Keeping With Destiny

by Stephan Knox

  “Give me back my pistol!”

  “Not if you’re going to shoot me again.”

  “Again?”

  “You redecorated the inside of the roof top. Good thing it was set on low pulse. But the radio is done.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Tannin took a step back, sweeping his hand out, welcoming her to take a look for herself. But when she stood too quickly, she wavered on her feet. Tannin lurched out to grab her, but she no sooner reached for the missing side arm again, reminding him that she was, in fact, Skaddary— no, not Skaddary— but she was trained to be like a Skaddary soldier.

  He watched her carefully, as she simply climbed into the truck with what looked like every intention of driving off without him. Good thing he’d thought to take the power key-plug out. “You sure you want to drive? That was quite a bump to the head you got there.” He got into the passenger seat and held the key-plug out to her.

  Her hand fell away from the steering column, eyes leveled on him. “I want my gun back.”

  He shook his head. What he didn’t expect was for her to back herself right back out of the vehicle. “I’ll have my survival pack then and be on my way.”

  Drenn. “Think about what you are saying. If I drive away, you’ll be here on your own and on foot.”

  “At least I know where I am. Do you, field-man?”

  He was trapped. He knew as well where they were, but he couldn’t tell her that. “You said so yourself the aero plane marked the epicenter of the dead lake. Nothing in any direction for miles. You’ll die here.”

  “Give me back my gun,” unphased, she insisted.

  “Did you hear me? I said you’ll die out here if I leave you.” Drenn! She was calling his bluff because he wasn’t about to leave her here.

  She took another full step back, furthering the distance between them. Her chin coming up in a tight defiance. “Give- me- back- my- pulse- guns.” This time each word accentuated affirmatively.

  Tannin’s nose flared with the deep inhale of her scent— determined— stubborn— MULE!

  He knew it was a bad idea, but fucking drenn— he pulled one of the pulse guns from his jacket pocket and laid it on the driver’s seat. “I keep the other. You draw on me and we’ll both go down.” He held the key plug out, his other hand stuffed into his pocket fingering the second pulse shooter.

  She quickly stepped up, one hand taking the pulse, the other snatching the key from his hand. The gun went to her leg holster. Without ceremony, she got into her seat, jabbed the key into the ignition port, and off they went.

  The dusty road seemed to never end. The dry lakebed was now a dry river bed that chased them alongside the old-world highway like a monster snake. Passages of dry seasons and sand storms had long since covered most of the road, and near everything else with a heavy layer of dust and playa. Tall and crumbled structures loomed in the passing distance— skeletons of their former structural wonders. As the sun set, some glowed like copper towers, catching the umber light while others fell in the shadows of the mountain range that grew closer. She wondered about the buildings, as a means to occupy her mind during the long hours of driving. She compared what she saw to the images she’d seen in the books the base had managed to rescue and keep safe. Few people read, including for her she found it difficult given her limitation of known written languages. But books had high value. And all Skaddary were under orders to retrieve them, when possible to bring back to the base. It was the books that taught them how to build and repair so many things.

  She remembered learning to read when she was still very small at the temple. And again, at the academy, but by the time she was transferred to the Skaddary Base of district nine, there were few there who could read to help her continue. But she never grew tired of going to the archive hall and looking through all the books for no other reason but to escape being around anyone else.

  In them, she could pick up a word here and there, but so many of the books seemed to be in a totally different language than what she had been taught, and she eventually gave up trying, settling for just enjoying the photos and drawings.

  She turned on one of the low band scanners. So far there was nothing but static as she dialed it in at a particular spot and left it on, knowing soon she would come in range and someone hiding in the mountains would talk about the old-world, and sing songs that were eerie yet held a lasting haunting beauty to them. Though they were not the songs she recalled from the temple, they made her think of them, like some old man lamenting to anyone listening— there is a better way— there is still hope— Destiny has not forgotten us.

  Stew went from staring out his portside window to snoring while slumped over in his seat next to her. As much as she liked him asleep and not talking, his snoring agitated her, disrupting her mental escapes. She dropped a hand to the gun on her thigh. Another croaky snort when the vehicles tires bounced over a crack in the road. And that’s all it took. She pulled and aimed across her arm keeping the wheel. She glared at the sleeping labor pigeon. Her finger itching debating whether to shooting him while he slept. But just entertaining the idea had her sym warming up with an ill aching feeling in the center of her back. “Alright, I was just kidding,” she mumbled to it and returned the gun to its holster. Finally, the sensation ebbed.

  She spotted an off ramp just ahead and veered off, deciding now was as good a time as any, if not better, for a pit stop. After this last jaunt, they would come up on one of the ghost cities. And while it was unavoidable to pass through, she had no plans to stop until she got well beyond it.

  At the bottom of the road ramp, she pulled into a circular drive and then tucked the truck behind the hollow walls of an old building grown over with vines, and parked. Stew stirred awake just as they stopped moving and peeked an open eye at her suspiciously.

  “Bush watering and food,” she answered the unspoken question and hopped out. “You should pull him out and let him use a bush as well. They probably don’t get watered often enough around here.”

  “Why should I?” he asked, showing her just how much he cared, and it bothered her probably more than it should.

  “Because if you don’t, he’ll piss his pants, and stink up my truck, and then I will toss the both of you on the side of the road.”

  “Not much of a team player for your own side, are you?” Stew scoffed at her as he climbed into the back to get their prisoner out from the cage. He opened the man’s trousers then forced him down on his knees. “Piss or hold it. You heard her.”

  Aside from the mumbling argument behind the gag, the bound man didn’t take the advantage to relieve himself.

  Aari stood just outside the scamper, stretching her arms overhead, while glancing out in the dim light where the sun had just vanished. “My last run, I had direct clearance from Lt. Cdr. Gage that I could drop my passenger dead where he stood, if he bothered me.”

  “And did dead-man-walking have a name?” he called over his shoulder while he let his stream loose to splash in a turned over bucket he found.

  “Camber,” she said his name to the distant beyond.

  There was a hearty chuckle behind her. Aari shot an annoyed glance at Stew. “Know him?”

  “Let’s just say, I would have paid to see that.”

  “Don’t believe I would have?” She hated being underestimated. He still had that laugh lingering on his face. His smile almost seemed familiar. But the dimming light made it hard to see.

  “Well, did you?”

  She let out a frustrated huff, “I’m going into the bushes.” And marched off.

  No, she hadn’t, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t and she sure as drenn didn’t want to hear Stew even mocking her with some chauvinistic idea saying she couldn’t kill.

  She heard Stew dragging their prisoner in another direction, so she hurried to relieve her bladder and then took off after them.

  She crept about the trees keeping ducked low and out of sight.
But the setting sun had them cast in shadows and she was having a tough time seeing. She finally spotted them next to a clump of vines that obscured whatever it was they’d taken over. Stew was mumbling something to their prisoner who’d been freed from one of the restraint coils, allowing minimal range of motion, enough to hold his own pisser.

  Restraint coils were never supposed to be removed, but then again, she never met any guy who was willing to give that much of a helping hand to a friend, let alone a prisoner.

  “Take off, Aari!” Stew suddenly called out to her without even a glance her way.

  Just the idea that he knew she was here had her glowering, and she stood her ground. She stepped out from behind the tree. “Not leaving without my prisoner. You seem to forget who is in charge here,” she hollered after him.

  “I mean, you don’t need to be hovering around while I let him take his piss, or while he’s short a coil. Go back to the scamper and wait on us.”

  “I’ve seen men’s tools before,” she scoffed, cutting through the shrubs and headed back up the trail to return to the vehicle.

  She grabbed one of the crates from the back, discovering her other pulse rifle, and then staked a claim on one of the apples before Stew could clean them out. She leaned back against the body of the scamper, eyes glued on the trail, waiting. Her side arm once more where it was supposed to be tucked under her left arm, the other still in its leg holster.

  She was half way through her apple when Stew finally returned with their prisoner once more back in all three coils.

  “Miss me?” He smirked, brushing past her and shoving the bound man through the side door.

  “Aren’t you going to feed him?”

  “To what purpose? Keep him strong so he can tackle me and escape?”

  Aari narrowed her eyes at him, “I don’t know what kind of labor abuse you’re used to, but this is my scamper and I will deliver the prisoner alive and healthy,” her scolding chasing him as he essentially ignored her, climbing into the back to secure their live cargo in the rear cage.

  She heard the lock snap then Stew came climbing back out, with an apple in hand. He leaned over, planting a hip on the jamb and glanced at her while wiping his meal with the edge of his shirt. He’d let the tuareg slip down around his chin and he had some odd look on his face as if, at some point, their roles had been switched and now she was the enemy; made all the more disconcerting with his immense height. Why in drenn did he have to be so tall?

  He glanced down at her leg, then to the holster under her arm, noting her pistols back in possession and then looked back to meet her eyes. “Why do you care? He’s an enemy,” he asked then bit into the apple. But the action was a ploy. He wanted her to think he didn’t care either way what her answer was, but his eyes gave him away. She was used to watching the eyes. Because she really was the enemy— hiding amongst them and it was only a matter of time before one found her out.

  “He’s no enemy. Just someone who broke into the wrong place and got caught.”

  “He’s killed several of our men.”

  “I have killed several men,” she rebuked.

  “In self-defense or for self-preservation perhaps,” he explained her away.

  She glanced away, diverting her eyes away from Stew and catching the last bit of red sky disappearing in the distance where she let her thoughts wander just as distantly. “How can anyone’s kills be defined any differently?” But rather than let him answer, she tossed the rest of her apple, got in the truck, and started it up.

  The last of the twilight burned away and the world fell into pitch darkness as she kept on, not even a moon in the sky to light up the landscape as they passed, but she knew it all by heart. One building after another, fallen to ruin through the ages before theirs. Now, given over to sand or the overgrowth of vegetation that started to crop up here and there the closer they came to the mountain range. Vines mostly and ground scrub that crept over everything in its path, reclaiming the earth.

  Most of the land this side of the mountain range was arid— water sources were easy enough to search out though— just look for anything green. And with it, civilization.

  Some of the ruins had become refuges for stragglers trying to evade the Blood Lords, but not accepted by the Skaddary Militia or other colony groups for one reason or another. Wayward cities and camps. Some good for stopping for trade, others most travelers stayed clear of.

  Wild animals made dens of the buildings not reclaimed by humans. Even the rusted shells of various vehicles became homes to stragglers, both two-legged and four. A few buildings became artificial ponds, collecting rain water when it came. Dry clay and broken concrete that had long ago paved the roads to make them smooth were now nothing more than worn, dusty dirt paths.

  Bedtime tales often told that the ruins once stood so tall some seemed to touch the sky. And they were home to thousands of people. Now there was hardly a village that was more than a few hundred here or there. She’d even seen some images kept in the archive library at the base. It was interesting to look at them and wonder what they were, but she didn’t favor the same interest other people did over the past. Lamenting over what once was, was pointless and eroded the soul. It made sense for the engineers to do so, it was their job to try to restore whatever they could and often used the books and data sheets rescued from old-world to help them in their learning. But for Aari and others, there just wasn’t any sense obsessing at what used to be. They had ceased to be, long before she came to the world. Rather, she went to the archive for another reason. She recalled the priests at the temple and what they used to tell her.

  ~~ Things that once were, are not important, only what went wrong is. We strive to understand so the next generation can learn from it, and not repeat the past. ~~

  That part always baffled her. Had all this happened before? Did they rebuild only to be destroyed over and over again? And whose burden was it to set it right? Those, too, were ponderings not worth hanging onto. She was a Symbiotai-carrier living with the enemy; there were other things she needed to concern herself with. And she only hoped, that for once, this man she was asked to set free would be the answer to that.

  Her thoughts were eventually accompanied by the songs she’d waited for on the radio band and they eased her restless conscious.

  Stew glared at her for the longest, but he couldn’t touch her right now. Only the Code Talker could.

  After several songs, the old voice told a tale of Titans that had recently passed by and the enemies they struck down. Sometimes he threw in odd words that didn’t belong in the story or said things in an odd manner. Even mixed language words. It was as though he was trying to reveal a secret to her without anyone else figuring it out. She wished she knew more of his languages, some familiar and other parts not at all. But she liked listening even if she didn’t understand all of it.

  Stew was soon taking an interest in him as well. Listening carefully. But he didn’t appear to be as bewildered by the message as she was.

  The night passed, and so did the ghost city and the singing code talker.

  It would be dawn soon and she could feel the effects of the last nine hours behind the wheel. Her eyes felt dry and heavy and she was going to start nodding off if she didn’t stop. They weren’t too far from the first district village; its residents kept to themselves and posed no threat, but she never stopped there. Such visits were an invitation to become information that could be sold for favoritism to anyone interested in militia vehicles passing through.

  She glanced over at Stew who was sound asleep, snoring as usual. How a man could sleep so soundly was a mystery to her, but it also just might be her chance. She spotted the fork and eased the scamper down the side road that would drop them off at a nearby creek the local village used for water. There, she’d be able to top her tank off and freshen up, but mostly she hoped to give her prisoner a chance to escape.

  Aari eased the vehicle to a stop carefully watching
that she didn’t jar Stew awake. Her shotgun still snoring, she snuck to the back and quickly freed the locks on the cage. Tannin’s restraint coils had been removed and he was now shackled into the wall of the vehicle, making it all the easier for her to get him out.

  “I believe Trooper gave me specific instructions to keep him away from you.”

  Aari spun about with a start, her heart lodged in her throat, finding Stew eyeing her suspiciously from the front passenger’s seat. His face hidden behind the cloth and his eyes shaded with the sun blockers.

  “I need to switch out with you and figured the prisoner could use a bladder purge as well.”

  How he watched her so intently made her nervous, but she made sure that in her answer not even her lip quivered, but her eyes shifted, running away with her to hide the lie. He studied her a moment. She saw the twitch in his nose.

  “Fine, but he’s not your job.”

  Aari opened the side door and slowly shifted to the edge of the scamper but didn’t leave. Staying, watching Stew watch her with an accusing focus. Even the adamant tone from Stew affirmed she wasn’t going to get passed him very easily, if at all. Nevertheless, they had eight more days of travel time remaining before they reached Brika, and she could easily turn that into ten or twelve before she was reported a no show, if need be.