"pret?" "en garde." "always." "good thrust." "so i'm told." "watch your supination." "i'd rather be watching yours." "prise de fer, passe andriposte." "god, i love it when you talk dirty." "touche. right through the heart." "you have no idea." "what'd you say?" "nothing." "had enough?" "i'm done." "stick a fork in me." "you know, on 2nd thought, you might take that literally." "you're improving." "you just need to work on your balestraandyourcoule'." "you know, you've got to admit, you're just making this shit up, right?" "my father taught us how to fence." "he wanted to make sure his girls could defend themselves." "oh, you got a sister?" "i didn't know that." "is she older, younger?" "younger." "oh." "where does she live?" "right on the edge." "edge of what?" "catastrophe, disaster, self-destruction... lauren and i, we're like polar opposites." "she's always been pretty wild." "the only time i ever hear from her is when she's in trouble." "something tells me you just heard from her." "we have this system for communicating." "she leaves word with a... a bar owner about 70 miles south." "anyone from the mountain going that way, i ask them to check in for messages." "day before yesterday... you got a message." "mmm-hmm." "first time in i don't know how long." "she sounded pretty desperate." "so are you gonna help her out?" "what am i gonna do?" "she's got nobody else." "you think i'm too soft." "it's ok. i like soft." "am i crazy, or have you wanted to do that as long as i have?" "you're crazy." "touche." "dear dad, it's been 15 years since the big death wiped out everyone over the age of innocence... the end of your world," "the beginning of mine." "you're both aware that our outreach program has gone into overdrive." "i'll say." "thunder mountain's, like, having a grand opening sale." "in recent days, we've made contact with at least 20 groups that we believe offer potentially important alliances for our future endeavors." "and i can assume those endeavors would not be shared with us today?" "need to know." "yeah, why would the guys who put their lives on the line for this place all the time need to know?" "the day is coming soon, jeremiah." "the day is coming soon." "isn't that what those crazy guys on the street corner used to say?" "and they were right." "mmm." "we want you to make contact with a group called shadow of the crescent." "have you heard of them?" "no, i haven't." "i have." "what do you know about them?" "only that they preach separation of the races." "oh, man, if it's another one of these white power groups... no, actually, it's black power." "that's right. it's, uh, kind of a throwback to the african-american activists that proliferated in the decades before the death." "and you want us to make an alliance with these guys?" "why?" "you have a problem with that?" "no, it's not my problem that's the issue here." "jeremiah's right." "from what i know about these brothers, they would be instantly suspicious." "we never said it was going to be easy." "no offense, but they might be more open to an approach if i go in alone." "you sure about that?" "yeah." "you ok with that?" "yeah, as long as you keep a low profile, and don't take any unnecessary risks." "well, damn. those are my favorite kind." "hey. you wanted to see me?" "yeah, marcus told me about this mission you're going on." "yeah?" "i want to go with you." "oh, no, elizabeth, i don't think that's a good idea." "why not?" "well, we have to take a.t.v.s, man." "and the roads are too narrow for anything else, and i really don't think you'd want to... i've rebuilt engines on a.t.v.s." "oh." "well, it might be dangerous." "all the more reason to have some backup." "look, elizabeth, it's not that i don't appreciate the offer... but you don't think i can handle it?" "look, if anything happened to you, i don't know what i would do." "i'll watch your behind, you watch mine." "ok, but i got the better end of the deal." "jeremiah?" "hey, um, about last night, let's just chalk that up to a crazy impulse." "and i probably overreacted." "listen, um, i wanted to ask you a favor." "it's about my sister." "the situation she's in, it's not something i feel comfortable handling alone." "sure. whatever i... i can do, i'd be happy to." "thanks for understanding." "you... you, too." "lauren's got a history of bad choices and high-risk behavior." "you mean drugs?" "when she can get them." "but it's men that are usually her undoing." "she's hooked up with this new romeo, and from what i can make out from her message, he's been seriously abusive." "first, i want to make sure we can get my little sister as far away from him as possible, and then she's gonna hear some things she's not gonna want to hear." "how much younger than you did you say she was?" "i didn't." "but it's about 10 minutes." "wow. you're twins?" "identical." "hey." "i, uh, brought some dried apricots for dessert." "want some?" "sure." "you are so delicate." "what?" "the way you eat, the way you move, those little glass animals you collect, everything about you." "not as fragile as you think." "well, i didn't mean it in a bad way." "you know a lot more about where i came from than i do about your story." "not much to tell." "middle-class neighborhood in los angeles, an only child." "i guess you could say i was a daddy's girl." "there's nothing my father wouldn't have done for me, except survive, i guess." "and after they were gone?" "cried myself to sleep every night for the longest time, and then one night, i just stopped crying." "i'm a lot tougher than you know." "i can see that." "anyway, we've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow." "better get some sleep." "you know, we, uh, might be a lot warmer if we shared the same sleeping bag." "kurdy, you know i care about you... no, really." "i just want to keep you warm." "that's sweet." "thank you." "good night, kurdy." "i really appreciate your help on this, jeremiah." "oh... i'm just having trouble picturing another one of you." "i haven't spent much time with lauren, really, not since we were teenagers." "yeah?" "your choice or hers?" "mmm, i'd say it was mutual." "she did something once when we were 16 that i haven't been able to forgive her for." "let me guess." "you were both in love with the same guy." "no." "it... it may seem petty, but there was something our mother left us both before the virus claimed her." "it was her collection of antique jewelry." "your sister took it." "not just took it. she bartered it away almost immediately." "i'm pretty sure it was for drugs." "she didn't even have the decency to offer up an explanation." "i can see why that would get to you." "it's not even that they were all that valuable, either, especially after the death." "it's just... it was all you had left... of your mother." "exactly." "as far as i was concerned, she had no right to trade away her own part, much less mine." "you've got to figure, it must have been pretty hard, surviving by herself, a girl." "you of all people should know how hard that would be." "i don't know what it is, jeremiah." "maybe it's the fact that seeing lauren is so much like looking in a mirror, but every time she trips, i get bruised." "you're lucky." "you still have a sibling." "nothing i wouldn't give to have my little brother back, just roll around in the dirt one more time." "shadow of the crescent." "these guys have got about 100 acres right at the edge of those woods." "picked a pretty remote spot, didn't they?" "i think that's the point, to separate themselves, to be as self-sufficient as possible." "from what i hear, man, they've created their own world out here, kind of like thunder mountain, but only aboveground." "hold it right there." "whoa. take it easy, fellows." "we're friends." "you're trespassing." "well, we heard the s.o.c. was around these parts." "nobody gets in without an invitation." "so how about inviting us?" "consider yourself invited." "erin!" "oh, my god, it's so good to see you!" "same here." "wow." "you didn't say you were gonna bring anyone." "lauren, this is my friend, jeremiah." "jeremiah, lauren." "hi, hi." "huh." "i'll say this, sis, you always did have good taste in men." "it's not like that. jeremiah and i just work together." "whatever floats your boat." "come on. there's so much i want to catch you up on." "what in the hell is this place?" "used to be a shopping mall, before the big." "now, it's part marketplace, part hostel." "huh. yeah, well, i get the "hostile" part." "what the fuck is he looking at?" "oh, don't mind him." "remember those ads, when we were kids, with the frying pan?" ""this is your brain on drugs."" "his has been sauteing for about 15 years." "can i buy you some home brew?" "no, thanks." "sure." "2 beers. put 'em on my tab." "i don't mean to be rude, lauren, but your message sounded pretty urgent." "yeah, well... something about havin' a gun shoved in your mouth will do that to you." "who is this guy?" "calls himself geronimo, but i've got a shorter name for him." "and you split from him, right?" "took off in the middle of the night." "what are the odds he'll try to come find you?" "i made sure i covered my tracks." "well, i'm not taking any chances." "finish your beers." "what's your hurry, erin?" "what's the hurry?" "if you know this place well enough to run a tab at the bar, then my guess, so does this loser you shacked up with." "we can't leave till tomorrow morning." "what happens then?" "i got a girlfriend meeting me." "i told her you'd give us both a lift to boulder." "she knows someone with a farm at the foot of the flat hills." "he'll never find me there." "i don't like it." "first, you ask me to help you get away from this guy, and then you spring this friend on me." "can you just trust me on this?" "i mean, for goddamn once, can you just trust me?" "unlike you, i have this problem, i learn from my mistakes." "man, i knew this was a bad idea." "tell you what, your friend shows up in the morning, and then we're out of here, all right?" "that's it." "unless, of course, you mind traveling with 3 women." "i think i can handle it." "no doubt." "i am called kwame." "and you?" "i am kurdy, and this is elizabeth." "those are your slave names." "well, they happen to be the only names we have." "what's the nature of your business here?" "we come in peace." "we'll be the judge of that." "we represent an organization that's trying to build a broad coalition." "what organization?" "i'm not at liberty to give you the name just yet, but let me say, it represents the best hope any of us have." "man, we're talkin' a whole new way." "that presumes we're unhappy with the ways we've got." "no, not at all." "i mean, from what i hear, you got a lot of good things going on here." "i mean, this could be heaven on earth." "it's just that you're doing it alone." "by choice." "forgive me, kwame, but we don't owe these two any explanations." "they've broken our rules, and there have to be consequences." "pardon the vigilance of brother raheem." "he's very protective of our life here." "for good reason." "we let down our guard, we could wind up on the scrap heap, like so many others of our race." "if i may ask, this organization whose name you're unwilling to disclose to us," "who comprises it?" "all peoples, black, white, yellow, red... that is what you're asking, isn't it?" "you want to know if we stand together?" "you don't even see the irony, do you?" "no. what exactly is the irony?" "what my good friend raheem means is that we draw our strength from unity." "well, then we're on the very same page, kwame." "except that what we mean by unity is standing shoulder to shoulder with brothers and sisters of color." "is that a problem for you?" "no, it's not a problem at all." "we're just suggesting that you may want to consider expanding your horizons a little." "we don't need outsiders to tell us how to live our lives." "i'm sorry, kurdy, but we've never gone wrong erring on the side of caution." "go back and tell your leaders, we respectfully decline their invitation." "but you haven't even... the matter is settled." "we don't know what their agenda really is." "we turn them loose without them being fully interrogated, it could come back to haunt us." "perhaps you're right." "for the moment, i ask that you stay." "don't you think you've had enough?" "enough?" "don't think i know that word." "give me a hint." "i've had enough." "i'm gonna turn in." "you guys, uh, seem like you got a lot to talk about." "come on. don't be such a stick-in-the-mud." "the party's just beginning." "why don't you just tell me how it turns out?" "good night, jeremiah." "so, you're saying that he's not taken, is that right?" "you can't keep doing this." "here we go." "you can't keep going on making messes, expecting other people to clean up after you." "but you're such a good little housekeeper, erin." "you were always mama's little helper." "don't you dare bring up mom with me." "oh, honey, relax." "you'll get creases." "'sides, you're not on your turf anymore, you're on mine." "and in case you forgot, mom's dead." "i'm sorry. i... i didn't... hey, no problem." "maybe you're not so perfect after all." "why is it that all the men you gravitate to are all such assholes?" "i like your friend, jeremiah." "is he an asshole?" "you know what i think it is?" "no, sister, dear, but i have a funny feeling i'm gonna hear it." "you choose men who hurt you because that's what you think you deserve." "that is such bullshit." "you don't value yourself, so why not hook up with some guy who's got the same opinion?" "are you done yet?" "not quite." "you took something from me that you had no right to take." "if it was your sense of humor, you clearly had no use for it." "you know exactly what i'm talking about." "excuse me, but this little incident happened along the way, the whole goddamn world collapsed like a house of cards, but maybe that was just my nightmare." "ok, so you... you can make all these demands of me, push me around, but if i push back, you go ballistic." "honey, there's nothin' you can do to me that hasn't been done a hundred times, so climb off that high horse." "it doesn't become you." "this is damn good." "what do you call it?" "it's called  muamba nsusu, a traditional african stew from the congo." "muamba nsusu, all right." "i'd be willing to wager there's a lot about your cultural heritage that you don't know." "yeah, well, that's a wager you would probably win, my man." "it's not your fault." "even after the big death, too many of the old prejudices prevailed." "well, i've done my share of reading about the struggle before the death." "unfortunately, a lot of those histories were skewed." "well, i'm talking james baldwin, malcolm x, dr. martin luther king... king had a time and a place, but his teachings did not endure the way real revolutionaries' did." "so are you suggesting dr. king wasn't a real revolutionary?" "i just say that he tried to be all things to all people." "so if martin luther king doesn't pass your litmus test for moral courage, who on god's green earth does?" "i don't expect you to understand." "what is your problem, raheem?" "you're forcing me to say something that you might find ugly." "well, get it out, 'cause you're saying it in innuendo anyway." "all right." "what you are is the very symbol of what damn near racial mixing." "now, you wait a goddamn minute." "i don't know what books you've read, but the movement was about equality, and even the most real revolutionary did not exclude black men and women because they were of mixed heritage." "you know what you're about?" "you're about fear, about hate, and about finding a scapegoat." "life is not black or white, raheem." "the real work comes in taking the time to judge people by what's in their hearts." "you don't see their hearts." "you see their faces." "you're proud of being black." "that's great. so am i." "i'm also proud of being me." "did i wake you?" "what do you want?" "honey, if i have to answer that question, you've got more problems than i do." "it's not like you're gonna get anywhere with the ice queen." "what are you afraid of, jeremiah?" "hmm?" "mind if i join you?" "it's your home." "brother raheem, he, uh, speaks from the heart." "i'm sorry if he caused your friend pain." "you know what's ironic?" "i was going to come here with my partner." "this is a cat i would trust with my life." "and i told him he should stay behind, because i knew he would get a chilly reception here, so i brought elizabeth instead." "this movement, it's not about hate." "exactly the opposite, it's about love, self-love, kurdy." "the pride of a people who have been held down so long, they've forgotten how strong they really are." "now, my parents worked damn hard to teach me about where i came from, and to make sure i understood the sacrifices our people made along the way." "and then the death happened, and you forgot, but we can teach you... no, no, no, that's where you're wrong, kwame." "i did not forget." "i can never forget." "but when that disease hit, when it passed over every house like one of pharaoh's plagues, it did not stop to check to see who was black or white or in-between." "the big death was an equal-opportunity assassin." "that's all the more reason for black kids to have stuck together, 'cause that was our one shot at unity." "no, man, i saw unity." "i saw children reaching out to other children, and it didn't matter who you were." "i saw more acts of kindness on those streets between kids who were simply trying to survive than i've seen in a month of sundays at church." "about a year after the big death, i got sick." "now, i was real sick. i had some kind of parasite." "i'm... i'm wasting away in the basement of a church somewhere." "and this little girl, who was barely older than me, i remember she walked with a limp, but she found me." "she brought me food and whatever medication she could scrounge up, and every morning and every night, she took care of me, until i had the strength to fight back." "you know what this little gimpy girl said to me?" "i was the first black friend she ever had." "it's a very touching story, kurdy, but i find it difficult to believe that you didn't see the hate." "you didn't feel the prejudice?" "yeah, i felt it." "and you know what i learned?" "mmm?" "good and evil come in all colors." "listen, this organization i represent is looking for decency wherever it's hiding." "we want to build upon it." "we want it to flourish." "we've worked too hard, kurdy, too hard at surviving to risk it all on one more white man's promise." "do i look like a white man to you?" "it's dark out here." "i can't tell." "there you are." "you are in deep shit." "you know that." "i want what's mine, geronimo." "oh, you're going to get what's yours." "believe me." "i'm not going back with you, so don't waste your threats." "it's over, ok?" "i'm not doin' this anymore." "no, you are gonna do what i tell you to do." "just give me my stuff." "i know you've got it." "come on." "what's with the clothes?" "you gotta be shittin' me." "you are so asking' for it." "where the hell did you learn to do that?" "fuck!" "there's two of you." "bring it on." "that's enough." "leave me the hell alone, all right?" "you heard the lady." "she ain't interested." "and who the fuck are you?" "somebody that doesn't like bullies, especially those who victimize women." "how about i victimize you instead?" "how about you just walk away?" "oh, that's nice, hiding behind a woman's skirt. sweet." "i got it." "come on, asshole." "so, think you're a big man?" "it makes you big, beating up on women, huh?" "oh, shit." "hey, you all right?" "i didn't mean to..." "it's all right." "he got what he deserved." "let's get the hell outta here." "what are we gonna tell marcus?" "that you can't always pry open a closed mind." "for what it's worth, i've taken notes on everything, so marcus can do with it what he will." "it might have been different if i hadn't come with you." "no, it's bullshit." "all it did was convince me that these guys are not worth bringing into the fold." "look, you can put your hardware away, fellas." "we're just leavin'." "after you scoped out everything there is to know about this place?" "i don't think so." "i think i know a spy when i see one." "what the hell do you want from us?" "you should never have come here, but now that you have, you leave me no choice." "let's go." "you knew perfectly well that he'd come after you." "that story about your girlfriend was a lie." "i had to get something from him." "i didn't think you'd understand." "i guess you never considered the truth as an option." "the people with the farm i told you about, that was the truth." "it's not far from here." "i can walk it." "lauren... there's no reason to hide anymore." "you sure you wouldn't rather come back with us?" "i'm not really the settle down type." "that's why it might be good for you." "i have a natural aversion to what's good for me." "so i've noticed." "guess i won't be needing this." "if this is what i think it is, believe me, you're doing the right thing." "any opportunity for a lecture, sis, hey?" "you really oughta loosen up." "maybe this'll help." "take care of that girl, all right?" "she takes care of herself." "she does pretty good." "so what'd she give you?" "i think she decided to give up the drugs." "you sure?" "oh, my god." "i don't believe this." "it's my mother's jewelry." "all of it." "there's not a piece missing." "she never traded it." "raheem!" "whatever it is, it'll have to wait." "what do you think you're doing?" "protecting the enclave from those who would destroy it." "there's nothing about our group they don't know about with this report." "all an enemy needs to bring us to our knees." "oh, come on, kwame." "you know why we're here." "raheem, when were you going to share your intentions with me?" "you've grown soft, kwame." "someone had to have the courage to stand up and fight for what's right." "stand down." "now." "we resort to violence without cause, and we only show our weakness." "put away your gun, raheem." "so after everything we've worked for, we go back to blind faith?" "guilty until proven innocent, is that what you would have us espouse?" "when it comes to the security of our people, we cannot afford to miscalculate." "like it or not, raheem, there's a world beyond these walls." "a world that would crush our bodies and our souls." "now, either we act out of love, or fear." "in the end, those are the only 2 choices." "and i simply won't be ruled by fear." "what about our families?" "your family, my family?" "i see no harm in learning more about the group that brought these people here." "if they can help us, fine. if not, i'll make that clear." "if you don't want to be part of that conversation, so be it." "silence is pretty deafening." "i know that you know what happened last night." "i do?" "your sister came on to me." "i... i crumbled." "phew!" "what's a man to do?" "i never said i was a saint." "no, you're definitely not that." "and trust me, she's no saint." "what did she do?" "blow in your ear?" "is that what she told you?" "honey, if i have to answer that question, you've got more problems than i do." "hey, wait a minute." "are... are you saying th... that you... in... in... in... did we, uh... you'll never know for sure, now, will you?" "remember when we first met, and i promised you a glass cat?" "where did you get this?" "shadow of the crescent." "it's from swaziland." "kwame gave it to me." "i promise i won't fall asleep this time."