Episode 18 - The Eden Road

The team is recruited to be 'movers' for a proverbial railroad moving refugees from the Wastelands to Eden II, but they must survive a nearly impassable area to meet the Eden II representative.

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Disclaimer: The following is a work of fan fiction based on the television series,Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. It is not intended to infringe on the copyrights of Landmark Entertainment Corporation or anyone else who may have legal rights to the characters and settings. I don't own the characters. However, I am putting them into an adventure since the show was cancelled and the writers/producers/directors/actors can’t put them into any new adventures.

Author’s Notes: The Eden Road seemed to have a lot of information and moments that came out of left field that led me to ask a lot of questions. Luckily, all those open-ended questions are wonderful to have when writing a fanfic. They can lead the muse and the plot bunny in all sorts of directions to weave a story together. I let them loose, and a lot of those questions I asked got used in this three-part tag to The Eden Road. Big thanks to Kazthom for alpha/betaing this story and giving the story a nudge here and there to help get it where it wanted to go. :)

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The Eden Road: Part 1
Volcania
(A few days before the Power Team goes into Darktown)

Dread loved reading mystery novels. At least, he did when he was merely Lyman Taggart and before he found all the answers to life’s mysteries explained by The Machine. He’d read a variety of genres growing up, but a mystery novel... the reader could be the detective’s ‘sidekick’ in a vicarious way. The reader could follow the clues the author hid in the narrative, be right there in the action as they chased down the breadcrumbs and solve the mystery before the detective in the book did. It was fun, and it was a literary way to train his mind to look for clues. As a scientist, he knew that everything in existence could be considered a mystery. All those scientific questions needing answers required hours/days/weeks/years of painstaking research. That type of investigation was similar to the private eye’s search for the elusive missing person or looking for that one clue necessary to solve the puzzle. Perhaps if Dread hadn’t become a scientist, he would have been a police detective. Mysteries had always appealed to his meticulous nature.

Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Brother Cadfael, Philip Marlowe, Simon Templar, Professor Vallejo, The Major, Janus Roarke, Erik Handleman, The Davison Twins, Roderick Goodman -- so many mysteries, so little time to read them all, but Lyman Taggart had read as many as he could. It didn’t matter when the mysteries were written. 19^th, 20^th, 21^st, or 22^nd century, they all seemed to envelop one particular element, one engaging theme. The core of a mystery was solidly built on the idea that the reader could figure out the answer before the detective did no matter how many red herrings the writer tossed into the mix if the reader had a keen eye and a perceptive mind. Perhaps some writers wanted that, perhaps others didn’t, but each knew that their readers loved to figure out the ending so they could pat themselves on the back in self-congratulations. It was true; humans loved a mystery. Dread was no different. But he didn’t just read them. He devoured them. Every word from cover to cover, he read them so many times that their jackets would be in tatters from overuse. All those books, all those stories, and from them, he had learned that it was the small details that could reveal the larger picture. The problem was gathering, classifying, and categorizing all the small details to determine which could be the pivotal bit of information to tell him what he wanted to know.

The mystery he had been working on for weeks had taken up most of his time and attention. It started with one single sentence and had tantalized his brain ever since. The words the tech had told him still gave him pause. On 47-9 Mark 3, Power showed up in three distinct locations in a three-hour time span.

In three separate regions of the country.

On the same day.

Given the current technology available to the organics in the Wastelands, the Resistance groups and even the Machine Empire itself, being in three different locations that far apart in such a short amount of time was physically impossible. How did Power do it? That jumpship of his wasn’t that fast. Their pilot had excellent flying skills, but even she couldn’t make the ship fly faster than spec. It was so old; it would shake apart at those speeds. Any ship would.

So Dread had a mystery on his hands.

Power’s ability to travel to the far reaches of the country in a brief amount of time gave him an edge over Dread’s forces. Even Soaron. An edge meant an advantage, and Dread didn’t need Jonathan to have any advantages over his forces. It didn’t make him appear threatening to the organics in the Wasteland. It didn’t make him look infallible to the Dread Youth, and it certainly didn’t make him seem competent in Overmind’s opinion for their enemy to continually best them.

Dread had to figure out this mystery, and like all good detectives in those novels he used to read, he decided to start at the beginning to try to find the proverbial path of breadcrumbs.

Breadcrumbs, he mused. Hundreds of years after the ‘breadcrumb’ reference was mentioned in a children’s tale, it was still used to denote how someone found their way through... anything. Sometimes, old adages didn’t die or go away. They held their meaning even though the original story was lost to time. So he started looking at all the proverbial breadcrumbs scattered around this mystery to find the path that led to the answer.

Machinery itself was the first breadcrumb he examined. How could a ship create that kind of speed and maintain hull integrity? How could any engine sustain those speeds? He considered the various engines and speed-adding technology from the last few centuries. Turbos, hemis, booster rockets, horsepower... all the technology from the 20^th century forward was rejected when considering the compatibility with 22^nd century post-wars technology.

So maybe the reason wasn’t mechanical?

How could a ship go from place to place that far apart in such a short time? If the ship itself couldn’t create or maintain those kinds of speeds...

Maybe something else was moving the ship?

His memory picked up a second breadcrumb.

Even before he and Stuart Power had built Overmind, teleportation technology had been in the theoretical stages, but what if someone somewhere had developed it beyond theory and he had never heard about it? That was possible. Long before the wars, he was looking to consolidate a financial and philanthropically-appearing empire of his own. He wasn’t paying attention to others’ theoretical sciences or pursuits or studies at the time. Plus, there was absolutely no reference to any type of teleportation technology in the Machine database in Volcania. Whoever the scientists were that were working on the theory were lost as were their data.

So it couldn’t be teleportation. The science didn’t exist. Dread tried to think about the first time he became aware of the speed the Power Team moved. They had always been a nuisance, but when they could appear so quickly and under radar as it were --

Was it ten years ago? No, it was twelve years ago. It was over a small settlement in Arkansas . Masterson was flying around in his Hawk suit, the XT jet was making strafing runs, and then there was the jumpship flying support. That was the first time Dread remembered all three flying devices in use at the same time. What had truly surprised him was that they had been over New York merely an hour earlier, but with the battle and the casualties and the damage done to biomechs and Soaron taking up his attention, Dread didn’t think much more about it. If he’d had any thoughts about it at the time, they were pushed back in favor of more pressing problems.

They had the required technology that long ago?

But the science didn’t exist.

The science didn’t exist!

Dread turned that idea inside out. If the science didn’t exist fifteen years earlier, maybe the theories did? Maybe that was what Jonathan used to create a science twelve years ago? It had to be Jonathan, right? Masterson wasn’t a scientist, and even though he was married to one, he couldn’t have learned enough from her to build it. He could barely use a computer. The Babylon 5 escapee was proficient with technology, but to design from theories would require more skill than he possessed. Then Dread double-checked the date when the young computer expert known as Scout was first noticed to be with the team... no, twelve years ago was too early. According to his records, Scout joined the team only nine years ago, so it couldn’t have been him. The pilot? No, she hadn’t been there long enough either. It had to be Jonathan, but he would have still been a boy. He was always a bright, intelligent boy, but could he have designed something that must have been so scientifically advanced from mere theories?

And what if it wasn’t merely theories? What if prototypes and specs existed somewhere in some storage facility no one remembered? Or what if they were listed in some obscure database somewhere else?

Little breadcrumbs were beginning to line up for Dread. There was nothing in the Machine’s database about it, but what about the web itself? Dread remembered an old 20^th century saying about the web. Nothing was ever lost. Maybe the information was still out there in the servers the organics used, accessible in places like Tech City. Dread couldn’t go there himself to search the organic-made web without attracting attention, he couldn’t trust anyone else to go there and remain completely silent about the operation, and he couldn’t access it inside Volcania without attracting Overmind’s attention. He needed a secure terminal in an area where he wouldn’t be seen and Overmind couldn’t detect what he was doing.

Searching for just such a terminal was going to be a problem unless the search was timed just right.

Overmind ran a daily systems diagnostic on himself every evening which kept his sensors busy internally. That was the time Dread knew he could search for a secure access point. The problem was how he could do it without attracting Overmind’s attention. Searches were saved in the database, and Overmind controlled the database. After long consideration, Dread came to an ironic conclusion. What he was searching for could be the means he was searching by. He could search for the access points in the organic web by using the organic web to search. Then, he was back to a previous problem -- he couldn’t trust anyone else to do the search, and he couldn’t go to places like Tech City himself...

Then, an old memory returned. Years earlier, the organic web had companies that provided access to the users to the web. One of those companies was located in Detroit when he was ceded ownership of the area. He had used the servers for a few years early on to establish communications in his growing empire, before he established the new Machine technology, and if memory served, there was still an old computer docking port in his throne room.

He looked around his throne room. “Think, Dread, think,” he whispered to himself. “Where was it?”

There’d been so many changes to the structure over the years, and the explosion that killed Stuart Power had blown out entire walls inside the fortress. His throne room had nearly buckled and there was a lot of rebuilding and renovation ---

“Ah, of course. Now I remember.” He walked over to the far wall. It had survived the blast and hadn’t needed anything more than a few nuts and bolts replaced. He pulled a metal table away from the wall and saw what had once been the data port for the web connection.

Sometimes, it was a good idea to not get rid of everything from the Old World. He could use this connection to search the web with an independent computer, and Overmind wouldn’t learn about it from the database. Good thing he hadn’t thrown all of those ancient devices away as well.

Day by day, he would search a single sector, slowly amassing a listing of any terminals Overmind had no access to but were still connected to the organic web. However, just because Overmind had no access to it didn’t mean that it was secure enough or in a secure enough location for Dread to access without being noticed. Well, he’d deal with that problem as it arose.

He checked his chronometer. It was morning. Overmind wouldn’t be running his diagnostics for hours, so Dread waited.

And waited.

To pass the time, Dread played music lowly over the speakers. Years ago, he wanted to convey a particular image to the public. He wanted to be a powerhouse within the halls of finance and empire building. He wanted to make connections with all the powerful people on the planet -- billionaires, politicians, artists, scientists, inventors, innovators, educators, dictators. He had to excel in more areas than just the sciences. He read the classics, learned the fine art of diplomacy, studied the shades of philanthropy. He learned which fork to eat with, what wine to have with which dish, how to dance. One thing he thoroughly enjoyed was learning about all the classical composers. Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Bach, Brahms, Wagner, all of them. He didn’t think that his preference for Swing and Doo Wop would have elevated his personal profile within public perception, so that part of himself was kept secret while everyone thought he was a true patron of the arts.

Bach began to play. It was Toccata and Fugue in D minor. He did enjoy Bach’s music. There was a different sort of liveliness to the melodies that he enjoyed in Bach’s style that he didn’t find in Mozart or Vivaldi. He never could put his finger on the exact explanation, but that lack of detail didn’t bother him. Besides, it didn’t matter at that moment. One of the pervading aspects of music softly played meant that Overmind couldn’t listen in to Dread’s throne room. It interfered with his sensors, and Dread could have some privacy.

Then again, what would Overmind think of Doo Wop if Dread played it?

Finally, evening rolled around, and Overmind’s diagnostic began. Dread hauled out a nearly ancient computer from a storage cabinet and hooked it up to the data port. “Hopefully, it’s still working,” he whispered to himself more than anyone else. He powered it up and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, the screen began to lighten up, and numbers appeared as the system ran through the startup programs. Then, there it was. A working computer from the Old World. Dread smiled at the thought that such ancient technology could sneak underneath the Machines’ systems. With just a few keystrokes, Dread started his search for inaccessible data terminals. Sector 7... absolutely nothing. Sector 15... two terminals. Sector 19... wait, Sector 19? That was one of the sectors with little human or machine activity. That meant fewer data terminals in existence... one after another, all over the sector, independent data terminals were appearing on the sensors. Odd... how could all those exist? Dread expected a few, maybe even five or six over an entire sector, but over a dozen? That was unexpected. Some were in now crumbling libraries that had almost been destroyed during his library purge some months back. A few were in old, abandoned government buildings... but those buildings had no power. How could the terminals be working? Then one in particular grabbed his attention -- the old archives building in Darktown. Nothing could survive Darktown. It was an acid-eroded, proton bombed, unlivable area that destroyed anything and everything that entered there. The place was a protonic cesspool that was collapsing in on itself.

Yet somehow, for some reason, the terminal still functioned and was still connected to the organic web. More than that, it was showing indications of recent activity. Someone was accessing it somehow. Someone wishing to jack in without having to pay to access the web undoubtedly, but how were they getting out there? How were they surviving the acid? That was another mystery he’d worry about later. At that moment, if there was any information as to the location of the laboratories researching teleportation technology, the identities of the scientists involved or even the status of the technology itself, it would be in the old web, and it could be accessed from that terminal without anyone knowing.

Step one of solving the mystery was taken care of.

Now for step two.

He needed a ruse to send a few of his specially programmed troops into that area so he wouldn’t attract Overmind’s attention, and he needed to do so in such a way that would keep Overmind’s suspicions away from him. Something was going on with Overmind, but Dread couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. He knew Blastarr was loyal to a fault, but as sure as he was of that, he was equally certain that he couldn’t trust Lackki. He had the distinct impression that the little robot was spying on him, and Soaron’s loyalties were coming under scrutiny as far as Dread was concerned.

Ah, Soaron. The perfect biodread to begin the ruse. Overmind would never suspect him. But what ruse to use?

He considered possible orders, a multitude of missions... but no, he had to be sneaky. He checked Soaron’s locator... he wasn’t far from Darktown. Close proximity... ah ha! There was an order he could give that would attract no attention or raise any proverbial eyebrows.

Dread switched off his music and switched on his communicator. In a nonchalant manner called out, “Soaron.”

There was a brief pause, and then Soaron’s voice came back over the comm. “Yes, my lord?”

“What is your current location?”

“I am searching for a Resistance communications station in Sector 20 as ordered by Lord Overmind.”

Yes. Perfect.

“I have received information that a Resistance cell could be operating near an abandoned area in Sector 19 known as Darktown. The conditions of the region would make it impossible for organics to go into the affected area itself, but they could be nearby. Proceed to that area and perform an aerial recon. Report back as soon as you have the data.”

“Sector 19 confirmed, my lord.”

Soaron would check it out. No matter what he found, Dread could use his search as a reason to send in biomechs loyal to him to find the data terminal, download any and all data they could find and transmit it back to Dread. The biomechs wouldn’t survive, but then again, that would only help Dread’s plans. There would be no witnesses to his actions.

“Dread?” Overmind’s voice sounded over the speakers.

“Yes, Overmind?”

“My tracking systems indicate that Soaron is flying toward Sector 19.”

Dread glanced back at the speaker and then switched on his monitor to read the day’s collected Intel. “A reconnaissance mission, nothing more. There are rumors of Resistance cells in the area. An aerial surveillance should be adequate to determine if the information is sound. If there are areas impervious to Soaron’s sensors, I will send in a small troop of biomechs to investigate.”

Overmind didn’t answer. It was a logical answer to his inquiry, so why should he wonder about Dread’s activities?

~0~0~0~0~

A Day Later

Soaron walked into Dread’s throne room, his metal feet clanging on the metal floor. Dread was listening to music. Soaron’s logical mind wondered at that for a moment. Music was forbidden, so why was Dread listening to it? “My lord?”

Dread looked at him, a sudden frown on his face. “What have you to report, Soaron?”

“I saw no evidence of Resistance cells in or around Sector 19,” Soaron answered immediately. Then he saw an old monitor close to Dread’s throne. There was a map of the country with certain sites indicated on the monitor. A closer scan of his sensors interpreted the data as sites of terminals whose positions he couldn’t identify. Their locations were not in his database. “Nor did I find any Resistance communication station in Sector 20. I have already forwarded my report to Lord Overmind.”

Dread barely nodded, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes as he listened to the music. His behavior concerned Soaron. “My lord?”

“Bach is the composer,” Dread answered. “I was pondering a difference between perception of organic and Machine.”

Pondering? Soaron knew that word. It was an organic term meant to think, to consider. Lord Dread had been a scientist before he merged with Overmind, so perhaps this was a scientific evaluation? “What type of perception, my lord?”

“The effects of music on military troops. What do you know of human history, Soaron?”

History? That was an odd question. Certainly, he was programmed with dates, locations, names and events, but what was Lord Dread curious about? “I have the required historical programming,” he answered.

“Of course,” Dread’s voice sounded almost reticent. “Throughout history, music has been used by organics to help motivate, to inspire, even at times to punish. Armies would play songs for their soldiers to march in cadence to. There were reports of some armies holding a site in siege and playing very loud music at night so the enemy couldn’t sleep. Exhaustion was imposed on the enemy which gave the attacking forces an advantage.”

“Are you considering using music as a weapon against the organics?” Soaron asked.

“As you know, my warlord, the Resistance uses all manner of weapons against the Machine Empire. Should we not explore that tactic to use if it would yield a success in battle as well as our response should the Resistance use it against us?” Dread asked him.

Ah. Hyper-vigilance when considering offensive and defensive tactics. That was a logical course of action. “It would be a logical tactic to understand,” Soaron agreed. Dread had at one time been completely human. He would understand the best ways to defeat the organics. He wondered if he should speak to Overmind about Dread’s behavior? It seemed somewhat un-Machine-like, more so than ever.

“Yes, logical. I was also considering certain pieces of music as ways to help motivate the cadets in the Dread Youth. A unifying auditory theme, as it were.”

Soaron listened to the music. Bach? The name meant nothing to him. How could that music be used as a weapon or a theme? It seemed too calm. Were organics in some way dependent on sensory stimulation? Machines weren’t. The need for music wasn’t logical, yet he knew that sometimes an unorthodox move in a battle could win the day for their forces, no matter how illogical the move was. He’d seen it happen before, usually at Lord Dread’s orders. Perhaps having someone still somewhat organic commanding their armies, someone who understood how organics thought and acted, was one of the reasons Overmind kept Dread alive?

“Bach is not my choice for either however,” Dread suddenly informed him. “It was merely one of the many pieces I have listened to today. There are others more suitable to my purposes.”

“I do not understand, my lord.”

“There are many forms of music that have developed over the centuries. Bach is not one I would employ for battle purposes, but I am merely satisfying a scientific curiosity,” Dread answered him. “Sometimes, one must research the inconsequential and unrelated to better understand the importance of the significant.”

That did make sense to Soaron. As a machine, he understood the logic behind understanding small details within a larger problem, even those seemingly unrelated.

Dread waved his hand toward the door, indicating that Soaron was dismissed.

Once out in the corridor, Soaron contacted Overmind through their secure connection. “My Lord Overmind?”

“Yes, my warlord?”

“Lord Dread is behaving illogically. Music was playing in his throne room.”

There was a pause, and then Overmind’s voice echoed in Soaron’s internal auditory sensors. “He has been listening to various types of music all day. Did he explain his actions to you?”

“He said he was performing research on the possible advantages of music in connection with the Dread Youth or being used as a weapon against us or a method to protect the Empire.”

Again, Overmind was silent. Finally, he said, “That is logical. Organics have been known to use music in regards to their military. Our recent losses to the Resistance, Power in particular, would encourage Dread to find various methods of fighting them. However, it interferes with my sensors. I cannot hear or see Dread while the music is playing. Is his behavior in any way disconcerting?”

“Not disconcerting, my lord,” Soaron explained. “He is sitting on his throne listening, but there was a location schematic of terminals that are not listed in our data files.”

“Data terminals?”

“Yes, my lord.”

There was a pause. “He may be independently searching for the information leak that has inundated our forces of late.”

Information leak? Soaron had been curious if the enemy had obtained classified data from the Machine Empire given their recent actions. The way Power was able to be at certain locations when the information of the site was classified had concerned the Empire’s tacticians. “Was the reason for my flight over Sector 20 to find a communications station? I was seeking an enemy obtaining classified information?”

“It was,” Overmind answered. “I have been searching for the source and the method by confirming or disproving as many rumors as possible. Your reconnaissance missions have been invaluable to that end. It would seem that Dread is also searching in his own manner.”

An information leak. Was that how the enemy was able to defeat them so readily so many times? But how could that be? And Overmind didn’t trust Dread, but he was willing to allow Dread to continue the rather un-Machine-approved behavior? “How may I be of further service, my lord?”

“I will need your assistance in the future to find the means the enemy is using to get our information. Also, keep watch on Dread. Report back any odd behavior to me.” Overmind’s voice didn’t sound very sure to Soaron.

In fact, it was not an uncommon occurrence to hear a hint of doubt in his master’s voice of late. The information leak must go deeper into Volcania or higher in the hierarchy than was considered possible?

~0~0~0~0~

Dread waited until his monitors showed Soaron walking further away down the corridor. He also noticed more internal communication activity on Soaron’s diagnostic monitors. He was talking to someone. Undoubtedly, it was Overmind. It was another small indication that convinced him that some sort of subterfuge was going on between Soaron and Overmind. Was it possible they were conspiring against him? Why, he didn’t know.

He reached over to the computer console and flipped a switch. Immediately, a biomech showed up in the monitor. L15 was one of dozens of biomechs Dread built and programmed personally to be independent automatons. There was no connection between them and the Empire’s computer systems even though each was programmed to behave as if they were. Therefore, L15 was ‘untouched’ by Overmind and was completely trustworthy.

“How may I serve you, my lord?’

“I am uploading your orders to your now, L15. Take a squad to Sector 19. Find that terminal. Get me that Intel. Transmit the data over this secure frequency only to me. Is that understood?”

“Understood, my lord.”

The ruse had been successful. Soaron’s reconnoiter had not brought about any undue attention. The troops were not ordered into Dark Town without Overmind’s knowledge, and should Overmind question him further, Dread had a reasonable explanation for his actions. Everything was working out as planned.

Knowing that further time spent listening to music would rouse Overmind’s suspicions, Dread shut down the music file. So much for jamming Overmind’s sensors for a short amount of time so he could have some privacy to instigate his plan.

And so much for Bach.

~0~0~0~0~

Dread’s Throne Room
(One day after Power went to Darktown)

Dread read over the details of the data search L15 had transmitted back to him for what had to be the seventh time.

What he was reading was impossible. It had to be theoretical. It had to be a future plan. It couldn’t have existed over fifteen years earlier. Certainly, something this big, this massive, this involved couldn’t have existed without his knowledge.

Eco-domes? Bio-domes? Entire towns and cities turned into ecological experiments? None of those existed. The few bio-domes that were in operation fifteen years earlier were wiped out during the battles. There were towns that served as remodified forts of sorts. Consortiums of a type. Unified areas that served particular purposes, like Detroit and the surrounding areas when he turned it into Volcania.

None of the unified areas were ever built for ecological purposes.

“My lord?”

Blastarr’s voice still sounded weak, even over the intercom. The acid fog had done so much damage to his internal systems that he was still regenerating a day after walking into Darktown. It shouldn’t have happened. Soaron had not suffered from the acid when he reconned the area. The only logical explanation was that Blastarr’s more sensitive response to the fog had to do with Power’s interruption at his birth. It must have made him imperfect. He’d fallen so quickly after entering the area. Dread sent in another thirty biomechs to carry Blastarr out of the acid only to lose most of those robots along the way. Only L15 and two members of his squad barely survived. The rest had lost to the acid fog. L15’s systems were functioning at a minimal level when he was dragged back to Volcania by the remaining two biomechs. How he withstood Darktown as long as he did was a mystery, but his internal functions quickly deteriorated and only his data processors were still functioning for a few hours longer than expected. Dread removed his processing chips in order to salvage the data before it was lost. Still, his loyal biomech got the information Dread had secretly sent him after, and he had more in his databanks than was transmitted back over the secure frequency.

“What is your condition, my warlord?”

“Full regeneration should be attained in twenty-two hours.”

Twenty-two hours. That was too long, but there was no other choice.

“Report to me as soon as you have regenerated.”

“Affirmative.”

Dread waited a moment, and then pressed another button on his console. Immediately, Mozart began to play in the background. He didn’t want Overmind listening in. Something was going on with Overmind, some duplicity that Dread couldn’t determine or find out about. The less Overmind knew about his activities, the better Dread liked it. Finding out more about these locations listed in the terminal’s database was paramount. There had to be more than what was in the printout, and the biomech that he’d sent in for the sole purpose of gaining that terminal’s information could have the answers he was looking for. He connected the biomech’s data processors to his personal computer and brought it online. “Computer, I wish to dialogue with the biomech’s internal and verbal processors.”

“Acknowledged,” was the quick response.

Immediately, the computer brought the processors systems up to full power. “Processors ready, my lord.”

It was an ingenious program Dread had designed himself. Even if a biomech was utterly destroyed, as long as a processor still existed, Dread could ‘rebuild’ its data packs and have it ‘speak’ to him as if the biomech were standing in front of him.

“What information did you determine from your download of the files in the computer database in Darktown?”

There was a pause as the computer’s verbal response programs accessed the biomech’s information and ‘spoke’ in the biomech’s voice. “I traced the terminal’s connection, and it is a data terminal used by the organics’ web network that is inaccessible to Overmind. There is a type of shield protecting the terminal that is not recorded in my databanks, but the acid fog in Darktown forced the original connectors to slowly deteriorate. They have been replaced by connectors impervious to the acid.”

Someone had gone in there and worked on the terminal? How? That was a mystery he’d deal with later. “It is independent of any and all other computer systems?” Dread asked him.

“Not quite, my lord. It can access the organics’ web, but no computer system can access this particular terminal. The connection is one way. The database was originally accessed inside Darktown fourteen months ago. Most files are inaccessible without password authorization, but I downloaded all the accessible files I could. Some are intact, but one in particular has been accessed more times than the others in the past fourteen months.”

Dread waited for the file to show on his monitor, and what he saw surprised him. It was a grid map of the continent with several particular locations in each region marked in red. There was nothing else in the file.

“What is your assessment?”

“It is a map of specific locations, yet the areas indicated are barren. Two are uninhabitable by organics due to environmental conditions. I cannot ascertain the purpose or import of these locations by the map alone. It is the locations themselves that may be the answer to your inquiry.”

The answer? Dread pondered the map. Locations all over the continent... no, the country. It was specific sites over the continental United States. Was that the full map? Even if this wasn’t the entire file, that small bit of information alone inspired a sudden idea. He brought up the information of Power’s travel itinerary on 47-9 Mark 3. He correlated the speed of the Power jumpship with the locations on the map with the times Power was located on that particular day. The numbers added up. If these locations were teleportation sites, then Power could have flown to the three distinct locations in three hours.

He shook his head. He had missed a breadcrumb. He had focused too much on the jumpship’s technology, thinking it had to be the holder of any type of teleportation device. He hadn’t considered that a teleportation device could be independent.

Could this map be the key to discovering the actual locations of teleportation technology?

If it did, was there a specific reason for these particular locations? If so, why?

And why did this file still exist in a lone data terminal inaccessible to Overmind? And could it be accessed at any other terminal out of the influence of the Machine Empire?

“This file was being accessed fourteen months ago?”

“It was. From the Darktown terminal itself. According to the file, that was the first time the file was accessed by any terminal at any time since it was originally created over fifteen years ago.”

Fifteen years? Then it predated the Machine Empire. It was old technology.

“What of the file concerning the towns utilized as ecological experiments?”

“That file was accessed only once fifteen years ago according to the database logs, my lord. The file was then hidden within the system and password protected. I found it because the password program controlling that particular file had degraded. However, the information itself had deteriorated over 73%. It is incomplete.”

An old file, then. A future plan from the past, not anything current. Must be. There were no towns now established as eco-domes. Perhaps old plans that the government tabled because of the wars? It didn’t matter. It didn’t concern Dread, so why worry?

But something or someone went out into that acid fog and accessed a terminal. How? Even the biomechs he sent there were destroyed by the fog in mere hours, the acid eating away at the metal, corroding it into dust. So who or what could have gone into Darktown to get the information? It was Power’s first mission into the area as far as Dread knew. His probe had recorded part of the conversation between the Power Team, and what little he could hear from the quickly failing probe spying on the team indicated no familiarity with Darktown.

He brought up the Darktown information file on his computer. The intensive proton bombing during the Metal Wars had made it impassable. The quarantine areas... wait -- why were there quarantine areas in an area that was unlivable and impassable? Who had declared them quarantine areas? Was that an old designation before the proton bombing? He checked the timeline for Darktown... the information was classified?

Dread sat back in his seat hard. There was nothing in the Machine database that was above his security clearance. He reached out to type in his access code -- and stopped. With Overmind and Soaron behaving as if they were working against him, he didn’t need to give them any ammunition to use against him by accessing a file Overmind might not want him to see.

However, it was easy enough for him to track who had access to the file and use their access codes to look at it. A quick check showed that transfer technicians had complete and unfettered access.

Transfer technicians?

Without any hesitation, Dread looked up a junior technician’s access code and typed it in. At first, there were reports of the early experiments. Most of them were failures. Then there were schematics of newly developed technologies and attempts to perfect the anomalies. There were results, positive and negative -- what he read next in the file absolutely stunned him.

“Experimental transfer on Youth Leader Colville successfully placed human mental capacity in working biomech. Organic personality destroyed during transfer as designed by superiors. Also, as per the new orders, we informed our superiors that the results of the transfer weren’t a success, and Lord Dread was informed that the transfer was successful. Require more subjects for further testing of partial-personality destruction and to act as the control group for an experiment of creating advance attack squads.

This process is projected to create the necessary types of biomechs as ordered. As proof, the Aerial Defense Command and Recon Unit currently use only transferred biomechs and has had successful missions since the project’s inception. However, recent tests are confirming theories that the various assault groups within the Empire require multiple levels of organic personality retainment due to the difference in logistics and battle tactics. A more intuitive form of biomech will be required for commanding biomechs and certain branches such as the Aerial Defense and Recon. It is suggested that not all of an organic personality be destroyed upon transfer. Request permission to retain varying percentages of organic personalities on the next test subjects upon completion of Sandtown cleansing in order to determine required levels.

It has become the firm belief of all transference technicians that the degree of personality to be retained and transferred into a biomech should be predicated upon the assignment the biomech will be given. We would also urge that youth leaders and overunits who are transferred be personality-retained to a greater extent due to the fact that their training would yield a higher percentage of successes in battles. A more intuitive biomech has proven to be more autonomous than a biomech with a non-personalitied-transferred mind.

Lab-conducted experiments have yielded another anomaly. Biomechs with transferred minds have a lower threshold for pain. No amount of reprogramming has overcome this result because biomechs have no pain sensors. Superiors are testing if the pain felt by a biomech after being shot could be related to the phenomenon known as phantom pain felt by an organic when he or she has lost a limb. It is possible that the more of the personality is retained during transfer, the more connected mind and metalloid body become. The mind may think it feels pain when the body doesn’t. Further testing will be required.

As to the question concerning the disposition of the transfer failures, it is suggested that all failures to transfer be sent to the quarantined sections of Darktown in Sector 19. The acid fog will completely destroy the biomech bodies within days.”

Dread had always known there were failures in the early years of developing the technology. He had been informed that the ones that failed to transfer correctly were sent to work in the mines or the foundries, yet now he learned that some were sent to Darktown.

Which ones? Why? And these ‘new’ orders they were given to tell him and their superiors different results? Who gave them these orders? And why was this kept secret from him? Who was playing some kind of game with them by having the technicians tell the transfer commanders that the experiment didn’t work, telling him that it did and requesting more transferees. And if these technicians had the ability to transfer a percentage of the human personality and consciousness over to a metalloid body, why were they not transferring all of it?

Why? What was going on?

Wait, another memory danced across his mind. Colville. That name sounded familiar. He opened up the roster of youth leaders since the Dread Youth was first organized. Colville... Colville... right, Colville. Her name was listed with various others whose names he suddenly remembered: Youth Leader Colville, Youth Leader Chase, Overunit Wilson, Youth Leader Bardanaro, Youth Assistant Donaldson, Cadet Simmons, Cadet French, the top ten cadets that were graduating to youth leader that cycle upon a successful completion of the mission. They had been handpicked for a newly formed unit personally overseen by Dread himself to be the first large group of organics to be transferred to metalloid bodies. He had no concerns of the overunits, but the youth leader and the cadets’ abilities in the field had yet to be tested. To solve the problem and prove their loyalty to Dread, he sent them on a mission to track down radios and communications devices hidden in various settlements, allowing the organics new ways to form resistance cells. Colville had been one of Dread’s handpicked candidates. She had volunteered for an experimental transfer which had been a success -- according to what the transfer technicians had told him.

That was right before the Sand Town cleansing.

That was the year Dread changed tactics when dealing with organic settlements because the radios indicated the beginnings of a unified resistance instead of small resistance cells. He gave orders for them to be destroyed, the people digitized, enslaved or cleansed and the towns razed. He wanted complete loyalty to the New Order and there was no room for dissension. He handpicked every single person on that new unit. They were the top performers in their classes. Their training-field ratings were the highest. He wanted a premiere team to be his advance squad, and the ones that were successful would be the first to be transferred into a new type of biomech, designed with more impenetrable metal with a longer life span. Some would be the leaders of the various branches of the Machine military -- Ground Assault Squads, Aerial Defense and Recon Unit, Advance Tactical Units, even the Infiltration and Annihilation Teams. Some would be his personal guard. Most had returned from that mission and were successfully transferred with the experimental procedure -- or so he had been told. One in particular had been pronounced killed at Sand Town, only Dread learned later on that Youth Leader Chase had defected, become a traitor to the Machine, and was now the pilot for the Power Team. Despite that one flaw, all had gone according to the first stages of a plan he had devised years earlier.

At least, what he believed had been his plan. If Colville’s personality hadn’t transferred, but the techs told him that it had, then what was going on behind his back, and why was he being lied to? Was Overmind being lied to? Then a darker thought crossed Dread’s mind. Could Overmind be involved in the lies and cover-up? Was this part of some plan Overmind was orchestrating behind his back? Could Chase’s leaving the Dread Youth and joining with a resistance team be part of some plan Overmind was conducting?

It was all more details in the mystery he was trying to solve.

Until he knew more for certain, he had to appear as if he wasn’t aware of the subterfuge. He wanted to surprise the disloyal once he had all the information gathered and he dealt with them.

Subterfuge aside, Darktown was another part of the mystery. Metal corroded quickly there, within hours, and Soaron had no trouble surviving the acid fog. Soaron wasn’t even completely mechanical. He had human brain engrams from one of the earliest transfer experiments, but no organic consciousnesses. Blastarr? His systems came under attack almost as soon as he arrived. Blastarr had many human minds in his processing system. Perhaps Power’s interference with Blastarr’s birth had degraded the quality of the biodread body itself? Dread was uncertain... no, uncertainty was not of the Machine. He knew the atmosphere was deadly to organics, and logic dictated that metalloid beings with organic minds were more susceptible to the acid fog than pure machines for some heretofore-unknown reason -- unless biomechs with a human mind were more connected to the metal bodies than first imagined like the technicians had considered. That would explain why Soaron with his very few human engrams was less affected than the biomechs with transferred minds or Blastarr. Therefore, whatever had gone into the acid fog to access the file at the data terminal must have been pure machine.

Yet the Power Team had walked in to Darktown and come out unharmed, and they were purely organic. Perhaps those infernal suits of theirs had protected them? From what information Dread had, it wasn’t the Power Team who had been there fourteen months earlier. There was no report of their being in the area.

So who retrieved this information?

A mystery to solve. Yes, as Sherlock Holmes himself once said as he quoted Shakespeare, the game was afoot.

Again, he spoke to the biomech’s processor. “Were you able to get all the files not password protected?”

“All that I could, my lord, but not all that were in the terminal. My circuits began to degrade beyond the point of being able to obey your orders.”

He needed that information. Dread pressed a button on his communicator. Within moments, a biomech appeared on the screen.

“Yes, my lord?”

“Group leader, I have a mission for you. I wish you to reconnoiter an area in Sector 19 known as Darktown. There is a data terminal at the former archives building. I want any and all data files that can be recovered. I don’t care how many biomechs must be sacrificed in order to get this information. The future of the Machine Empire requires it.”

“At once, my lord.”

The answers to his mystery had to be in that terminal.

He shut down the biomech’s processor, removed it from the computer, and watched it slowly begin to rust. Within hours, only a small pile of metallic ash would be left.

Ash and dust... the Old World was dying away, withering as time passed even though people like Power and the other Resistance fighters wouldn’t let it die out altogether. Soon, everything from before would be nothing more than ash and dust as the Machine Empire became the powerful rulers of the world they were meant to be. Dread would rule the Machines as was his destiny.

For now, all he could do was wait, gather up the breadcrumbs, and figure out the small mysteries lying before him.

The Eden Road: Part 2
Angel City Saloon
(The day after the Power Team went into Darktown)

The saloon was packed. Every seat was taken; people were leaning against the walls as they watched the goings-on and talked with friends. Some were dancing, some gambling, others were singing. The old piano was getting a workout that night as everyone who could remember how to play a tune took turns ‘tickling the ivories.’ And singing? When was the last time a packed house sang old songs? Heck, when was the last time there was a packed house? Poker, blackjack, wait -- did someone bring out the old roulette wheel?

The owner, Wade Brooks, came out of his back office when the noise rose to such a level that the pictures on the wall were shaking. He couldn’t believe the huge throng of people! He’d never seen the place that crowded or the customers that happy in years.

If he didn’t know better, he’d almost think it was a saloon in some of the western movies and TV shows filmed in the 20^th century. He pushed his way to the bar, listening to some of the conversations going on as he walked.

“Any idea what’s going on?”

“All I know is everyone started coming in and was having fun.”

“I heard the noise and came in to check it out.”

“I just won a sack of seed grain in the poker game. Need to get it home for the kids. Then I’m coming back to see if I can win anything else.”

Wade finally reached the bar and took the first seat he could find.

The bartender walked over. “Whatcha want, boss?”

“Whatever’s on tap. Do we have enough to last the night?”

Neil, the bartender, drew the owner a mug of beer and slid it down to him. “Yeah. People are buying and drinking like we haven’t seen in years. We’ll have to brew some more tomorrow though.”

“Hey, Neil, need four more!” one of the waiters shouted over the din.

“Can you believe this crowd tonight?” another waiter asked Neil as he poured out more mugs of beer.

“Not really,” he answered.

Neil filled yet another shouted-out order as Wade took a sip of his drink. “Have you heard what brought it on?”

Neil shook his head. “It’s been like this for the last half hour. Rumor is something good happened today with Cypher’s team. Probably had a successful mission. They came in here smiling and bought everybody a round. That sort of spurred folks in here to have a little party and then it kind of got bigger.”

Wade glanced over at the private room in the saloon that he usually reserved for Cypher’s team. They were all there, every active member of the Angel City Resistance. If Dread were to attack at that moment, he could wipe out the entire defensive army for Angel City. As he continued to watch, he saw everyone smiling, laughing, drinking. “It’s not often Cypher’s entire group comes by in that good a mood. Whatever mission they just went on must have been real good.”

“Must have been. But whatever happened, Cypher ordered a round of the real stuff for his team tonight. I’ve got Kenny bringing up a new keg from the cellar.”

The real stuff? Not the hard stuff they brewed out back? That was even more precious than fresh water! Not to mention expensive. “But they don’t drink. At least, they hardly ever drink. It’s always on a very special occasion.”

Neil leaned over and said in whisper that only Wade could hear, “Whatever they did today, I wish they’d do it again. It’s really good for business.”

“Excuse me,” a hooded figure approached the bar. “Beer?”

Neil smiled and drew another mug of beer from the tap. “Arvin? Is that you?”

The man removed the hood from his head. “That it is, Neil. How are you?” He extended his hand and the bartender shook it enthusiastically.

“Doing good. I didn’t think you’d leave Oasis this time of year. What brings you here?”

Arvin lifted the mug and took a sip. “You didn’t hear? We had to leave Oasis because Dread found us.”

Neil leaned over and asked, “Was it a routine rousting or did he find out you were helping resistance groups?”

Arvin shrugged. “Neither. Blastarr was on the trail of Captain Power. He and the team pilot had crashed in the desert and came to us for help. Blastarr followed the radio transmissions to us, but I’ll tell you this -- we wouldn’t have made it out alive if Captain Power and Corporal Chase hadn’t been there to fight off that biodread. Came close to killing that pilot, but they got us out of there. Injuries and casualties on our side were low.”

“That’s good,” Neil said. “Hey, have you ever met Wade? He owns the saloon.”

Wade realized he’d been dragged into the conversation. He held out his hand to shake the newcomer’s. “How do you do?”

“Fine. It’s good to meet you. Neil says good things about you,” Arvin told him.

“That’s because I pay him every week,” Wade joked. “Oasis, did you say? The water station in the desert?”

“That’s the one. Or it used to be. We moved west to a town called Parmen. I’m helping set up a trade agreement with certain other towns, and Angel City was next on the list. I’ve got an appointment to talk to your town council tomorrow.”

Wade nodded his head. “I think I heard something about that. Setting up trade between towns will be a good thing. It keeps us connected. Good thing to be in this day and age when we all need to help each other survive.”

Arvin took a sip of the beer. “You know, I might have to ask for a few kegs in the trade agreement. Our home brew isn’t this good.”

Wade smiled at the comment. “It all depends on the quality of water and how good your copper pot is,” he said.

“Water,” Arvin nodded. “Good water’s getting harder to find. We can’t dig wells deep enough or fast enough.” He took another sip of his beer. “Good stuff, Neil.”

Arvin placed a small coin on the bar and pushed it toward Neil.

“Whoa. This came from Tucson, didn’t it?” Neil asked him. “I haven’t seen a Tucson coin in years.

Arvin nodded. “I was there about six weeks ago doing some trading, just before Dread attacked. I saw it from a distance afterwards. There wasn’t much left though. I haven’t found any survivors yet, so I have no idea what really happened there.”

“Tucson too?” Wade asked. “I hadn’t heard about it being destroyed.”

Neil pointed his thumb toward the door. “Fellow who came through here a few weeks ago brought the news. Dread hit it with his Aerial Recon unit and both biodreads. A couple of battalions of biomechs. I haven’t had anyone from Tucson come through the saloon. I thought everybody knew. Sorry, boss.”

Wade waved his hand, dismissing the apology. It was impossible to keep up with all the places being destroyed. There were too many. And coins? Wade hadn’t paid any attention to Arvin’s money. To him, a coin was a coin. For a long time, money was useless until a barter system needed to be established, and goods were non-existent to trade with. Since there was no gold-based economy anymore, coins were merely tokens used for trade rather than for actual buying, and each settlement had their own ‘minting’ machine to produce coins. There was no standard of amount for each coin. Big, little, thin, thick, they were all absolutely worthless pieces of metal. What was it Wade had heard once? They were more like IOUs or promissory notes rather than currency? Who knows. It was a really bad system, but it was the only one they had.

Neil pushed the coin back. “Keep it. This one is on Cypher. He bought everyone the first round tonight.”

Arvin smiled. “I’ll have to tell him I appreciate it.” He nodded his head at both of them and walked off toward the back of the saloon.

Neil shook his head and sighed sadly. “We lost Tucson and Oasis. I thought that was one place that could be safe.”

Wade moved his mug around in his hand. Another ‘safe’ place gone, another town destroyed, another group of people uprooted and fleeing for their lives or dead or digitized. “There’s no real safe place anymore, buddy. I’m surprised Angel City is still standing.”

“Another one, Neil!” a waiter shouted.

Neil poured out another mug of beer. “Angel City’s pretty big. Maybe Dread doesn’t want to attack big places right now?”

Wade almost chuckled. “He didn’t think twice when he leveled Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, Los Angeles and New York. I think Angel City just isn’t important enough for him to concentrate on at the moment since we’re so far away from Volcania. Who knows? Maybe we’ll wake up one day and find biomechs on our doorsteps.”

“Let’s hope not.” Neil motioned for one of the waiters to got downstairs to the supply room and get more mugs. “Angel City’s one of the last large settlements in existence. The ocean’s on one side of us, nothing but desert to the south and dead ground to the north. We don’t have a lot of places to run to. Maybe Dread thinks there’s no sport in attacking us since we’d be sitting ducks.”

That was the truth. Angel City was sort of a dead end when it came to location. Not easily defensible, in fact, they could be placed in siege with relative ease. Why survivors settled there, Wade didn’t know, but there had to be reasons in the beginning or maybe someone just thought it was a good idea at the time. But that was then. This was now, and surviving the wastelands was their daily battle, not battling Dread even though that threat loomed over them every day. That had become their ‘normal’ lives. One day, the wars would be over with, Dread would be gone, and they could all get back to the business of living their mundane lives in the everyday work-a-day world.

Wade truly couldn’t wait for life to get back to some semblance of remembered normality.

Within moments, another hooded figure approached the bar. “Beer?”

Neil poured out another mug and handed it to the newcomer. “Here you go. No charge for the first one tonight. I haven’t seen you before. New in town?”

“Just passing through,” the man said, his face hidden behind his hood. He thanked Neil for the beer and headed off to the secluded corner of the saloon.

“Even strangers are coming in, I see,” Wade commented. “Yeah. Parties are really good for business.”

~0~0~0~0~

Private Room In Saloon

A pitcher of real beer, a small indulgence rarely allowed because of how scarce and how expensive the real stuff was, sat in the middle of the table. Cypher did the honors of pouring each member of his team half a mug. Seven people, seven half-mugs.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, for a battle well-fought and won in less than fifteen minutes, the round is on me,” Cypher announced, his smile contagious.

They raised their glasses and clinked them in salute.

Cypher looked at all his team. Barry, the demolitions expert; Tate, communications officer; Andrea, weapons specialist; Zimmerman, Intel gatherer; David and Gemma, the youngest members who made up the support team. All still alive, all still intact. Not all resistance teams could make that claim. “Make ‘em last because after buying a round for the house, this is all I can afford,” Cypher suggested.

There was a knock at the door, and a rather non-descript individual walked in and handed Cypher a small disk. “Latest Intel on Dread’s movements,” the individual said as he nodded and then left the room.

“Dread’s up to something,” Andrea commented as she took a sip of her drink. “He’s being more mysterious than usual. Wonder what he’s up to.”

“Who cares,” Barry said. “He’s always up to something.” Then he put his elbows on the table and leaned toward Cypher. “So, bossman, you saw the Power Base yesterday, huh? When are you going to tell us about it?”

Cypher nodded and smiled. “That I did. Now I know why the Power Team always has nice uniforms and look well rested. It’s like a military bunker with all the amenities. Everybody has their own quarters, they’ve got showers, they’ve got a small almost-working indoor garden. Weapons, spare parts -- it’s something else.”

David hung on his every word. “Was it a bunker they found and took over like we did with our new base or did they build it?”

Cypher shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it was one that was built before the wars. Or during. The equipment is pretty dated, and I know I saw some computer equipment that date right back to just before Dread took over. They could easily take in a few more people, but I think Jon wants to keep his team small for security reasons. I can’t blame him for that.”

“Think it was a famous place?” Andrea was curious. “If it was, we might be able to figure out where they are.”

“I doubt it,” Cypher answered. “They’re too big on security. They flew me there blindfolded, and we didn’t fly for very long. It couldn’t have been far from Angel City because we were in the air maybe a half hour, but I saw a monitor receiving a transmission from an external sensor, and it didn’t look like anywhere around here. It gave me the impression it was underground, but not like our base is. I don’t think it was a converted subway tunnel or subterranean bunker. To be honest, I’m not really sure how to explain its location.”

“A cave system maybe?” Andrea suggested.

Cypher considered that. Converted caves? “Maybe? There’s no way for me to be sure. I do know I saw carved-out rock walls, but that could be some kind of disguised shoring instead of a carved out area.”

Zimmerman leaned forward. “You flew in their ship. Rumors say that it can go five times the speed of sound. What do you think?”

“That jumpship?” Tate asked him. “It’s an old TF model. They took a cargo ship and refitted it to be a carrier that doubles as a battleship. I know Pilot babies it and not even Tank would get a scratch on it and risk angering her, but the TFs were outdated before the wars. I’m surprised it’s still flying.”

“But it was fast, right?”

Cypher shrugged. “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell how fast it was going from inside the hold.”

David put his mug down. “What’s it matter, Zimmerman?”

“I just want someone to explain how Power’s team can get from one point to another as fast as they do,” Zimmerman challenged everyone at the table. “Cypher, you were the one listening to the radio calls when they helped out one group in New York and then another group in Nevada just a few hours later last month. If their ship can’t fly faster than anything else out there, how are they covering that kind of ground that fast?”

Cypher cleared his throat. “I have no idea. I’ve seen Pilot get that ship to do tricks nobody else can. On the way to their base, I overheard her and Hawk discussing the ship’s capabilities under certain conditions and how they could improve them. Tank said to just tell the ship that Jennifer wants something done, and the ship would do it automatically. No argument. Like it was a living creature. But as to how fast the ship goes, I couldn’t detect it going any faster than we’ve seen it fly.”

David shrugged. “So they’ve got a secret. Who cares? We all do. Besides, it helps them fight Dread, so good for them.”

Cypher had to smile at that. David was not very curious about how others worked except those who worked with their team. As long as some other team was successful, like he said, good for them. It was Gemma’s behavior that was a curiosity. He watched her silently sit there swirling the drink around in the mug. She was part of the current generation now becoming adults who were raised in the Wastelands all their lives. There was an understood mode of behavior that was accepted by Wastelanders, and it seemed to be instinctual, not taught. For instance, they didn’t delve into other people’s business. They didn’t ask too many questions. They just ‘accepted’ life the way it was even though they were fighting to survive. It was a literary contradiction in terms, but not a contradictory existence. Gemma’d had a rough life up until the time he found her living off scraps in Tech City and brought her onto the team. One thing they’d taught her was that it was all right to indulge in a little luxury from time to time, something people living in the Wastelands couldn’t do. It had taken her a few months to accept this idea, but it hadn’t been an issue in a long time. So why was she not drinking? Cypher had the feeling something else was wrong. “Gemma?”

The girl stopped swirling her mug, leaned over toward Cypher, and whispered, “Something doesn’t make sense to me about all this.”

“What is it?”

Gemma took a moment to gather her thoughts. “For months, we’ve been going at a pretty good clip helping people find a safe place to live,” she said, using one of their veiled euphemisms for their part in the Underground Railroad that got survivors to Eden II. “Every person we’ve helped there has reached it in relatively one piece. Everything was fine until the third part of the route got discovered. Now, when we had to get some more relocators, they only wanted to talk to Power, and that doesn’t make sense.”

Cypher couldn’t completely agree with that. Jon’s team was probably the best equipped to move even more people through to Eden II. They had resources everyone else could only dream about. He saw them.

“Using them doesn’t make sense?” Barry asked. “Why not?”

Gemma shrugged. “What we do is on the hush-hush. We get away with what we do because we’re not nearly as well known. Power’s high-profile. Every move he makes is recorded somehow. Everywhere he goes, Dread finds out about it eventually. He’s big news. Why have someone like that working as a relocator? There’s no way they can do the job on the quiet side.”

Now that was something Cypher hadn’t considered.

“And I get that Power’s famous and he’s been heard of, but John told you he had never met him. He only knew about him. Still, they only wanted to use Power? No one else would do?”

There was a round of cheers and groans as someone outside at the poker table drew to an inside straight. “Beats my two pair,” was the one sentence they could hear over the din.

“Who knows,” Tate answered. “Maybe they’ve got something in mind they need Power for. Does it matter?”

“Yeah,” Gemma said. “It matters. Besides, Power’s team is probably the busiest team out here. They’re supposed to stop fighting Dread to be professional movers? As important as what we’re doing is, what he’s doing is even more important. What’s he supposed to do, just stop fighting Dread for days at a time to be relocators? What happens to the war then?”

If there was one thing about Gemma that Cypher knew, it was that she could look at all sides of a situation and pick out the problems. He probably should get her started in tactics and logistics. She’d be good in that job.

Zimmerman drained his glass. “Maybe it’s because people out here know Power and trust him and will follow him. If he says it’s time to move, more people would move. Probably faster.”

“Now they do,” Andrea added. “Remember that guy that was pretending to be Power and promising to take people to safety? It turned out he was one of Dread’s soldiers impersonating him? It took a while for that story to die down and people to trust Power again.”

Zimmerman shook his head. “Nah, doesn’t track. That was in a limited area and not many knew about that after the fact. There are some rumors, but no one believes them now.”

Cypher hadn’t thought about that incident in quite some time. “Lots of rumors,” Cypher said, “but I don’t think people trusting Jon is the reason why.”

His team looked at him expectantly. He honestly didn’t know why, all of a sudden, Jon’s team had been recruited. Up until a few days earlier, none of his contacts from Eden II had ever mentioned Jon or the Power Team. “I don’t know why, but I don’t think that’s the answer.” Then he got very serious. “Look, I don’t know why they wanted Power. All John told me is that they did, I was to ask Power for a meet and greet and tell him where to go. After that, it was all up to John and Power. We just keep doing our jobs the best we can. Besides, getting Power and John together was small potatoes. Today, we kicked some major biomech butt when we took out that clicker manufacturing facility. We destroyed the factory and three entire phalanxes and lived to tell the tale. Let’s celebrate that.”

They smiled, clinked their mugs together and decided to not worry about problems they couldn’t do anything about.

~0~0~0~0~

Dark Corner Of The Angel City Saloon

Arvin sat in the dark corner of the saloon, his hands wrapped around his mug of beer. He watched the goings-on of the customers. For the first time in years, he was in the midst of happy, celebrating people. It felt absolutely surreal. If he didn’t think about the way the world really was, he could pretend that there wasn’t a war, that there wasn’t a Dread and just remember what it was like to be out with friends and not have a care in the world.

Cares. He had a lot of them. Several months earlier, he’d been reminded of his role in the destruction of the world. He felt ashamed that he had innocently contributed so much. Events had to play out for him to recognize his own handiwork being used to brainwash Dread Youth. Now, all he could do was try to undo what damage he’d unknowingly and unwittingly caused.

Another hooded figure sat down at the table with him. A younger man, happier, more carefree -- someone who had the distinct look that he hadn’t had to struggle or fight to survive. He had the look of someone who had lived an untroubled life to some extent.

“A secret meeting held in plain sight of everyone in a packed saloon where no one can hear,” the man commented, the hood of his jacket pulled low over his forehead. “An excellent subterfuge, but this is a first, Colonel.”

“Call me Arvin,” he said. “My colonel days have been gone for a long time. Besides, it was just an honorary title. I worked for some government departments and military branches, so they thought it was a good idea to give me some authority.”

The other gentleman nodded and smiled. “I understand that.” He nodded back into the main hall of the saloon. “The few times I’ve ventured out into the Wastelands, I’ve never seen a bar packed like this. It must be also be a rarity.”

“It’s not a typical night in Angel City,” Arvin agreed. “I don’t know what caused it. I heard Cypher and his team had a good day and it sort of spilled over, but the owner probably hasn’t seen this kind of business since before the wars.”

“Makes sense,” the stranger agreed. “I understand life was very different back then.”

“More than you can imagine,” Arvin agreed. “And not to be rude, but I think it’d be safer if we talked somewhere else.”

The hooded figure glanced around. “You think anyone can overhear us over this din?”

Arvin smiled. “Believe it or not, we’re both a curiosity. I don’t come here often and you’ve never been here at all. People aren’t being obvious about it, but we’re being watched because folks want to know who we are and what we’re up to.”

The other man considered the wisdom of Arvin’s statement. “I agree. I hadn’t thought about that.”

Arvin smiled. “I’m staying at the inn. Strangers go through there all the time and it doesn’t raise any eyebrows. Meet me in the lobby in about ten minutes. The innkeeper’s a friend of mine and makes a fakeberry pie that’s pretty good.”

“Fakeberry?”

Arvin smiled. “You’re in the Wastelands now. Food doesn’t grow easily or well out here, so a lot of what we eat isn’t ‘real’ by the usual definition.”

~0~0~0~0~

Angel City Inn

There was a hint of “before” at the inn. A big fireplace, several tables, each with two chairs made of wood -- a commodity not seen in a very long time, a chandelier with kerosene lamps to light the lobby... it had a very 1700’s feel to it.

It was empty except for Arvin and the hooded figure. They sat at a table near the fireplace, tasting the fakeberry pie the innkeeper left for them.

“Extraordinary!” the hooded figure exclaimed. “I’ve never tasted anything like it. What’s in it?”

Arvin ate another bite of pie. “Fakeberries, some sort of substance used as honey or what passes for honey these days, I have no idea what she uses for flour to make the crust, and I don’t ask. I heard she found a way to use ground corn stalks for that, but I don’t really want to know. Like a lot of others out here, she’s been experimenting.”

“Amazing,” the man ate another bite of the pie. “And what’s this drink?”

“Our version of coffee,” Arvin explained. “We’ve figured out a way to use certain weed roots as a substitute.

The man took another sip of coffee. “It’s very satisfying.”

Arvin shrugged. “It’s what we’ve been subsisting on for years. You’re too young, but you should have seen what it was like out here before the wars.”

“I’ve heard stories,” the man answered. “I’d love to hear more.”

Arvin thought for a moment, then smiled. “There was this five-star restaurant not far from where I lived. Five-star meant it was a very good restaurant. They cooked an inch thick filet mignon that was so tender, you could cut it with a fork. The chef prepared these exotic vegetables in some way... I don’t even know how to describe it. And the dessert was this absolutely decadent chocolate cake with this delicious icing. Very expensive, but three times a year, they would have a special charity deal -- bring an item for whatever charity they were sponsoring at that time, and get a full course meal for $30. It was lunch-sized portions, but believe me, $30 was very cheap compared to what they charged the rest of the time. One of these deals coincided with my wedding anniversary, so I’d take my wife every year. Another deal coincided with my birthday, and my wife would take me there as a present. The third time, our kids would take us out for dinner. It was about the only time we could get them all under one roof at one time.”

The man leaned back in his chair as he listened. “It sounds like you enjoyed it.”

“We did,” Arvin confessed, his voice a little sad.

“Is your family here with you?

Arvin shook his head. “No. I lost them early on.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago,” Arvin said as he took another sip of coffee.

The man paused for a moment before asking, “Where were you stationed before the Metal Wars and Dread?”

In all the years Arvin had known the man sitting in front of him, he’d never asked a personal question like that. That was... odd and unexpected. Their association was purely professional and concerned Eden II. Maybe there was a reason for such familiarity? Still, if he was wanting to be friendly and not just talk shop, Arvin was more than happy to comply. “Virginia . I was about to transfer from Fort Langley to Groom Lake when the first attack came,” Arvin answered. “Both sites have a rather interesting history. You?”

The stranger looked around the lobby, taking in what, to him, had to be odd decorations. “I only remember Eden II. Lived there since I was a kid,” he said.

“Your parents?”

The man thought for a moment. “My mother is a botanist and my father is an engineer. They’ve been instrumental in helping Eden II become what it is today.” He took a deep breath. “However, we have more important things to discuss than our respective pasts.”

Sitting there where no one could see them, there was a hint of privacy. Arvin still didn’t feel comfortable despite the familiarity of the inn. And forgoing the niceties to get down to business? A good idea under other circumstances, but in the middle of a town where anyone could come in at any moment, some basic small talk was the best cover anyone could have. “So just for the sake of conversation, how about telling me what I can call you while you’re here? Or do you mind if I use your name?”

The man tilted his head up and looked at Arvin. “I think John’s a good name to use. That’s how I’m known to everyone out here.”

Arvin could see John’s face. There was a look to his eyes that showed he’d never suffered the way the people in the Wastelands had. He’d never scavenged for food. He’d never seen loved ones killed or digitized. He’d never seen towns razed to the ground. He still had that hopeful look that thought the world could be a good place again because he’d never seen the bad. What would he do if Dread attacked at that moment?

“How did the meeting with Captain Power go?”

John suddenly had a surprised look on his face. “Absolutely everything you told us was accurate. Their suits are amazing. They withstood the fog for an hour. It’s further proof that Stuart Power’s technology has stood the test of time and others have carried on his work. The team works together seamlessly. Their capabilities exceed any other resistance team we work with or have observed. Your recommendation along with our own observations of the last six months and the meeting I had with them has definitely solidified a merger of our forces.”

Arvin frowned at the doubletalk. “A merger. Interesting term. John, even I know that Eden’s been using Power’s technology and their network for its own purposes for a while now. This merger is just to get official use of that network. Eventually.”

“Well, yes, but that’s not the entire story,” John said, his voice low. “I told the captain that we were aware of his father, that we knew of him but I didn’t tell him how. Even Captain Power is unaware of his links with Eden II. Technological and otherwise.”

Links? That piqued Arvin’s interest. “Just out of curiosity, why the Power Team now? Why watch them for six months? He’s been fighting Dread for years. They almost come with a guarantee of trustworthiness, but they’re an obvious group. They can’t work completely in secrecy, anonymity is not something they’re trying to keep, and you want them to move people for us. Dread will be watching for them everywhere.”

“A preemptive move,” John assured him. “The Eden Council has decided to change strategy again. We learned through recent and not-so-recent errors in judgment that we should remain in the background as support and supply rather than take direct action against the Dread forces. Our experiences in the Wastelands are rather limited, we’re not aware of all the cultural subtleties that exist and the Council feels that any more errors would harm the Resistance effort overall.”

“Errors?”

John shrugged slightly. “War can be a learning experience. We’ve had our share.”

More doubletalk, but Arvin knew John wouldn’t elaborate. Yet. Information had to be coaxed and yanked from him a little at a time. It was one of the more annoying aspects of John’s personality, but it was one that made him perfect for clandestine meetings in the Wastelands. He didn’t give up information easily, so if captured, Eden II’s secrets were safer with him than anyone else. “And Power fits in with all this... how?”

John took a deep breath. He looked around to make certain no one was coming into the lobby or listening to them. “For years, you were at Oasis helping Resistance teams when they needed it. You gathered Intel about Dread and his Empire for us. You and others in strategic positions were our eyes and ears in the Wastelands, but no one, absolutely no one could tell us anything with any certainty about the Power Team until you met the captain and the pilot. All we had was innuendo, second-hand information, a few eyewitness reports from refugees, and some folktales to go along with our own observations. There was no direct contact. None of our people had come face-to-face with any of them until you did. Such information was one of the reasons that compelled the Council to change strategy.”

“And the new strategy includes them? And it comes after errors in judgment and my meeting them?” Arvin asked. When John didn’t continue, Arvin sighed. “I’ve been helping out Eden for years. I’ve earned some trust.”

“Yes, you have,” John agreed. He frowned as if considering how to answer. Finally, he said, “For a long time, the Council viewed the wars in the Wastelands in a rather simplistic way.”

“Wars in the Wasteland? Is that what you call them?” Arvin asked.

John nodded. “Before, yes. Now we know that everyone in the Wastelands have different terms for them so we have adjusted our definitions.”

Adjusted their definitions? Arvin was beginning to wonder if the people in Eden II had any idea of what life was really like outside their little slice of paradise. “Go on,” he urged.

“Our people believed that if we could strike blows against Dread that were powerful enough to seriously damage his forces or help the Resistance fighters go up against him, that would give the Resistance and the survivors a greater chance of success. At least, that was the goal early on. In the beginning, the people in Eden II believed that there were strict battle lines. As time passed and our personnel began making more trips out to the Wastelands, they learned that wasn’t quite the truth. Survivors did what they needed to do in order to survive, played both sides of the war, traded with both sides, and the ideas of where the battle lines were drawn were utterly blurred. There were no clear lines the further you looked beyond the seat of power. We didn’t understand that. Some years ago, we tried to help unify the existing resistance forces by supplying communication systems --”

“Wait,” Arvin interrupted. “Communications systems?” THAT was bringing back a memory. “You mean radios? Some years back? You were giving out radios to towns?”

John nodded. “Yes. You know about them?”

Arvin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Eden II had been the ones supplying radios to the settlements? THAT’S what spurred Dread’s sudden change in tactics. That was the year he ordered not only Sand Town to be destroyed, but town after town and settlement after settlement. He began to brutally destroy any area that had the radios. Since he heard what happened that night in Sand Town during Corporal Chase’s tribunal, Arvin had thought it had been a resistance group trying to unify the settlements, but it was Eden II? “You do know what Dread did when he found out about the radios, right?”

“Yes,” John assured him. “It was our oversight. It was our mistake. We did not deliver the radios as secretly as we thought we had, and the radios did not operate on a frequency that couldn’t be detected by Dread’s sensors, so he discovered them. He eradicated the sites and the people, as I understand. That plan did not work as intended.”

Didn’t work as intended? Talk about understatement!

“We did learn from our mistakes on that endeavor. We knew a more clandestine, untraceable attack on Dread’s forces would have to be targeted precisely, so we orchestrated one. It did exactly what we projected it to do, but what we didn’t know is that it took out more than just Dread forces. It affected survivors and Resistance soldiers as well. During our recon of the Wastelands after that mission, we learned that our attempt did untold damage to the Resistance and the civilians, and we had no idea. After that, we decided to leave the fighting to the soldiers and we would stay in the background and assist after we’d been asked for help.”

John talked a lot, but he didn’t really say much, Arvin noted. “A precision attack against Dread that hit others as well? When?”

“A few months ago,” John said.

Months... months... the only thing he could think of that matched that description in the past months was... “Wait, that virus some months back?”

“Yes,” John admitted. “We designed the bacteria to focus on the slight difference in a Dread Youth’s DNA strand, and --

“ Eden created that virus that was designed to kill the Dread Youth? The one that took out most of the population at Medlab One?”

John nodded, looking confused.

“Do you have any idea the ramifications if anyone finds out Eden was behind that?” Arvin whispered. “The idea of that kind of germ warfare... do you know what that did to an entire region? How it decimated the population there?”

John once again nodded. “The intent was to devastate Dread’s forces. We didn’t realize that the strain would affect everyone else as well. It had no effect on anyone in Eden when we tested it in our lab.”

“And it never occurred to any of your scientists that people out here in the Wastelands and the people in Eden might have developed a difference in their immune systems?” Arvin couldn’t believe the shortsightedness of the group he was working with or the man sitting across from him. “Dread blew up Medlab One not only to stop the spread of the sickness but to cover up the fact his Dread Youth were vulnerable to any disease,” Arvin explained in a very low voice. “Countless others died from it. Innocent people who weren’t Dread Youth.”

“We know,” John said. “That was part of the reason we changed strategy.”

Part of the reason? John was behaving as if these were classroom questions to a hypothetical event and not people’s lives! Did he honestly not see the human cost in what they’d done because they hadn’t considered the contingencies or the consequences? “What’s the rest of it? You still haven’t told me why you wanted Power so desperately. What was the preemptive move for?”

John took a breath. Obviously, he recognized the fact that what he’d said was not being well received by the long-time Eden II associate. Finally, he said, “First, we found a way to access an important part of Stuart Power’s technology. It was completely by accident. One of our agents was in the right place at the right time and stumbled across the information. We know how to make it work, but we don’t understand how it works and we don’t know how to repair it should it break down or expand on it, and it’s critical to keeping the railroad going. Captain Power understands his father’s technology, the power suits and other aspects of the sciences his team uses, so...” he paused.

John was using Power technology? Wait... recent reports indicated that there was chatter inside Dread’s forces. They were wondering how Power moved around the country so quickly. If Eden II had discovered how -- “Does this have anything to do with how you move people to Eden II?”

John shrugged. “Let’s just say it’s a trade secret. However, since we’re using his technology secretly, we have no doubt that we’ll need Captain Power eventually.”

They needed someone who understood the technology Eden II was stealing. Okay, that made sense. “What kinds of technology?” he prodded again. Maybe he could get John to trip up and tell him more than he intended?

John fidgeted slightly. “Some we found accidentally, some was given to us, some was found in a database over a year ago. Stuart Power was very innovative in his inventions.”

Database? John was hedging. Arvin knew that the chances of finding any database with any scientific information were slim, yet Eden had found it? “You have access to a database? It’d have to be one Dread can’t get to.”

“It’s one Overmind can’t get to,” John corrected quickly.

That meant it wasn’t connected to the vast computer system Overmind controlled. “Eden’s not hooked up to any outside database, is it?” he surmised.

“The designers weren’t going to take the chance of them getting the systems taken over by an outside source, so we’re not hooked up to any other computer,” John explained. “When we discovered this database, we learned that it was designed with similar systems as our own. We were able to access its systems without any trouble or risking our own security.”

“And second?”

John leaned forward. “The Power Team is at the forefront of the fight against Dread. As such, they would be perceived as being too busy to be working with Eden. No one would ever suspect them. In a way, it’s a perfect cover.”

Arvin leaned forward. “That’s probably the least logical excuse you could give me. I take it there are some more preemptive motives behind that?”

“In a tangential way,” John cut himself another piece of fakeberry pie. “Imagine the influence Eden II could gain after the wars are over and Dread’s defeated if we’re associated with someone like Captain Power. If he thinks we’re worth risking his life for, if we’re worth risking his team to help move people to safer locations, doesn’t that give us a little more prestige than we would already have?”

Arvin could believe that. He’d seen that particular attitude too many times over the years. Reflected glory, it was called. Status by association. “They are well known, well-respected and have some interesting backgrounds.”

“Not only that,” John ate another bite of pie, shaking his head at the amazing taste, “we’ve learned that the Power Team has more connections to Dread than any other and are fighting him. It’s personal with them. People know that. Stuart Power worked with Dread obviously. Captain Power has known him since he was young so he understands him. Hawk is also acquainted with him. Tank was engineered at Babylon 5, and the pilot was a former Dread Youth. I have yet to determine Scout’s connection to Dread, but given the backstory of the others, I can only assume that he would have one. Each person has such a different history, yet they’re all connected to Dread in various ways. It’s created an incredible unity among them. People see it, people respect it, and that has to be deemed an asset for our purposes.”

“You are aware of some of the shortcomings of the Power Team, right?” Arvin poured them both some more coffee.

“A former Dread Youth? A former Babylon 5 soldier? Two people who knew Dread from before? I’m well aware that their strengths are also their weaknesses. There was some debate, but the Council doesn’t believe that their backgrounds would ever be detrimental to our overall plans. In fact, they have a type of training that could be useful to building an army. We’re not unaware of the fact that we may be dragged into this war physically at some point, and we need to be prepared.” John took a sip of coffee. “This really is good,” he commented. “We believe that this team possesses knowledge and training that could be beneficial to everyone as a whole in the future.”

Arvin had to agree. They were a unique group. A Dread Youth that broke the conditioning. A Babylon 5 soldier that was spared the madness. A computer expert and demolitions technician that could hack into any system in existence. A former Air Force fighter pilot who has a vast knowledge of past and present aerial forces and capabilities, and a captain who was a folk hero with the knowledge of a technology that Dread had no understanding of. “I’ve only met the captain and the pilot once. If they’re anything to gauge the reactions of the others by, they’d do anything to help, but I don’t think they’d agree to being used like that.”

John shook his head. “It’s politics, Arvin. That’s all. Sometimes, it really does come down to who you know, not what you know. When Dread is defeated, the people will need leaders that they trust and can believe in. Eden is separate and safe. Why would anyone out here want to trust any of us when it comes to helping rebuild? If they see someone they trust trusting us, then that will help us in the long run.”

Arvin nodded and smiled. “Right. Preemptive.” John still wasn’t being completely forthcoming. Arvin understood his dilemma. There was only so much information he could divulge without getting into trouble. “And third?”

“What makes you think there’s a third?”

“There’s always a third,” Arvin told him.

John smiled. “That does seem to be the case, doesn’t it? Well, the request to put Captain Power and his team on the railroad relay did not originate with the Council. It came from several of our supporters out here. They wanted someone they knew they could trust from here working with us. Some of these were merely recommendations; some were outright threats that if we did not include the Power Team, they would withdraw their assistance. These five individuals inspire incredible loyalty from people they’ve never even met.”

So Eden was bowing down to public pressure. That was good to know. They actually paid attention to what people who knew what they were talking about were actually saying.

Arvin had to agree. “When I met Captain Power and Corporal Chase not long ago, their actions convinced me that all those stories I’d heard about them were true.”

“As we’re finding out as well,” John concluded.

“Fourth?”

“You think there’s a fourth?”

“Why wouldn’t there be?” John asked him.

John shook his head. “There are other reasons, but none that need be discussed at this point in time. Now to business. It seems that Dread is taking a greater interest in Power’s technology. Stuart Power’s technology, not the captain’s. There were biomechs all over Darktown when I got there. I wasn’t expecting that. They were accessing files from the data terminal near the meeting site. Blastarr showed up later but his systems couldn’t handle the fog.”

“Wait.” That linked back to a previous statement. “Don’t tell me -- the database terminal you’ve been accessing Power’s technological information from, the one that Overmind can’t access is in Darktown?”

John nodded. “I shut it down and then hit the self-destruct on it after the Power Team left and secured the area, but that takes away a primary source of Intel for us. Not our only one, but an important one.”

“A data terminal in Darktown is an Intel source? How is that possible? Everything metal corroded and wasted away in that acid fog.”

“It was shielded. One of Stuart Power’s inventions that we utilized. The shields had been working fine for over fifteen years but some of the parts were aging and starting to corrode despite the shielding. It was growing weaker over time because of non-maintenance. We tried to repair them so we could continue monitoring certain areas, but like I said, we don’t really understand Power’s technology. It was a rather hodge-podge repair. We don’t know what information the biomechs got out of the terminal. I need you and our other operatives to keep an eye focused on Dread, try to find out exactly what he was looking for and what he got.”

Dread had found information Eden had kept secret until now. That wasn’t good. “Any ideas?”

John shook his head. “No, and I have a feeling that not knowing could be deadly somewhere down the road."

“What now?” Arvin asked.

John thought about his answer. “I know you’re here to set up trade between Parmen and Angel City. We’ve considered opening up smaller relocation railroad hubs in various locations, and a trade route could be a good cover. I’d like you to see if you think this idea is viable given current conditions on the West Coast.”

More railroads? That sounded like a good idea. They’d have to find more relocators. “All right,” Arvin agreed.

John drank a few more sips of his coffee. “Is this what coffee tasted like before?”

“Not even close,” Arvin chuckled. “When it’s all you’ve got, you learn to love it.”

John pushed the mug away from him and ate his last bite of fakeberry pie. “That is so good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to contact Cypher and have him contact the Power Team with some information.”

“What kind?”

“Their railroad hub location. I think it would be better security if Cypher was their local railroad contact. The team already knows that his team is involved, his team knows Power will be involved, so their talking to each other about Eden concerns is already a done deal.”

“Cypher’s probably still at the saloon,” Arvin told him. “They’ve got a private room in the back.”

“But he’s never met me,” John quickly explained. “He only knows my voice over the radio. Anonymity is one thing that can’t be compromised in our operation. It’s better if I contact him by radio.”

Radio.

It had been a radio, a small electronic device that had changed the course of history on that fateful night in Sandtown, what changed the course of the Resistance. Only until that moment, Arvin had not understood how interlinked so many lives were and how they were coming together at that time.

~0~0~0~0~

VOLCANIA
Days later

Beethoven. Dread listened as another classical piece began to play. He refused to play the Fifth Symphony. He’d heard it so many times in his youth; those four notes at the beginning annoyed him. He was in the mood for the Four Seasons by Vivaldi, but he couldn’t find it in the database.

But he did find one of his favorite Swing songs -- Jumpin’ Jack. Actually, the one version he found wasn’t the original. The sound was too, well, the only word he could use was ‘technological.’ The recording was made late in the 20^th century so it didn’t come from the Swing era itself. He’d listen to it later, when absolutely no one could hear it.

He looked at his chrono. How long did it take for a biomech to recon an area and report back? The biomech had proposed a plan -- keep most of the troops away from the fog and send in only a few at a time. Each team would download as much of the information as they could and send it back to a portable storage file, then once they succumbed to the fog, the next team would go in and start where the previous team had been forced to stop. More information could be retrieved and kept safe from the fog until their mission was completed. It was a logical plan, but it was taking too long. Dread wanted that information.

Finally, after waiting for so long, Dread heard, “My lord?”

It was the biomech. Dread switched on the secure frequency that Overmind couldn’t access. “What have you found?”

“The data terminal here in Darktown was destroyed,” the biomech explained. “The explosive used is unknown to my databases.”

Destroyed? That wasn’t good. He didn’t have enough information from that terminal! “It must have been destroyed by someone other than the Power Team. It was in existence before they left the area according to the information I was able to gather from the other biomechs before they expired.”

“It is possible, my lord, but my sensors are damaged. I cannot determine if there is any evidence indicating who destroyed the terminal.”

Of course not. “Is it possible to determine if any information still exists?”

“No, my lord. There is nothing left. Not even debris. It is not possible to log into the data system now.”

That means he couldn’t get any more information out of that terminal, and it would be a waste of resources to send in any more troops. “Remain there,” he ordered. He did not want any information from any biomech on this project reaching Overmind. Remaining in Darktown would take care of the problem.

“Yes, my lord.”

Still there was no new clue to help him discover the answer to his mystery. All he had were the few bits and pieces that maybe hinted at an answer.

What to do, what to do...

There was nothing else he could do at that moment.

Instead, he flipped a switch on a console. Who cared who was listening in? Jumpin’ Jack began to play. Then he reached behind an open console and pulled out an old book. The cover was weathered and torn, the pages almost falling out. It had been a book he loved to read when he was younger.

Maybe Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson could help inspire his own deductive reasoning.

The Eden Road: Part 3
Power Base
(The day after the Power Team went into Darktown)

There were some things in life, no matter how large or small, that made a profound difference in someone’s everyday routine. Huge events, tiny moments, it didn’t matter. Sometimes, it was just some little something that could change everything.

Take an object as simple as an orange, for example. An uncomplicated, round, soft-fleshed bit of citrus that had been planted, grown and harvested in real soil, not a hydroponics lab and make it real. The very idea that something like that still existed was staggering. Yes, there were still some farming communities in existence, and root vegetables could grow well in some areas of the country, but the food was becoming more stunted each year since the nutrients in the soil couldn’t be replenished easily or well. Harvests were becoming smaller and smaller each year. For a healthy, juicy orange to exist in the world they lived in -- well, it just meant that the impossible was possible. Something as small as an orange had been the little something that made a profound difference in the everyday lives of five people.

Yet some things remained the same. For instance, their hydroponics lab was one of the few things that the team could point to and say this is something Stuart Power was shortsighted about. He’d originally designed it for limited small-scale experimentation. It had not been built to last for fifteen years as a fully-operational indoor ‘greenhouse’ facility growing enough plants to feed a five-person team. Adapting to large-scale use had proven problematic even for Scout and Jennifer’s talents. A true hydroponics lab would have crops grown in water or some kind of mineral nutrient solution. They didn’t have anything like that. They couldn’t replicate enough of any type of nutrient solution to stock a hydroponics lab. Instead, they literally built dirt beds to grow their crops in. They had streamlined the power supply, redeployed resources, reconfigured greenhouse lamps, and tried to modify specific hydroponics equipment all in an effort to increase their own personal food production, but the internal structure and wiring were woefully lacking. Jury-rigging equipment had become an art form. The lab might not have been working right, but it was working.

Yet, even after all that time and work, trading with the hydroponics lab at the Passages was easier.

So when time permitted, Scout could be found working on various items in the lab, recruiting anyone with some spare time to help him. Sometimes it felt like a losing battle or that the lab was fighting them. It wanted to be a hydroponics lab, not an indoor greenhouse, and it fought all efforts to change it -- at least, that’s what Scout had jokingly said from time to time. Now that they had orange seeds -- honest to goodness real orange seeds -- the lab had to work right.

“How’s it coming?” Hawk asked him.

Scout tightened the new lamp into place and then glanced at the water pipes. They were rusting in places and needed replacing, but that wasn’t happening any time soon unless they could barter for waterproof pipes. “Slowly,” he answered. “Give me a few more minutes to work on this area.”

Hawk looked around the room. It wasn’t big, maybe twice the size of any of their personal quarters? “You know, I knew Stuart for years. I’d watch him stare at building plans with an engineer for hours trying to get a specific design perfect, but this lab? I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. This is one of the few things Stuart didn’t think out. Or ran out of time before reworking this place.”

“Ah, we’ll get it fixed. Someday,” Scout said as he stood up on the platform to work on the pipes. “And let’s face it, Stuart was a brilliant scientist, but nobody can think of everything. My guess is he ran out of time.” He tightened one of the supports holding the pipes above the dirt bed. “I’m guessing he could have built an Eden II of his own if he’d had more time.” Then, he stopped tightening the support. “Eden II....Eden II...” Then he got quiet.

“Rob?” Hawk asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Why is it called Eden II? Since it’s a II, then does that mean there’s an Eden I? And an Eden III? Are there a bunch of Edens out there and we just don’t know about them? Or is this the only one that’s left?”

Hawk shrugged. “I thought because there was already a Garden of Eden, this one would be the second one.”

“What if it’s not?” Scout asked as he went back to his work. “What if there are several Edens out there? What if they’re all filled with refugees from the Wastelands and we just don’t know about them yet?”

Hawk’s expression changed with an idea. “Maybe we could get something more than oranges?” he smiled. “Bananas... it’s been a long time since I had a banana split. But then we’d have to have ice cream. Apples, blueberries -- Joanna’s mom was a professional baker. Even studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris when she was young. She could make the best pies and pastries, but the best thing she made was blueberry pancakes. From scratch. I didn’t even like blueberries until I had her pancakes.”

“Imagine if we could have corn on the cob,” Scout lamented. “I had that a few times when I was a kid. Some cornfields were still growing near where we lived and we could get a few ears of corn from time to time. My mother would roast them in the husk over the fire. They were delicious.”

Tank walked into the lab with a big box of soil. Fresh soil with nutrients was as rare as cut diamonds, but putting nutrients back into soil they dug up from deep beneath the surface dirt was not easy either. Again, it was a resources problem. Re-nutrifying half-depleted soil meant having the nutrients required, and that was the resource they were short of. “Fifty pounds,” he announced as he set the box on the floor. “Will that be enough?”

Scout nodded his head. “With what’s already here in the plant bed, it should be. Go ahead and dump it in.”

Tank hefted the box back up and scattered the dirt over the bed. “Is anything else planted here?”

“Nah,” Scout answered as he reached into his tool belt for a wrench. “This is the one that had the water drainage control units stop working. Jennifer did some trading at the UTO a few months ago. Traded fuses for ‘gardening’ circuits. We think we’ve got it fixed. The other bed has our current crop growing in it because it hasn’t broken down in months. In any case, the seeds should feel comfy once we get everything set up.” Then, he removed a small remote from his pocket and pointed it toward a computer console. Soft jazz floated from the speakers.

Hawk listened for a moment, then asked, “Coltrane?”

Scout nodded. “I’m helping out with an experiment. Remember some old studies that said plants grow better with certain types of music?”

That did ring a bell. “Yeah. Something about harder music killing the plants and classical music being good for them?”

“Yep. Chelsea’s been experimenting with music at the Passages. I’ve been helping her by finding examples of all sorts of music and taking them to her.”

“Helping her?” Hawk asked.

“Yeah. She loves music too. Used to play the piano. Anyway, she’s been researching databases and found some of the studies that say certain plants grow better with certain types of music. Low frequency sounds seem to work with most, but she swears that plants like carrots and potatoes that grow underground love baroque music. Plants on vines like tomatoes and peppers prefer music with wind instruments. She’s experimenting with different types of fruits and vegetables with hard and soft outer skins --”

“Wait a minute,” Tank interrupted. “I remember something about that. There was some disagreement if music made a difference at all with plant growth.”

Scout shrugged. “Probably still is, but it’s something Chelsea’s interested in finding out. If it can help boost plant growth, it’d be worth it.”

“Good point,” Hawk agreed. “And Chelsea is doing these experiments, huh? And you’re helping her out by playing jazz in our lab?”

“And does Patricia know you’re helping out Chelsea?” Tank added.

Scout gave them both a dirty look as he adjusted another control on the hydroponic bed. “Okay, Hawk. It’s as ready as it’s gonna get.”

Hawk looked at the orange seeds as he carefully poked a few holes in the dirt and dropped them in. He sighed. “It’s a shame. These little seeds grew in real dirt, and now we’re planting them in here.”

“It’s the only way we’ll have oranges,” Tank reminded him. “That is if we can keep the equipment working. If we can get our lab to triple its capacity, then next time we talk to anyone from Eden II, maybe we can ask for more seeds.”

“Or more oranges,” Scout suggested. “It’ll take years before we get anything even resembling an orange from these trees, and that’s if they even become trees.” He double-checked the controls on the watering system. So many of the systems needed a complete overhaul, but that would mean taking them offline for too long. They’d lose a few meager harvests themselves. “Maybe we could set up some kind of trade route with them?” Drat it, the waterpipe had some air in it. He pulled out the wrench and began to make minute adjustments.

“They move people there,” Tank reminded him. “It’d be easy enough to set up a trade route back to here.”

Another quick turn of the wrench, and the waterpipe was functioning at 100%. “As long as we don’t have to go to Darktown. That is one trip I don’t want to have to make again,” Scout murmured as he put away his tools. “Acid everywhere, malfunctioning biomechs...” he paused before adding, “although watching Blastarr act like that and fall flat on his face was pretty good entertainment. Maybe we could bottle up that acid into a missile?”

Tank chuckled. “Send Blastarr on an old fashioned acid trip?”

Scout laughed. “I didn’t know that could happen to machines. He was losing it faster than the biomechs were. Maybe because he was bigger?”

Hawk shrugged. “What I want to know is if Eden expects us to use the route through Darktown to move people. There’s no way to get people through there. That fog was so bad, Jennifer wouldn’t fly the jumpship near it.”

“A lot of what we saw and did doesn’t make sense,” Scout muttered. “Why go to Darktown in the first place? Why does Eden II have a safe place in that one lone building in the middle of all that? Do they meet there? And if they do, why? What’s the point? They’re in Eden II so they’re already secure, and no one can get through Darktown because of the fog so who are they meeting? There are a lot of secure locations we could have gone to meet John. Why there? We had to fight through biomechs and walk all that way --”

“I’d say it was a test,” Jon said as he entered the hydroponics lab and looked at the new row that would hopefully yield orange trees soon.

Hawk frowned. “Why a test? John said he knew about us, so what was he testing us for?”

“To see if we lived up to our reputations would be my guess,” Jon explained. “Think about it. If it had been us requesting to meet up with a group whose reputations we had only heard about but never met and we wanted them for something important, we’d probably want to see if they lived up to the hype. He got to see that our suits were almost impervious to the fog. We had to fight our way through the biomechs that were there --”

“Why were biomechs there in the first place?” Scout asked suddenly. “There’s nothing to guard.”

“I don’t know. Dread must have sent them in there for a reason.” Jon sat down on the platform. “They were guarding that data terminal, so it must have been important if he was willing to have hundreds of biomechs get destroyed by the fog.”

“I still haven’t figured out how that thing was still functioning,” Scout muttered. “It should have been toast after the first proton blast years ago.”

“So should the laser door,” Jon added. “I’m guessing that since John had that location protected from the fog somehow, maybe the terminal was protected as well? There has to be some reason to keep certain areas safe in the middle of all that.”

Jennifer walked into the hydroponics lab, a reader in her hand. “Cypher just sent word to us that the Eden II contact was very impressed with us, and John has sent the instructions about where they want the new hub.” She handed the reader to Jon. “Nothing there gives us any indication where the actual location of Eden II is.”

“My guess is south,” Scout called out. “Or west. Oranges? Has to be a warm climate, and there aren’t that many areas that still get sunshine enough to grow oranges like that one.”

Hawk grabbed a towel to clean his hands. “Vi said she had to go north to meet up with the Eden rep, and they were in Sector 24. That’s southwest of us.” He thought for a moment. “There’s no way they could grow oranges in the north, is there? That ground can barely support what little crops that still grow there.”

“Haven grew food,” Scout reminded them. “And good stuff too, and they had a hydroponics lab there. Maybe it’s possible to grow real food like that?”

Hawk chuckled. “I can tell the difference, but you’re right. Ever since Chelsea went to work at the Passages, the vegetables we’ve traded for have been a lot better. They just don’t have enough.”

“Too bad we had to destroy Haven,” Tank added. “We could have used the food there.”

“Too bad it didn’t take out Blastarr,” Jennifer said.

Scout laughed. “Acid fog does though,” he almost sighed. “We need to find a way to use that as a weapon. And look at what it did to those biomechs! They were going down on their own. Didn’t work as well as an EMP blast, but I’m not complaining.”

Jennifer pointed toward the reader. “The good news is we won’t have to go back to Darktown again any time soon. Our starting point on the railroad is located in southern Colorado. Cypher brings people to a particular location, then we go pick them up and get the coordinates to take them to from there. Apparently, Eden II is thinking about having various paths to take to get from hub to hub instead of just one route.”

“Colorado ’s convenient,” Hawk said. “Wonder if they know where we live.”

“Let’s hope not,” Jennifer mused. “Also, Cypher got some Intel that indicates Dread sent those biomechs into Darktown in just the last few days. No one knows the exact date or reason.”

Scout laughed. “That info’s a day late and a dollar short.”

“That means they were sent in right before we got there,” Tank observed. “That explains why those biomechs weren’t acting right. Even if their systems were already falling apart, they were acting very strange.”

“What do you mean?” Jennifer asked.

“When Scout approached them in his hologram, they saluted him.”

“And?” Jennifer asked.

That got everyone’s attention. “Why would they salute him unless there’s a hierarchy in the biomechs?” Tanks asked her.

“Because there is one?” she answered, clearly amused.

Scout raised his hand. “Clueless people request explanation from expert please,” he joked.

Jennifer smiled. “There is a type of hierarchy in the biomechs depending on how they’re programmed. Some are programmed with specific jobs in mind. Some have a broad-spectrum programming that allows them to do a variety of tasks. Those at the data terminal were sentries. In comparison to our military ranks, they’d be like the privates and the corporals. The one in charge could be considered a sergeant.”

“Huh. Machines aren’t equal,” Hawk observed. “Imagine that.”

“No, not really,” Jennifer pointed out. “The ones with human minds would be higher up in the hierarchy and get more responsible positions, but I doubt if any of the biomechs we met up with in Darktown were transferees. That’d be a waste of mental resources for Dread.”

Hawk turned on the sun lamps so the orange seeds could begin the growing process. They sputtered and hissed and went out. Hawk slapped the side of the light shield and the lamp came back on. “I never thought to compare Dread’s forces to our military. I thought it was just cadets, youth leaders, and overunits.”

“And commanders and a few other ranks you probably haven’t run into,” Jennifer teased.

Hawk was clearly interested. “So what would a youth leader be the equivalent of in the army?”

Without missing a beat, Jennifer said, “A captain.”

“Captain?” Scout repeated.

Jennifer shook her head. “Generally speaking, but I was a youth leader assigned to Aerial Recon. Don’t forget that. That’s the first strike group of Dread’s Air Forces. And by comparison, a youth leader in that particular branch has a lot more authority than your typical youth leader. That would be on the same level and authority as a colonel in the army. And if I had been Overunit Chase in Aerial Recon, I’d have had the authority equal to an army general, answerable only to Dread and Overmind.”

“No majors?” Tank asked, clearly smiling at the idea.

“No, not really. At least, not the way we think of majors. There’s nothing in Dread’s army that fits that description or authority or responsibility.”

“What about commanders?” Hawk asked.

“Commanders are more autonomous officers that provide a variety of tasks. Most are used for infiltration or reconnaissance. I don’t know why. Some are the personal assistants of the overunits but they’re more like spies who answer to Dread. Some are involved in getting prisoners for the factories or other facilities. I think they’re Dread’s eyes and ears more than anything. They’re his special guard, soldiers personally selected by Dread and Overmind for whatever reason... at least, that’s what I was always told.”

~0~0~0~0~

Jon listened. There was a bit of truth-shading in that explanation. Jennifer deliberately didn’t tell them that she had been promoted to the rank of overunit. He understood her reluctance. It wasn’t something she was proud of or comfortable with. But a colonel? Even a general? He forced himself not to smile at the sudden realization. Although she had been promoted and hadn’t had the chance to use it officially, she outranked him as a Dread soldier. In fact, she had been the superior officer ever since she got her orders to go to Aerial Recon.

“What about youth leaders in other branches of Dread’s forces?” Jon wanted to know.

“Most have the authority of a captain,” she said with a smile. “It all depends on where they’re stationed and what they’re doing that determines their place in the Corps hierarchy.”

“Quick question,” Tank asked. “In Aerial Recon, you’d have had the authority of a colonel? When were you ever going to tell us you outranked all of us?”

Jon laughed out loud at the question. He wasn’t the only one surprised at this new revelation.

Jennifer smiled. “Maybe when you guys joined the Dread Youth? Then I could order you around,” she joked.

“All of us in the Dread military?” Hawk mused aloud. “I don’t know... even if we were sent to Aerial Recon, we’d all have to be pretty good pilots. Those folks are good. Any time we’ve gone up against those ships, they’ve almost out-maneuvered us.”

“Jennifer’s outflown them every time,” Scout corrected him as he tossed his wrench back into the toolbox.

“That’s just because I know a few tricks they don’t,” she explained.

“And you’ve got a jumpship that’ll fly through hoops for you -- even if you haven’t found a name for her yet,” Scout said with a smile. “But good or not, I don’t think those cockpits in Dread’s fighters are big enough for someone Tank’s size.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Tank said, pretending to be menacing.

Letting the other three have their fun little conversation, Hawk walked over to Jon and nudged him on the shoulder. “Did you know about her outranking us?”

Jon shook his head. “No, I didn’t know about this. Explains a few things though.” He smiled at her.

“What?” Hawk asked.

Jon just shrugged and smiled. “Why she doesn’t really follow orders sometimes.” That was the moment Jennifer glanced back at him, and he had the odd feeling that she knew exactly what he’d just said. “I think I’ll stop there before I get into trouble,” he said.

“Smart move,” Hawk said, patting Jon on the shoulder. He had this odd look on his face, as if he was considering this new information.

“What?” Jon asked.

Hawk looked back with an innocent look on his face. “What, what?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing much. It’s just the idea that she outranks all of us. It’s... amusing.”

Amusing? That wasn’t a word Hawk would usually use. Jon glanced back over at Jennifer and saw the subtle grin. They alone knew the secret of her promotion, and they alone knew the special context of the mission where the phrase ‘pulling rank’ had a distinct meaning for them. Maybe this bit of news gave them a few more in-jokes to play with? Their eyes met, and Jon shared the subtle grin with her. If anyone else saw the look Jon and Jennifer shared, no one said anything.

Jon cleared his throat. “Okay, everybody, I need your suits. That acid fog didn’t do them any good. I need to run a systems check on the wiring and make certain everything’s in good working order.”

~0~0~0~0~

Eden II. Jon still couldn’t believe it. It was real. Vi and the Wardogs were there. At least, that’s what Jon wanted to believe. All they had to go on was Cypher’s word and a piece of cloth with what Hawk believed was Vi’s handwriting. And if it was true, if Eden II did exist, then the Wardogs had made it. Others had made it there as well. They were safely out of Dread’s reach -- if it was all true.

But to be safe? Jon couldn’t remember the last time he felt ‘safe.’ Even in a secret base, there was always the ever-present threat of discovery. There was always the idea dancing in the back of his mind that one day Dread would find them. That dream he had some months back of Blastarr being in the base... he shook his head to clear it. No, that wouldn’t happen. They had failsafes and security systems. They had anti-intruder technology and weaponry. Their internal systems worked on their own frequency, not linked in with any external system. Even if they were discovered, getting inside the base would be a technological miracle, hopefully well beyond any of Dread’s resources. It couldn’t happen, right? He hoped it couldn’t happen. The idea of Dread or his soldiers getting hold of their base...

But what would it be like to feel safe, even for a short time? To relax, to let his guard down, to simply be and not have to be Captain Power...

It was something to dream about, but to know Eden II existed? No doubts? No wondering at the mythical nature of it? That was a complete change in thinking.

They might be able to go there someday, but would they really walk on green grass? Drink fresh water? See stars? Or was the legend more practical like he and Jennifer had once speculated? Green fields were actually hydroponics or greenhouses, water filtration plants filled up fabricated lakes, artificial lighting that mimicked real lighting, but that orange singularly denied that being the fact. That orange had grown in real soil under real sunshine. It had flourished in fresh air. It had grown on a tree and had been handpicked by someone in Eden II. A real tree.

When he was a boy, there was this huge oak tree in their back yard. He and his dad had built a tree house. Jon himself had designed it as a wraparound type structure. They literally built a floor that wrapped around the tree trunk so it was basically formed like a doughnut. Walls, a roof, two rope ladders that climbed up both sides of the tree for a dual entrance, it had been a rather impressive endeavor. It was so sturdy and well built, Jon slept up there from time to time. When his friends came over for a party, that’s where they would be -- no parents allowed, of course.

His mother had requested a type of ‘dumbwaiter’ to be built so she could send up food and drinks to the partygoers without climbing up either ladder. She had once said that they were well-made ladders, but she wasn’t going to try to balance a basket of food in one hand and hold on to the ladder with the other, and she wouldn’t trust a hook on a rope to lift a basket either. Voila. A type of rope lift that was operated on a counterbalance was added to the structure.

He had a lot of fond memories of that tree house. He and Mitch would have pretend wars in it where they were the soldiers holding the fort, literally. Sometimes, they’d play that they were in the crow’s nest of a ship, on the lookout for enemies. It was a fun place to play when they were kids. Out in the Wastelands, trees didn’t grow like that anymore. Maybe they had big oaks in Eden II? Maybe they could be transplanted? Maybe he could help his kids build a tree house someday -- if he ever had children.

Eden II could be a new beginning for everyone if Dread could be defeated -- no, when Dread was defeated. He wouldn’t give in to any negative thoughts. Dread could be defeated, he would be, then they could rebuild everything. They could rebuild the world, and they could rebuild their lives.

And the very fact that a place like Eden II existed was proof that everything really could be good again. For all of them. Perhaps in ways Jon was only recently thinking about.

As he walked down the corridor with an armload of powersuits, he considered another complete change in thinking going on in his mind. Jennifer outranked him! He’d never once considered the hierarchy of the Dread Youth in comparison to the regular army or any other military branch. He’d just assumed that a youth leader was one level of authority up from cadets and biomechs. Maybe he should have looked closer.

Then again, on their team, rank didn’t follow the same rigid structure as it did in true military units. After all, he was a captain and Hawk was a major. Hawk outranked him, but Jon led the team. That raised a few eyebrows from people occasionally, especially from former rank-and-file military, but no one on the team gave it a second thought.

Although some of the looks Hawk had given Jon when he found out Jennifer outranked him meant that he might be planning something new. He and Jennifer had already picked up on the fact the others were sort of nudging them together, but after everything that had been going on between them, they really didn’t need outside nudging, not even from the team. They were nudging themselves closer to each other all by themselves, thank you very much.

Still, a colonel? It was an interesting facet in their growing relationship.

As he continued down the corridor, he realized he had everyone’s suit but Jennifer’s. He made a turn in the corridor toward her quarters. Just as he got in visual range, he saw the door was ajar. There was movement inside, but he didn’t stop until he realized the movement was an arm. Jennifer’s bare arm. There was a massive bruise on it. It was hand-shaped... biomech fingers had clenched her arm and dragged her behind that wall when they were in Darktown. He could make out each distinct digit on her skin. He had no idea she’d been grabbed that hard! That kind of strength could have broken bone. If she was hurt and ignoring the wound... he raised his fist to knock on her door... then he realized she was changing out of her suit and quickly stood back. That was not the time or place to ask those kinds of questions. He averted his eyes and moved on. It wouldn’t be right or polite to stay there and watch, but the memory of that bruise didn’t go away. She had to be hurting, but she hadn’t said anything.

Wait -- that bruise... the suit should have protected her from a bruise that bad. Perhaps the acid had degraded her suit to that extent? He’d have to check. He didn’t want her getting hurt because her suit was damaged.

He reached the lab and dropped the suits on the workbench. He did a quick check of the suits’ external wiring. “Hawk’s is okay, just superficial scarring. Scout’s got some frayed lines, still working but won’t for long. Tank’s ... mostly intact, just a little work needs to be done on it. Mine, definitely need to patch a few wires --”

“Here’s mine,” Jennifer’s voice sounded behind him. Jon turned as Jennifer walked into the workroom with her suit in her arms. He could spot obvious damage on the suit’s sleeve where the material seemed pulled. Maybe the fog and the biomech’s grip had worn down that area? Then, he saw the bruise on her arm halfway hidden by a rolled up sleeve. More than that, there was a large, darkening bruise on her neck.

The biomech had grabbed her by the neck? Jon hadn’t realized that.

He took her suit and placed it on the pile, then reached out and carefully took hold of her arm. Pulling her toward him, he eased her sleeve up to examine that bruise, then gently touched the side of her neck. “Those are bad bruises,” he whispered.

She moved away from him slightly, but it was the look on her face that surprised him. It was one he hadn’t seen in a long time. It seemed as if the bruise was something she hadn’t cared about and didn’t think anyone else would either. Then, when Jon pointed it out, it reminded her of another difference that set her apart. That was a look he hoped he’d never see again. It usually led to an explanation of something else that Dread had done to the Dread Youth, and it was always something that Jon didn’t like. “It’s part of the job. And they’re not the first ones like this I’ve had.”

That sounded rather ominous. “What do you mean?”

Jennifer shrugged. “That biomech grabbed me, and I had to fight him off. It wasn’t anything new. I used to do that all the time.”

“You did?”

“That was part of the Youth training.”

He was right. It was another explanation of something Dread did that made him angry, but this was something unexpected. He kept his anger in check. This was one of those times to listen, not react. He leaned against the worktable and gave her a gentle pull so she could lean against the worktable next to him. “What happened?”

She didn’t answer at first. She sat there for a moment, quiet and introspective. Then she took his hand. She placed her palm against his, measuring her fingers to his. Her hand seemed small compared to his, but the strength in those hands always surprised him. Whether it was in a fight or grappling with the controls of the jumpship to keep her airborne, her hands were strong and steady. At that moment, she was trying to avoid the question by diverting her thoughts. He would wait as long as he needed to. He would always listen. Even if he couldn’t understand, he’d listen.

Jon thought she wouldn’t answer, then she wove her fingers with his and said, “Dread trained us to always be observant, to always expect an enemy to be anywhere. There was a certain design of biomech that he created as training robots. They would hide behind doors and walls and grab us as we’d go to our classes or to our duty stations. Sometimes, they’d be hiding in our quarters and attack us when we came back. Our objective was to get free, fight back and damage the biomech in any way possible. The older and stronger we became, the more strength and tricks Dread had to design into these biomechs. Eventually, we were using hand-to-hand combat against them.”

“Hand-to-hand against a biomech? When you were a kid? That’s why you’re so good at close quarters combat,” he observed.

“It was either get good in a fight or get more bruises,” she said matter-of-factly. The look in her eyes at that moment was another that Jon hadn’t seen in a long time. It was the ‘this was my life, this was all I knew, and I thought it was normal’ look. In other words, she was telling him another mystery about her past, one that she was only now feeling comfortable enough and safe enough to describe. “Anyway, Dread eventually started building the training mechs from heavier materials. Made them weigh twice as much. He said we were his soldiers, made to fight all enemies of the Machine. We were taught new fighting techniques, but they didn’t help us deal with the heavier clickers. We could fight them hand-to-hand, and I couldn’t tell you how. We just did. Other biomechs couldn’t stand against them even when fighting two to one, so I don’t know how we could.”

With his free hand, Jon moved Jennifer’s hair away from the bruise on her neck. Had it gotten worse in the few minutes she’d been in there? He gently traced the perimeter of it with his thumb and she flinched slightly. The bruise would heal, but right now, the area was hurting, and she was treating it like nothing was out of the ordinary. This was something normal from her childhood? Just when he thought he knew everything bad Dread had done to the Dread Youth.... “This happened all the time?”

“When I was younger. It happened a lot more for a few years before I made youth leader. I got tired of being grabbed by a robot so I started destroying them instead of escaping and damaging them.”

Destroying a machine? A cadet? And Dread let them? “You destroyed them?”

“It was easier than you’d think,” she pointed out. “You know how certain locations on a biomech are weaker than others? Like at the joints and at the data core site and the exact center of the front plate?”

Jon nodded.

“If you hit three weaker spots on a training mech in quick succession, it overloads its sensors and sends a shock through its system. It puts it in a two second reboot mode, and when it does, you rip out the power core or rip off its head.” Jon was about to say something supportive when he realized she was smirking at him. She was actually smirking at him! As if what she had just said was the most obvious thing in the world!

Jon shook his head and smirked back. The way she explained it made it all seem so simple. “Dread taught you this?”

She shook her head. “Absolutely not. The idea that we could consider ourselves superior to a machine in a fight? That wouldn’t work since he kept repeating that machines were superior to humans in all ways. No, I figured it out for myself after the first attack. I was one big bruise after that one. I couldn’t walk without limping, I think it bruised a rib, definitely pulled a few muscles, and I was determined to not let that happen again.”

Of that, he had no doubt. She was too good at tactical options. “But back then, you believed the litanies, didn’t you?”

“Every word,” she agreed readily.

His hand moved to the bruise on her arm. If she was thinking these bruises were just ‘part of the job,’ how bad were the bruises she got fighting training mechs? “Can you teach us how to fight them like that?”

She grinned up at him. “Our suits limit our maneuverability, but the big problem is that it only works on the training mechs. I exploited a weakness that Dread didn’t know about. Once I made youth leader, the only time I had to deal with training mechs was in formal sparring matches. There were no more hiding attacks.”

So specific training ended after a promotion? That was intriguing, but it was also a discussion for another time. “So... destroying Dread’s robots... did you get in trouble?”

There was a slight smile playing at her lips. “No. When that happened, I honestly can’t tell you what happened. That training mech attacked me, and I didn’t think. I reacted. I took him down, I ripped his head off, and I was so proud of myself. I’d won that battle just like Dread was wanting us to do. I don’t think he was expecting any of us to go to that extreme. The idea that I had destroyed a machine didn’t even cross my mind until another cadet walked by and just stared at us. He was absolutely horrified at seeing a dead biomech at my feet, and he ran off to get the overunit. That was when I realized what I’d done and that I was probably going to be in trouble. When the overunit arrived, not to mention a lot more cadets, that overunit didn’t know what to say. Finally, she looked at me, said ‘Well done, Cadet Chase,’ and left. Not long after that, I was told I was being promoted to youth leader, the youngest ever in the Dread Youth. And, I received special recognition for exceeding expectations. At the youth leader promotion ceremony, come to think of it.”

Jon pulled her a little closer and the light shone more directly on the bruise on her arm. That one looked worse than the one on her neck. She wasn’t trying to hide them, he realized. She just didn’t think they were a big deal -- not like he did.

Leaning against the bench, situated so closely side by side, he was very aware of her. He was also aware that he was enjoying being that close to her, and given how she was scooting closer to him, she was happy with the proximity as well. “It took a lot of strength to yank yourself away from a biomech though. Their grips are pretty tight.”

“Hawk once said I wasn’t a lightweight. I’m not sure what he meant.”

Jon smiled. “It’s a boxing term. In this case, I think he means you’re a lot stronger than you look.”

She shrugged, and he noticed how she was holding her arm close to her as if her shoulder was hurting her. He carefully placed his hand on her shoulder and felt the muscles twitching. “Jennifer?”

“That grabby robot gave me a yank when he pulled me in that door. That’s all. It’s nothing serious.”

“Jennifer --”

She looked up at him and shook her head. “It’s all right. Don’t worry.”

“I worry about you,” he told her. “Did Hawk take a look at it?”

She shook her head. “Mentor scanned me when we got back. It’s not broken or dislocated. It’s just sore.”

“You didn’t say anything,” he pointed out. He didn’t want her going back to previous behavior of ignoring injuries. He gently kneaded his fingers into her shoulder, feeling the tightness ease up slightly.

“It’s better now. I think I just need to let it rest for a while.”

Rest would be a good thing, but she wouldn’t rest while everyone else was working. It wasn’t in her nature, but if everyone was resting... “You know, it won’t take long to repair the suits if I had a little help. Everything’s quiet at the moment... want to take an afternoon off?”

She didn’t have to consider it. “I like that idea,” she said enthusiastically.

“I’ll tell the others,” Jon said with a smile. “It’s been a while since any of us have had any real downtime. I think we deserve it.”

~0~0~0~0~

There was a new type of music playing through the control room speakers. Good percussion, some kind of wind instruments, strings...

“Afternoon off,” Scout almost sang. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“What is that music,” Tank finally asked.

Scout turned the volume down slightly. “I was doing some more research about helping plant growth so our little orange seeds will grow and found this file in the music library.”

“Plant growth again?” Tank asked him.

“Yeah. It’s an interesting concept. I was looking for music with good harmonies or good baselines, and I stumbled on this one. It was a short-lived style that lasted about a decade in the late 21^st century. There was a resurgence of acoustic versions of the early to mid-21^st century techno and dance songs. I’m playing it to see if I like it.”

Hawk sat down at the control console and listened. “There are way too many types of music to keep up with. Dance songs, I get. Feel good songs, romantic songs, sing-along songs. All good. These other styles? They change all the time. What was techno?”

“Some kind of electronic dance music,” Scout explained. “The mid-century techno style was actually a remade version of the late 20^th and early 21^st century rock ballads. The original techno started in the late 20^th century. Get this -- that techno started in Detroit.”

“Where Dread is now,” Tank observed. “I wonder what he’d think about that.”

“I don’t know what Dread would think, but could we change stations here? Please?” Hawk asked. “Something a little mellower?”

Scout laughed as he stopped that music and began playing a ballad. He switched the music from the control room speakers to play all over the base. “Gotta love music,” he stated. “Notice how it makes everybody feel better? Takes away the crankiness?” There was a pause before he asked, “Maybe that’s Dread’s problem. Maybe he doesn’t like music.”

“He used to,” Hawk explained. “I had to go to some of those fundraising dinners that Taggart had, usually running security for Stuart, and Taggart always had classical music playing. He wanted everyone to think he was into the arts. To tell the truth, I don’t think he knew the difference between the Beach Boys and Beethoven until he started getting power hungry. That’s when his tastes started changing. Stuart told me that every time they worked in the lab, Taggart played anything but classical because he hated a quiet lab. He wanted noise. When he got obsessed with Overmind, that all changed.”

Scout sighed. “Yeah. Guess Overmind didn’t care too much for music. Too bad. There’s a lot out there to like.”

There was a quiet moment between them, and then Hawk noticed Tank grin as he realized something. “Hawk, have you noticed that Scout’s music appreciation seems to be growing lately?” Tank quietly observed.

Hawk had to agree. “I have, as a matter of fact. And Scout is someone who already has a keen interest in music and wouldn’t actually need to research certain genres... he’d already know about them.”

“Guys -” Scout began to say.

Tank laughed. “We’re getting sloppy, Hawk. The clues were right in front of us, and we haven’t paid them any attention.”

“Look, you two --” Scout tried to interrupt.

“You’re right, Tank. Maybe we’re getting old?”

“Guys, I’m just helping out --” Scout tried to say.

“Is that what they’re calling it now?” Tank mused out loud. “Let’s look at the facts. One -- you’re looking around for all kinds of music in the databases to present to Chelsea,” he pointed out. “Two -- you’re looking for music that is specifically suggested as an aid to plant growth which Chelsea is very interested in. Three -- Chelsea works in the hydroponics lab at the Passages and you go there every time we visit. Sounds somewhat simple when you put all the facts together because I don’t think you’ve grown bored with the songs you usually play around here.’

Scout? Bored with music? Hawk suppressed a laugh while Scout sat there for a moment, unable to come up with an answer.

Then Hawk lost control and laughed out loud. The idea of a speechless Scout could only mean one thing. “Oh, oh!” Hawk laughed. “So that’s what it is! Scout, you and Chelsea have gotten serious. I knew it would happen some day!”

Scout put up his hand and shook his head. “Hey, I like Chelsea. I really like Chelsea. We’re --”

“More than friends?” Hawk finished for him. “Come to think of it, we’ve been getting some really good vegetables when we trade at the Passages lately. I don’t think she’d go to all that trouble if she didn’t like you too. And you go straight to hydroponics every single time we go there, and we don’t see you again until it’s time to leave. I’m guessing you’re not just scrounging for extra parts and supplies while we’re there, huh?”

Scout cleared his throat. “Hawk --”

“What about Patricia? I thought you two were sort of friendly.”

“Whoa, hold it, stop,” Scout said, clearly uncomfortable. Perhaps more uncomfortable than anyone could ever remember. “Look, me and Patricia? We’re friends. It’s just me and Chelsea are... better friends.”

Hawk slapped his leg in delight. “Oh, I knew it. I knew it had to happen someday,” Hawk repeated. The smile turned into a satisfied grin. “Trying to make a good impression, not caring how it makes you look... knew it was gonna happen. Just like me and Joanna. Just like Jon and Jennifer --”

“Stop,” Scout said, his voice a little nervous. “Look, we’re supposed to be helping the captain and Jennifer get together. Everything’s fine between me and Chelsea. And let me be the first to say that I don’t need any help in that area. Never have.” He took a deep breath and changed the subject. “And what about the fact Jennifer outranks us in the Dread Youth? Who knew that kind of ranking system was in the Dread Youth? Did the captain know?”

“Not in the least,” Hawk admitted quickly. “I think he found it interesting. Did you see that look that went between them after that conversation?”

“They’ve got a secret,” Tank concluded. “I’ve thought they’ve had several, but something about that conversation touched on one in particular.”

“Lots of secrets,” Hawk agreed. “There’s no telling what they’re talking about during those late night chess games these days. And speaking of talks...” he pressed a button and Mentor appeared above them.

“Yes, Major, what can I do for you?”

Hawk cleared his throat. “Mentor, you and Jennifer talk a lot when she has the night shift. Right?”

“Yes, we do.”

“I don’t want to be asking about anything that’s private, but did she ever explain the military structure of the Dread Youth and how the hierarchy works?”

Mentor thought for a moment. “We’ve had some discussion about various military structures over the centuries, the Dread Youth included.”

“Did she ever mention that a youth leader could hold the equivalent authority of a captain, a colonel or even a general in our army?”

“Yes, she has,” Mentor said. Was that a smug smile on his face?

Scout whirled around in his seat. “Wait a minute. You knew she outranked us?”

“I did.”

Tank joined in. “And you didn’t tell us?”

“It seemed somewhat irrelevant by the time we discussed it,” Mentor pointed out. “After all, none of you were in the Dread Youth, therefore her authority in that military structure would have no effect on her position with this team. Here, she is a corporal and a pilot and is content to be so.”

“Well, when did you find all this out?” Hawk asked him.

“A year ago,” Mentor answered quickly.

The three men frowned. Jennifer had been with them for some years, and this information only came to light a year ago?”

“Uh, Mentor,” Scout looked like he was trying to find the exact right words to ask the question. “A year ago? Wouldn’t she have told you a lot sooner than that?”

“Actually, I asked her about the Dread Youth,” the hologram explained. “When the captain gave Corporal Chase access to my databanks after she first arrived here, she asked many questions over a wide variety of subjects in a very small amount of time.”

“She jumped around in her conversations, huh?” Scout asked.

“She did. Her curiosity about everything produced many questions over many subjects. After some time had passed, and we developed a friendship, I asked her if I could ask questions about her past. She agreed, and we began discussing some parts of her life in the Dread Youth. Many were areas she was uncomfortable discussing, so we would talk about something else. I believe I learned as much from her as she did from me.”

Hawk thought about that. “Was this to be kept secret?”

“No,” Mentor answered. “The information is in the database. The Resistance leaders once believed that the more information the Resistance had about the Dread Youth, the easier it would be to create tactical plans to fight them. Before Corporal Chase joined us, I searched as many databases as I could for information, but very little was available outside of the Volcania network. Once she was here, we would discuss a particular aspect of the information, and she would correct it or add to it. Some of the data loaded into the databases prior to that was completely incorrect. The captain has sent this information to other resistance forces.”

“But Jennifer doesn’t talk about it much, does she?” Hawk asked.

“No, she doesn’t.”

That made sense. Jennifer had been opening up more lately about her past, but it had been a slow path to take. It was no surprise that she was guarded with certain information even around Mentor. Sometimes, the past was just too hurtful to discuss. She would answer direct questions; she always had, but to just talk conversationally about some of what she experienced as a child and young adult? It had taken some time for her to get to that stage.

Scout quickly found the file in Mentor’s database and read through some of the information. “It’s nowhere near complete,” he muttered. “It’s not much more than we already know except the Dread Youth military structure is pretty complex. It’s not simple, that’s for certain. It’s like Jennifer said, authority and rank depends on where they’re assigned.”

Tank walked over to the monitor and peered over Scout’s shoulder. “We’ve only dealt with overunits and youth leaders. An occasional cadet. They all seemed the same.”

“Maybe the one’s we’ve met up with are a lot alike?” Hawk suggested. “We’ve mostly fought cadets and squad leaders and the occasional overunit. Jennifer mentioned something about commanders and not knowing what they were up to, but I can’t recall ever dealing with one before.”

Scout leaned back in his seat, his eyes never leaving the screen. “There’s no telling what else is out there,” he murmured. “Dread must have compartmentalized the Dread Youth. One group wouldn’t know what the other group was doing.”

“Making it easier to keep secrets,” Tank pointed out. “Jennifer’s story about that associate of hers, Colville, she said no one would have believed her if she told what happened. Maybe compartmentalization is another reason the problems with the transference program isn’t known. If the Dread Youth knew that a person didn’t really transfer into a metal body, would they still be willing to stand in line for one?”

“All this info...” Scout shook his head. “None of the Dread Youth would believe us if we told them about any of it.”

“Of course not,” Hawk agreed. “And Jennifer’s tried time and again, but she’s considered a traitor. They won’t listen to her either.”

“Hmmm,” Tank pondered. “I wonder if they would have if they knew she had been transferred to Aerial Recon. If they only see her as another youth leader --”

“Who went rogue instead of one of the leaders in their own ranks,” Scout finished for him. “It might give what she says to some of the soldiers she’s come across more weight?”

“Something to think about,” Hawk said, “but not our call.” Then, Hawk began smiling, and he couldn’t wipe the grin off his face.

Scout glanced up at him. “What?”

“What, what?” Hawk asked.

“Whatever it is that’s got you so happy, you want to share?”

“Jennifer wasn’t an ordinary youth leader. We already knew that, but know we know she outranked all of us,” Hawk quipped. “It just got me thinking about some things.”

“Like what?”

“Some of the things she’s done over the years, how she sneaked into Dread facilities, how she knew how to bypass security systems -- all of it. There’s a lot more to her than we ever knew.”

“And?” Tank prompted him.

“Jon didn’t know anything about her being the superior officer, and now I’m wondering what else Jon and Jennifer will be talking about during those late night chess games.”

~0~0~0~0~

Ballads? Scout was playing ballads through the speaker system?

What prompted that choice? Or were the others up to something again, Jon wondered. He placed the last repaired powersuit on the table and pointed up toward the speakers. “I think Scout’s up to something,” Jon said.

Jennifer glanced up and listened to the music. “What?”

“He might be trying to earn points with Chelsea with more music experiments or they’re changing tactics.” Or maybe those three had decided getting Jon and Jennifer on KP wasn’t working the way they wanted, so they were going down more obvious routes?

“He likes her,” Jennifer said. “Have you noticed he’s more than eager to go to the Passages lately? No matter the reason? He always goes to the hydroponics lab and stays.”

“They’re that serious?” Jon knew there was a relationship between them but he didn’t know it had grown that close.

Jennifer nodded. “That’s why we don’t see Scout for long periods of time when we go to the Passages. I’ve heard about some dinners and dances and his helping out in the hydroponics lab in all sorts of ways. Scuttlebutt is saying that Scout may go there and stay one day if he gets tired of the fighting.”

“So that’s where he’s disappearing to,” Jon pondered that idea. Last time they were at the Passages, they’d been there for two days and he barely saw Scout the entire time. He hadn’t really given it a thought at the time, but Scout and Chelsea... that explained a lot. Then, he frowned. He hadn’t thought about losing any of his team like that since Hawk and Vi met months earlier. Vi had invited Hawk to go with them to Eden II. Hawk had turned down the offer, but now that they knew that Eden II was real, was he regretting that decision? He still had feelings for Vi. He might want to retire to Eden II at some point. Scout might want to stay with Chelsea some day. Tank? Jon didn’t know about.

He had no intentions of leaving the team.

But Jennifer? There was only one time that he’d ever been truly concerned about her leaving the team. Not long after Jennifer had joined the team, the UTO had requested pilots from the resistance teams for a single transport job. She and Hawk had volunteered, and when they returned, Jennifer was wearing a well-fitting UTO uniform. It had been a thank-you gift from the UTO command for her help. Up until then, she had been wearing the smallest hand-me-downs they could find for her. Jon didn’t think much of it at the time, thinking it was only a gift, until the UTO began to request Jennifer’s help more and more. She eagerly accepted each request. After a few months, she came back to the base with a UTO patch on her sleeve. Only pilots formerly recognized as UTO pilots were allowed to wear them. For a very scary moment, Jon was worried that Jennifer was going to leave the team and join the UTO, but she always came back.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” she said.

He tapped the patch on her sleeve. “Did you ever think about leaving here and joining the UTO?”

Jennifer smiled. He reached out and took her hand. "Jennifer?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s just when I help them out, I get to do something I love to do.”

Jon hadn’t been expecting that answer. Then again, he wasn’t sure what she was going to say. “What’s that?”

“Fly a ship,” she answered, her tone sounding as if it were the most obvious answer.

“But you fly the jumpship all the time.”

That made her laugh. “I know, and I love flying my jumpship, but sometimes, it’s nice to be able to sit in a pilot’s seat and just fly a ship. A lot of times when I’m in the jumpship, I’m having to rush to some location under attack, fight Soaron, rush one of us to a medical center somewhere... but when I fly with the UTO, I usually only fly a ship. I get to sit in a cockpit of a transonic fighter jet and go on scouting missions for the transports or I get to fly one of the carriers that’s slow and hard to maneuver and falling apart but takes every bit of skill I have to keep it in the air. It’s like when you get on a skybike and ride for the fun of it.” She had a faraway look in her eyes, the same one someone gets when talking about something they love. Her eyes were absolutely shining.

“That’s what the UTO is for you,” he nodded. That, he understood all too well. To do something you love just for the love of doing it? That was a rare moment for anyone. No wonder she loved working with the UTO. “So does that mean I don’t have to worry about you running off to the UTO and leaving us pilotless?” he joked.

“What?” she pretended to be shocked. “And leave my jumpship with all of you? She’d hate me for it.”

“Well, I know one thing,” he said as he stood up, moved in front of her, placed his hands on either side of her and leaned over slightly. He glanced back toward the door and saw no one coming. He wanted to spend some time alone with her, and he wanted their conversation to remain private. “I’m really glad you decided to stay here with us,” he told her.

“You need someone here who’s able to beat you at chess,” she joked.

“I can think of other things,” Jon smiled, then heard the song change. It was a slow dance ballad. Maybe it was just the next song in the set or maybe Scout and the others were up to something, but it gave him an idea. “Since we’re on downtime for the rest of the afternoon, maybe we can find some pleasant ways to pass the time.”

In an absolutely unexpected and pleasant move, she boldly reached up and adjusted his collar. “What do you have in mind?” she asked.

He glanced back into the corridor again and saw they were very much alone. He leaned back and held out his hand to her. “Well, we’re alone down here, nice music playing... ” He took two steps back, extended his hand, bowed slightly and asked, “May I have the honor of this dance?”

Jennifer seemed to consider his offer for just a moment, then said, “Yes, you may.” She took his hand and he pulled her into his arms. They swayed to the music, not needing to talk at that moment. The lab was not large, but there was just enough room for the two of them to slow dance. It wasn’t the first time they’d danced together. There had been parties they’d attended at the Passages where dancing was expected, an occasional celebration at a settlement, but it was the first time dancing had been so spontaneous and without hesitation on either of their parts.

One song led into another, but the dance remained the same. Jon held her hand in his, his other rested gently on her back. Their bodies touched as they swayed to the music, and he could feel the warmth of her hand resting on his shoulder. Her small hand fit perfectly in his, and her head rested comfortably against his chest. Just a few months earlier, they couldn’t have danced together so effortlessly. But then again, months earlier, they wouldn’t have been so obviously left alone. Things had changed between them, and things had changed at the base. The team was giving them their time together.

The song changed again to a softer, slower tune. He pulled her a little closer to him and noticed the bruises again. She needed more than a single afternoon off to heal, but she wouldn’t take it. She’d refuse any time in the regenerator for something she’d consider so trivial. Still, for her not to mention an injury meant it was bothering her on a deeper level. At that point in their relationship, he thought it better to not mention it, but there was something else he wanted to know. “Can I ask you something?”

He felt her nod her head. “When you said that you didn’t like a grabby robot, did you mean that because of what happened during training?”

She raised her head so she could see him better. Her eyes were almost dancing in merriment. “Well, mostly, but if you’re going to get grabbed by someone, I can think of better candidates,” she teased.

Jon raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Really? Is there a short list?”

Jennifer just grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Jon nodded. He was enjoying the verbal game. “Absolutely.”

With a smile, Jennifer said, “Maybe it’s an extremely short list.”

“Oh? That short? How many does an extremely make?”

Jennifer’s smile turned into a rather coy grin. “Present company only.”

Yeah, things had definitely changed between them.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

“Anything.”

She stood up on her tiptoes so she was closer to him and whispered, “Why did a youth leader outranking you explain a few things?”

Ah. She’d heard that comment he’d made to Hawk. From the look on her face, he wasn’t in any trouble. “Well, it explains why you don’t follow orders sometimes.”

The grin became a laugh. Jennifer asked, “Did you ever think it depended on the orders?

A logical answer. “No, I never thought that,” he admitted. “I thought I always gave good orders.”

She nodded. “Sometimes. Most of the time,” she acknowledged.

Most of the time? She was teasing him! He loved it when she let her guard down and wasn’t so serious. She had a fun sense of humor that few had ever witnessed, and he was seeing that side of her more and more, especially when they were alone. Oh, he could banter back in a joking manner, but with another song starting, he was in the mood for other things. In fact, the very fact they were alone and dancing brought other things to mind. The feel of her in his arms, the sense that they were the only ones in the world, that they were both exactly where they wanted to be, doing what they were doing, and the look in her eyes when she looked at him... yeah, things had definitely changed between them. “I was thinking something else though. Since the others haven’t tricked us into doing KP again lately, I think they’re trying something else.”

“You do?”

Jon nodded. “Maybe sequestering us off into the kitchen wasn’t working the way they wanted.”

Jennifer considered that fact. “So they’re serenading us?” she asked him.

Jon tilted his head slightly and listened to the music. “Good choice of music,” he commented.

She looked up at the speakers, then back to him. Her eyes, the eyes that truly did reflect her soul, the eyes that he first saw that day on the mountainside and had looked into every day since, they were telling him how she felt at that moment just as they had then. He wished he could stop time. “You know, it’d be a shame to disappoint them,” he hinted, but how did Jennifer feel about it?

“Absolutely,” she agreed. Again, they were silent as they danced together. There was a greater degree of comfort between them than there was before. The way Jon’s hand held hers, the way she held him... finally, she whispered, “Well, if this is their latest idea, I like it.”

Again, Jon glanced out into the corridor and saw they were still alone. He gazed down at her and they stopped dancing. He held her tight, then slowly, he leaned down and gave her a lingering kiss. When he pulled back and looked into her eyes, he could see the light reflecting in them, but there was so much more. He whispered, “I do too.”

The End

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