Adrift Homeless 1x01 "Nothing in the Deep Desert"

CHAPTER ONE
“Nothing in the Deep Desert”
Released on http://www.patreon.com/99geek January 2017

“Once we’re inside,” Ed Gilber said to John, chewing on the end of a cigar between his teeth. “Ye’d best keep yer mouth shut. Just let me do all the talkin’.” He finally quit playing with his smoke, and bit the end off, spitting it into the sandy street of Hymalious City as the two military men made their way through the crowds towards Prime Central Station.

“Yes sir,” John responded to his superior officer, dodging an old lady selling reused water.

The lady tried to cut him off, shaking the jar of yellow water in his face. “You want shome re-eewshed wa’er, dear? Be’n  properwy fiwtered. Aye Pwomish.”

“No thanks,” he said, catching up with his superior officer effortlessly. Gilber was moving at a brisk pace, but John had no problem matching his speed even skirting through the crowds. He could still remember mornings on the base, jogging with the then Colonel Gilber before anyone else was even up. At least it had started originally as a morning exercise, what it became near the end was more like a competitive race.

And then some of the other officers started placing bets.

The two men had always been in a league above everyone else. Ed Gilber seemed to have used every bit of his advantage to get as high in the military as he could rise. John, well he got a lot just from having a mentor / protégé relationship with Gilber, but he also put a lot of work into not alienating his peers. He wanted the men and women under him to think of him as equal to them. Gilber however didn’t care much what anyone thought.

The two men stood out on the street almost as much as they had on the base. Both adorned in their black dress uniforms, they were wearing the only dark colors in the crowd. The sun got pretty strong during the day, and most people with a choice chose to wear reflecting colors. Mainly beige. Frankly any other color just eventually became beige if you stood out in the howling sandy winds long enough.

Gilber lit his cigar, and puffed at it all without slowing down, and they started up the busy staircase that led to the entrance of Prime Central Station. Prime Central was a large pyramid shaped structure in the very center of Hymalious city. It acted as the city hall, their parliament building, housed the Prime Council Chambers,  and the public areas acted like a transit hub to ride the space elevator to the orbiting station at the other end of the large seemingly impossibly long cable that extended from the tip of the pyramid to beyond the clouds.

John had never been inside the Prime Council Chambers before, but then again there had never been an attack on project Rebirth before. Gilber passed right by the long lines outside the main entranceway, and they instead entered through the executive doors. John gave one last look at the towering pyramid above him, the sun blazing with heat on his face, and then he passed through the thick metal doors to inside.

The lobby floors consisted of black tile, and reflected the bright lights above in such a way that John figured they must have just been waxed. On Rommeria sand tended to get everywhere, but the executive wing of Prime Central looked as pristine as the decks of the space station in orbit. John supposed money really could buy anything.

“Uh sir,” a receptionist said from the front desk in what sounded like mild panic. “You can’t smoke in here. SIR!”

She was about to get out of her seat but General Gilber flipped her the bird. “Shove it up yer ass,” he said to her roughly, ashing his cigar on her desk and putting it back in his mouth.

Her jaw dropped in horror, and she was so stunned that she dropped back into her seat. “He didn’t mean that,” John assured the young woman. “I am so sorry. I’ll get him to put it out.”

“You are gonna put that out right?” John asked Gilber as he caught up to his superior officer at the door of the Prime Council Chambers.

“Ye wouldn’t believe me,” Gilber told his protégé, “if I read you the list of terms I convinced them to agree to ta make me captain a the Rebirth project.”

“Like smoking in the Prime Council Chambers?”

Gilber nodded his head. “Specifically.” To accentuate his point he took a big deep inhale. “They practically got on their hands and knees and begged.”

“And you didn’t have to give them anything in return?” John asked the general.

Gilber, about to open the doors, stopped for a moment to consider. “Mmm, one thing.” He said raising his finger. Before John could ask him what that one thing was, he opened the door and the two of them stepped into the huge Prime Council Chambers. The roof was three stories up and, if it were a theatre, where the stage would have been there were tall podiums that extended high above the second story. There were also benches around, all leaving a large empty circle in the middle where the council could address people and all the work would be done.

Gilber didn’t immediately make for the well lit center of the circle, instead holding back in the darkness of the audience as the council waged their war of politics. John had never given much time or patience to politics and he could tell by the way Gilber pulled on his cigar that neither did the general.

A security guard approached them, flashing them with a dim light. “Sir, the chambers are in session.” Gilber flashed the man his credentials, and the guard nodded to them, leaving them alone.

An old man sitting at one of the podiums was the one talking. Well it was more like he was yelling. “It might not be an issue for Hymalious city up north, but the southern provinces are being flooded with refugees.” John wasn’t sure, but believed the man was the council delegate from the richest city on Rommeria, New Baijon. “I’d sooner give our food to the poor in the street outside this pyramid than to Blazkor terrorists.”

Another councilman, a large man with dark black skin, was the next to speak. His voice was deep. “My nation was promised, upon joining this council, that there would be an end to the barbaric and cruel practices of the past.”

At the center podium, the tallest of all the podiums, sat an old woman with long gray hair and a weary weathered look on her face. John knew her name. That was Councillor Maggie May, chairwoman of the Prime Council and arguably the leader of all Rommeria. 

“You were promised an equal say, Councillor Mombatta,” she addressed the man who last spoke, “and a forum within which to voice your opinions. But that is all.”

“Well then I’d like to voice them,” Councillor Mombatta said, a man John was already starting to like.  “Corrta Angail was one of the last nations to submit peacefully to this joining of provinces, and we did so in the hope it would be the end of war.”

Mombatta leaned in closer to his mic, his voice booming out across the auditorium. “War can never be won because war is an assault on people. And people aren’t our enemy. Our enemy is an idea. And the only weapon we have to fight that enemy is kindness.”

Councillor May seemed to be leaning her chin on her elbow in such a way that implied that she was quite bored. Or just exhausted. “Would it suit Councilman Jameson and the people of New Baijon that he represents if Hymalious City provided all the food needed to support your refugees. You would just need to set them up with living arrangements.”

The first man to speak, old and pasty white, crossed his arms in a huff. “I find that to be considerably more reasonable,” he told the council. “We simply feel in New Baijon like we’re always expected to sacrifice more than everyone else.”

“No one is expecting you to sacrifice anything more than the rest of us, you big cry baby,” yelled someone from a different podium.

There was a muttering of agreement throughout the council and May slammed a gavel on her podium. “Calm down. Look the situation is settled. We can move on to our next issue.”

“The situation is not settled,” yelled the last person to speak up. He was younger than everyone else who had spoke up so far. “What about the terrorist attacks on the project? I have sources telling me we suffered very real losses, and yet you want US to help THEIR people?”

This was when Gilber finally stepped forward, John making sure to keep just behind him. “Yeh, our losses were real.” Gilber didn’t need a microphone, as he raised his gruff voice loud enough for all to hear. “About three pilots in total,” he continued. “Our estimates to their losses on the other hand are far more devastating. Coulda been eighty percent of their survivin’ fleet.”

He was standing in the middle of the auditorium now with every eye on him. Councillor May leaned forward in her seat, quick to introduce him. “The council recognizes Councilmember Edward Gilber.”

“That’s nice o’ yeh,” he said.

“Is he smoking in the Prime Council chambers?” Councillor Jameson asked in horror. Councillor May just sighed and shook her head. It had obviously come up before.

“For the love of the Moonstar,” May said, “please don’t start that again.” She rubbed what seemed to be sleep from her eye. “Give your report, if you would. General Gilber.”

“It was precisely seven hours ago,” Gilber said to the council, “that project ops clocked in unidentified bogies risin’ from the atmosphere. Cameras on the orbiting station got these shots of the ships as they passed approximately two minutes later.”

There was a small podium at ground level, and Gilber plugged a data dongle into a slot in the side, bringing an image up on a hologram projector in the center of the room. He also ashed his cigar on the ground and, almost without missing a beat, a small round vacuum bot rolled out from a hidden corner to suck it all up.

These were all technologies John had seen getting implemented in their space project. Both the holographic projector and the cleaning bots. He had just been naïve enough to think all the tech had been one of a kind, built specifically for the project. Instead it seemed these chambers had been like project testing grounds for all the greatest hits. He wondered what would happen if he placed his foot atop the vacuum bot. As soon as he did, however, it started whining a high pitched squeal and everyone in the entire auditorium looked at him expectantly.

He lifted his foot.

“Those are Blazkor ships,” the younger councilman said out loud, addressing the image floating in the air above John’s head. Everyone else already knew what they were, of course.

“Am I the only one concerned that the Blazkor have mastered space travel?” asked a pregnant councilwoman from one of the podiums.

Councillor May put her face into her hands. “I’d like to stress firmly,” she said slowly to everyone in the auditorium, “that the Blazkor have not ‘mastered’ space travel.”

Gilber crossed his arms, his cigar resting lazily in the corner of his mouth. “We believe they threw everythin’ they had at us. This was all they could muster. Five minutes after that shot was taken our forces engaged their forces. A squadron led by Lieutenant  John Adams and consisting of pilots Sarah Mikkels, Stevie Oxfrey, Dennis Munroe --“ he was going to continue but he was interrupted by Councilman Jameson.

“We don’t need the entire list, General.” Councillor Jameson said with a frown. John didn’t necessarily appreciate the man’s tone of voice.

Gilber exhaled audibly, and continued. “Squadrons one and two engaged the opposing targets and took out most of their fleet. The rest escaped back to the atmosphere. Maybe two ships. We tracked them until they were somewhere over the deep desert.”

“Ed. There’s nothing in the deep desert,” Councillor May said dismissively.

“Our pilots suffered three casualties during the battle,” Gilber said flatly. “Their names were Eric Gomez--“

“Again,” Councillor Jameson said impatiently. “We don’t need to hear the list.”

Gilber paused again, but this time he wasn’t going to just skip ahead. “Yer gonna hear this list,” he said in a tone that implied it wasn’t a suggestion. “That was Eric Gomez, Betsy Yang, and Damon Alya.” As he said the names, his eyes bore up at Jameson like daggers across an immense distance.

“It appears,” Councillor Mombatta said, leaning forward on his podium, “that we have you to thank for commissioning the formation of your fighter squadrons, General.”

“You said our forces overwhelmed theirs,” Council Leader May repeated. “Do you believe the Blazkor are weak enough that we should finish them off once and for all?”

Gilber chewed on the edge of his quickly shrinking cigar. “Those are yer words, Ma’am.”

“Alright General Gilber, Captain of the Rebirth project,” Councillor May said his titles almost condescendingly. “How would you deal with Blazkor?”

“I think we’ve crippled them enough,” Gilber told the council. “They launched everythin’ they had at us, an’ we pushed right back.” He squinted up at the people above him, his fist tightening at his side. “Let ‘em run on home to mommy.”

“You would suggest we do nothing?” asked the young councillor with the loud voice. “Our forces have been on the verge of steamrolling their city into sand, and yet we’ve just allowed them time to continue their agendas against us.”

“First off,” Gilber said gruffly, “pretty sure that’s not how steamrollers work. Second of all I’ve sent scouts over the Blazkor capitol and the city is completely abandoned.”

“Then it’s settled,” Counsellor May said again, and John was starting to respect her ability to keep things moving. “Our forces will enter the city immediately and begin stripping buildings for materials we can use in project Rebirth.”

“I’d ask that the council start construction of two more squadrons of fighters,” Gilber suggested to the council. “And I’d like to up recruitment as well. We’ll need more pilots to put in those ships.” He brought his holographic presentation to the next page, showing off designs of a larger craft. “Also, I’ve been workin’ with people on designs fer a new bigger vessel that can match their gunships. Built from the ground up with space in mind. I have names of some people we can recruit to head the project.”

John didn’t need Councilwoman May to respond to know she wasn’t going to accept his request. “If wishes were wells, General Gilber,” May said, “We would all be very rich.” John could see the disappointment paint across Ed Gilber’s face before disappearing and being replaced with the same angry look he usually had. “We don’t have room for new construction projects with Rebirth already behind schedule.”

“We can replace your lost fighters with new refits,” Councillor May conceded to them. Even John didn’t think it was much of a compromise, he had assumed replacement fighters and pilots went without saying. “That’s the best I can offer you.”

“I still want to know something,” said the young loudmouth.

Councillor May gave a deep sigh. “Yes, Councilman O’Brien?”

Elliot O’Brien, John had heard of him. He was the youngest councilmember. Occanttay was his province. “Did any of the attacking terrorist ships catch sight of the project?”

‘One did,” John said loudly, before he could catch himself. Suddenly all the lights were on him, and everyone was staring.

Gilber crossed his arms. “I told you ta let me do tha talkin’.”

Councillor May seemed to straighten in her seat. “The council does not recognize the man you brought with you,” she said to Gilber.

“Well it damned well should,” Gilber said, slowly casting his glance up at her. “John Adams led the defence of Project Rebirth.”

“Be that as it may,” old man Councillor Jameson said, “The laws clearly state that only a council member can grant permission to another to speak to the council.”

“And ye made me a council member the day yer council voted me captain of the project.” Gilber grunted a laugh. “Or did ye feerget that stipulation.”

“Well I certainly didn’t,” Councillor May said in such a way it made John wonder if she was drunk.

The pregnant councilwoman spoke up. “Personally I’d like to hear what he has to say,” she said, with a smile to him that he returned awkwardly.

“I second that,” said Councilman O’Brien. “Go on soldier.”

“The ship was able to take out a couple of our sensor dishes, and then made back for the planet,” John recounted to everyone in the auditorium. “I tracked them directly into the deep desert and lost them there. Same place the other ships went.” He didn’t know if he had clearance to voice theories, but he decided to go ahead anyway. “If I had to guess, I’d say that’s where everyone in the city disappeared to as well.”

“Perhaps we should send scouts into the deep desert,” Councillor Mombatta suggested in his deep voice.

Gilber interrupted them. “We have satellites repositionin’ over the desert as we speak.”

Councillor May repeated something John was starting to hear a lot. “If that’s truly where they went,” she started, “it’s to their folly. There’s nothing in the deep desert but sand and death.”

“But perhaps General Gilber is right,” May conceded to him. “Perhaps we should ignore the Blazkor for now. May I remind this council that our world is years away from being completely uninhabitable. When that happens, we will be homeless unless Project Rebirth manages to find us a new home in time.”

“And the project is hopelessly behind schedule.”

“Yes well, whose fault is that?” John asked, remembering all the times the General complained to him that if the government had given the military full reign over the project then it would have been completed by now. Everyone was looking at him again, and there was a stirring silence.

“Some opinions are supposed ta stay behind closed doors,” Gilber muttered to John in warning. He understood now why Gilber hadn’t wanted him to speak up.

“You’ve been whispering dangerous ideas to your ward,” Councillor May said as an almost playful accusation. John had seen Maggie May in news footage, and she’d always come across as very serious and straight. Presidential. The real her was quite different: more coy, more loose, not what John would have expected from a world leader.

“General,” Councillor Mombatta said in his deep yet even voice. “Lieutenant. Many of us sacrificed nations to sit on this council. Understand how important this project is to all of us, and how important it is that the cooperation between both the civilian and military factions on this project remains intact.”

“Included in that cooperation,” Councillor May picked up Mombatta’s metaphorical torch, “was a promise that upon making you captain of the project, you would choose a civilian first officer.”

“If you’re unable to come up with a nominee,” Mombatta told Gilber, “I have a number of names I could suggest.” This was the one condition Gilber had been talking about. It hadn’t even occurred to John that had Gilber been given free rein to choose whoever he wanted as first officer, he’d have probably chosen John. Had Gilber been keeping all this from John to spare him hurt feelings?

John had never considered being second in command. He’d have to retire from his wing. The reality was, John liked his responsibilities as they were. Liked the hours he clocked in the cockpit flying under the swirls of their nebula. There was nothing like it, and the last thing he wanted was to be stuck behind a desk like Gilber.

“I’ve got candidates,” Gilber told the council. “I just need more time. And I have other positions need fillin’.” He puffed his cigar one last time and threw it on the ground. The vacuum bot was already on top of it even as he cleared his throat. “I need permission to grant security clearance to another fifteen recruits.”

His holographic presentation switched to a number of pictures of impressionable young faces. “There’s also a number of recent university graduates in the sciences and engineering that I’d like to bring in.” he told the council. “They would of course be taken against their will, and never allowed to see their families again.”

No one batted an eyelash. That was par for the course. Everyday people were taken off the streets, briefed on the project, and put to work. They weren’t given a choice, or a say.

It was how you kept something so big so secret for so long.

“Permission granted,” Councillor May told the council. She banged her podium with her gavel. “Now can we end session for the night?”

“There’s still the question of agriculture,” The pregnant councillor said, stopping Councillor May, who seemed to almost melt with disappointment. “We’ve had three more farms in Larna report no growth. Dead soil. That’s twelve farms this cycle alone. Now you want to ship more food to New Baijon? What food, ma’am. We’ll all be out of it in two months at the current rate.”

“Alright,” Councillor May said, as she pulled a flask from inside her suit blazer. She took a deep swig of it, and seemed to let it linger in her mouth before letting it go down. It didn’t go down smooth and she coughed a wet cough. Maybe it was a burp? Swallowing again, her eyes watered from the strength of whatever alcohol she’d just poured down her throat. “Okay, let’s talk about agriculture.”

*     *     *

David Stanfield had a favourite diner.

He didn’t know when it was, exactly, that he had become so boring. Perhaps it had to do with him turning thirty.  He’d like to say he didn’t have a routine that led him there every day at lunch. That would be a lie. He was like thirty going on seventy-five.

But this diner was special. It was built into the wall that surrounded Hymalious City, with a large bay window in the sitting area where people could relax in a booth and look out at the oncoming desert. He liked to sit there sometimes and read the news, or the latest science journals, or even just watch the sand slowly overtake their civilization.

The diner was right by gate six, probably to attract military customers, and tourists. It was a popular diner. They had competitive water prices, and a pretty decent veggie burger. The point was, there were reasons to frequent there.

The glass of water in front of him would cost fifty seven credits. And that was a deal.  “Our world was once eighty two percent water,” David said. “Did you know that?”

The wind was picking up more than usual, the sand bombarding against the glass. Still, through it all, David could see the sun. Large, and close, it took up almost a quarter of their sky.  “Now it’s barely two percent.” He touched the glass and felt the cool perspiration against his dry fingers. “Now this one glass of water costs more money than most people make in a day.”

Wars had been waged over it. People have died lacking enough of it while others hoarded more than they could ever need in private towers all for themselves. Professional thieves often stole from those towers.

“Do you know what happens to a person going through severe dehydration?” David asked the girl he was talking to. “How many people this place turns away every day for not being able to pay for water?”

The girl he was talking to was a waitress, and her nametag claimed her name to be Stephanie. “I don’t know anything about that,” she said with a vacant tired look on her face. David was afraid he’d lost her somewhere in the middle of his tirade. Sometimes he got really passionate about what he was talking about, and he’d forget other people might not be interested.

“This is actually my first day,” she told him unnecessarily. Of course he already knew that; knew the names of everyone who worked there.

She had just poured him the glass of water when he’d started talking, but from the looks of things she needed it more than he did. She looked pale beneath her freckles and long stringy black hair, her balance unsteady, her blue eyes drooping.

“You look a little dehydrated yourself,” he said, pushing his glass of water towards her. “Are you okay?”

She seemed to regard him with wary and suspicion. “If you’re hitting on me, first you’re like twice my age...” okay that one hurt. “And I already have a boyfriend.”

“I’m not trying to hit on you,” David assured the waitress. “I’m a doctor.”

Stephanie eyed the glass with obvious interest. “You know doctors can be creeps too,” she said, though she took the glass anyway and began gulping it down. “I was up late last night,” she said after a long moment, putting the almost empty glass back on the table. “I’m just a little tired and hungover. This is my second job. I get free shots working nights at Lankey’s bar.”

Alcohol: cheaper than water now, and the cruelest trick in the book. A thirsty man with no money at all could get enough alcohol to drown himself, and not a drop of it would save his life.

“Thanks doc,” she told him. “Shots might be free, but that doesn’t stop guys from trying to buy me another.”

“I thought you said you had a boyfriend,” David said, finishing off his glass of water.

Stephanie eyed the booth across from the doctor. “And I thought you said you were waiting for someone.”

He was. “It seems she’s a little late.”

*     *

“She said she thought the driveline was all gunked up,” Bertha said from somewhere above Emma. “What do you see?”

If you checked in on Emma at any particular point in her life, there’d be a good chance she’d be doing exactly what she was doing now; wading deep into the innards of a greasy engine, or tinkering with any sort of mechanical or electronic device. She was a tinkerer. An engineer. She liked to take things that were broken, and make them work. She was a problem solver, like her mother had been before her.

Emma sighed, her legs sticking out from underneath a jeep that she had crawled under. “I see a driveline that’s all gunked up,” she confirmed, reaching up and touching the sticky fluid with two fingers. “I think it’s lube. If I had to guess the heat from outside caused the transfer case to melt, and lube got over everything.” She pulled her hand back and it was soaked in the sticky liquid.

“Literally everything,” she muttered, wiping her hand on her shirt. “Look, I can try to pull out the lube tank until we get the transfer case replaced, but this stuff isn’t going to just dry. We’ll have to take the whole damn thing apart, spray each component clean, and then leave it out in the sun.” It was gonna be an expensive job. And time consuming.

“What happened to another one of your quick fixes?” Emma’s boss asked her.

“The entire powertrain is soaked through,” Emma promised her boss, grabbing at the lube tank and trying to pull it out. It was hot to the touch and slippery, rusted and melted to the surrounding transfer case.

“Alright,” Bertha said at last. “Pull the lube tank before it gets any worse. Then you can go for lunch and we’ll tackle this in the afternoon. I’ll inform the client of the change in time and fee.”

The piece was really jammed tight. “I’m trying to pull it,” she told Bertha. “It’s like completely fused to the drivetrain.”

“You want me to get Daryl?” Bertha asked Emma.

“You asking do I need a strong man to do my muscle work for me?” Emma said, hitting a button on the remote to raise the vehicle a little higher. She pulled her legs underneath the car, and placed her foot on the transmission. “Naw, I’m good.” She pulled on the car part with every bit of her strength, lifting herself right off the ground from pulling so hard. Suddenly it came free with a wet pop, and Emma hit the ground with a smack on her back. The wind was knocked out of her, and black grease poured out of a jammed filter and all over her face and shirt.

She couldn’t breathe through the stuff, and crawled out from under the jeep coughing and spluttering and gasping for breath. Bertha helped her up, giving her a towel to wipe her face and a big glass of water. She took a sip of the water, and wet the towel with a tiny bit too. Her skin was covered in black gunk, and her brown hair was all a muck. It was a common look for her.

“You okay?” Bertha asked as she helped Emma down again to rest against the tool cabinet by one wall. Emma had worked in that garage for years under Bertha. The larger woman in overalls seemed to know what it was like being a woman with a passion for a man’s career.

“Fourteen years ago today my mother was abducted off the street,” she told Bertha, her mind somewhere else completely. Lost in a memory. It was like she was seven again, and her mother was showing her the inside of her first rover. “I was fifteen when I became an orphan. My brother was even younger, relied on me.”

“Ye’ve never told me this before,” Bertha said taking the towel, and wiping some of the grime off Emma’s face. She knew it wouldn’t help much, but appreciated the effort. “Was it the Suits?” the bigger woman asked.

“Who else?” Emma said rhetorically. It was a common story on Rommeria. People went missing every day on the streets of Hymalious City, and there were similar stories of families getting torn apart in other regions too. It was said that being really good at something, having a certain skill or talent, only made you more attractive a target. So many people taken without question, and still the authorities did nothing.

Emma hoped they would come for her. She would make them regret it, and every life they’d ever destroyed. Whoever the hell they were.

“What about your father?” Bertha asked Emma, taking the glass from Emma’s hand to pour it into her hair. Emma never would have wasted water like that, but she knew Bertha allotted a certain amount of their budget to it. The larger older woman dabbed at Emma’s hair with the towel which was already turning from a light green to black.

“Prison,” Emma said in answer to Bertha’s question about her father. “Where that abusive deadbeat belongs.” He hadn’t been a very good person. “Trust me,” she told Bertha, “My brother and I were better off on the street.”

“I can almost see the brown in your hair again,” Bertha said, leaning back to get a better look. “It’s still really dark but I guess it matches your eyes.”

Emma smiled, her mind still lost in the past. “My roommate saved my life,” Emma told her boss. She’d met him shortly after being left for dead with nothing but the clothes on her back. “My brother got adopted cause he was cute, but if I hadn’t met David. If he hadn’t taken me in… I dunno.” She didn’t like thinking about that dark time in her life.

David had been there for her when she needed someone like him the most. He was the best friend any girl could ask for. Beyond just a friend. “He’s like a brother to me,” she told Bertha. “More than my actual brother.”

“Sorts like a brother ye can Fak, eh?” Bertha told Emma, and Emma had forgotten that the two had met, albeit briefly. It was enough for Bertha to forever after tease Emma on how cute her roommate was.

Emma could only roll her eyes. They didn’t see each other like that. “We were gonna meet for lunch,” Emma said, looking around for the clock. “What time did you say it was?”

“Hope it was gunner be a late lunch,” Bertha told Emma. “It’s almost one.”

Shit! She was really late!

*     *

“How are you liking your first day,” the owner asked Stephanie while handing her pancakes for one of her tables. Was it table three or four? It was the customer with the lazy eye.

“It’s going perfect,” Steph told her boss with faux enthusiasm, not at all jinxing herself. She was happy that things weren’t nearly as overwhelming as what she had been through the night before. Her night shifts at the bar took a toll on her; she could feel it in her body every morning. The ache, perhaps, from not getting enough sleep. Or everything she drank. Or the things she might have gotten up to.

It was good money though, and she needed every extra bit she could get. She’d had to drop out of school at sixteen, and had been working full time or more ever since. Her parents were older, and had a hard time finding work. It was a bad time to be elderly.

She supposed they could have worked this job though. It had been a cinch so far, and she’d been so tired when she’d started that her shift was already half over!

She handed the pancakes over to the customer with a lazy eye, and he seemed to give her a disgusting glance with the not so lazy one. Disgusting glances she was used to. What came next was new.

A man stumbled through the doors of the diner, skin burnt and peeling. He was dirty and red, and his skin was cracked and bleeding all over. He only made it a couple steps into the diner before he collapsed with a disgusting splorch onto the welcome mat.

“Sir?” Steph asked, peering over the booth closest to the door. He was on the floor there, seemingly convulsing. Suddenly he reached out for her with a bloody peeling hand.

“Help,” he managed to rasp. The patrons of the diner were all starting to crowd around her in interest. “Help Meeeee”

“I-I can’t,” Steph muttered, pretty sure she knew what he was asking for and it was the one thing she couldn’t give him. “Not unless you can pay.”

“Move aside,” Steph heard the doctor from earlier say to someone in the crowd. The attractive doctor grabbed a jug of water and poured it into a glass. “You can charge it to my tab,” he told her, almost seeming angry at her in-action. He was tall and scrawny, with squinty eyes that always seemed deep in thought. Steph found him rather good looking for a middle aged man, especially if he was going to keep trying to be everyone’s hero.

“Here,” he told the man on the ground, pouring water down the man’s throat. “It’s okay. I’m a doctor.”

“Do you say that to everyone you meet?” Steph asked the doctor. His next glance at her was softer, but his focus was on the man in need.

“It looks like you’re suffering from extreme dehydration,” the doctor said loudly and clearly for the man. He helped the man to more water, but this time the man spluttered and coughed up blood. Then projectile vomited quite a bit more blood.

Stephanie screamed as the blood got all over both her and the doctor. Everyone else managed to back away to safety with a gasp.

If the doctor was at all concerned with suddenly being covered in another man’s fluids, he didn’t show it. Instead he was desperately holding the man down.

“Was that a sign of extreme dehydration?” Steph asked, moving to follow the doctor’s lead and pressing her weight against the man’s chest.

“Not generally,” The doctor admitted to her. “He’s having a seizure. Help me keep him from hurting himself.”

She grabbed at the man’s arms and the doctor placed a pen sized flashlight in the man’s mouth.

“We have to get him back to my clinic,” the doctor said, injecting the man with something. “I’ve given him a sedative, the seizure should calm down in a moment.” He looked up at Steph again. “Can you help me?”

“That depends,” Steph admitted honestly, looking up at her boss who was already shaking his head. He had his arms crossed and didn’t seem too happy at all the mess that had been caused.

“Well I’m not about to keep working in a uniform covered with blood,” Stephanie told him angrily, lifting her shirt for him to see.  “This is more blood than I’ve seen in like…” she had to think for a moment, and realistically her answer wasn’t as extreme as she’d expected. “Three weeks.”

*     *

The walls did a lot to keep the winds and sands from getting into the center of the city. A lot, but not all. Today the storm outside waged over the walls and through the streets. The sand stung at Emma’s eyes as she jogged against the wind, but she didn’t let that slow her down. People on Rommeria were used to a little sand. No matter how bad the streets got, they still bustled with citizens who simply turned up their collars against the weather.

Emma had to step off the road onto the sidewalk as a rover slowly passed by. Few vehicles frequented inside the walls. The roads were usually littered with people, and cars that did brave the city streets had to move at a snail’s pace.

David’s favourite diner had to be by gate six. Bertha’s shop was near gate two, and Emma still had six more blocks to go. Why couldn’t he have picked a place between them? Or better yet just bring food to her.

The sand was getting in her hair and sticking to it. It was going to take a long shower that night to wash out. A shower under reused water that would then be filtered and reused again; it didn’t sound too appealing but their filters were actually quite good.

There was a chime on her belt. It was her phone. She answered the call with the click of a button, and David’s face filled the wide screen.

“I’m almost there,” Emma told him, out of breath. “Just passing the library now.” She might have been exaggerating a little.

“It’s okay,” David said, and it seemed he was out of breath too. Emma wondered if perhaps he had been as late as her. She could even see blood on his clothes. “Something actually came up,” he clarified, though barely. “I’m heading back to the clinic now.”

“Ugh,” Emma grunted, slowing to a stop. “When did we go from being the coolest bad asses to the lamest workaholics?”

David seemed to smile, though it was through laborious effort.

“Are you carrying something?” Emma asked him.

“You’re the only one ever thought I was a bad ass,” David said, ignoring her question. “Maybe I’m just finally rubbing off on you a bit.”

“What’s that old man?” Emma asked, looking up and noticing something of interest. “You trying to turn me into a responsible woman?”

Outside the library, two men in suits were getting out of a black government rover. She’d never seen anyone in a suit before. A full suit, with a tie. Even politicians never wore a suit. Only one mythical figure was ever known to wear a suit and they were rarely spotted. Emma had never seen one in real life.

And now it was her luck that she saw two. They both wore sunglasses. One was pale white with red hair and a curly beard. The other was black as night and bald. They were like demons plucked right out of her nightmares and placed on a casual stroll through the Hymalious City street.

“Please,” David said wearily from her phone, “don’t talk dirty to me while I’m covered in blood.”

“Sounds like you’ve been having fun,” Emma said distractedly, hiding behind a car. It’s not like the suits had spotted her. It’s not like they were looking for her. Not like when they’d come looking that night for her mom. “I gotta go though,” she told David.

“What’s going on?” David asked from the phone. Emma was trying to hear what the Suits were saying to each other but they were too far away, headed it seemed for the library doors. A few people, who were about to head in themselves, noticed the Suits entering through the front doors and immediately made a beeline back to their homes.

“Suits,” Emma whispered to David, and the one word was all she had to say.

“What?” David exclaimed. There was a thud from his end and a woman’s voice complained something indiscernible. “Emma!”

“Who was she?” Emma asked as she got out from behind the car she was hiding to approach their SUV. She hid behind the driver’s side. “She sounded cute.”

The rover was government issue, the kind of vehicle used in motorcades for powerful diplomats. They were generally bulletproof, with tinted black windows and adaptable four wheel drive for extreme conditions. There was a booby trap alarm in the hood to protect against tampering, but of course Emma knew how to bypass it.

“Get out of there!” David complained through her phone. “Emma! Run!”

“You kidding me?” Emma said to him, pulling out a pair of needle nose pliers from her tool belt. “I’ve been waiting over ten years for a chance like this.” She slipped them into the side of the chasis, and got a chunk of the wire in her grasp. She pulled with all her might and shredded the wire with her pliers.

“Could you try listening to me just this once?” David begged as Emma opened up the hood. No alarm sounded. “Don’t get involved.”

With the push of a button, Emma hung up on her best friend. “That doesn’t much sound like me, sorry.” She spotted the piece she was looking for. The igniter spark. It was a cute little tube shaped device slid neatly between the battery and the engine. Without it, the whole vehicle would just be a big brick. And it was so easy to get at.

“I’ll take this,” Emma said to no one in particular. No one was paying attention to her anyway. Everyone had scattered into the wind. Those unlucky enough to be in the library when the Suits walked in would be trying extra hard now not to act guilty.

Climbing the steps to the library, her pocket bulging a little more than usual, Emma entered through the front doors to join them.

The library was one of the largest single purpose buildings in Hymalious City. Most buildings were skyscrapers with different businesses on different floors. The only smaller single family homes in the city were scattered on the outskirts, like the one David and her shared in between gates five and six.

The library was much larger than their house; six stories high, with a large lavish lobby and sandstone floors. They didn’t keep paper books there; trees had been endangered on Rommeria for a long time. Instead books were kept on a network that could be accessed from any terminal. And if that network ever went down, or someone felt like doing things the old fashioned way, the books had local copies stored on datapads kept on the shelves that made up the majority of the second to fourth floors.

The rest of the library was a work space for students to study, and people to get comfortable and read. To be honest, Emma hadn’t actually ever spent much time there.

She slid behind the returns shelf to get as close as she could to the Suits without attracting attention. The two Suits were talking to the receptionist, and for only a split second Emma wondered if they would be taking her. It was more likely they were asking her if she’d seen a certain person.

So they were looking for someone in particular. The receptionist looked right at Emma, and the two Suits turned around, but Emma quickly dropped into the seat of the nearest table and picked up a datapad on quantum mechanics. It was a university textbook.

“Uh,” said a quiet voice from the other side of the table. “E-Emma?” She knew that voice anywhere. Of all the tables to sit at, Emma had sat down next to Kathrine Pross. She was a young squirrely girl, super intelligent mind but no social skills. David shared his practice with her father, Doctor Zachary Pross. Emma had gotten to know Kathrine quite well over the years, even babysat the brat numerous times when they were both younger.

“Kat!” Emma said, her surprise not at all hidden in her voice. “What are you doing here? It’s dangerous!”

“I-it’s a l-library.” Kat said quietly, blushing to herself.

“I’ve n-never even s-seen you here before,” Kat admitted, sidling over to be beside the older woman. “Can you l-look at my pa-paper on instantaneous intergalactic travel?” Kat was the only person Emma knew who could stutter on words like ‘look’ and ‘paper’ but have no problem spewing out a big term like ‘instantaneous intergalactic travel’.

“You’re the only o-one who ha-half understands what I’m ta-talking about,” Kat admitted to Emma with excitement. “It j-just requires something from the de-deep desert and I think I could break physics as we kn-know it.”

“There’s nothing in the deep desert,” Emma said, not really paying attention. she had lost the Suits. She hadn’t been paying attention to them for just a moment and then there they were.

Gone.

“Machines I get,” Emma said, searching the room with her gaze. The receptionist seemed to be looking at them. “But you’re stuff…” she started to say, but she was interrupted.

“Miss?”

It was the Suit. The one with the red hair. “Katherine Pross?” Agent Red asked Kat, with a hand on her shoulder. “You need to come with us.”

Kat laughed nervously, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, as they had been about to fall off.  “I’m sorry,” she told them edging away from the Suit and closer to Emma. “I ca-can’t. My dad is gonna be here soon to pi-pick me up,” she tried to put her head down into a book, but her glasses fell right off her face onto the screen. “I’m just g-going to keep st-studying now,” she stuttered loudly.

“We’ll take care of it,” Agent Bald said, taking a position beside Emma. She couldn’t read any emotion through his sunglasses. She didn’t even really understand how they could see anything, it was actually quite dark in that library.

She got out of her seat. “Kat’s not going anywhere with you two,” Emma warned them. Agent Bald put his hand against her chest.

“Wanna bet money?” He asked her. He smiled, and it was exactly the kind of smug smile that made Emma sick to her stomach.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked them, wondering if they kept track of the families of the people they took. Their faces didn’t seem to spark with any kind of recognition.

“A pain in our ass?” Agent Bald guessed. Emma grabbed a datapad from the table and smacked Agent Bald across the face with it.

“You’ll really think so in about five minutes,” Emma said, moving to take on Agent Red.

“That the best you can do?” Agent Red asked, pulling out a tazer gun and pulling the trigger. “I can work faster than that.” The electrodes launched into Emma’s stomach and she could feel the probes pierce her skin.

She winced, and waited for the electricity to come but it didn’t.

“Stop,” Kat yelled at the man who still had one hand firmly on the young university student’s shoulder. “I’ll c-come with you.” The look she gave Emma broke her heart.

“Well that part was non-negotiable,” Agent Red said. He looked to his partner. “You okay?”

Agent Bald nodded. “She barely clipped me,” he said.

“Fak both of you,” Emma said as Agent Bald circled the table to join Agent Red. “I’m gonna get you both if it’s the last thing I…”

Agent Red pulled the trigger. All Emma heard over the pain as her body spasmed and her vision went black was Kat screaming her name and Agent Red whispering, “Good luck with that.”

*     *

“Stop fussing,” Stephanie told David. “Do you want the feet?”

They had been carrying the man for blocks now, and his clinic was just up ahead. He could see the white walls of the two story hut with the red cross on the front that they had to paint over nearly every week.

“I’m pretty sure my side is heavier than yours,” David told the waitress, carrying the man from under his armpits.

“I was thinking more along the lines of I give you both halves and I go home,” the waitress said to the doctor. David frowned.

“This is my clinic right here,” he told her as they came to the door, the man starting to stir as he spoke. “You’ve done a lot and I appreciate all of it. You can go home if you want.”

He took the man from her and dragged him through the front doors.

“Lizzie!” David yelled for his secretary. “Clear out examination room three and find me Doctor Pross.” He looked back at Stephanie, surprised to find that she was following him in.

“Can’t I just see how this goes?” she asked him. He didn’t read her as the kind of person to just walk away.

There were a couple people sitting in the waiting room, quieter than usual. So where was all his staff? “Lizzie!”

“Zach’s not here,” Lizzie said to David, coming around from behind her desk. “He went to pick up his daughter from the library.”

“So there’s no doctors on staff?” David asked. At least examination room three would be free. He started dragging the man towards the room, and Stephanie bent down to help him. “Well do find him! This is an emergency.”

“Oh,” Lizzie said, grabbing her keys. That wasn’t exactly what David had in mind.

“Where are you going?” David asked her. “I need your help in here!”

Lizzie stopped, very confused. “I’m not sure what to do,” she admitted to them.

“I’d follow us,” Stephanie told her as they turned the corner into the examination room.

Lizzie followed after them. “Okay,” she said. “Who are you?”

David and Stephanie got the man to beside the bed. “On three,” David told the girl. “One. Two. Three.” They lifted the man up, and Lizzie came underneath to give extra push on his butt. It was enough to get the two hundred pound man onto the cot.

David felt like collapsing against the side of the bed for a moments rest, but he knew he didn’t have that luxury. “Strap him down,” David ordered the two women, hearing the man shaking again. “He’s having another seizure.”

David grabbed a wooden popsicle stick, and put it in the man’s mouth. “Bite down on this,” he told the man, shining his light to test the man’s pupils and injecting him with a needle to draw blood.

“God his blood pressure,” David noticed immediately as his syringe almost shattered. The man’s heart rate was spiking. “I think he’s in some sort of anaphylactic shock.”

He coughed up more blood and Lizzie took a step back. David finished her job tying the bonds.

“I hope I don’t get blood on me,” Lizzie complained, “This is a new dress.”

“Lizzie,” David tried to get her attention. “I need you to hook him up with monitoring equipment. I have to know his heart rate, blood pressure, and then I need immediate analysis of this blood sample.”

“Anaphy…” Stephanie was trying to repeat what David had said with little success, but it seemed she got the gist. “You mean he’s having an allergic reaction?”

The man was struggling against his bonds. So hard, in fact, that David wasn’t sure they would hold.

“Do you know what an epinephrine shot looks like?” he asked Stephanie, pointing to a drawer nearby. He had to keep hold of the patient. “I need you to grab me one from that drawer.”

*     *

The Suit with the red hair was rough with Kat, as he dragged her through the doors of the library. Everyone was watching, and Kat couldn’t help but wonder if they were all just thanking their makers that the Suits hadn’t come for them. The big bald Suit was following close behind, and Kat was relieved to see he had grabbed her things.

At least she’d be able to continue her studies wherever she was going.

Then she spotted HIM on the steps, and his arrival couldn’t have been less timely.

“Daddy!” She shrieked, pulling against the cuffs the first Suit had put her in. He covered her mouth with a gloved hand, and the bald suit stepped between her and her father.

“This doesn’t concern you, big guy.”

Her father was a portly man, with a bushy moustache, and it broke her heart hearing someone talk to him like that. All she had wanted was for them to be gone before he’d showed up. She didn’t want any trouble.

“Damned right it concerns me,” she could hear her father from around the bald Suit. “Zat’s my daughter yer takin’ avay in cuffs.”

“We’re taking her in for questioning,” the large balding Suit tried to explain to her father. “The government thinks she might know something helpful. I’m sure someone will be around to tell you more soon, but we’re gonna have to take your daughter now.”

Kat could feel the red haired Suit’s beard tickle against her cheek as he forced her down the steps. Both Suits were trying to inch towards their car.

“Zat’s not good enough,” Kat heard her father yell and she could see him balling his fists. “Ye’ll be taking her over my dead fakking body.

The bearded Suit took his hand off Kat’s mouth to pull out his tazer. “It would be my damnedest pleasure,” the man said, aiming the gun at her father.

Kat struggled as hard against him as she could, the cuffs digging into her wrists until they bled. “Don’t hurt him,” she begged the man. “P-Please. I already said I’d c-come with you.”

He didn’t seem to be paying attention, but talking was the only thing it seemed she could do. So she didn’t stop. “My theories are useless anyway. They re-require elements that aren’t even p-proven in physics. I mean not unless your g-government wants to pay for expeditions into the deep desert.”

“There’s nothing in the deep desert,” the bearded Suit said, grimacing at her. “Everyone knows that.”

She pulled against his grip on her restraints. “Then let me go.”

“Don’t worry,” yelled a woman’s voice from the library doors. “They’re not going anywhere with you.”

Kat followed the sound of the voice to see Emma standing triumphantly in the doorway. Well she was actually leaning against the doorway, looking rather rattled, but she was still mostly standing!

She pulled something out of her pocket and Kat immediately recognized it as an irregular model ignition spark. Kat had an eidetic memory, and yet she couldn’t quite pinpoint exactly what vehicle that specific ignition spark would be found.

The way she was acting seemed to imply it was theirs. “They’re gonna find it really hard to start their rover without this,” Emma told the Suits, dangling the tube from a stray wire. “How’s that ass feel now?”

The bald Suit looked to the red haired one. “What do you think?” the bald one asked.

The Suit with the beard shook his head. “I think we could lose our jobs.”

The bald Suit sighed. Turning, it was like he was a different person, and got all into Kat’s father’s face. “We’re gonna take your daughter. That was never in question. It’s our orders, we’re just doing our jobs. Nothing is going to get in our way.”

Kat could see her father balling his fists again. The bald Suit raised his finger. “Now if you want,” the Suit said, “we’ll take the fiery mechanic too; someone to keep your daughter company.”

“But you can’t come,” the bearded Suit told Kat’s father maliciously.

“And that’s our final offer,” said the bald Suit.

The bearded Suit got Kat to the car and waved with his tazer for Emma to join them. “Come on then,” he called to her, “you and your magic doohickey.”

As Emma passed Kat’s father she saw the woman try to give him a reassuring nod.

“I’ll keep her safe.”

She gave the bearded Suit a disgusted look, and then said to him, “It’s actually your magic doohickey.”

*     *     *

David didn’t get it. He didn’t know what was happening or what to do. He had the man stabilized and this was the first moment he’d had to finally sit down.

“David!” the large Doctor Zachary Pross yelled, storming into the clinic with distress on his face. He took one look at the blood trail leading all the way to the examination room and he stopped in his tracks.

“David?” he repeated, but with far less passion. David grabbed the older, larger man and turned him.

“Finally Doctor Pross,” David said to his partner. “We need your help.

Zach ignored him. “The Suits took my daughter,” he told David, “and Emily.” He meant Emma. Her full name was Emily Penman. It was a name she’d been trying to escape since being orphaned.

“What?” David asked, his mind already three steps ahead. “Dammit, I told her not to get involved.” It took a moment for Zach to understand what David was saying, but when he did the larger man grabbed David by the collar and lifted him into a wall.

“T’was my daughter David!”

“Oh my god,” came Lizzie’s scream from the doorway of the examination room. David could barely breathe. “Let go of him this instant!” She seemed almost hysterical.

“I need both doctors to join me in examination room three, right away.”

It was only then, it seemed, that Zach remembered the blood on the floor. “Vat in the nebulous hells is going on here?” he asked David.

David didn’t know how quite to explain it. It usually helped him to start at the beginning. “I brought a man in about an hour ago suffering from both dehydration and what appeared to be an allergic reaction.” He led Zachary towards the examination room. “I stabilized him with an epinephrine shot…”

“All zis was caused by allergies?” Zach asked, still shocked at the amount of blood along the floor and pooling out from the examination room. “Vat was the bugger allergic to? Life?”

David got to the doorway first, and what he saw made his jaw drop.

“I thought you said he was stabilized,” Zach said as he joined David.

There was blood everywhere. On all the walls, the counters, clogging the sink. The man had broken free, and there was little Lizzie could do to hold him down. His skin was covered in protruding veins, all pulsating and pulling against the skin as if trying to get out.

On the wall he’d been trying to write something, a word. It looked like ‘Lankey’ whatever that was supposed to mean. The man tried to speak but only fountains of blood came out.

“Blarglaghlargh,” the man tried to say, clearly also gasping in vain for any oxygen.

Lizzie screamed, getting covered in the man’s blood as he writhed in her grip. “I can’t hold him!” she shrieked to the doctors. Zachary rushed to her side, and tried to help her hold the man down onto the bed. Where his fingers toughed the man’s skin, they sunk into his flesh, and in one part on his arm a boil popped out suddenly, bleeding heavily.

“I’ll get another epi-pen,” David said, unsure what else he could possibly do. He still didn’t have the tests back on the blood.

“The hells that gunna do?” Zach insisted, getting straps around the man’s wrists. Where the straps dug in, the skin seemed to give way and melt off his arm. “My god. Look at those varicose veins.” It was as if his body was trying to reject his own blood vessels.

The man gave one last labourious scream. “Blarglarglargh,” he gargled and everyone in the room heard the unique sound of his eyeballs popping in his head and his skin ripping open to bleed openly upon their medical table.

“I’m so fakking out,” Lizzie said, releasing her hold on the man and backing all the way out of the room to watch from the hallway.

As the two doctors watched, the man liquefied before their very eyes, his body melting away into a disgusting puddle that ran off the table and over their feet into the hallway.

Everyone could only watch in horror, completely speechless. Lizzie took another step back, the river of blood just missing her already immensely stained shoes.

David had no idea what had just happened. But he did remember one thing that had been said not too many moments before. He looked at Zachary, and grabbed his friend’s arm.

“So what was that about your daughter?”

*     *     *

Tameka had been trapped in that gunship with Jack, Dinah, and Pulal for too long. Jack had just managed to keep their ship from breaking up in the atmosphere, and becoming a pile of scrap on the planet surface. He blew half the engines, and they were sputtering now through the Deep Desert.

They’d tried the Blazkor capitol first of course. It had been closer, but abandoned. They were almost spotted by Hymalious City forces. Jack managed to get them away, and he had alternate coordinates. Somewhere that took them deep into territory few had ever been.

“Are we going to hold together?” Dinah asked as the ship buckled and shook just from trying to stay in the air. A pipe broke free from the engine compartment, and started spraying white gas around the cockpit.

“Maybe if you hold that piece in place,” Tameka told Dinah. It was the coolant valve, and the seal had cracked.

Dinah looked at the pipe, and then back to her superior officer. “You’re kidding right?” It must have been clear from Tameka’s expression that she wasn’t, for Dinah rushed to the pipe and grabbed it with both hands, forcing it against the connector.

“I dunno how long I can hold this,” she yelled to the front, and Pulal rushed to help her.

Tameka focused herself on Jack. He was sweating, and holding the stick tightly with both hands as it seemed to threaten to pull free of him and spiral them into the ground.

“How much further?” she asked her friend, taking her blanket and wiping the sweat from his face.

“We’re nearing the coordinates now,” he told her. She looked around, but all she saw in any direction was sand.

“Where?” she asked.

“Apparently this is the exact spot,” Jack said, bringing their gunship to hover. There was a disturbing puttering from the engine, and a rattling. It didn’t seem to like holding in one place.

“Look at this dune here,” he said, using the computer screen to explore the external cameras. “See how it rises there and there, but falls there. It should be higher, not so flat.” He looked behind them. “We should land there for no other reason than to give bozo and kiss-ass a break.”

“Yeah,” Tameka said in agreement. “I suppose they deserve a rest.”

Jack lowered the gunship slowly, and landed it ever so gently on the sand dune. It was almost like he’d been landing them on pillows. He flicked off the engines, and the repulsive puttering stopped. There was a whine as the generator drained its capacitors.

“Well, Blackflight leader has landed,” Jack said with a loud exhale as if he had been holding his breath since they’d taken off. Suddenly there was a jolt, and Jack’s hands instinctively went to the yoke. “Shit,” he exclaimed.

It looked like they were sinking, but not into the sand. The sand beneath them was like a platform lowering them down into a massive cavern under the desert. Tameka turned on the external lights, and she could see the cavern walls in the dark, some areas still being excavated by workers. She could also spot other gunships. They weren’t the only ones who’d made it to the large landing bay under the sand.

Tameka got out of her seat, and remembered Dinah and Pulal. “You can let go of that now,” she told them as she hit the button to lower the landing ramp. It dropped down from the side of the gunship to dig into the sand, and Tameka stepped onto it to meet her mother.

“Mom?” she said, surprised to find her mother already waiting there on the platform. She had long black hair and chubby brown cheeks, wearing an elegant gold outfit that matched her dazzling gold amulet. Her mother loved to dress up.

 “Thank god you’re alive,” her mother said in a raspy voice, enveloping her daughter in a hug.

Tameka always felt awkward in her mother’s hugs, and immediately pulled away. “How many others made it?” she asked though she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“Only three,” her mother responded, her voice no longer the sing song sound of a parent, and again embodying the leader of their resistance.

“Oh god,” Tameka said, feeling dizzy. Their deaths were on her. “So few?” She asked. “That was all we had. And it was all for nothing.”

“No,” her mother insisted. “It wasn’t everything we had. Look!” Her mother waved at the cavern they were standing in.

“What,” Tameka said, trying to follow her mother’s attention. “Some ploy? We lost the capitol.”

“The city was the ploy,” her mother said, smiling at her daughter and beckoning for Tameka to take her hand. “This is the true resistance.”

“The thing you sent us to die for wasn’t even a weapon,” Tameka told her mother, following the older woman into narrow corridors. People were all around them, moving cargo, or excavating new passageways in the cavern walls. “It was some kind of ship.”

“A ship can have weapons,” Tameka’s mother called back to her. “So you saw it then.”

“We didn’t destroy it,” Tameka answered her mother, knowing that would be the woman’s next question. “Couldn’t. It was too big.”

“It’s alright,” her mother told her. “Don’t blame yourself.”

“I don’t,” she said, grabbing her mother’s arm and stopping her. A soldier passed her in the hallways, carrying what looked like weapons to what she assumed must be the armory. “I blame you. We have to stop this, mother.”

She didn’t know what she was saying, but none of what they were doing made any sense. “We need to try and talk some kind of amicable surrender. I don’t think Hymalious City is trying to end all life on this planet.”

She looked around the rocky corridors her mother had led them into. “Where are we going?”

“Surrender,” Tameka’s mother repeated the word, as if considering it on her tongue for a moment. “No. The Blazkor nation will never surrender to tyranny.”

They continued through the corridor into a large warehouse looking cavern where engineers were hard at work building more gunships.

“But we’re not a nation anymore,” Tameka insisted. “We’ve become nothing more than a band of terrorists.” She crossed her arms, a movement of rebellion immediately dwarfed by the scale of her mother’s operation. It was greater than she could have imagined. Since she’d began following the leader of their resistance, she’d seen hundreds of her personnel. Her followers. There could have been a thousand more down those tunnels.

“I’m not taking part in the next attack,” she told her mother. The older woman seemed to regard Tameka for a moment.

“You know,” she said at last, disappearing through a doorway on the opposite end of the cavern. “I’ve had personnel digging out these tunnels for ten years now.” Tameka was hesitant to follow her. “It’s sturdy. We’ll be safe in here.”

Tameka followed her into another rocky corridor.

“We can rebuild,” her mother continued trying to convince her, though gods if Tameka knew why. “Come back at them stronger than ever. More organized. Smarter.”

“From the Deep Desert?” Tameka asked her mother as they were coming to the end of yet another corridor. “What are we going to rebuild with? There’s nothing in the Deep Desert.”

Her mother smirked. “People keep saying that,” she said, leading her daughter into a large cavern. Like many other caverns they’d come across, this one still had a lot of men hard at work excavating away at the rock. What they found though was more than just space to build their operation. “They couldn’t be more wrong.”

On the walls of the cavern were drawn amazing carved hieroglyphic-like pictures and diagrams depicting extraordinary things. From what Tameka could tell some of the largest drawings told the story of a ship that crash landed on the planet long ago. There was also constellation designs, and an entire astronomical chart on the ceiling. A recent portion of the wall a group of people were clearing out even seemed to contain mathematical equations. Partial diagrams of technology, maybe something even more advanced than what they had.

The only light in the dark caverns they’d explored so far were the bulbs strung up along the way, and the men had only just erected the bare minimum in this room. Tameka knew there was a lot more to see.

“What is this place?” she asked her mother.

Her mother placed a hand on her shoulder. “I want you to help me figure that out,” the mother told her with a smile. “Work with me. Mother and daughter side by side.”

Her mother seemed to be trying hard to smile and Tameka gave a smile back of her own.

“Don’t worry about the next attack,” her mother told her in a sing song parent’s voice. “I’ve got it taken care of.”

*     *     *

Vanessa’s mother had told her not to worry about the packing. That she would take care of it. All Vanessa had to worry about was which dolls to take. It was a laborious decision that took many hours, organizing by size and color, and hug-ability.

Luckily she’d started the night before, because they had left that very morning. She had never been on a trip before. Her dad had sat her down one time to tell her it was because they were poor. Her mother got angry after that, accusing him of taking away Vanessa’s innocence.

Then they fought.

But apparently her daddy had been saving up lots and lots of money and they were gonna take her up onto the space elevator to the space station in orbit. It was all she ever wanted, she would tell her dolls so implicitly and constantly until they would get tired and not want to listen anymore.

Her parents had warned her what the lines would be like, be she knew not to mind. Her daddy had said they wouldn’t get up into space until tonight, or maybe even tomorrow! But they’d get to sleep in a hotel and have the whole day tomorrow to explore the station. She was so excited. She’d get to watch fancy people eat at all the expensive restaurants, and get to play in the souvenir shops and look out through windows at the stars.

She’d heard there was even an anti-gravity room!

“Just be patient,” Mommy told her daughter, though the sun was going down and they hadn’t even got inside Prime Central Station yet. “We’ll get you and Princess Patty to space.”

“And Lenard the banana,” Vanessa said, remembering other dolls she put in her pack. “And Stacy, and Balloo, and Bubbles.”

Someone knocked against her, a large man in dark bulky clothing, and she almost fell over as he made his way past through the line.

“Hey,” Vanessa’s daddy yelled out at the man in anger. “Wait your turn! We’ve been here all day!”

The man turned around and he seemed to be holding some kind of weapon. Whatever it was it made a loud noise and Vanessa’s daddy dropped to the ground like one of her dolls.

“Everyone on their asses,” the man yelled, brandishing his weapon around at the crowds of people as they screamed. People dropped, but Vanessa’s attention was only on her father.

“Daddy?” she asked, but he wouldn’t wake up. He wouldn’t wake up but his eyes were open. “Daddy wake up!”

The bad man hit Vanessa with the weapon across the head and it hurt a lot. She fell on top of her daddy, but she didn’t care about the pain. Or the blood seeping down her face. She shook her father but he didn’t respond.

Her mother grabbed her and pulled her away. “Your daddy’s okay,” her mommy said. “He’s just sleeping right now. He’ll be back soon okay honey?”

The bad man pressed the weapon against her mommy’s head. “I said shut up,” the bad man said to mommy. Her mommy started to cry. She had never seen her mommy cry before. Not like she cried sometimes when she was sad. It made her want to cry. In fact it made her want to shriek.

She did so, as loud as she could, shrieking until her lungs gave out, then taking a deep breath and shrieking again. The bad man hit her in the head with the side of his weapon again, and this time the pain was blinding. The last thing she saw as she hit the ground and her vision went black was her father’s body on the ground, looking like just another one of her dolls.

She was sorry, Bubbles, but she didn’t think they were going to make it into space. He’d wanted to go the most.

*

Nick Jonah saw what everyone else in the room saw. Multiple assailants were attacking the lobby, all armed with heavy weapons. They were gunning down civilians, and any security forces that rose against them.

Nick was a security officer, positioned in the security office that worked as both their break room, and where they could monitor the whole building on large screens. They could see everything.

“We gotta mobilize,” Nick’s superior, Harris, said through his billowy moustache and scruffy beard. There were about twelve of them in that break room, an equal number to the assailants in the lobby.

Harris grabbed the comm and dialed the space elevator. “Launch,” he told them roughly. “We can’t allow any of the terrorists on board. Launch now.”

The space elevator signaled the okay, and on the cameras Nick could see the elevator launch up the cable into the sky.

“Alright people,” Harris said, turning around. “We got the numbers to make a difference. Let’s get to that lobby.” Nick knew that they’d have back up coming from other floors. The terrorists would only hold the ground floor for so long.

All the security personnel left the room, and Harris, the last to go, stopped to look back at Nick.

“Hey newbie,” he said to Nick. “Maybe it’s best to stay here. Watch everything from the screens, be our eyes.” He paused for a second, unsure if he should go on. “I just don’t want ye getting hurt on yer first day.”

“I get it,” Nick told his superior. “Sounds like I’m the lucky one.”

“Aint that right,” Harris said, before disappearing after his men.

As soon as Nick’s superior officer was gone, he knew his time was at hand. They’d left him completely alone, the distraction working exactly the way it was supposed to. He took off his badge, and put on a pair of glasses and a tie. He looked enough like a computer technician, he hoped, to fool the Custodian of Records. It sounded more impressive than it was. Just a routine guard position, one that would hopefully be called on to assist the crisis in the lobby.

He quickly made his way through the corridors of Prime Central Station’s executive branch. Every footstep on the black tile seemed to echo throughout the whole building. He wouldn’t have much time, the distraction wouldn’t hold against their security forces for long.

He arrived at the Hall of Records, and to his dismay, the Custodian was still there.

“You hoping to get in?” the guard asked Nick with a raised eyebrow.

Nick pushed his glasses against his face, trying to do the best nerd impression he could. “Yeah, sorry, I heard there was a mainframe issue. Something about another phase of the terrorist attack.”

“I haven’t heard anything,” The Custodian said. “You mind waiting while I page central?”

The guard didn’t seem to be buying it. “You know, there’s quite the ruckus going on downstairs,” Nick told the Custodian, “they might need your help.”

The guard shook his head, still not budging. “I’m sure they’ve got it handled,” he assured Nick.

“That’s too bad,” Nick said, pulling his pistol slowly from its holster, just below the Custodian’s view.

“Why’s that?” the Custodian asked, raising an eyebrow. Nick raised his pistol above the counter and shot the guard three times. Twice in the chest and once in the head.

“Because now you’re dead,” Nick told the man as he bled out, reaching over the desk to hit the release on the door.

The large metal safety doors opened up, allowing Nick access into the center of their mainframe. It was a large computer terminal with many screens and wires that reached from the terminal into the ceiling and walls. One of the screens asked for a password.

Nick plugged a data dongle into what seemed like the appropriate slot and suddenly all the screens filled with code. There was a flash and Nick was in their server.

There was a keyword he had been ordered to search for, and download all relevant data to the dongle. He did so, blueprints flashing across the screen before being transferred into his device. Once it was done flashing, he pulled it out.

Now that he was in the network, he connected to the building’s cameras. The security forces had already captured or killed all of phase one. He wouldn’t be able to rely on their distraction for his extraction from the premises.

He’d have to rely instead on phase three.

*     *

Mrs. Johnson’s husband had been involved in the construction of the space bridge. Every year they would travel up the space bridge to the station and celebrate the feat in engineering that had brought them there. It was a tradition that didn’t end when her husband died.

She didn’t know what the conundrum was about that day, but she had been very surprised when the elevator launched at half capacity. “A lot more could fit on this elevator,” she told the man in a dark hoody beside her. He didn’t smile at her, his eyes instead giving her a sense of dread. They were the eyes of her husband, after his heart had stopped beating.

There was death in the man’s eyes.

She grabbed at the zipper on his sweater, she didn’t know why. She pulled on it, and underneath she found what she knew was there all along.

“A bomb,” she yelled to the nearest security agent. “This young gentleman has a bomb.”

The guard raised his gun at the hooded man, who looked to other hooded men around the spacious circular elevator. There were a bunch of them.

“For Blazkor!” the one hooded man yelled, and the other men joined in the rally cry. They all hit their buttons in tandem.

*     *

Shane had worked the news stand outside Prime Central Station for over twenty years. Never before had he seen such a racquet, or had he seen so many people crowd around the perimeter of the station.

They’d watched as security personnel charged into the situation, no one any idea what was really going on. It seemed like everything had finally calmed down and some peace was finally returning to Hymalious City, when suddenly there was a huge explosion in the sky. Fire filled the sky and everyone covered their ears as a shockwave shook the perimeter around Prime Central Station. Through the fire, the large chord that held up the space elevator could be seen dropping, hitting the side of the pyramid that was Prime Central Station, and cutting right through buildings as it dropped heavily with a thud onto the crowded city streets.

NEXT WEEK ON ADRIFT HOMELESS

David is on a mission to find out the truth about the man who died on his table. What did Lankey mean? Meanwhile, Emma is taken into government custody and John and Gilber are put in charge of investigating the attack on the space bridge.