what happens when we get to the safe house

it's George Washington, the guerrillas leader, 6"10 and wielding anti matter teeth that glow in the dark through his lips.

the prophet didn't look away from the rain.

what happens when we get to Canada

silence

you didn't see William Shakespeare getting it by that snake

neither did you

I'm not a ducking prophet

neither am I, the Prophet said.

why do they want you in Cleveland.

Cincinnati

why do they want you in Cincinnati

Money, probably. that's what your bosses want with me, don't they? to ransome me off.

I don't know what they're going to do with you.

your don't know what you know.

ain't that the fucking truth.

will the rain stop by nightfall?

no.

so did you see that?

they read the weather report on the radio.

I can't stand the radio. I don't like people talking to me where I can't see them, where they're somewhere else. if you're going to say sometime to me, say it to my face.

it's why you don't read books.

George Washington grunted.

it's why you don't trust God.

God is Dead.

true.

and we have killed him

true. so you're wise not trust him.

what's going to happen when we get to Canada.

William Shakespeare will discover that someone outside of the unit has sold you out.

who?

who godfukingdamnit?!

the soldier swung away and smashed through the guardrail with his pneumatic arm, making a sound like a bullet. Thomas Jefferson and Ghenghis Khan lept to their feet.

the rain continued to poor.

you will abandon the documents by attempting to abandon me, or abandon me by attempting to abandon the documents. you must choose, and then you must do the opposite. if you do the opposite you must believe in me. if you believe in me you will choose to abandon the documents and will abandon me instead.

how much of this wouldn't happen if you didn't tell us about it. that's not how prophecy is supposed to work.

how is prophecy supposed to work?

George Washington picked out a spear of wood lodged in his mechanical forearm and tossed it into the forest.

...

that night they broke camp an hour and a half after dark. an omnipresent atmosphere of lethargy and despair feel upon them in the afternoon, and by the time they began to fold up their maps and tarps and origami backpacks it seemed everything was going wrong, every menial mistake in the order of operations was coming undone, and the lilting rain always seemed to just be tappering off towards a dry pocket when the thunder would Redouble and bullet winds or hail or omniscient spray from the still distant sea would fall upon them. the prophet had been trusted to climb up the rope ladder but this time George Washington carried him down on his back for the surface of the ladder was treacherous.

Leonardo Divinci was the last to leave the watchtower. using all the cooking fuel left in the base by its rangers he tried to set it buying but every cubic inch of wood was soaked and his efforts ended in oily hands and half way down the ladder he fell cartwheeling head over heels and landed on the ground with a stckly protracted crack, his eyes starting into space still fluid and revolving past the hands and faces and branches and trees and pelting clouds and tilting stars. William Shakespeare began to sob incognito and the Prophet sighed and stepped forward and put his hand on the gurrilla's back.

in the same instant the Prophet collapsed into the mud and Leonardo Divinci shuddered electric and bolted up, his arms grasping at branches and rungs spinning dishonestly out of sight. his back never stopped making crunching, crackling noise, and many vertebrae had been fused strictly limiting his range of motion like a mechanic prototype never meant for field maneuvers. at night he said he has no pain other than the callusses in his feet and the headache just inside his sinuses, but when they slept they all heard him scream in the middle of the night and then stop breathing for 10 seconds or a minute or ten minutes , and then shudder back to life and rest until another scream wracked the night perhaps 6 or 8 minutes later. Leonardo did not recall these episodes in the morning but agreed to sleep with a muzzle for security. the prophet set his hand to the soldiers back many times over the following days, tried different techniques, affects, gestures and prayers, but nothing could alter the fact that Leonardo's spine was coming undone and remaining muscular-skeletal system had to be conscripted into the role of allowing him to stand and walk. large zones of his body had gone completely numb to his senses, and if he closed his eyes for even a moment his entire sense of balance vanished.

What can they do for him in the hospitals? what use could doctors be to something like that?

they could study him. the body keeps it's secrets well until it has cause to reveal them. even then, they may be evident enigma. The Prophet said he did not know if the miracle would wear off without his ministrations or if he'd done all he could and could do no more to extend Leonardo's state by one day, by one hour, beyond what he'd already given him.

perhaps he could hike to a highway and then hitchhike to an emergency room. maybe he'd die if he went more than a hundred feet from me. I can send my miracle on him but that's all I know.

Leonardo began to move with a distasteful grace, swinging his arms like a chimp, backflipping off fallen logs with 30 foot diameters whose rings bore treatment to the lifetimes of Moses and Menthusulus. he let his pelvis and shoulders and face orientate themselves on entirely distinct planes. his speech, his syntax, began to mirror the contortions of his body.

axis mundi, the prophet muttered, and that night instead of screams they were woken every 10 to 20 minutes by passionate, totalizing, terrifying laughter.

the safehouse is a day ahead if we maintain a continuous march, George Washington said. if we're going to be intercepted, now is when they'd do it, as we come out of the forest into the suburbs. we should split up, alone or in twos and threes, no more. Leonardo and I will stay with the profit. we'll be less likely to draw attention that way then all as a group. we'// stay insight of each other, a spread out ring.

it was half an hour, 45 minutes or more for a few of them, before they realized they had emerged through the wrong valley and were a good hundred miles off course, their longterm batteries finally beginning to die, unable to connect to the internet and risk detection and instead scouring the map for numbers service roads and blandly named culs de sac and developments. they regrouped around a pale blue street lamp and cross consulted their maps. eventually they determined that they were in the opposite of a paper town, one that showed up on land but not on the map, probably because it was so newly constructed, but based on very vague impressions of the landmass and a single sighting of the coast from a ridge many hours back they determined they probably needed to head North.

it was the best plan they had, but the Prophet and Leonardo would draw more attention than the average hiker or drifter. one woman with curlers in her hair and a trio of dashounds in her passenger seat pulled her bug to the side of the road and rolled down her window less then a centimeter

you gentlemen need a lift she asked, not making an effort to speak over the desperate yaping of her canines.

George Washington glanced at Leonardo. he shrugged, a truly disturbing sight. George Washington glanced at the Profit. he'd been walking for more than six miles now and would soon need to be carried. he wore his puncho pulled back, rain running through his long hair and over his eyes. he shivered minutely but rapidly, practically vibrating

can you fit all 3 of us?

oh that's fine, the woman answered, and she began to scream and gesture at her dogs to get in the back seat. in the end they ran constantly all over the bodies of Leonardo Divinci and George Washington and the Prophet, screaming at them in their high voices and ticklinr them with the dry cracked clay claws.

what are their names?

Hewey Dewey and Louise. and what are your names.

the soldiers looked at each other.

I'm George Washington, said George Washington.

and I'm Leonardo Divinci, said Leonardo Divinci.

the Prophet said nothing.

I'm Gloria. my husband drake bought this car for me to pick up the groceries in the next town over because there are better prices and because the folks here are rotten dirty liars who overcharge you for the produce. Drake's dead now these last 30 years but the car still works great so I suppose it was worth it in the end.

they did not inquire into her axiological arithmatic.

where are you headed?

they told her the town of the safehouse.

but that's 50 miles south of here.

they admitted sheepishly they were trying to find directions.

well if you don't mind me putting my grocceries away first I can drive you to the bus stop.

they admitted they had no money for the toll.

well then I'll drive you to the town, she said. George Washington and Leonardo glanced at each other. should they abandon the other 10?