He was looking right into barrel of pistol aiming between his eyes. But there was something strange, his HUD turned red: !Warning! That pistol had live ammo in it. Soldier pushed barrel up to John’s forehead: “Now, you are going to die like the ones you killed before.” HUD flickered rapidly: !Warning! Where the hell is Gillian? She was supposed to cover me. First he spotted sun reflection on Gillian’s scope then soldier’s head exploded into a bloody ball and body fell headless. John was covered with remains of skull and brain. After he cleaned his face and clothes he went to check other weapons, all were armed with real ammo.
He sat into jeep and pushed comm button: “Regroup on my position.” Then he turned button and pressed it again, this time speaking to entire Dragon group: “All units be advised, we have encountered enemy personnel with armed weapons. Recommend you to evade. Any sightings of hostile forces report to me. Loot enemy ammunition if you can. If you are in danger lethal force is authorized. Watch out for traps, mission objectives remain unchanged, just find other observation position they could be waiting for you. 2-1 out.”
When he finished orders Gillian already stood in front of him: “I’m really sorry… my hands trembled so much. You think command has something to do with this?” One of stunned soldiers moved, John stood over him: “I don’t know, but I will ask them.” And pointed his pistol on two soldiers. They waited for them to wake up. First woke up after ten minutes, when he saw John and Gillian he tried to shoot them but his weapon released just empty ‘click click’. John kicked him hard into belly: “Who gave you real guns? Why do you want to kill us?” Soldier smiled: “I’m not going to tell you anything.” John took step back: “Then… you have no use to me.” And shot the soldier, sending pieces of skull and brain flying around. Then he did the same to second one.
John examined load of jeep. Everything there was real and dangerous: FGM-148 Javelins, explosives, land mines. It looked like these guys were preparing for something big. Both Gillian and John agreed to setup explosives around jeep to slow down any other patrols or search parties. They hid dead bodies under the vehicle so no one can see them from above. By the time they finished that all it was nearly sunset, John reached his hand to help Gillian stand: “Let’s go find someplace to rest. Somewhere safe… or at least safer than here. They walked in silence, they had to change direction many times to avoid being followed. Soon darkness covered their advance and they started to look for shelter.
Corporal Tarkovsky patrolled near ridge line, his task was to kill any hybrids coming around. Strange thing was that there was no one else, only him and pale rocks. Few hours ago he lost contact with two other patrols which meant he was the only one in this area. But entire day no hybrid came through. He was starting to tell himself: “This is weird man, really weird.” Something moved on edge of his vision, it looked like human. He ran after it after several minutes of search he found a girl trapped in a chasm, only way out was around him. He aimed, she turned around. “You should be two.” Tarkovsky asked carefully. Gillian replied in amusing tone: “Yes we should.” Corporals words were cut off as gloved hand covered his mouth and razor-sharp blade cut his throat spilling large amount of blood.
“His face was priceless.” Smiled Gillian: “They always follow me and then realize that I’m alone. This one is fifth in last two hours it’s obvious that they were expecting us, shame we had to kill them.”
John cleaned his knife urgently, James used to say: “‘Nothin’ is worse that dirty blade Stump.” John couldn’t remember why is James always calling him Stump. James had name for everyone for example he called Gillian Rose, maybe because she likes roses. While looking for shelter John talked to her: “You never liked all this war stuff did you? Nah, why am I asking I know you. You don’t like it, I wish you could be somewhere else, with your family, painting, playing piano, meeting with friends.” Gillian couldn’t resist smile: “And where do you wish to be?” John raised his rifle: “Wherever humanity needs me to be.” Before Gillian answered he spoke again: “I think I found a cave for us, hang on… Yeah it’s okay.” They spent ten minutes setting up camp for next two weeks. Unfortunately they couldn’t risk open fire so they had to survive freezing dessert night only with help of sleeping bags. Rest of night was silent, they were too tired to talk, it was amazing that they managed to keep watch four hours each until morning…
Chapter 3 – Deception
John woke up in a nice cave with good view of valley. Night was quiet except from wind and animals. Reports from other teams were fine, just few hostiles.
“What do we have for breakfast?” Asked Gillian who just woke up. John was trying to open vacuum packed army meal, but his numb fingers were unable of doing so.
“Appears to be baked beans with tomato sauce, but it won’t open. I can’t even pull trigger right now.”
“Right now you don’t need to shoot anything." Gillian sighed. Then she opened pack for him and grabbed his hands in warm grip: “Warm enough?”
Some kind of warrior instinct flashed through John’s muscles. Some sort of memory from past, urge to free his hands from hers. He needed to focus his entire mind to ignore it.
“Yes, much better.” John was confused, nothing like this happened before. Maybe he has too much adrenaline in his blood. Their cave was small, just about half the size of their cell. Entrance was practically invisible from distance.
No matter what people think army meals are delicious, but fresh food will be always better.
John watched beautiful sunrise, soon Gillian joined him in front of cave entrance. She looked really serious, she always looked serious after waking up. She had nightmares every night. John knew it, even if she refused to tell him. He was watching her entire night, shivering, talking from sleep, calling his name. John decided to ask her about dreams later.
First light touched her unusually colored hair, reddish brown near roots with black ends. She had smooth, pale skin now partially covered with dust. Her eyes changed color rapidly, she could do that thanks to the cornea implant, sometimes it was very funny.
“I think it’ll rain.” Announced Gillian.
“I totally agree with your assumption.” Reacted John. This short dialogue was absolutely irrelevant. Meteorological data projected on their retinal HUD so they both knew that there was a storm coming. This was used just to keep some communication between them during long hours of doing nothing. They could see thick dark clouds slowly getting closer.
Light flashed in the clouds. First drop created small wet crater in desert dust. Wall of falling water soon convinced them to seek shelter in their cave. Rain tried everything to get inside but cave remained dry. Accompanied by hum of rain they talked. Nothing unusual at all, but one question disturbed John’s mind long years after this.
“What do you feel when you kill someone?” Gillian often asked questions like this.
“Hard to say, I’ve never killed someone I know. But when I kill guard I feel… nothing, recoil maybe. You already killed few people, so why do you ask?” John wanted to maintain normal tone, but he sounded little annoyed.
Gillian turned her eyes away like into great distance. “I just wanted to know if I have same feelings like you. I hate myself for killing people. It’s horrible thing, I don’t understand how can you take it so easy. What they did to you John?” Now she sounded angry.