It had been a restless sleep for all four men of the Power Team. At first light, they arose from their makeshift beds, quickly downed a breakfast of rations that Cypher had laid out for them, and then swiftly made their way to go see Jennifer.
Peaking into the room where she was, they caught a glimpse of Jennifer sleeping peacefully. The doctor greeted them and waved them in. "I figured you guys would be down here early." Extending his hand, he introduced himself. "I'm Dr. Kendall."
"Thank you for meeting us here and for all your help," Jonathan said as he firmly returned the hand shake. "How is she?"
"We found the source of the infection and there was more internal bleeding so we had to open her back up. But I assure you everything is back under control. I have her on heavy antibiotics and she slept well though the night without any further problems. Her fever just broke this morning."
An obvious collective sigh of relief could be felt around the room from the men who had been so troubled over thinking they were going to lose her.
The doctor continued. "All indications show she's going to make a full recovery, but she'll be pretty weak for a while and will need physical therapy to get her muscles back into shape. She took quite the beating, but of course you already knew that. Which one of you did the emergency surgery to get her stabilized before coming here?"
"Uh, that would be me," Hawk replied with apprehension. "Although I had some help from The Passages."
"Well, you did an amazing job. You bought her just enough time."
"When the fever broke out, I was afraid that I did something wrong…" Hawk admitted.
The doctor shook his head no. "With the massive internal damage she had, I'm not surprised there were complications. She should have died. You helped save her life."
"When will she be awake?" Jonathan asked as he gazed in her direction.
"Well, the more she rests the better, but I suspect she'll be coming around in a few hours."
Jonathan nodded and looked to his team. "That gives us enough time to- "
"Captain!" Cypher exploded into the room. "He's gone!"
"Who are you talking about? And quiet down, Pilot's sleeping," Jonathan cautioned.
"Locke! He's gone. He took your skybike."
"That dirty rotten no good SON OF A-" The Captain's response grew louder and angrier with every word.
Hawk grabbed Jonathan by the elbow and yanked him out into the hallway while the others followed. "Quiet down! Pilot's sleeping," he repeated Jonathan's own words to him.
Jonathan looked to Tank. "I thought you secured him!"
"I did, Captain, I swear."
Scout chimed in. "He should be easy to find. We can trace your skybike's transmitter."
Jonathan paced the hallway and gained back some of his composure. "Alright. Tank, stay here with Pilot. I don't want her alone when she wakes up. Hawk and Scout, you're with me. We've got to find him, and we've got to find out what happened to Dread."
Dread felt the cool relief of a damp cloth being pressed to his forehead. As the beads of water trickled down the side of his mutilated face, he wanted to swipe them away with his hand, but the dexterity in his arms was lost and he could not move them from where they rested on either side. Instead, he flexed his fingers in place and slowly awakened. He was flat on his back, laying low to the dirt ground on a cot in a tent.
"He's awake, Mamma!"
Dread moved his head to see who was speaking. It was a little girl. He heard shuffling behind him. A woman appeared from behind with a bucket.
"Tabitha, go get some more water, please," she said to the girl, handing her the bucket.
As soon as the girl left the tent, the woman bent down next to him and began attending to his wounds.
"I know who you are," she said in a low terse voice, as she wrapped his bleeding arm in a bandage. "My daughter doesn't, so you best be keeping your mouth shut."
"I…who?…" he replied, not knowing how to respond. He was baffled by this woman who was offering him help.
"I told her that you're one of us from the shelter, that you escaped from being digitized. I explained to her that you look the way you do because they wanted to turn you into some kind of Bio-Dread. I know…the irony, right?" she cracked the joke in a bitter tone. "Such things we have to tell our children these days. She saw her daddy…my husband…get digitized. Right in front of her eyes. She's had nightmares every night since. We all do, thanks to you."
Dread stared at the woman as she finished pinning the bandage on his arm and then reached for the bottle of disinfectant to start cleaning up his face. She continued to talk to him in an unpleasant tone. "So you're probably wondering why I'm even helping you at all. I should have just let you die a slow painful death out in the dessert under the blazing hot sun. God knows you deserve to die…"
The little girl returned with the bucket full of water. "Here, Mamma."
"Thank you, sweetie. Go play with the other children outside. But stay in the village, okay? Don't go wandering off." The woman smiled sweetly at her daughter, but after the girl left, she turned back to look at Dread and the smile vanished.
She continued on with her rant. "But if I were to just let you die, that would be the easy way out. Too well-and-good for you. Where's the justice in that? No. You don't get the easy way out. The punishment you deserve should be one of long and drawn out anguish here on this God-forsaken planet you've decimated, facing those you have tormented and allowing your fate to be in their hands."
Her words confused and scared him. "Who…who am I?" he said as he stared back at her blankly.
Jennifer's conscience slowly came back to her. Each time she re-awakened, she had to remind herself of the tragedy that had transpired. Before opening her heavy eyelids, she wondered how long she had been out this time and what she had missed. She already noticed that two things were different; her pain had subsided to a more tolerable level, and no one was holding her hand. Was she alone? No, she remembered. Jon had promised her that someone would be there with her. She decided to open her eyes and rejoin the world. She smiled when she saw Tank sitting next to her bed. He was reading a book.
"Hi," she quietly greeted him.
"Pilot!" he looked up and returned her smile. "It's good to see you awake! Feeling better?"
"Somewhat," she was able to admit. She cleared her groggy throat. "So you'll have to catch me up. What's going on? I feel like I was out of it for a long time."
"You were. But the doctor here got you all fixed up. He says you're going to be weak for a while but you're going to be fine."
"Where are the others?"
Tank told her all about blowing up the Base and the difficulty that they had getting to the hideout and about Dread and Locke.
"I can't believe Dread could be gone!" Jennifer said in shock. "So who's in charge of the Empire?"
"Good question. We really don't know what's going on; we've been focused on you. Maybe the guys will know more when they get back."
"I hope they can find Locke. He probably knows more than he's letting on."
"I agree. He's sneaky. You should have seen how mad the Captain was, especially when he found out that it was his skybike that Locke stole."
Jennifer groaned. "Oh no. He loves that skybike."
"That skybike isn't the only thing he loves," Tank said with a glint in his eye.
Jennifer knew what he was getting at and smiled sheepishly as a slight blush crept to her cheeks. "What are you reading?" she asked to change the subject as she pointed to the book in his lap. She and Tank shared a love of literature, but she was still learning about all of the classics from Mentor and had a lot to catch up on in order to match Tank's knowledge. One wouldn't know by looking at the strong giant, but he was a walking library.
"This book was the only personal item I was able to recover from my quarters before we left. It's called the Good Book."
"The Good Book…" Jennifer thought out loud, contemplating on where she heard that title before. "Oh! The quote that was printed on the banner from Haven that you gave me- didn't you say that was from the Good Book?"
Tank saw the excitement in her eyes. "That's right. Would you like me to read some it to you?"
"Yeah, I'd like that."
"The Good Book is made up of lots of other books. I was reading from the book of Isaiah, the same book that the quote on the banner came from. It talks of hope. We could use some hope right now."
Jennifer nodded in agreement. "So what does it say?"
"Those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall walk and not be weary; they shall run and not faint."
Jennifer thought hard on the words that Tank read. "We've lost our home, our resources. This war has been a never-ending battle. So many lives have been lost. So much destruction. So many of the people that are left have given up hope. I think it's important that we don't lose hope, even after everything we've been through. I'm not going to give up."
"I'm not either," Tank smiled as he saw Jennifer tiring. "You should sleep more. Renew your strength."
Jennifer closed her eyes and nudged her head back into the comfortable hollow of the pillow. As she drifted back to sleep, Tank heard her speak softly, "...with wings like eagles…"