E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 2515 hours*]

Sharon was trying to sleep, but all she could see when she closed her eyes was Damon beating James to a pulp, over and over again. The actual beating (she couldn't call it a fight because James had never struck back) had only lasted a minute or two, but it replayed itself in her head for over two hours. Gentle James, her loyal husband, the father of her child, being reduced to a bloody rag-doll by a wild-eyed, snarling Damon.

The worst part was when he had kicked him in the head. Every time Sharon saw that behind her eyelids, she flinched. 'He could have given him brain damage. He could have killed him.' Then her child would have been fatherless.** Grace had absolutely worshiped her daddy. He had been her anchor through all the terrors that made up the only world she had ever known. Without him, Sharon was certain her brave little girl would have been a totally different person.

'And here I am, thinking about the things Damon and I could build together, the upgrades I could design for JACK. I even let him have DENIS for a while. James lost half his hearing and an internal organ, for crying out loud, and I'm considering how I could use Damon's talents to enhance my technology. What the hell is wrong with me?'

She realized it was also learning about the T-boosters that was upsetting her. She was enraged by the idea of doctors injecting adolescent boys with massive amounts of body-altering drugs. It seemed like a violation of their human rights somehow, even if it had helped them survive all this time.

'He survived,' she thought. 'One percent of the population left, and Damon survived. And he's right here in this town. What are the odds?' She wasn't sure if she hated this bigger, angrier, more bitter Damon Baird, but she definitely didn't wish him dead. 'I guess that's a start.' She didn't want to hate the person who had once been the center of her small world, but maybe his Baird nature had gone unchecked by decent friends for too long. Maybe her best friend was gone forever. He certainly wasn't present the night Damon assaulted James.

'You don't know me anymore, Sharon!' she remembered him saying.

And he'd been right. She didn't know the person who had shown up at her house that morning. Whoever that had been was like an attack dog that had been sicced on James. She would have to keep an eye out for that stranger.

Whoever that had been might still be in there somewhere.

[Port Farrall, 2545 hours]

Baird had been trying to fall asleep for hours now, but his brain was swirling with schematics and equations and obsessing about how DENIS had been upgraded in the last fifteen years. He was deliberately trying to steer his thoughts away from the turmoil surrounding all Sharon-related issues, which was probably what was making the energizing thoughts of technology consume his brain. It was problematic precisely because his memories of Sharon were what he typically used to soothe his racing mind to sleep. They weren't memories of the sex they'd had together; he never fantasized about her when other people were present because it felt too much like he was sharing her with them somehow. And right now two of the other three bunks in the cramped room were occupied.

DENIS's previous compensated pulsed alternator had been upgraded to a perpetual motion generator—'Just go to sleep, for COG's sake'—that generated quite a bit more voltage—'Shut UP'—and of course he'd been outfitted with the perfected cloaking tech—'Seriously, be quiet'—and anti-grav technology, where before he had had a set of—'Grrrrr'—magnetic legs for climbing metal walls and another set for scaling other surfaces. He was altogether more advanced than JACK—'I have to be back on duty in five hours'—when it came to hacking electronic systems, and if Baird hadn't trusted Sharon not to try breaking in to the military's computers—'Dammit, I'm thinking about her again'—he would have had to come up with another couple layers of encryption to keep her out.

"Shit," he said out loud, turning over in his bunk again. "Shit, shit, shit." Any significant movement at all made the cheap cot squeak like a bunch of rats having a conversation under the bed.

"Baird! Shut the frak up for frak's sake!" One of the bunkmates he was keeping awake threw a pillow at him.

Baird caught the pillow and tucked it under his own. "Screw you, Holt." But he did settle onto his back and try to lie still. He was tired of finding his notebooks glued shut by pissed-off roomies.

'You know what? Forget trying to keep her out of my thoughts. It's not like I'm trying to picture us doing it doggy-style. I just need to frigging sleep.'

He closed his eyes and conjured up the ghost of eighteen-year-old Sharon. She slipped into bed with him and pressed her phantom warmth to his side. He pictured putting his arm around her, and she laid a touchless hand on his chest, which he stroked with imaginary fingers.

Baird fell asleep.

# # #

* Sera has a 26-hour day.

** I just want to make clear to my readers that Baird is not going to turn out to be Grace's father.

I love writing drama, but I'm trying to steer clear of melodrama. No offense intended if you like soap-operas!