2. Campfire

The flames danced and twisted, casting off tiny embers that sparkled like microscopic fireflies before burning out. A haphazard ring of bricks and stones circled the campfire of sticks and old boards which cast a soft, liquid glow that bounced off the parked Jeep, the kneeling Armored Shrike, and the three travelers gathered around. That small circle of light sat isolated and alone in a sea of black.

Dice tossed back a tin cup and savored the last mouthful of coffee knowing that it was, literally, the last mouthful until they could replenish their provisions. The same could be said of the food they had consumed (smoked meats and dried vegetables). As for water—the most important provision of all—they each held a canteen or less and that would need to do until they reached the rendezvous, probably a good twelve hours from now.

Dice squinted his eyes and looked to the north, but he could see nothing beyond the glow of the fire. When they had arrived just after sunset he thought he glimpsed a distant river in that direction, just beyond a group of half-destroyed buildings that might have belonged to a factory of some kind. Perhaps they could replenish from there, depending on what had come from that factory in the old days.

As devastating as the Blue's arrival had been to human civilization, the creatures had been kind to nature: the years between the departure of modern man into orbit and his return after the Blue's withdrawal had a cleansing effect on the Earth. Considering that those who remained behind were reduced to a primitive state of society (if the term 'society' could even apply), pollution dropped to pre-industrial age levels. Rivers, streams, the ocean, the air…all slowly cleared of man's mark.

Therefore, drawing water from a running river did not hold the risk it did when Dice had been a kid. That is, as long as that factory had not produced particularly nasty byproducts and as long as this area had not been subjected to "Project Clean Sweep" during the closing days of the evacuation. Nothing like a dozen nukes hitting the same bull's eye over and over again to really foul up an ecosystem.

A loud yawn interrupted Dice's thoughts. It came from the eleven year old boy who now wore a red windbreaker over his green t-shirt and sat in front of the fire rocking with a pillow wedged between his knees and his chest. Eastern Russia was a lot like the moon: very hot days were often followed by very cold nights.

"You should get some shut-eye," Dice told the kid.

"Yeah, I—" another wide yawn. "I…suppose so."

Dice turned to the sixteen year old blond girl who sat atop her sleeping bag in her battle suit breaking down a heat-sensing-scope-equipped sniper rifle. Her green eyes fixated on the weapon with intense concentration while her hands worked in a process so routine to her that she could probably have done it with those concentrating eyes shut.

Dice asked, "Ishiko, what are you doing?"

"I am cleaning my weapon."

The boy quipped, "She has to get it ready for bed to tuck it in. That's what mommy's do for their babies, didn't you know, Dice?"

"Shut up, Major," she called him by what was his nickname, not a rank. Nonetheless Dice saw her otherwise stoic face cringe in contempt as she said the word.

He knew why, too. Ishiko had been born on Second Earth and grown up in a strict military environment where words like 'Major' held tremendous importance. The idea of a groundling kid taking it as a nickname just because his dad had been a Second Earth officer on a drop mission did not sit well with her. This came to the surface most often when she was aggravated. During those times she would call the boy by his real name--'Benny'--and that annoyed him to no end.

Dice took the opening to say, "Yeah, well, I gotta admit that if it wasn't for that rifle of yours and your dead-aim I'd probably be a trophy on Mann's wall right now."

She stopped disassembling the rifle and looked at Dice offering no expression, no emotion, just her attention.

"Um, yeah, what I'm trying to say," he ran a hand over the back of his neck and looked anywhere but at her, "is that, um, you did a good job."

Her response: "You lost your hat."

"Huh? Oh yeah, it got knocked off my head. Look, I'll take first watch. You two get some rest."

"I don't think we should stop moving," Ishiko said as her hands returned to cleaning the sniper weapon. "We put both of their Shrikes out of commission but they probably have scouts out trying to track us down. That's what I would do."
Major protested with a whine, "No way! I need to rest. We were going all day."

"That's not a militarily sound idea," Ishiko replied with her eyes still on her work.

"This isn't Second Earth! You're not in charge. Dice is."

"He knows I'm right."

"No," Major protested to Quaid. "I got to get to sleep. I'm going to keel over if I don't."

"Whoa, hold on, relax there, kiddies."

The boy and the girl rarely agreed on anything yet in one voice they both insisted, "Don't call us 'kiddies'!"

Dice slapped a hand over his eyes in anticipation of a coming head ache.

"Look," he said, "We're all exhausted—"

"I'm not exhausted," Ishiko corrected matter-of-factly.

Major snipped, "Yeah, well you're a robot."

"Whatever you say, Benjamin."

Before Major could reply Dice went on, "We're all exhausted so we need to take a break but she's right, Mann ain't the type of guy to give up easy. The more distance we put between him and us the better."

"Aw, geez…"

"Listen, Major," Dice consoled, "We have a meeting to get to tomorrow. And if we don't get there with this piece of property," Dice pointed to the silent Shrike, "then we won't get our pay off. And you know what that means."

Major did know. He remembered that their payoff would not only include supplies like food and water but something special for him that had been negotiated as part of payment. A smile tugged at the boy's face.

"Okay…but can I sleep for a little while?"

"Yes. You both can. I'll take first watch."

"Not a good idea," Ishiko countered as she started the process of re-assembling the weapon now that its working parts were free of dust and grit.

"Didn't they teach you in all that fancy Second Earth training about pacing yourself?"

"They taught us," she said as she snapped the barrel into place, "that if you are slow you get left behind."

Dice stared at her and she stared back with the type of blank expression he hadn't seen since ferrying Marlene Angel with Yugi to Baikonur. Dice felt certain that, someday if not already, Yuji would find the right key to break through the stoicism drilled into Marlene. But as tough a case as Angel was, she had at least been born on Earth. No matter how much humanity the counsel and people like Amick Hendar had drilled out of Marlene, she had a point of reference from her childhood, even if buried deep inside.

Ishiko? She had been born in zero gravity. Not a recruit but a product of Second Earth. Literally born a soldier. To her, the Earth was a strange land and Second Earth her destroyed home. Despite being six months shy of only her sixteenth birthday, Dice trusted her soldiering abilities as much as his own. Indeed, she was a better shot and a better Shrike pilot by far. Yet he worried that her mask of stoicism was not a mask at all. Was it too late? Major had called her a robot; Dice worried he might be right.

He laid down the law, which was usually the best tact with her. She was born, after all, to follow orders.

"Four hours. We rest her for four hours, see? Then we haul ass."

Major muttered a quick victory hoot. Ishiko held the sniper rifle in both hands and tossed it to Dice who made the catch.

"Yes, Sir," she said and it had the intended effect; sort of like fingernails on a chalkboard to him. She knew his history and every time she said 'Yes, Sir' he heard something more like, "whatever you say, deserter."

Ishiko rolled over and shut her eyes, nearly falling asleep on command.

Sometimes Dice wondered if any of it was worth the trouble.

Major also rolled over and covered himself with an old wool blanket. He remained awake, however, his eyes fixed on the stars shining in the Heavens. Dice figured that in years past the kid must've stared at those stars and wondered if his father looked down.

Nowadays the Second Earth stations were either destroyed or abandoned. What started in 2017 ended more than a year ago in early 2032. If Major asked, Ishiko could tell the stories again: fights leading to riots leading to what amounted to civil war leading to assassinations, explosions, and chaos. From what she told, Dice knew her lucky to have found room on a shuttle even if that shuttle suffered an unfortunate end.

As for the boy, his nickname came from the one piece of information he knew about his father: he had been a Major in the Second Earth military. Dice never met Benny's mom; he had found the boy living on his own in the ruins of what had been known as Almaty, Kazakhstan. The kid—and before him his mother and a few siblings--managed to eek out an existence alternating between hiding in the nearby, snow-capped mountains and raiding the Blue-infested city for supplies.

At some point eleven years ago a Second Earth drop operation had visited the area and like most drop operations—especially the early ones—it ended in disaster. Dice guessed a certain Major found himself separated from his unit and in the company of groundlings. And while Benny believed the two fell in love at first sight like normal moms and dads do, Dice figured it just as likely the guy raped the poor woman while awaiting a rescue team (they might just send a rescue for a 'Major'). Of course he would never know for sure, and neither would Benny. No point in even floating that thought.

Yet the kid clung to the dream; this romantic notion that a well-groomed officer would some day swoop down in an air ship or come over the hill in an Armored Shrike searching to reclaim his long lost son.

Dice had spent enough time on Blue-ravaged Earth to know happy endings were a rare occurrence on a planet where surviving another day was a tall order. Pure luck had put Dice in the right place to find Benny—'Major'—on one day only a few weeks after a similar helping of good fortune had happened him upon Ishiko's crashed shuttle.

She was the only survivor by the time Dice arrived at the plume of smoke. The others had died either during the uncontrolled landing or in the jaws of attacking Blue (all of whom Ishiko had eventually slaughtered with nothing more than a carbine). True, most of the planet's Blue had disappeared; retreated as if summoned by an order to withdraw. Perhaps those particular Blue didn't get the message.

Dice did get the message, however. He had received it piece by piece.

The first piece came when Yuji and Marlene had come to his neck of the wastelands on that fateful day the summer of 2031. More pieces came when he had found himself stuck between drug runners, goat herders, and Amick Hendar of Second Earth not long after Yuji and Marlene's departure. He had faced himself on those adventures and come to realize that he had to do more than sit in a corner somewhere and watch humanity hover on the brink of extinction. He felt compelled because for every Amick Hendar or crazed Second Earth Nazi there was a Yuji or a Marlene. For every petty warlord like Mr. Mann there was an innocent like Elena trying to carve out a life.

So what could Dice Quaid do to save the human race?

Dice gnawed on that thought while using the heat scope to scan his surroundings. In the distance he saw an animal—maybe a prairie dog or something like that—scurrying between clumps of weeds growing in the cracked pavement of a collapsed highway bridge.

He had once been a soldier and retained those skills. Nina—the only woman he had ever loved and the one who had convinced him to desert—had shared her knowledge of mechanical engineering meaning he could fix his share of machines. He could fight, too, even though he did not really like to. And, as far as Dice felt, he exuded a friendly disposition that made him easy to associate with.

Again the question, what could Dice Quaid do to save the human race?

The answer? Exactly what he did nowadays: odd jobs, courier runs, setting up trade deals (as had been the aim on that day), and helping to eradicate Blue (and other nasties) where they might exist (isolated nests and solitary predators remained a threat).

Along the way he made a few enemies but even more friends, both from the ranks of groundlings and from those who had escaped Second Earth (although he always felt nervous around those types).

So why bother? What was the pay out?

Dice rubbed his chin, trying to find that answer. As he did, he looked at Ishiko, who had slipped into sleep, and then at Major who struggled—unsuccessfully—to keep his eyes open.

Dice Quaid closed his own eyes and there he saw the memory of a familiar face gazing at him through beautiful brown eyes while her auburn hair lay softly on her shoulders.

I do it for you, baby; to make it all mean something.