by Ryk Brown
Jessica rose to her feet quietly and moved along the wall of the room where she already knew her weight would not cause the floor to make a sound. As she crept along the bedroom wall toward the doorway, she could hear the intruder as they, too, attempted to move in silence. Either they were not very good at it, or they simply didn’t care. After all, the falling rock had already revealed their presence. If the intruder had half a brain, they already knew that Jessica was upstairs, and they already knew she would be ready for them. As she moved into position alongside the doorway, Jessica hoped the intruder’s poor attempt to conceal their own movement was due to their own lack of intelligence. Stupid people were so much easier to fight.
The wet squishing sound in the hallway told Jessica that the intruder was just outside her doorway. Jessica stayed tight against the wall, her eyes shifting to chest height as the barrel of a weapon began to slowly protrude into the room through the open doorway. The barrel was too wide to be a projectile weapon. It was an energy weapon.
Another second passed, just enough time for the intruder’s entire forearm to come through the door. Jessica drew her left arm back across her chest, then swung it across with quick, explosive force as she pivoted slightly and reached for the top of the gun body with her right hand. Having misjudged the intruder’s height, the back of Jessica’s left hand struck the intruder in the forehead as Jessica stripped the intruder’s weapon away with her right hand.
The intruder cried out in shock and tumbled back into the hallway. Jessica spun to her left, stepping into the doorway as she moved the energy pistol in her right hand and gripping it properly in order to fire.
“Yup,” she said, “stupid loses every time.” Jessica pulled her small flashlight out of her pocket and squeezed it between her thumb and forefinger of her left hand, shining the powerful beam in the intruder’s face. It was a girl, a teenager from the size of her. She was on her butt in the hall, holding her forehead with her right hand as she leaned on her left. “Who are you, and why the hell do you have this?” Jessica gestured with the weapon.
“Don’t shoot me!” the girl pleaded, her right hand going up to shield her eyes from the bright beam of light coming from Jessica’s tiny flashlight. “I’m not Jung, if that’s what you think!”
“Then what are you doing with a Jung energy weapon?”
“How do you know it’s not one of ours?” the girl said.
“I’m the one with the gun now,” Jessica reminded her, “so I’m the one asking the questions. Now, who are you, and why do you have a Jung weapon?”
“I got it off a dead Jung soldier a couple months ago,” the girl finally answered.
“I’m still waiting.” A confused expression appeared on the girl’s face. “Your name?”
“Synda,” the girl said, rubbing her forehead again. “Synda Conklin.”
“What are you doing here, Synda Conklin?” Jessica asked.
“I live here,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“Just passing through,” Jessica told her. She shined the light down Synda’s body, noticing that her legs were wet from the knees down. “Were you hiding in the basement this whole time?”
“Nobody ever searches a flooded basement,” Synda said as she moved to get up.
“Slowly,” Jessica warned, pointing the energy pistol at the girl as she rose. “Up against the wall, hands high and apart.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to search you for weapons.”
On her feet again, Synda turned to face the wall. “You already took my only weapon.”
“You’ll pardon me if I don’t take your word for it,” Jessica said. “You were coming to shoot me, after all.”
“I wasn’t going to shoot you,” Synda insisted as she placed her hands on the wall. “I was just going to scare you away.”
“You might want to practice being scary,” Jessica told her as she patted her down. The young girl was well developed and was obviously more muscular than most girls her age, but her body felt slightly emaciated, as if she hadn’t been eating well on a regular basis.
Jessica felt something on Synda’s back in between her shoulder blades. She pushed the gun barrel up against Synda’s lower back as a warning not to move as she pushed the girl’s scraggily blond hair to one side, revealing the top end of a knife handle. Jessica pulled the girl’s collar down and saw that the knife was in a scabbard taped to the girl’s back with industrial duct tape. She grabbed the entire scabbard and gave it a yank, ripping the tape from the girl’s back and causing Synda to flinch. Jessica stepped away from Synda, pulled the knife out of its scabbard, and looked it over. It was of an unfamiliar design and had markings on it similar to those on the small plastic chips she had taken from the old man that had gotten a bit too friendly with her. “Nice,” Jessica said. “Get this off a dead Jung as well?”
“Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” Synda said, sarcasm in her tone as she lowered her hands and turned around.
Jessica snickered. “I like you.”
“You still haven’t told me who you are,” Synda said.
“Jessica.”
“Well, Jessica, since I’m sure you’re going to keep my gun, can I at least have me knife back?”
“Not so fast, little girl,” Jessica told her. “I said I liked you. I didn’t say I trusted you.” She pointed the knife toward the bedroom. “In there.”
Jessica followed Synda into the bedroom where she had been sleeping. “This is where you’ve been sleeping, isn’t it?”
“How did you know?” Synda wondered.
“Not hard. Clean bathroom, water supply in the tub, mattress and blankets. A good view to see people coming before they get here as well. I’m surprised you don’t have some food stashed up here.”
“It’s under the loose floorboard in the corner,” Synda told her, pointing at the far end of the room. “It’s not much, though, just a few cans of beans and some candy bars.”
“Why are you starving out here in the sticks?” Jessica said. “The city is only a kilometer away. Surely there are food and work there. There’s got to be better accommodations as well.”
“It’s safer here.”
“How so?” Jessica wondered.
“Tiny, little gal like me, all alone. Guys think I’m easy prey… always leads to trouble.”
“What? No cops anymore?”
Synda looked at her with a puzzled expression. “Cops? Seriously? There are Jung everywhere you look, but police? Not since the invasion. Where have you been?”
“On the road, mostly,” Jessica lied. “I guess I’m out of touch with what’s been going on in the cities.”
“Right,” Synda said, rolling her eyes.
“So, you plan on just hanging out here for the rest of your life? Hope nobody finds you?”
“I was hoping to gather up some supplies and hit the road myself, maybe head north. I heard the Jung aren’t too interested in the high country.”
“You’re gonna need more than a knife, beans, and candy bars,” Jessica said.
“Well, I had a really nice gun.”
“You’d be better off tossing it in the river,” Jessica told her. “If the Jung caught you with this, you’d wish you were dead.”
“Want to buy it?” Synda asked, a mischievous grin on her face.
“No, but I’ll be happy to dispose of it for you,” Jessica retorted. Jessica reached into her pocket and pulled out the plastic chips she had taken off the old man. “Ever seen these before?”
Synda’s eyes widened. “Yeah. Where did you get them?”
“I took them off an old fart who was expecting me to pay more for a ride than I was willing. What are they?”
“Jung credit chips. Did you kill the guy?”
; “Nah. Just left him stranded in the forest. How much are these worth?”
Synda looked the chips over as Jessica held her hand out and shined her light on the chips. “Uh, not much really.”
Jessica looked at Synda, her head cocked to one side and an accusatory look in her eyes. “You’re going to have to learn to lie better if you’re going to survive on your own, young lady. How much are they really worth?”
“They’re credit chips,” Synda admitted.
“What are they worth?”
“One hundred credits each.”
“What’s a credit worth in NAU currency?” Jessica wondered.
Synda furrowed her brow and narrowed her eyes. “The same. They just replaced all the currency on the planet with their own credit chips. How could you not know that?”
Jessica moved over to the corner of the room and pulled up the loose board. She extracted a can of beans and a candy bar.
“You already took my gun and my knife,” Synda said. “Now you’re going to eat my food as well?”
“You hungry?” Jessica asked, ignoring her previous statement.
“I’ve been standing in knee-deep water for eight hours,” Synda said. “Of course I’m hungry.”
Jessica rolled the can of beans across the floor, then slid a candy bar over to Synda as well. Then she removed another can of beans and a candy bar for herself.
Synda watched as Jessica pulled one of the Jung credit chips back out of her pocket and tossed it over to her. Synda caught the chip, a look of astonishment on her face. “The gun is worth a lot more than one-hundred credits.”
“It’s not for the gun. It’s for the food.”
“You’re paying me one hundred credits for a can of beans and a candy bar?” Synda couldn’t believe it.
“Consider it payment for one night’s accommodations in your fine establishment,” Jessica said as she used the knife she had taken from the old man to open the cans of beans, starting with Synda’s.
“Right.”
“I can take the chip back, if you prefer.”
“No, I’m good with it,” Synda assured her as she started scooping up the beans with her fingers and shoveling them into her mouth.
Jessica sat down on the floor a couple meters away from Synda, facing the large window that overlooked the dirt road. She tipped the can of beans up and poured some into her mouth, savoring the sweetness of the familiar tastes of pork, maple, and brown sugar. “Oh, man, that is so good.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Synda watched as Jessica poured another helping into her mouth. “Been a while since you’ve eaten?”
“Anything familiar, yes.”
“You said you’ve been traveling,” Synda said. “From where?”
“Let’s just say I’ve been a very long way from home for a long time.”
“Where were you? New Britain?”
“Farther,” Jessica said as she chewed.
“Asia?”
“Something like that,” Jessica lied. She needed to bond with the girl in order to extract information from her, but she didn’t want to reveal too much in the process.
“How long?”
“Nearly five months now,” Jessica said as she raised her can one last time to devour the last of its contents.
“So you weren’t even on the continent when they attacked?”
“Nope.”
“So, when did you get back?” Synda asked.
“You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”
“I don’t get to talk to very many people these days.”
“Where are your parents?” Jessica asked as she wiped her mouth.
“They died about five years ago in a shuttle crash.”
“How did you survive on your own?”
“I was old enough to take care of myself at the time,” Synda said.
“What were you then, like ten?”
“I was seventeen at the time.”
“So you’re twenty-two now?” Jessica asked, finding it hard to believe.
“Twenty-three in a couple weeks.”
“Huh. I would’ve guessed you were about fourteen by the size of you.”
Synda rolled her eyes again. “That’s what the guy at the recruiter’s office said. I had to pay for age verification testing before I could apply.”
“Apply for what?” Jessica asked.
“Fleet.”
“EDF?”
“That’s the one,” Synda said. “But they turned me down all three times.”
“Too small?”
“Yeah. It really pissed me off, too. I had been training in the gym for years to get in shape. It didn’t seem right, being turned down without even being given a chance to prove myself.”
“They probably have the minimums for a reason, you know,” Jessica said.
Synda looked down at the floor. “Yeah. I’ve come to realize that now. Guess I’m better off though,” she continued, looking up again. “If they had accepted me, I’d probably be dead now like the rest of them.”
“EDF got hit pretty hard, huh?”
“From what I hear, the Jung hit every EDF installation at the same time. Then they started picking off the national militias. Those that didn’t get killed right away surrendered pretty quickly.”
“Yeah, I heard the same thing,” Jessica said, remembering the data she had spent weeks poring over during the Aurora’s cold-coast toward Earth.
Jessica watched Synda as she finished her candy bar. The girl was small, and her body definitely showed signs of malnutrition, but she had an inner strength about her. “Listen, I need to get into the city tomorrow. I need to find someone.”
“Who?”
“Don’t worry about who. Do you know how to get into Winnipeg without being noticed by the Jung?”
“Sure,” Synda said. “I just don’t use them, because they’re all through bad areas of the city. Too many jerks and perverts.”
“I’m not worried about the jerks and perverts,” Jessica said. “I can handle them. I’m just looking to avoid the Jung. Do you know Winnipeg very well?”
“I’ve lived there for four years now—well, not counting the last two and a half months.”
“Then you can show me around? Act as a guide?”
“Sure, but why would I want to do that?”
“You said you don’t go into the city because it isn’t safe for a girl your size. The jerks and perverts, remember?”
“Yeah,” Synda said. “And these don’t help matters.” She pointed at her breasts.
“Yeah, I’m sure they don’t. Try taping them down and wearing extra shirts. You can bunch your hair up and wear a cap or something. That way they won’t notice you from far away.”
“I tried the cap, but I never thought of taping down the girls.”
“Trust me. It will help.” Jessica looked at Synda. “A lot.”
“Do I get my knife back?”
“In the morning,” Jessica promised.
“What about my gun?”
“We’re tossing it in the river.”
“I thought you were kidding about that.”
“It ain’t worth keeping. If you had pulled the trigger, the Jung would’ve detected the energy discharge and been on you in minutes. I wouldn’t be surprised if they could track the weapon even when it’s just powered on.”
“Okay, I guess we are ditching it. But if I take you into the city, what’s in it for me?”
Jessica thought for a moment. “I’ll take you shopping.”
“Shopping for what?”
“For the stuff you need to head north.” Jessica smiled. “I still got a few one-hundred credit chips left.”
“The stuff I need is going to use up most of your credits,” Synda warned. “Are you sure you can afford it?”
“I don’t plan on hanging around much longer,” Jessica told her as she snuggled into the corner again to get more sleep. “We still have about four hours until daylight. I suggest you get some rest.”
“You’re going to go to sleep here, in the same room as me?” Synda wondered. “How do you know I won’t kill you in your sleep and just take your credits, my knife, and my gun?”
“The credits aren’t worth anything if you can’t get into the city to spend them,” Jessica told her. “Even if you managed to get in, you’d never make it out again with all that stuff. You need me as much as I need you, perhaps even more so.” Jessica closed her eyes. “Besides, I’m a light sleeper. And with your wet, squishy shoes and all that nylon you’re wearing, I’d hear you coming before you moved an inch.” Jessica opened her eyes again. “Synda, you seem like a smart girl—a little naive, perhaps, but not stupid. I’m the best bet you have right now. Play your cards right, and you’ll be on your way north with everything you need.” Jessica closed her eyes again. “Or I can tie you up for the night, if you prefer.”
* * *
“Cheng,” Nathan greeted Vladimir as he approached the jump shuttle on the forward port elevator pad in the Aurora’s main hangar bay. Vladimir turned around, and Nathan saw the bags under his chief engineer’s eyes and the fatigue in his expression. “You look like crap.”
“I haven’t slept much lately,” Vladimir admitted. “Too many things to fix. If it was not for stims, this shuttle would not be ready to fly.”
“Stop trying to do everything yourself, Vlad,” Nathan told him. “You’ve got plenty of qualified people working for you. Let them fix things for a change. If you keep up this pace, you won’t last much longer.”
“You are correct, of course. Just hurry up and liberate Earth, please. I need a vacation—someplace tropical, I think.”