustajam hippies,” Jason added. “People who liked the music,
the vegetables, the clothes, and some of the words, but didn’t have
a clue what it meant. You got so you knew the second you met
someone.”
“Can someone who
wasn’t a Daybreaker have Daydar?”
Beth looked
thoughtful for a moment. “Well, most straight people have some
gaydar, don’t they?”
Izzy sighed and
turned over on her side. Arnie made sure she was covered with a
blanket. “She’ll want to sleep it off, and sometimes the easiest
time to talk is right when she’s just coming out. I can sit here
and wait for her, if you both have things to do.”
“I think I better
stay,” Beth said. “She’s kind of . . . she gets scared when it’s
just you there when she wakes up. She told us. Don’t get your
feelings hurt or nothing, I’m just saying.”
Arnie nodded. “Okay.”
Not sure what else to say, he added, “I’m sorry I’m
scary.”
Beth shrugged. “Not
scary so much . . . just, it’s your job, Arnie, you got to push us,
hurt us even, to find out about Daybreak—maybe you’ll feel real bad
after, but you’ll hurt us.”
“I’m sorry,” he said,
uselessly, again.
“It’s okay,” Jason
said. “Better that it’s you; at least we can tell you don’t
like having to hurt us.”
Arnie nodded.
Wow. Daydar. And how Daybreak came into
existence or how people get infected is a third-rail question. More
stuff to try on Aaron. Get one definite thing out of him, and
Heather will be able to go straight to everyone for funds, people,
and time—they’ll all have to
listen.