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

by Martuneac, Peter

  After hanging up her coat, she traded her jeans and T-shirt for a pair of soft shorts and a tank top that served as pajamas before crawling into bed, though sleep was still far from her. In the morning, at nine o’clock, Abby would be meeting Hiamovi for the first time in half a year. She felt like she would spontaneously combust from excitement, and part of her chided herself for being so girly and giddy over a boy. But she didn’t care. She loved Hiamovi. He was kind and considerate, strong and funny. And his striking, handsome features didn’t hurt, either.

  Seven hours later, Abby awoke and hopped right out of bed and headed straight to the shower. She didn’t need a shower, but she wanted to ensure she was clean and looked her best when she went to meet Hiamovi. She got dressed, then dried, combed, and tidied up her hair. Abby looked at herself in the mirror for a minute, studying her face. A little make-up would go a long way in bringing out her best features, she thought. Maybe it was time to invest in some.

  And that’s when she saw Henry’s leering face in the mirror, as if he was standing behind her. She no longer jumped or screamed like she used to when she first began to see Henry’s apparition. She knew he was dead, slashed to pieces by her very own hand, and it was all in her mind. But that’s what hurt the most. He was in her mind, and she didn’t know how to get him out.

  “No make-up,” she said aloud, and Henry’s visage vanished.

  A minute later, Abby was bounding down the stairs of the barracks, down towards the chow hall. It was early on a Saturday morning, so she found herself to be the sole occupant there, besides the staff. She gobbled down her usual breakfast and washed it down with a cup of black coffee, then nursed a second cup as she watched the news on the TV above the soda fountain. Local elections were coming up, and some talking heads were pontificating on issues like national security and recreating American industries.

  Abby checked her watch, finished the rest of her coffee, then departed. She passed one of her friends from the night before who had drank much more than she had, and he whistled at Abby as she passed by, which earned him a playful shove. She walked across the square to the main gate and walked by the idling guards there.

  As she stood on the sidewalk just outside the gate, Abby pulled out her government-issue smartphone (another thing to which Abby had to get accustomed) and summoned a ride that would take her to the edge of District 1, to one of the entrance gates. Then she sat down on the curb and began to throw stones across the road as she waited.

  A few minutes later, a grey Subaru sedan pulled to a stop in front of her, and she hopped into the passenger seat, telling the young driver her destination. He nodded once and pulled away from the curb. They made small talk for the duration of their short trip, Abby telling him about boot camp and the driver revealing that he was a Senator’s nephew who’d had his allowance cut off due to a drunken mishap or two, hence the job. As they arrived at one of the imposing district gates, Abby paid the young man the fare he was owed and hopped out of the car.

  Here Abby showed her new DAS credentials to the soldiers, and they ushered her over to a smaller side door beside the gate, used when small groups or individuals were departing. This was a safety precaution so that the main gate was only opened when a very large force of soldiers was coming or going. It was not unusual to see DAS agents head out into District 2 alone and in civilian attire. Sometimes they were on discrete missions, other times they just mingled with the people of that district, hoping to pick up some bits of intel or find terrorists (ReFounding Fathers members) in the act of planning or carrying out an attack.

  Abby checked her watch again and saw that she had a half hour until she was to meet Hiamovi at the coffee house down the road from her old apartment. It was usually packed to the gills with customers in the morning, making their meeting more likely to go unnoticed. She walked at a fast pace, hoping to get there a little bit early and order some coffee. But it was a farther walk than she anticipated, and she did not walk through the doors of the meeting place until just two minutes before nine.

  “Abby, dark roast!” called a voice from behind the counter just as the door closed behind her. Abby raised her eyebrows in surprise at the steaming Styrofoam cup of coffee with her name scrawled on it in big, black letters being placed on the counter, and she walked up to grab it.

  As soon as she wrapped her hand around the beverage, Abby glanced at the tables around her and saw Hiamovi sitting in the corner. He looked like his nose was buried in some book, but Abby could see the dark pupils of his eyes fixed on her. Fighting the urge to run and jump into his arms, Abby allowed herself a beaming smile as she sauntered over to his table.

  “Mind if I sit here? This place is packed,” she said with a coy look.

  Hiamovi feigned an annoyed sigh and gestured toward the empty seat in front of him, unable to hide a small grin of his own.

  Neither said anything for several seconds as they locked eyes, failing badly at keeping up the appearance of being strangers. But they didn’t care. They were young and in love, and six months of separation was an endless agony for them. They still had not said a word when Hiamovi took Abby by the hand and led her outside and around the corner.

  Here they now dropped all pretenses, and Abby found herself pressed up against the wall as Hiamovi kissed her neck. After a few passionate minutes of making out, the two sat down next to each other, their chests heaving with each deep, shuddering breath they took.

  “Good rendezvous,” Abby said, and Hiamovi nodded his head.

  “Anything interesting to report?” he asked.

  “You and your granddad are safe. You’re not on any lists and they have no idea who’s running the group.”

  “Good, good. Anything else?”

  Abby shook her head. “Nothing important. I’ll be placed in a squad on Monday. Any ideas for our next meeting?”

  “The movie theater, exactly six weeks from today. Buy a ticket for whatever’s showing in theater two at 7:30pm. Sit in the last row.”

  “Cool. We should probably split back up now.”

  “Do we have to? So soon?”

  Abby nodded her head unhappily. “We kinda blew our cover here. We’re playing with fire now, and better safe than sorry.”

  Hiamovi sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. You go this way, I go that way?”

  Abby nodded and they helped each other to their feet.

  “I love you, Hiamovi,” she said.

  He smiled and kissed her one more time. “I love you, too,” he replied.

  They smiled again, and then they left, going their separate ways to avoid being seen together again.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The next month and a half went by in a blur, surprising Abby. Seeing Hiamovi and feeling his breath against her skin again had set her heart on fire, and she expected the passage of time to come to a crawling pace, but her new unit kept her busy. Her commanding officer, Captain Lopez, was a tough, no-nonsense kind of commander. Hard, but not cruel. He demanded nothing short of perfection from his unit, but demanded even more from himself. Steeped in book-smarts, and storied in street-smarts, he was intimidating, the kind of guy who could convince the Devil to hand him the keys to the Underworld with the proper application of a credible threat.

  Captain Lopez had welcomed Abby into his unit in the early morning hours of that first Monday, telling her she was the 165th member of Lima Company, one of six companies in the capitol: excepting Lima, there was India, Kilo, Foxtrot, Golf, and Hotel. The captain did a bit of bragging on his company’s record, claiming the greatest successes in DAS history belonged to his agents, which of course, he added, were the best agents in the entire department.

  Abby took his boasting as embellished truth, believing that any unit commanded by such an impressive man functioned at an elevated level, but of course the number of opinions on which company fielded the best agents probably varied a great deal.

  In short order, Abby found herself thrust into the thick of DAS activity. Most of the
other companies gave new agents a week or two of extra training, teaching newcomers their specific standards and preferred methods and tactics. But Captain Lopez said that if you weren’t ready to hit the ground running in his company, then you weren’t worth your keep.

  And that’s how Abby found herself on an armed, mounted patrol through District 2 on her very first day with her new unit. She sat in the back of a black Ford Expedition with tinted windows, following two other such vehicles. This mission had no other objective than reminding the people of District 2 that the DAS was out there, watching. Nothing of note happened on this patrol, and Abby was thankful for that. She knew she might have to make some tough choices to keep up appearances with the DAS, and she wasn’t sure how far she’d be willing to go. She couldn’t imagine pulling the trigger on a resistance fighter, and she wondered if anyone would notice if she were to fire inaccurately on purpose.

  “Cross that bridge when I get there,” she told herself.

  Abby soon realized that the life of a DAS agent was like being a celebrity soldier. Some days she had to perform mundane activities, like standing watch at the walls or around the city. But more often she would wake up early to do physical training with her squad, then she might get some debriefings on recent and near future DAS activity before loading into helicopters and flying several miles out of the city. The DAS had built rifle ranges out there for their agents to use, and they used them well.

  Abby was certain that she herself had shot more ammunition in her first week at the range than an entire company did in a year in the regular army. They practiced basic marksmanship with different weapon systems and also ran solo and group drills, like clearing houses or shooting and moving under fire in the open.

  Occasionally, they even performed activities known in the military community as ‘high-speed, low-drag’. Over time, Abby would fast-rope out of a helicopter onto a rooftop, fire a minigun from a Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected, All-Terrain Vehicle (or MATV) that was moving at almost forty miles per hour, and even perform a High-Altitude, Low-Opening (HALO) jump out of the back of a C-130 jet flying at 75,000 feet above the ground. These were the kinds of activities that got Abby’s heart pounding and left a huge, excited smile on her face. She may not have been a thrill seeker, but she certainly enjoyed it when the thrills came to her.

  After a day of training, they would return to District 1 and clean their weapons and gear, after which they might do some grappling or sparring. Abby learned soon that each and every one of her opponents in the practice ring was a highly-trained, dangerous person, and they didn’t hold back on the women. As opposed to her sparring in boot camp, here Abby was forced to push the pedal to the metal every time, and most times it still wasn’t enough to win.

  Still, she was performing far above what you might expect for someone her age and size, and she beat the men in her squad more than a few times. These past few years and all the trials that had come her way had made Abby strong, wiry, and tough. She was not your average teenager in normal times, not at all. She was a product of the dangerous Wild, of being thrust into combat at a young age, of learning far before most the fragility of life, and what it took to survive. The others in her squad snickered the first time she entered the sparring ring, but they quickly learned that not respecting Abby’s abilities was a good way to get your ass beat.

  In the evening, around dinner time, DAS agents were free to do as they wished. For Abby, this usually meant sitting in her barracks room and reading, working out, or just hanging out. She formed friendships within her squad, but she still kept to herself most of the time. Once in a while she’d go out with the boys to get a drink, but this was mostly for keeping up appearances as a contributing member of the unit.

  Part of her felt bad that her very presence in this group was a deception. In contrast to the image of the black-clad, jackbooted government thugs that she and everyone else in District 2 had of DAS agents, they all were quite normal people and Abby thought that, in a different world, maybe she could have been genuine friends with some of them.

  By the next time Abby met with Hiamovi at the end of June, she had ascertained some decent information worth sharing: a patrol schedule. The two were practically giddy, and Abby felt immense pride in herself. She was doing it. Handed a task that was within spitting distance of suicide, Abby thus far found remarkable success in not only infiltrating the DAS but also getting some good information and passing it on to the ReFounding Fathers.

  Their meeting lasted longer than it should have. Abby and Hiamovi actually became rather interested in the movie that was playing and they decided to stay for the whole thing. Well, it was to be admitted that they also wanted to spend as much time as possible with each other, and here in a dark theater with their backs against a wall they felt safe doing so. Being apart from Hiamovi was hard for Abby, and vice versa. She loved him, more than she’d ever loved someone, and these moments with him, though few and far between, were just enough to keep her going.

  They scheduled their next meeting for September, soon after Abby’s 18th birthday. They didn’t want to wait that long but Abby knew she couldn’t risk coming to District 2 too often without raising suspicion, and she also wanted some time to try to get some really good intel for Hiamovi. The look of pride he’d given her just a couple hours earlier when she reported in with something useful for the cause was worth all the danger she’d faced in her short time with the DAS. They kissed one last time, then left the theater separately.

  However, much to Abby’s disappointment, she didn’t learn much of consequence before the next meeting. But the pair still enjoyed their time together as they watched yet another movie. Well, they saw most of it before sneaking off somewhere private for a more romantic reunion. A ‘belated birthday party’ they called it. Afterwards they set a date for their next rendezvous then parted ways again, which never got any easier.

  But just a month later, a pang of doubt began to take root in Abby’s heart as she struggled to figure out how to get better information for Hector and Hiamovi. She even began to question the use of this whole mission. Sure, patrol routes and advance notice of convoys were good things to know, but was it worth the risk? How long would her luck hold out? If just one person who knew the girl whose life she had assumed saw her, it’d be all over. She’d be outed and killed, but not before they tortured her for information.

  Her luck took a turn for the better that week, however, though she did not know it just yet. She had spent her Sunday evening at the gym and was just returning to the barracks. Walking down the hallway that led to her room, Abby noticed the door across the hall from hers was open, pouring a dim yellow light into the hallway along with some soft music. Curious, as that room had been empty for almost two weeks, Abby furrowed her brow and peeked inside.

  A young, blond man with his back to the door was making the bed in the corner, and three green sea-bags, the same kind all DAS agents were given to hold their stuff in boot camp, lay on the floor, half empty. The man finished forming perfect hospital corners at the foot of his bed, then stood up and turned around to find Abby watching him.

  “Jesus!” he said, jumping a little in surprise. But then he narrowed his icy blue eyes at Abby and said, “Hang on. I’ve seen you.”

  “Have you?” Abby asked.

  “Yeah, just hang on a second,” he insisted, snapping his finger as he thought. Then he smiled wide and pointed at Abby.

  “Punching bag girl.”

  Then it clicked with Abby. This was the same young man she’d met at the gym the day of her DAS boot camp graduation. And, now that she wasn’t distracted by her music and her workout routine, she realized he was quite a handsome young man, too.

  Abby smirked, pointing back at him, and said, “Creeping guy, who totally wasn’t checking me out.”

  “Well, maybe I was a little.”

  “You remember me, huh?”

  “With eyes like yours, how could I ever forget?”

  Abby couldn�
�t help the smile that crept onto her face, but she ignored the compliment and asked, “So, you’re an agent?”

  “Yup, first day is tomorrow.”

  Abby frowned. “We’re not supposed to be getting any new agents. They’re not even recruiting again till November.”

  “Not a big group, no. But the DAS sometimes takes individuals, or two or three at a time, and puts them through a crash course, if they’re especially promising.”

  “Ah, so you’re probably the son of someone really important, huh? Born with a silver spoon in your ass?”

  “Gold, actually. With little emeralds along the handle.”

  “Wow, that had to have been special ordered.”

  “Yup. Came with a fork and knife too, but thankfully my parents only put the spoon in my ass.”

  Abby smiled. “Abby,” she said.

  “Derrick,” he replied. “I don’t mean to impose, but if you’re not busy, I could use a hand finishing up in here. Being born with an emerald-encrusted, gold spoon in my ass hasn’t made me fond of manual labor.”

  Abby’s instinctual reaction was to say ‘yes’ to the attractive guy who seemed to be flirting with her. But her next thought ran to Hiamovi. “This is just a cover. You have a boyfriend,” she told herself.

  “Sorry,” she said to Derrick, “but I really need a shower, and there’s a book next to my bed that’s dying to be finished.”

  “What if I told you it’s my half-birthday today? I mean that’s a pretty big deal.”

  “That is a pretty big deal. How old?”

  “Nineteen going on twenty.”