January 28, 2138 (Afternoon)
I woke up this morning and thought that I should try to meet Tommy earlier in the day and compare notes. I didn't feel right about what I was doing last night and didn't know whether I had even accomplished anything after I talked to Kim except for maybe hurting her more than she already was. And I was curious if he had managed to do anything positive with Dad last night.
We met in the lounge, but his news wasn't that great either. Neither of us were in a hurry to share what we had to say with each other, but I went first as Tommy asked me how it went last night.
"I think that all that I did was tore open this wound for her that she's been trying to heal for years, and I don't know if I accomplished anything that we set out to do. I might have a little, but it depends on if she feels any closer to me than before. But in the end all that I felt like I was doing was hurting her and she doesn't deserve it," I said to Tommy.
Tommy replied, "What happened?"
"Let's just say that she's had a really hard life even before the war. Harder than you might think and it's following her everywhere that she goes. All of the while that she sat there opening up to me I felt wrong in asking her to. You should have seen her. It's like life has no meaning for her anymore. When she was through talking to me all I wanted to do was take it all away for her. I can understand why she wants to be the one that uses the virus on the dreads," I said back to him.
Tommy looked at me and said, "It's really that bad?"
"Yes. And I don't know if she can find a way past it all," I said.
"At least she wants to. That's something. We can just try to be her friends and maybe she'll let us help her through whatever it is," Tommy replied.
"It's everything, Tommy. I don't know if anyone can help her," I said. Trying to change the subject and feed my curiosity at the same time, I asked him, "What about you? How did it go with your father and mine?"
"Not very well I'm afraid. My dad made Dave aware of something that I hadn't thought of before. The college might have a lot of computer equipment just waiting to be had. If it hasn't been destroyed, that is. According to Dad there's the college itself and all of the buildings for that. Then there are dorms located about a half-mile to the North of the campus, and right past them is another large school of medicine. The only thing that might favor us is that your dad thinks that the college would have been too large of a target for the biodreads to pass up. Especially with the dorms located between the two schools. Unless the resistance might have stopped them from getting that far he thinks that the school has probably already been destroyed. If not, we're not going to convince them to go into the city before going to the school. There's no way to pitch it to them in such a way to make it make more sense to do as opposed to going to the school," he replied.
"What are we going to do? If they choose the school and end up finding what Dad needs there, we'll never get to even try your plan. But we can't sabotage what he's trying to do either," I told Tommy.
"We have to hope that the school doesn't have what he's looking for. If it does, we're stuck. There won't be anything more that we can do," Tommy replied.
Just then Kim came walking into the lounge. She said, "Hi guys. Are you doing all right?" Her back was turned to us as she was getting something to drink before going back out in the cold, and Tommy gave me his cut throat symbol to keep me quiet as he started to speak to her. He said, "Yeah, we're good. And you?"
"I just need something to wake me up. I didn't really sleep that well. You know how it is," she said.
Feeling this need to help her after last night and knowing that her loss of sleep might be due to me, I spoke up without thinking and said, "Kim? Maybe if you go see Karl he might have something…"
"No," she replied as she turned to look at me directly. "It's all right. Another twenty minutes and I'll be fine," she went on. I could see Tommy looking at me in my peripheral vision as I wanted to tell her I was sorry, but I told her that I wouldn't let anyone else in on what we talked about and couldn't say it now, in front of him. God I can be so stupid sometimes.
Kim turned back to getting her drink and Tommy spoke up again saying, "Kim, can I ask you something?"
"Sure. What's up," she asked.
"Dad and Dave were talking with me last night and they came up with an idea. Do you remember the college out here? They think that there might be some computer equipment out there that we could get if we go there," he replied.
"They're a little late for that," she replied.
"What do you mean," Tommy asked.
Kim said, "The college is gone, Tommy. That whole area was attacked from the beginning and leveled by air strikes from Phantom Strikers. There's not a building out there still standing. It's all gone. If they think we can get anything from there, they both need to think it over again."
Trying to hide a slight grin, Tommy went on saying, "They're not going to want to hear that news. Dave apparently needs something for his device and he thought he might get it there."
Kim said, "Well, I might as well go sink their ship now. There's nothing there to get. He'll have to think of something else."
"I guess so," Tommy went on as she left the room.
We looked at each other and Tommy seemed happier about this information than I did. He must have seen the look in my face and he said, "What? Isn't this what we wanted?"
"I feel like I'm betraying Dad and everyone else here by being happy that the easier solution is gone," I said back to Tommy.
"Funny, I feel like we're saving one of them from dying for us," he replied. I couldn't say anything else to win this one. He was right, but it didn't make me feel any better about it anyway. Then he went on saying, "I'll give her an hour or so. Then I'll drop my revelation on them and try to get them to go for it. Maybe if you meet up with me at three o'clock by the tree stand we can approach Dave and Dad together with it."
"All right," I said back to him as he got up from the table. He kissed my forehead and said, "I love you." Then he picked up his laser and started for the door and I said, "Love you too."
January 28, 2138 (Evening)
Kim had gotten to Dad earlier with the bad news. He wasn't very amused but at least we hadn't made a trip there and risked ourselves just to find rubble everywhere and nothing worth going for. Once I met Tommy and we approached them we wasted little time getting to the point. Tommy dished it out there so thick that it was hard to keep myself from laughing at him. Thinking of the alternative straightened my smile. I don't know that Dad's going for it though. He admits that what he's looking for is likely to be there, but he thinks it's more dangerous for us than the hospital was. And look where that got us.
The problem is how to get there and get back. One bridge is out of the question. The power plant we attacked is practically right across from it. The other one is far enough away from the hospital to cross again, but then we have to bypass the hospital and stay far enough away from it to not get spotted. Yet we can't get to close to the area of the power plant either if we take a path between the two. The other option of taking a path around the hospital is not going to work well enough. It's too open and there's nothing to hide us except for fields of weeds and such. If we got caught out there in the open we'd be done for. There's nothing that anyone could even call cover out there from what I'm told.
Waiting to see if Dad would accept our idea was going to take a while, so I looked in on Tad. Sarah was there with him and looked like she was about to leave when I walked in. She was hugging him as I walked in and told him that she would be back in a few hours after she scouted the trail with Dad. As she was hugging him he turned his head and gave her a peck on the cheek. Like I couldn't see that one coming someday. Still, I was a little surprised at actually seeing it for myself. I shouldn't have been. What was more surprising was when Sarah turned to me and said, "Hey. Look after him for a while for me, will you? He tends to get himself into trouble," like nothing had happened between the two of them that she should be embarrassed about at all. It was like she didn't care if the world knew that they were taking their friendship farther. As she approached me I gave her a short hug and she went out the door. It threw me off a little thinking about how she was growing up so fast. I hadn't thought much about the changes we've gone through over the last few months until this. Seeing her growing taller and her long, auburn hair hanging across the armor that Tommy made for her really painted a new picture for me. She was more than some little girl anymore. He wasn't some little boy any longer either.
I approached Tad after she left and I could see him squinting to see me a little. It reminded me of just how hurt he was when it was easy to forget with the way he was acting with Sarah there. Before he could speak I said, "It's me, Tad. Amber."
He said, "I know," as though he was trying to hide his vision problem from me.
Rather than carry on with the pointlessness of him thinking that I didn't know, I spoke up and said, "You couldn't really see me when I came in, could you?" He kept looking at me and didn't say anything and I went on saying, "It's all right, I know. You don't have to hide it from me. I want to know how you feel. Does it hurt?"
"I have headaches. They don't really go away and they make me feel a little sick once in a while," he replied.
"I asked, "And your vision?"
"It just gets blurry sometimes. It comes and goes," he said as he looked to the side for a moment.
"Is that all there is to it," I asked him.
"Yeah. Dad thinks I have a concussion and he thinks all of this will be temporary if I do what he says. Which basically means that I have to stay here like some useless sack of garbage while everyone else is doing all of the work. What a bunch of crap that is, huh? Whatever," he went on.
"Just give it a little time and you'll be back out there too," I told him.
"Amber? What if we don't have that much time? Do you remember the hovercraft that was looking for us? If we get found here and I can't leave…," Tad continued.
"It's not going to happen. They haven't found us and they're not going to," I reassured him.
"I want you to leave me here if they do. You have to get away and forget about me. Take Sarah and run from here," he went on.
The flashback I was having at this comment was too real and I said, "No, Tad. I won't leave you behind no matter what you say to me and neither will any of the rest of us."
"Don't let Sarah die here with me," he said back to me as a chill ran down my spine.
"Damn you, Tad. You're not playing this game with me. Don't think because you use what I say against me that I'll run off and leave you helpless here. I won't," I said back, angry that he'd been smart enough to come back at me with my own words.
"I'm not playing a game with you, Amber. Please, leave me. Please don't let what we did for Sarah be in vain," he pleaded with me. I had to turn this around somehow because he was beating my arguments at every turn.
I said, "Tad. I thought the same things that you are when we were hiding in the church. That the machines would find us any minute now and I knew I couldn't move. I also knew that Tommy and Sarah wouldn't leave me no matter what I told them. And I tried to get them to leave, believe me. I thank God that it was Dad and not them that found us. But I know that they stayed because they love me. It's no different now. Even if I wanted to, there's nothing on Earth that I could say that would get Sarah to leave you here. God, Tad. Do I have to spell it out for you? She loves you."
He stared at me without any words to say for a second, and finally said, "I love her too. That's why I'm asking you to do this. If I slow you down or can't keep up, you have to go on and get her out of here."
"I said no. That's the end of it. I'm not letting you talk me into something that would cause my sister to disown me over. And Tommy too, for that matter. We all love you and none of us are leaving here without you," I said back as harshly as I could as I was trying to hide how much I understood what he was saying to me.
Tad looked off to the side again, and then down as he went on saying, "Hey? Will you not make a big deal out of me and Sarah to anybody else? I don't want to weird out our parents or anything. You know?"
"Yeah, I know. Believe me. Which brings me to something I should have said to you a long time ago. I know things were messed up for you before. And I'm sorry. But after a while I started to doubt in you. I didn't know if you were going to really come back to us. And you scared me sometimes. But I was wrong. You really are good for her, Tad. I'm sorry for ever thinking otherwise," I said back to him.
He kept staring at me as he said, "I'd be crying right now but I'm kind of cried out. Besides, it makes my vision blurry."
Both of us started laughing at his ironic comment for a minute. Then I gave him a hug and put my hand on his shoulder as I said, "You really wouldn't expect your sister to leave you here in some zoo, would you? Just because you act like some kind of trained monkey…"
On that note he threw his pillow at me. I tossed it back to him as I went out the door.