The Falling Away by Hines

pressure.
    Quinn grabbed the phone and flipped it open. “Yeah.”
    â€œQuinn. How are you?”
    When Andrew talked, Quinn always had the impression he was the only person in on some kind of joke; it was as if Andrew were always on the verge of laughing, even when he was trying to be serious. Wind blew into the mouthpiece of Andrew’s phone, creating harsh bursts of static. Obviously, he was outside.
    â€œWhat do you have, Andrew?”
    Information, obviously; that’s what Andrew’s calls were always about.
    â€œRight to the chase, Quinn. That’s what I like about you. No great-weather-we’re-having, just right into what-do-you-have.”
    Quinn hadn’t looked outside recently, but it had been snowing at last check. “We’re not having great weather.”
    Andrew’s laugh sparkled on the line. Come to think of it, Andrew wasn’t just on the verge of laughing all the time; he really did laugh all the time. Part of what made Andrew so interesting. Not trustworthy, of course, but interesting. Which made him a good source of information—Andrew always had an ear to the ground.
    â€œYou remember we talked about a mutual acquaintance,” Andrew said. “Dylan Runs Ahead.”
    Quinn sat up straight. “I remember.” Actually, Quinn had about a dozen people across the state keeping tabs on Dylan Runs Ahead. The only chosen in Montana right now, and the first one Quinn had been asked to monitor. So far, HIVE didn’t know who he was—even Dylan didn’t know who he was—but he was becoming more mobile now. That brought in so many variables Quinn couldn’t control.
    â€œTold you I’d call if I heard from him,” Andrew said.
    â€œAnd you did.”
    â€œHe left just now.”
    â€œGreat Falls?”
    â€œHarlem. I’m over on the rez.”
    Quinn had made the right call, tracking Greg to Great Falls and neutralizing him. But the timing was poor, because it had kept Quinn from tracking Dylan on his drug run, making sure he made it back to Billings without causing a ripple.
    The fact that Andrew was calling meant there was a ripple now. Maybe even a wave.
    â€œTell me about it.”
    â€œHe called me out of the blue. Needed a bit of help. That’s what I am, you know: a statewide help desk.”
    She could hear his smile through the phone line. “What kind of help?”
    â€œShowed up with a white guy. Needed some . . . medical assistance.”
    â€œMedical assistance for what?”
    â€œA gunshot wound.”
    Alarms went off inside her head. “He got shot?”
    â€œNo, no, not Dylan. His buddy.”
    Webb, the guy who had made the drug run with Dylan. This wasn’t good; it meant Dylan and Webb would be on the run.
    And often, people who ran ended up running into traps.
    For several months Dylan had stayed quiet, confined to his home on the south side of Billings, popping his pills and sinking into oblivion.
    Which had been simultaneously easy and aggravating. Easy because a man who never went anywhere, never did anything, was simple to keep out of trouble. Aggravating because knowing he was chosen made her impatient. So many times she had wanted to burst into his home, shake him, and tell him that he needed to make things happen, that being a chosen meant he was destined for big things.
    But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t activate a chosen; only God could. People inside the Falling Away had tried to enlist the chosen to their cause, and instead only caused their ruin. Sometimes the chosen were overrun by the disease before they could accept what they were. Sometimes they simply disappeared, unable to grasp what it all meant. Sometimes the chosen had killed themselves, seeking escape once they realized the full magnitude of what they represented.
    Now Dylan was on the move. The drugs had gone from help to hindrance. A local dealer, guy by the name of Krunk, had sent Dylan