Human Element

by AJ Powers

  He slowed his pace and kept low as the forest narrowed, squeezing between an upscale neighborhood and a large apartment complex. Though there was easily a football field’s worth of timber separating him from either side, the fact that he could see the occasional house or community pool from where he stood meant that there was a possibility they could see him, too. Which meant he would take the extra time required to move safely through the passage.

  Fortunately, most of the activity was staying behind him. He assumed the Sentinels were still out looking for him, but the truth was, he had no clue as to what their “protocol” was on something like this. Maybe after the initial search turned up empty, they would decide not to waste further resources looking for the Sentinel’s killer. Then again, for all Aaran knew, he was about to come out on the road up ahead to no less than two hundred barrels aimed his way, eagerly awaiting their commands of ones and zeros to replace his vital organs with copper-jacketed lead—sixty-two grains at a time.

  But there was nothing. The road was clear as far as he could see in either direction, and it was almost eerily still. Keeping low, Aaran crossed the street without incident and continued his hike through the woods. The gray skies around him darkened, prompting him to glance down at his watch. He had an hour of daylight left at best. He would need to find a place to stay for the night, and soon.

  He knelt beside a tree and slung his pack off his shoulders, fishing out a small pair of binoculars. They looked like the type of “spy glasses” from a kid’s meal at a fast food joint, but their magnification was impressive for the size, and the clarity was stellar. Well, it would have been, had they not been submerged in the Little Miami.

  Despite the watery distortion in the lenses, every house Aaran scanned showed signs of a Nebula connection. In most cases, if one house had it, the entire neighborhood was connected. And Aaran suspected that cutting the power to any house connected to the Nebula within ten miles would be like firing a signal flare into the air while screaming, “Come at me, bro!”

  He moved on.

  With just minutes to spare before sunset, Aaran came out of the trees into a relatively secluded parking lot. On the other side of the lot was a massive workshop with rows of doors running down the side. A quick visual inspection from afar suggested the building was offline, especially judging from the ancient power lines running to the building’s electrical boxes.

  He wasn’t thrilled with the amount of open space he would have to cover before reaching the aluminum building, but the promising location warranted a closer look. Not to mention, that the commotion from earlier had all but died off. After a long, nightmarish day, Aaran felt that he might finally be out of the woods—both figuratively and literally.

  Aware of his surroundings, Aaran jogged across the parking lot. As he got closer, he did another scan of the building’s exterior. It was devoid of all obvious signs of the Nebula. Home, sweet home, he thought as he tried the first door at the front of the building.

  Locked.

  He went down the side of the building, trying each door along the way. It was more of the same. He could shoot a lock if necessary, but he was hoping for a more discrete solution to the problem. He walked back toward the front of the building to look for some thin metal scraps near a dumpster he had spotted on his way in. Some drywall corner bead or thin duct work would likely do the trick. He had jimmied a door or two with thicker items before.

  Aaran was approaching the front of the building when he heard a noise.

  “Hi, there.”

  Another human!

  Aaran stopped dead in his tracks before slowly turning around. A pretty face with a half-cocked smile greeted him. Her dirty blond hair hung past her shoulders, and her olive-colored skin was nearly flawless. She looked to be around Aaran’s age, maybe a tad older, but undeniably aging much more gracefully than him. She was wearing a dark pair of pants, along with a drab-colored jacket. A white wire emerged from her jacket pocket and ran up to her ear. But the first things he had noticed were her hands and the hot pink fingernails that had an almost iridescent glow to them in the twilight of the evening…

  And the pistol that she held in them.

  Chapter 7

  The world was unnervingly silent, and Aaran kept his body impossibly still. He crossed his eyes and got a dizzying look at the Jericho pistol pushing up against his forehead. The girl’s finger was on the trigger, her hand still and calm. Her crisp brown eyes lacked fear or nervousness. They exuded an intense confidence. Although Aaran could tell that she wasn’t a cold-blooded killer, that didn’t mean he was safe from being on the receiving end of a nine-millimeter lobotomy.

  Moving at the speed of a sloth, Aaran raised his hands, keeping them about shoulder level. “Listen, I’m not one of—”

  “Who did you lose?” she cut him off, her soft voice just above a whisper.

  Aaran tilted his head. “What?”

  She pressed the muzzle of her gun harder into his head, causing Aaran to wince from its proximity to the gash on his forehead. “Don’t play stupid with me. Tell me who you’ve lost or I paint this building with a lovely shade of gray matter.”

  Aaran was rethinking his whole ‘not a cold-blooded-killer’ theory.

  “Uhm,” Aaran stammered.

  Another jab with the pistol caused Aaran’s head to rock back. “Three…two…”

  “Everyone!” Aaran said through gritted teeth. “I lost every last person I ever cared about.” His eyes flickered with a red-hot rage for a moment before glistening with grief. He breathed deeply through his nose as he held her gaze.

  The girl kept the muzzle of her gun on his skin for several long seconds before stepping back, allowing Aaran to relax some. She studied his weary stance, his battered face, and his filthy clothes. Recognizing that he wasn’t one of them, she nodded in the direction of the commotion and said, “So, I assume you are the one responsible for all this?”

  Aaran glanced over his shoulder, then back at the girl. “Yeah. I guess that would be my handiwork.”

  “What’d you do to get their hackles raised like that?”

  Aaran took a breath before responding, then hesitated. “Nothing. I was walking along the road and one of them spotted me. So, I ran.”

  She shook her head and raised the gun slightly, a gesture of her growing impatience. “I really don’t like liars.” She put her free hand on her hip and gave a piercing stare that commanded the truth.

  “Okay, I shot one of them…several, several times,” Aaran said, unable to recall just how many bullets he had dumped into the man.

  One corner of her lips tugged upward for a fleeting moment before her expression hardened again. Before she could respond with a follow up question, the rain started to pick up. Aaran looked at her with pleading eyes and chattering teeth. Against her better judgment, the girl said, “Come on,” and tilted her head toward the door behind her. “But,” she added when she reached the door, “if you want to come inside, you’re going to need to hand your weapons over.”

  The idea didn’t sit well with Aaran, but sleeping in the freezing-cold rain was even worse. The request wasn’t unreasonable either, given the circumstances. And since she hadn’t killed him already, her trustworthiness was off to a shaky, but okay start. With a quick nod, Aaran slowly removed his Glock from its holster and handed it to her. She took the pistol out of his hands and stuffed it into her waistband at the small of her back. Aaran then unclasped the Scorpion’s sling, and she took that as well.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  “Uhm, no, I think that does it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Have you already forgotten how I feel about liars?”

  “Okay, there may or may not be a shotgun in my backpack.”

  She flashed a look of surprise before walking around him and unzipping the pack. She quickly verified Aaran’s statement. “Nice,” she said as she pulled the short twelve-gauge out.

  She didn’t trust him, and showed him as much wh
en she quickly frisked him. Aaran couldn’t help but relish in the moment. It was his first physical contact in God knows how long. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the companionship until she ran out of places to pat down.

  The woman approached a door that was hanging ajar and gestured Aaran inside. She quietly closed the door behind them and flipped a switch on the wall. The four gymnasium lights hanging overhead hummed to life, gradually getting quieter as the room got brighter. The large, windowless workshop was filled with boxes, tools, and various machinery. In the far corner was an old pickup truck halfway covered by a blue tarp and a huge, heavy duty tool chest. The opposite corner had a couch with a pillow and balled-up blanket, and other household furniture. Stacks of boxes littered the room as if the previous owner had been using part of their workspace for a storage locker.

  “I’m Hadas,” the girl said as she twisted the deadbolt on the door before hanging a supplementary padlock on a latch just above.

  “Aaran,” he replied as he took in his surroundings.

  Hadas turned around and said, “Nice to meet you, Aaran,” as she walked by. “Follow me.”

  Aaran obeyed. He was curious about what was inside all the crates, boxes, and…Rifle safe? His eyes lingered on the heavy-duty, fireproof gun safe up against the wall, sandwiched between two industrial shelves. His interest in the safe didn’t go unnoticed.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Hadas barked. “And I mean it. Don’t. Touch. A thing. Got it?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  Hadas sat down on the couch and pointed to a matching chair sitting beside a fifty-five-gallon steel drum. “Have a seat.”

  Aaran happily complied. After the day he’d had, sitting in the oversized chair was like sitting on a cloud. He couldn’t remember a piece of furniture ever being more comfortable. A sigh of relief escaped his lips when he pressed into the fluffy cushion. He closed his eyes and enjoyed every second of it.

  “Here,” Hadas said, holding a bottle of water out in front of her.

  Aaran peeked one eye open before leaning forward to grab the drink. “Thanks.”

  “So, why’d you kill him?” Hadas asked casually as she broke the seal on her own bottle.

  Aaran shrugged while he downed the water. “Just sort of happened. I was crashing in some house over by the lake when a bunch of trucks rolled in. I was on my way out of the neighborhood when the guy surprised me. Didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

  “Where did you get that suppressed Scorpion?” she said, moving straight into the next question.

  Aaran was impressed that she knew the gun by name. “Neighbor was a cop. After everything…you know…went down, he never came home. I figured he wouldn’t miss it.”

  Hadas nodded. “Yeah...” she said. The look on her face told Aaran what had happened before she spoke. “My parents were in Phoenix when it happened. They didn’t come back either.”

  “Sorry,” Aaran said, sincerity in his voice. “What were they doing in Phoenix?”

  “They were at a gun expo showing off their product to some executives and a few military reps,” she said, swinging her thumb over her shoulder toward the workshop floor. “After that, they decided to take an extra week there for vacation.”

  Aaran’s eyebrows darted upward. “Your parents designed guns?”

  “No. Body armor.” Hadas took a sip of water before reaching over the side of the couch for some beef jerky, offering Aaran a strip. “My dad had called me earlier that morning, telling me that some big-wig at the DOD was particularly interested in their design and was going to call to schedule a meeting with some people from the Pentagon after New Year’s.”

  “Wow,” Aaran said as he clenched down on the leathery strip of beef, tearing a piece off in his teeth. Though the topic of conversation was disparaging at best, he couldn’t help but smile on the inside—it felt good to talk to another person again. “That’s actually pretty cool. How did your mom and dad get themselves into the body armor business?”

  “My mother was IDF and my dad was a Marine-turned-PMC for a company called Parkland and Howell. They met over in Syria while on assignment. Got married a year later, the rest is history.”

  “So, your mom was in the Israel Defense Force, and your dad worked as a private military contractor, sooooooo naturally after they got married and had a kid, they said, ‘Welp, time to make some body armor’,” Aaran said jokingly, a stupid grin plastered on his face.

  Hadas’s nostrils flared, and her eyes narrowed on Aaran’s face. “They lost a lot of good friends to war over the years. They both had a passion to increase a soldier’s survivability in battle, and with their skillsets and knowledge, that came in the form of body armor.” Her narrowed eyes squinted just a little tighter, causing Aaran to stop chewing. “It would be wise of you to never insult my parents again, capisce?”

  An audible gulp came from Aaran’s throat as he swallowed his bite of food. “Listen, Hadas, I-I-I didn’t mean anything by it…”

  Hadas could see the remorse in his expression. “Thank you.”

  After Aaran’s moment of poor judgment, the conversation went quiet for several long moments. The light tapping of rain on the aluminum roof above was the only thing keeping the awkward silence at bay. Aaran decided to change that. “So, this is your workshop then?” he asked, finally putting two and two together.

  “Yup.”

  He looked around from where he was sitting, admiring her living arrangements. “Yeah, you definitely have a pretty sweet setup here. Secluded location, open floor plan, off-grid power…” Aaran said as if he was a realtor pitching a house to a client. “And the best part: pre-Nebula technology.” Aaran tossed the last bite of jerky into his mouth and chewed more obnoxiously than he realized. “So, how long have you been staying here?”

  “I left home about six months ago.”

  “What made you decide to leave?”

  “I was hoping my parents would suddenly show up…That they would come back with some sort of elaborate plan on how they were going to fix the world. Each night, I told myself I would wait just one more day for them. That went on for about four months.” Hadas repositioned herself on the couch, placing her elbow on the armrest to support her head with her fist. “But every day those trucks and soldiers got a little closer. It just seemed like a stupid idea to wait until they were kicking down my front door to leave.”

  Thinking back to earlier that morning, Aaran had to agree with her on that one.

  “So,” she continued, “I packed up some food and water and made my way here. Not sure what—” Hadas was interrupted by a revving engine in the distance. It was far enough away that neither of them panicked, but close enough to make them a bit concerned.

  She got off the couch, grabbed Aaran’s Scorpion as if it were her own, and ran over to the door. Aaran followed. Though, being unarmed, he would be useless in the event she needed help. She pressed her ear up against the steel door and listened.

  “Do you think—”

  “Shhhhh!” Hadas cut him off, waving her hand at him. She put her finger on the earbud sticking out of her ear and pressed it in further while the two remained perfectly silent. “Okay, I don’t think it’s anything to worry about,” she said as she peeled away from the door. “But I think it’s maybe time to call it a night.” She flicked the light switch off. The room fell into a darkness that was almost surreal. Hadas clicked on a flashlight and made her way over to the safe against the wall. Making sure to block Aaran’s view from the dial—a sound habit that Lawrence had never practiced in front of him—she swiveled the dial back and forth, then opened the door just enough to stick Aaran’s Scorpion and shotgun inside before locking it up. She turned around and headed back over to the couch. Aaran followed. “You can stay here for the night, and you can have your guns back in the morning. But then, you need to find a different party to crash,” she said as she dropped down on the couch. “And don’t try anything funny tonight…I promise, it won’t
end well for you.”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” Aaran replied. “You okay if I go change into something dry real quick?”

  Hadas waved her hand, and Aaran walked behind a stack of boxes just a few feet away. After a series of shuffling and zipping sounds, Aaran reemerged, feeling like he had just walked out of a nice, hot sauna. He plopped down on the chair across from Hadas and spent the next few minutes trying to get comfortable. But without a blanket, it was a tall order.

  Without saying a word, Hadas let out a sigh and grumbled something in Hebrew as she got back to her feet and walked over to a stack of boxes in the corner. She went through three of them before she finally pulled an old quilt out. She dropped it in Aaran’s lap as she walked back to the couch, quickly getting settled in. Again.

  “Sleep tight,” she said somewhat insincerely and clicked the flashlight off.

  It was only 8:15 P.M., so Aaran knew he wouldn’t be falling asleep anytime soon.

  Five minutes later, he was sawing logs.

  Chapter 8

  “We gotta go!” Hadas hissed as she shook Aaran’s shoulder.

  “Huh? Wha?” he groggily spit out as he was ejected from his slumber. “What time is it? What are you doing?”

  “We’re getting evicted,” she said with an edge in her voice as she stuffed some supplies into her pack.

  “Evicted? What are you talking about? By who?”

  “Them!”

  “Sentinels?”

  Hadas sighed while she hurried over to a box and sifted through the contents inside. “If that’s what you call the guys holding rifles and frag grenades, then yes, Sentinels.”

  The fog immediately lifted from Aaran’s tired mind and he jumped out of the chair, instinctively reaching for a gun that was nowhere around. He looked back at Hadas. “How do you know?”