His Name Was Zach (Book 2): Her Name Was Abby

by Martuneac, Peter

  “You feeling good about this?” Hiamovi asked quietly after more than an hour of silence.

  “Mhm,” Abby replied as she scratched a few more lines on her pad of paper. It was getting dark now, which made the sketching more difficult.

  Hiamovi paused as he thought his next question over, then said, “Do you trust me on this?”

  Abby stopped what she was doing, looked up at Hiamovi, and said, “You might as well ask whatever it is that’s on your mind. You know I trust you and there’s no reason to ask me that except to set up another question.”

  “Fair enough,” Hiamovi said. He took a breath and then said, “You should know as well as anyone that the key to trusting someone is knowing a lot about that person. I feel like I’ve been pretty open with you these past months, but I don’t think you’ve returned the favor.”

  “Are you saying you don’t trust me?”

  “No, I’m not saying that. All I’m saying is that whatever you’ve got bottled up inside… it’s gonna hurt you if you try to handle it alone. We aren’t meant to handle everything on our own, Abby. It’s okay to get help. It’s okay to let someone carry your burdens with you.”

  Abby said nothing for several seconds, so Hiamovi went on. “I know what it’s like to lose someone you love.”

  “You know nothing of loss,” Abby shot back as she gave Hiamovi a dark look. He was starting to encroach on her most painful memories, and her defense mechanism was to lash out. She expected him to back down, but to Abby’s surprise he met her eyes of steely silver with a hard gaze of his own.

  “I guess I lied. I haven’t been entirely open with you. Do you want to know why I live with my granddad? My parents never took part in the resistance movement. They had me, and they didn’t want to endanger my life. And my granddad respected that. But one night, DAS agents raided our home, thinking it was the home of an infamous dissenter. Four armed men went into my parents’ bedroom and started shouting. My dad reached to turn the light on and he was shot over two dozen times. Mom screamed and was also shot to death. Then… the men just left. They acted like it was just a drill that had gone perfectly.”

  Abby blushed from embarrassment and looked away, feeling awfully selfish. But Hiamovi wasn’t done yet. “You know what happened next? They planted evidence in my house, making my parents look like terrorists. The raid was called a success and the men who planned it were lauded by the media as heroes. The four men who murdered my parents were given medals, Abby. Fucking medals. So yeah, I know a little bit about loss.”

  An unbearable silence stretched between them as Abby kept her gaze on her paper. That had been pretty insensitive of her, to assume that Hiamovi had never experienced suffering. She had been alone for so long that her own pain and her own memories became the center of her world, making everyone else’s cares mere backdrops. What was it she had said to Zach once? Had she not told him to stop acting like the only person who ever lost a loved one? Maybe it was time Abby started taking her own advice.

  She had been quiet for so long that Hiamovi went back to watching the soldiers, feeling upset that Abby had shown no reaction to his story. Finally, Abby whispered, “My mom was murdered when I was twelve.”

  Hiamovi looked back at her, but his sable eyes were soft again, no longer bearing any contempt. “What happened?” he asked.

  “It was during the first couple days of The Crisis. Some man shot her over a loaf of bread… right in front of me. I ran home and stayed there all by myself for about a week. I barely ate, I barely slept. I heard gunfire and explosions almost constantly. Screaming, too. Horrible, awful screams. I was terrified.”

  “Where… was your dad?” Hiamovi hesitantly asked.

  “I never knew my dad. He ran away before I was even born.”

  Hiamovi gave her a sad look. “So you were alone all those years out there?”

  “No, there was…“ Abby started to say. She was about to tell him about Zach, but his death still pained her greatly, and she wasn’t sure if she could talk about it just yet.

  “There was someone who looked after me,” she said, “but I can’t tell you about him yet. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

  “I get it,” Hiamovi whispered as he placed a hand on Abby’s back. “You don’t have to unload everything at once. Sometimes baby steps are the best steps.”

  Abby blushed a little when Hiamovi touched her, but she smiled a bit, too. “You’re such a dork,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Hiamovi, it’s Jay! Right behind you, buddy,” Jay said. He had come up to the roof and, not wanting to startle Hiamovi, quietly warned him of his presence.

  The expression on Hiamovi’s face changed from soft compassion to utter frustration in an instant, making Abby giggle. Jay had unwittingly spoiled a tender moment between the two of them. She gave Hiamovi a small, apologetic smile and went back to looking at her paper, though it was almost too dark to see by now. Only a sliver of the moon was visible in the sky, which would make Abby and Hiamovi’s job a little bit easier.

  “I told you that we didn’t need you, Jay,” Hiamovi hissed.

  “I know, but I wasn’t going to miss watching a textbook robbery,” Jay said as he laid down next to Hiamovi. He unslung his grey backpack and pulled out his own video camera, one that was much nicer than the old cellphone Hiamovi had borrowed.

  “What do you think you’re doing with that?” Hiamovi asked.

  “Same thing I always do. Making a video,” Jay replied as he checked the battery life on his recording device. One of Jay’s main responsibilities in the ReFounding Fathers was recording certain acts of defiance and putting them on the internet so that people could watch the government and its agents being thwarted by a bunch of regular people. The government usually found the videos and tried to shut them down, but not before a Herculean effort by Jay to keep them up for as long as possible. He was an incredibly gifted young man when it came to computers. He could create complex viruses like nobody else and inject them into almost any system, or he could ward off potential hackers and even counterattack them. If you asked him, he was one of the most valuable members of the ReFounding Fathers.

  “Are you shitting me?!” Hiamovi whispered. “I told you that we can’t put this one out there! If the Tories even suspect that something happened here tonight, then everything Abby and I do will be for nothing!”

  “Relax! It won’t go on the internet, this is just for us. Training purposes.”

  Hiamovi looked ready to object again, but he thought it over for a second. “Fine,” he said, “but you’re gonna put this on a CD and then wipe it from your camera. We’re not taking any chances.”

  “Yes, sir!” Jay replied with a mock salute.

  Abby chuckled at that and said, “Hi, Jay.”

  “Hello, my dear,” Jay replied. “You ready for your first mission?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Seconds ticked by slowly as the chosen time for Abby and Hiamovi’s mission approached. They quietly conferred with each other on the specifics of their plan, now that they had had a good, long look at the warehouse, the property it sat on, and the soldiers guarding it. Despite Hiamovi’s greater experience in this line of work, Abby insisted that she be the main cog that moved the machinations of their scheme. She was quieter and more nimble, she argued, and Hiamovi finally relented. He would be Abby’s backup, keeping her within eyesight and creating a distraction if needed.

  At a quarter before ten o’clock, two large Army vehicles drove up to the warehouse. The soldiers inside the warehouse opened up the main gate, allowing the vehicles to drive inside. They stopped and the back doors of each vehicle opened up, and one tired looking soldier after another climbed out and hopped down to the ground, fifteen in total.

  An older soldier, the only one who was not wearing armor or carrying a rifle, came out of the warehouse and conferred briefly with one of the men who had just arrived. These two then signaled for the rest of the gro
up to follow them, and they were all individually posted along the fence, relieving the soldiers who had been standing guard for most of the afternoon: three manned the main gate, five others appeared to be roving around the inside of the fence, and the rest headed into the warehouse.

  Abby spotted the soldier with whom she had been flirting earlier making his way towards the idling trucks, looking this way and that, checking his watch every few seconds. Abby had to admit that she felt a little sorry for him. He did not seem like such an awful guy, at least not from what Abby could glean in her brief conversation with him. But this was business, and Abby had an important job to do, so the feelings of an unsuspecting stranger would have to be placed on the backburner.

  After a few minutes, all of the soldiers who had just been relieved gathered around the idling trucks. Hiamovi explained to Abby that these guys would be taken back to District 1 to debrief, store their gear in the armory, and then return to their homes in District 2. They may be soldiers, but they still did not get to live inside of District 1. Such a luxurious abode was reserved for Tories, not regular grunts.

  Hiamovi nudged Abby and handed her the tools she would need: a penlight and an old smartphone for recording. Then Jay wished them luck as they both headed downstairs and split up.

  The sound of engines still filled the night air as Abby and Hiamovi realized the trucks had not yet left; it appeared that they were being refueled at the moment by a soldier going to each vehicle with a tan, plastic jug. Just as well, thought Abby. The sound of the engines would cover any noise she might make while infiltrating the area.

  Abby approached the fence around the warehouse carefully, sticking to the deep shadow cast by the building beside her, heading for a specific spot in the fence as she put her hair up into a short, tight ponytail. Concertina wire was strewn along the top, but one spot in the alley Abby had been in earlier in the day looked like it had been tampered with, leaving a slight gap in the wire, a foot of space at most. If anyone had noticed it, they had probably decided that it was not worth the trouble of fixing it. It was only a small gap, after all, but Abby was certain that she could make it work, though it would require every ounce of agility and strength that she possessed.

  She poked her head into the alleyway. One soldier patrolled back and forth inside the fence. He did not appear to be paying attention to anything beyond the fence, just as Abby had suspected. The soldier started to move away from Abby, sauntering along just a few feet away from the fence and keeping his eyes on either the ground directly below him or the sky above him.

  Abby took a few short breaths to psyche herself up, then jogged quickly and in almost complete silence towards a dumpster that was right below the gap in the wire. She grabbed the cold, grimy edges of the large bin and quietly hauled herself on top of it. Abby licked her lips, starting to feel like she may have overestimated her abilities, but this was no time for second-guessing.

  Abby reached up and grabbed hold of the chain link fence with her right hand, and then she jumped, hauling herself up with her right hand and turning her body so that she could hook her left arm over the top of the fence, through the gap in the wire. With her right hand still gripping the outside of the fence, her left arm hooked over the top, and her left hand grasping the inside of the fence, Abby made her move. Gripping the fence tight, she kicked upward and hauled her body into the air.

  Never before had Abby been so grateful for the flexibility and core strength that years of dancing and exercise had gifted her than she was right now, holding herself steady on top of a fence, her body parallel with the ground below. Slowly she moved her legs and hips across and over the wire, her pants actually brushing against the jagged razors. The slightest uncontrolled movement in any direction would leave her either tangled in concertina wire or sprawled on the ground.

  The wire cleared, Abby began to lower her body, going slowly so that she could control her descent to the ground and not attract attention with a noisy landing. Her abs and sides, arms and shoulders all burned and silently screamed at her until she finally let herself drop. She hit the ground on steady feet and rolled forward, ending up behind a large stack of crates. She sat up with her back against the bottom crate and held her breath so she could listen.

  The soldier patrolling down the fence must have heard the small commotion behind him because Abby heard fast-paced footfalls approaching. She scooted around the corner of the crate as the man approached and listened for his next move. He stopped almost exactly where Abby had landed and stood there for a few moments, listening and looking around. Abby heard him take a step towards her so she scooted around again to stay out of sight. He paused again, still listening and looking. After a few more tense moments, his suspicions of an intruder seemed to have been beaten down by a lack of evidence and he resumed patrolling his area, though with a bit more alertness.

  Abby quickly looked around the property. It grew quiet again as the idling trucks began to leave the area. There was no one within sight besides the man patrolling the fence, but Abby figured she could get up to the warehouse before he came back around. Staying low and moving quietly, she darted from her hiding spot across some open ground, reaching a small forklift about fifteen yards away. She circled around the heavy machinery and crouched down behind this, once again evaluating her position. The soldier along the fence Abby had vaulted over had reached the corner and was looking around. He would probably be heading back in a few seconds, but he would not be able to see her now.

  But another soldier was now approaching, coming from the warehouse. If Abby stayed where she was, he would see her in moments, but if Abby moved around the forklift, the soldier along the fence would likely see her. The man was getting closer, and Abby had to make a snap decision. She quietly lifted herself up into the tiny cab of the small vehicle, squishing herself between the seat and the dashboard and underneath the steering wheel. It was an incredibly awkward and painful contortion, but it only lasted for a moment. The approaching soldier didn’t notice her, and as soon as he passed behind the vehicle she slid out to the side, facing the warehouse, staying out of view of both the men.

  She kept moving, dashing towards the warehouse. She reached the outside of the building, one of the long sides with large hangar doors and, for an eerie moment, Abby had a flashback to the prison in Illinois, that night that she, Zach, and Ross had tried to escape from Henry, but she shook this off and focused back on the present. She crouched down in the dark shadow of the building and moved towards the close corner, towards the east side of the building.

  Abby peeked around the corner and spotted the service door that Hiamovi had told her about, held open by a doorstop. She was a little shocked that thus far everything was going according to plan. Nothing ever went according to plan, at least not when Abby was involved. Staying low and close to the building, she inched towards the door as tiny beads of sweat began to roll down her neck and face. Her heart rate was picking up, so she was taking long, deep breaths to calm herself down a bit. She stopped before entering the warehouse, staying behind the open service door, and tried to focus her listening on the inside of the building. She could hear hushed talking, but it sounded like it was nowhere near her.

  Not daring to stay in any one spot for too long, Abby poked her head out from behind the door and took a quick glance inside. The place was dimly lit by overhead lights. The center of the structure was mostly empty, but containers of all types and sizes lined the walls, stacked from the floor to the ceiling. The soldiers that had gone inside just a few minutes ago were standing in a group along the far wall. They had set their flak vests down in a row next to the wall with their rifles leaning up against their gear. One of the soldiers was pointing at a group of small, grey crates in the corner and talking quietly. Abby guessed that they were about to do an inventory of the warehouse, meaning that her window of opportunity was about to slam shut.

  She darted inside and to the right, hiding behind a tall shipping container. The office was jus
t a little bit farther down from here. She moved along the container and stopped at the edge. Luckily for Abby, the door of the office was cracked open. But on second thought, if this door was left unlocked, then the office was probably used frequently throughout the night, so she might not be all that lucky. She took two long, quick steps across the open space between the container and the office and gently pushed the door open, praying that its hinges were well-greased. They were, and the door slid open with nary a sound as Abby sidled into the dark office.

  Knowing that she would probably have less than a minute, Abby launched a search for anything resembling a shipping manifesto. She pulled open a couple of drawers and quietly rooted through them. After a few moments she came across a thin, nondescript book with a stained tan cover and a broken spine. She pulled out her penlight and clicked it on as she opened the book. Shining the light on its pages, she found that it contained exactly the type of information she was looking for: dates, lists of supplies, and code names for routes. She brushed pages aside in a flurry, looking for the most recent entries, ending up near the end of the book. The dates on these last two pages ranged from that very day up to two weeks into the future.

  She set the open book down on the desk, retrieved the phone from her pocket, turned on the camera, and hit ‘record’. Holding the penlight in one hand and the phone in her other, she illuminated the last two pages of entries in the book and slowly scanned each line of information with the phone. She kept her eyes on the screen, ensuring that it would be legible enough to transcribe once she got back home.

  Abby was trying to go slowly to make sure she got all the information that she could, but every second that ticked by increased the chances of someone walking in on her. After what felt like an agonizing eternity, Abby finally got everything on tape. She clicked the penlight off and slid it into her pocket, turned the phone off and returned it to her other pocket, then closed the book and put it back in its drawer exactly the way she had found it. She closed the drawers she had opened and prepared to leave.