by Natalie Reid
“If you got a problem with the military, then say it to my face,” Aaron shot back, stepping forward as well to show that he was not afraid.
The agent’s face lighted with humor. “Oh! We got ourselves a pilot here. Well why don’t you fly along and let the big boys do their job before you get hurt.”
“You aint getting in to see your Lieutenant,” the other said.
Aaron shifted his attention to the other agent. “Sorry, what?”
The agent looked to him in confusion before commenting, “Someone’s got their head in the sand.”
The other agent chuckled, and informed him, “Turns out one of your Lieutenants got a pretty little lady from the government pregnant. I guess they didn’t think that the rules applied to them. Ended up having a kid. One of your lot. Just goes to show you what happens when you try and go against the system. The kid’s a racking Bandit now.”
Aaron was exceptionally still as he took in this information. He wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but one thing was clear to him. Whoever Jessie’s father was, he was in the hallway behind these two men.
Before he even realized that he had made up his mind, he swung his hand into the agent closest to him, chopping him in the throat. The man tried to cry out, but Aaron’s attack rendered it impossible for him to speak. The other agent acted quickly, charging over to him. He was about to cry out to sound the alarm, when Aaron dealt him the same blow to the throat.
Using the fighting skills that Kenji had taught him even before he had joined the military, he knocked the two men unconscious without making a sound. When their bodies lied before him, he didn’t waste time wondering what he had just done or what the consequences would be if anyone found out. The military had labeled him mentally unstable, and maybe that’s what he was. But those men had mentioned Jessie, and Aaron’s instincts took over and told him that he needed to find out what was happening.
He dragged the two men into the niche of the hallway and out of sight. Then, slipping the cylinder key from around one of their necks, he started down the hall. His bare feet slapped down the linoleum floor, hardly making a sound. The doors did not have windows for him to peek inside, but he figured that, if they were keeping a military Lieutenant prisoner, they would put him a little further back in the hallway.
About halfway down, he started checking doors. He inserted the cylinder key into the slot, but it would not open the first door he came to, or the next. Luckily on the third door he found success. Peeking inside, he saw a large, dark room. He slipped in and closed the door. Sneaking in the dark, he discovered that the room was a lab, filled with machines and instruments he had never seen before. On the far side of the room was a row of operating tables. Despite the dark, Aaron could make out a motionless figure strapped to one in the center.
“Lieutenant?” he called out, coming closer.
He padded through the room, the cold underfoot kept him awake and alert. The figure on the bed stirred suddenly.
“Lieutenant?” he called out again.
The man grunted and tried to shift his body. Aaron reached into his pocket and pulled out his tablet. Turning it on, light filled the room so that he could see the man that lied on the table.
“Carver?” he asked, louder this time.
The older man blinked his eyes. “Aaron, is that you?”
The hand holding the tablet fell to his side, as if suddenly weakened by what he saw.
“You’re Jessie’s dad?” he whispered.
Carver gave a solemn nod.
“Did she know?”
“She does know.”
Aaron took a step closer and scrutinized his face. “What do you mean she does know? She did know,” he corrected, getting angry.
“Aaron…” he spoke more gently now. “She’s not a Bandit. She’s out there right now, alive and human.”
“No,” he shook his head, pointing his tablet at him in accusation. “No! Stop playing with me. She’s not alive; she’s a Bandit!”
“You think a Bandit could last this long on the run? They can’t think straight like we can. Even a human wouldn’t be able to avoid Task Force this long. But you know Jessie could.”
Aaron shook his head, yet he allowed the thought to mull over in his mind. What he said made a little sense. But it would be too easy to believe it. It’s what he wanted to believe. The man named Ritter would tell him that his wants would cloud his judgment; that he only saw what he wanted to see, changing the reality to suit him.
The thought of the smug Task Force agent made his blood burn, and suddenly he was going over to Carver and undoing his straps.
“What are you doing?” the older man asked.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? I’m getting you out of here.”
When Aaron set Carver’s arm free, he shot out to grab his shirt, drawing him closer without lifting his head from the table.
“And just how are you going to do that?” he demanded. “You can’t just walk out of here with me. You don’t even have a plan. You’ll only make it if you go without me.”
Aaron shook his head and motioned to the door, saying, “I already took out the guards in the hallway. We can do this.”
“You don’t understand, soldier,” he said roughly. “There is no way you’re getting out of this building with me. I’m strapped in.”
Confusion swept over Aaron’s face, and Carver lifted his arm to point to the back of his head. Aaron bent down to look underneath the table, and that’s when he saw the wires. There was a series of small wires hooked up to a computer, and his eyes followed them to the top-most part of the table, seeing in horror that they were embedded into Carver’s head.
“I’ll just yank them out,” he said, standing back up to face the Lieutenant.
Carver shook his head slowly, being careful not to jostle the wires. “We don’t know what could happen if you do. It could kill me.”
“Well, what…” Aaron looked around him hopelessly. “What do you want me to do?”
A painful look of resignation passed over his features. “Give me your tablet,” Carver said.
The resolution in Aaron’s face fell, and he slid his hand inside his pocket, taking out his tablet and handing it over to the man he once took orders from; taking them for the last time.
Chapter 14
The Sound of a Name
December 25, 3033
The air-base was buzzing with talk. Nearly every soldier seemed to be whispering, bloating up the story so it would end a grand saga by the end of the night. The actual facts themselves were sparse. A little girl had found her way onto their base. No one knew how she got there, or why she was there. Twenty minutes ago she seemed to appear out of nowhere, wandering the halls by herself until an officer spotted her.
Carver didn’t like it. The whole thing reeked of something sinister, and his thoughts went to Task Force. It wasn’t beyond them to use a child for something like this, set her loose inside the air-base to see what secrets she could find. And what could they do about it? They couldn’t hurt a little girl.
His tablet buzzed at his hip as a message came in. Taking it out, he saw it was a direct order from Commander Hender, telling him to get to Hangar 5. Task Force was coming.
Carver shook his head. How was it that Task Force even knew she was here? Something was going on, and he would be racked if he didn’t get to the bottom of it.
When he arrived at Hangar 5, a transport ship was just landing. The doors opened, and two men stepped out. One stood tall, back straight, eyes black and uniform meticulously kept. The other had his hands in his pockets, more concerned with taking in the sights than with keeping up good posture. Carver cursed under his breath as he realized who they were. The chief of Task Force himself, Commander Vin, and his right-hand dog, Sergeant Ritter. If they were here, it had to spell trouble.
“Commander. Sergeant,” Carver greeted them stiffly, standing in their way from moving deeper into the air-base.
Vin extended his hand,
a pleasant smile on his face. “Sergeant Carver. I think we’ve seen each other enough times to shake hands.”
Carver stared at the offered hand and clasped his own behind his back. “What do you want?”
“It’s all business with you lot, aint it?” Ritter commented, eyes roaming over the other ships in the hangar.
“We don’t run a playground here,” Carver countered. “Unlike some people.”
Ritter rubbed the side of his mouth, smirking in amusement. “Nah, just a morgue.”
“Sergeant, we’re looking for a girl,” Vin cut in. “We’ve received word that she’s being held here. We’re going to need to take her back with us.”
Carver regarded Vin for a moment, staring at the blaring golden crest on the arm of his uniform that marked him as Commander. “Regardless if we do or do not have this girl on board, I’m afraid you have neither the authority nor the jurisdiction to remove any persons from this base.”
“My orders come straight from President Ward,” Vin explained.
“Well then the President shouldn’t have lost track of her,” he said, showing no fear of his actions.
“She is quite a handful,” Ritter muttered.
Carver shook his head and gave out a dry laugh. Vin narrowed his eyes at him. Gradually a smile grew on his face as though he had discovered a move that led straight to his victory.
“I assume you’re laughing because you know her true age. And if that’s the case, then it means she is on board.”
“And what is this girl to you?”
“What’s she to you?” Ritter asked.
“What are you, five?” Carver taunted. His tablet beeped once more. Hender wanted him to take Vin and Ritter to a briefing room, and then meet him outside Holding Room B8. “Follow me,” he told the two men.
“To see the girl?” Vin asked.
“To see the inside of a briefing room.”
Carver made sure to lock the door after showing the Task Force agents inside. Ritter seemed to be the kind of man that could steal a decade’s worth of secrets if he was left alone in the right room for more than a minute. He hoped that the last soldiers to have used that room hadn’t been careless and left anything behind. The last thing the military needed was to be under the thumb of Task Force.
Going to Holding Room B8, he knocked on the door, and Commander Hender answered. He took a brief look back inside the room before joining him out in the hallway, promptly shutting the door behind him so that Carver couldn’t get a peek inside.
“Commander Vin and his dog are here,” Carver told him. “I’ve put them in Briefing Room three.”
Hender nodded and looked down at his tablet.
“Is the girl speaking?” Carver asked.
“Yes. She is talking. Though she is saying very little. Apparently she wishes to seek asylum from Task Force here.”
“Do you know why?”
Hender tapped his tablet against his hand. “I have a suspicion.” His eyes darkened as he stared off down the hall. Returning his attention to Carver, he said, “I’m about to go find out. I’ll brief you once I know for sure.” He flicked his head to the door. “Watch her while I’m gone.”
Carver dutifully nodded, not daring to reject an order from his Commander. He was not good with kids. They had no place up on an air-base. But, if it was his duty to watch one for a few minutes, then that’s what he had to do.
Stepping inside the Holding Room, he made sure to close the door behind him before even looking inside. Turning around, he kept his back close to the door as he stared at the young girl before him. She was sitting quietly in a chair, as stiff as a board. Her green eyes seemed just a little too big for her young face, and the tan line on her neck was a dead give-away that her evolution had not long since passed.
The girl lifted her head when Carver stepped in. She held his gaze and he held it back, as if they were in a silent contest. There was something about the way this girl stared at him, something in her eyes that made him feel like he was forgetting something that he shouldn’t be. It was an imaginative thought; the most imaginative that he’d had in a long time. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that he should know this girl from somewhere, or at the very least, share a common friend.
Taking a single step into the room, he asked, “What’s your name?”
Her eyes did not leave his, and Carver almost wondered if there was something on his face, the result of an immature prank sprung on by that Sergeant Ritter.
“Jessie,” she answered, her voice a powerful mixture of frailty and strength.
“Your full name,” he insisted.
She did not seem perturbed by his questioning, and answered openly, “Fifty-Fifty.”
So he was right. She had not been evolved long at all. In fact, he hadn’t even known that the system had started up on the fifties already.
“Why are you here? Where’s your mother?” he asked.
Her tiny fingers curled around the lip of her chair. Her eyes creased in worry. “The people from the Bank have her. I don’t know where she is.”
“She do something that warranted arresting?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest.
Jessie shook her head. “No. My mom is the kindest person in the whole world. I don’t know why they took her away.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “And the reason you’re here?”
Her fingers twitched where they held onto the chair. “My mom told me once, if I ever needed a friend, to come here.”
Carver huffed. “That was awfully optimistic of her. You do know what optimistic means?”
Her head perked up. “Hopeful, positive, expectant, confident…”
He raised his eyebrows, muttering, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
He looked about the room, checking its sparse contents and making sure that all was in order. Then his eyes returned to the girl, the only thing that wasn’t in order. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, unsure if he should ask this girl anything else. Jessie scraped her thumb on the side of her chair, making a quiet clicking noise.
Too uncomfortable with the silence, he asked, “Your mom. What’s her name?”
“Sarah. Sarah Forty-one-Thirty-seven.”
Carver’s back came away from the wall, his arms fell to his sides. Sarah? She was the one the government had? And this child was his…
His gaze fell on the girl. Her wide green eyes were staring at him like they had before. Did she really not know who he was? His throat constricted and his heart hammered in his ears. He couldn’t take her staring. He needed to get out of that room. He wouldn’t make it much longer.
Quickly turning around, he thrust the door open and poked his head outside. Sergeant Jeddick was passing down the hallway, coming towards them.
“Jeddick! Watch her!”
Jeddick cocked his head in confusion. “Hender told you to watch her.”
Carver slipped out the door and pushed past him. “Just watch her, will you!”
He made it down the hallway and nearly halfway through the next before he finally broke down. His hands fumbled for the handle to the nearest door, and he thrust it open, not knowing to which room he was entering. Slamming the door shut, he buried his head in the wall and gave into his tears.
Jessie…
The name swam in his head like a beautiful poison.
Jessie…
All this time, and he had not even known the sound of his own daughter’s name.
Chapter 15
Reunion
Everyone had gathered in the living room of the cabin just before it was time for them to go. Nearly everyone looked anxious, worried that their plan would not be enough to keep them from getting caught, or worse.
Jessie wondered if she should say anything to them before they went. After all, they were doing this for her, to help save her mom. She felt they deserved something from her. But her mind kept drifting back to Carver, making it impossible to think straight. Before she could even attempt to op
en her mouth, Ritter cleared his throat.
“Right. I think it’s about time,” he announced. When no one stirred, he waved his arms in the direction of the door. “As in right now. We should go right now.”
He looked out at the various expressions across the room, reading the hesitation, urgency, and fear. However, before anyone could voice these fears, there was a loud knock at the door.
Ritter put a hand to his lips to silence everyone as he crept over to it. His hand reached back for his gun as his other tightened around the doorknob. When he opened it, he took a swift lunge out. The figure waiting outside was thrown off-guard, and a moment later was lying with his back thrown against the hard-wood floor of the living-room.
“Ritter!” Aaron strained out in shock. He began to scramble back in fear, but stopped when he saw Denneck step out from the shadows.
“Aaron?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”
The startled young man was about to reply when he caught sight of the young woman standing just a few feet away from him. Jessie was silent as she stared down at him, at a loss for what to say.
“He was telling the truth,” Aaron whispered, not letting his eyes leave hers.
“Who?” Denneck asked.
“Carver,” he said, gulping down the word. He tilted his head and carefully studied Jessie’s expression. “He’s your father.”
She pressed her lips together and gave him a brief nod.
“He was being held prisoner at BLES,” he explained. “I tried to help him escape, but he told me to go without him.” He lifted himself to his feet. “He has my tablet. He wanted you to call him.” He shook his head. “You’ll have to do it quick before someone comes in to check on him.”
She tried to keep her hands from shaking as she gripped them in front of her. Without being told, Harper rushed from the room and came back with her computer.
Jessie pressed her lips together even tighter and blinked several times. Instead of taking the computer from her right away, she looked over to where Aaron stood. “I’m sorry,” she offered, feeling as though it was not nearly enough for everything she put him through. “I wish I could have told you.”