Chapter 4
48-3 Mark 10
She grew stronger every day. At least, she liked to think she did. So much of those first few days was a blur. She slept most of the time. She'd spent two months unconscious, she'd thought have she'd have had enough of staying in bed.
Someone always stayed with her. She wanted to argue with them--they had so much work to do. They were living out of the jumpship now, traveling and trading help for supplies, striking at Dread when they could. Leaving one of them behind to look after her made the work harder. She was a burden to them. She had to get well, so she could help them again.
She owed them so much. She didn't want to be a burden. But she didn't trust herself to stay alone. She was still surprised when she opened her eyes and the room was the same. Someone--Scout, Tank, or Hawk, but most often Jon--was always sitting by her, keeping watch over her.
Then, she woke up from a fitful nap, uncertain what time of day it was even, looked over, and saw no one. The hold, where her bunk was, was empty. She was alone. She couldn't remember who'd been with her when she fell asleep. She couldn't focus enough to remember.
Was this real?
"Jon?" she called. Her voice was still rough, but stronger than it had been. She wasn't sure how far her voice carried, if anyone even heard her.
She sat up. The lights were low, maybe to help her sleep, maybe because it was nighttime. She listened hard--didn't hear anything. Where was everyone?
Don't panic, Chase, she told herself. Her heart was racing anyway. Something was wrong. She could feel it.
Taking a deep breath, she swung her legs over the side of the bunk and set her feet on the floor. But when she tried to put weight on them, when she tried to stand, she fell. Her legs collapsed right out from under her, and she landed hard on the steel floor. She let out a hiss--just like the dream, just like that vision she had, she waited for Lord Dread to walk through the doorway--
No, she could feel her legs, tingling with numbness. She rubbed them. All the muscle tone she'd had a few months ago was gone. She wasn't paralyzed, just weak, terribly weak and unable to move on her own. She leaned back against the wall and blinked back tears.
"Jennifer!" Hawk appeared in the hatchway. He rushed to her side and crouched by her, gripping her shoulder in a panic.
She sighed with relief--nothing was wrong, everything was fine--and offered him a brave smile. "I didn't know where everyone had gone to. I thought I could stand and find somebody. I guess I was wrong." Her voice cracked and she quickly wiped her eyes to hide the tears, covering it all with a weak laugh.
Hawk leaned back on the wall beside her. "Awe, kid, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left you alone. You were sleeping so soundly, I just went to check the comm channel--"
"No, Hawk, it's me--I don't want to be a chore, I hate that you all have to. . .to babysit me. I hate being like this."
The look of pity on his face wrenched her heart. She glanced away. Scrubbed away more tears.
"You're not a chore," he said firmly. "Don't even think like that. After what you went through, you can't expect to bounce back in a day. You're lucky to even be in one piece. Relatively speaking." He finished with a shrug.
He was right. She knew he was right--usually was, as the "wise old man" of the team. He'd growl at her if he heard her call him that, though. The thought made her smile.
She straightened, squared her shoulders as well as she could, sitting hunched on the floor, and looked at him. "I want to walk. I have to start walking."
Slowly, a wry smile grew on Hawk's lips. "That's the Pilot I remember. Welcome back, kid."
He put his arm around her back and helped her to her feet.
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She'd become Scout's latest science project. They had to learn what lurked in those wires in her brain.
She sat near Mentor's terminal. She'd walked there, all by herself, though it took a painfully long time, with her leaning on the bulkhead the whole way, and the effort left her exhausted. She didn't complain, though.
She watched the display while Scout prodded at the cyber-implants with a probe. He activated different switches and circuits, while Mentor traced the effects. The wires trailing from her head to the terminal made her vaguely uneasy. She missed the AI's visual display. The image of the gentle man's face had always comforted her.
"I bet we could find a slicer in Tech City who'd know exactly what to do with this stuff," Scout said conversationally.
"But I trust you," she answered.
He smirked. "Can I have that in writing?"
They'd already marked and destroyed the circuit that created the feedback loop that trapped her brain into thinking it was digitized. So much of that time was a blur, but she was glad she didn't remember.
Scout touched a spot. White light flashed against her eyes. She gasped as a wave of dizziness struck, and she braced herself on the computer panel.
"Whoa, sorry. What was that?"
"I don't know," she said, her voice shaking. "I saw light."
That circuit is tied to the visual cortex Mentor reported. Then, Eradicating it could blind her.
"Right," Scout said with a wry drawl. "That one stays."
It's an imaging system, she thought. She'd see what they, it--the machine--wanted her to see. "Mentor, is there a program currently running on the unit's processor?"
None currently detected.
That didn't make her feel any better.
"Is the circuit active?" Scout said.
Yes.
We bide our time, and when we strike you won't even know it. You can only believe what your mind tells you. But is it telling you the truth?
My lord, she is resisting.
You have felt the glory of the machine and still you resist? Overmind privileged you with its touch--and you rebel?
Jennifer shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. That wasn't happening. This, sitting here with Scout in the jumpship, was real. Nothing else.
That is what you believe.
"You okay?" Scout said, his brow furrowed with concern.
"I'm a little tired. I think I'd like to stop for the day, if that's all right."
"Sure, of course." He removed the wires without another word.
-----------------------
She lay on the table in the medical lab. The technicians never spoke to her, never acknowledged her. They didn't treat her like a person, but a machine. An organic machine. They didn't care if what they did to her hurt, because they could not acknowledge pain.
Then, they were all gone. She was alone.
Even better, she could move. No restraints this time, no sedatives, nothing to cloud her awareness. It had been so long since she'd been fully conscious and mobile. She sat up and slid off the bed.
This time, she could walk.
She moved carefully, slowly, expecting alarm bells to sound at any moment, and the place to fill with Dread guards carrying stun guns. But nothing happened.
Her heart racing with hope, she approached a computer terminal. If she could find out where she was, learn the layout of the place, steal a ship, send a message to Jon-- She could do it, she could really do it. Drain the computer of information, take all that data back, all Dread's plans, enough info to destroy him for good this time.
Her hand hesitated over the computer's keypad. A thought occurred to her, a vague nagging of instinct.
This is too easy.
Dizziness struck her, and she almost fell. She grabbed the edge of the console to steady herself--and it felt wrong. She shut her eyes against a flash of light, blinked to focus--
She was in the jumpship, gripping the edge of Mentor's terminal. She'd been asleep. She hadn't remembered getting up, moving here. That was a dream, not real.
But if she'd continued sleepwalking like that, she would have happily searched through Mentor's files and transmitted the data, believing all the time that it was really Dread's computers.
Her head throbbed from an ache originating at the metal implants. She'd fought so hard to break free of the machine, and now look at her.
-----------------------
She sat on her bunk, hugging her knees, and looked inward, as if she could run a diagnostic on herself, like she was one of the skybikes. She saw things that weren't real. She didn't know how, but she saw one thing and her mind showed her another. She could never know if what she was doing was what she thought she was doing. The doubling of logic, of reality, confused her. She imagined she could feel the nanoscopic wires penetrating her brain, firing artificial synapses, controlling her in ways she couldn't imagine. The thought immobilized her.
A familiar electronic hiss and crackle startled her out of her reverie. She looked up in time to see the Captain's power suit dissipate in a release of energy. Jon stood in the warrior's place, in his uniform, looking on her with concern. His routine had changed--now when he came back from a mission, he checked on her before even powering down his suit.
Slowly, he came and sat on the other end of the bunk--too far away for him to hold her. She wasn't sure she wanted to be held just now. She felt like she might explode.
"I haven't seen you look that angry since you first left the Dread Youth," he said, smiling a little.
She furrowed her brow, surprised. Anger--was that what she was feeling? She supposed it was. And he was right. The last time she'd felt this. . .helpless, this furious. . .was right after she'd left the Dread Youth. She hadn't known what would happen to her then, either.
"How'd the mission go?" she asked.
"Fine. The ammunition we stole will last us a good six months. But--it seems like we've become little more than thieves. Not that stealing from Dread bothers me. But we ought to be better than that."
"You are, Jon. Dread will fall, it's only a matter of time."
"Yeah," he said with a sigh. He didn't sound convinced. She'd never seen him look so. . .so tired.
Finally, after a long silence, he was the one who said, "What's wrong?"
She winced, and tears welled in her eyes. "You need to revoke my code access to Mentor. To all the ship's systems."
He stared, confused. "Why?"
"I'm afraid I might do something. I wouldn't mean to. But I can hear them in my mind, Jon. Dread, Overmind. I'm not sure they aren't here now, hearing everything, learning your secrets--"
He shook his head. "We've scanned you a dozen times, there aren't any transmissions, we'd know if there were. They can't get to you, they aren't hearing anything. Anything else--it's residual programming."
"Jon--"
"Jennifer, I trust you."
"But I don't trust myself."
The tears fell. She was trembling, like something inside her was breaking. She wouldn't hurt them, she couldn't let Dread use her to hurt them, Jon had to understand that.
"All right," he said. "I'll do it."
"Thank you. Oh Jon--" She leaned forward, reaching for him. He caught her and held her while she cried.
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48-3 Mark 29
They made camp at a site in the southern desert. Gathering outside the jumpship, they were catching up on routine maintenance of equipment, repairing glitches, cleaning, and such. A small campfire burned, leftover from breakfast. The day was clear for once, faint blue sky visible behind the usual haze of pollution.
Scout was telling a story. "So then Tank gets the bright idea that blasting a hole in the floor is a much more efficient way to travel from one level to the next than taking the stairs--"
"Was I wrong?" Tank said.
Hawk muttered, "The lump on my head says yes."
Jennifer, spanner in hand, was repairing the transmission on one of the skybikes. She paused often to look at the others, who were catching her up on stories from the weeks she'd been away.
While she watched Scout, Jon watched her. She glanced at him from time to time. His smile was vague, contented, and he seemed deep in thought, not listening to the story at all.
Scout went on. "I have to hand it to him, though. Biomechs certainly aren't programmed to look for attacks from above. The only problem after that was how to get the jumpship to the basement."
She laughed. "How did you guys ever survive without me to rescue you?"
Jon looked away. The mood turned somber, and Jennifer's smile fell.
Quietly, Hawk answered her. "It was touch and go there for a while."
She played with the spanner for a moment, turning it back and forth, from hand to hand. "Did I ever thank you all? For saving me?"
Scout huffed. "You don't have to. You would have done the same if it had been any of us."
"I mean the first time," she said. "You could have left me behind, with the Dread Youth. You didn't know me then, there was no reason for you to give me a chance. But you did. So, thanks."
Jon caught her gaze. She'd never look away again, she thought. She could look into his eyes forever.
He said, "I think we got the better end of the deal."
-----------------------------
Jennifer kept watch while the others were on a mission. She and the jumpship, together again. She waited in the cockpit, by the radio, for a signal. Anything.
A red light flashed. Something on the diagnostic panel. Text scrolled: proximity alert. Lifeform detected outside the ship. They were isolated, in hiding. No one should have found them.
Two choices: lock down and hope it went away. Or check it out. Might be somebody needing help.
She took a gun and opened the ramp door.
Slowly, she climbed down the steps to the ground, keeping in the ship's shelter. She wanted to be able to duck back inside at any sign of trouble. Without her power suit, she felt almost naked. Unfortunately, she was getting used to it.
The air was still. Because of that, she heard footsteps crunching on the desert sand. Heavy, slow. Couldn't have been a biodread, they were noisier. The rocks caused echoing; she couldn't tell where the steps were coming from. Only that they were coming closer, to her.
Then, a bulky, cloaked figure appeared from behind a stand of rocks. Dark, ponderous, with a mechanical suit and electronic implants replacing half his face. Dread himself.
How had he found them? Never mind, no time for questions. She leveled her weapon, gripping it with both hands. She grit her teeth.
Dread raised his hands, stepped closer. "Preserve all life. Isn't that your vow?"
"What are you doing here?" Her voice was tight.
"I've come to bring you home."
"This is my home!"
He looked around, obviously thinking little of the temporary desert camp and scarred jumpship. He brought his hands to his breast in a gesture of supplication. "I gave you everything. I gave you a second chance. Still, you reject me." He actually sounded offended.
His voice hurt her head. She winced, but didn't dare look away from him. "I'm warning you. Leave here or I'll shoot."
"I came to tell you that Power is dead. The rest of his soldiers--all dead. I suppose you could say their last mission was a failure."
She was shaking her head before he finished speaking. "No. You're lying. I'd have heard. I'd have. . .felt something." She was sure she'd know it, she'd feel it, if Jon were dead.
"Felt something." He tsked her. "I spare you for now because you have touched the machine. There is still hope for you. Overmind will have you again."
"No, no." She backed away, stumbling up the stairs to the ship. Close to blind panic, her finger tightened on the trigger. She could kill him now, finish this whole thing, finish the war once and for all. Jon wasn't dead, he wasn't--
From the side, something--someone--grabbed her gun hand and forced it up. She never even heard them coming.
She shouted a denial, struggled in her enemy's grip. A second one was on her in a moment. They pinned her arms, pried the gun out of her hands, held her immobile. She waited for the whine and scream of an approaching biodread.
"Jennifer! Pilot! Stand down, that's an order!"
Jon's voice, right by her ear.
She blinked, suddenly dizzy. Her balance failed, she fell. Jon caught her. And Hawk, he was there too. They lowered her onto a seat in the cockpit. They looked at her, their expressions furrowed with concern.
Again, she shook her head, blinking, struggling to gain her bearings. It was the lab all over again. She looked. She was in the hold of the jumpship.
She tried to catch her breath. Her heart was racing. "I was just outside. Dread--Dread was there, he said you were dead, he said--I had to, I had to shoot, I--"
Jon pointed to the other side of the cockpit, the spot where she would have sworn the rock outcropping was, where she knew she'd seen Dread standing.
Tank stood there, staring back at her, subdued and wary.
She grimaced with anguish and pulled out of Jon's and Hawk's grips. She covered her eyes with the heels of her hands, squeezing as if she might push the truth into her mind, or shove the demons out.
Dread still had her in his grip. She'd escaped, but she hadn't.
"Jennifer." Jon's hand brushed her arm, but she shoved away, stood to get away from them all. She'd hurt them. If she stayed, she'd hurt them all.
Still shaken, she ran up against the hull of the ship before she could escape, slid to the floor, pressed her face against her knees.
She sensed him approach, but didn't look up. Let him sit beside her, let him pull her into an embrace.
"I was sent to betray you. To kill you. That's the trap."
"Yeah," he said. "It looks that way."
"You have to leave me behind. I can't stay with you."
"No. We'll fix it. We'll find a way."
For the moment, she was safe in his arms, and she believed him.
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She awoke before dawn, wrapped in a blanket, lying on the sand at their camp. The fire had burned out. Only charred, blackened coals remained. In fact, if she put her hand on the remains, she guessed they'd be cold, as if the fire had died out days ago.
She looked around. She was alone. Four blankets lay tossed aside, but their owners were gone.
"Jon?" she called, wincing at how her voice echoed against the nearby rocks. She stood, walked a few steps. The world was gray. The sun was close to rising, but that only made the shadows more foreboding. "Hawk? Tank? Scout? Where are you?"
No one answered.
They wouldn't have left without her. If there'd been an alarm, if some emergency had drawn them away, they would have woken her. "You're not alone," Jon had told her. His words had warmed her.
You are alone.
No, she'd been through this before. That wasn't Dread; it sounded like him, but he wasn't here. He was miles away, locked in Volcania--
Transmitting to her, to the implant in her brain. Controlling her, even now.
"No," she said, holding her head, shaking herself mentally, squeezing her eyes shut and opening them again. But she didn't wake up.
She heard a rumble in the air, a vibration in the ground that she recognized as an approaching Dread troop transport. Then, a roar sounded in the distance, the strangely animalistic call of a biodread, the rumble of massive footsteps. Blastarr.
She ran to the jumpship, shouting into the open door. "Jon!"
He had to be there. Someone had to be there. But the ship was empty.
Then, another sound--laser blasts, but not from clickers or biodread. Those were Power's team's weapons, coming from the other end of the ravine. She ran toward the sound, keeping close to the ground. She had to see them, she just had to see--
And she did. She saw much more than she wanted. All of them--the Captain, Hawk, Tank, and Scout--were pinned against the rocks, firing their guns for all they were worth, but it was no use. A hundred biomechs fired back, and Blastarr pounded laser blasts at them. One by one, the men's suits failed, leaving them exposed, vulnerable.
Blastarr, laughing, rolled in front of them. The cannon on its arm rotated into place--the digitizer. It had them in its sights, Jon and the others had no place to run to.
She had a flash of memory: back at the base, her suit's power depleted, facing down that monster with nothing to protect her, nothing to hurl at it but curses. She punched the destruct key, just as the digitization cannon rotated into place. The glare and pain that had engulfed her hadn't been the explosion at all--
"No!" Jennifer screamed,
Jon looked over at her, and an expression crossed his face, half-anguish, half-rage. Betrayed. He thought he'd been betrayed. "Why?" He spat the words. "We trusted you--why sell us out?"
She shook her head. No, she hadn't, she'd never. She had to tell him, had to explain--
But the violet light burst forth from Blastarr's gun, the wide arc of the ray encompassed them all, Power and his men screamed, and were gone, vanished into the machine--
Then Blastarr looked at her with all its malevolence.
She ran. She turned and ran, back to the ship. Mentor's memory banks were in danger, the last two power suits, she had to keep them from falling into Dread's hands. She could rig the ship's reactor to overheat, to explode and destroy all the data, all the equipment, all Jon's secrets. She'd done it before, she'd do it again. And she'd wait for the explosion, let herself be destroyed too because without Jon she had nothing--
She could do it, too. Destroy the ship. Exactly what Dread would want her to do.
She dropped to her knees, wrapped her arms around her head to cut out Blastarr's grating laughter, and prayed that this wasn't real.
----------------------------------
She opened her eyes. The lab again. Scientists in lab coats, emotionless men and women who refused to acknowledge her pain, her screams, surrounded her. One of them held a syringe.
We still haven't learned anything of value.
She's in love with Captain Power.
We knew that.
Perhaps we could use that--
No! I want data that will crush the resistance. I want Power and his men destroyed. And I want her to do it.
And again the world shifted, and she opened her eyes, though she couldn't remember closing them.
She stood in the assembly hall of a Dread installation. Row upon row of Dread Youth soldiers gathered here. A cadet standing beside her held aloft the scarlet banner of Dread's New Order. She herself was wearing the uniform of an Overunit. She was Overunit Chase.
The thought filled her with revulsion.
Above her, a holographic projection of Dread spouted the promise of the New Order, and the troops called the litany of anti-life back at him.
You have returned to the fold, as I always knew you would, a comforting voice said.
No. Her core burned: Dread and his New Order must be destroyed.
Dread spoke to the assembly. "This day we recognize the achievement of Overunit Chase. Her mission to infiltrate Captain Power's unit and destroy it from within was successful beyond our wildest expectations."
It wasn't true, none of it was true, she hadn't destroyed Power and the others, she couldn't--
"The path before us is now clear, and the Age of the Machine will arrive at last. Let Overunit Chase be a model for us all."
The crowd cheered.
Jennifer dodged out of formation and turned to shout at them. "No! Don't listen! It's all lies, don't you see it? Dread has fought for fifteen years and failed! You're human, you're all human--fight the machine! Fight Dread's lies!"
People on either side of her grabbed her arms, tried to hold her back, but she kicked at them and struggled, kept shouting. She ripped the emblems off her uniform and threw them at Dread's stern visage.
Hands clawed at her, pulling her back, shaking her--
"Jennifer! Look at me, look at me!"
The world turned upside, shifted again, a pain wracked her head, and she thought she was going to throw up.
"It's not real, it's not real." When would she know? When would she know that the world around her was real? She'd lost it. She'd lost her mind in Dread's lab. "It's not real."
"Jennifer! Snap out of it!" Someone was shouting at her.
She swatted at him, pushing him away. Gasping in a panic, she shoved away, tried scuttling backward, and fell.
She sat there a moment, half-sprawled in the dirt. Her breathing slowed and she looked around. Finally, her eyes were open. She was back at the desert camp, in the shadow of the jumpship, where she'd fallen. She'd seen Blastarr, she was going to destroy the ship to keep Dread from finding it.
Jon was there, kneeling a step away. He stared at her.
Was this real?
She swallowed. "Blastarr was here. You were digitized, I saw it. I was going to destroy the ship. But it wasn't real."
He moved to her side, but she turned away, shivering. She didn't want to hurt him--if it was him, and how did she know? This could all be a trick to make her feel safe, to make her comfortable. She'd do anything for Jon, but what if it wasn't really him?
"I don't know where I am anymore," she said, her voice trembling. "I don't know who I am." She squeezed her hands to her head and huddled in on herself.
If she didn't move, she wouldn't do anything to hurt her friends. If she didn't think, Dread couldn't reach her.
"Jennifer." Anguish strained his voice, as if he too were on the verge of crying. He wouldn't cry, not him. He was the strongest person she knew.
"What do you want me to do?" he said.
She looked at him. His face was tense; he frowned. He seemed far away. She was slipping--she was losing. These weren't people anymore. Just paper cut outs sent to torment her.
"I don't know," she whispered.
"Let's get to the ship. Let's get out of here."
She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away. Her being on the ship was too dangerous--for them, for her, for everyone. It had all become too complicated.
"Corporal Chase, that's an order. Stand up and get back to the ship." He stood and held his hand to her.
She stared at him. He was angry, she could tell. His expression had turned hard, his lips were a second away from a snarl. Even his hand, stretched toward her, was tense, trembling. He looked like he wanted to break something. He rarely, rarely looked that way. And never at her.
But he wasn't angry at her. He was angry at this--like she was.
"Corporal Chase, don't make me say it again," he said.
Remarkably, she felt a smile turn on her lips.
"Trust you to pull rank," she said. She used to tease him about that, how he ran his outfit on such loose terms until it suited him to be in charge.
Jon dropped his arm, deflating, and chuckled softly. "If you weren't so damned insubordinate. Why can't you ever follow orders?"
She took his hand, and he helped her to her feet.
"You okay?" he said.
She kept hold of his hand. He certainly felt real. But so had every shock, every prod, every stab of pain, every heartache. She shook her head. "No, Captain. I'm not."
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You will return to us. You will return.
She tried to shut out the voice. But it was inside her.
I will not return. I will not do anything. She sat on her bunk, hugging her knees, her eyes closed. She would disappear.
She should have died.
Maybe she had, and this was hell. She'd tried to redeem herself for what she'd done as part of the Dread Youth. But it hadn't been enough. Her hell was to betray those she loved, over and over again.
"How long can she stay like that?" Jon said.
Hawk answered, "I don't know. She's a stubborn kid."
Not thinking was hard. She couldn't help but overhear the hushed conference the others held on the other side of the room.
Jon let out a deep sigh. "I'll send her to Eden II. They might have the technology to remove the implant, or at least help her. They have doctors. Psyche people. If nothing else she'll be safe there."
And they'd keep her from hurting anyone. Almost, it sounded like a good idea. If it didn't sound like another trap.
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," Hawk said. "We still don't know everything they did to her, and we can't risk exposing Eden II to any danger."
"We've been over it a hundred times, Dread isn't tracking her."
"Hawk's right," Scout said. "There may be dormant programming buried so deeply that we don't even know it's there. All we know is Dread sent her back to do damage, without her even knowing it. We all know what she's capable of doing."
Hawk said, "She knows enough to bring down the whole resistance."
"She wouldn't do that. She's stronger than that."
"And that's what's brought her this far," Hawk said. "But she's breaking, Jon."
She felt them all looking at her.
"So what do we do about it?"
Scout said, "Keep her sedated. Take her to the Passages. The doctors there can look after her, and she'll be safe. She stays asleep until we find out how to neutralize that thing in her brain. We scour Tech City and find someone who can help."
Jennifer squeezed her eyes shut. That solution was logical, completely reasonable. But it sounded like giving up.
Jon voiced what she was thinking. "We'll be losing her all over again. I'm not sure I can take that."
"It's only temporary," Scout said softly.
"You hope." She'd never heard Jon's voice cut so, laced with pain, and bitter.
She raised her head, opened her eyes--she couldn't help it, she forgot her vow to lock out the world. She caught Jon's gaze. He'd been watching her the whole time.
"I wish--" Her voice broke. The other three glanced at her; their stances were nervous. She kept her gaze on Jon and tried again. "I keep wishing that the next time I wake up, I'll really wake up, and I'll be back at the base, and everything will have been a nightmare. The reactor explosion, Dread's lab, the implant, everything. I'll wake up with everything just the way it was before, only this time I'll have the courage to tell you how I feel. Before it's too late. I'm so sorry, Jon. I never wanted to hurt you, I never wanted to be a burden--"
"Jennifer, you aren't a burden," he said. "You're a gift."
Hawk made an obvious movement, tapping Scout on the shoulder. "Scout, Tank, I think the skybikes need to be restowed. You want to come help?"
"Tank and I just did that."
"They were fine an hour ago--"
Hawk pointed at them, pointed to hatch leading out of the hold, and gave them his hell to pay look. Scout caught it first.
"Right," he said. "Skybikes. Hold. Come on, Big Guy." He patted Tank's shoulder.
"What? Oh. Right." Tank caught it when Scout made a not-so-subtle nod at Jon and Jennifer.
A moment later, they were gone. She and Jon were alone.
"That was a little blatant," Jon said, crossing his arms. "I suppose I'll have to thank Hawk later."
She smiled. Surely if this weren't real, if this were a Dread-induced nightmare vision, she wouldn't be able to smile. Jon wouldn't be moving toward her, a sheepish look on his face overcoming the tension, a light in his eyes. Surely her heart wouldn't lurch at the sight of him.
She wet her lips and said, "What Scout said, it's probably the best thing to do. It makes sense."
"You really think that?"
"It scares the daylights out of me. I could never wake up, and I'd never know."
"Except you don't know if you're awake now, do you?"
Her tears fell. She wasn't going to cry anymore. She'd told herself she wasn't going to cry--
"I keep thinking, maybe I really did die, and this is hell. I tried to make up for what I did in the Dread Youth, but it wasn't enough, I should have done more--"
"Jennifer." He sat beside her on the bunk, but she couldn't bring herself to fall into his arms. She thought, I'll do nothing. Then I can't hurt him.
"I wish I could believe that you're real," she said.
After a moment, he said, "Can you pretend? Just for a little while."
She looked at him. Just for a little while. This was their second chance. A moment's bliss in hell, wasn't that worth some risk? He was close enough she could see every laugh line in his face, every crease of worry, every fleck of color in his eye. She'd never had a chance to study him so closely.
A moment of bliss. If that was all she could have, then so be it. She leaned against him, and he wrapped his arms around her. He smoothed the tears from her cheeks and kissed the top of her head. His breath rustled her hair. She closed her eyes and held him as tightly as she could.
"I love you, Jennifer," he whispered.
Her heart seemed to stop for a moment. Her whole body tingled. "You do?"
"Yeah, I do."
She held him close, he cradled her in his arms. They must have stayed like that for hours, though Jennifer lost track of time. They didn't even speak. She felt warmth, and simple joy. How Dread ever thought that getting rid of organic bodies was a good idea was beyond her, when two bodies holding each other like this seemed to make the world perfect. She wished the world would freeze like this.
But silence never was silent, for her. She didn't tell Jon about the voices that whispered to her.
She is resisting. Even now, she resists.
I am displeased with the progress of this experiment.
We'll try again, my lord. We have other options.
Very well. Do not fail me.