~W~F~T~S~R~
Despite the celebratory atmosphere going on everywhere, there were still duties that needed to be performed. As if on auto-pilot, Jennifer heard the medics calling off the numbers of wounded and the dead they'd found so far, the scouts giving shouted reports of camp damage, techs and engineers giving her equipment reports – all of it interspersed with people happily introducing themselves to each other with their real names. Jennifer gave the usual post-battle orders out of habit rather than needing to think about the details: take care of the wounded, secure any weapons, make certain all biomechs were shut down, make sure all bodies were moved respectfully to the infirmary's morgue… death, destruction and battle were all wrapped up in the sudden resurrection of memories and self-awareness. The moment seemed to be almost surrealistic, but she alone knew the truth behind all of it, and her anger was growing. Dread, Stinson, the trap, the payment… she could feel herself shaking from the fury she was feeling.
Jennifer had to get away from everyone and everything for just a few minutes. The noise was nearly deafening, the closed-in feel of the crowd almost suffocating. She needed to think. She needed to process. She needed just a few minutes of quiet to get things sorted out in her head.
She needed to get control of her anger.
She pulled herself away from the throng of people, away from the resistance group Annie had led; away from her team… her team… she was Jennifer Chase, corporal, pilot for the Power Team. She wasn't Annie, yet she was Annie, leader of the largest resistance group on record.
She was Jennifer; she was Annie.
Right then, she was confused.
More memories began to filter through her mind now that she didn't have to concentrate on the battle and surviving. Scenes from her childhood, growing up in the youth barracks, her training in the Dread Youth, her pride in being chosen the youngest youth leader in history, learning the truth behind the slogans, that terrifying time she was alone in the wastelands after escaping Volcania, the guys finding her, joking with Scout, talking with Mentor, flying with Hawk, working with Tank, Jon…
Jon. There were special memories that included him.
There were two months missing from her memory when she had been digitized, reintegrated and healed from fatal wounds. Maybe that was a blessing in disguise? A little luck tossed her way? Her mind protecting her from memories she didn't want to have?
Then there was the six months at the base camp.Fighting, surviving, wondering who they were and where they came from, not knowing why they were there…
How had they done it?
She heard someone call her name off in the distance, a very familiar voice but she ignored it. There were too many people around, all meeting and greeting and smiling and talking and crying – far too many people making too much noise. She couldn't concentrate, and the thoughts that were running through her mind were raising her temper. That was not a good situation for a resistance leader. She needed to present that calm exterior that group leaders sometimes had to hide behind to do their job, no matter how angry or upset they were.
"Annie!" Who was that calling her name? She looked over, saw it was a woman she knew as Jane just waving excitedly at her, not wanting to stop and talk to her. Like all the others, Jane was happy to know who she was and where she came from and was greeting as many people as possible. More people came up to her, shook her hand, patted her on the shoulder and told he what a good job she'd done against the drones, how they had taken out hundreds of biomechs, how it had to be some kind of record, and on and on and on.
She'd given her orders, they were being carried out, there was nothing else she could do until Milo brought her the reports – no one would miss her if she disappeared for just a minute or two. She hurried across the camp until she reached her quarters in the outer building that also doubled as her office. Milo would know where to find her when he had information to tell her.
Standing in the doorway, there was a moment of unfamiliarity. This room had been her quarters and her office for most of the time they'd been at the camp, yet there was a sudden impression that it was the first time she'd seen it. It was the same walls, the same desk, the same bookshelf, the same cot with the thin mattress – nothing was different - except her. She was seeing the room through Jennifer's eyes, not Annie's. She walked over to her cot and sat down.
She just needed a moment to get all the facts clear in her mind so she could suppress her anger.
Over one thousand people had been deposited at that site for Stinson's experiment.
Stinson was supposed to hand her over to Dread as payment for the experiment and as a way to get to Jon.
It was just luck that she wasn't the data pattern Stinson thought she was.
He had healed the injured prisoners, dumped them all at the site, and then forced them to stay in range with a sub-audible pulse beacon – all for a memory-altering experiment.
All that they had gone through, all that they were, all of it was Stinson's doing and…
It was all a lie.
For six months, they'd lived in a false world engineered by Stinson.
She didn't want to wrap her mind around the would've/could've/should'ves of the situation. She didn't want to think of what might have been if they had been found sooner, if the beacons had been stopped sooner, if the biomechs had attacked and beaten them. She didn't want to think of the futility of it all. Too many at the base camp had sacrificed their lives over the last six months, and for what? For an experiment?
They'd been used. She could feel the raw anger building again. She couldn't afford that. She was the military leader, and she would behave like one for as long as she needed to and as long as the job was hers. Exhibiting a professional attitude when everything around her was in shambles had become habit, but the rage… she needed to control it before she did anything else.
She forced herself to think about everything that needed to be done in a short amount of time. There was so much she had to do. The casualties – despite all the confusion and onslaught of memories, it was possible they could collect the true names of some of the dead. Milo would get the casualty list together. Funerals would have to be conducted and graves would have to be dug. This time, maybe family members could be found to help officiate. It wouldn't just be a camp commander saying last words over fallen soldiers; it would be people who knew them sharing their memories of them.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something on the bookshelf. She reached out and pulled her torn and mangled power suit from the pile. Jon must have seen it when they were in her office the day the team arrived, but he couldn't say anything. She stretched it out and saw the giant tear through the midsection. The wiring poked out from the sides of the rip, dried blood was around the edges, and the smell of burnt metal was still present in the fabric.
"I'm all broken up inside!" Her words echoed in her mind. She'd been hurt so badly. She could remember the pain of the broken ribs, how they pierced her, how she was having trouble breathing let alone standing. When she had crouched by the communicator talking to Jon, she could feel the cold already seeping into her limbs. She knew she only had moments to live. That was why she had told him she loved him – she didn't to leave the world without telling him that truth.
She'd told him to stay away because there was no other choice and no second chance. She didn't want him to die with her or get caught because he tried to rescue her when she knew it was pointless. She only had moments before her injuries killed her, and there was no way the jump ship could reach the base in time.
She remembered forcing herself to stand – she would meet death on her feet, not crouching on her knees in excruciating pain. Blastarr charged into the room, Jennifer reached back and pressed the manual controls to destroy the power source -
She had a vague memory of seeing the digitizing beam being focused on her just before the fire roared into the room, before the heat could sear her flesh -
What had Stinson said? "The organic that was caught in the processor was critically wounded. Nearly fatal. I almost wasn't able to keep her alive due to the extent of her injuries. She required a great deal of medical care. I put her in a medically induced coma to keep her alive as I performed the necessary surgeries then."
Her power suit was ripped apart. He'd ripped it apart to perform the necessary surgery to keep her alive.
The power suit was special to her. It had been her first real possession that was hers and hers alone. It was a gift. She'd never been given a gift before that. The suit imprinted on the wearer, so she would be the only person to ever wear it. It was unique.
Unique – that was a word she had never heard before she met the Power Team. As a Dread Youth, she had been one of many, a face in the crowd, a cog in the Machine. She had no individuality. She was expected to know her lessons, and what was expected happened. She served the Machine, and that meant absolute obedience. There was no self, there were no personal preferences or joys or miseries. Humans were a plague on the planet and had to be eliminated. Only those who followed the will of the Machine would one day attain the glory of becoming an immortal mind in a gleaming metalloid body.
Then she escaped from the Dread Youth, fled Volcania and the lies she had been inundated with since childhood. She learned that she was a unique individual with a distinct personality and a right to live as herself, not as a cog in a machine. She had the chance to learn what she loved and what she hated – she became Jennifer Chase and left Youth Leader Chase behind.
Then she was asked to add Corporal Chase to her identity and given a power suit. She had earned the right, not because of what she knew or who she was but because of what she did and believed. It had been a long road for her to travel from a youth leader to a resistance leader. The difference wasn't just in miles or attitude; it was in her mind as well. She had to learn all that Dread had kept from them. She had to learn that there was more to being human than having a beating heart and working lungs. It was so much more than merely being organic. Being human was a state of grace that no machine could ever understand. Humanity was a priceless gift that no one should be able to take away.
That long journey that began with a single step led her to Jonathan Power, the Resistance, even the suits. At first glance, it was nothing more than a simple suit made of material and wires and powered-down armor, but no, the power suit was much more than that. The suit was a weapon to fight Dread. They fought his Empire. They fought even if the odds were against them. The suits were symbols that represented the lengths the team would go to in order to fight, but it was the person inside the suit that did the fighting. It was the person, the soldier, the one who would risk everything to stop a madman from destroying the world.
It didn't matter if she was Jennifer or Annie, that's what she did – she fought. Even if it was futile, even if it was a sham orchestrated by Stinson, even if death was the outcome, she fought. She had done that as both personas because Stinson couldn't change who she was at her core. Annie was true to Jennifer's beliefs, and neither would be used in someone else's machinations.
In the end, did it matter if the last six months was all an experiment? She would have fought regardless, but so many had fought, some had died. Were their deaths in vain? Had they died needlessly? No, they hadn't. They fought to protect the people in the base camp. Whether orchestrated or not, the fighting was real. It was the fact that it had been a game Stinson and Dread had played with them that angered her.
Dread and Stinson had used them.
Jennifer loathed being used.
She sensed rather than saw that she wasn't alone. "That was a very impressive bit of flying," Jon said.
He was using the tone he always used when he knew someone needed to talk. She looked up and saw him leaning against the doorframe. It was a familiar pose. She'd seen him strike the same stance at other times over the years when he was volunteering to listen to her no matter what she needed to talk about.
The difference between a few hours ago when they talked and that moments was that she knew who he was. He wasn't a stranger visiting her base camp anymore. He was Jon, the man who taught her what it was like to be human and to care about others. Jonathan Power, friend, captain and group leader – maybe more. "It wasn't just me. I can only take part of the credit. The jump ship did most of the work."
"Only if you're flying," Jon observed. "I don't think she likes Hawk at the controls as much as she does you."
"She's used to a lighter touch, that's all," she pointed out. She looked at her hands, touched the calluses still on her palm. "When you guys showed up, I noticed that Hawk had the same calluses on his hands that I did. I was going to ask him where his came from. I had been wondering if I was a pilot, and if Hawk was, then I'd know for sure."
Jon straightened up. "I could have told you that you were a pilot."
If Jennifer wasn't so angry, she would have laughed. She wagged a finger semi-jokingly at him. "No, you couldn't, remember? You couldn't force our memories on us. Or so Stinson said." She placed her hand on the gaping hole in the power suit and felt the sharp edges left by the wiring and the circuitry.
Jon walked in the rest of the way and kneeled down next to her. He touched the power suit. "I can repair this, you know."
Jennifer folded the suit over so the midsection was on top. "Stinson must not have known what it was or he would have given it to Dread or known I was the one he was supposed to turn over to him."
"He got Freedom One instead. I still can't say I'm upset about that."
No, that didn't bother Jennifer much either. Should it bother her that she wasn't bothered? "It took them months to realize it. If they'd found out sooner, they'd have killed Stinson and come after me a long time ago. A lot of people here would have been killed if that had happened." Jennifer picked at one of the wires that protruded out of her suit. "I didn't know what this was," she murmured. "I woke up and I was wearing it under my clothes. I didn't think anything of it except it was torn in the middle, and I had scars there. I didn't realize the suit was something I should have wondered about, and later on, it didn't seem to matter."
"Jennifer –"
"None of it was real," she stated emphatically, her anger getting the better of her and tingeing her voice. "The attacks were all setups to turn us into a working resistance group so Stinson could learn how to work against us and tell Dread. He turned us into toy soldiers fighting a fake war that Dread conducted. He scripted our movements. He just wanted to experiment on us. Everything we did was a lie but it was real for us. Too many people died fighting -"
"I know." Jon moved in front of her and took hold of her hand. "I know you're angry about it – you're so angry, your hands are shaking – and you should be. It was real for you. All of it. Those biomechs came here to test your defenses, and their orders had to be shoot-to-kill. You came up with ingenious tactical systems that Dread couldn't have anticipated like Burmese tiger traps and explosively wired trenches, and you kept these people alive. Dread and Stinson may have orchestrated all of it, but they weren't pulling their punches."
He was right. She knew he was right. It didn't make her feel any better that the whole thing had been a trap.
Every bit of it had been a trap.
She shook her head and sighed.
"What?" he asked.
"The last time I talked with you, when I was at the base, I was caught in a trap. Then when you find me, find all of us here, it's another trap."
At that, even Jon had to smile. "Let's not make a habit of this, okay?"
She looked up at him, but she couldn't return the smile. "None of this should have happened, Jon," she said. "We shouldn't have been digitized. We shouldn't have been dumped here or used as live subjects in a lethal experiment."
Jon nodded. "No, you're right, it shouldn't have happened. No one has the right to do what Dread and Stinson did." He gripped her hand tighter. She could feel herself still shaking because she was so angry.
She shook her head. "I hate being used. Dread used the Youth Corps to further his plans without regard to anyone. Stinson used us to prove his theories. They were going to use me to get to you..."
Jon wove his fingers with hers and didn't let go of her hand. "Yes, Stinson used you, and he had no idea that his mistake would cost Dread so much and didn't care what it cost anybody."
"Lots of biomechs and Cadet Corps personnel," Jennifer agreed. "It cost us a lot more though. A lot of good people died never knowing who they really were, and they shouldn't have."
"I know," Jon said reassuringly.
Jennifer was seeing Jon in a new light. She understood now just how terrible a burden it was to command a resistance force. It was so different from leading a group of biomechs or corps cadets like she did when she was a youth leader. No one in Dread's army cared about the individuals in a command; they didn't worry about saving lives. The Resistance did. All lives were sacred. No one except someone who had commanded others could understand what the resistance leaders dealt with on a daily basis. They had both shouldered the responsibilities and accepted the consequences. They both made decisions that affected others' lives. They were both now on an equal standing that they didn't have before.
"I don't know how you've done this job for all these years," she told him. "I've had it for six months, and I feel like … I don't know what I feel like."
"This job isn't easy," he answered. "Sometimes, I don't have a clue what I'm doing. But you take one disaster at a time, make one decision at a time, hope it's the right one and try to look like you know what you were doing the entire time even when you don't. You tie yourself up in knots hoping you've made the right decision, and you stay awake nights trying to come up with contingency plans and wondering what Dread is up to and what life-risking decisions you'll have to make tomorrow."
"That pretty much describes it," she admitted.
Jon put his finger under her chin and lifted her head so he could look her in the eye. "I know what you're feeling. Too many times, I've sat in my quarters at the base after a particularly dangerous mission and wondered if I made the right decisions or if I put us in danger when I didn't have to. Sometimes, I'd get so angry at Dread, I'd have to go off by myself to calm down."
"Getting angry won't help matters any. I know that," she said.
"Only someone who's walked in our shoes would," he added. "But I learned a long time ago something that no one ever tells you – there's no manual for this job. Most of us in charge are winging it on our best days. You went so far beyond that here, and you did an incredible job. I don't know anyone else who could have done what you did, and you did it so well. You've definitely raised the bar when it comes to leading resistance groups."
That, Jennifer could laugh at. "Sometimes it felt like we were in freefall without a safety harness." She took a deep breath, her mind automatically reverting to the role of base camp commander. "We need to prepare. After everything that's happened, Dread will hit us hard and probably fast to get even. Or he'll hit at other settlements and tell them it's our fault they're being attacked because we destroyed so many of his troops. He won't let this go."
"He never does," Jon commented. "He doesn't care what he has to risk to get revenge. And," he made certain she was looking directly at him as he said, "no matter what Dread does, it is not your fault."
Jon did know her well. She still blamed herself for what happened at Sand Town, but this – no. She would not blame herself for anything Dread did.
"And it's not Annie's fault either," he added with a smile.
Jennifer had to smile back at that. "Annie was good at getting into trouble. I don't know what part of me was Annie or how much of Annie was Jennifer," she admitted, confused.
Jon gripped her hand a little tighter. "I can tell you one thing I know for sure - Annie was Jennifer. We all saw it as soon as we walked onto this base. It was in your words, your posture, how you approached a problem. You've always had a direct way about you, but Annie was a little more blunt. But then you'd say something or do something that was Jennifer, not Annie. One difference is that there was a harder edge to you than we'd ever seen before. You were still in there somewhere, and we just had to find a way to get you back safely."
It sounded logical enough the way Jon explained it. "Remember when I asked you if I was a good person when you knew me from before?"
Jon nodded his head. "I wanted to tell you more than that," he answered.
"There was a part of me that didn't want to know," she told him. "All this time, I had no idea how real Annie was or if she was a personality I was using because I didn't know who I was. To be honest, I liked who I was as Annie, and I was worried I might not like the real me once I got my memories back, no matter how much I wanted to know who I really was."
"I think Annie was real," Jon confirmed that thought clearly. "But Annie was still Jennifer."
She noticed her hands had stopped shaking. She wasn't as angry. How many times after she had escaped the Dread Youth, when she was filled with rage, did Jon just let her talk until her anger was gone? Too many times to count. "I shouldn't let it get to me this much," she whispered. "I'm still in charge. I've got to at least look like I'm handling everything that gets tossed at me."
"It's all right. It proves you're human," Jon explained. "I'd be worried if you didn't react to everything that's happened to you over the last eight months."
React? Then why was her reaction the opposite of everyone else's? Why were the others outside laughing while she had to go to her quarters to regain control of her temper? "I should be happy that I know who I am and I'm alive like the others, but -"
"You're angry because you know the truth," Jon reminded her. "You know why you were here. They don't. When they find out, they're not going to like it either. I think some tempers are going to flare when you tell them."
Jennifer closed her eyes for a moment. "I didn't get a chance to tell anyone about Stinson or his deal with Dread," she said aloud. "I was heading back here when I got the distress call from Frost that the biomechs were attacking. I flew in and tried to help, but there was nothing I could do." The irony of the events of that day didn't evade her notice. "Frost died the same way I almost did," she frowned.
Jon leaned a little closer. "What do you mean?"
"He was trapped, hurt, the biomechs had ripped their way inside the silo and there was no way out. I told him I was coming in but he stopped me. He blew up the silo rather than let them get anything from it. He never got a chance to know who he really was or why we were put here." She thought about those last moments in Frost's life. She knew how he felt, how scared he must have been, how determined. "He shouldn't have died like that, alone."
"He wasn't alone," Jon assured her. "You were there, listening, talking to him. It was all you could do, but -"
"But it wasn't enough. I couldn't get to him to save him. He was trapped."
Jon thought for a moment, then said, "Was Frost the type of person who would have wanted to go down fighting?"
Jennifer nodded. "Frost? Yes. And take as many of them as he could with him. You should have seen him in some fights. He'd go hand-to-hand against a biomech. Once, he punched one so hard, it dented its head. He was fearless. When we'd go into a nearby Dread facility to look for supplies, he'd be right there beside me. I never saw anything scare him, not really. I have no idea what the real person would have been like. Jones always called him a hard case. I know he's not the only one we lost, there were several others killed at the silo, at the trench, here at the base, but he was my friend and I was talking to him over the radio when he triggered the explosives. I couldn't help him."
"But he knew you were there to hear him," Jon reminded her.
Before Jennifer blew up the base, Jon's voice had been her lifeline. For that brief moment, only the two of them existed. Had she been that for Frost? Had knowing that someone was there listening to him, was scared for him, did it make a difference in that last moment?
"You're not as angry," he said. He didn't let go of her hand, not that she wanted him to.
"You always did let me talk until I calmed down," she told him. "I don't know where you found the patience."
"Patience had nothing to do with it. I've always liked talking with you. You always asked the best questions," he quipped.
She could only smile at that. "I always had those," she agreed readily, then sighed. "Everyone has a right to know what happened here, that they were being used and were bait in a trap. I've got to find a way to tell them what Stinson was doing."
Jon thought for a moment. It wasn't an easy task - weighing the pros and the cons of telling everyone everything from time to time and determining the best time to do it. Finally, he motioned toward the outer area. "Maybe tell them a little later tonight? You've got a base full of happy people out there. They're all finding friends and relatives. Some were talking about where their homes were and if the settlements were still standing. I think I heard someone mention something about a party. It's your call, but my vote is to let them have their party first. Let them have a few hours before reality has to set back in. You all deserve it."
A party? She didn't have to think about it. "A party might be fun. We've thrown some interesting ones. And you're right. Everyone deserves a few hours downtime. They won't be so happy when they hear the entire story. Besides, I doubt Dread has any more troops to send against us tonight."
Jon's forehead furrowed slightly. Both knew that statements like that had a way of backfiring. "Wishful thinking?" Jon asked her.
"More like hopeful thinking," she sighed. "More than twelve hundred biomechs would have taken up the majority of the Dread forces in the area, and we pretty much destroyed them all." She paused for a moment. "I still don't know how we did it. A bunch of people who had no idea who they were suddenly remembering in the middle of a fight… and we wiped out that many troops in a single battle when we remembered who we were."
"And seven drones," Jon reminded her. "Don't forget them."
She felt another surge of anger at the thought of what drones could have done if they had hit the base. "I guess Dread decided capturing me to trap you wasn't important anymore since he was determined to destroy us. If they had missed their target, they could have wiped out everything."
"You didn't let them," Jon reminded her. "Like I said, that was remarkable flying you did out there, and you've done an extraordinary job here. You built and led an army."
An army… Looking at their numbers from Jon's point of view, they would have been an actual army, not just a resistance group. "It had to be the largest organized force Dread has dealt with since the end of the Metal Wars," she mused.
"I wouldn't doubt it. I would guess that he found this group's ability to fight the biomechs more than impressive. Maybe that's why he finally sent all the forces from this area that he could muster after you – your army was becoming too powerful," he suggested. "I've been told that commanding this many troops isn't easy. You made it look that way."
"Not me," she countered easily. "I had Frost, Bingley and Milo working with me. Jones most of the time, too. I couldn't have done any of it without them."
"You've got a good group," he repeated light-heartedly. "I know I've been lucky enough to have a good team to work with as well, including a pilot who went AWOL about eight months ago," he joked.
Jennifer smiled at that. "That really wasn't my fault," she explained. "I was unable to comply with orders like meeting at the drop-off point."
Jon gave her a comically-serious look that expressed his opinion of that comment. "Really?"
"Really. Blastarr interrupted my plans," she told him teasingly.
"Mine too," Jon added. "You see, you and I didn't finish that talk we started, and I had every intention of doing just that until Blastarr showed up."
Jennifer smiled. Their conversation – it had been one of the laments in her last communication with him that fateful day – that they didn't get to finish their talk. "But you had that talk with Annie." She teased him.
"And she gave me some very wise advice," Jon told her. "She said I really needed to talk to my pilot when I got the chance."
"You're pretty sure we were going to finish that talk," she teased him.
"Sure enough to know how my end of the conversation would have gone since I finally got up the nerve to tell you how I feel – even though I told Annie."
Jennifer tilted her head. "Really? How?"
Jon's hand slipped behind her neck and pulled her to him. He kissed her, simply and gently. He pulled away and smiled, his eyes not leaving hers. "Like that," he told her as he kissed her again.
Jennifer liked the way he would have carried his end of the conversation. She heard footfalls echoing down the hallway that she promptly ignored.
"Hey, Annie, uh, Jenny, got the reports and how about we – whoops! Sorry!"
Jennifer felt Jon smile at Milo's interruption. Their eyes shared an amused look, then Jon quickly moved to sit beside her on the cot. She looked up at her new-found friend of six months. For a moment, she wondered about Milo. He'd had a crush on her. Would he still have feelings now that he remembered or would his feelings be returned to whoever he might have been involved with before?
Given the suspicious way he was looking at Jon, those feelings were still there.
"What have you got?" she asked him.
"Few things – we've got the Dread Youth personnel, and they're talking. Lots of them aren't happy with what happened to them and they're interested in switching sides. Turns out Dread didn't ask for volunteers from the cadets. I thought maybe Power could talk to them to see if any of them are serious or if it's a trap. There are a few who are spouting the litanies, so they're a lost cause."
Jon nodded. "We can do that."
Milo looked at the paper in his hand. "Casualty list. The numbers aren't as bad as we thought. Some at the trenches turned out to still be alive and wounded, just unconscious. They're with the medics now. We lost the few at the silo, Frost, thirty-two at the trenches and twenty-six here inside the perimeter. We got lucky that we didn't lose more. We've already found family members for some of the deceased to take care of the bodies. The rest, we've been able to find out who they are from acquaintances so we'll need to handle those burials. I've planned a memorial service for everyone we've lost tomorrow morning, and you get to officiate."
That was one concern she was glad Milo took care of. She'd planned so many of those over the course of their battles. "Okay. I found out some information at Stinson's lab I'll tell everyone about later. It's not good news. And now how about we… what?" she asked him with a contented grin.
Milo… no, not Milo. She had to remember his name was Parker… cleared his throat and shuffled his feet a bit. "I know we just got out of a fight and a lot of people died, but there's talk of getting a party going, and they want to know if it's okay with you. I think there's a lot of nervous energy out there they want to work off. Too many are too happy and they want to celebrate."
Jennifer laughed. She glanced back at Jon who was smiling. Apparently, things hadn't changed just yet. She was still Annie; she was still in charge, sort of. "Since we vote on non-military matters, my vote is that a party is a great idea."
"Good!" Parker almost yelled, his eyes not really going far from Jon. "The band is already getting the instruments out and tuned up."
"Band?" Jon asked her.
Jennifer nodded. "We have some people here who know how to play musical instruments. They formed a band."
"You've got musical instruments?" Jon asked incredulously.
Parker nodded. "Guitars, drums, a couple of saxophones, a keyboard. We've got everything here."
Jon grinned, then glanced toward the outer door. They could hear happy people talking outside. "Parker, do they know how to play music we can dance to?"
Parker shrugged. "Sure they do. You should hear them when they play. Fast songs, slow songs, you name it. Why?"
Jon looked back at Jennifer, an intense look in his eyes. "The last time we danced, I don't think we actually finished."
"Oh… you two have danced before?" Parker's voice sounded somewhat strange.
"We've danced," Jennifer told him, her eyes not leaving Jon's.
Parker stared at them. He got very quiet, very still, then asked, "Uh, just out of curiosity, Jenny, are you really that fifth member of Power's team that we were wondering about?"
Jon's gaze didn't leave Jennifer's. There was something very comforting and tender in the way he looked at her. He took her hand in his, his thumb stroking her fingers. "She's our pilot," he answered.
Parker looked at Jennifer, he looked at Jon. "Okay, gotcha. Pilot. Right. Should have guessed. I'll just leave you two alone and tell them to get the party started. I'll tell everyone you'll join us later."
After Parker left and closed the door, Jon took her face in his hands and kissed her again. Jennifer heard Parker's voice in the hallway as he mumbled, "Getting kind of warm in there…"
Jon lifted his head momentarily, glanced at the door and asked, "Is that closed door policy still in effect?"
~W~F~T~S~R~
"Milo? So?" Jones rushed up to Milo. "Party?"
"Party. Pull out your best kegs and get it started," Milo told him and grinned as Jones ran off to spread the word.
Parker, a.k.a. Milo, felt like he was sleepwalking. He knew his part of the post-battle routine as well as anyone else did. He knew his responsibilities and knew they had to be carried out before any party, but something was very wrong. His life had been turned upside down with the return of his memories. Like everyone else, he suddenly remembered his name – that alone made him happy – but then the rest of his life suddenly flashed in his mind. He couldn't pay any heed to the memories because they were under attack. He was so caught up in the moment trying to survive and keep people alive that he didn't give any thought to who he was or where he came from. Too many things needed doing, too many people needed protecting, too many clickers needed destroying – no, he didn't have time to think about who he really was when life and limb was on the line.
He heard a loud cheer. Jones had reached a large group and told them about the party. A lot of people needed to let loose. They needed to be happy. They'd just won a victory. They had a right to feel good about being alive. This was one vote that Milo could agree with completely no matter the timing.
He looked at the reader in his hands. Everything Annie – no, Jennifer, he had to remember her name was Jennifer - had asked for, he'd got. As many names of the wounded and killed that could be found out was written down. He knew every one of them – not by their real names, of course, but as friends, colleagues, associates and fellow-soldiers. These were people he worked with, joked with and had literally lived with for six months. These were people he cared for and worried about.
"You okay, Milo?" Bingley walked up beside him, taking a long look at the base camp as people rushed around. Yes, a party was beginning to take shape. "Can you believe it? We actually survived that attack."
"Yeah. It's Parker Andrews, by the way," he said mechanically.
"Victor Rast," Bingley told him. "Remembering real names is going to take a while."
"Looks like we've got time. Maybe we should wear name tags?" he suggested.
"It wouldn't hurt," Victor agreed.
Milo remembered something Victor had said earlier. "You mentioned you were from Collins? What did you do when you lived there?"
Victor suddenly had a wistful, happy look on his face. "Would you believe I ran an underground power plant?"
Underground? Why did that sound strange? "Why underground?"
"So Dread and his cronies wouldn't find it," Victor told him. "That's one of the ways he tracks settlements. He looks for power spikes. It's easy to mask their power signatures if their underground."
Dread. He dictated so much of their lives, didn't he?
"What about you?" Victor asked.
Parker thought for a moment. "I sort of ran a place like a command center for a while."
Oddly enough, they performed similar jobs at the base that they did in their real lives. Parker shook himself out of his thoughts and looked down at the reader again. "I guess we'll be heading back to our old jobs after all this."
"I don't know. I don't know if I want to do that job anymore. I think I want to be a soldier now," Victor explained. "A lot of good people died here over the last six months. I don't want their deaths to count for nothing."
Parker looked out over the crowd and nodded. The idea that the choice of what he did was his… it was a heady thought. Where he came from, no one really had a choice. You were given a job, and you did it. The idea that there was a choice… he had to grow accustomed to that. "Yeah, I think a lot of people want to do that. We found out we could fight the good fight. Look at Power's team. They seem to have a pretty good thing going - fighting and flying all over the place. They fight wherever they're needed. Why can't the rest of us?"
"Captain Power himself. Can you believe they actually came here? They help out a lot of people, but they're not ones to stick around and train troops." Victor rocked back and forth on his heels. "I know part of it was because he saw Annie. I know they knew each other from before, but there's more to it than that. Did you notice how he kept staring at her these last few days? It was a lot more than disbelief that she was alive and didn't know him."
"Yeah, well, like you said, there was a lot more to it than that," Parker said, almost unwillingly. "I don't know exactly what's between them, but they, uh, worked together." Do you really want to think about that? he thought to himself. No, he didn't. He didn't like the idea that Power had some kind of a relationship with Jennifer, but what could he do? Annie knew him in another life. It was odd – he felt like he lost something he never had.
"I heard that mentioned at their jump ship. She was with the Power Team when they were at Haven."
"Yeah," Milo sighed. "She was the fifth member of the Power Team. Their pilot. Probably still is."
Another cheer further out went up. Obviously, Jones wasn't wasting time spreading the good word about the party.
"You know, that explains a lot of things, especially Power's behavior," Victor observed. Looking around, they saw people greeting old friends and family members. They saw children reunited with their parents – little "Gracie" was back with her mom, the mayor of Placerville. Jennifer would be happy about that. "Where is Jennifer?" Victor asked. "She had that angry look she gets sometimes after a battle."
Parker motioned toward the outer building. "Back in her office. She needed to calm down before making an appearance. I don't know what it is, but she found out something at Stinson's lab that she wants to tell us about later. She doesn't usually get this mad after a fight, so I think that has something to do with it. She and Power have been talking. They'll join us later."
"They'd better hurry," Victor indicated the party set-up in full swing. "I think this one will be an all-nighter, and it won't be one to miss."
"An all-nighter, huh? I don't think they'd think they were missing anything," Parker muttered to himself.