Day 27
9: Return
This time, it had been my turn to lie down in the back of the van and be an invalid. At first, Jamie had had to care for Dana and me both; Dana had passed back out after having delivered her message, and I found myself unable to stand up longer than a few seconds without losing my balance. While Dana had come to in time to help Jamie carry me up the stairs, my condition was still ongoing despite having had longer to recuperate. I could only hope it wasn't permanent. Then again, given the immense pain that entry into the device had gifted me, I suppose loss of balance was a minor side effect indeed.
Jamie and Dana had told me the story piecemeal over the last few hours. I kept drifting into and out of sleep, and who answered my questions depended on who was driving while I was awake. It was still night, possibly the same night I'd made the ill-formed decision to interface with an aging machine, and it was clear my drivers were sleeping in shifts. Dana, trained to operate without rest, had driven first, followed by Jamie when the latter awoke and demanded to help.
Back in the control room, pretty much the instant Jamie had turned the device on, my vital signs went all over the place and my body had gone into convulsions. Both Dana and Jamie said they'd heard me physically tell them to come into the other room, though this was likely impossible as I had apparently been busy swallowing my tongue at the time. Dana hadn't said much about the injury my mind's eye had seen Bowers inflict on her, just that she'd seen something out of the corner of her eye, and then knowledge of Haven was gone from her. Jamie had written up directions to getting back, and Dana had apparently woken her a number of times to ask for clarification. It wasn't just that Bowers had taken all information about Haven from her mind, but it seemed to leave a hole somewhere in her memory. Facts about the place kept continuing to be forgotten. She couldn't remember Orin's name, regardless of how many times we told her. As worrying as my own situation was, I couldn't help but hope hers was better. Bowers had threatened a similarly violent extraction of my own knowledge, after all, and I had no idea whether or not death would be the ultimate result of his taking it from Dana instead.
Bowers. I still hadn't shaken the horrible vertigo the machine had inflicted upon me, and his terrible presence in my mind. Despite the fact that I had what it took to survive immersion in the amplifier, he'd changed what I'd seen, moved me where he wanted. Obviously, he was in complete control of the situation. My own ability had resulted in fuzzy, half-seen illusions and agony. When he took over, everything seemed as though real. Hell, I had no way of knowing that I wasn't still in the machine right now, and that this wasn't some elaborate plot to reveal the location of Haven without killing me. I didn't think it was the case; he hadn't struck me as a very subtle man, mental enslavement plan notwithstanding.
The van slowed, and I heard Dana cursing under her breath. The road beneath us turned to dirt as she pulled over. I tried to sit up and see what was going on, but a wave of dizziness came over me and I had to lie back down. I could still see the flickering lights of whatever was ahead – roadblock, I'd surmised – reflecting off the ceiling.
“Looks like it's a little more busy than before.” Jamie said dryly.
“I take it we've been through this?” Dana asked. I could tell that it hurt her to even have to ask the question; she was used to being far more capable than that. Oddly, the hole in her mind seemed like more of a vulnerability to her than her near-breakdown back at the compound had. The latter she'd carried within herself, of course, and the former had been forced upon her.
“Yep. I don't know if our fake papers are going to be any good, though, they don't specify us coming back for another few days.”
“Tell them the rebels got us.” I suggested. “They'll ask why I'm laid up back here anyway.”
“Switch me seats.” Dana said, apparently having decided to let someone who at least remembered having been through the checkpoint before drive.
There was a brief sound of movement while the driver and passenger switched places, still within the van. They didn't want to risk going outside and getting shot. To whatever troopers were still ahead, it looked as though we'd stopped for a roadblock and were waiting for them to give us a sign to turn back or something. If they didn't, in fact, give us such a sign, it'd be safe for us to drive up and them to ask us questions at length.
The van began moving again, which I assumed meant Jamie was in the driver's seat. The lights became more intense, and I felt the van go around a curve I assumed to be the exit. There hadn't been a roadblock at all, it seemed; there had merely been enough Troopers at the checkpoint to make it seem like there was. I liked that possibility even less.
Dana denied ever having said the two words she'd spoken before lapsing back into subconsciousness. “He knows,” though, coupled with the fact that all her knowledge of Haven was missing, boded very ill for us. We'd all been hoping to get back to Haven before Bowers could mobilize whatever forces he had. My scrambled message to Orin would otherwise be the only warning they'd get.
The van stopped, and Jamie rolled down the window.
“Glidewell, wasn't it?” she said sweetly. I couldn't decide whether it was a good thing or a bad thing we'd got the same Trooper who'd held us up before.
“Trooper Mark Glidewell. I'm going to have to ask you to turn around and get back on the highway, there's an oper- good God, what happened to him?” I didn't even have to look to see that he'd noticed me, though the mind-reading did let me know he thought I was a lot more wounded than I actually was. I began subtly reinforcing this idea.
“What's going on out here?” Dana asked, letting her bewilderment out. “We go for a simple supply pickup and we get ambushed!” Clearly she hadn't just been working on her cover story, but had gone so far as to read our fake travel papers to back it up.
Glidewell nodded, even if I couldn't see him doing so. “It's bad all around, miss. Not two hours ago I saw a whole damn column of armor go by, and they have me shut the road down.” He was sympathetic, I could tell; he'd honestly thought we'd been caught in an ambush and were just as lacking in information as he was.
Jamie, meanwhile, pounced on this information. “They on their way up north?”
Glidewell nodded again, apparently not worried about giving away troop movements to the enemy. “As far as I could tell.”
“Will they have medics with them?” she asked in one of her best improvisations ever. “Please, I don't know how long my friend will make it, we need to get him somewhere.”
The Trooper glanced back at me, and I made a show of breathing shallowly, which I could only keep up so long until I got dizzy again, which only helped the llusion.
“They probably will.” He seemed torn. “You guys were on Trooper business when you got sucked into this mess, right? They'll help you out. Just don't sneak up on them or anything. I'll radio ahead, let them know you're coming.”
“Thank you very much!” Jamie said, rolling up the window. I had mere seconds to reach out to the mind of the Trooper and make him forget he'd ever promised to radio anywhere before Jamie drove away.
There was silence in the van again. Before, it'd been a tense silence. None of us wanted to talk about why we had been going so fast, what Dana's 'He knows' had meant, whether our home would even be there when we got back. It had, however, always been in the back of our minds, and with it the complimentary idea that we would beat them there, that we would warn Haven in time. Now that was gone. Instead, the stress level had increased. Now we were sneaking up behind an entire squadron or platoon or however many people were in a column of Troopers. If we were lucky, they moved a lot slower than us. That meant we had a chance to somehow cut around them and warn Haven. This seemed an exceedingly unlikely plan to actually work, and it was entirely more likely that they were already there, and that the battle was already over. One sleep-bomb was likely all it would take, and the Troopers had no shortage.
We drove, and for a time nobody said anything.
I saw lights after a while, and feared a second roadblock had been set up to discourage anyone who'd gotten past the first. Slowly, I sat up and looked out the window. Upon being satisfied that I wasn't going to immediately fall back over, I looked more intently.
The lights were from the sewage treatment plant, our landmark from so long ago. I also could see a number of flickering lights from farther down the road Jamie was now turning us down. Haven, or at least a whole hell of a lot of it, was burning.
“I wonder sometimes. Will I ever see Katie again? Or Derek, for that matter? I didn't know what was going on on the outside, but I know it's bad. Everyone is dying, and I don't think my captors intend for me to be left out, when it comes right down to it.”
This time, it had been my turn to lie down in the back of the van and be an invalid. At first, Jamie had had to care for Dana and me both; Dana had passed back out after having delivered her message, and I found myself unable to stand up longer than a few seconds without losing my balance. While Dana had come to in time to help Jamie carry me up the stairs, my condition was still ongoing despite having had longer to recuperate. I could only hope it wasn't permanent. Then again, given the immense pain that entry into the device had gifted me, I suppose loss of balance was a minor side effect indeed.
Jamie and Dana had told me the story piecemeal over the last few hours. I kept drifting into and out of sleep, and who answered my questions depended on who was driving while I was awake. It was still night, possibly the same night I'd made the ill-formed decision to interface with an aging machine, and it was clear my drivers were sleeping in shifts. Dana, trained to operate without rest, had driven first, followed by Jamie when the latter awoke and demanded to help.
Back in the control room, pretty much the instant Jamie had turned the device on, my vital signs went all over the place and my body had gone into convulsions. Both Dana and Jamie said they'd heard me physically tell them to come into the other room, though this was likely impossible as I had apparently been busy swallowing my tongue at the time. Dana hadn't said much about the injury my mind's eye had seen Bowers inflict on her, just that she'd seen something out of the corner of her eye, and then knowledge of Haven was gone from her. Jamie had written up directions to getting back, and Dana had apparently woken her a number of times to ask for clarification. It wasn't just that Bowers had taken all information about Haven from her mind, but it seemed to leave a hole somewhere in her memory. Facts about the place kept continuing to be forgotten. She couldn't remember Orin's name, regardless of how many times we told her. As worrying as my own situation was, I couldn't help but hope hers was better. Bowers had threatened a similarly violent extraction of my own knowledge, after all, and I had no idea whether or not death would be the ultimate result of his taking it from Dana instead.
Bowers. I still hadn't shaken the horrible vertigo the machine had inflicted upon me, and his terrible presence in my mind. Despite the fact that I had what it took to survive immersion in the amplifier, he'd changed what I'd seen, moved me where he wanted. Obviously, he was in complete control of the situation. My own ability had resulted in fuzzy, half-seen illusions and agony. When he took over, everything seemed as though real. Hell, I had no way of knowing that I wasn't still in the machine right now, and that this wasn't some elaborate plot to reveal the location of Haven without killing me. I didn't think it was the case; he hadn't struck me as a very subtle man, mental enslavement plan notwithstanding.
The van slowed, and I heard Dana cursing under her breath. The road beneath us turned to dirt as she pulled over. I tried to sit up and see what was going on, but a wave of dizziness came over me and I had to lie back down. I could still see the flickering lights of whatever was ahead – roadblock, I'd surmised – reflecting off the ceiling.
“Looks like it's a little more busy than before.” Jamie said dryly.
“I take it we've been through this?” Dana asked. I could tell that it hurt her to even have to ask the question; she was used to being far more capable than that. Oddly, the hole in her mind seemed like more of a vulnerability to her than her near-breakdown back at the compound had. The latter she'd carried within herself, of course, and the former had been forced upon her.
“Yep. I don't know if our fake papers are going to be any good, though, they don't specify us coming back for another few days.”
“Tell them the rebels got us.” I suggested. “They'll ask why I'm laid up back here anyway.”
“Switch me seats.” Dana said, apparently having decided to let someone who at least remembered having been through the checkpoint before drive.
There was a brief sound of movement while the driver and passenger switched places, still within the van. They didn't want to risk going outside and getting shot. To whatever troopers were still ahead, it looked as though we'd stopped for a roadblock and were waiting for them to give us a sign to turn back or something. If they didn't, in fact, give us such a sign, it'd be safe for us to drive up and them to ask us questions at length.
The van began moving again, which I assumed meant Jamie was in the driver's seat. The lights became more intense, and I felt the van go around a curve I assumed to be the exit. There hadn't been a roadblock at all, it seemed; there had merely been enough Troopers at the checkpoint to make it seem like there was. I liked that possibility even less.
Dana denied ever having said the two words she'd spoken before lapsing back into subconsciousness. “He knows,” though, coupled with the fact that all her knowledge of Haven was missing, boded very ill for us. We'd all been hoping to get back to Haven before Bowers could mobilize whatever forces he had. My scrambled message to Orin would otherwise be the only warning they'd get.
The van stopped, and Jamie rolled down the window.
“Glidewell, wasn't it?” she said sweetly. I couldn't decide whether it was a good thing or a bad thing we'd got the same Trooper who'd held us up before.
“Trooper Mark Glidewell. I'm going to have to ask you to turn around and get back on the highway, there's an oper- good God, what happened to him?” I didn't even have to look to see that he'd noticed me, though the mind-reading did let me know he thought I was a lot more wounded than I actually was. I began subtly reinforcing this idea.
“What's going on out here?” Dana asked, letting her bewilderment out. “We go for a simple supply pickup and we get ambushed!” Clearly she hadn't just been working on her cover story, but had gone so far as to read our fake travel papers to back it up.
Glidewell nodded, even if I couldn't see him doing so. “It's bad all around, miss. Not two hours ago I saw a whole damn column of armor go by, and they have me shut the road down.” He was sympathetic, I could tell; he'd honestly thought we'd been caught in an ambush and were just as lacking in information as he was.
Jamie, meanwhile, pounced on this information. “They on their way up north?”
Glidewell nodded again, apparently not worried about giving away troop movements to the enemy. “As far as I could tell.”
“Will they have medics with them?” she asked in one of her best improvisations ever. “Please, I don't know how long my friend will make it, we need to get him somewhere.”
The Trooper glanced back at me, and I made a show of breathing shallowly, which I could only keep up so long until I got dizzy again, which only helped the llusion.
“They probably will.” He seemed torn. “You guys were on Trooper business when you got sucked into this mess, right? They'll help you out. Just don't sneak up on them or anything. I'll radio ahead, let them know you're coming.”
“Thank you very much!” Jamie said, rolling up the window. I had mere seconds to reach out to the mind of the Trooper and make him forget he'd ever promised to radio anywhere before Jamie drove away.
There was silence in the van again. Before, it'd been a tense silence. None of us wanted to talk about why we had been going so fast, what Dana's 'He knows' had meant, whether our home would even be there when we got back. It had, however, always been in the back of our minds, and with it the complimentary idea that we would beat them there, that we would warn Haven in time. Now that was gone. Instead, the stress level had increased. Now we were sneaking up behind an entire squadron or platoon or however many people were in a column of Troopers. If we were lucky, they moved a lot slower than us. That meant we had a chance to somehow cut around them and warn Haven. This seemed an exceedingly unlikely plan to actually work, and it was entirely more likely that they were already there, and that the battle was already over. One sleep-bomb was likely all it would take, and the Troopers had no shortage.
We drove, and for a time nobody said anything.
I saw lights after a while, and feared a second roadblock had been set up to discourage anyone who'd gotten past the first. Slowly, I sat up and looked out the window. Upon being satisfied that I wasn't going to immediately fall back over, I looked more intently.
The lights were from the sewage treatment plant, our landmark from so long ago. I also could see a number of flickering lights from farther down the road Jamie was now turning us down. Haven, or at least a whole hell of a lot of it, was burning.
posted by Roger Ostrander at 5:38 PM
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