Something like feelings emerged. The light, the feeling—whatever it was—grew larger, brighter. The empty landscape expanded.
One glowing field was interesting, different and yet familiar. It felt foreign.
As it grew, my understanding grew with it. For the heck of it, I touched the brightness.
My body was ripped through a vortex.
12
Hunted And Hunting
“What happened, Raek? Are you okay?”
I opened my eyes. “Jeez, Raek, don’t scare me like that.” Fitz stood there, shaking me.
Squinting, I adjusted to the harsh light. “Where am I?”
“You’re here, Raek. What are you talking about? I went to bed and… You must have been sitting there for hours.”
“Hours? That can’t be. I was meditating and…” My jaw dropped. No way... “Was that real?”
“Was what real?” he asked.
“That. All of it. The command center, the helmet, everything.”
He draped a blanket over me and I pulled it tighter, describing what happened, which according to him, sounded like a cynetic’s SmartCore. I guess that made sense...
We set off a little after 21:00. It was plenty dark, and, as usual, Fitz set the pace. I followed. After walking in silence a while, I stopped. “You said you wanted to teach me things... Like what?”
“There’s a lot you need to learn, son. History, culture, politics, combat.”
“Combat?” Was he serious?
He nodded. “Hand-to-hand combat and military strategy.”
“I can handle myself!” Fighting at least made sense, but military strategy... I didn’t plan on going to war.
He spun, kicking the back of my knee. I collapsed.
“You always have to be ready.” He helped me to my feet. “You never know when you might run into trouble.”
“That was a cheap shot,” I said through gritted teeth.
He smiled. “It was. Think the DNS will play fair? In fact, if it is life or death, I don’t want you to play fair. I want you to survive. Got it? So, show me what you got.”
Was this another joke? “You want to fight? Now?”
“Yeah, hit me. Pretend I’m the DNS officer that took your mom away.”
What? My fists balled. “You said you didn’t know what happened.”
“I lied.” His eyes sparkled, a knowing smile crossing his face. “Had to get you out of there.”
“You bastard.” I took a step toward him. “We need to go back. I’m going back.”
“I won’t let you. Besides, they’re probably dead by now.” He shrugged as if it was nothing.
Dead? “Screw you.” I leapt at him, claws out, teeth bared.
He backpedaled, smiling and shifting his weight, hands at his sides.
“You’re pretty confident, old man!”
He said nothing, waiting. Charging, I swung. He swatted my hand as if it was nothing, flipped me over his arm. My face slammed into the dirt.
Standing, I dusted myself off, face stinging.
I stepped closer. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“I did,” he said with a slight grin. “I don’t know what happened to—”
I sprang, fist flying toward his face. He dodged it and dropped me with a knee to the stomach. Ugh. Hitting the ground hard, I clenched my gut. I was going to be sick.
He laughed. “I did tell you not to fight fair, didn’t I?”
“You did.” I chuckled despite the pain.
“Sorry, Raek. What I said about your family, it was wrong of me.” He sounded sincere. He was a hard guy to hate. “To be honest, I doubt they made it, but if they did, you’re no good to them now. You need training. You’re a cynetic, yes, and have certain powers and strengths, but you’ll be up against millions of cynetics.”
And I had no idea how to use my powers.
We walked on in a heavy silence after that, until Fitz stopped in a small clearing. “Let’s make camp.”
After assembling the tent, we popped nutrient shots and laid the micro pads. I was exhausted and ready to sleep when there was a crash. We looked at each other.
“What was that?”
Pointing, I held my finger to my lips. On the far edge of the clearing, a swarm of birds squawked as they took to the sky. “Whatever it was,” I said. “It came from over there.”
We snuck back into the forest, putting out our campfire and covering our tracks. Probably nothing, but we had to check.
We got closer and heard voices, men. Four or five of them.
“You think he came this way, Major?” one asked.
“Nah, Lieutenant, I don’t know that,” a southern voice drawled. “Only know my orders. And you know yours, Lieutenant. We’re to search the northwest perimeter of the woods for ‘em and report back.”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant responded. Hesitating, he added, “I was wondering, sir, what’s an animote section doing looking for an animote, sir?”
“Following orders!” the major snapped. “This wolf bastard killed his own sister and murdered his neighbor. What kind of person, animote or otherwise, does that, you think? He’s an outlaw, a villain, a murderer. Now, get your sorry asses up and spread out. I want a perimeter on our location and preliminary reports from each of you in a quarter-hour.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” their voices echoed.
We retreated, careful not to make a sound. Once we were out of range, I whispered, “What are they talking about? It’s a bunch of lies!” I wasn’t a monster...
“They’re soldiers, Raek. The GDR lied about what happened to turn animotes against you. They don’t know about me yet,” he added. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We need to get out of here. They can’t know we’ve been here.”
A noise. “They’re coming, Fitz. We need to go, now!”
He finished one last sweep of the campsite, and we sprinted through grassier parts of the clearing to avoid leaving footprints. I swung the bag on my back. “Where to?”
He took a deep breath and looked back. “They don’t know we’re here, we need to keep it that way. They’re searching about three hundred square kilometers with checkpoints at logical positions. That’s how I’d do it,” he added, outlining the basic math.
Was he in the army at some point?
“They’ll have people stationed at nearby towns and cities looking for outsiders,” he said. “That means we’ll be roughing it for a while, son. Might take longer to reach Lhalas than I thought.”
“Shhh. I see ‘em. By that tree.” I pointed.
“Your eyes must be better than mine, can’t see a darn thing.”
Wait. How’d I do that? I concentrated on making the image larger. Nothing. Slowing my breathing, I tried again. It worked and the pair came into focus. “There’s two of ‘em. They’re looking around the camp. Wait, they’re pointing toward town. Crap! He has goggles. Get down.”
We hit the ground with a thud as they swung the goggles, searching the path to the town before hitting the treeline itself.