by Aline Riva
By nightfall a warm camp fire was burning, sending out an amber glow that lit up the night and as the others ate dinner around the fire, and Jekel glanced nervously about as he silently worked his inner scanner to be certain nothing lurked on the horizon.
He was feeling guilty now. These people had no clue that fence that ringed the camp site wasn't live...
Spike and Ruby got up, the firelight glinted on her robotic skeleton hand as she reached for her lover's human hand and then they walked towards the motor home. For once they were not fighting, and the evening had been quiet. Lynch was sat there looking thoughtfully into the flames as dry kindling crackled and smoke slid skyward in elegant wisps.
“I think maybe I should -”
Lynch turn his head and looked at him, and where ever his thoughts had been, he was clearly not pleased to be pulled out of them by the silence being broken.
“You think, what?” he asked.
Jekel looked to the dead battery, then back at Lynch, who was glaring at him before even knowing what was amiss. He made his decision, shaking his head.
“Nothing, I just thought maybe you might like to see some tricks...I've got a pack of cards in my pocket -”
“No,” Lynch replied, “Tomorrow we hit an underground storage depot... it's seventeen miles south of here and meant to be guarded - but by whom, I have no idea. The place was a storage facility to move goods to the rebuilt cities but out here, any one could have taken it over by now. That's why most of the factories springing up are on the outskirts of the major cities now. Nobody wants to be out here in the wilds any more – it's not just the howlers, its the crazies who went to the hills and the forests during the savage times and got to like it too much. Its full of lunatics out there! I hope you can handle a gun.”
Jekel looked back at him nervously.
“I've got a hand gun for protection but I've only ever fired it twice...I have another gun but that's just a -”
“A spare?” Lynch said, “Well, you'd better prove yourself or you can get out and walk. We need supplies to carry on with our journey. And you and I need to sit down and study a map together, because you claim to know they way to the land that cyborgs know as Sanctuary.”
Jekel broke out into a light sweat.
“I know you keep heading towards the Welsh coast. He told me he had a place on the coast – a big mansion. But I don't know where exactly.”
“The coast?” Lynch said, “I heard it was near Wales but that was all. News travels and its not always accurate. That's why we are almost at the Welsh border now.”
“Shouldn't we just take the high roads?” Jekel suggested, “Over the past five years the main routes have been rebuilt and opened up -”
“With check points!” Lynch reminded him,”I'm a fugitive, a cyborg who stole a vast amount of cybernetic fluid before they closed down the last factory,” then he looked to the firelight and gathered his thoughts before turning back to Jekel, “I got by on black market supplies for several years after the ban was introduced but then they closed that down too and I was forced to take action to stay alive. It's fucking ironic I once fought for this country and now the reformed government label me a criminal because they allowed me to become a cyborg and then ruled the maintenance of cybernetic function illegal. And we need to hit that storage facility soon. I wanted to wait but supplies are low and we need food. This is our last shot, Jekel. We can't live like this forever.”
“I can't promise I can lead you to Blake Riley,” he replied, “I knew him when he had his place in London. That was years ago!”
As Lynch looked back to the firelight, he felt the familiar fog of confusion sweeping through his damaged brain that was full of badly installed wiring, and he looked back at the man in the dark suit and felt a spark of anger as he wondered how someone who was clearly not a soldier had survived so long in these times and still looked okay for it...
“You will take up arms with the rest of us,” he said as he rose from his seat, “And you'll fight. If you don't, I'll leave you out here as a snack for the Howlers. You don't look like much of a fighter to me, you'll have to prove yourself!”
Then he headed off inside the motor home, leaving Jekel alone as the camp fire began to dwindle and its light shrunk low.
“Jekel?”
He turned his head as the kindling cracked and the firelight glowed warmly to see Joy standing beside him.
“You don't look too happy,” she remarked.
“I was just thinking, about before, you know... before the world changed...I still miss Margo...” he paused, looking into the flickering firelight as he recalled painful memory, “I loved her. She was everything to me. The day she died, before everything was destroyed, she told me she was pregnant. So I lost her and the baby.”
Joy put her hand on his shoulder. Jekel turned his head and their eyes met.
“We've all lost someone,” she replied, “And it never gets easier.”
Their gaze locked for a moment that needed no words as they shared a moment of silence, understanding their common bond of loss, and then Joy turned away and headed back towards the motor home.
Once she was back in the medical area, Joy lay back on the bed in the corner of the room as she closed her eyes and snatched a peaceful moment – right now all was silent, this vehicle wasn't rolling over rough terrain nor were gun shots ringing out as they fought off a Howler pack or – in some ways, worse – savage humans, plenty of those were still roaming about the wilds...Then something cut through the silence, a footstep, the sound of the curtain that divided the area being pushed back.
Joy reach under her pillow, grabbing her gun as pure instinct as she snapped on the light.
Elise looked back at her with wide, startled eyes.
“Sorry...”
Joy's body sagged as the tension left her, she lowered the gun and placed it under the bed, then she got off the place where he had been resting fully clothed on top of the covers as she hoped that one day, when cyborgs had a better deal in life, she would be able to enjoy the same comforts as the rest of those who had survived and now lived on in the cities, where there was a semblance of normality creeping back...
“I didn't mean to startle you,” Elise said, “I just wanted to talk to you...about Felix.”
All thoughts that might have lingered on going back to sleep had slipped away. Joy looked at her intently, seeing worry clear in her eyes, and then she sat down again and gestured to the space beside her.
“What's this about?” she asked.
Elise sat down next to her and paused to collect her thoughts.
“I'm scared for him,” she said in a low voice, “I know he goes through pain when the shots are due and each time he seems to get further away from me, like he's had enough. I often talk to him about the future and all he says is he wants me to have a good life. It's as if he's giving up on himself.”
“I've noticed he's been more cranky lately,” she replied, ”But he is heavily modified and even on rations those doses I give out are not enough. He needs much more cybernetic fluid than the other two, he's fifty percent cyborg and running on minimum artificial fluid replacement. Maybe if we find a way out of this mess, if Blake Riley is still alive and all the things the legend says, maybe its going to be alright.”
Elise said nothing as she sat there, looking to the cracked floor as she blinked away tears. Joy reached over and gave her hand a squeeze, knowing that look on her face only too well - it was the look she had seen when Elise had first realised how badly injured her lover had been, it was a look of absolute grief for the suffering the man she loved had gone through, and she still felt it ow and perhaps always would - Felix had been through hell and so had she, because she loved him.
“Stop it, Elise!” she said kindly, “He's just feeling low, but he's got you on his side -”
“Low?” she replied tearfully as she turned her head and blinked as she met Joy's gaze, “How can you say he's just low? Last time we had to f
ight to take supplies, he just walked through a hail of gunfire like he didn't care about getting hit -”
“Oh, that reminds me of a man I used to know,” Joy said wistfully, and then she patted her hand and smiled, “Your Felix is a lot like Captain Murdock in some ways...They both have a lot of guts -”
“Joy, I sometimes think he wants to die!”
She caught a sob and pulled it back, then wiped her eyes, still keeping her voice low, “He used to talk about us having a future one day. He doesn't do it any more. Tonight he was just staring off into nothing, I hate it when he goes silent on me. He's getting worse and I can't do a damned thing to help him!”
Joy glanced to the closed curtain and kept her voice low as she tried again to reassure Elise, who had been through more than her fair share over the years, supporting her lover through the hell of learning to live with a half android body.
“Remember when he was wounded and you got told he would probably die? Well he didn't, and then he had the cybernetic treatment and the grafts and all the rest of it and he got through that too? Maybe the hardest part is living with it, Elise. Its never going to be easy for him, you just need to be there.”
Pain reflected in her eyes.
“And who will be there for me?” she said as her voice cracked with emotion.
Joy's gaze softened.
“I'm always here,” she reminded her, “For both of you.”
Elise wiped her eyes again.
“You do more than enough, you always have,” she told her, “You didn't have to choose to go on the run with us. You could have stayed behind and had some kind of a life for yourself back in the city.”
Sadness settled quietly in Joy's heart as she gave her reply.
“I lost my daughter when the old world fell apart,” she said, “And then there was someone who I would have liked to have known better but I didn't' get the chance...I guess you could say I loved him my own way. There's nothing for me in the city. And anyway, who would help Lynch and the others if I wasn't here? You need a cybernetic technician! I trained to help people like Felix so I could do some good and I'm still doing it. That's enough for me, okay?” Joy had smiled as she had said that, but her smile faded as she noticed the expression on her face had changed as Elise looked at her intently.
“You lost a child?”
“Yeah, a daughter. I don't talk about it, I'll always miss her. I think sometimes I only go on because she would have wanted me to. Maybe she's not dead...maybe she's still out there somewhere, I have to keep telling myself that.”
Elise frowned as she thought on all Joy had said, then she looked at her thoughtfully.
“Would you like to have another?”
Joy's eyes widened in surprise.
“As easily as that? She was my baby - you don't get it, you don't have kids of your own...let's just leave it there, okay? I don't talk about it because it hurts. Lots of things hurt in life but we just carry on, right?”
Joy managed a smile, but Elise looked back at her with deep compassion in her eyes.
“I wish I could help you,” she said softly, “That must be so hard to live with...”
Joy pushed aside thoughts of the distant past before the pain crushed her.
“Stop worrying about Lynch, go and find him and give him a hug,” she told her, “It's probably all he needs.”
Sadness still shaded her gaze as she pushed the curtain aside and stepped out and looked back.
“I hope you're right,” she said, and then she walked off and Joy gave a heavy sigh and sank back on her bed, closed her eyes once more and tried to think about the stillness of the night and not the losses of the past that cut her to the bone.
Chapter 4 : Frankie
As the dream began, Joy didn't know she was dreaming.
She was back at the fort in the medical area, still attending to Murdock as he recovered from the savage beating that had left him scarred and close to death. As she entered the room and closed the door behind her, something registered at the back of her mind that perhaps this was not how it had happened – yet she could recall all that had gone on before and knew all that was to come. A thought whispered through her mind, Please don't let this be a dream... and then she looked down at her plain white nurses uniform and felt sure she had not been wearing it when this happened before...Had this happened before?
Joy had no answers but her heart stopped aching and her gaze softened as she looked to Murdock, who was on his back with the sheets up to his chest as he rested with his eyes closed, the scarring to his face was livid but he was no longer in pain and recovering well. And so much flooded her mind - thoughts of the future, of how she would go on without him and never, ever let his name leave her heart...
Now something was nagging at her, reminding her she knew too much of what was to come for this to be anything other than a dream, but she held on to the hope that she was wrong as she sat on the edge of her patient's bed and reached out, brushing his hair out of his eyes as she looked down at him.
Murdock gave a sigh and slowly opened his eyes, then he saw her looking down and blinked, waking quickly from his deep and restful sleep.
“Joy?” he said, and then he sat up, looking at her in surprise, “I really should get out of this bed soon - I'm feeling perfectly fine.”
She looked into his dark eyes, her own gaze filled with warmth as she spoke again.
“But the agents I gave you are powerful – and can have side effects. I just want to check you over one more time before you get out of bed.”
“There's really no need,” Murdock replied, “I may not look like the man I once was – but I feel fine...I think I'm fine...” then he paused, as a briefly confused expression came to his face, “I can't put my memories back together...I'm sure it will all come back to me in time.”
Her gaze had shifted to the scarring on his face and he picked up on it, placing his hand against his cheek as he felt the livid scars that ran deep on his once handsome face.
“Don't worry about it,” she said to him as she caught his hand and drew it away from his scars, “No amount of scarring can take anything away from the man that you are, believe me.”
Murdock looked at her as he took in her words, and she looked back at him as something passed unsaid between them, something that needed no more explanation.
Her hand was still in his grip and he pulled her closer, it was the most gentle of movements and as she let him draw her near it felt as if years of heartache had melted in a second. Maybe this was a dream, but she didn't care, she just wanted to live this moment as their lips touched and then she ran her fingers through his hair. She covered his face with gentle kisses as she whispered to him that the scars made no difference to her, and then she was in his arms and she drew the sheet off his body as he pulled her closer, no longer concerned about the fact that he was nude beneath the covers.
Murdock looked into her eyes as he reached behind her and tugged sharply at the zip at the back of her uniform.
“We've come this far, we might as well go the distance,” he said as a smile played about his lips, “It's certainly the best therapy I've ever had, you definitely know how to make me feel alive again, Joy... Now come here...”
She gave a gasp as he pushed the fabric from her body, then he rolled her over and she felt the weight of him above her as held down her wrists and covered her mouth with a deep and passionate kiss.
Time seemed to stand still in that white room as she and Murdock made love, the warmth of his embrace was what she wanted to hold on to most of all, and after they lay together for a while, she had traced a path of kisses down his body where bruises were still fading, she had made him catch his breath as he crushed the crumpled sheets in his hand as her kisses grew lower and more intimate and swiftly took him to another weakened, blissful moment that was beautiful as he trembled and then relaxed as he lay beside her and got his breath back. Joy lay in his arms long afterwards, and as she looked into his eyes she saw love re
flected back at her.
“No matter what happens next,” Murdock said softly, “I won't leave you, Joy. This is too good to throw way. I'd be a fool to let you go.”
And then he kissed her again and held her close and the warmth of his embrace was all she needed to know she was safe at last, and her heart had found its home...
And then a door slammed somewhere deep in the motorhome, and Joy woke up alone, reality hit hard as she understood that of course it had been a dream - none of it had happened that way - and Murdock was gone now...
The ache was back in her heart. Joy turned over as tears stung her eyes and she thought of a man she loved who had been gone five years, who she guessed she would probably never see again...
Joy woke early the next morning and looked out through the gap between the armoured plating that partly covered the window to see the fencing that ringed the motor home being taken down by Spike and Lynch as Ruby stood back watching. Elise was starting breakfast at the campfire and Jekel was nowhere to be seen.
Joy got up, smoothed creases out of her clothing and then ran her fingers though her short fair hair as she thought on the dream that had lingered so sweetly, yet left her feeling so hollow. Then she started to smile as she recalled that shy look that Jekel had cast in her direction before quickly looking away, and she made her choice: Murdock had been gone five years and she was all alone and maybe, just maybe, Jekel was as special as she wanted to believe...
She made her way down to his closed door and knocked softly, feeling fired up by the dream that had given her such inspiration.
The door opened and Jekel stood there in his suit minus his jacket and tie, his hair looked immaculate and there was a comb in his hand.
“Yes, Joy?” he asked.
Thoughts of Murdock remained at the back of her mind as she thought some more on the dream and gave her reply.
“I'm sorry Jekel, I know its early but I need you to come over to the medical area, when we first picked you up on the road you don't look well and to be honest, you still don't. I just need to check you over.”