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A Little Blue
Two
07/16/09 0700 Dundee, Scotland
"What about the trunk?"
Ciaran looked at it and shrugged. "I've made arrangements for it to be put into storage. If it doesn't get stolen or lost we'll get it on our way back to Texas."
Victoria frowned thoughtfully. "How would we do that? Go to Texas, I mean?"
"The Grey family is shipping supplies here once a month and we'd catch a ride on the shuttle. It lands ten miles out in the sea and unloads onto a ship which brings the cargo here." He settled the pokepack into place on his back and buckled the waist belt. "It could come in and land directly at the warehouses, but the Loyalists are trying to keep the supplies and their source a secret from the Blue spies."
"Oh." She eyed him briefly. "I can carry that."
"You'll get the duffel. I want the heavier bag because you'll probably be doing most of the fighting while I try not to become a target."
She nodded and looked out the window. "Wagner is downstairs. He looks more morose than usual."
"He's not excited about the Grey family representative going off to get killed or worse."
"Worse?"
"For him, worse would be me making a deal with the Blues that granted them access to the supplies or cut the Loyalists off from them."
"Would you do that?"
“No.”
“Why not?”
He shook his head. "The simplest way to explain this to you is that both governments suck, but this one sucks less. Iain agrees with me, so we have no plans to make deals with the Blues." He made a quick sweep of the room to make sure they weren't leaving anything. "Where's your stuff stashed?"
"What?"
"You've been staying with me the whole time I've known you, but you've lived here in England for a while. Where is your stuff and what do you want to take with you or pack in my trunk before we leave?"
Victoria smiled. "I don't have any possessions other than what you see. I learned a long time ago that having things just gives others a way to try to catch you."
“You don’t have a place to live or anything like that?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You’ve been living as a vagrant for years?”
She glared at him. “I wouldn’t call it that.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. And what, exactly, would you call being homeless and not having any possessions other that what you carry with you?”
“I call it being low profile.”
Ciaran started to say something snide and stopped himself. “Well, whatever you call it, it’s over. You’re with me now and you don’t have to live like that again unless you let me get killed.”
She relaxed enough to chuckle. “I was beginning to wonder if I had a good reason to keep you alive. I suppose that’ll do better than most.”
“You wound me.”
She smiled suddenly. “No, I don’t. You’ll know when I do. You’ll bleed.”
He chuckled and opened the door, waving her through first. “Is it too late to tell you to call me master?”
“It’s never too late to tell me that, Ciaran.” She smirked at him as she walked past. “But it was always too late to expect me to obey an order like that.”
“Somehow that’s not very surprising.”
The room inspection had already taken place so the checkout went quickly and less than ten minutes later Ciaran was shaking hands with Captain Wagner, who was definitely wearing an especially dour look. “Look Sullivan, my superiors are not happy at all with what you’re doing.”
“I know. I’ve heard from a couple of them as well as my boss over it after they complained to him. Have you been given orders to take me prisoner?”
Wagner looked shocked. “Lord, no, Sullivan. We’d never do that. We’re the good guys!”
Ciaran wisely didn’t respond to that assertion. “Then I’m leaving. Just like you have orders you have to follow, so do I.”
“There were some discussions about whether or not to assign you a security team, Sullivan.” Wagner scowled. “But we don’t have the manpower to send someone watching you while you go traipsing all over creation.”
Ciaran grinned. “I’ll be skulking more than traipsing, I assure you.” But the thought of a security element was sobering, and only a moment’s thought was required to realize what they were really concerned about. “Look, my home is under attack from three different leagues. They destroyed my country. They’ve invaded Texas and they sometimes send raiding parties close to my house. They’ve shot at my house a couple of times. I hate them. Everything I’ve heard about Blue says they’re a pretty typical league in that regard. If my boss tried to get me to negotiate a deal with the Blues, I’d quit.” His grin faded. “And from some things I’ve picked up around work, my boss hates the leagues worse than I do.”
“I am glad to hear that.” They both knew Wagner was actually saying that his superiors would be happy to hear that. “I can’t stop you and I’ve warned you until I’m out of breath. Be careful, my friend.”
Ciaran didn’t think they’d reached the friend stage in their relationship, but he smiled. “And you too, James.” He glanced behind him. “Come along, Victoria.”
Once they were a mile or so out of town, Ciaran stopped in a thicket of trees that blocked observation. He pulled his pokedex out of his money belt and used the wireless to activate his pokepack. He released his khukuri, rifle, sling, pistol and ammo belt.
Victoria’s eyes were wide as she watched. “What is that?”
“It’s a storage device based on the pattern of pokeballs.” He slipped off the pack and put on the three point sling.
“How does it work?”
“As far as I’m concerned about how this works, it’s magic. I read the instruction manual. It works and that’s all I’m concerned about. We wouldn’t have the tools to fix it if something happened, in any case.” He clipped the M16 assault rifle to the sling and offered her the 9mm pistol, which was in its holster with the belt wrapped around it. “Do you know how to shoot?”
Victoria made no attempt to take the bundle. “I do, but I don’t need your pistol. You keep it. If we find more firearms then I’ll take some but I want you to have all the defensive firepower you can carry.”
He shrugged and belted on the rest of the gear before slinging his pokepack once more. He activated his pokedex again and pulled up a map of the area.
“What is that?”
He glanced up at her. “It’s a computer. It’s called a pokedex, but it’s a computer.” He motioned her closer. “See, here’s a map of where we are. The first place we need to go is to Glasgow. We’re supposed to do a survey of a park there.”
“Whatever for?”
“I’m not completely sure, but it’s the first thing on my errand list.” He traced a line on the map and numbers appeared in the corner of the screen. “The park is called Glasgow Green and it is eighty one miles from Dundee. That’s four or so days of travel unless you see a taxi stand.”
“That would be a bad idea. Cars draw pokegirls.”
“Then we walk.” He gestured her forward. “Victoria, you’re on point.”
07/16/09 1845 Scotland
They huddled under a tree as the rain fell. Victoria was wrapped up with Ciaran inside the cloak he’d pulled out of external storage part of his pack when the rain started. It was made of good heavyweight wool and was completely water repellent. Victoria fingered the edge. “In town if it rains you go inside. That’s why I don’t own anything like this.”
“I should have thought of this before we left Dundee when you said you didn’t have any other clothes.” Ciaran grumbled, mostly to himself. “I’m sorry I let you down like that. It’s also a sleeping cloak so I didn’t have to haul a tent around. As soon as the rain lightens, I’ll weave a shelter for the night.”
“It’s only for a couple of days before we get to Glasgow,” Victoria protested. “I’ll just share the cloak with you.”
“That’s fine for sleeping but you’ll still need one for rain or else every time it rains we’ll have to stop traveling.” He looked at the sky. “It looks like this should pass in a little while. As soon as it does we can try to find something to eat. I’ve got two dozen snares in the pokepack. I’ll set them up so hopefully we’ll have rabbit to eat tomorrow.”
“You know a lot about this.”
“I sound like I do,” Ciaran chuckled. “I thought I did too, until I accepted this job. Then Iain and his harem put me through a survival course that would have done a Special Forces training facility proud. Give me a good stream and some trees and I’ll make a fish trap in a few hours.”
“If we catch some rabbits, will we smoke them?”
“No, we’ll store them in the pokepack. That’ll keep the meat fresh. I can smoke meat, but that takes a couple of days and I’d like to make it to Glasgow as quickly as possible.”
“Speaking of rabbit, what do we have in the way of cookware?”
“I’ve got the basics, which are a cast iron camping Dutch oven, some skewers and minimal utensils. A couple of plates and cups and a coffee pot round out what I need to get by with on the road. And I’ve got some basic foodstuffs for cooking, including,” he activated the pokepack and retrieved two foil wrapped rectangles, “some very rare Terran Federation Space Forces Emergency Ration, Extraterrestrial, Type Three.” He handed her one of the bars.
She stared at it and back at him. “What?”
He sighed. “It’s a joke. I’m kind of a nerd and Extee Three is from an excellent science fiction novel called Little Fuzzy. These are protein bars. I’ve also got some great grapes and other berries, but I want to keep those for emergencies and injuries.” He blinked at the suddenly unhappy look that crossed Victoria’s face. “What is it?”
“I can’t read much,” she said softly. “It wasn’t considered necessary for most of us to learn to read. I’ve picked up a bit but I doubt I could read this book you’re talking about.”
Ciaran wrapped her up in his arms and held her tightly. She sighed and pressed against him. He kissed the top of her head. “These days, illiteracy can be deadly. If nothing else, you need to know how to read to use the pokedex and pack. I’ll download a copy of Little Fuzzy on the next satellite pass and we’ll start your lessons after dinner.” He glanced at the sky. “It looks like the rain stopped. You gather firewood and I’ll start looking for rabbit runs.”
She handed the protein bar back. “Put these away. We’ll save these for if we can’t catch something to eat.”
When Ciaran returned from setting out snares, a small fire was burning and Victoria was sitting on a log and staring at a dead fifty pound pig. He frowned. “Who’s your friend?”
She jumped. “You startled me. What friend?”
“The pig.”
“I killed it. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to retrieve your snares.” She went back to staring at the pig.
“How did you kill it?”
“I was gathering firewood. I saw it ahead of me and shot it with a mana bolt.” She glanced up at him. “I have a problem, though. I have no idea what do next.” Ciaran tried to smother a grin and she glared at him. “It’s not funny!”
“I guess I never thought about pokegirls that way.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What way?”
“I guess I never considered that you’d be a city girl.” His eyes glittered with suppressed laughter. “Let me retrieve my snares and I’ll show you how to clean that pig.”
“I’m sorry you wasted that time with the snares.”
“My time wasn’t wasted and I’ll take a guaranteed pig over hypothetical rabbits any day. You made the right decision, Victoria.”
A half hour later Victoria watched as Ciaran cleaned the pig. He’d just handed her a large, floppy chunk of dark red meat he’d retrieved from the inside of the pig. “That’s the liver. When you kill a wild animal, always inspect the liver. It’s a quick, but not perfect check on the health of the animal. That one looks ready to cook. It’s clean, one color and firm all over without any hard spots. If it’s not a good color or smells or looks wrong, you want to be cautious about eating whatever the liver came from. If the liver looks diseased or it has parasites, I’d probably avoid eating that animal at all unless I have no choice. Now, inspecting the liver won’t catch every problem the animal might have, but that’s why you always thoroughly cook any wild game. That’s what the Dutch oven is for. People talk about spitting and roasting wild game, but cooking it in a pot guarantees it’s well cooked. That and cooking meat on a spit always dries it way too much for my tastes.”
“Can I give this back now?”
He chuckled and took the liver from her. “When it’s your turn to clean, which will be next time, I’ll hunt up some wild onions and we’ll roast the liver. It’s pretty good.”
He cut off enough meat to make a rich meal and added some water, spices and some dried tomatoes. Then he put the lid on the oven and put it in the fire. A camp shovel was used to cover the lid of the oven with coals.
To save space in the pokepack, Ciaran not only dismembered the rest of the pig, he deboned it almost completely while dinner was cooking. He wrapped the meat in the hide and put it into the pack as a single unit.
When they were done eating, Victoria lifted the lid and looked inside. “It’s still nearly half full. I hate to just dump this.”
“We’re not going to.” He carefully lifted the pot from the coals and put it down on a level spot. Then he got the pokepack and stored the pot in it. “Now it’ll be hot and fresh for breakfast. Just remember that it’ll still be as hot then as it is now, so don’t touch it. I got some nasty burns the first and only time I forgot that.”
Then he covered the coals with dirt and strapped on the pack. “We have to move on for at least a mile.”
Victoria looked at him with a puzzled expression. “Why?”
“We slaughtered a pig here. The place reeks of blood to anything with a better olfactory sense than me. I expect any predatory feral pokegirls in the area will be dropping by during the night looking for an easy meal. I put the offal a short distance away, but that’ll just whet their appetite. On top of that, smoke from a fire might draw pokegirls, too.” He pointed. “There’s a stream over there. We’ll stop and do a quick wash before moving on to camp for the night.”
An hour later they were nestled in a copse of young ash trees. Ciaran checked the time on his pokedex. “I think you should stand first watch and I’ll take second.”
Victoria gave him a puzzled look. “If you think we need a sentry, I can do it.”
“And when will you sleep?”
She frowned and then brightened. “I’ll sleep in my pokeball during the day.” The frown returned. “What if you need me during the day?”
He nodded. “There’s that. Also, you can’t sleep in a pokeball.”
The frown deepened. “I thought you could.”
“Nope. It’s a common misconception. Your body is in stasis while you’re in a pokeball, while your mind is awake. Sleep is a restorative process needed by both the body and the mind, so resting in a pokeball is useless in that regard. It’s just like trying to heal in a pokeball. They’re both a waste of time.” His voice grew thoughtful. “Of course, time doesn’t pass in a pokeball like it does for us out here, so it’s possible that it’s not exactly a waste of time.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“When I accepted this job, apparently I also volunteered for a pilot program of accelerated training for tamers that the Grey family put together. What we really need is another pokegirl or two to share the load with. The problem is we just met and are getting acquainted and I don’t think it’d be a good idea to introduce someone else into our life right now.” He slid the cloak off of his shoulders and wrapped it around Victoria. “Now try to get some sleep.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“I know you are. Look, if I see anything the least bit suspicious, I’ll fire off a burst.”
She looked at him skeptically. “Many pokegirls are impervious to bullet fire or will dodge. What good will shooting do you then?”
He grinned. “It’ll definitely wake you up.”
She was silent for a moment. “Is it true that when we’re bonded I’m supposed to want to obey and protect you?”
“It varies by breed and individual, but yes, that’s what I’ve been taught. Why?”
“I am suppressing a strong urge to throttle you into unconsciousness.”
He chuckled. “Oddly enough, I’ve gotten that response from women before. I’m sure it’s not me. Maybe all of you are just a little crazy.”
She snorted softly. “I think that you’re misapplying Oscar’s Razor.”
He stared for a second before laughing quietly. “It’s Occam’s Razor, and you’re probably right. Now I’ve got to stand watch. I’ll wake you in five hours.”
07/17/09 0300 Scotland
One of the things Ciaran had done while training with the Grey family had been to wake up several of the pokegirls for guard duty and other activities. So he knew better than to touch Victoria and stood off to the side where any breath weapons or instinctive attacks wouldn’t be automatically aimed at him. He spoke in a normal, if quiet voice. “Victoria.”
The bundle didn’t move for a second and then she sat up. “Is everything all right?”
“It’s quiet, with normal night sounds and nothing out of the ordinary. It’s also your turn on watch.”
She stood and handed him the cloak. “Sleep well, Ciaran.”
He wrapped it around himself and settled down where she’d been. “I certainly intend to try.”
Victoria moved several paces away from him and closed her eyes as she breathed in the night. Years of living in cities had dulled her senses, but they were quickly coming back now that she had someone to take care of beside herself. During the war she’d been on many extended missions and she’d stood guard more times than she could count, both before and after she’d become what she was now.
As she listened, her pulse slowed and her attention focused on everything around her. Crickets chirped and things rustled, but nothing violated the little night things that her mind said was normal, so she opened her eyes and moved to lean against a tree to break up her outline in the darkness.
Involuntarily, her eyes shifted to look at the spot where she knew Ciaran lay. She’d never expected to have a human permanently in her life, and to be honest wasn’t sure what do with him now that she did. She’d spent the years since the war trying very hard not to have things. Possessions made her kind vulnerable to pain and manipulation. She’d tried in the beginning to have things, but they got taken from her or used against her and had made her bitter against all of humanity.
And now she had the most dangerous possession of all. Ciaran was a hostage waiting to be taken and used against her. She would do anything to keep him safe and if someone had him, she’d move heaven and earth to protect him and get his release.
And then, she thought grimly, she’d kill everyone who’d dared to have the temerity to try and take him from her. And if they actually hurt him, well, she wasn’t sure what she’d do but she was sure it was something she’d never want Ciaran to see. She glanced at him again. Or maybe he should see it if it happened so he’d know how much she valued him and the lengths she’d go to in order to keep him safe. Of course, that meant he’d have been hurt in the first place and she’d fight to keep that from happening.
It was chilly and Victoria missed the heat of the campfire, but Ciaran was right. In the beginning, the armies hadn’t any idea of how to keep safe and more than one of her friends had been sniped while tending a fire. They, too, had learned that a fire could be seen for miles and to douse them when the cooking was done.
Walking would keep her warm, but pokegirls were, above all, motion hunters, and excessive motion could draw a feral that was passing through and would otherwise miss their presence. She’d rather not fight one while Ciaran was trying to sleep.
Thinking about a feral reminded her of the earlier conversation where Ciaran said that what they needed was another pokegirl or two. Victoria suppressed a sigh. She didn’t want anyone else with them. After all, why share if you didn’t have to? But she could see where he was right. And if sharing him kept him alive, then she’d take part of Ciaran over none of him. So she’d keep an eye out for someone worth adding to their little group even if he thought it was too early to do so. Decision made, Victoria settled herself in for her vigil until dawn.
07/17/09 1420 Scotland
They’d seen the occasional empty building or home on their trek, but Ciaran hadn’t felt the need to explore them. They stopped, however, when they arrived at one of the bridges over the River Tay on the outskirts of Perth. Originally, Ciaran had intended to cross the Tay over the M90 bridge, but it had been completely destroyed.
Ciaran examined the ruins of the Queen’s Bridge. “Do you think that they dropped it with explosives or was it pokegirls?”
“Pokegirls,” Victoria said without hesitation. “See how the stone on the other end is sheared almost cleanly? Human explosives couldn’t do that. That was some kind of energy beam.” She eyed the river below. “The current is pretty slow. We should be able to swim across if we have to. You can swim, right?”
“More or less,” he replied absently. “It’ll be better to go across the rubble than to chance encountering water pokegirls in their own environment. Best of all, however, is the Old Bridge to the north. The river there is a lot narrower and should be easier to cross.”
It turned out that the Old Bridge, which ran the A85 into Perth, had only minor damage and they crossed it easily. Ciaran consulted the map on his pokedex. “I really wanted to go around Perth entirely, but since that’s not an option we can either try to circle around the city to the north or cut through the middle of the city and hope for the best.”
“Which is longer?”
He traced the map, letting the computer calculate distances. “It’s roughly eleven miles around Perth to the north. We’d have to take the A85 to the A912 and go north until we could turn southward on the A9. Then we go south to the M90. If we cut through town we follow the river south on the Tay Road and then South Road to the A912. Then we continue south to the M90. That’s a bit more than three miles. The problem is that we will travel all the way along the western bank of the Tay, making it more likely we’ll run across a feral from the city or the river.”
“There’s no guarantee we won’t find any ferals going the long way around,” Victoria said thoughtfully, “so the south way is probably our best choice.”
Ciaran shrugged, put away the pokedex and checked his M16. “You’ve got the point.”
They headed south, moving slowly enough to stay alert to their surroundings. Victoria snickered once and Ciaran turned to see her smirking at a sign for HM Prison Perth. “What’s so funny?”
“The idea of locking convicts up and letting them sit around.”
He frowned. “I take it they don’t do that any more?”
She shook her head. “Convicts are put to work clearing fields around the human held towns. The mortality rate is obscene, but the work needs done.”
“What are the fields for?”
She glanced back at him. “They are for the farms, of course. What both sides did here was sweep everyone up they could find and drag them off to cities that could be defended from each other and from the feral pokegirls. That’s why it’s unlikely we’ll find any humans before we get to Glasgow. But there’s not enough food and so they need fields cleared as fast as they can. Pokegirls do what they can, but there’s a glut of people and so the convicts are put to work helping them. There aren’t enough pokegirls to protect every field being cleared and ferals sometimes attack them.”
“How bad is the food situation?”
She shrugged. “Rationing is the order of the day. If we brought in extra food, it would get confiscated and distributed. In the beginning they sent out patrols to harvest previously planted fields, but nobody reseeded them so that didn’t last more than a single season. What’s it like in Texas?”
“It was bad for a while,” he admitted. “When things fell apart a lot of people from the cities came looking for food. My family had banded together with the other ranches and farms in the area and we fed those we could, but we weren’t going to beggar ourselves and sometimes things got ugly. We formed a volunteer militia to protect ourselves and the survivors eventually learned to move on. Now the militia protects the area from ferals and league raids while we convince pokegirls to join us and help protect what’s ours. Our extra crops get sold to the townies at a fair price.”
“I’m surprised the army didn’t take everything away from you.”
“There is no army like that. Even the members of the Texas Defense Force who are fighting the leagues are all volunteers and can’t be ordered to attack other Texans. And for anyone who thinks they can come and take our stuff, we all have guns for them.” He broke off as a large pile of rock ahead of them shifted, sending bits of rubble pattering across the asphalt of the road. “What’s that?”
Victoria dashed a few steps ahead. “Stay back!” She stopped just as a muscular cat pokegirl hopped onto the pile of rock and launched herself at Victoria with a roar.
Victoria gave a little jump into the air and Ciaran’s eyes widened when white wings shimmered into existence from her back. They snapped forward, throwing Victoria backwards even while shooting bolts of glowing energy into the feral’s face and chest, stopping her leap and knocking her into the pile of rock, which collapsed in a slow slide over her.
Victoria landed, gripping her spear with both hands as her wings vanished. Ciaran stared. Spear? She jogged forward only to skid to a stop as the pile of rock exploded outwards. The feral shoved her way free of the rubble with a snarl that made the hair on the back of Ciaran’s neck stand up. Arms outstretched with razor sharp claws extended, she ran at Victoria.
Ciaran fired a three round burst into the chest of the feral. She stuttered to a stop and picked at the tiny holes in her chest for a second. There was almost no bleeding. The feral looked straight at him, roared once more and charged.
Victoria stepped in front of the charging feral and dropped the butt of her spear to the ground. She stamped her left instep on the butt to help anchor it and lowered the spear with a quick motion. The oncoming feral literally ran onto the eighteen inch blade until she hit the cross guard. Victoria lifted the spear smoothly until the feral’s feet left the ground, whirled in a tight circle and slung her victim back towards the pile of rock. She hit, rolled and came to a stop face down in the dirt.
Victoria ran up and drove the blade of her spear in the feral’s back. Then she turned, her spear dissolving into nothingness and walked back to Ciaran. He looked her over. “Are you.”
She cut him off. “What do you think you were doing,” she bellowed into his face so loudly that he backed up a step. “I had everything under control! You could have been killed!”
Ciaran paled and then flushed. His voice was tight with suppressed anger. “I will not let you fight these battles all by yourself. We are a team. You are not going to put your life on the line while I laze around in the rear. Besides, what do you expect me to do if we get attacked from the back, scream and hope I don’t get killed before you rescue me?”
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” she said flatly.
“I don’t want to get hurt either, but I don’t want you to get hurt in my place. Yes, I know some pokegirls can squash me flat without working up a sweat. Yes, I know it’s safest if I assume all pokegirls can do that. Yes, I know that whatever she is, she would have most likely killed me if she could have gotten to me. Yes, I know you’re better at facing them than I am.”
“Then why did you antagonize her?”
“Because I got a clear shot at her, that’s why. If I think I can slow her down so you can take her out more easily, I will do so. And if she gets past you, maybe a couple of bullets in the chest will slow her down enough that I can keep away from her.”
Victoria shook her head. “I think she’s a Lioness. Your bullets wouldn’t stop her unless you got lucky and shot her in the eye.”
“You think she’s a Lioness?”
“I worked with some Lionesses that looked a lot like this one. Unfortunately they don’t wear identification signs and I couldn’t read them if they did.”
He blinked. “My pokedex can identify her. That’s actually why they were developed, at least originally, so a tamer had a better idea of what he might be facing and how to coordinate his harem to do it safely for everyone involved.”
“Then why don’t you do that next time.” She smiled grimly as he pulled the pokedex out from under his shirt. “Maybe it’ll keep you too busy to get yourself killed.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I was hoping to take her alive so you could add her to our group, but sometimes it doesn’t matter what you want.”
Ciaran scanned the dead girl. “Yup, she’s a Lioness. Is she dead?”
“She is unless she can live with her heart in shreds.”
“Hey, where did that spear come from?”
“I summoned it. I dismissed it when I was done with it, too.”
“Does that also explain the wings?”
Victoria nodded. “It does. My wings give me away as a pokegirl instantly, so I didn’t use them before now. It’s been several years, actually.”
“Can you fly?”
“I can.”
“Then why didn’t you offer to carry me to Glasgow?”
She laughed. “You’re too heavy, that’s why. Most winged pokegirls can carry their own weight and a little more. If I cut you into pieces I could carry you one piece at a time, but I think you’d rather we walked.”
He pretended to think about it. “You’re right. What do we do with the body?”
Victoria shrugged. “We leave it. Something will be along to eat it eventually.” She looked around. “Besides, Lionesses prefer to live in groups. If she had any friends they’d have probably already arrived, but why tempt fate?”
Ciaran changed out his magazine for a full one. “Let’s go then. Glasgow waits.”
07/18/09 0930 Scotland
Ciaran stood where he could look out the window but far enough back to remain hidden in shadow and watched the rain hammer the panes of glass. They'd been skirting around the little town of Blackford when the gray skies had opened up, forcing them to take shelter in a cozy stone house. Victoria had swept it and found no traces that anyone bigger than a rat had lived in the place in years. They even had a good idea of when it had been abandoned since there were three white skeletons in the two beds. Victoria said it looked like they were two adults and a preteen girl.
The place had been tossed a couple of times by passersby, but there were still some clean linens and blankets for the two of them to sleep in. Since the roof was still sound, they decided to bunk down on the couch.
"I found a metal can of food but there's no label," Victoria announced. She'd created a tiny ball of light that cast a dim reddish glow to follow her around as she explored. "I thought we'd leave it for the next person and just have some Extee Three. I'd rather not risk a cooking fire in a house with no fireplace."
"I agree," Ciaran said. "I checked the satellite net and the rain is probably going to last all day, so we'll just stay here." He held up his pokedex. "We'll spend the time working on your reading skills."
"Is this really important?"
He nodded. "It is. If I get hurt you might have to get into the pokepack for some reason. You need to know how to read in order to use the menus. There is a simple mode for the illiterate that shows pictures of the items stored, but I am not going to let you use it."
"Why not?"
"Because you're important to me and being illiterate in this day and age is a severe handicap. How are your math skills?"
"I can count," she said mulishly. "A little."
"If you take ten eggs to the store clerk to buy and she charges you for twelve, how are you going to know she cheated you? And since it's my money you're spending, she just cheated both of us."
Victoria audibly gritted her teeth. "Fine, I'll learn whatever you want to teach me."
Ciaran sighed. "Look, most people won't cheat you but if someone does, they'll cheat the next person and the next until they get caught. While we're not the police, we should stop that sort of thing if we run across it."
"I just don't want you making fun of me when I can't do this."
"Victoria, this is something I am not going to tease you about. This is important, and it can be fun. Do you like hearing stories?"
She looked at him curiously. "I do, why?"
"The books we'll be using to teach you to read tell stories and are ones I think are good stories. If you disagree, we'll find other books to use." He smiled at her. "If this isn't fun, it's a lot harder to do."
"All right, Ciaran," Victoria reached for the pokedex. "Show me what I'm supposed to do."
07/19/09 1510 Scotland
"Can we stop early today?"
Ciaran shrugged as he scanned their back trail. They were less than a day from Glasgow, but he wasn't in any particular hurry to get there. "If you want. Why?"
"I want to find out what happens next to Little Fuzzy and Jack Holloway."
He chuckled. Sunset was around 2100 and normally they pushed on until 1900. “Very well, we’ll stop in an hour or so.”
She favored him with a bright smile. “Thanks.”
About fifteen minutes later Victoria held up her fist and Ciaran immediately stopped. He turned to cover behind them until she touched him on the shoulder. “What is it?”
She shrugged. “Do you hear that noise?”
Ciaran realized he could hear a distant rhythmic thudding noise. It wasn’t regular by any means, and some of the echoes suggested it might have more than one source. It sounded like some of the sources were starting and stopping, making determining anything about what was going on harder to discern. “Are there any pokegirls based off of woodpeckers?”
“Why are you asking me? You are the one with the fancy pokedex.”
Ciaran sighed and dug the handheld computer from his money belt. “I know, but asking you gets me information that never made it into the pokegirl entries.”
“I’ve never heard of a woodpecker pokegirl.” She flashed a grin. “Unless, of course, you’re asking if I’ve ever heard of a grass cock using pokegirl.”
“Why do I think I don’t want to know what that is?” He put away the pokedex. “The noise is in the direction that we’re going, so let’s cautiously investigate.”
After another half hour of travel, the source of the noise appeared ahead when they came around a turn and found a group of humans with two wagons. Most of the humans were busy cutting trees along the road while two of them walked back and forth carrying shotguns. One of the men with shotguns saw them and called out. Work stopped and the cutters clustered behind the two shotgun wielders as they walked forward a few feet and halted. One of them waved imperiously. “You two there, come here!”
“I don’t see any pokegirls,” Victoria said quietly. “Unless there’s one masquerading as a man and that’s unlikely.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Let’s go see what they want.”
Ciaran eyed the area as they walked towards the two men. Behind the work crew the trees and bushes had been cut away from the road for at least twenty feet on each side. The bushes were being piled up near the woods while the trees were being chopped up and loaded on the two wagons. Each wagon had a single tired looking horse pulling it. A river to the north passed within fifty feet of the road and Ciaran could hear the sound of rushing water. It looked like the work crews intended to clear the woods all the way to the water, which made sense to him. Otherwise, he mused, water pokegirls could stalk through the trees to attack travelers.
When they were ten feet or so from the guards, Ciaran and Victoria stopped. “Good afternoon,” he said politely. “I’m Ciaran Sullivan and I’m traveling from Dundee to Glasgow. What is it you gentlemen want?”
The leader of the two was older, probably in his fifties, and was balding from the back to the front, leaving a patch of sandy hair on the front of his scalp. He motioned towards Victoria with a snap of his hand. “Is that a pokegirl? Civilians can’t have pokegirls.”
“She is a pokegirl and you’re mistaken. I can have pokegirls. I have a letter from the government authorizing me to.” He produced a waterproof wallet from a pocket on his pack, removed a laminated half sheet of paper and held it out. “Here it is.”
The document was authentic, issued by Wagner’s superiors in an attempt to keep Ciaran out of mischief and was signed by the Minister of Defence and carried the Ministry’s seal. Ciaran had three more copies of the letter, safely stored in his pokepack.
The man looked it over before handing it back. “Everything seems in order,” he muttered. “What business do you have in Glasgow?”
Before Ciaran could answer, a scream spun him around. A huge black centaur pokegirl had lunged from the woods near the river. As he watched, wielding a black blade that drank the light, she sliced two men in two. The rest of the cutters tried to scatter, but the pokegirl was among them in an instant, her blade rising and falling as she hacked at them.
Victoria jumped as her wings appeared and she slammed them forward releasing energy. The attack was aimed at the human torso of the pokegirl so the bolts of energy went over the heads of the panicking men and staggered the feral backwards. “Don’t shoot her,” she yelled over her shoulder as her wings vanished.
The feral whipped around to hiss at Victoria and Ciaran was shocked to realize that her head was actually a jack-o-lantern, with eldritch flames flickering from the holes. She leaned forward slightly and fire erupted from the jack-o-lantern at Victoria. The flames washed over her and the ones that would have touched her were sucked into her body. Ciaran was standing behind Victoria and he ran perpendicular to the rush of flames to avoid them. Heat still washed over him and his pack, crisping his hair. Ciaran wisely kept running.
“Oh no you don’t!” At Victoria’s yell, Ciaran threw a look behind him and ran faster when he realized that the evil headed pokegirl had focused on him. Suddenly he skidded to a stop as he reached the bank of the river. It was at least a fifteen foot fall to the rushing water and Ciaran didn’t see any way to get out if he jumped in.
The feral spun to go after Ciaran and Victoria vaulted onto her back as she summoned her spear. She clamped her legs around the feral’s equine torso, raised the spear high in both hands, and slammed the cross guard of the weapon down on the jack-o-lantern head with all of her strength. The feral grunted and went down on her front knees, almost throwing Victoria from her back. She managed to stay on, however, grimly raised the spear and hit her repeatedly until the centaur collapsed on the ground. “Catch her!”
Ciaran fumbled a pokeball from his pack. “Get off her!” Victoria threw herself from the feral’s back as he hurled the ball. It hit squarely and the feral vanished into the containment beam. The instant she vanished, the ball went crazy, bouncing all over the place for nearly a minute before rolling to a slow halt.
Ciaran grinned. “Got her!” His grin vanished as he saw, behind Victoria, the man they’d spoken to level his shotgun at him. Ciaran threw himself sideways as the weapon fired. Pain lanced through his stomach and chest and then he was falling.
When the shotgun boomed behind her, Victoria whipped around in time to see Ciaran stumble backwards and vanish as he fell off the cliff. She ran for the river.
“Stop,” someone bellowed behind her. “He’s dead and now you’re mine!”
Victoria ignored the yelling, summoned her wings and launched herself into the air. She circled once over the river, saw something being swept downstream and turned to give chase. Ciaran wasn’t moving. The pack was all that was keeping him afloat, but it wasn’t designed for keeping someone alive and his weight kept his head below the surface of the water. She got above him and dismissed her wings, dropping into the river next to him. She grabbed the pack with one hand and jerked his head above the water with the other. He immediately began coughing up water, but the red swirls around them both did not bode well for the future. Even if he wasn’t bleeding out, the scent would draw water pokegirls.
She looked around. The banks here were too high to climb, even if she didn’t have to drag Ciaran with her. All she could do was wait and hope that they wouldn’t be attacked. Several minutes later the left bank slid down to touch the water. Victoria knew the current was too fast to swim, so she summoned her wings, released the pack and heaved herself out of the water like a duck taking off. It wasn’t pretty or graceful, but it got her airborne. She grabbed the pack and flapped hard for shore, ignoring both the spray as her wings hit the surface and the fact that soon they’d be too wet to hold her aloft.
When Ciaran’s body stretched out against her pull, she knew his feet had grounded and dismissed her wings to splash back into the river so she could drag him and the pack onto the bank. There she half collapsed with him, gasping for air and trying to banish her body’s exhaustion. Rivulets of red seeped from his clothes down the bank and into the water, and Victoria ignored her body’s demands to drag him several more feet up the bank. There she slid her hands under his shirt and forced her healing magic into him. She knew it would have been better to triage his wounds first since her healing power was limited, but if he died it wouldn’t matter how powerful her magic was. They could deal with the aftereffects later.
As soon as she felt it was safe enough, she stripped off the pack. Looking around, she saw a cottage farther up the hill, safely out of the river’s flood zone and farther from curious water pokegirls. She dragged Ciaran over her shoulder and began the arduous process of staggering up the hill with him to it.
Once they arrived, she put Ciaran down and explored the cottage to make sure it held no surprises. The single bed held a desiccated corpse, so Victoria stretched Ciaran out on some blankets she found in a closet. Then she retrieved the pack.
After tossing the pack above his head, she stripped him completely so she could examine his body. Due to her short but violent life, Victoria was something of an expert on gunshot wounds. It looked like the shotgun had been loaded with buckshot and Ciaran had been hit with two pellets. He had a dimpled red scar under his left nipple and another on his stomach that hadn’t been there the last time she had seen him nude. Victoria lifted him and looked at his back. There were no matching dimples on his back. That meant the pellets were still inside him. She didn’t fancy going searching for them, but sometimes a human could live with a bullet or two. If not, they’d deal with it later.
His eyes opened as she laid him back down. She gave him a half smile. “How are you?”
“My gut is on fire when I breathe.” He frowned. “I got shot, didn’t I?”
“Among other things,” she said reassuringly, “and you’re going to be fine.”
“I’ll be happier when I feel fine.” He tried to sit up and gasped. “Nope, I’m not moving soon. Hand me my pack.”
Victoria moved the pack where he could read it. “You will be fine.”
“I know.” He sighed. “I just need to heal a bit more.”
She pressed her hand against his forehead. “And you need to sleep.” She used her magic and Ciaran’s eyes shut instantly. Victoria made sure he was comfortable before getting up and going outside.
She summoned her wings and flapped them vigorously. Water flew in a light spray until the wings were much drier. Then she tried a couple of experimental bounces before taking off.
She climbed, circling the cottage as she did so, carefully looking for signs of other pokegirls, before heading upriver. She landed in the trees not far from the clearing and cautiously moved forward to see. For an instant her eyes filled with the fury she felt; then she suppressed it.
Several bodies had been laid out and were in the process of being wrapped prior to being loaded into the wagons. There weren’t many survivors, apparently the feral’s attack had been quick and devastating.
The bald man with the shotgun was standing away from the others. He’d figured out how to operate the pokeball and the centaur lay sprawled out in front of him. She was semi-conscious, which was the only reason he was still alive. Apparently he had no idea how to proceed from here, although from his cursing Victoria understood he knew what he was supposed to do.
It didn’t matter. Not after what they’d already done.
Her hurled spear took him in the chest, splitting his breastbone. Victoria dismissed her spear and summoned it in her hand again. This time she killed the other man with a shotgun. By this point the others had realized they were under attack once more and were starting to scatter.
It was useless. This time they were facing no feral. Victoria systematically butchered all of them with her spear or mana bolts. She retrieved the pokeball from the man who’d shot Ciaran and returned the feral to it. Then she searched the dead and the wagons, removing anything useful and piling it up to be gone through.
After considering the scene, she piled all of the bodies on the wagons. Then she cut the horses free and released them to whatever fate awaited them before setting both wagons on fire.
Most of what was in the pile went into the fire, but she bundled everything else, including all of the weapons she could find up in a blanket. Both of the shotguns were twelve gauge. One of them was a single shot while the other was an over/under double barrel, which meant she wasn’t interested in wielding them. Ciaran might have a use for them, though. That and forty three shotgun rounds weren’t anything to sneeze at.
Then she summoned her wings and took a roundabout route back to the cottage, landing half a mile away and walking the rest of the distance. It was more time consuming than she liked but it meant that a feral, or perhaps someone not feral, wouldn’t follow her straight to Ciaran.
To her surprise, he was awake and had half lifted the pistol from his lap when she opened the door before he recognized her. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and put the bundle down out of the way. “I got the captured feral back.”
“I figured that’s where you were going.” He glanced at the bundle. “Are they all dead?”
Victoria hesitated before settling down next to him. “They are. Does that bother you?”
“I wouldn’t have killed all of them.” He met her gaze evenly. “And I wish you hadn’t done it either. But I don’t find fault in what you did.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? To which statement are you asking that? Is it the first, the last, or perhaps both?”
She blinked and was silent for a moment. “Both, I think.”
“I’m not saying that at least some of them didn’t deserve death, but we’re not supposed to kill them.” He shifted uncomfortably. “It’s a matter of excess. Killing the wicked is not a sin, but who are we to judge if those who have given us no offense we are aware of are evil?”
“You’d have killed the man who shot you?”
“I would have, and any who tried to protect him.” He smiled thinly. “I’m Old Testament that way.”
“Old Testament? I don’t understand.”
“It’s a reference to the Bible. In the New Testament the Bible teaches mercy to all, including your enemies. I don’t adhere to that. Mercy just begets contempt in most evil men. I believe the Old Testament is more correct.”
“What does it say?”
“Exodus says: ‘An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, hand for a hand, foot for a foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe’, but I prefer Proverbs, which says: ‘A righteous man falling down before the wicked is like a troubled well and a corrupt spring’. It shows that a man has the responsibility to face evil and to stop it if he can.” He rubbed his eyes. “But killing a person who has done no evil is murder and I’d like to keep our tally of murders as few as possible.”
“I killed a lot of people in the war.”
Ciaran pulled Victoria against him. “We all did. You killed them during the war and I killed them for being starving and foolish enough to think they could starve my family so they could eat. They would have killed you if you hadn’t. Killing in self-defense is never murder.”
“Do you forgive me, Ciaran?”
“I don’t blame you, so there’s nothing to forgive. Now that you know, you won’t mass murder people unless it’s necessary, right?” She nodded. “That’s all I can ask.” He kissed her gently. “Now get me my pokedex and the pack.” She did and he pulled a small box out of the pack and opened it, revealing a stack of small discs. He stuck three of them in a triangle around the scar on his chest before activating the pokedex. He grunted. “Take a look. This is a scanner system and it’s looking inside my chest.” Victoria took the pokedex and looked. “What am I seeing?”
“I’m filtering for hard objects. The shadows are the bones of my chest while the black thing is the buckshot pellet that’s in there.” He touched the screen where the black circle lay. “As far as the medical program in the pokedex can tell, it’s not near anything that it could damage, which is good. We can leave it there if we have to.” He pointed to another black item, this one a ragged triangle. “That’s part of a steel arrowhead from when I got shot a few years ago. To be honest, I never knew that was in there. I thought the entire arrowhead came out when it was removed.” He pulled the discs from his skin and placed them around the wound on his abdomen. “Now let’s see what’s going on here.”
“Why do you have this?”
He shrugged. “I wanted the ability to see injuries. It’s nice to be able to see a broken limb before I try to set it so I know if I’m going to make things worse.” He frowned. “The pokedex medical program really doesn’t like where this piece of shot is.”
Victoria leaned over to see. “What is it saying?”
“It’s saying that the pellet is resting against my abdominal aorta. That’s the artery that supplies a lot of the blood to my abdomen. If it gets pinched, very bad things can happen. As it is, it hurts pretty badly whenever I twist anything.” He sighed. “You’re going to have to take it out.”
“Me?” Her voice rose an octave.
“If you know how I can do this surgery on myself, please tell me. Otherwise, you’re the only one who can do it.”
"I don't know to do surgery. All I can do is heal."
He nodded. "That'll be enough. There's a first aid kit in the pokepack that has minor surgical tools. With your healing abilities, this is minor healing. You cut me open as little as you have to, remove the buckshot and then heal me up. Use the pokedex and it'll show you the best route. The medical software pretty flexible and adapts quickly." He smiled broadly. "I actually have a better chance with you than with a post war hospital."
"Is this one of those things you trained for before we met?"
Ciaran smiled. "The concept was covered in some of my survival classes. The first aid kit was actually for me to use on other people and using great grapes instead of healing powers that I don't have."
"This is insane. What would I use for anesthetic?"
"Didn't you use some ability of yours to knock me out earlier?" He grinned when she looked surprised. "I wasn't supposed to notice?"
"Ciaran, you're not supposed to be awake yet!"
He shrugged. "It worked, just not for as long as you want. You're probably rusty. You'll just have to work fast and knock me out again if it looks like I'm waking up." The amusement in his eyes faded. "We don't have any choice, Victoria. If that buckshot blocks that artery, I'll die anyway."
Victoria stared at him desperately. "I could go for help."
"Where? Who could you go to? Even if you find someone, unless they're a kid you can't carry them here and I'm not waiting a week for you to get back. I'll try to make it to Glasgow first."
"I don't know if I can do this."
"I have faith in you, Victoria." He took her hands and held them tight. "You won't fail me."
She squeezed back. "I'm scared."
"So am I." He sighed. "And this will probably scare you more." He took the pokedex and touched the screen. "When I tell you to, I want you to say your name, all right?"
"I will."
He spoke firmly. "I am Ciaran Sullivan and I am not being coerced. Command code is Alpha Romeo Whiskey Seven Seven Nine Slash Two Four Bravo Tango Quebec." The pokedex gave off a soft chiming of bells. He held the pokedex in her direction. "Say your name."
"Victoria."
He pulled the pokedex back to himself. "That was Victoria Sullivan. She is to be given emergency verbal access."
"Verbal access authorized," a soft soprano replied, "for Victoria Sullivan."
He touched the display again and the unit chimed once more. "Ok, you've been given verbal access. If I die during this surgery, you are to take the pokedex, identify yourself and ask for an emergency connect to Iain Grey. The pokedex will wait until a satellite is overhead and connect you. It'll confirm your position as part of my family and you can tell him I'm dead and request retrieval to Texas. It'll be a lot better for you there than trying to go back into hiding here. He'll help you get settled there."
"You're right. That just scared me more."
"Victoria, I have no plans to die today, but few people have a plan to die at a particular time. I just want to make sure you're taken care of if something happens to me, either today or sometime in the future."
She looked evenly at him for several seconds. "Oh, you are not dying today, not after frightening me like that. I will keep you around for a long time just to torment you."
"That's the right attitude." He smiled slightly. "I hope." He indicated the pokedex. "If you watch it while you're working, it'll give you real time updates on what you're doing."
A few minutes later she had the first aid kit and was looking over the small collection of surgical implements. "This will be the first time I'll be cutting someone open to help them."
"I'm sure you'll do fine."
She glanced up at him. "I'd better." She pressed her hand on his forehead and he went limp. "I hope." She continued laying things out for the surgery while keeping an eye on him.
He finally stirred. "I don't feel any different."
"I haven't done anything yet. I was timing to see how long you'd remain unconscious before I got started." She touched his forehead again and he went limp. She snickered softly. "This has potential."
She looked at the pokedex display and made a first cut over the dimple where the pellet had gone in, making the incision just big enough for the forceps. She slowly slid them in and started to probe for the pellet, glanced at the pokedex and blinked. It now showed the forceps inside the body and, using the display as a guide, she was able to maneuver the forceps almost directly to the pellet and quickly remove it.
As soon as the pellet was out, she healed the wound and checked the pokedex. "That was easy." She smiled and moved the sensors to his chest. "I think I'll go ahead and get the other pellet and the arrowhead piece while I've got him under." As a precaution, she used her sleep power on him again before beginning. Once more, things went easily and Victoria quickly retrieved both pieces of foreign material.
The surgery complete, she used her sleep power on Ciaran again and smiled. "I think I won't have anyone arguing with me about you not standing watch tonight, will I?" She waited a second. "Good, I'm glad we agree. I'll keep you under until morning and we'll see if you're ready to tame your new pokegirl."
Ciaran Sullivan
Victoria