Chapter 16

Unnamed village, late evening

Edward pulled open the back door of the Sunderer, climbing up into the armored vehicle to dig around amongst the pile of goods that had been shoveled under and on top of the spare seats. Reorganizing the stacks of MRE's, canteens of water, and other technological odds-and-ends he had salvaged from the downed ship, he was finally able to retrieve the bundled-up sleeping rolls that had been stashed under the seats. He handed a few of the compressed foam bundles down to Charlotte, then gathered up as many of the remaining rolls as he could under his arms and hopped down from the vehicle, nudging the rear doors shut with his elbows…

Something was nagging him. Charlotte hadn't spoken a word since he had scolded her and Tony for their poor performance earlier that day, which, for the most part, was hardly out of the ordinary. Still, though, I can't help but feel at least a little bad, he thought as he walked into the house next to the Sunderer, heading straight through the cloth doorway to the tunnels beyond. I wonder if my dad ever felt this way when he had to punish me. He never could stick to his guns when it came to making me serve any sort of sentence. I remember when I took his satellite radio out of his car and disassembled it to make a tracking module for a model rocket… he darn near yelled my ear off and sent me to my room, but showed up at the door twenty minutes later with a green apple slushie from my favorite hotdog joint down the street…

Finally, Edward stepped off into a side-tunnel and turned to face Charlotte, clearing his throat. "Hey, Char… I'm, uhh… sorry if I was a bit harsh, earlier," he said, doing his best to keep his eyes focused on her helmet's opaque, glowing visor slits, rather than let his focus drift to the dirt below in embarrassment. "I was a bit stressed, and… I just needed to vent a bit. It probably wasn't fair of me to be so critical."

Charlotte shook her head. "It's fine," she quietly replied. "I should apologize for my mistake."

"No, don't," Edward said. He shifted his grip on the sleeping rolls under his arms. "As I said, you had the right idea. I just… I was just being overly critical, that's all. Just thought I should apologize to you and Tony when I get the chance."

Stepping back out into the hallway, the two continued up the spiral path toward the new residence they had been assigned. That couldn't have felt any less awkward, but I suppose it wasn't any worse than fessing up to the Council, Edward thought. Hiking up and around the pit village's winding tunnels, the two arrived at Juliet's new home, stepping through the curtain into the one-room house. Juliet was still sitting on the empty bed frame while Tony, now out of his MAX suit, busied himself with tidying up the odd bits of junk that had been left behind. "Hey, where's the others?" the Vanu scientist asked, looking around the room.

"Well, James and Daniel are hunting around the village for any furniture the others can spare," Tony replied, setting down a few pieces of cracked earthenware in the corner of the room along with some other junk. "Juliet sent Shanna and Comere off to go meet some of the other village kids, you know, keep them distracted and all, and Sofia was asked by the village elder to help improve the town defenses, so she's probably talking their ear off about some tactics BS or other crap," he said.

Edward nodded. "Right, sounds good. Hey, by the way, I already talked to Char about this, but I wanted to say sorry for getting angry with you earlier. I was ju-"

"Don't worry about it," Tony interrupted, dusting his hands on the thick black fabric of his MAX pilot's jumpsuit. "You get used to it after working under Sofia for so long. She'll yell at me every opportunity it gets, so what's one more voice to the choir?"

"Right, thanks for understanding," Edward said. "Anyway, we'll drop these off and then go grab some MRE's and water and bring them up for dinner. Be back in a bit."

Tony watched as the two Vanu Sovereignty soldiers dropped off their load of sleeping rolls before disappearing behind the curtained doorway once more. Might as well get those unpacked, he thought. He walked over and picked up the first roll, undoing the clips on the cords that held the foam rolls packed tight. Unrolling the bundle, he walked over to the bed where Juliet sat. "Hey, mind if I…?" he asked, nodding toward the bed.

"Oh, no, please," Juliet replied, hopping up from her seat. Tony flipped the roll over and laid it out on the metal bed frame, briefly smoothing out the foam rectangle as it tried to curl in upon itself. "There we go," he said, gesturing for her to take a seat. As she sat down, he walked over to the pile of remaining bedrolls and started tossing them over toward the bed. Carrying the last roll over to the bed, he took a seat and began undoing the straps.

"Tony?" Juliet said.

"What's up?"

"Why are you and the others so nice?"

Tony laughed. "That's all just perspective. You've been surrounded by a bunch of murderous, crazy people for years and now… well, actually, you're still surrounded by a bunch of murderous, crazy people, now that I think about it," he added, grinning at the thought.

"You don't look like it… I mean, yes, you killed those raiders and saved me and Shanna and Comere, but… you didn't seem like them. You, and mister Daniel, and mister Edward, and…"

Tony's smile began to fade. "Yeah, well, that's just because you don't know where we're coming from." He tossed the first bedroll down on the floor in the middle of the room and reached for the next roll.

"Where do you come from, then?" Juliet asked as she picked up a bed roll, undoing the clasps. Glancing at her, he could see that she wasn't smiling — her eyes, though, still slightly red from her earlier crying, were full of curiosity.

"Well, I'm not entirely sure, relative to here. You would have to get Ed to help you make any sense of that, I think," Tony replied, "but it was a world where we always fought. The Terran Republic, the Vanu Sovereignty, and the New Conglomerate. No one really ever died for good, so no one ever truly 'won'. If you got shot, well, you'd just be reborn in the Respawn Tubes a few days later, and, well, back to the front lines you'd go. An endless loop of violence. I probably killed at least a hundred men over my first few lives alone, so I can't even imagine Edward's kill count. Must be in the tens of thousands by now, maybe even a hundred thousand. I know a few veterans in the TR who are up there."

Juliet's eyes were wide with surprise by now. "How could you… how-"

"Because we're told to. At the end of the day, you get a paycheck that puts food on the table for you and your family, and you don't lose a wink of sleep at night, because you know that whoever you shot will be alive and kicking in just a few days."

At this, Juliet looked down at the bedroll in her lap, slowly unrolling the foam rectangle. "What was your family like?" she asked, her voice almost at a whisper.

Tony tossed another bedroll into the center of the room and reached for another. "Well… I'd rather not say, to be honest. I'll tell you some other time… actually, you know what?" He turned to the brown-haired girl, locking eyes with a slight grin as he raised two fingers in a V-shape. "I'll tell you, but on two conditions. One, you won't tell anyone else, ever. Two, you'll promise me you'll stop being so depressed and give me a smile, alright?"

After a moment's thought, Juliet nodded. "Good deal, now swear on it," Tony said, raising his right hand toward her with a pinky extended. The girl couldn't help but look at his hand with curiosity. "It's an old custom for making promises. Raise your hand like mine," he said. After a moment, she complied, allowing him to wrap his pinky around hers. "Alright, you uphold your end of the bargain and I'll do mine," he said, sliding back until he could rest his back against the wall on the other side of the bed.

"Right!" Juliet replied, joining him against the back wall. She took a moment to straighten out her dress and double-check the bow-knot in the drawstring above her chest that held her dress up before looking up at him.

"Well, first thing's first," Tony began, "I need to apologize for lying. My name's not actually Tony Smalls — at least, that's not my full first name, and that last name is a load of bull. My birth certificate would say my name is Antonio Niccolo Lombardi. Not even Sofia, my commanding officer, knows that."

"Why?" Juliet asked, astonished.

"Heh, making a beeline for the million dollar question, huh?" Tony chuckled. "Well, long story short, my family wasn't ever all that rich. Mom and dad had a hard time keeping me and my little siblings from going hungry and keeping us out of trouble. But, to make things worse, we had an uncle and an aunt living with us… well, step-aunt, if that's even a thing, really. First one had enough sense to see when the old man was becoming nothing but trouble and skipped town. Anyway, he'd badger my mom for money, sometimes even steal it, to go drinking whenever he liked. I used to work odd jobs around town to help my parents, but when that old bastard saw I was making money, he'd start coming after me, too. Beat my ass several times to steal a paycheck."

"That's terrible…" Juliet said, looking down at her hands in her lap as she idly played with the hem of her tattered sackcloth dress. "I'm sorry for asking."

"Nah, don't be," Tony said. "It's not all doom and gloom. Anyway, I got into the military because it was one of the best paying jobs at the time, since we're paid cash on top of provided food and lodging. Problem is, when they make a bank account for soldiers to store their pay, they tie our bank accounts to all of our living relatives in case, you know, some freak accident corrupts our genome data while we're being rebuilt in a Respawn Tube and kills us for good. That wouldn't work, because then my uncle could make a claim on the account, and we're back to square one. So, I used a fake name and just privately wire my money to my dad in small amounts, so they don't starve, but never have enough for my uncle to waste on booze. It's not the lavish lifestyle they deserve, but as long as they're too nice for their own good and refuse to kick my uncle out, then it's really all I can do."

"Wow," Juliet sighed, straightening out the skirt of her dress. "I never would have guessed… but why not tell miss Sofia?"

Tony shrugged. "Not her business. Even if it's not for any serious reason, fake identities can get you into deep trouble, and if anyone were to report me for that kind of shit, it would be her."

"Oh," Juliet said, tossing aside another unfurled bedroll. "How many siblings did you have?"

"Five. A brother just below me, then three sisters, and then finally a baby brother hardly a year or so old when I joined the TR Infantry Corps. Apparently my dad's not exactly a believer in birth control," Tony sighed, tossing another bedroll on the growing pile before leaning back against the wall. "I don't get much vacation time, so sometimes I wonder if they'd even recognize me nowadays… anyway, that's enough about me. Time for you to uphold your end of the bargain."

For a moment, Juliet looked confused, as if she had forgotten the agreement. Then, as she remembered, she smiled, then leaned forward and gave Tony a hug. "Thank you, Tony…" she said as he returned the embrace for a moment.

"No problem. Just remember that as dysfunctional and crazy as our little group is, we'll be glad to help," he said, letting the girl go and sliding to the front edge of the bed. He bent down and scooped up the last bedroll, undoing the clasps and tossing it on the stack without bothering to unroll it. "Hey, I'm gonna suit up and go see if captain Sofia needs a hand with the village defenses. Just chill out here for a while until one of the others gets back, I guess."

Carefully stepping backward into the chassis of his MAX suit, he deftly attached his torso armor and helmet before giving Juliet a quick wave. "Be back in a bit," he said, his voice slightly distorted by the buzz of his helmet's speakers. Double-checking the HUD projected on the inside of his helmet that everything was working, he headed for the cloth curtain door, pushing his way through. To his surprise, the young man who had been serving as the village elder's translator was standing outside, leaning up against the tunnel wall hardly a few feet away from the curtain. "Hey, what the hell? Were you eavesdropping?" Tony asked, an edge of anger in his voice.

The young man was quick to bow down in apology. "N-no, no, I was not! I was sent t-to retrieve you by the elder, and I heard you t-talking with the girl, and thought it would be rude to interrupt, yes?"

I'm not buying it, Tony thought, staring the young man down for any sign of weakness that might indicate a lie. "How much did you hear?"

"Y-you were asking her to make a p-promise, and I closed my ears! Like this!" The young man replied hastily, covering his ears with his hands in demonstration.

With one final glare, the Terran soldier finally relented. "Alright, I'm trusting you on that one. Anyway, where's your elder and captain Sofia?" he asked.

"This way!" The young man said, pointing up the sloped hallway toward what Tony assumed was the surface, far above the bottom of the deep pit. Nodding, he followed the young man out into the hallway.

A few minutes of silence passed. Tony could see something was bothering the young man, as he repeatedly balled and unballed his fists. "Excuse me, but… are you… close, with the girl?" He asked.

"Uhm… She's been through a lot, man, so I was just trying to help," Tony said. "Is there a problem?"

"I… I do not know… I was told to find one of your kind that was closest to her. There is something you must know, about her," the young man said, coming to a stop in the hallway. "She was not kidnapped. She was sold."

Tony's stomach dropped. "You're fucking kidding me, right? Tell me who."

The young man shook his head. "I was taught to be a translator by my father at a young age, who has since gone deaf and cannot work. I was there, at the dealing between the raiders and the old elder, and her father. She was sold in secret. It was arranged to look like a kidnapping, so that the other families would not kill the old elder in anger. It was no secret that the girl's father wanted a boy, to work in the mines, but the mother loved her. She found out and told the village."

"And her family?"

The translator shook his head. "The father killed the mother out of anger for… 'blowing the plan', I believe is the phrase you use. The old elder and the girl's father were exiled. The new elder, the old elder's son, sees the girl's return as… repentance? Yes, this is the word. Repentance for his father's wrongdoing. He wishes to find his father again, bring him back to the village. Please, meet with the elder."

The translator came to a stop in front of another curtained-off hallway, this time leading away from the center of the pit, deeper into what Tony guessed was a mineshaft. He reached for one of the curtains, holding it open as Tony stepped through. Inside, he found himself standing in a large stone room, dimly illuminated by orange-glowing glass bulbs on either side of the room and a pair of lanterns that hung from the ceiling. In the center of the room, the "elder" sat upon a simple iron chair, the armrests and seat lined with ancient wood and a worn sack-cloth cushion. As soon as the translator stepped into the room, the man upon the throne began to speak, making noises Tony didn't even think possible for the human mouth to create.

"He wishes to know your name, and what you and your… comrades? Yes, what they intend to do after leaving this village. I think he is wary of your ties with the Terrans."

I don't know what Sofia's told him already, but I don't think they'd take it nicely if I told them we're planning to go shake hands and get cozy with this rogue TR group like Sofia keeps thinking, Tony thought. After a moment's thought, he decided on his response: "My name's Tony. We plan to move on to other settlements. We're not from here, and we're looking to find a way home, I guess. Do you know if the TR here might have anything like, I dunno, a spaceship, or a teleporter?"

Although the translator gave him a perplexed look, the young man did his best to relay the message he had been given. "The elder does not know of what you are looking for," the translator said, speaking over the elder as the seated man grumbled. "He wishes that you might aid him in his search for his father as you travel. He has strong beliefs that, after his exile, he might have used his connections to ensure his safety among the Terrans, at an outpost in the Iron City."

"The Iron City?" Tony asked.

"It is a large settlement several day's walk from here. Only those with vehicles can reliably make the journey, due to the deserts and raider gangs who patrol the area. We deliver valuable ores in exchange for additional food and supplies. They, in turn, refine the ores and deliver them to the Terrans. They keep a large group of men inside the Iron City to keep the forges active in times of unrest."

"Right…" Tony sighed. "So you need us to drive over to this Iron City and see if your dad's still hanging around with the TR outpost, and then what?"

Another bout of conversation between the translator and the elder. "…And send him back here, if you are able," the translator said.

"And if he doesn't want to come back? I mean, you guys have it pretty hard here," Tony replied, looking around the room. "What if giving up whatever high-paying, cushy desk job the TR gave him is too much for him to give up, or if he's trapped in the job?"

"Then tell him that his son Rapheed misses him, and is doing the best he can to lead in his stead."

Tony nodded. "And what's the name of the guy we're looking for?"

"The old elder's name is Komali, although he may have changed his name. He looks just like his son," the translator said, nodding toward his leader. "That is all our elder has to say. The sun will fall within the hour. He recommends you get as much sleep as possible for the trip."

"Right," Tony said, nodding. To his right, he noticed that the frosted glass bulbs that had been glowing orange had started to fade. "I'll let my friends know about this and see what they have to say, so… I guess you'll hear from them in the morning."

The translator nodded. "Sleep well"