Jayla stopped in front of her father's cabin and dragged her sister out of the car. She set Jada on the steps leading up to the porch. If the girl wasn't going to move for herself, she could just sit there.
She didn't know how far away to drive the old man's car. She wished there were a place where she could safely ditch it, but then that would even look more suspicious. The thought of driving the car back to the old man's house gave her chills. Despite her precautions, she was sure he was free of his bonds and would be after her.
She wished again that she'd just had the courage to shoot him in the head.
But was kidnapping and rape justification for murder?
She reminded herself that she had fought the man in self-defense, that he had held a gun on her when she had hit him, that he had kidnapped and violated her little sister, and everything she had done was justified.
Would the police believe her?
Almost one hundred years after her ancestors were given civil rights and yet the jails still held more blacks than any other group. And here she, an eighteen year old black girl, had beaten an old white man and tied him up, then stolen his car and shotgun. She would go to jail.
Even ditching the car was problematic. It wouldn't take much DNA analysis to know she and her sister had been in the car. If she left it at the cabin, the police would know immediately to look for her. If she left it by the side of the road, DNA would point to her pretty quickly. Bringing it back to the old man's house was out of the question. What could she do?
Jayla sat behind the wheel of the car and cried.
Eventually she thought of her father's words. He had taught her to be goal oriented. He said that those who dwell on past mistakes never succeed. Success comes from focusing on objectives.
What were Jayla's goals?
She wanted to not go to jail.
Wait, that wasn't a goal. That was an anti-goal. Something she didn't want.
What did she want? What would her father suggest?
Then it dawned on her. She'd been thinking about it the whole time, but had thought of it as evidence against her instead of evidence in her favor.
DNA.
She was worried about the DNA evidence against her, but what she needed was DNA evidence in her favor. What she needed was Jada to be tested by a hospital for rape. The old man would have left plenty of evidence. She needed to get Jada to a hospital.
The girl was traumatized anyway, and maybe they could help her there.
What about the car?
What was her goal? It wasn't that the authorities couldn't trace her to it. That was negative thinking again. She simply wanted to keep the old man from using it to follow her. If everything she did pointed to that, they would know she had acted in self-defense.
She started the car and began driving to the lake. There was a parking area where she could leave the car. It would be found, but it wouldn't be as if she were trying to hide it. She didn't have to put the car in the lake, or burn it, to keep the old man from using it. All she had to do was throw the keys in the water and let all the air out of the tires, just in case he had a spare set of keys.
It took her an hour to accomplish her mission, but she returned to the cabin feeling better.
Jada still sat there, practically comatose, on the steps. She had to get that girl to a hospital and pronto.
The SUV packed with food and water, the loaded shotgun resting between the two front seats, Jada dressed and buckled in, and Jayla was ready to go. She looked at her father's cabin and at her sister and remembered a teacher's words about man's inhumanity to man. How could someone be so cruel to a little girl? Why were some people so good and others so mean? It didn't make sense.
Life isn't fair, her father always reminded her. We are always subject to the poor decision making abilities of others.
She smiled at that memory. Half the time she never knew what her father was talking about, but now she thought she understood a little of what he had tried to teach her. He had taught her to never act like a victim, but to always try to do what she thought was best. To not let herself be governed by others and their bad decisions. She had to think and act for herself.
I'm doing it, Daddy, she thought. I'm doing it.
She started off, heading south, away from the cabin in the woods and down the mountain to civilization and a hospital for her sister.
Eva, after giving up trying to open the door, sat on the floor next to it, crying again. Her bags were packed and she was ready. All dressed up and no place to go, she thought bitterly.
She was going to die in this dark apartment. Images of her skin turning pale, her hair falling out, and her eyes growing large came to her and she fell asleep to those thoughts, her dreams turning into nightmares.
She awoke suddenly to a click.
She didn't have time to ponder how long she'd been asleep. She saw her backpack and pulled the Glock out of the back pocket and ducked behind a sofa, keeping herself as close to the wall as possible, but with a line of sight to the doorway.
She could see.
The lights were back on!
The door clicked a couple of times, and then it opened. She held her pistol ready.
"Honey, I'm home," a voice called. She thought she knew that voice. "Are you holding a gun on me? My hands are up, see?"
A man moved into the doorway, empty hands extended in the air and slightly in front of him.
"Don't let the door close!" Eva yelled at him.
"Relax. I'll prop it open."
Mark Dornbush grinned at her. Eva rushed forward and jumped into his arms, kissing him fully on the mouth. She was so happy to see him that she wouldn't have even cared if he tried to slip her some tongue again. She wouldn't even bite it this time. They had been so drunk that night.
"I'm happy to see you too, Gilliam," he said when she pulled away. He grinned a mile wide.
"Even your ugly mug is worth looking at right now," she replied, grinning back. She and Mark had trained together at the Agency's academy and they were often sparring partners in the gym. He'd only overtly tried to hit on her once, at a bar when their class was celebrating graduation, but after she bit his tongue, he never tried again.
But she knew she could trust him.
"You got wheels?" she asked.
"Wait 'til you see my wheels."
"Alright, let's get out of here, then."
"Relax. Is there any good stuff here?"
Eva nodded towards her packed bags. "I got plenty of good stuff."
"The meter's running, but I've got a minute. Let me look around. These places are supposed to be loaded."
He moved to go past Eva and enter the apartment, letting the door close. Eva caught it first with her foot.
"Relax, Gilliam. The door was only locked because the circuit breaker had tripped."
"What if the power went out again?"
"It's been on for days. Stupid Agency didn't move the circuit breaker inside, and apparently everyone else has left the building. The door wouldn't open until I threw the breaker."
Eva rolled her eyes. She had been trapped in here for nothing.
"Besides," Mark said with a teasing smirk. "There's worse things than being trapped inside this apartment with you."
"You'd be trapped in here with my corpse. I'd shoot myself before I went through that again." Eva was serious.
Mark's face turned sympathetic. "I'm sorry. I wished I'd known sooner that you were here. We could have hooked up a generator to the door or something."
"I just want to get out of here as soon as possible."
"Then we're on the same wavelength. I was worried I'd have to wait for you to pack."
"Why?"
"Things have kind of fallen apart a bit while you were holed up in here, although Utah has mostly kept it together. No one from the feder
al government has any authority now, but there are locals still in charge."
"So?"
"We're federal, Gilliam."
Eva shrugged. Duh.
Mark's eyes twinkled. "Let's just say I didn't have any legal means of procuring our transportation, and I wanted to ride in style. Now, hold that door open while I go check out the goods."
It took Mark three trips to pull out several cases of water and several boxes of food. He didn't grab any other survival gear. They piled everything up outside the apartment.
Eva held the door open and looked back inside.
"Anything else you need?" he asked.
She shook her head.
Safe house and prison. Now that she was free, she knew she'd really shoot herself if she were trapped like that again.
"Nope. I'm done with this place." Eva closed the door.
She carried as much gear down the stairs as she could. Only one vehicle sat in the parking lot. A yellow jeep with the soft top rolled up and put away.
"Seriously?"
"Hey," Mark replied in defense. "I looked for a pink one, but thieves can't be choosers. It would have been epic. We could have used Ken and Barbie for our cover names."
Eva threw her gear in the back and shook her head with a smile at him.
A couple of more trips and the jeep was loaded. Eva finally stopped for a second and looked up at the blue sky and the sun. Freedom.
"We driving for a while?" she asked.
"That's the plan."
She pulled her shirt off. She needed sun. She took her tank top off also, stripping down to her sports bra.
"We ain't got time for that, Gilliam."
She flipped him a bird, then sat on the side of the passenger seat and untied her boots.
"We do have to get going," Mark said seriously.
"I need sun, Dornbush."
"I'm not gonna complain." She could feel his idiot grin as he probably watched her. She pulled her boots and socks off, then stood to shuck her camo pants off. She'd worn shorts under them.
Barefoot and in a sports bra and shorts, Eva climbed into the jeep, putting her clothes on the floor behind her seat. She leaned her chair back and settled into it, buckling her seat belt. She put her feet up on the dashboard. The feel of the sun on her skin was amazing. All the fears and terrors and frustration of the last few days melted away.
Mark gunned the engine and peeled out of the parking lot, the jeep bouncing as it crossed the gutter.
"Those legs might get us through a few checkpoints," Mark said to her. Eva ignored him, her eyes closed, the sun warming her skin, the breeze cooling it, and Eva had never felt better.
"Seriously, Gilliam. Things have changed. I don't mind you getting all naked in front of me, but you'd better keep that Sig Sauer handy."
"It's a Glock."
"Even better. Just keep it ready."
They wound their way through a mostly deserted neighborhood until they got to a freeway on-ramp. Mark took the southbound entrance.
"Where are we headed?" Eva asked.
"Do you really care right now?"
"Not really."
Mark grinned and started singing, "I wish they all could be California girls."
"California?" Eva guessed.
"Yep. What's left of it, anyway."
"What happened?" Eva wished there were a way she could roll over and let her back get as much sun as her front. She wondered how far back the seat would lean, then pictured herself trying to lie on her stomach. It just wouldn't work.
"It's a long story, Gilliam."
"We ain't got nothin' but time."
"I'm kind of short on details, everyone is, but I'll tell you what I know." Eva listened, stunned, as Mark described how the wars had gone, first the nuclear exchange with the Russians and then the one-sided conflict with the aliens. As her horror grew with his account, the sun didn't feel good anymore. She looked up at the sky and thought of space beyond it and wondered what terrors it held.
They continued south.
Wolfgang stared out the side window of the army supply truck, seeing, but not appreciating the fields and orchards of Eastern France. He could see the forested hills of Southern Germany in the distance. He hadn't spoken, he couldn't speak, wouldn't have even known what to say, since they had buried his wife. Leah and the three Americans had helped him even though he didn't know why. There was an urgency in their actions. Wolfgang knew they had been ordered to go south, to get to Italy and to a base on the island of Sicily, but they took the time to help him dig a grave in the communal cemetery and they waited patiently for him while he said a few words over that grave. Her grave. His wife's final resting place in mortality.
There was no headstone, and he knew that no one else would ever know where she was buried. Nonetheless he tried to bless the grave, using words he'd heard once before, but it felt inadequate.
They continued south through France on a tiny, two lane highway, heading for Basel. Leah told him her parents lived in a village near Biasca. It had worked out best to go through France, as radioactive clouds existed in the southwest of Germany, plus the highway through Basel led straight to Biasca, and after that into Italy.
Wolfgang hadn't even noticed when they'd crossed the border. The guards were gone, the crossing gates lifted, and the American truck had simply driven across.
The back of the truck was loaded with enough fuel, food, and weapons for an army. Or so Wolfgang thought. The truck consumed immense quantities of the precious diesel. He guessed the Americans hadn't figured out how to make electric or solar military vehicles yet.
The Swiss border was more regulated than the French one, but apparently the guards had standing orders to allow evacuating units through. They ignored the two civilians in the truck, not even checking passports. They did tell the group that several meteors had struck the town and there were tens of thousands of casualties. Rail lines had been destroyed along with several industrial centers. It was clear that commerce had been targeted.
So much for Swiss neutrality. Apparently it hadn't been recognized by the aliens.
The trip dragged on, Wolfgang bouncing in his seat. Captain Wlazlo drove and the other young officer, Captain Smith, sat in the front passenger seat, an advanced rifle resting uncomfortably on the ground between his knees. The senior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Robertson, sat alone in the next row, a map spread out beside him. Leah and Wolfgang sat in the last row of the large vehicle.
The American soldiers had talked to each other a lot during the early part of the trip and Wolfgang had listened, trying to understand their rapid fire English, but after seeing the damage in Basel, they were quiet. Perhaps they realized, as Wolfgang did, that fighting the aliens was hopeless.
With no noise but the drone of the engine and the squeaking of seats, Wolfgang drifted off.
His ears rang and he felt the truck swerving wildly, hitting something and bouncing upwards.
Wolfgang was dimly aware of Leah screaming next to him, but he could hardly hear her. His head hurt and he couldn't think. He felt the truck falling.
He finally broke the silence he had maintained since his wife's informal funeral.
"No!" he cried as the nose of the truck pitched forward and he felt the vehicle going upside down.
"Sir, you have a message," Lieutenant Commander Purcella said at the door to Stanley's quarters. Stanley floated over his bunk, upset at everything and everyone. Didn't they know what it took to put people on Mars? The governments of the Earth had moved mountains to make it happen. Putting a man on the Moon seemed like child's play compared to what it had taken to put Boston Wright on Mars. And as soon as they had gotten there, everyone wanted to turn their back on the program.
Beagle was only the sixth mission and Stanley was determined it would not end in failure, aliens or no
aliens.
"Sir?"
"What?" Stanley yelled at the man for interrupting his thoughts.
"Sir, you really need to listen to this message."
"Is Crayton whining again?"
"No, sir. It's the Hrwang."
"What?" Stanley wasn't comprehending what his communications officer had just said to him.
"It's the Hrwang, sir. They want to speak with you."
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