Shards [Book Two] Page 20

  Her small hands appeared, grasping the table edge, and she pulled herself up, coughing. The small trickle of blood from her temple made his heart jump. He didn't want to lose a shard as potentially valuable as Miss DeChant. It was her persona value that was important, not the person. That's what he told himself.

  She appeared very scared now and started talking to him in her native French.

  “Calm down, Miss DeChant! Please! I can't understand you, you're speaking French! Calm down."

  “Major! I'm frightened!” She had gathered her wits, but was still shaken. “There was an explosion, and the house is burning!"

  “Get out of there, now! I'm sending some men..."

  “NO! Please!” Her voice became a wail. “I beg you, Major! Don't send any men! They will.. they will..” She averted her eyes and began crying. He cursed himself for his insensitivity and felt contrition and pity, rare emotions indeed for him.

  “I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle,” he said, bowing in apology. “I was a fool. You don't want to be with anyone, and I understand. But I want to have someone there to guard you. I'll send just one soldier, with explicit orders not to lay a hand on you. That's the way I want it, Miss DeChant.” He stressed his preference, to end the issue. Her downcast eyes told him he had made his point.

  “Yes, Major,” she acquiesced meekly. “I shall wait outside."

  “Good. Stand well clear. There will be some feedback surges, so be careful. I'm at Secondary Base now, in Wickenburg. I will be there in twenty minutes. Good-bye!” He cut off the terminal and called for the private.

  * * * *

  I watched the terminal go black, and I smiled slowly. My head stung from the knock it had gotten, and I'd scraped my hands when the explosion threw me to the floor, but otherwise I was in business.

  “Are you all right, Abby?” Mike spoke from the only serviceable terminal in the house. “I was able to regulate the surge to control the explosion, but it's not the easiest thing to do."

  “You did fine, Mike. I wasn't expecting you to keep me completely protected. You have to accept risk when warranted. Are our little watchdogs out?"

  “That they are. I made a point of giving them the full jolt. They'd make pretty good toasters right now, but not much more."

  “Good. And Susie?"

  “She and the others are closing in now on our rendezvous point. They'll make the final push after you acquire the hov.” He paused, then spoke with awe in his voice. “That was slick, not only getting out of here, but even suckering Deiley into giving you transportation."

  I wiped the blood off and started crawling over the rubble. Knowing Mike could hear me for some distance, I continued talking. “Well, I figured we didn't want Deiley knowing I wanted to get out. But he'd be only too happy to get Miss DeChant out. I hope I didn't offend the real Miss DeChant with my accent."

  “I probably shouldn't tell you this, but you sounded exactly like her. And when you yelled in French, just after the explosion, I was afraid that you had really sharded back to Miss DeChant. I didn't even know you spoke French."

  I didn't say anything, but worked my way free of the last pile of rubble My room, the one furthest removed from the explosion, was the only =section of the house that still had a semblance of once being a shelter. The rest of the small home was in ruins. There was still dust in the air, but I could also now smell the sweet, sweet desert. Overhead, there were more stars than space it seemed. A wonderful night to be alive.

  In the distance, I saw a single set of hov lights racing toward me. It was too far away to tell, but I was certain from Deiley's manner that there would be only one man in it. I wouldn't kill him, but I couldn't promise that he'd live after Deiley found out his little toy had escaped. Though from what I'd heard of my former owner, it was unlikely Deiley would kill the man once it was clear that I had ended my persona as Miss DeChant.

  While I waited for my ride to show up, I smoothed out my dirty dress and retied my hair back. I did both slowly and carefully, relishing the freedom of movement that was mine again. That was twice in one month that I had sharded now. And the second shard had been for at least twenty-two days, perhaps more. By far the longest episode I'd had to date. I felt the circumstances—being savaged and then living in the possession of a man who tried to keep my riped persona fixed—certainly contributed to the length of the shard. But there was one other thing that really scared me, and that I could not attribute to outside stimuli.

  I did not speak French.

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  “So, since I was with him when he died, I felt it was my responsibility to contact you. Colleen, I'm so sorry. Your brother died fighting for what he believed in.” I almost choked over the last words, but not from sadness. More like sickness.

  “Thank you, Gail.” The woman on the other side of our connection was keeping herself in control, but only just. She looked at me with deep sadness. “Barry and I had talked about emigrating, before he enlisted. I suppose now ... I suppose now I...” she started to sob quietly. I didn't want to interrupt her grief, but I couldn't keep the line open for too long. Snooper programs were pretty quick at figuring things out, and if we were under a routine monitor, it would figure out what we were talking about fairly quickly and this call would be traced.

  “Colleen? Look, I can't stay on the line. Will you be all right? Is there anything I can do for you? Do you need some credits or something?"

  She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Thank you. That's so wonderful of you to ask. I know you're a friend of Barry's, but you've already done more than I expected. I couldn't ask you for anything. I'll get by without his paycreds."

  I had a sudden thought. “I'm sure you will, Colleen, once they send you his death benefit. It won't replace him, but..."

  “Death benefit? What benefit? He never said anything about that."

  “It was probably because he didn't want to worry you.” I prayed Mike was keeping us on an untraceable line. “Our survivors get generous benefits in the event of our being killed. Barry's came to...” I thought a moment, making a number up, “about half a million, if I remember. Maybe more."

  She looked stunned.

  “I—I don't know what to say. Thank you! Oh, thank you!” Yep. Definitely more than half a million.

  “Don't thank me,” here I almost gagged again, “thank NATech. And Colleen? Maybe you should continue you and your brother's dream. Why don't you emigrate? Start fresh. Barry would want it, and his benefit will be more than enough to get you started."

  She considered, then nodded. “I believe I will. Yes, I'll do that.” She looked back at me. “Thank you again, Gail. I won't forget you. Good-bye."

  “Good-bye, Colleen. I'll keep you in my prayers.” I shut the public terminal off, and the small booth went dark.

  “Are we okay, Mike? No snoopers?"

  The terminal came on of its own volition, and Mike's face appeared.

  “That's right! Run down my self-esteem with insults. Of course no one tapped in! What? You're afraid your programming is shoddy?"

  “Now look who's insulting whom. Listen, why don't you post six hundred and fifty thousand credits to Colleen Webster's account. Make it a NATech death benefit and—"

  “There's no such thing as a NATech death benefit, Abby. You're lucky if NATech takes the time to bury you, let alone pay for anything."

  “You mean there wasn't such a thing as a NATech death benefit. I want you to make one and make it retroactive about three to five years. I'll leave the details to you. Be creative. Have fun. Money's no object,” I said expansively.

  “Oh, yeah! This is gonna be fun! I'll talk to you later, Abby. When are you going to access again?"

  Let's see ... we'll be leaving Anchorage tomorrow. Then it's a few days each in Tokyo, Delhi, Old Jerusalem and then home. Call it ten days, so next Thursday. We're arriving in Japan tomorrow afternoon and I want to sightsee, so I'll call you tomorrow night or the next day."

  “Ten
days to travel? Taking the scenic route, are we?"

  “Sorta. Susie and I have got to get some R&R in. And staring into rock for hours at a time isn't the way to do it. We're going to stay surface most of the way."

  “Sounds like fun! Ciao!” The screen flicked off.

  “So, how did she take it?” Susie asked when I stepped clear of the booth. She was munching on a fruit kabob and handed me one.

  “About as well as could be expected. She perked up when she found out that NATech's sending her a six-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-credit death benefit."

  Susie laughed and spilled a piece of pineapple down her top. She fished it out and popped it in her mouth. We dogs didn't stand too much on formality.

  “A death benefit? Only you, Abby!” She took on a more serious tone. “Did you tell her that you killed him?"

  I shrugged. “Why? She didn't need to hear this from her brother's enemy. And there's no way she'd swallow this death benefit story if she thought I wasn't from NATech. So I made out to be her brother's comrade."

  “You didn't do it to hide some guilty feelings?"

  “What guilty feelings?"

  “For killing her brother."

  “I didn't kill her brother. I killed a NATech soldier who had injured a comrade, a real comrade, and was trying to kill me. I'd do it again the same way. Not that it matters, because it's over. I don't analyze my actions or motives in combat, Susie. I do what needs to be done, then move on. Because I killed him, others get to keep on living. That's my duty, and I will always carry out that duty whenever possible."

  We started walking along the pier looking out over the sound. The warming shield over this touristy section of Anchorage kept it comfortable on this summer night. It was past eleven o'clock, but the setting sun was still up. Although it was very pleasant, we had the place to ourselves. When the population of the whole planet is under 800 million, there's a lot of open space.

  “It's very cliché, but I'm glad I'm on your side.” She considered a moment. “I've been thinking..."

  “That explains the smoke."

  She smashed the fruit kabob in my face. “Insensitive brat. I was thinking, since we're on leave, and have some time so kill, maybe I should read up on your mission logs from the Ethiopian campaign. You know, that's not too far from our base. We could—"

  “No."

  “Why not? The chance to see part of your early life would be very educational for me, Abby."

  “I'm surprised you're even bringing it up, Susie. Aren't you supposed to keep that kind of information and memories in the past? Or even buried somewhere?"

  “That's true for ripes, Abby. It's not necessarily true for your original persona. To be entirely honest, I've always had a curiosity about your first life. We pulled the ... honer? Moaner? No, boner. We pulled the boner of the century, reintegrating you as a girl, and I've—"

  “I don't think so! I love who I am now!"

  “That's nice of you to say that, Abby. And I think there's truth in it, but it would have been easier for you if you'd been brought back as a boy."

  “Nuts to that!” I realized my gross joke and laughed, as did Susie, who had picked up some of my ancient expressions. This R&R was really helping us unwind.

  “But I mean it, Susie,” I continued, “It's impossible to even think of myself as a guy. When we first got the emergency call from Kenny and Wayne, I took on a puterverse image of a male, so they wouldn't hesitate about asking for help from a teenage girl.” I shuddered slightly at the memory. “It felt so ... so wrong! Being John way back then was great. But now? No, thanks! This is who I am and who I want to be."

  I walked a few more steps before I realized Susie had stopped. I turned around and she was looking at me, very still.

  “What's wrong?” I asked.

  “Say that again."

  “I said, what's wrong?” I repeated.

  “No. Before that."

  “Oh. I said, ‘This is who I am and who I want to be.’ Why?"

  “Even after what's happened to you, Abigail?"

  So that's what this was about. While everyone was looking for me during those two long, long weeks, Susie had been consumed with worry. Alan told me she had slept very little and fitfully. Although no one went into details, I gathered she had killed several lowlifes in trying to dig up whatever information she could about me, and had in fact found the pieces needed to locate me. She had led the group that broke into the NATech compound and yanked me out as I raced my hov toward them, two cohorts hot on my tail. Through it all, she had kept a hard shell around her, letting nothing out and no one in. Only after she had seen me safely to the Kovins’ home had she finally eased up enough to show emotion, tinged with fatigue.

  That had been two weeks ago. We spent three days lying low, then blended with the traffic up to Carson City, where we killed a few more days to cool the trail. After that, it was a slow drift up through Idatana and then an easy lope to the coast and up the sound to Anchorage, another Resistance-friendly town, where'd we been for five days.

  Susie had slowly returned to normal. On the outside. I saw now what she needed. During the search, she'd not only been consumed with worry, she'd been torn by guilt. Guilt that it was somehow her fault that I'd been ... been raped. It wasn't information Susie was looking for. It was forgiveness.

  I stepped up to her and took her hands, determined I was not going to blubber this time. I looked straight into her eyes, and she flinched, as through struck across the face. She stared down at her hands, held by mine, then lifted her gaze back up to mine, smiling slightly. I spoke slowly and carefully.

  “Yes. Susie, the answer is yes, despite what's happened to me, I'm very happy to be who I am. I have you to thank for all the good, and I don't blame you for any of the bad.” I stepped back and opened my arms. “See, Susie? It's still me, Abigail."

  I touched my tummy. “What happened on the base—no, I'm not going to sugarcoat it: When I was raped at the base, what happened wasn't my fault. It wasn't Miss DeChant's fault, and it certainly wasn't your fault. It was their fault. They abused my body, and they violated my soul. But they didn't take anything away from me, because I won't let them. It's still my body and it's still my soul. And it's you that I thank for pulling me out of my ripes and giving me my body and giving me back my soul.

  “Please believe me, Susie. The only ones who need forgiveness are the soldiers who raped me, and I am forgiving them slowly. It's hard. Forgiving you is impossible. Impossible because there's nothing to forgive."

  She continued to stare into my eyes, hoping to find the solace of truth in them. She must have found it, because she came into my arms and wept silently. I stood straight and comforted her, able to finally return in small measure everything she had done for me. Because all that I'd said was true. I was overjoyed at the life I had now. Grief and pain and loss and sorrow would always be a part of my life, as it was for every life this side of eternity. But I would also know joy and happiness and comfort and fulfillment. These are the things we should focus on, thanking our Maker when He blesses us with them, and thanking Him even more for the strength He gives when hardships befall.

  I felt a chill across my shoulders and looked out over the sea. The sun was setting, and with it the shield was being eased to allow in additional cold. It would be uncomfortable soon, so I put an arm around my still crying friend and started walking us back to our room.

  * * * *

  I notice, looking over my account, that I skipped one thing that most of you are probably wondering about. What if I had become pregnant from my rape?

  I didn't really talk about it because it normally isn't an issue. And not because I was on any kind of birth control. Although there's nothing wrong with practicing birth control, I was going to wait until after I was married before having sex, so I wasn't using anything. I see now from being in combat against an enemy that used such tactics against women that my decision was a foolish one. If you asked me to explain my reasons now, I cou
ldn't do it. Just like you can't explain the foolish things you did as a teen. But for me at the time, it was a non-issue—gross pun intended—for another reason.

  Virtually all members on the NATechSS squads are sterilized at the time of their induction into that branch of “service". The dominance and fear of rape is generated by the very act and its brutality. It's not sex, it's pure violence. While NATech might see the advantage of adding the fear of possible pregnancy during their raping suppressions, the advantage was negated by the added difficulties of caring for the pregnant mother and eventually the newborn child. And in this area, NATech was often forced to abide by a moral code.

  You see, the balance of NATech's power over the globe was very delicate, with neither side really wishing to force the other to extreme action. And Glendale was a microcosm of the planet. An overreaction by the Resistance would force NATech to escalate the violence and control, thus reducing our ability to help the Shards and other sick people in Glendale.

  But an overreaction by NATech would bring to light some of their uglier moles. And while NATech held the planet in a firm grip of control, there was little point in them doing anything to weaken that hold. Forcing combat with the Resistance in Glendale, or killing the newborns and their mothers, greatly increased the risk. So the soldiers on the suppression squads, both men and women, were sterilized to prevent pregnancy.

  In any event, because of these reasons, and because I was too much of a basket case to think coherently once I reached the safety of my friends, I was not too worried. It wasn't completely certain. One in every hundred SS men is left fertile, just to add the extra fear. So I had to get checked out by the doctor at the Glendale base to be certain. That one in one hundred, multiplied out by normal odds, seems pretty small, doesn't it? It sure didn't as I waited for the results.

  And what if I had been pregnant? An easy answer: I'd have the baby. It wasn't the child's fault how it came to be. It had a soul and a God and a life. And I can think of no greater victory than to raise a child of such a circumstance and teach her or him to love and care and respect others in a way the unknown father never could.