Anatomy of Chaos

by cecilyjones

Yet another how Pilot left the Dread Youth story.

Anatomy of Chaos

(or How Pilot Left the Dread Youth)

by Cecily

(Updated to better define scene breaks.)

-------------

The ruins burned. The cinderblock walls of the buildings had fallen in on themselves years before, but nevertheless a settlement had clung to Sand Town, made some kind of living out of the broken land.

Not anymore. Dread's New Order could not allow a trace of the old ways of the organics to remain. The world must be cleansed. Cleanse them.

A new force had risen to take the place of the old. Disciplined, emotionless, and worthy of the machine that guided them. Lord Dread and his army, young people raised and trained in the way of the machine, burned the old ways to ashes. Cleansed the organics from the face of the earth.

Youth Leader Chase stood with her unit, statue-like, emotionless, repeating the litany of the machine, Cleanse them! and unable to look away from their faces. The organics had faces like hers. Smudged with soot and blood, but human, and each one different, individual. They spoke, too. Human words discernable among their animal screams. Stop. Please. Help me.

They were a blight that must be cleansed. Sterilized. The machine taught this. She knew this.

There was nothing clean about this. Ashes fell in clouds, an acrid haze choked her lungs. Clothing, hair, meat, all burning. What would it take to cleanse the smell from her uniform, her nose, her memory?

She wanted to tell her Overunit, a woman as prim and stone-faced as herself, Stop this. Make it stop. Grab her, shake her, shout loud enough to drown out the screams. Her stomach turned painfully; she didn't recognize the feeling.

Machines do not feel. Feeling is emotion, emotion is weakness. Bow to the will of the machine, for the machine is perfection.

The organics clung together as their homes burned. They held each other tightly, and their faces were wet. Chase didn't know what it meant.

At last, the screams were silent and they boarded a transport to leave the ashes and stench behind. Their mission was successful and required no comment. Praise would have been indicative of pride, and pride was against the will of the machine.

This was Chase's first mission. She wanted some sign that this was right. That what she was feeling—

She wasn't feeling.

No one had told her their faces were like hers. That she was like them. That they were the same. No, not the same, they lived outside the machine. They fought against the will of the machine, and that was wrong.

She sat in her seat on the transport ship, strapped in, among the members of her unit. Her hands rested in her lap. All stared straight ahead, all looked the same, no one spoke. This, then, was the will of the machine. She was going to be sick. Everyone of them, the whole transport, smelled like burning.

I . . .

The I is unimportant. Only the will of the machine.

I want. . . Want is an organic emotion and emotion is weakness. The machine does not show emotion. The machine is strong, the machine is beautiful.

I want. . . The machine is strong. The machine will cleanse the world of organic filth, organic emotion. The world will become clean, shining, beautiful, sterile.

I want to get out of here.

--------------

Electronic eyes watched every doorway. At every step, her fellow Dread Youth surrounded her. The litany of the machine drowned out thought.

We bow to the will of the machine.

After the successful cleansing of Sand Town, her unit was assigned to another mission. Another settlement had been found disobeying the will of the machine. They must be cleansed.

Chase didn't want to go. Want. That word, that signified a churning feeling in her gut. But if she spoke out, what would she say? If she stepped out of formation, where would she go?

This time, when they marched into the settlement with their weapons and rhetoric, the organics shot back. The soldiers of her unit scattered, taking shelter. When shot, they screamed with the same emotion as their organic enemies. Burned with the same stench, and bled red blood, not oil.

When they fell, died, the bodies were left. Bodies were organic, useless.

Chase crouched behind a pile of shattered rubble near her Overunit, who was looking outward, trying to fire back at their attackers. Chase backed away, crawling slowly, hoping she didn't draw attention. No electronic eyes hovered over her. No one watched her. For the first time in her life, no one watched her.

For the first time in her life, she wanted to be alone, with no one watching. She wanted. She could just walk away.

A mortar fell; a building crumbled. Someone screamed--a pair of biomechs marched toward an organic woman, who huddled over something, a small human figure. Her offspring. She was guarding it, so when the biomechs raised their guns, they would shoot her instead of it. Except it wouldn't help, because they'd shoot her, then her offspring.

Chase could make it stop.

Their backs were toward her. She raised her pistol. It felt like she watched herself from outside--surely this wasn't her about to fire on the machine.

A series of quick shots rang, burning laser bolts that struck the biomechs mid-section. Sparks flew as their circuitry fried, their limbs twitched, writhing in uncontrollable death-throes.

The woman picked up her child and ran away without looking back.

Chase stared at the pistol in her hand, warm with its discharge.

"Youth Leader Chase!" Her Overunit called, searching for her. "Chase, report to your post!"

She couldn't go back. She looked around, but there was no place to hide, no place to run to.

Concrete rained down from various explosions, mostly in small, harmless chunks. A sudden thought took her: she lay flat on the ground, sprawling face-down, arms and legs splayed. She lay very, very still. Eyes closed. Bodies were organic and useless.

"Youth Leader Chase!" The Overunit must have been right over her now, surely within view.

Chase didn't move. The Overunit stopped shouting.

She didn't dare move or open her eyes. Only took shallow breaths. She dispensed with fear--fear is an organic emotion. What else could she do, but lie there. Out of formation.

Eventually, the sound of explosions and shooting lessened, disappeared. Like last time, the screams stopped. The whine of departing transport ships faded into the distance.

The air smelled of ashes, just like the last time.

Dread had achieved victory, evidently, and abandoned this settlement to its ruin.

She had no idea what she was going to do now. She'd have to look around, take stock. Carefully, she stood, brushing the dust and ashes off her uniform. Her senses on edge, her hearing straining for the least noise, she edged around the corner of a half-gutted building--

--and came face to face with tall figure in gleaming armor.

She gasped, breath choking in her throat, her heart racing. She stared at the breastplate of his suit--she barely came up to the man's shoulder. Automatically, she brought her pistol to bear. The figure did likewise--his gun was much bigger than hers. Stumbling on rubble, she backed away.

Another figure appeared behind her; his armor was darker, his entire face covered with a shield. He had a gun as well. She scrambled away from the wall, where they were about to pin her. She moved her gun from one, to the other, back again.

Organics in armor--these were Captain Power's men. The most hated rebels of them all. She hadn't bargained for this, not at all. They'd led the firefight against Dread's battalion.

The first one pointed his gun up, away from her. "Calm down," he said, his voice firm, commanding. "Put down your gun. We don't want to hurt you." He glanced at his comrade. "Scout, lower your weapon."

The other did so, pointing it at the ground.

She kept just as tight and panicked a grip on her pistol as she had before.

"Please," he continued, insistent. "We won't hurt you."

It wasn't as if she could do them any damage, alone with a single weapon, and them with their famous armored suits.

She turned and ran, ducking behind a smashed wall. She found an alcove where she could hide, where she could wait for them to find her.

Where she could decide if she wanted them to find her. We won't hurt you, he'd said, and he'd sounded sincere. She so wanted to believe him.

She hadn't imagined it would be so difficult to be alone. She hugged her knees, pulling herself into the smallest shape she could. This was what wanting got her.

---------------

Jonathan Power called Scout back when he started to run after the girl. "We'll deal with her later," he said. "She's got no place to go."

It seemed inconceivable, that the Dread force had left behind one of their own. But her stiff Dread Youth uniform and severe demeanor had been unmistakable. His paranoia immediately thought that it must have been a trick; she'd been left as a spy. Then again, it seemed inconceivable that she could be a spy. She was so young, so obviously frightened.

At least they'd managed to drive Dread off. They'd saved lives today. Now, they had to gather the survivors and take them to the Passages.

The survivors had built a fire in the shelter of one of the buildings still standing. They gathered the wounded here for treatment. Scout and Hawk brought out their medical kits and helped who they could. Tank stood watch. They powered down their suits, to save energy they might need later, if Dread's forces returned.

The situation was mostly in hand within an hour. He wanted to hurry them out of here. But he had one last job.

He went to Hawk. "You have any rations?"

"Yeah, sure." Hawk handed him a pouch of freeze-dried something or other. Not home-cooked, but it would do. He also picked up a canteen of water.

"Captain," Scout said from the other side of the campfire. "You going after that Dread Youth kid?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"No. But my curiosity's got the better of me."

Hawk furrowed his brow. "Dread Youth kid?"

Jon gave a quick nod. "We flushed her out when we were securing the area. Looked like she'd been left behind. Or--" And this was where his instincts nagged at him. "--maybe she's a deserter."

Hawk snorted a denial. "I've never heard of anyone deserting Dread's forces."

"First time for everything," Jon said with a shrug.

"You want back-up?" Scout said.

Jon shook his head, and Hawk said, "If you're going to go hunting Dread Youth, at least power on your suit."

"No, I don't want to scare her. She looked terrified enough as it is."

"Or angry. Mad-dog angry," Scout said with a huff.

Jon pursed his lips and went toward the direction they'd last seen her.

He couldn't move quietly, not when every step dislodged rubble or crunched on broken debris. It was just as well; he didn't want to startle her.

Belatedly, he realized how great an ambush a person could stage amid the half-destroyed walls and caved in buildings. He could be walking into a trap, all because he let himself get overconfident, thinking she was just a kid, she couldn't hurt him. The others were probably right and this was a mistake.

He found her huddled on the ground, back to a slab of concrete. Her hair was coming loose from its braid, wispy blond strands sticking to her soot-smeared cheeks. She crushed the hat of her uniform in one hand; the other still held the pistol.

"Hi," he said, he hoped in a friendly manner.

She looked at him, her whole body tense, and tried to scoot away, but she had no room left.

Slowly, hands in plain view, he approached her. The closer he got to her, the younger she looked. She gripped her pistol more firmly, though her hand shook.

Her reaction and his mistrust of her put him on edge. He held something in each hand; she had to know he wasn't a threat. "Are you thirsty? I brought water."

He set the canteen on a smooth section of concrete and backed away.

Her gaze flickered to the canteen, only lingering there a second before locking back on him. "It's poisoned."

He didn't take his eyes off that gun. He took the canteen back, drank a swallow, and returned it. "Satisfied?"

Tentatively, her hands shaking, she eased herself down the concrete slab, grabbed the canteen and backed away, keeping the pistol trained on him.

This was going to be like taming a wild animal.

She must have been very thirsty--she nearly drained the canteen. She had to look away to drink. This would have been his chance to tackle her, grab the pistol, take her prisoner. He didn't.

She seemed to forget about the gun; it rested on her lap, and she clung to the canteen. "Why didn't you just kill me?" Her voice was rough and bitter.

"I've promised to preserve life. All life."

Scowling, she looked away.

He was losing patience with this. "What are you doing here? Waiting for your friends to come and take you back to Volcania?"

Glaring, she looked back at him. It was that angry look, mad-dog angry, Scout had noticed. "I don't want to go back."

"Then why are you here? What are you doing just. . .sitting here?"

She started shivering, sort of a compulsive rocking. It wasn't cold. Her jaw was locked, her whole body was tense. Trauma--she was showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress. She didn't look hurt, except for a cut on her face.

"I didn't think about what to do next," she said softly.

He stepped closer, just a few feet. Her hands didn't compulsively tense on the weapon. He opened the ration pack. She watched closely, fearfully.

The pack was filled with dried fruit. Apple slices, from the hydroponics orchard in the Passages.

"It's food," he said, offering the pack to her. He didn't set it down this time. Let her come to him. "Go on. You've got to be hungry."

He waited patiently while she stared. Then, finally, she reached. He didn't react, didn't flinch, kept all emotion from his eyes. He tried to suppress every reaction that would frighten her.

She grabbed the pack out of his hand. She was a little closer this time, didn't back away.

"What is it?" She pulled out one of the slices and studied it with suspicion.

For God's sake, she didn't recognize an apple. "It's dried apple. A kind of fruit. It's been dehydrated to preserve it, make it last longer. For journeys and storage."

He asked, "What's your name?"

Again, her voice was soft, tight. "Youth Leader Chase."

"What's your first name?"

Her brow wrinkled, her expression tensing with signs of anguish. "Chase. Youth Leader Chase."

The Dread Empire had no use for first names, familiar names. Rank and label. That was all.

"All right then, Chase. I'm Jon. We're going to be leaving here soon. You have a decision to make. You can come with us. Or, we'll leave you here. You can decide."

He made a point of not looking over his shoulder when he walked away. He'd left her with a canteen in one hand and ration pack in the other. She wasn't likely to shoot him. He hoped.

Hawk and Scout watched his return. "Well?" Hawk said.

"I don't think she's a spy. But--I don't know. She's not talking. Scout, if she makes an appearance, I'd like you to do a scan on her, see if she's carrying any transmitters or bugs."

"Sure."

Hawk gave a huff. "A deserter? Just like that? I wonder how she managed it."

"I don't know. I hope to find out. Anyone with the will to leave Dread's forces—we could use that on our side."

---------------

She could have shot him. He turned his back to her. She'd shoot him and be a hero.

She brought the ration pack he had given her to her nose. The apples smelled sweet. So different.

She could go back. He was right, Dread would return. She just had to say that she'd been knocked unconscious, mistaken for dead. Accidentally left behind. They'd be suspicious of her. They'd examine her, maybe interrogate her. Digitize her and have done with it, even if she did bring them Jonathan Power's head.

She hadn't thought any farther than getting away, getting out, so that she'd never have to hear the screams again, never have smoke filling her lungs.

What else could she do? Live here, alone--eat rocks and drink air? Machines did not need sustenance. That also made them superior.

Eating the food he had given her felt like she was betraying. . .something. But she was hungry. She was weak.

The apples tasted like they smelled. Sensation flooded her mouth. It was almost painful.

Her nose tightened, and her eyes stung with more than the smoke. Her throat constricted, making breathing difficult. Her inferior organic body was betraying her. She'd never hated it so much.

Power—he'd called himself Jon. First name. She followed him, to watch him and his people. Observe, gather data, calculate. She found a sheltered place, where she could watch without being seen.

The organic rebellion. She watched them, struggling and fighting even now. They could not hope to triumph against the machine. How could she go with them, when they were so obviously doomed?

Power put his hand on the shoulder of an older man wearing a similar blue uniform with the blue-winged insignia on the chest. The other man nodded, smiled. Jon moved, kneeling by a stretcher and speaking to the person who lay there. The person, a woman, winced in pain but managed a smile, and Jon squeezed her hand. They touched one another so casually; Chase shivered thinking of it. But she couldn't look away. They were so determined.

They survived outside the machine. No matter how many of them Dread forces cleansed, there were always more. The war had been going on for so many years, and the machine could never find them all.

Which meant something about them was superior to the machine.

The very idea was shocking, impossible—yet somehow correct, on the very basis of machine logic: clear evidence conveyed facts. It only remained to discover the intangible something that allowed the rebellious organics to survive so long outside the will of the machine.

It couldn't possibly be something so insignificant as dried apples or smiles.

They could kill her. There were more of them. They were larger, more powerful. But they hadn't, yet. Perhaps they were waiting to trick her. Draw her in, capture her, interrogate her. They'd be disappointed by how little she knew.

When they started loading stretchers onto the ship, she crept closer to the center of their camp. Her gut felt like ice, her skin was clammy. Fear. This was fear. She didn't like it. Emotion is a sign of weakness.

If they were going to kill her they would have done it outright.

The darker skinned one, the one called Scout, saw her first. He touched Power's shoulder, pointed. Power glanced her way, then pretended like she wasn't there. Scout scanned her with a device. She glared at him. Apparently satisfied with what he found, he nodded at Power and turned away.

She sat on a piece of rubble, drew her knees up and hugged them. Watching the organics, she tried to learn as much as she could. Tried to decide what came next.

---------------

"Captain? Company's coming," Tank announced on Power's comm. He was manning the scanners on the jumpship.

Jon cursed. He knew Dread's forces would be back, with a force strong enough to crush them. But this was quick. Dread must be riled up.

"I copy," he replied, then turned to the group of refugees. "Dread's on his way back. Everyone pack up, into the jumpship now."

Quickly, with murmurs of suppressed panic, the people did. The badly injured were already on board; the healthy helped the less injured. Scout and Hawk directed them to the ship, which rested outside the ruins. No one bothered stamping out the campfire that had been built.

Already, Jon could hear the roar of a Dread troop transport approaching. "Hawk? Scout? Time to power up. Biodreads won't be far behind."

Jon pressed his fist to the badge on his chest, spoke the command phrase, familiar as a battle cry: "Power on!"

All his nerves tingled, and his skin flushed with static. The suit's bioelectric circuits activated and brought to life the charged armor that formed around him. If he hadn't known better, watched his father research the science and develop the technology that made the suits possible, Jon might have thought it was magic.

He looked at the world through shielded eyes.

The first Dread transport was out of range still, but its weapons were firing. They'd have read the jumpship on their scopes. The next research project ought to be finding a better way to cloak that thing.

The Dread Youth girl hadn't moved. She sat on a hillock of broken concrete, clutching the fabric of her trousers in shivering hands and looking back, her face creased with an intense expression that Jon couldn't identify. It might have been longing, terror--or hatred.

"Come with us," he called to her.

She shot him a look, and the expression intensified. She was petrified, frozen in place.

He strode over to her and reached out his hand. "Come with us, please."

The laser blasts were getting closer.

She bit her lip, which made her seem like a child. She flinched when a laser bolt threw up a rain of broken concrete. "I can't," she said. "I don't belong--"

He didn't have a choice now. The troop transport was landing, and the first biomechs disembarking.

"I don't have time to argue. We're going." He grabbed her arm.

"No!" She screamed and flailed back, fighting him.

He didn't want to hurt her. He hugged her to him, clamping her arms to her sides, and ran. He was half-carrying her. She bucked, kicked out, but he was stronger and kept his grip.

A group of biomechs had moved ahead to flank them. They fired--Jon crouched, hunching over to shelter his captive. The bolts flared harmlessly off his armor.

"Power level at seventy percent," the suit's friendly synthesized voice said.

Well, almost harmlessly.

The girl looked back at him, her eyes wide and shocked.

More shots burned out--but these came from the ship.

Tank stood by the boarding ramp, fully armored, firing blast after blast at the oncoming Dread troops. He paused for a moment when Jon appeared.

"Any time, Captain."

"On my way."

The girl didn't argue when he pulled her up the ramp. Tank followed close behind. The hatch closed.

"Hawk, get us out of here!" he called.

"Gladly."

The ship rumbled as the engine fired, and the floor tilted as it rose into the air. Now, they could outrun anything Dread threw at them.

He looked at the girl.

She leaned against the bulkhead, gasping for breath. Her expression hadn't changed, and he still couldn't read it. He didn't know what to say.

"I don't understand," she said, her voice quavering. "Why would you do it? Why help me? You could have been killed--"

"People help each other," he said, more angrily than he intended. "It's what they do. What they're supposed to do."

"I don't understand," she said weakly.

"I guess you don't. Come on, get to the hold and belt in."

He guided her to a seat and left her to go help Hawk pilot the ship. He had a knot in his gut. He didn't know if he'd helped her, or just made the biggest mistake of his life.

As he reached the cockpit, Hawk said, "Should be just another hour to the Passages."

Jon shook his head. "We're not going to the Passages."

"We're not?"

"Not right away. I can't take our new friend there." A Dread soldier learning the location of the Passages would be a disaster. Unfortunately, the girl could still be a spy. "Stop off at the refugee camp in sector 14. The UTO runs a base out of there. The chief owes me a favor, and he has the security to handle trouble. I figure we'll leave her there and let her acclimate. Learn how to be human."

"Is she that bad?" Hawk said with a chuckle.

Power's frown deepened. "I don't think I understood what the Dread Youth really is until now. It's a nightmare. She's what, sixteen? Seventeen? She won't remember what it was like before the war. Dread is raising these kids to be machines, with no knowledge of what it is to be human. There's more than one way to eradicate humanity, apparently."

Yet another reason to hate Dread. Yet another reason to fight this war.

When would it ever end?

----------------

The walls were on fire. Everywhere she turned, fire. She smelled of smoke and ash. Her uniform was burning. She had to get it off. She slapped at herself, dropped to the ground and rolled, but the flames wouldn't go out, they kept getting bigger, hotter. She coughed, gasping for air, choking--

She would have fallen out of the seat if she hadn't been strapped in. As it was, she sat there, braced against the webbing, arms outstretched to keep herself from tumbling. Her heart was racing, pounding against her ribs like it wanted to break free.

"Are you all right?"

One of Power's team, the one called Hawk, knelt in front of her. He was too close, gazing up at her with focused intensity.

"I'm fine."

"You cried out. Sounded like you were having a nightmare."

Nightmares were the sign of a chaotic mind, not the will of the machine, she couldn't have-- I was so scared.

Her heart kept pounding hard, and she couldn't catch her breath. Why didn't he leave her alone? She crossed her arms to keep her hands from shaking.

"You don't look good," he added. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Her eyes were stinging. She rubbed her face, found that her cheeks were wet. Panic nearly broke through, then. What was happening to her?

Her voice wavered when she said, "My eyes hurt. They're wet."

"Those are tears. You're crying. It happens when you're hurt, frightened. It's normal."

"Fear. A sign of weakness. I'm weak."

His lips quirked in a smile. "I doubt that." He stood, found a canteen, and offered it to her. She took it, but couldn't drink, not while he was watching her like that. "No one here's going to hurt you. You may not believe that just now. But if you're honest with the Captain, he'll give you a fair deal. Believe that."

He left her alone.

She sat by herself, near the front of the hold. The cockpit was up a level. She could hear voices there, Power and others. The survivors gathered toward the back of the hold. Many threw her furtive glances, suspicious, frowning.

She wiped her dripping nose on her sleeve. She didn't belong here. Why had Power bothered rescuing her?

You are not fit for the machine. And not even the filthy organics will take you.

---------------------

The refugees who were staying at the camp and not continuing on to the Passages had already disembarked when Power and Hawk escorted the Dread Youth castaway off the jumpship. She stalled at the bottom of the ramp and looked out over the rocky depression that formed the basis of the camp. An expression of horror settled on her features.

Power had to admit it wasn't much: a few shacks built out of scrap sheet metal, cave entrances marked by defensible sandbag walls, a few crates of supplies. Nevertheless, the scene warmed Power. The camp was sheltered, safe for now. A couple of cooking fires burned under makeshift kettles set on tripods, tended by people openly laughing and joking with each other. A few children ran around, playing tag or hide-and-seek or some such game among the stacks of crates. Their laughter was like music.

"What are they doing?" Chase asked.

What an odd question. It seemed obvious. "They're playing."

She still looked confused, and Power's smile fell. Chase had never played, not even as a young child. "Wait here," he said.

Hawk waited at the top of the ramp. Glancing back once more at Chase, he pulled Hawk back.

"Was I wrong, bringing her? Should I have just left her to go back to Dread?"

"You couldn't have done that. But you're still afraid she's a spy."

"I just can't believe anyone grew up the way she did."

Hawk shrugged and offered what Jon thought of as his wise old man look. It always seemed to tell him, you're doing okay, kid. Or, what would your father have done?

Put like that, Jon knew exactly what Stuart Power would have done.

Hawk said, "For what it's worth, I think she's really a defector. Either that or an incredible actress. My guess is she's one broken kid, Jon."

"Then this is the right place for her." With children, with people who were living their lives, every chaotic, glorious minute of them. "Let's find Gundar."

They brought her to the camp's chief, a pilot named Gundar. He ran a United Transport Organization base out of the camp, shuttling supplies and refugees among various resistance groups. Worst he could do was say no to taking Chase under his wing. But Jon knew he liked a challenge, and this was a doozy.

Jon spoke to him out of earshot of the girl. Hawk stayed with her; he looked like he was explaining the concept of baseball. A couple of the kids were trying to get a game together. He wondered if she was getting it.

"You've got to be kidding, Captain. No one leaves Dread. How'd she do it?"

"I still don't know that. But she isn't carrying weapons. We scanned her for transmitters and she's clean. She doesn't like people, but she doesn't seem to like Dread much either. She seems bright enough. I think she just needs to be around real people for a while. Around people who don't talk like machines."

"Got it." He shrugged, tilted his head. His beard was thinning, his face scarred and sunburned from his years in the desert. His eyes still had a youthful spark, though. "Why not? I'm game."

Power clapped his shoulder and brought him over to meet the girl. She never smiled, not once. He didn't know why he should expect her to. She listened to his proposal, that she stay here under guard, but with limited freedom to help with chores and earn her keep. The alternative was to be taken in by the resistance as an enemy prisoner and interrogated. She actually took her time choosing the former. As if interrogation were more attractive than living with organics.

He turned to leave. He and the team had more work to do. Endless work. Hesitating, he looked back and said, "The next time I see you, I want you to tell me your first name."

-------------------

Power left her here, in this pit, with these organics. "If you decide you don't like it," he'd said, "you can always walk away." Not even concerned that she would run back to Dread and give away the location. Not concerned because the place was surrounded by desert and she'd be dead in days if she tried crossing it on foot. The camp was on a mountainside, accessible only by aircraft. Gundar, her new captor, was a pilot.

Power's jumpship rose, spraying a cloud of dust around it, and rocketed into the sky.

"Hey."

One of the children stood before her. She couldn't guess his age. In the Dread Youth, all ages looked the same, dressed the same, regimented servants of the machine.

She stared. He continued, undaunted. Gundar watched, amused.

"I'm Eric. What's your name?"

Reflexively, she started to say Youth Leader Chase. Then she remembered what Power said. Her name wouldn't work here.

"I don't know."

"How could you not know?"

"I guess I don't have one." Her face flushed. She was letting this organic offspring get to her.

"That's no good." He looked at Gundar. "Should we call her Jennifer? She reminds me of Jennifer."

She didn't feel much like a Jennifer. She supposed she could learn.

Gundar smiled. "I think that would be fine."

"Who is Jennifer?"

The boy said, "My big sister. She died last year. Clicker got her. Come on--we need someone to play third base."

Taken aback by what he'd said, she looked at Gundar. They wanted to name her after a dead organic. Why did it feel like. . .a burden?

"Go on," he said. "It'll be fun."

Fun?

Slowly, she followed Eric. "You know how to play?" he called over his shoulder.

"No." Hawk's explanation had sounded like gibberish.

"Oh. Well, it's easy. The other team has to try and hit the ball and run around the bases--"

His explanation didn't make much more sense than Hawk's. Essentially, all she really needed to worry about was catching the ball if it came toward her and touching the base. It became a little clearer if she thought of it as a battle plan with particularly odd terrain configuration.

Eric played a position they called "shortstop." A boy from what she presumed was the other team--the enemy, she couldn't help but think--stepped to a rock (it marked home base, Eric insisted), gripping a short staff, ready to swing. A young woman stood in the middle of the diamond formed by the four "bases." She held a ball, and threw it at the boy with the staff. He swung the staff and hit the ball.

The action happened quickly then: the ball shot outward, bouncing long the group; the boy ran to first base; Eric scooped up the ball and threw it to where the boy was running, the person standing there caught it--

"Safe! I'm safe!" The boy yelled. His team cheered.

She began to hope the ball wouldn't come anywhere near her. She didn't want to make a mistake.

The next "batter" didn't hit the ball after three chances and "struck-out." Eric's--her--team cheered that time.

Eric called to her, "Two more outs and they lose their chance to score. Then it'll be our turn! We'll show 'em how it's done!"

She'd never seen anyone smile so big.

The next batter hit the ball and sent it bouncing along the ground--right toward her.

"Catch it," Eric shouted.

It's easy, she kept telling herself. If these children can do it, so can I. Easy. She crouched down and blocked it with her hands, stopping its race along the ground.

"Throw it here! To me!"

She looked at the ball in her hand. She'd caught it. Eric wanted her to throw it. Right. She tossed it underhanded. Eric was only standing a few feet away and caught it without a problem. She sighed, relieved. Eric threw it at second base--too late, the runner from first had already reached it, safe. Runners stood on two bases now.

There was a tension--this felt a little like the atmosphere in a Dread transport before a mission. Anticipation, uncertainty.

But this was a game, it didn't mean anything, it was pointless. But the emotion was still there. The batters stared out at her and the rest of Eric's team, eyes narrowed, fierce--an enemy's glare. The runners on base crouched down, preparing to run. It felt like they all wanted to fight.

And Gundar said this was supposed to be fun? She felt like she was missing something.

The pitcher threw the ball. Crack—

The ball sailed up, high up, arcing over, then straight down--toward Chase. Not again, she thought.

No--that thought came from fear. Nobody was shooting at her. There was no smoke here, no acid burning. She was safe, and this was a game. The ball followed a predictable trajectory. She could intercept. She scurried a few feet back, a couple steps to the right, reached up, cupping her hands—

And caught the ball.

"Out! You're out!" Eric screamed at the batter. All the children on his team cheered. He ran over to her, grabbed her arms, shook her. She stared back at him, frozen.

"You did it! Great catch!" he said, over and over.

They were all shouting at her: great catch! Nice one!

Something else started burning inside her. Not in her gut, but higher up, in her chest, her heart. Her face flushed.

She wanted to catch another one, just like that. She wanted to try hitting the ball, as a batter. She wanted to run until she collapsed with exhaustion.

This was, realizing for the first time what the word really meant, fun.

------------------

Scout was talking expansively. "Captain, you know I love making surprise raids on secret Dread installations. There's nothing I love better. I live for it. There's just one problem with this one."

"Which is?" Power said, knowing what was coming.

Scout looked at Hawk. Damn. They were tag-teaming him.

Hawk said, "We know nothing about this base. We don't have a schematic or anything."

"We don't have a choice. We can't let that upgrade in biomech computer processing start production."

"So we're going in there blind." He said it as a statement, not a question.

"That a problem?" said Tank. Ever the optimist.

Jon pursed his lips. "I know someone who might be able to help us."

---------------------

They signaled Gundar that they were coming, so their arrival wouldn't rattle the camp's defenses. Brought the jumpship down on the landing pad. The engine was making that clunking sound again. What the team needed was a good mechanic--not the fine-tuned electronic and espionage work that Scout did, but the big mechanical jobs. And another pilot, maybe, to free Hawk up for more independent missions.

As ever, the camp made Jon smile, comforted him, reminded him what they were fighting for. The survival of these precious outposts of humanity.

Gundar met him at the landing pad. They shook hands.

"I need to talk with our Dread refugee," Power said. "Is she still here?" Belatedly it occurred to him that she might very well have preferred walking into the desert than living here.

But Gundar broke into a wide smile. "She's still here. I think you'll be pleased, Captain."

He led Power to a garage area where some people were working on an armored ground transport. A twelve-year old boy--Gundar's nephew, Eric--sat on the ground cross-legged and pointed to the engine's innards.

"You can't bypass that circuitry. You'll lose all control of the steering mechanism."

He spoke to a young woman leaning over the engine block with tools in both hands.

"You won't. It's much more efficient to tie steering into main power. Response time is quicker, and there's one less system to fail." She straightened, leaning on the vehicle, glaring at him as if daring him to contradict her.

Jon almost didn't recognize her. The transformation was astonishing. She'd traded the impeccably tailored Dread uniform for loose-fitting coveralls, grease-stained and rumpled. Grease smudged her face--which was now animated, expressive, instead of frozen in an indifferent mask. Her hair was tied in a pony-tail that danced when she moved.

Eric noticed them, which made Chase look up. Immediately, she put her hands behind her back and watched, warily.

"Hello, Chase," Jon said.

Her jaw tightened, and her gaze turned down. "Jennifer. You said to tell you my first name the next time I saw you. It's Jennifer."

Jon suppressed his smile. If a Dread Youth could defect, anything was possible.

"Jennifer. I'd like to talk to you, if that's all right."

She nodded. So quickly, she'd once again taken on the attitude of a prisoner. How could he put her at her ease?

"You have a choice," he said. "You can say no if you want." Although he had to do everything he could to make her say yes.

"I'm not sure I know anything that would be useful to you, if that's what you want to talk about."

"I'll be the judge of that."

She looked back at Eric, who gave her a thumbs up. "All right," she said.

Gundar gave Power an outbuilding to use. Hawk came along. Jon felt vaguely ogre-ish, the two of them sitting across the table from the petite woman, looming over her.

He started to speak, but she beat him to it, quickly, like she was about to lose her nerve.

"Why didn't you interrogate me before?"

She'd caught him off-guard. He stared, trying to form a response.

Hawk said, "I wouldn't call this an interrogation."

"Then what is it?"

Hawk glanced at him. Fine, it was his turn now.

"We were hoping you might help us. You may not even know anything about it. But it couldn't hurt."

"Unless I'm a spy," she said, glaring. "I could tell Dread what you want to know, whatever it is you're planning."

He couldn't blame her for being difficult. He couldn't even guess what she was thinking. He soldiered on, as it were.

"There's a Dread manufacturing installation in Sector 5. It's the primary base for biomech research and development. We need a schematic of the base."

There. He offered some information, and maybe she'd return the favor.

She stared for a long time. That old mask, dispassionate. Then, "I can't help you."

Hawk said, "Does that mean you don't know or you won't help?"

She refused to look at them, to meet their gazes. She stared at her hands a moment longer, then got up from her chair and left. Hawk started to go after her. Jon held his arm, stopping him.

"I gave her a choice, Matt. We have to respect that."

"I really thought she'd changed."

She has, Jon thought. But she needed more time. Time they didn't have.

----------------------

Choices. They all talked about choices. She never had to make decisions in her old life. Want--nobody wanted anything.

Here, it was always, "What do you want?" Even as a virtual prisoner, even under these dire conditions, they asked, "Do you want more food? Do you want to rest? Do you want to load cargo or repair engines?"

It was overwhelming. Then Power came back, and it felt like that first day all over again: the mistrust, the uncertainty. He talked to her like she had a choice--though she could tell how desperate he was for information.

And she told him no, secretly, bitterly pleased to turn his own vaunted love of freedom against him.

Power and his team stayed the night. She wished they hadn't. Almost every night the camp gathered around a fire sheltered at the mouth of a cave and told stories. Even the children were quiet during this time. She loved the stories as she had never loved anything. The sound of people talking made her feel warm and safe, and she learned so much, something new every day. These organics--these people--had a history, a legacy the machines, which were always the same, unchanging, couldn't match.

She always sat apart, on a rock by herself, just outside the circle of firelight. Power and his people sat with the others, all of them smiling and laughing. The Captain kept glancing at her. She felt so alone.

Hawk told a story about giving Power his first flying lesson. Power had been young, only a boy, but arrogant and cocky. Could do it all. Nearly crashed the plane of course, but walked away from the landing insisting he'd planned it that way. Power blushed and smiled a wry, lopsided smile.

"I found my first gray hair that day," Hawk said to finish the story.

Tank, the massive soldier, pointed at Hawk's head. "I see it, right next to your bald spot."

Everyone laughed. Hawk smirked, annoyed. "No, that's the one I got from you watching my back."

Even then, both of them laughed, their mood belying the insults in their words. This was a game. Teasing.

When they'd settled and passed the canteen around again, Power looked at her across the fire.

"I'd like to hear you tell a story, Jennifer."

Her heart fluttered. Wide eyed, she looked at all the faces staring back at her. Too many of them.

"I don't know any stories," she said."

"Tell us how you left Dread's army."

There were murmurs of assent all around the fire. Even Eric nodded eagerly. Power had trapped her. She shook her head.

"Come on, Jennifer," Eric said. "It's okay."

Of all of them, Eric treated her like she was one of them, like she was normal, not to be feared. Like she was a friend. She owed him an answer.

"I pretended to be dead. They leave the dead bodies behind. I just lay still until they were gone." She ducked her gaze, frowning. "It was cowardly."

"It was clever," Power said.

Eric spoke next. "Why did you leave?"

If Power had asked that, she would have walked away. She didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to tell them. Or, maybe she did, because the words started, almost before she realized she was speaking.

"The first. . .settlement I was sent to. . .cleanse--" These were all the wrong words, but she kept on. "That's what they call it, cleansing. Cleansing the world of an infection to make way for the new order. But it wasn't what they said it would be like. It wasn't clean at all. So much smoke and ash. And screaming. And I couldn't make it stop.

"They told us in the Dread Youth that organics are nothing more than animals, brutal and irrational. But when I saw them--you--for the first time, they spoke with words. They begged for their lives. They protected each other, gave their lives for each other. And survived. The machine is superior, the machine will conquer--so why has the war been going on for so long?

"Before, the way I was before--I slept in barracks with a hundred others, all just like me. An alarm wakes us. We wash, dress, eat without looking at one another, without speaking, without choosing. The voice of the machine tells us what to do. The voice of the machine tells us who we are, and what we will become. We wait for the day when the new order arrives, when we will make the world perfect. Mechanized, immortal human minds in undying metalloid bodies--"

How bitter those words tasted now. She'd said them as a prayer her whole life, Dread's litany of anti-life, but now she grimaced at their awful sound, at the bleak picture they painted.

"Dread lied to us. He lied about what the world is like. He lied about what you're like, what happens here. But I don't understand you, and I don't belong here. We're too different. It's so different, where I'm from. But I would never go back. Now I don't belong anywhere."

Her voice broke, fell silent. She was crying. Everyone stared at her--their gazes were like physical blows. She stood and ran to escape them, into the darkness, wishing the tears would stop.

Losing control like that--such tumultuous emotions--made organics flawed. And she was nothing more than an organic. Everything she'd learned in the Dread Youth was slipping away, and what was there to replace it but this weeping?

She went away. Into the nighttime desert, where a chilled breeze tossed grit into her face, stung her eyes and dried the tears.

The silence comforted her. It folded over her and calmed her heartbeat.

At first, she felt the noise as a vibration through the ground, under the soles of her boots. Then she heard a mechanical rumble, moving closer. She knew that sound. Biomech troop transport, coming this way.

She climbed an outcrop, looking for higher ground so she could see better, to be sure.

The sight hit her heart with a pang: rows of faceless robots, rifles in hand; troop tank crawling over rocks and sand. They'd found Gundar's camp; they were coming to cleanse it.

Her muscles clenched. The thought came as a charge of desperation. This couldn't happen.

She turned and ran. Back to camp.

Her breaths came in sharp gasps by the time she reached the campfire. People were drifting to the bunks in the caves. Power's men were still there, watching Gundar bank the fire.

She slid on the gravel, trying to stop. She almost fell, windmilling her arms. Startled, they looked up.

"Dread's troops are coming." They stared blankly at her. Hadn't they heard? "There are a dozen biomechs and a transport on the other side of the ridge."

Then again, they probably thought she'd led them here, that she'd intended to signal Dread about their position all along. They didn't trust her, and she couldn't blame them.

Gundar nodded first. "I'll sound the alarm. Eric, break out the weapons."

Jennifer sighed, relieved. They'd be okay. Her friends would be okay.

Power and his men moved a little way off. As a unit, they put their hands on the badges on their chests.

"Power on!"

It was like magic. A crackle of electricity burst around the four, lightning-blue auras surrounding them. Then, where four average--or three average and the hulking figure of Tank--men stood, four gleaming warriors encased in armor prepared for battle.

Power gave orders. "Hawk, scan the perimeter. Soaron will probably make an appearance. Scout, Tank, move ahead, see if you can ambush them before they reach the camp."

Eric reappeared and handed Gundar a rifle.

Jennifer clenched her hands. "Let me help. Give me a gun--I can help."

For a moment, the tableau froze, the others staring at her as if they could not believe what she had said. They could never forget what she was. Did they think she wanted to go back, even now?

Captain Power watched her--his expression seemed neutral. Hard to tell behind the helmet. But he seemed to be watching, curious.

"This is my home, too," she said, glancing at him. She swallowed; her throat was tight.

It was Eric who handed her the pistol, grip first. She accepted it with a nod, and he grinned.

Power smiled as well.

Gundar said, "We'll hold the line here."

They scattered. She took up a position where Gundar directed her, behind a storage bunker, when the explosions started.

This felt different than any battle she had seen before. As Dread Youth she was superior, detached. The outcome seemed insignificant, somehow. Even defeat--though true defeat never happened--would not damage the will of the machine.

But here, now, with a gun in her hand and biomechs marching toward her instead of away from her, she felt such desperation, such anger. Lives depended on this. Gundar's, Eric's. Her own. She had to stop them. She could not fail.

She knew very well what biomechs looked like. When the first dark carapace crested the ridge, she fired. Then again, and again. Mortars rained down from the Dread transport, striking rock and showering them with shrapnel. She ducked her head, protecting her face.

That smell again. Laser fire and burning.

Something else exploded, but from a different angle. A whole column of biomechs flew apart, flower-like, throwing sparks and twitching with electronic death throes. Tank appeared, his armored fist raised.

An inhuman scream echoed across the valley. Jennifer knew that sound, knew to look up: the steel wings of Soaron reflected the orange light of burning structures below.

Blind panic made her heart race. She had to get away, the biodread would see her, it'd digitize her and take her back. Maybe she could run to the caves.

But a few biomechs had broken though on the other side of the camp, scrambling awkwardly over rocks to reach her position. Eric and Gundar were on the other side of the rocks, firing constantly. They didn't see the flanking unit.

Jennifer stood and fired, squeezing the trigger over and over. The biomechs saw her and converged--she drew them away from the main line. Gundar and Eric would be safe. She hit one--it stopped, twitching. But three others advanced.

A super-charged line of laser bolts struck the ground in front of her. Soaron's blasts. It was swooping toward her, its metalloid beak open.

The hillside exploded. She had nowhere left to run. The biodread had trapped her. She braced the pistol in both hands and aimed. Maybe she could hurt it a little. It filled the sky now.

Suddenly, another bird-like figure swooped in, laser bolts blazing from it. The biodread screeched in shock and anger--a machine, but it was angry! The other figure, Hawk, never relented, harrying Soaron like an insect. He swooped up from Jennifer and away, chasing the biodread from her. She sat back, slowly lowering her gun, grateful and amazed. A few moments later, Hawk launched a missile which enveloped the biodread in an explosion. It fell, spinning out of control, disappearing behind a ridge.

In another moment, it was over. The firing stopped, the sound of mortars falling stilled. The battle was over. The smell of burning lingered.

Jennifer felt numb as she returned to the campfire. It was still dark, still night. The whole thing hadn't taken long.

Power's men gathered as well, all larger than life in their armor. Hawk glided in, landing gracefully. She would have to thank him.

Gundar laid a boy's body on the ground near the fire.

Jennifer froze. She squinted, straining to see, then refusing to believe what she saw. Eric, lying still, blood covering the side of his head. Even in the dark, she could see wet, sticky blood over so much of him, as if he'd been crushed by falling debris. Crushed and broken.

She didn't remember moving. One moment she stood, numb. The next, she knelt beside him, unable to see.

She wiped her eyes to clear them, looked at Gundar--he was crying too.

That was too much. Eric was gone, and there was nothing she could do. She shook her head, over and over, like an automaton. "He didn't deserve this. He was good. He was my friend."

In Sand Town, people had clung to each other. They had sobbed over inert bodies and begged for it all to stop. Jennifer hadn't understood before. All the chaos was inside her now, and she couldn't make it stop.

Gundar put a hand on her shoulder. She didn't flinch away from the touch. The weight of him was alive and warm. She touched Eric's hand where it lay loose and unresponsive on his chest. That gave her comfort, stilled the sobbing, and made no logical sense, any more than the comfort of Gundar's touch did. Nonetheless, the circle between them felt right.

----------------------

By dawn, the camp was ready to evacuate. Power and his team were taking the injured to the Passages. Gundar's people collected their equipment and transports to flee deeper into the desert.

The sky was gray and chilled when Jennifer found Jonathan Power by the ramp of his jumpship. She approached cautiously, uncertain how to begin. Her face felt as hard and unresponsive as it had the first time they met. Only now the mask was formed by anger instead of fear.

"Captain?"

He looked, his expression neutral, which daunted her. People were so opaque and unpredictable.

"I'll tell you everything I know. I can tell you about the base--a Dread Youth unit is stationed there. But I want to help. I want to go with you. I want to fight."

Her fists clenched. Would she ever stop being angry?

His features softened into a thin-lipped smile. A cautious smile. She began to think he wouldn't reject her outright.

"You understand why I helped you, now, don't you?"

She nodded and looked away. "It hurts when you can't protect them. If I could save just one person--" She choked, and stopped talking so she wouldn't cry again.

Power nodded. "I think we can work something out."

He offered his hand.

She clasped it, returning the firm grip of human contact.