Could a hungry bear have climbed in the cave and dragged him out? Did they eat people? Ruby said that wire fences had been put up around the corrals to keep them out. She said they were huge. My fear was quickly turning to panic as I examined the ground for any signs of a bear dragging Jack’s body away. I searched as far as the stream and doubled back around the outcropping where the cave was located. I didn’t see any signs of Jack having been dragged away.
But he was still missing.
The sun was rising higher in the sky. The bourge had probably already started today’s search. They might even be close to our location. What if Jack was out wandering around dazed and confused? He might walk right into them.
Then the thought struck me: what if we really were being watched? Someone took the bike and covered our tracks. Did they take Jack too?
They could be watching me right now.
I didn’t think the so-called heathens were hostile, but I didn’t know for sure. And Powell had said that there were other people out here—bad people he called them.
I heard that sound again—it definitely sounded like a bird cawing. I searched the tree line but couldn’t find it. The feeling of being watched crept up my spine and I quietly moved toward denser brush. I strained to hear if anyone was following me. I heard the breeze in the leaves, the distant sound of the stream, the occasional bird and the whisper of my own feet on the spongy forest floor. I walked toward an outcropping, climbed it, and hid behind a scraggly bush on a rocky ledge to get a full view of the ground below.
I saw nothing. No heathens. No bad people. No soldiers. No Jack. Was he gone?
Suppressing the panic that wanted to take over me, I climbed back down. I must have missed something. If someone had taken Jack, they might have left a clue.
As I walked, the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight. My eyes roved in either direction as I kept my face pointed straight ahead. I resisted the urge to run. Instead, I calmly walked toward a dense patch of bushes and tried to lose myself in them. I wove around a few boulders and made my way to the back of the cave.
Immediately, I began a search of the small space. There were no visible signs of anyone having been there. The IV hadn’t been yanked off the wall. Jack’s bedroll was in the same position. I picked up the blankets and looked underneath them. He wasn’t there either.
“Are you looking for me?”
I jumped to my feet and spun around, my heart threatening to explode. Jack stood at the entrance of the cave, wearing a mischievous smile.
“Jack!” I ran to him, almost knocking him over. “Where have you been?”
“I was—”
“I’ve been going out of my mind looking for you! Do you know how scared I was?”
“I just wanted—”
“There are bears out there! And soldiers looking for us! Did you even think about that?”
“But I was really—”
I smacked his shoulder. “Don’t you ever do that to me again! I thought someone—”
“Sunny!” Jack said, holding me at arm’s length. “I just went to the stream for a drink. I was thirsty.”
“You were?” I asked dumbly.
It never occurred to me that he just woke up and got out of bed. But he looked perfectly fine. I lifted the hem of his t-shirt to check his bandage. No blood was soaking through. I peeled it back to look at the wound. Only a faint scar remained.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“You’re healed.” It was incredible.
He brushed two fingers across the scar. “I’m kinda fuzzy on the details, but I thought I was shot? And why is the back of my hand bruised and full of stab wounds?”
I cringed when I looked at the back of his hand. “You were shot. You’ve been unconscious for a few days. “
He looked at me, wide-eyed. “Days?”
“I didn’t think you were going to make it.” Tears stung my eyes as I admitted my worst fear. I couldn’t stop my lips from trembling.
“Don’t cry,” he said, hugging me against him. I buried my face in his neck, biting back the tears. “I’m still here.”
“You don’t get it—you almost died.”
“Thanks to you, I didn’t,” he said, smoothing my hair. “And I see you got help. Where did you get all this stuff?”
Sniffing away the tears, I raised my head away from his neck and looked at the bedroll and IV. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He tried to make me promise I wouldn’t go back. This might cause a problem. I braced myself.
“Doc gave it to me. Sorry about your hand.”
His mouth tightened a bit. “You went back to town.”
I would have thought that was obvious. “I wasn’t about to let you bleed to death.”
“Do you know how dangerous that was?”
“Of course I knew it was dangerous, but you were dying.”
“So you just, what, strolled back into town, knocked on the door, Doc invited you in and gave you a bunch of medical supplies?”
I sighed in exasperation. He wasn’t going to be satisfied until I told him everything. “I brought you some food,” I said, finding the container and handing it to him.
“Dare I ask where you got food?” He looked at the container suspiciously, but accepted it.
“Terran and Flint—the guys I told you about who are sneaking food to the men in the range.”
“The guys you met in the corral.”
I nodded. Removing the pistol from my waistband, I sat down on the bedroll and leaned back against the stone wall. I put my sunglasses on my head and rubbed my tired eyes. Now that Jack was recovered, I suddenly felt exhausted. He sat beside me and I dropped my hand onto his leg. He was warm, breathing and alive.
“There’s not much to tell. I followed the stream into town and marked a trail so I could find my way back. I kept to the forest, snuck in the back of the medical building and convinced Doc to help me. He gave me a bunch of IVs, showed me how to use them, and I came back here and did everything he told me to do,” I said.
He laughed. “Why do I get the feeling that’s the abridged version?” He opened the container, ate a few bites and passed it to me. “You’re lucky he didn’t turn you in.”
“I told you, Doc is from the Pit.” I looked into the container—roasted meat and veg. It was good.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s on our side.” Jack shrugged. “Being a doctor is a plum position for someone from the Pit—heck, it’s a plum position for someone from the Dome—and I can’t see him jeopardizing it by being disloyal.”
“Trust me, Doc is not loyal to the bourge. He hates them.” I passed the food back to him. “He’s secretly working on some high-tech stuff that he doesn’t want the bourge to know about. He called it nanotechnology. He says it can save the Pit.”
Jack stopped eating and stared at me wide-eyed. “Nanotechnology?”
I nodded.
“Are you sure he said nanotechnology?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Why? What’s the big deal?”
“Because it’s not supposed to be real. It’s just science fiction. Something about gray goo and machines taking over the world. You know, like little green men visiting Earth.”
Uh-oh.
Was he going to be upset that I injected him with it? I hadn’t considered that. At the time, he was dying and there was nothing else to save him. I mean, it's not as though I had ever heard of it before.
I turned to look at Jack, wanting to emphasize my next words. “Doc said it was the most useful technology to come into the Dome.”
He raised his eyebrows at that, and then a look of understanding crossed his features. “You know,
he’s probably talking about miniaturization—like making a microchip smaller. That kind of thing.”
I shook my head, trying to remember how Doc had defined it. “He said it was…manipulating matter at the atomic level, or molecular level, or something like that. He calls them little robots—he has to look in a microscope to see them—and he uses DNA to program them.”
Jack turned an indulgent smile on me. “I’m not trying to accuse the Doc of lying, but he does sound like quite a storyteller. Think about it, Sunny. Little microscopic robots?” He handed me back the container, but I wasn’t hungry anymore. My mouth had suddenly gone dry. I reached for the water flask. “If technology that sophisticated really did exist, we’d be a lot more advanced than we are right now.”
I seized on that. “Doc said the same thing. He said the bourge didn’t want it around because it would challenge the Holts' nuclear control over us. That the only reason we haven’t progressed technologically is because the Holt regime didn’t want us to.”
Jack cocked an eyebrow at me. “That I can believe.”
I brightened. “So then, it’s not so far-fetched to believe nanorobots can actually exist.” I unscrewed the flask and took a few gulps.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. But if it does exist, it’s probably not going to save anyone anytime soon, let alone the entire Pit.” I choked on the water I was drinking. “Are you okay?”
I coughed and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I’m good,” I said. “It just went down the wrong way.” I took another drink to clear my throat and handed the flask to him. “Okay Jack, I have something to tell you.” He gave me a questioning look and took a drink from the flask. I shifted uncomfortably. “First, you have to understand that you were already weak and unconscious before I took the bullet out.”
He took the flask away from his mouth and swallowed. “You took out the bullet? It was still inside me?”
I nodded. “Then you started bleeding really bad. I couldn’t stop the blood. It just kept pumping out and pumping out and pumping—”
“I get it. I was bleeding to death.” He motioned for me to get on with the story.
“I wasn’t going to use it unless I had to. Honest. But the Doc said they were his little surgeons and they could—”
“Little surgeons?” he interrupted.
He would understand. Doc’s technology had saved his life.
“Nanotechnology.” The word hung in the air as Jack stared at me and I stared back at him. “Doc said they were capable of making new tissue and could fix you.”
He continued to stare at me, his mouth slightly ajar, and the silence stretched out. The occasional blinking of his eyes was the only clue that he wasn’t unconscious again. “Just to recap,” he finally said. “You went into town to see the genius doctor who’s working with banned technology and, you said, hates the bourge, he gives you a syringe full of tiny little robot surgeons, tells you to inject me with it and you did it?”
My shoulders sagged. “It sounds bad when you say it like that.”
He looked at me, wide-eyed. “It is bad, Sunny!”
“It saved your life! There was actually a moment when I thought you were dead, Jack. It was a last resort.” It hurt that he didn’t trust me. I hadn’t used Doc’s cocktail lightly. “I think you would've done the same for me.”
He looked at me in surprise. “I’m not so sure that’s true.”
My mouth dropped open, and I took a breath. “You’d watch me bleed to death even if you had a syringe full of little surgeons that could fix me?” He closed his mouth and studied me for a moment. I saw a look of doubt cross his features. “Two days ago, your heart was barely beating and you were cold, with a gaping, bleeding bullet hole. Now I can barely tell you were even wounded.”
He kept looking at me. I could almost see him weighing the pros and cons. “So what now? Did he tell you if they just biodegrade or something?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask.”
He snorted and threw his hands in the air.
“You don’t know how scared I was! The thought of losing you was more than I could handle.” Tears stung my eyes. I stood up and moved away from him.
He stood up too. “You’re mad at me?”
“This isn’t how I saw this going at all.” Didn’t he know how much he meant to me? “Before you were unconscious, you said something to me and…” Maybe he didn’t even remember.
The hard line of his mouth softened. “And I remember you said something back.”
There wasn’t much distance between us because the cave really wasn’t that big. I was suddenly feeling awkward and the urge to run away and hide was strong. But I was the one who had brought it up. It was time I accepted my feelings for him; denying them was taking too much of my energy.
I drew in a shaky breath. “I love you more than I could ever possibly say and I couldn’t just watch you die. I’m sorry you’re upset that I used Doc’s cocktail, but I’m not sorry I did it.”
The corner of Jack’s mouth lifted. He moved to stand in front of me, so close we were touching. My chest tightened. I wasn’t sure if it was from his proximity or the honesty of the moment.
“Well, when you put it like that…” His lips brushed mine so lightly it was barely a kiss, yet it stole my breath. “I guess I should be thanking you.”
“Or at least not be mad at me?” I asked, putting my hands on his chest.
He wrapped his arms around my waist. “I’m not mad. I’m too crazy in love with you.”
Warm happiness made me weak in the knees. I leaned against him. “Crazy?”
He laughed softly. “I must be crazy if I’m not even mad at you for injecting me with tiny little robots.”
A cawing sound from outside travelled into the cave. It was the same sound I heard earlier. The first time I heard it I had been close to the stream. The second time, I had been east of the cave. Now it was here.
“What is that?” I pushed away from Jack to go and investigate.
“It’s just a bird or something,” he said, trying to pull me back.
“I don’t know if it is.” Staying within the walls of the crevice, I peered out of the opening and surveyed the ground below. Jack was right behind me, looking over my shoulder.
“I don’t see anything,” he said.
“We should probably find a better hiding place now that you’re able to move.” We returned to the cave. “Terran and Flint said we’re real close to the range. And a group of soldiers passed by here too. I heard them talking about building a drone.”
“A drone?” He made a low whistle. “Somebody’s really pissed at us. I wonder who Holt sent out to replace Powell.” He walked toward our stuff in the cave.
I trailed behind him. “Powell’s not dead. You shot him in the medical center and they forced Doc to save him.”
“So I guess we know who’s pissed at us.” He stooped and picked up the backpack. “We’ll take all of this stuff. I don’t want any evidence of us being here left behind for anyone to find. Better they think we’re long gone.”
I gathered the bedroll and blankets. “How far can a drone fly?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know for sure.”
Jack shoved the pistol into the back of his waistband once we had everything in the backpack. Putting my sunglasses on against the afternoon sun, I perched at the edge of the cave and skimmed the surrounding area for any signs of soldiers. A small animal moved below, running from bush to bush. Birds flew between trees. I caught sight of something in one of the trees. I stared hard for a moment, waiting to see if it moved. The breeze blew through the leaves, making them flash under the bright sun, but there was no other movement.
“What are you
waiting for?”
“Do you see anything in that tree?” I motioned with my head.
Jack squinted, taking a good look. “Nope.”
“I guess it’s just me.” I forced my eyes away from the shadow and finished surveying the ground beneath us. Yet my eyes kept snapping back to the tree, hoping to catch the shadow by surprise.
“Let’s climb higher and get a better look,” Jack suggested.
“Are you sure you should be climbing? What about your injury?”
“What injury?”
He gave me a gentle push in the direction of the cliff face. I shot another look in the tree’s direction, but the shadow remained unmoving.
The climb wasn’t as steep as it looked and there were plenty of bushes growing on rock ledges that provided excellent cover from below. I hid behind one bush, waiting for Jack to catch up. A bird cawed below and another one answered in the distance.
“What are you doing?” he asked, crouching next to me behind the bush.
I raised myself up enough to peek over the bush and watch the ground below. The shadow I saw in the tree wasn’t visible from this angle.
“I get the feeling we’re being watched,” I confessed.
“Why?”
“Remember I told you I left a trail to find my way back here from town?” I asked. Jack nodded. “Someone covered up my tracks for me and the bike is missing.”
“You think maybe this was one of the details you should have told me?” he asked, giving me a wry look. I ignored it and studied the tree again. “Do you see anything? Is it them?”
I knew he was referring to the heathens. “I don’t see anyone. I’m probably just being paranoid. Come on,” I said, resuming the climb.
Reaching the top of the outcropping, I grabbed a tree root and hauled myself up. Jack had fallen behind.
“Are you okay?” I called down. I hoped his injury wasn’t hurting him.
“Were you a monkey in a previous life?”
I smiled. He was fine. I waited patiently and helped him up over the edge.
Worlds Collide: Sunset Rising, Book Two Page 18