1 Chapter 1
1
June, 2184
Sullivan Eberle found it ironic that after almost failing the physical to enlist because he had abysmal night vision, he was now forced to do most of his traveling after dark. He’d tried walking during the day. While his time was better, the fear he encountered in every stranger’s face wasn’t worth it. Scared people acted irrationally. It was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.
The journey might have been easier if he had a fixed destination in mind, rather than a name that meant nothing to him and puffs of memory that evaporated when he tried to catch them. He walked on instinct, catching the occasional faded sign and steering his course in a new direction. The slip of paper in his pocket got heavier every day. Taunting him. Begging him. Screaming at him to get there, damn it, who did he think he was dawdling like this?
The screams were the easiest to block out. He’d trained too many years to fall prey to such manipulative tactics. Strike would be proud of him.
At one point, he debated losing the uniform for something less noticeable. Civilian clothes would help him blend. He might be able to risk journeying during daylight hours then, provided he also had a hat to hide his shaved head. But he’d left his money and credit behind, ties he’d cut without knowing why, and nobody in their right mind would trade for a Strike set. That left thievery. Somehow, in logic he knew was twisted, that was too much. He couldn’t justify crossing that line.
At least his other crimes had been officially sanctioned. He refused to break this particular law. On this, he had a choice.
He marched along deserted highways under pitch-covered skies. Only once did a vehicle pass him, but the roar of its archaic engine proclaimed its presence long before twin beams pricked the darkness. He hid in a wet ditch until it passed, vaguely wondering where they got the fuel to make the vehicle run. Brackish sludge seeped inside his boots, his pants hems soaking even more, but he remained stationary long after the night was silent again.
When he resumed his trek, the oppressive silence tried to flatten him into his own grave. The earth was more than ready for it, which bothered him on a whole lot of levels. At the fronts, they had to burn the dead, in pyres, with throwers, anywhere they could find. Even before the current insurgences, he didn’t know anyone who’d died who hadn’t been cremated. There was just no place to put the bodies. People wouldn’t have to worry about that out here in the middle of nowhere, but then again, he didn’t know how people could live where it was so quiet. In the beginning, he’d hoped he’d hear crickets, not that he was really sure what crickets even sounded like. Story was, some rural areas still had them. There had been a kid from Ohio in his squadron who spent hours telling him and anyone who wanted to listen about growing up on a farm. Nobody ever told him to shut up unless a ranking officer was in earshot. That kind of life seemed like a fairy tale.
Sullivan probably wasn’t in Ohio, anyway. That was farther north and east. But if his search proved fruitless, he might consider going there instead. His hair would be growing back by then. He could leave his career behind him. Where it belonged.
* * * *
He was always hungry.
His discharge came with a month’s rations, but he had no idea how long he would need to reach his destination. He split one serving of whatever he pulled out—dried fruit, smoked meat, the leavened protein wafers they used to feed to stray dogs—over an entire day. Sometimes, he supplemented his scant meals with greenery he found along the way, but after the third bout of hard cramps that left him weaker than before, he gave that up. It was better to be hungry. It gave him an edge. At this stage, he took everything he could get.
Water was a different story. Water was precious. He knew what chemicals lingered in the atmosphere and how toxic rainfall could be. He’d been taught never to trust natural sources. But on his own, he didn’t have access to a Personal Filtration Unit, and no funds to waste on processed water after the first week.
He had no other choice but to dip into streams. He chose only sources that seemed healthy, where life teemed and thrived in recognizable patterns. At those, he refilled his two canteens, to save in case he didn’t find another one quickly. He almost always emptied them before spying a new source.
On the eleventh day after his discharge, he had to use a different hole on his belt to keep it tight.
