Chapter 6: The Horizon

Time began to move rather quickly for once. All the paperwork every night and often skipping class the morning after really did speed things up for me and not to mention made sure I got my proper sleep. Delilah's been on to me about that. I can never understand her, she's constantly working and moving. It's as if she can't sleep nor does she want to. I will never comprehend the Protestant work ethic these girls have here. It is rather interesting to see her loosen up on me since we've been working together for at least a month now. She's no longer trying to convince me to stay in the club nor is she ever pleasant the morning after anymore.

"Get up!" She would call out to me some days we end up sleeping in my office.

"What time is it?"

She shook me to get my eyes to open. "It's time to get up!"

I lazily gave her a classic salute with my left hand. "Aye aye, cap'in!"

As expected, this only pissed her off even more. She pulled me up by my left shoulder, forcing me to stand up from my chair and facing the door. "Now march!"

"Has class started yet?" I asked as I took my first step.

"No." She answered.

I made an about face and sat back on my chair. I was able to do all this without putting my spectacles back on. I reached for my collar and felt them still there. Good. "Then there's no rush."

"Johnny, can you ever do something besides sleep?"

"I can listen to music."

"What about something productive? We're not going to be in high school forever. Do you have any idea where you'll be heading after this."

"Nah, I'm not sure where my future will be," I paused as I tilted my hardee hat to block the lights that Delilah just turned on from forcing my eyes to open. "I don't think I have much of a future, honestly."

"Is that what your father told you?"

That question hit a little too close to home. "Class is starting soon, I suggest you get going."

"Johnny, you've been missing too many practices."

"Well, 'officially,' yes."

Delilah sighed. "Just get up."

I was once again pulled from my chair and this time, Delilah kept a vise grip on my arm as she dragged me to the history classroom.

Just have to suffer through homeroom and classes for today I guess. The weekend starts once the last bell rings and I for one can't wait to go back to my dorm and sleep to my heart's content! Sadly, only the bell for first period rang and I could feel Delilah stare at me as if she were a farmer and I was a turkey the day before Christmas. I had two options run through my head: either I go to my next class and just tough out the day... Or, I could do the more fun option of running as fast as I can to get out of the school. I didn't have much of a better judgement back then and because of that, I had a lot of fun back when I was in highschool. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me and everyone stared at the two formally dressed students dash out of the classroom.

"GET BACK HERE!"

"Catch me if you can, cap'in!"

I heard her sword get unsheathed. "You can't run forever!"

The chase kept going for a good, at most, fifteen seconds before I heard a metal clanking on the floor. I turned to the sound and slowed down a little due to rubber necking which gave the tankery commander the perfect oppurtunity to tackle me. We were both falling to the ground and I made the mistake of not letting my breath out before my back made an impact on the polished wooden floor. I had the wind knocked out of me. It was not pleasant, let me tell you. I couldn't get a single breath in for a few seconds and my head was ringing and beating until I finally made a gasp for air. It really is a scary sensation, to be drowning without any contact with water.

"You alright?" Delilah asked as she offered me a hand.

I swatted it away before letting out a few coughs. "I'll be fine."

"Come on," Delilah said as she watched me slowly get back to my feet. "Where's your first class?"

I swatted dust off my shoulders. "Agriculture."

"Very well, let's go there."

"Shouldn't you go to your class?" I asked as we both walked southward down the hallway to one of the rear exits of the building.

"I want to at least make sure you're going where you're supposed to."

"Look, at this point," I started as held my head back. "I'm going to class, you don't need to worry about me."

"You better, I won't always be too careful. You just might break your glasses the next time you pull that off."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Then, we went to our classes. Agriculture was mainly just the professor lecturing about how each crop has their own amount of water they take. For example, cotton, the cash crop of the south 150 years ago, consumes much more water than grain. It is something to keep in mind when you have farmers very far south like in Texas where there is a desert very close by. Other than that, I really didn't bother paying attention. The rest of classes were a blur until it was final period, geometry. I had to be in the same classroom as Delilah and she certainly looked relieved seeing me enter the classroom. A whole hour was spent learning about the golden ratio, something I don't exactly remember what that is, but it has something to do with art and architecture. Anyway, that class droned on until the final bell rang and I was immediately grabbed by my right arm and dragged out of the classroom by the tankery team captain.

"Can't wait to see you out in the field!" She yelled as other students filing out of their classrooms proceeded to stare at us. It truly is a strange twist of fate for me since I used to be hiding in the background and now, I'm in center stage. I'm sure little Clara would be elated to see me in the jeep calling shots.

Fifteen minutes of dragging later, both Delilah and I were back in the tank garage waiting for the rest of the team to assemble. Same thing as usual goes on, the team gets in their respective tanks, do practice for experimenting tactics and I just watch from the distance through my binoculars. This time around, they were testing to see just how quickly each tank can pivot and reload in the event of surprise flanking from the enemy. The end of practice came rather quickly, time certainly flew past me as I was letting the music from the radio pass the time by.

The end of practice seemed a little different this time around, Delilah held up a sheet of paper once every tank was parked and every student was out of their tank.

"We now have the list of schools we will be facing off."

"Who's our first target?" Ruby asked while trying to jump over the other girls to see the team commander.

"The first school we'll face will be Nedić University High School Branch."

We're facing off against a Serbian school?

"Unfortunately, we weren't able to enter the tournament Saunders will be in this year. We'll instead be stationed in the minor league competition. We have four other teams we will be facing."

"Who else are we facing?" Henrietta asked as she let Ruby get in front of her.

Delilah raised the sheet of paper once again. "After Nedić, we will be facing Cobras Fumantes High School of Brazil, then Kunaev Academy of Kazakhstan, after them, we'll be against Tolui Girls High School of Mongolia, and our final opponent will be Ryneveld University of South Africa."

"Ooh! I can't wait to see the Confederados!" the Forrest tank commander, Daphne chirps as her team began to jump in excitement.

"When will our first match be?"

"It will be in eight days."

With that news, everyone got so excited they all gave off a rebel yell.

"ONCE MORE!" Delilah ordered. The rest of the team obliged.

With practice over, Delilah and I went to my office and had to go over even more paperwork than usual. Because our first match has finally been announced, we have to fill out each sheet that details our ammunition and safety equipment as well as requisition forms of transportation for our tanks. So many forms for such petty actions could only make my headache worse as I took my spectacles off to rub at my eyes.

Delilah handed me the manager's pipe. "Here."

I only took a single puff and got into another coughing fit. "How do you get used to this stuff?"

"I manage," She said with a grin.

Hours pass, the clock tolls for midnight and we finally finished our work. I collapsed on my chair and received a cup of southern style iced tea from the team captain. "Thank you," I told her as I guzzled the sweet goodness that oozed into my throat. I let out a deep breath and proceeded to laze about in my chair until a knock came at the door.

"Come in!" I shouted and before both Delilah and me, there stood Dixie at the doorway.

"Oh!" She jumped when she saw her superior officer sitting on my desk. "Am I interrupting something?"

"No, no, not at all," Delilah answered. "We just finished up filling out the teams paperwork. Since I see you're here, the curfew guards aren't here tonight." She waved us both off as she left the office. "Good night, you two."

"Goodnight," I said as I saw Delilah get out of sight and Dixie enter and stand before me. "Are you doing alright?"

"I'm-"

I held out a hand to stop her from talking as I got out of my seat and approached the door, Under the door I noticed a shadow from outside the office. I swung the door open and lo and behold there stood Delilah eavesdropping on our conversation.

"Hello there, Johnny!" She said giving a wide eyed smile and nervous chuckling.

"Shouldn't you be going to bed?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact!" And with that, she ran off.

The door was closed and I returned to my chair. "Anyway, you were saying?"

"Uh, I- well..." She began to trail off, probably just surprised by what just happened five seconds ago.

"It's okay, here," I once again got up from my seat but this time went to the pitcher on top of the baccy cabinet and poured her a glass of tea.

"Thank you," she said before taking a sip.

Some time had passed and she was clearly calming down. "Alright," I said, "What did you wish to talk about?"

"I'm just worried by how I will handle myself when we go face the Serbians."

"You should be fine, everyone's wearing helmets now and we've figured out how to use your tank as cover whenever things get desperate."

"But I'm still worried of freezing up when it really matters. I don't want to end up failing my team on our first match."

"Okay," I raised by my hands to get her to calm down a little. "Right now, I can say you're going to be in better shape since we've made the extra precautions."

She nodded but was still uneasy.

"Have things improved in practice?"

"Well, yes, but I can't be sure things will go well when we deal with actual combat."

"That is true, but I know you won't be in serious trouble since you've got your crew behind you. I'm sure they'll do a good job of taking care of you if such a situation comes up again."

"You make it sound so easy."

"No, I know the feeling."

Dixie tilted her head to my response. "You've really dealt with this kind of thing."

"Yes, but, I don't think we should get into that right now."

"I know something happened to your sister, did something else happen?"

"Now is not the time to talk about that, okay?"

Dixie looked down, dejected. "Okay."

"How about this?" I asked. "You stand strong for this game and you can be allowed to ask one question about my past." I held out a hand to shake.

"No subject is off limits?"

"Correct."

She gave a slight smile and shook my hand.

"Now, it's getting really late, we should be heading to bed."

"I guess it will be fine if I just wait outside your office then. You weren't at your dorm so I came here."

"It looks like it, but, we have a certain commander who wants to know more about what's going on."

"Yeah, we'll have to figure out how to get around her."

"I'm sure we'll figure it out." I said as I closed the office door behind us and we both proceeded down the hallway on our way to the dorms.