Gemini Rising
(or, Whatever Happened to Cadet Erin?)
by Cecily
Youth Leader Erin. She should have been proud at the promotion, but pride was an emotion, which was against the will of the machine.
Not pride, then. In fact, the title left her feeling cold. She wasn't sure she believed the machine. That thought tasted like acid, like her guts were turning inside out.
Uncertainty, then. Hesitation. Maybe even. . .fear?
She had felt fear, and she couldn't deny it. She'd been shot, believed she was going to die, then experienced shock and disbelief when her assailant set aside her weapon and treated her wound. Her body had reacted in ways she couldn't control--her heart raced, her eyes stung, she'd wept.
Now, and for the last few weeks, she'd been on the edge of feeling like that again. So yes, she was afraid.
A holographic projection of Lord Dread looked down on them from high above the assembly room. Erin stood at attention at the head of her unit, beside a Cadet holding upright the scarlet banner of the New Order. Dread, his mechanical fist raised in triumph, declared that together they would persevere, the New Order would be victorious at last.
His army of followers--all children, or nearly children, with young, earnest faces--called back to him with pride, declaring the litany of the machine: The world is imperfect. We will make it perfect. . .Dread is our eyes, we are his fists, with our blood and our trust he shall mold a new tomorrow. . .
Erin looked away. Only for a moment, because she was being watched, always watched. She made herself look back at Dread, half-machine, half-human. He was a mockery of his own litany: not mechanized, not immortal, he wasn't undying--he was broken. A broken old man who'd been waging war her whole life--longer--yet continued to preach to them about a new tomorrow.
She felt hate, and blinked back tears. Kept her face a mask. She must not break, she must not let them know what she was thinking.
At last the image faded. She looked around at the shining eager faces of her comrades--and met the gaze of someone who stared at her. A boy from her Cadet group, also recently promoted. Youth Leader Baylor. His unit prepared to march out, but he took this moment to watch her.
Almost, she panicked--what had he seen? What did he guess? Could he read her mind? Would he report her? Of course he would, if he was a good Dread Youth minion. But she kept her mask on, glared back at him, as if she were the superior one, as if she had noticed his indiscretion.
He looked away and led his unit out of the hall.
A moment later, keeping her breathing steady, willing her nerves to remain calm, so did she.
------------------------
Erin couldn't stop thinking of the young woman who had shot her, then taken care of her, then stood with her arms outstretched, defenseless, inviting Erin to kill her.
Erin didn't kill her. She couldn't. Every day, she understood a little more why she hadn't. That woman had been more alive than anyone Erin had ever known. There had been a light in her eyes. . .
Alarm klaxons wailed throughout Med Lab One. An attack, or an accident--accidents had been happening frequently, and one of Erin's squad's duties was to seal off affected areas and prevent people from passing--either into the area, or out of it. She checked in at a command station to find out where she should go.
"The emergency isn't here," the Overunit in command told her. "It's at Volcania. We may mobilize to support troops there. Stand by for further instructions."
Volcania? An attack at Dread's sanctum?
Yet again, she thought of the woman. One of Captain Power's soldiers. Would they defeat Dread at last?
She tapped into a security channel.
. . .Project Icarus destroyed, Volcania invaded, Biodread Soaron missing. . .
Impossible. The machine was superior, Dread's Project New Order would not fail--
And yet, that woman had burned with a startling determination.
The alarms still screamed, red lights flashing at the branch of every corridor, but all of it faded from Erin's awareness. Come with me, Erin.
She looked up just as a small squad came running toward her down the corridor. Quickly, she thought of an excuse about why she lingered here. She recognized the unit's leader: Youth Leader Baylor.
She prepared to simultaneously defend herself and harangue him for leaving his assigned post. But when he stopped in front of her, he had a look in his eyes that she recognized, even as it shocked her: fear.
He touched her arm, a forbidden gesture that sent a shock through her flesh, even through the fabric of her uniform.
"We're going," he said. Two of the Cadets under his command were with him. They looked at him, their eyes round, their faces pale but their jaws set with determination. "Nobody's watching, we can duck out in all this confusion. Come with us. I've seen the way you look. You turn your face away when Dread speaks to us. You want to leave here."
Even now, Erin was stubborn. "What if I don't? What if you're wrong about me?"
He set his lips in a grim frown. "I'll have to kill you, so you don't tell them where we've gone."
But as soon as he touched her, crossed that forbidden line of human contact, she knew she'd say yes. She knew she'd leave. She nodded.
"Wait a minute. I can help." She began punching commands into the security terminal. Baylor was wrong, this emergency wasn't enough to distract all of Dread's eyes. So she invented a new emergency: she told the computer that someone was trying to break into the control room. She ordered all surveillance bots, all of Dread's eyes, to that area, to search for the intruders. She and the others would have a clear path out one of the service tunnels.
"Good," Baylor said with a sigh, watching what she'd done.
She felt a thrill, something a bit like fear, but stronger, fiercer. It surged through her body and made her want to run. Is this what had burned inside Power's soldier?
The four of them escaped the Med Lab.
For days they traveled through the ruins of a city. Fallen buildings, torn concrete, uprooted lampposts and twisted steel formed a maze which they had to navigate. They didn't choose a direction, they simply ran, until the lights of the Med Lab One complex were far behind them.
When the lighted faded, the sky turning dark, they stopped to rest. They were sweaty, dirty, gasping for breath. Less than a day out in the world and they already resembled the organics who scavenged a meager living outside the authority of the machine.
Cadet Meg, the youngest of them, had started crying. Tears streaked her cheeks and her voice cracked. "This was a mistake. We don't have any food, any water. We'll die here!"
But we'll be free, Erin thought, surprised that she believed it. Somehow, dying hungry was better than listening to the lies.
"We'll find a way," Baylor said flatly. "Organics survive here, they've been doing it for years. We'll find a way."
To learn how the organics did it, they'd have to find some, first. These ruins were desolate, though.
"We need to find clothing," Baylor continued. "If the organics see us in these uniforms. . .it'll be bad." All of them nodded in agreement. They all knew what the Dread Youth did, burning organic settlements to the ground, killing the inhabitants. They were in enemy territory now.
"I know someone," Erin said. "Someone on the outside. One of Power's soldiers."
"Captain Power?" Cadet Pierson gasped. "How?"
"She broke into the Med Lab, she captured me. She could have killed me but she didn't. She--she's the reason I'm here, the reason I came with you. We should find her. She can help us. I know she can."
Baylor said, "But how do we find Power?"
"Do we dare try to find Power? What will he do to us?" said Pierson.
"She used to be one of us," Erin said. "She knew the litany. Power helped her. He'll help us."
"But how do we find him?"
"Food and water first. Then we find Captain Power."
---------------------------------
They found water collected in a storm drain. Baylor had been clever enough to carry a small electric lighter with him, so they built a fire and boiled the water. They found enough scrap wood in the ruins to keep it burning. After three days of trying and growing dizzy with hunger, they succeeded in trapping rats and roasted the meat. It wasn't clean, it wasn't perfect like the machine world, or the New Order Dread had promised. But it was the first fresh meat any of them had tasted, and it had flavor, unlike the processed food they'd grown up on in the Dread Youth barracks. The taste of it brought tears to Erin's eyes.
Perfection, it seemed, wasn't everything.
They traveled for two weeks before coming upon the first organic settlement they had seen. They were out of the city now and in a scrub-covered landscape. The wind carried dust and blasted their faces with it, but they bent their heads and carried on, toward the hills on the horizon. There, they found a camp, a dozen or so tents huddled in the shelter of a ravine. Campfires burned. Pots hung over them from tripods. People sat near some of them, stirring the contents. Other people sat nearby, talking.
Erin and the others stayed out of side behind a line of rocks and spied.
"We should talk to them," Baylor said.
Erin shook her head. "They won't trust us."
"We'll steal clothes, disguise ourselves, then talk to them."
"And they'll trust us after we've stolen their clothing? We should wait."
They waited. They slept huddled together for warmth, one of them always standing watch. The world outside the machine was cold. Harsh winds blew. More than once Erin thought of her warm bed back at the barracks. But they couldn't go back.
On the third morning, one of the organics found their hiding place. Meg had been standing watch, but she'd fallen asleep. When Erin woke, two men, tall and craggy, dressed in layers of cloth and leather, stood over them. They held clubs.
She didn't scream, but only because her heart choked in her throat. She glared at them instead. Baylor put his hand on her shoulder.
One of the men spoke. His accent was rough, almost indecipherable. "You kids oughta come over and ask for food, 'stead of lurking about here like mice."
By this time, after so long in the dust, their uniforms were unrecognizable. The men didn't know where they'd come from.
"You'd give us food?" Erin asked.
The man shrugged. "For now. Maybe a blanket too. Come over, eh?"
The four deserters helped each other up and followed the men into the camp.
"Why are they helping us?" Baylor whispered at her.
Erin didn't have an answer. Not a good one. All she could think was, It's what they do.
The men sat them around a fire, and while they soaked up the warmth, a woman gave them each a large bowl of stew. They'd grown so used to hunger, they couldn't believe that they could now eat their fill.
The organics of the camp didn't ask any questions, didn't make any demands.
"Don't you want to know where we're from?" Baylor, drunk on stew perhaps, asked. Erin wanted to kick him.
"Figure you'll tell us if we need to know," the woman who served them the stew said.
"We're lost," Erin said, glaring at Baylor. "That's all. We got lost."
And that was true enough.
------------------------------
They stayed there several weeks, helping with chores, learning about the organics. How to dress, how to talk, how to eat. How to smile. The air grew warmer--spring, the humans said. Spring was coming, and they seemed happy about it.
Then, Meg discovered a troop of biomechs approaching the settlement. She told Erin and Baylor first.
"Are they coming for us? Did they follow us?" she asked, gasping.
Baylor shook his head. "If they knew about us they'd have found us weeks ago. They're here to cleanse the camp."
Erin swallowed her fear and said, "We have to stop them."
So they did.
Erin and Baylor played bait. They didn't look anything like Dread Youth now. Baylor had started to grow a beard, a sandy sheen covering his jaw and chin. She wore her hair in a pony tail, and both of them dressed in scavenger rags given to them by the organics. When the biomechs saw them, the machines--clickers, the organics called them--thought they chased a couple of wayward nomads.
They led the troops into a ravine. Meg and Pierson had rigged a rockslide, and at Baylor's signal, they set the rocks loose. It buried the whole lot of them, left them crushed and twitching under stone. Pierson shouted in triumph, punching his arm in the air. The others looked at him, surprised. Even Pierson looked surprised--then, he smiled.
The humans celebrated that evening. This was a new experience, a side of them Erin and the others hadn't seen before. They laughed, smiled, sang, danced. The four Dread Youth deserters watched, round-eyed and confused. But they recognized happiness, and everyone seemed so happy.
The woman who'd first given them food, Anna, said, "You four came out of nowhere and saved us all, like guardian spirits! Like ghosts or angels!"
"Ghosts in the machine," Meg whispered. "That's what it was like, before we left. We didn't fit in, we were just going through the motions. Like ghosts."
Erin felt that if they talked now, the organics would trust them. They'd earned some trust today. They wouldn't have to tell them everything. But now, Erin could ask without drawing suspicion.
"Can you send a message to Captain Power? Do you know how to find him?"
Anna's smile softened. "Ain't easy. He don't want to be found much anymore."
"There has to be a way to find him," she said.
A middle-aged man with missing teeth and a scar across his cheek, smiled. "Keep doing what you did today, and he'll find you, no doubt."
--------------------
Erin's quest to find Power drove them on. They left the encampment, with plenty of food and water this time, as well as blankets and cooking implements, and clubs to use as weapons should they need them. They looked for the next settlement and searched for signs that Dread's troops were near. They found what they were looking for.
They used the rockslide trick again, and that time were able to steal weapons and explosives from the troops they destroyed. Pierson voiced a shocking revelation. "This is fun!" he exclaimed. His boyish grin lit up his whole face. Meg started giggling along with him.
Baylor looked at Erin.
"It feels right," she said. She wanted to smile--she felt the smile inside her. But her mouth grimaced. "The machine is not invincible. Lord Dread lied to us all."
She admitted to a grim satisfaction that the machine was much easier to destroy than any of them had wanted to admit. They could never admit that while they were part of the Dread Youth. Project Icarus destroyed, Soaron missing. . .
The machine was not indestructible. Undying metalloid bodies? Not likely.
From memory, they made a map and guessed where Dread was likely to send more troops, what pockets of humanity he would try to cleanse next. All his efforts at mass cleansing--Styx, Icarus, Prometheus--had failed miserably, so he reverted to the old, messy methods of wiping them out one by one. Sometimes they stopped the troops with ambushes and explosions. Sometimes, there were too many of them, and they ran ahead to warn the settlements, then hide.
The man at the first encampment was right. Eventually, they went to warn a village and found that help had already arrived.
As they slid down the hill into the scrub-covered valley, Baylor tugged on her sleeve. "Look! Look at that! What is it?"
At a large clearing at the edge of the settlement, a ship parked. It was large, sleek--a high-speed transport vessel of some kind. Not one of Dread's. So who--
Erin managed to stop her progress down the incline by digging her heels into the dirt. Quiet, they had to be quiet, despite the piles of dirt and rock they were sending down ahead of them. Clustered together on the side of the hill--terribly exposed, she realized, but maybe no one would look this way--they watched.
People were walking into the ship, helped along by a pair of figures in armor. One of the figures was dark, a shadow almost. The other gleamed like starlight.
"It's them," Erin said. "It's Power."
"You sure?" Baylor said.
She nodded quickly. She had seen one of them in armor, when he came to take away the woman. Those were Power's soldiers, they had to be with that armor.
"What do we do?" Meg said.
It was said that Power's motto was to preserve all life. He wouldn't hurt them. She believed that. The woman hadn't killed her, and neither would they. They were taking the villagers away, protecting them from the oncoming troops.
"Come on," she said, and led them down the hill.
They all had guns. She noticed the others holding theirs defensively, ready to fire. Maybe she should tell them to put them away. But no, they needed them. Their weapons were hard-earned, and the only strength they had.
When they reached the first of the buildings, one of the armored men stepped around the corner, right in front of them, stopping them. The sound of a rocket hissed behind them. Erin turned and saw something amazing: a man, flying. He wore a suit with a set of rigid wings on the back. He put his feet out, landed, trotted to a stop behind them, and faced them.
Two others emerged, one on each side, surrounding them. One of them was immense, a veritable tank in camouflage-painted armor. Erin recognized him--the one from that night at the Med Lab. She wondered, would he recognize her? Out of uniform, her hair a mess, her face streaked with dirt?
There were only four of them. Where was the woman? Maybe in the ship.
Erin and her group clustered together, back to back, and held their ground. Didn't flinch. Stared out with the hardened masks they'd learned as children under Dread's rule.
The winged man reached up to remove his oxygen mask. His face held a wry grin. "Not too ghost like, running around in plain sight, are they, Captain?"
Erin looked at the one he addressed, the famous Captain Power, the most hated enemy--
No. He had to help them. She noticed that none of Power's men had drawn their guns.
The one in the armor that shone like stars was a tall, clean shaven man. His smile was kind. Captain Power.
He spoke directly to Erin and her group. "Are you the ones people call the Ghosts?" Baylor was the one who nodded. We must look like children to them, Erin thought. Foolish children treating guns like toys. Power continued, "It's a pleasure to meet you. You've done good work."
That gave Erin the courage she needed. She stepped forward, facing the Captain directly. All her nerves were tensed, so that she felt that her whole body must shatter.
"Where is she?" Erin demanded. Her voice pitched louder. She was surprised at how fierce she sounded. She'd spoken like this to the woman, while trying to defend Dread to her. And the woman had only looked on her with pity. "She's one of your people. She told me so. She--she didn't kill me when she had the chance. I've been looking for her, I have to find her."
A deathly silence fell over the gathering, tight and profound, like the silence that followed the shattering of glass. The silence made Erin's stomach turn over.
All of them, all of Power's people were staring at her. Their expressions were unreadable, showing a range that she couldn't interpret. She had so little experience reading people, and their faces made her afraid. The large one, the tank-like one, lifted the visor of his helmet. His eyes held pity, the same pity that the woman had shown.
She looked back at the Captain and recognized the expression he gave back. Rage. Cold, fierce, rage. The smile was gone.
"Pilot," he said. His face turned hard, like ice. Chilled. His hands clenched, like he might hit something. Maybe her.
"Where is she?" Erin said, pleading.
The Captain spat the words. "She's dead. Dread killed her."
He turned and walked away.
Erin stared after him. Her quest--done, over. With nothing to show for it. Dead.
She dropped her gun, then sat on the dusty earth.
"Erin." Baylor knelt beside her, reached out, hesitated, then put a hand on her shoulder. She didn't flinch at his touch anymore. They'd had to help each other climb up hills and out of ditches too many times for that.
She closed her eyes. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to react.
"Come on." The older man, the one with the wings, stood nearby. Erin looked up at him. He wore a thin smile, and his voice was subdued. "Dread's troops will be here soon. We have to go."
Baylor helped her stand, and the group went with Power's men to their ship.
----------------------
Jon, suit powered down, sat in his command chair and willed himself to relax. He forced his fists to open, and flattened them on the arms of the chair.
He still felt like he wanted to scream.
It wasn't fair that shadows of his past--of Jennifer's past--kept leaping in front of him, haunting him. Sometimes, like today, when they were on a mission, he could go all day without thinking about her. Sometimes, the wound felt like it was healing. That only made the shock of being reminded of her worse. Like he'd been doused with ice-cold water.
He'd lost loved-ones before. He'd grieved for his father. But this felt different, somehow. He kept looking to the front of the cockpit and a jolt rattled him every time he saw her empty chair.
Stuart Power had left a legacy, Jon realized. He'd left a part of himself behind, not just in Mentor but in all the technology they used. Jon grieved, but he was inspired, too. Jennifer hadn't had time to leave a mark. She'd left nothing but memories. She'd been way too young. He always thought he'd have more time to tell her how he felt.
Then these kids show up, invoking her shadow.
"Captain? The passengers are stowed. We're ready to leave." Hawk watched him from the front of the cockpit. The others of the team entered and silently took up their stations.
Jon nodded, pulling himself together.
"Are you okay?" Hawk asked.
"I'm fine. Prepare for take-off."
When they were airborne and cruising, Tank turned to him, startling him out of another inward reverie.
"The girl--she's the one from the Med Lab," he said. "The Dread Youth girl that tried to stop Pilot. I guess Pilot--Jennifer--got through to her. They're deserters, like her."
For all the good it did any of them, Jon thought. But that wasn't fair. He should have been proud, that Jennifer had been such a beacon to lead others to turn against Dread. She would have been so pleased to see the group of former Dread Youth soldiers here. Especially the girl, Erin, who was such a twin of her, blond and young and earnest. That was what Pilot had called her, after the Med Lab mission, when she'd told them the story: "my twin."
"Captain?" Scout prompted gently. "Jennifer would have been proud of them, wouldn't she? She was the only one who really knew how hard it is to break free."
The others glanced away, giving Jon a little space. Was he really so fragile, that they needed to walk on eggshells around him?
He supposed he was.
"What do we do with them?" he said finally.
"Take them to the Passages?" Scout said. "They'll be safe there."
Tank shook his head. "They don't want to be safe. They want to fight. You remember how she was."
He did, Jennifer standing before them, so small and seemingly frail, yet so defiant.
"To the Passages first," Jon said. "Then we'll see who wants to take them on."
---------------------------
After the refugees from the settlement left the ship, Hawk escorted the four Ghosts off the ship. Ghosts--they'd heard the rumors, that four Dread Youth defectors had taken up arms against Dread. He and the others hadn't believed it--it was just the kind of trap Dread would set: draw their attention, lure them into the open, then bang! But they were for real. Hawk recognized the hard, shellshocked expressions on their faces.
Jennifer had looked the same way, in the days and weeks after she'd left Dread.
All four of the deserters stopped at the base of the steps to survey the hanger at the Passages with open-mouthed amazement. The place bustled with activity: injured soldiers and refugees arriving, supplies being transferred, people living and working in relative safety.
The resistance was stronger than Dread realized. Here was the proof.
"If Dread knew about this place, he'd bomb it flat," the older boy said in a hushed tone.
"Any reason for him to find out about it?" Power said darkly.
He quickly shook his head. "I'll never tell. Never."
"Good. Hawk, find them some food and bunk space. I want to find out when Cypher checked in last. And keep an eye on them, okay?"
Hawk eyed the Captain. It was hard to judge how he'd react these days. His temper was on a tripwire. And it seemed to be getting worse. He ventured, "Jon, you might think about finding some bunk space yourself. It's been thirty hours since you slept."
The Captain scanned the warehouse, as if looking for something. "I'm fine."
"Jon--"
"I said I'm fine." Power shot him a glare, then stalked away, disappearing into one of the tunnels that opened into the warehouse.
The older girl, the one Tank recognized, the one called Erin, stared after him. She said to Hawk, "Why is he so angry?"
He smiled wryly at the observation. If one of these kids noticed the anger, it really was getting bad.
"You remind him of her. Of Pilot. He loved her," Hawk said.
Her expression wrinkled, the confusion evident. "I don't know what that means."
"Yeah, well, neither did he. Come on, let's get you lot sorted out."
---------------------------
Matt crossed his arms and leaned on the wall of the kitchen area, far enough away from the table where the quartet sat to give them privacy but close enough to watch them. They ate like they'd never seen food. Maybe they hadn't. At least, not real food, cooked over a hot stove, with fresh vegetables from the hydroponics gardens.
All but the girl, Erin. She stared into her bowl of soup as if searching for omens, and wore a thoughtful expression.
"What's wrong?" he asked her finally. The others watched him with interest, but Matt concentrated on her.
After a moment she said, "I don't know how to feel. I should feel something. About her. Pilot."
"Tank said that you met her."
The girl nodded quickly. "She's why I'm here. I'd never met anyone like her. She was so determined. So strong. So. . .alive."
That was Jennifer all right.
Erin continued. "I lay in my bunk sometimes wondering if she was even real. If maybe I'd dreamed it all. But there's a scar on my leg where she shot me. I thought she was going to kill me, but she didn't. I had to find her, so that I'd know she was real. But now--"
"Now she's gone," Matt said softly.
Erin was close to tears, her voice anguished. "I don't know what to do next. I had to find her, so she could tell me what to do next."
Matt pulled up a chair and sat next to her.
"Do you know what she would have said to that? You have to choose your own way. That's the whole point of leaving Dread. That's the whole point of this war we're fighting--so that we have a choice about what we do, who we become. You can stay in the Passages, you can join one of the resistance units and fight, you can go live by yourself somewhere. Pilot wouldn't have made that decision for you."
"How did she decide? When she left the Dread Youth, how did she know what to do?"
Matt didn't know how to answer that. Even making a guess felt like putting words in Pilot's mouth. Felt like reinterpreting the past. It was easy to look back and speculate what she must have been thinking. But was it the truth? He'd never know, not without asking Pilot.
He smiled wryly. "I don't know. We were all a little in awe of her.No one had ever left Dread before. We didn't think it was possible until she came along. Then--she was angry for a long time. Angry at everything. We tried to show her there was a different way."
The girl rubbed her eyes, brushing away tears before they fell. "I wish I could have seen her again."
The dam holding back Hawk's own tears was about to burst. He had to get out of here and take a walk.
He stood. "We'll find something for you to do. We'll find a way to help you choose."
He left without looking back.
----------------------
Matt had to ask three different people where he was before he tracked down Jon. He found him in a store room, cleaning weapons and changing the battery packs. Quietly, Matt stood in the doorway. The Captain didn't hear him. He watched as Jon paused, studied the gun in his hand, ran his fingers over it longingly. Like he was going to do something stupid.
He didn't. He threw the weapon in a box with the others, then tore the rag he'd been using in half.
The kid was breaking to pieces right in front of him.
Kid, ha. Jon was thirty years old. He hadn't been a kid since Stuart died. He'd grown up way too fast, and all Matt had ever been able to do was stand back and hope for the best. Offer advice where he could. But now--this was different. Nothing Matt could say would help. He'd only sound like an annoying old man spouting platitudes. Jon needed time to heal, but he might run himself into the ground before that time had passed.
Dammit, Pilot, why'd you do it? You could have run. You should have gotten out of there.
As he sometimes did, he found himself blaming Jennifer. As if she'd done this on purpose. She'd searched so hard for a way to redeem herself, then found the most spectacular way possible. That wasn't fair, though. He would have done the same thing in her place. Any of them on the team would have. The base had been too important to let fall into Dread's hands. She knew that better than any of them.
Damn her and her blasted sense of honor. Her courage. He was so proud of her and what she'd become it broke his heart.
So, imagine what it's doing to Jon.
Matt was through treating Jon with kid gloves.
"I was hoping you'd be asleep somewhere," Matt said, trying to sound cheerful.
Jon gave him half a glance, and his look was cold. "If I sleep, I dream, and I don't want that."
"Jon. We need to talk."
"I'm not interested."
"I don't care if you're interested. You're broken, Jon. Completely shut down. As long as you stay that way, you're no good to anybody."
Jon threw the pieces of rag into the box after the blaster. Then, he looked over his shoulder at Matt. "A hell of a lot of good I did helping her."
Matt felt his anger rise, and he gave it free reign. "You're telling me this isn't about losing her? That what you're really angry about is failing? Of all the selfish garbage--Captain Power believed in his own legend a little too much and when reality smacked him upside the head, he couldn't take it!"
Jon stood abruptly, toppling the stool he'd been sitting on, and turned to face Matt. His fists were clenched, his arms bent like he might actually swing a punch. Matt looked him in the eye, daring him to do it. Hell, if it would do the kid some good, Matt would take it.
"That isn't it at all and you know it," Jon said, his jaw clenched.
If Matt had wanted to get a reaction out of him, he'd succeeded. He didn't quite know what to do with that reaction. . . Softly, he said, "Yeah. I know. But if you keep replaying those moments in your mind, they're going to swallow you whole. You think she would have wanted that? You think she'd have wanted to see you like this?"
Jon ran his hands through his hair and started pacing. "You know I keep telling myself that? I tell myself I have to keep fighting. She'd have wanted me to keep fighting. She'd have wanted me to move on, to not keep dwelling--but all I want to do is bury myself in a cave somewhere. I don't want to think, I don't want to move—but I have to keep moving. Or I'll just. . .stop."
"God, Jon. I don't know what to tell you."
Jon picked the stool back up and sat down.
"I figured it out today. Or part of it, maybe. I've lost people before, people I cared about, but it never felt like this. It never felt like the end of the world."
That's because you were in love, Matt wanted to say. It twisted his gut that even now Jon couldn't say the words, couldn't admit it to himself. I should have thrown those two in a room together and locked the door when I had the chance.
Jon continued. "You know what it is? She never had a chance to live, Matt. Really live. And now, there's nothing left. My father--he left Mentor, all his research. He planted the seeds of the resistance. But Jennifer--there's nothing. Nothing to show how. . .how important she was."
Nothing but memories. Jon had turned in on himself trying to hold onto those memories.
Hawk smiled. This time, he knew Jon was wrong.
"You think she didn't leave a legacy? Then you need to talk to those kids we picked up today. The Ghosts. The girl, Erin--she can't stop talking about Pilot. She met her. She knew her. You need to talk to her, Jon. Then you'll see what Pilot left behind."
"I don't think I can do that," Jon said, shaking his head. Murmuring, he added, "They remind me so much of how she was."
"Yeah. I noticed that too. But I think you can do it. I think you should."
"Matt--I don't want to move on. Do you understand?"
"No one's asking you to forget about her. But you have to give yourself a little room to stay alive. Okay?"
Jon nodded, then bowed his head, leaning forward on his knees, staring at the floor.
Hawk left him alone. Either Jon would listen to him, or he wouldn't.
--------------------------
After the meal, the four Ghosts slept--in real bunks, the first time since they'd left the Med Lab. Erin thought she could stay here. For a little while, not doing anything but eating and sleeping. It sounded. . .nice.
The next day, the one called Hawk took them to a medical facility. Erin started to argue--they weren't sick, they didn't need to be examined. But he introduced them to a nurse there, and then asked them if they'd like to help. "You need to be around people," he'd said. "This definitely fits the bill."
She thought, why not? Baylor looked at her for confirmation and shrugged. Pierson and Meg tended to follow the older ones like they were still back with Dread.
That'll have to change one of these days, Erin thought. Hawk said Pilot would have wanted her to choose. She would have wanted all of them to choose.
They helped, doing mundane things like cutting bandages out of cloth, folding blankets, and sweeping the floor. Once, the nurse asked her to take medicine to one of the patients. Erin offered the patient the pills and was surprised when the man, an injured resistance fighter, smiled a thanks to her.
She was even more surprised when she felt herself smile in response.
When she turned around, Captain Power was standing in the doorway, watching her. Erin immediately felt herself tense. She wanted to run and hide. He's going to blame me for Pilot, he's going to take it out on me. . .
"It's Erin, isn't it?" Power said. He wore his plain uniform, not his power suit. He was still intimidating.
"Yes, sir."
"Can we talk for a minute?"
Quickly, she nodded.
Power found a couple of chairs in a corner and invited her over. Gingerly she sat, clenching her hands in her lap, waiting. He just watched her. Then, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, as if preparing himself. His expression seemed different when he opened his eyes again. He seemed more determined.
"How did you escape? Dread doesn't let anyone leave."
Relieved, she nodded. An easy question. "When Volcania was attacked, when Project Icarus was destroyed--I guess that was you, wasn't it?" Power gave her a thin smile. "There was a lot of confusion. All Dread's forces were on alert, watching for attacks from the outside. They weren't looking at us."
After a moment he said, "Pilot played dead during a battle. She told us that Dread doesn't pay any attention to the bodies. So she pretended to be a body. That's where we found her."
Erin's eyes widened. So that was how she'd done it. That sounded so. . .so easy! She almost laughed. She looked away, to hide the grin that flashed on her lips.
"What's so funny?" Power prompted.
Erin shook her head, giving herself a moment to collect her thoughts. How could she explain? "What a trick to play on Dread. We grew up believing he--and the Dread Youth, the machine--were all-powerful. But such a stupid little trick could fool them all."
Now Power smiled fully. It made him look completely different, and Erin realized she never wanted to be on his bad side.
"I never thought of it like that," he said. "It is pretty funny, isn't it?"
What little she knew of the woman named Pilot, it didn't surprise Erin that she'd escaped in such a manner. She'd been so unpredictable. Erin remembered her standing there, defenseless: You're going to have to shoot me, Erin. Because I'm not going back. And Erin hadn't shot her. Somehow, Pilot had known that she wouldn't.
Erin looked down at her hands. "She asked me to come with her, that night at the Med Lab. She was so desperate to save me. I thought I didn't need saving. I wish now I had gone with her."
Power remained quiet for a long time. Erin wondered, what had Pilot meant to him, that her death affected him so? Power's creed was to preserve all life. Did every death he couldn't stop affect him so much? Then how did he function?
Erin was about to stand and scurry off to escape his presence, when he looked hard at her and said, "Tell me about that night. Tell me everything. Tell me about her."
And so, swallowing a tightness in her throat, she did.
The End