by Dawn Husted
A young man walked passed and I stopped him. Asked if he knew a Colonel West. To my surprise, he nodded. However, he said we weren’t welcomed and ordered us to turn around. Instead, I lied and explained we had important information pertaining to him, then we showed him the bag of weapons we were willing to trade for passage.
Upon viewing the bag, the man quietly looked around the group of people walking about and told us to follow him. He walked over to a girl bent over, picking up a clipboard off the ground. She turned around. I walked forward and introduced myself to the girl that looked just like me. Madeline. She looked up at me. “Yes, Stacy?” she asked the young man. She had no idea who I was. Her hair down. Mine had been put up warm into my hat and my jacket collar was pulled around my neck. She didn’t take any extra notice of me as I did her. I looked at the pocket above her left breast, and the words WEST were sewn onto a grey patch. She cleared her throat and held the clipboard against her chest.
The young man, Stacy, leaned over and whispered into her ear. She looked down at our bags.
“I’m Colonel West. How can I help you?” she said.
I quickly became confused, unsure of whether she was really Colonel West or if she was merely wearing his jacket. Either way, she was of some importance. But was that good or bad? What would she do if she found out who James and I really were? These entire months here, nearly a year, I’d been searching for her and never contemplated the idea of her not being a prisoner held against her will. The last thing I ever thought I’d find is her sustaining a high ranking of some kind. She wasn’t a prisoner at all.
My mind began spinning in all different directions as she lowered the clipboard from her chest. She checked off a couple of boxes and looked back at us.
“Well?” she asked.
“Um…we were wondering of where you, your boat was headed… If you were staying or going? We’ve been in Oregon for a while now. There’s nothing here and we’ve had no way of leaving. We’d like to come aboard if that’s possible?” The words left my mouth as if they were the truth. But the truth was fighting against the edge of my lips as they tumbled out smoothly. All I really wanted was to shout I was her sister and how I’d been looking for her for so long, literally fighting for my life in the process. She didn’t know my home was disintegrated in the blast and our parents died. You’re the only family I have left! I screamed inside, but my tongue wouldn’t move, wouldn’t say any other words than the half-lie I just told. Above all, I stuck with the safer option. Not telling her who we were, but simply that we needed passage.
Colonel West, Madeline, began explaining their plan of sailing around the next few months, inspecting plausible lands—places for a future settlement. She came from a place named Stickmore where her father, Colonel West, had been in charge. The word ‘father’ was a knife to my soul—he was anything but. The real question was if she knew who her real family was. It didn’t seem like it.
I told her my name was Penny and motioned towards her patch with the name West embroidered. She said the patch was her fathers’, a remembrance for her of what not to become. Colonel West Senior had died months ago. She described his death as being a power struggle between him and the rest of the people who lived there. He was involved in an enormous scheme where tests had been conducted for a matter of years. The research had gotten out of hand when the Colonel before him was in power. When her father took over, it became even worse. The soldiers on Stickmore didn’t agree with how operations had been running. But before they were able to relieve West Senior of his duties, he committed the ultimate betrayal and destroyed the island. His death was a result of his actions. Quickly after, Colonel Reedus was selected to take his place, and just recently sent her and the rest of the team on the ship—to scout.
The first thought running through my head was relief. Apparently, everyone thought West was a bad man. However, that didn’t mean it was safe for James and I to live on Stickmore or whatever she called it. It also didn’t seem like she was in a position to leave either, being in charge of everyone on the boat and all. And maybe she wouldn’t want to leave. In fact, she seemed pretty comfortable with her nice clothes, leader of a group, with a large ship at her fingertips. And on top of that, she was raised by Colonel West and mentioned nothing about her real parents, now dead. She had no clue.
“Would you excuse me for a minute?” I asked and gave James a look to come with me.
The two of us walked yards away, out of hearing range.
“What do you think?” I asked him.
James rubbed his forehead and peeked over my shoulder at the ship, then at Madeline. His eyes scanned the area at the fifty individuals walking about, stretching their legs and writing down assessments of the land. Some took soil samples and others gathered water in little vials. A man and woman ran their fingers through vegetation nearby, and jotted down information on their clipboards.
“Well?” I asked again.
“What do you want me to say? I think we should take refuge on a ship of people who were in one way or another involved with what happened to our families… to Lucan? They seem like upstanding citizens… who are scouting land to do the exact same thing to other innocent people as what was done to us. And no telling what they’ll do to me if they recognize any of my markings. What am I supposed to say, Penny? This is a terrible idea.” James’ voice was shaking and he made his point clear. The last thing he wanted was to board the ship and he didn’t owe me anything. He already saved my life countless number of times and all my trust in him had been overwhelmingly restored. His opinion mattered to me more than anyone else’s. And I knew mine did to him too.
“I know what you’re saying, James. But I wasn’t lying back there when I told Madeline there’s nothing here in this place. Oregon. Because there isn’t. We’ve been all over this Land, and we’ve never come across another boat. A way out of here. This might be our only chance.” Concern wrote itself in between every squinted line on his forehead. Then he rubbed his lips and pushed his palm against his mouth.
“This has to be your decision,” I whispered.
After all, he was the only one with physical evidence of where we came from. But we both agreed we weren’t sure if Madeline or any of the rest had ever actually seen anybody from our Land. This meant they might not recognize his markings at all.
After more thinking, James said he’d go along with my plan as long as I promised to disembark at the first Land the ship docked.
James and I walked back to Madeline and asked if she’d allow us to come along until they reached the next place. Fortunately, she agreed without hesitation and said it’d be a different story if there were more of us asking. But since we were the only two, they had the room.
I wasn’t giving up on her knowing who I was. Now that I knew she was alive and unharmed, and had an approximation of where she lived, I made a promise to myself to explain to her who I was. Not now. But soon—when I found her again.
Epilogue
Madeline
The boy and the young girl walked onto my boat, not something I normally allowed. Strangers. Boarding with free passage. However, I knew they were the perfect reason for docking into the next port. A Land with resources that could be of major gain to us. I won’t be stubborn like my father, Colonel West Senior, or as weak.
Growing up, he was strong and conducted himself in a way where everyone naturally gravitated towards his command. But over the years, my mom, Urma, messed with his head. He just wasn’t the same headstrong individual he had been previously, and when she passed away, he went crazy, exclaiming that all the research needed to halt and the perimeter taken down.
An entire century of work stopped. And for what, because he ordered it so?
That was the last straw. He knew it. Nobody wanted to follow his orders anymore. In fact, we obtained enough vials to start a second trial. The day he died, he looked at me through the bulletproof glass. All of us were on the opposite side, locked out. He uttered a few words an
d then typed in the coordinates, launching a missile directly up in the sky with the target being our own Land, Stickmore. At the last second, a soldier bypassed the security lock and we rushed into the room. My father aimed the gun at his head and then took his life. A coward’s way out.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t recall the missile, the only thing we could do was rewrite its destination to the other Land. The Land where all of our work had been piloted, where all our subjects lived. If we chose any other destination, we’d risk alerting every government, causing too many questions.
Our work was lost, everyone died in the blast. An ill-fated loss, just as we were about to start the process of invading other Lands, gaining the upper hand, using our soldiers. The Land we were docking next was of particular importance to us—the largest territory left on the earth.
My current notion was to use the girl and boy. Penny and James. When we docked, we’d explain the situation of how they came to be with us and that they needed citizenship, allowing my people and I an inside look into the Land temporarily.
THE END for now
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About the Author
Dawn Husted resides in Texas with her husband, two toddlers, two dogs and a rescued cat named Kitty. As she became older, her passion for reading grew. She’s a lover, not a fighter, and intends on traveling the world one day. But for now, her favorite enjoyment is writing and traveling around the fictional destinations within her stories.
“Dream big.” ~ Dawn
