[b]“‒is [i]here[/i].”[/b]

[b]“..[i]Who[/i]?”[/b]

	Sussurrous conversations behind closed doors was no novelty to Josiah, especially in the cesspool of Sierra-Armstrong. Even now, as the clerk recorded stock quantity of pharmaceuticals, foods, beverages and nonessentials on a clipboard with a languor alien to him, Josiah’s attention was garnered not by the fact that muffled voices could be heard less than ten feet away from him in the supervisor’s office, but the startlement which came from them.

	The clipboard in Hewitt’s hand was idly discarded on a box of syringes as he gingerly approached the office door. The voices, raspy with emotion and forced quietness, grew more clear as Josiah approached on raised heels. Cautiously leaning his ear against the cool face of the door, the voice of Hewitt’s supervisor, Lee Graham, hissed angrily at his unknown guest.

	[b]“Why the everliving [i]fuck[/i] are you telling me this? Do you think me knowing will keep my ass safe, José? ‘Cause if anything I’ll be killed for knowing that [i]they[/i] allowed a [i]deserter[/i] back in!”[/b] Graham’s quieted exclamations rose and fell as he enunciated how screwed he believed himself to be.

	[b]“Relax, bud, everyone’s gonna know soon. Can’t run a county if you don’t have people.”[/b] Josiah felt a debauched, ghostly hand on the nape of his neck. José Ruiz was a courier and, befittingly, a notorious gossip who hit on Josiah on more than one occasion (which he always tentatively turned down) before he had enough sense of self-possession to tell José to drift.

	[b]“The kid came without his father, too. No sign of the old man,”[/b] again came the whispers of Ruiz, and Josiah barely managed to stifle a gasp. No name had been said or heard, but, as he backed away from the door in dry disbelief, Josiah knew Damian had returned.

	Returned from [i]out there[/i]; Hewitt always introspectively referred to what was beyond Sierra-Armstrong as the outlands. He did not think that the outlands offered any solace aside from death.

	The one, sole image that remained burned onto Josiah’s mind for the remainder of his shift was that of his father.



	[i]Are you alive, dad? Could you be?[/i] Josiah wondered dreamily.

	[i]Please...please be alive.[/i]