Arianne screwed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth as I finally managed to wrench the cloth free of the ugly mess of bloody flesh on the side of her shin. I winced in sympathy. There were several small cuts, but the main wound was a deep, wide gash. The cloth of the pants had wadded up in the wound and formed a pseudo-bandage that had prevented some of the blood loss.
I leaned down to the pile of supplies I’d emptied from the backpack, retrieved the medical kit, and took out the bottle of disinfectant. “So where did you get these scratches? Climbing the concrete slab? You should have watched out for the metal.” I poured the liquid onto the wound.
Arianne’s body bucked, and she let out a low growl. “I’m not some clumsy oaf. I got hurt when the laser fire knocked me off.” She directed another growl toward me. “A warning would have helped.”
“A warning for the laser fire or for the disinfectant?”
“Both.”
I took out an antiseptic wipe and began to clean up the leg. Arianne jerked at the first few dabs, then settled back with her head on the backpack. I tensed at the whine of a V-Tip approaching, but it boomed past and was gone.
“It’s good those planes don’t have heat sensors to detect us,” Arianne said.
Strangely, I had never thought about that before. I unrolled a bandage and began to wrap it around her leg. The world was how INSH decreed it to be. “Wouldn’t be much skill for the pilots, in that case. More balance this way.” INSH had removed some of the automation from the battlefield, putting pilots and soldiers and their primary senses at the controls.
Arianne snorted. “Hardly a fair fight anyway.”
“At least there’s a chance to get away.”
“It was only your knowledge of what to expect from the planes that gave us a chance. Did you chase people down like that when you were a pilot?”
I nodded, ashamed at the memories of what I had done. But at the time, it was just part of the job. “Not against rogues in our country or that of our allies. And I never shot anyone for sure, but I did fire at buildings where we thought rogues were hiding.” I had hunted rogues in the Middle East and Africa, places that didn’t have underground cities or devastators. Shooting at animals was considered bad form, but shooting at foreign rogues and cities was encouraged, though it wasn’t officially discussed. I guessed that it was similar in the other armies, and that made it too dangerous for most people to venture outside, keeping everyone in the undercities and under INSH control, and preventing rogue populations from having a chance to do anything more than stay alive.
I finished tying off the dressings on the last of Arianne’s cuts. The bandage over the main wound developed a pink tinge as blood seeped out, but other than that, Arianne looked much better. “You were up here on the surface before, weren’t you? The computer showed that you went rogue.”
“You can’t always trust the computer, but yes, I was.” Arianne had finished a nutrition bar, and some color had returned to her complexion.
“How did you survive up here?”
“It’s not usually like this. Normally, there isn’t an enemy devastator overhead. Last time I was on the surface, it was reasonably safe. We have a settlement. I’ll take you there after dark.” She smiled. “We made it. Who would have thought it?”
I suddenly felt happy to be there with her, despite everything that had gone on to get us there and despite everything still left unresolved. I was with her, and for a long time, I had thought that would never happen. “What would you think if I told you that you were beautiful and that your eyes were like rainforest suffused with the light of a new dawn?”
“I’d ask how much of that disinfectant you put on my leg and how much you took up your nose.”
“Seriously though.”
“I am being serious.”
“You’re smiling.”
“I smile when I’m happy.” She reached across and touched my hand. “A girl’s got a reputation to uphold, you know. Listen, if you say things like that only in private and never mention it to others, then maybe I won’t kick you where it hurts in response, and I’ll even pretend to like it. In public, though, you are to tell everyone I’m a wildcat in the sack and things of that nature.”
“I think I could manage that.”
“Agreed then. You occasionally look not unhandsome yourself. Or so I’ve been told. And I would have come see you in the hospital if I’d known. No one told me about your crash until you were better again.”
I leaned down and kissed her. Her lips tasted of dust, but they felt warm and soft.
“Let me get this straight,” Arianne said. “You get me trapped in this dark corner, fearing for my life. Then you pull down my pants on a dumb pretext. Now you jump in and start kissing me. That’s really taking advantage.” Her hand tightened around mine. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
We didn’t say much after that, and a short time later, she fell asleep.
I ate a nutrition bar, drank some water, and thought about the world. Connecting with Arianne had made me a lot happier, but it didn’t clarify matters much. Actually, it might have muddied them.
INSH didn’t seem to be running the world for personal gain. They truly believed that the human race would follow a path to its own destruction if it wasn’t guided.
If that was true, then Celeste were still the bad guys. I guess it was dumb to look at everything in terms of bad guys and good guys, but if it came down to a decision between Celeste and INSH, I didn’t know how to decide. I looked down at Arianne sleeping peacefully. Loving her didn’t mean that I should support her side if it was the wrong one.
I had no intention of surrendering to the mibs and Mari Larsen, but if I had a chance to join up with Burnett and INSH, I’d have to consider taking it. I was pretty sure that Burnett had been sincere in his offer to let me be a part of INSH. Perhaps war and destruction was in the human DNA, which was why the controlled period of world wars had resulted in so much stability. Despite all their intelligence, humans were still driven by basic instincts. Allying those instincts with unchecked technological advancements—I could see why INSH had come to the conclusions it had and taken the measures it had.
I took the holographic projector out of my pocket. I threw it into the air and caught it once or twice. Then I shifted a few stones, pushed the projector into the dirt, and returned the stones to their original places. I didn’t want to go into the Celeste settlement with them knowing I had watched that.
Chapter 7
Arguments about INSH and Celeste tossed and turned inside my head as the sun drifted down to the horizon. I thought guiltily of Christina and how quickly I had forgotten her and what I had done to her. But I couldn’t afford to let that memory drag me down. Things were coming to a crux, and I couldn’t let myself freeze up like I had at the Battle of Rockall.
Horizontal rays of light cut long shadows into our hiding place. They were replaced by twilight, then darkness, then glimmers of moonlight. Planes still flew overhead but not as low and less frequently. I woke Arianne, and we ate the remaining food and drink. The bandages on her legs were blotched with blood, but overall, the wounds didn’t seem in too bad shape. I figured getting her to proper medical attention was a better option than treating the wounds further. I refilled the backpack with the remaining supplies, crawled out from under the bus, then waited for Arianne. The headlamp wasn’t necessary on a clear night with a three-quarter moon, and in any case, it would have been far too dangerous. I helped Arianne back into her pants, and we set off.
Arianne rested her weight on my shoulder and walked with a severe limp. The moonlight bathed the broken city in a silvery-blue glow. Weeds swayed in the breeze as we walked through them. Even the devastator had ceased its destruction for the night. I could hear V-Tips in the distance, but no shooting—they too had paused in their efforts to turn the city to rubble. Perhaps the night was too beautiful for that. I said that to Arianne, and she laughed.
Whenever the rhythm of
Arianne’s steps became erratic, I stopped for a rest. She never complained, but even in the pale moonlight, I could read the strain in her expression. Before we left, she told me that it would take about an hour to get to the settlement, but it was more than three times that before Arianne nodded at a line of trees in front of us. “We’re here,” she whispered.
I switched on the headlamp once the overhead branches blocked out the sky. Rustling leaves let me know that someone was aware of our presence. We continued onward. I was surprised when the headlamp illuminated a jet wing, and even more surprised when further investigation revealed a row of two-seater fighters. Trees had been cut down on the ground, but the forest canopy above was unbroken, creating a pseudo hangar for the planes, making them invisible from the sky. “What are they for?” I asked Arianne.
“For the attack.”
“Attacking the Bolivar? That would be suicide.”
“No. Attacking the American Conference.”
That would be worse. If they had planes, Celeste was much bigger and more prepared than I had thought. That didn’t make them capable of even aggravating a single devastator, never mind a full superpower.
Several men with military postures and marching steps approached. The leader shone his light in Arianne’s face first. “Arianne Holt?” he asked.
She nodded.
“She needs medical attention right now,” I said. In agreement, Arianne collapsed. I caught her and held her until two men came with a stretcher and took her away.
“And you?” the soldier asked.
“Jordi Roberts.”
He nodded. “Follow me.”
We went farther into the settlement, which more closely resembled a military base. A lone man approached us, and I stumbled. It can’t be. I shone the light of the headlamp directly into the face of the person who had come to greet us. To greet me. I blinked several times, unable to believe what I was seeing. He’s alive.
“Surprised to see me?” Darius asked.
The initial spark of joy was quickly quenched as I remembered the pain of thinking he was dead. And then the memory of everything that had happened after Darius’s plane had exploded rushed through me. He’d been pulling the strings. Before I realized what I was doing, my right hand snaked out and struck him in the jaw. He staggered back a step. There was a surge of motion as nearby soldiers converged, drawing their weapons.
Darius raised his hand. “It’s okay.” He rubbed his chin. “I deserved that.” He grinned. “I’m not sure exactly what for, though. Whether it was the keeping you in the dark for all those years or getting you involved now. Or both.”
“If you had any decency, you’d have stayed dead.” I shouldered past Darius, not wanting to speak to him right at that moment, even though I immediately regretted my words. I had to process things, give myself time to adjust. The next time I saw him, I could give him a hug—or perhaps punch him again.
“You’ve arrived at the right time,” Darius called out to me. “Things are going to get interesting soon.”
I thought back to the row of fighters. Things were going to get even more fucked up soon.
Author’s Note
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This is part 4 of a 5-part serial. The final part is due out in October. Each part is around sixty pages long. Check out all my releases: www.amazon.com/author/davidjnormoyle
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The Narrowing Path: Out of over a hundred teenage boys, only six will be found deserving of survival by the leaders of the great families. Bowe is expected to die on the very first day of the path; instead he begins a journey no one could have anticipated.
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COPYRIGHT
WORLD WAR 97—PART 4
Copyright © 2015 by David J. Normoyle
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Art © 2015 by S. Frost Designs
Edited byRed Adept Editing Services
First eBook edition: September 2015
Published by David J. Normoyle
www.davidjnormoyle.com
World War 97 Part 4 (World War 97 Serial) Page 5