by Chogan Swan
And, even though he couldn’t find it in himself to laugh at the moment. Kest couldn’t help seeing the humor in the situation.
~~~{}~~~
Ayleana straddled her patient, pressed her fingers on his jaw to open his mouth and slipped her tongue inside to deliver the compound that would neutralize the sedative. After a few more minutes checking his temperature, blood, heart rate, she sensed he was waking up.
“Andrew, can you hear me?” She squeezed the hydration pack’s bite tip and let some water trickle into his mouth. “I need you to drink some water.”
“Yeah, I have to pee,” he said, voice scratchy.
“Okay. Drink first then I’ll turn you on your side.”
Ayleana put the bite tip in his mouth and squeezed it for him while he sucked on it. When he’d stopped drinking, she wiped his eyelids with a damp cloth, and he opened his eyes, blinking.
“You’re the angel in the water. I thought you were a dream.” His voice was raw. He’d probably awakened in the trunk screaming for help for some time before passing out again.
“No, just a fellow sentient passing by, not from that part of the heavens. Here is a nice big bottle for you. Can you hold it? I’ll help you turn over.”
She handed him a gallon-sized plastic jug she’d spotted drifting in the creek and rinsed out. He took the jug, and she lifted him at the hips, tilting him to his left. Though he put tube A into bottle B, nothing happened, so she slid her knee under his hip and rubbed his back with her left hand to relax him. “How does your head feel?” she said to distract him.
“Better than I remembered, still aches,” he said to the sound of high-pressure liquid rushing into the bottle.
When he finished, she set the bottle outside the tent flap and rolled him on his back again.
“You have the wildest tats. Why are you naked?” he said, focusing with difficulty on her breasts.
“My clothes are still wet from when I carried you into the creek.”
“You carried me? By yourself?”
Ayleana took a quick breath and blew the air out of her nose.
Time to dive in.
“Let me start from the beginning,” she said. “Your driver’s license said your first name was Andrew. Is that what you go by?”
“Drew is fine. My friends call me Druid when they’re messing around.” He sighed. “They might as well be on the other side of the galaxy now since the S.H.T.F.”
“Ok, Drew then, for right now. Here is the part where I tell you what’s on your chart.”
“You seem pretty young for a nurse. What are you, fourteen? That’s way too young if a cop finds us in a tent together... Cops.. Yeah, old world thinking.” He put his hands on his head, taking a deep breath.
“How did you end up in that car trunk, anyway?”
Drew grimaced. “Suzie.”
“Go on...”
“Hell, she said her name was Suzie, but it's probably Cruella or something.”
“So, Cruella put you in the trunk?”
“Ok, let me get my head straight,” he said and took a breath. “So, my car dies this morn... What day is this?”
“Early evening of June 10th. Still day one.”
“Ok, this morning. I’m in my car listening to the White House announcement commentary on the radio when the car dies. Cellphone’s dead. So I’m figuring the end of the world as we know it, right? And maybe it was the Native Americans after all. But that may’ve been just me having a post-hoc fallacy minute, because that’s what the flaming ass..., I mean the president, was saying on the radio. So, I get my bug-out bag and emergency gun from the trunk and my water and walk. After five miles, I come up on a black Infiniti, and this thirty-something chick sitting in it, and she says she’s waiting for a tow truck she called. So I think, Her cell is working?”
He laughed then winced and touched his head. “But no, she says it died right after the call. I try to tell her nobody is coming. But, she says if I use the emergency battery in the trunk—which she doesn’t know how to hook up—the car will start and she can give me a ride. I figure I’ll do it to see if that will wake her the hell up. She has to use the key to open the trunk and she tells me the charger is way in the back behind something. When I lean in to find it, it is lights out. I wake up in the trunk; no water; no bugout bag; no sidearm. My effing head is killing me, and it is hot as hell. I couldn’t get the trunk open. ...too weak or dizzy. I yell for a while, but that’s all I remember until you put me in the cold water. He turned his head back to her again, staring. “Wait a... What’s your name?”
“Ayleana.”
“Get the fuck outta here! Ow!” He touched his head. “I thought you looked familiar. You look just like the drawing on Surfing with the Ayleana. Really? That is my favorite of your albums. You guys just came from nowhere and BAM! You opened for Aldeberan and went viral. I paid $300 for one seat at the opening of your video in Charleston yesterday. Yeah, that settles it. I’m delirious. I’m still in the trunk, aren’t I?”
“Drew?”
“Yes, dream angel?”
“Drew, even if I told you, no I’m real, what I need to say next would make you doubt it all over again.”
“Say on then.”
“Drew,” she said, touching his face to move the long hair out of his eyes. “Not only has the shit hit the fan, but aliens have landed too....”
His eyes grew wider.
“The last part happened a little over two hundred twenty years ago... and I’m one of them.”
“Heh?” Drew squinted at her. “It’s not nice to tease people who are delirious.”
“You are still suffering from a head injury that would keep you from an active life for weeks and need some emergency treatment. But, you aren’t delirious and I’m not teasing you. I can’t stay here by your side until you recover on your own. I have obligations. To heal you, I must have you conscious and cooperative. So you need to believe what I’m telling you. Are you ready for proof?”
He nodded without speaking.
She held her hand in front of his face.
He took it in his hand and peered at it. His face lost color for a second before doubt returned. “That could be a genetic mutation.”
“That’s not all,” she said, standing up and turning sideways.
His eyes darted to her tail and hung there fascinated.
She furled it then made it wave sinuously to prove it wasn’t a fake then she turned more and looked over her shoulder. “Would you like to touch it to be certain?” She moved it closer to him until it brushed his hand.
He coughed as though remembering to breathe and ran his hand over it. “Well, that couldn’t be a mutation, pretty sure anyway. What do you mean, conscious and cooperative?” he said, moving his eyes back to her face, though they wandered over the rest of her body first.
“I have to send filaments into your skull to heal the concussion. You have to be awake and follow my instructions.”
“Filaments?”
“Think wires but part of my body that will go to where I want them. Are you ready to see that?”
“You mean like tentacles?” His voice cracked on the last word.
“Oh for God’s sake, Drew.”
“Well?”
“Just watch.” She held her forefinger in front of his face and sent two filaments out about a hand-span and pulled them back again. “Think of them as multi-purpose fiber optic wires.”
She turned and lowered herself to her knees again, watching his face and waiting. After a few silent minutes had passed, she spoke. “You don’t have to do it, we can leave you here—”
“We?”
“Hang on,” she said and stuck her head outside the flap. “Kest, Amber, would you mind saying hello to Drew?”
“Hello Drew,” they chorused.
“I mean over here where he can see you.”
“Just a minute,” Amber said. “We have to turn on our appearance generators.”
“Hilarious,” sa
id Ayleana.
“Are they aliens too?”
“No, but sometimes they can be annoying. You’ll recognize Kest from the album cover.”
Kest pulled the tent flap back and stuck his head inside. “Hello Drew, I’m not an alien. Shall I pull my pants down so you can check my butt for a tail?”
“No, I’m good.”
Amber appeared as Kest departed. “Hello, Drew,” she said, channeling Marilyn Monroe filming Some Like It Hot. “What about me?” She unbuckled her belt and turned, hooking her thumbs into her pants and shimmying until Ayleana pushed her away from the opening as Drew stared, mouth open.
Ayleana turned back to Drew. “As I was saying, we can leave you here with some food, but we don’t have time to waste. If you want me to fix the head wound, I need to do it now. The last piece you need to know is that while I’m doing the repairs and afterwards, you’ll be having sex with me. No pregnancies will result from this, and it’s necessary for the repairs. I have a little time to go into the reasons but I need to know in the next few minutes, so I can make other plans. Do you need a minute to think about it?”
After a few seconds pause, Drew shook his head. “To be honest, I’d say yes even if it wasn’t for the head injury. Besides, I’m still delirious in the trunk of the car. I might as well go out on a high note.” He grinned.
Ayleana laughed... for a long minute. Until Amber came over to see what the joke was. Ayleana slowed to a chuckle. “I’ll tell you later,” she said and turned to Drew. “I need to get some more water before starting.”
“Come on, Aylie,” Amber said. “I could use a good laugh.”
“It will give you something to look forward to,” said Ayleana.
Chapter 34 — Shooting Stars
Amber leaned back against the oak tree and looked at the sky. Her self-winding watch with its glow-in-the-dark hands told her it was 2:50 am. The moon had set a few minutes ago, and, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the stars so bright. A meteor arced across the sky. She heard footsteps behind her and remained still, sure who it was.
“Amber, it’s Kest,” came his voice over the sound of night noises around them.
Amber held her hand out from behind the tree and waved it. Kest came ahead, almost silent, and stood next to her. She patted her knee for him to sit. He snorted and sat next to her on the same fallen log, turning off his IR night-vision goggles and sliding them into his pocket.
“Look at the stars,” she said. “In all the galaxy, with all the species out there living their lives. I doubt any of them know that we just bombed ourselves back to the stone age.”
“Said the woman with infra-red night goggles in her pocket.”
“Heh, there is that. Couldn’t sleep?”
“The frogs are too noisy.”
Amber snorted. “They are making a racket, aren’t they? Especially the ones in the tent next to ours. Still, hard to begrudge her, if you think it through.”
“Yeah, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.”
Amber tried not to laugh aloud, but the effort was painful. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t make me lose it. I am supposed to be on watch and you are going to make me give our position away.”
“With a straight line like that, it was worth the risk,” he said.
A moment later he sighed. “Twenty-seven hours since you wished me a happy birthday, but, Amber, I gotta tell you... worst birthday ever.”
Amber put her arm around him and pulled him close. “Well, perhaps Christmas will be better.”
“That’s one thing I like about you. You are such an optimist. How will it be better?”
Amber was silent.
“Go on. I gave you the straight line.”
Amber leaned over and kissed him. “Thank you for making me laugh, for brightening my night.” With her face so close to him, she could see him smiling from the light of the milky way.
“That’s your punch line?” He kissed her back. “I don’t get it. Will I get it later? Like when I’m your age?”
“Baby, I hope we both get some before then.”
“That’s better,” he said, putting his head on her shoulder and sighing.
Amber sighed too, turning her head to look at the stars again, just enjoying the feeling of his soft curls on her ear. They were family, and that would have to be enough for right now.
Chapter 35 — Checkpoint 32
When Ayleana crawled out of the tent in the morning, Amber assigned their seating arrangements on the motorcycles. Ayleana rode shotgun behind Kest, and Drew behind Amber... without a gun.
The work on Drew’s head wound had gone well. Ayleana's training from Tiana had been helpful. But she’d also drawn on her memories of the hospital and what she’d learned when Riniana Tiana’s battle wounds needed outside help to heal.
The experience of having sex for the first time—not just someone’s memories of it—had been sufficient. It had brought her milk down and triggered the changes needed to start the final part of her maturation cycle.
But, the frustrating thing was that she’d kept wishing it were Kest beneath her, inside her, touching her with his hands and mouth...
She’d gotten zero sleep, the upside to that was no memory download.
She sighed and got on the bike behind Kest, hugging him tight and wishing they could talk.
Long hours were wasted as they’d made their way around Atlanta. The urban sprawl there had caused delays and they’d had to make detours around communities or gangs who’d decided to block off and defend some roads.
After that, the long emptier stretches of Georgia and Alabama on route 20 and the 450 bypass around Birmingham had been mostly clear.
The highway and the morning both went by fast. No doubt, people were hunkered down or scavenging for water or food in town. Ayleana figured people would start abandoning the cities soon, but most of them were still waiting for someone to come and turn on the power. When they’d seen groups of people on the road, Amber had simply turned off-road and bypassed them. Some cars and trucks were still running, mostly older vehicles and those with diesel engines. Ayleana had seen one attempted carjacking, but it looked like both parties lost the struggle with no one left alive to drive away.
At the checkpoint 32 entrance, she and Amber left Kest and Drew with the bikes and combed the surrounding territory for signs of anyone who might have detected them. After that, they swept out the tracks they’d made coming in before returning to open the hidden door and move the bikes inside.
Checkpoint 32 was an underground storage unit with: solar power, ventilation system, bunk beds, camp stove, composting toilet, supplies, and vehicle and weapon storage to make a survivalist drool. All that enclosed in a big Faraday cage.
Drew stared around him then looked at Ayleana. “Did your people put all this stuff here then light off that EMP, Ayleana?”
Ayleana analyzed the emotion markers his body was throwing off, confused, horrified, angry, emotionally he was wounded.
In that moment, her opinion of his character took a leap upward. He was prepared to fight to defend his world though he had to be certain he’d only die in an attempt.
“No Drew,” she said. “Calm down. It’s nothing like that. The aliens on this planet number four individuals including me as far as I know. My people, are humans as well as myself and the three others like me. We suspected for years the power elite ruling the Deep State would do this when they realized too many people had decided to fight back. Even though our fighting back was mostly building disruptive models to withdraw from their economic slavery. The concert you attended two days ago drove them to trigger the detonation. Our own satellite sensors detected that a US military satellite delivered the EMP in coordination with propaganda to make it look like us.”
Ayleana sensed him beginning to cool off. “When I use the word us, I mean people who have worked in SST to find ways to fight the Deep State efforts to sow division between people. So we can stop working against
each other and cooperate to build a better world. I mean people who joined the effort from Occupy Wall Street. And Native Americans who’s treaties were being violated—whose only retaliation was making their sovereign nation status a reality and standing up for themselves in the international community.”
She crossed her arms. “So what’s it going to be? Do you need more proof? You can stick around and meet more of us, but if you believe the politicians instead of the people that pulled you out of a car trunk, you can take off on your own.”
Drew’s shoulders slumped. “God, I’m such an idiot sometimes. I just wanted someone to blame, so I immediately go with the Hollywood plotline. You know? Even when I’ve felt the vibe you guys put out in your music. I don’t think you can fake that. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I was impressed that you were ready to take us on by yourself when you thought we were the guilty party.”
“Me too,” Amber said. “It makes me want to lick you like an ice cream cone.” She grinned and winked at him.
Drew swallowed. His eyes shot to Ayleana and back to Amber.
Ayleana smiled. “If you just looked at me for permission, Drew, you should understand that we won’t be repeating last night’s arrangement. That wasn’t love at first sight. It was so you could heal. I hope you enjoyed it; I’d be lying if I said I didn’t, but unless you’re about to die again, that was a once and done. I hope you are okay with that.”
“Don’t try faking a heart attack, kid. It won’t work,” Amber said.
Drew laughed—still sounding a bit uncertain—and turned to Ayleana. “Yeah, I get that, Ayleana. I didn’t expect anything else. You were clear about it up front.
He turned to Amber. “But, why do you call me kid? Aren’t you like twenty-four?”
“You’re right, sir. My mistake.”
Amber grinned and walked to a piece of electronic equipment sitting on a small desktop. “Everyone get their updates into the group chat. We are a day late checking in. Kest, you should mention the Native American military message push you had Alex do before the pulse. I hope the tribes are coordinating something.”