by Natalie Reid
“What happened to you?” He jogged down the hall towards her, a worried expression etched on his features.
“Carver’s coming, I need to hide,” she told him quickly.
Aaron didn’t waste time asking why. It was obvious just by looking at her. Taking her hand, he led her back a few doorways and opened the one to his room. He let her slip inside first, and then followed closely, easing the door shut so that it made no noise. Jessie didn’t move as she listened to Carver’s footsteps, mixed with that of the soldier next to him, growing louder and louder. Soon they passed by the door, and both Aaron and Jessie let out a sigh of relief.
“What in the world did you get into, Chance?” he asked, swinging around to face her.
She grinned sheepishly, saying, “I don’t even know. I think I accidentally pledged my services as a chimney sweep to some poor woman on the east end, but it’s all a blur really.”
Aaron laughed and took a step closer to her. “You get a day off from duty, and this is how you spend it!”
She rubbed at the back of her neck and laughed at herself as well. Then, like someone who remembers they’ve left the stove on in their apartment, she suddenly realized that she was alone in Aaron’s room with him. The pit of her stomach started to turn in the beginnings of anxiety. It wasn’t that she was afraid at being caught breaking the rules. If she was found, she was already breaking the rules by the state she was in. What really made her nervous was that it was the first time they had been left alone in private. She had done so with Trid before, and it didn’t bother her, but for some reason she felt like she was doing something wrong now.
“You think it’s safe to go out?” she asked, turning her eyes to the door behind him.
“Are you crazy? You can’t go out looking like that! We have to get you cleaned up first.”
Her throat suddenly felt dry. “How am I going to do that?”
“I’ll call Trid. Have him run over to your room and get some fresh clothes. As for your face, you can probably wash it off in my sink.”
She nodded in gratitude and went over to the door that led to his bathroom. As she scrubbed at her face with a washcloth, she could hear Aaron talking to Trid on the phone. She knew Trid was probably laughing on the other line, for several times Aaron had to tell him to shut up because it wasn’t funny. Jessie smiled when he said this, actually thinking it was quite funny herself.
When Aaron hung up, he knocked softly on the door that had been left open a crack, and then swung it out a little ways.
“How’s it coming along in there?” he asked, stepping inside.
She looked at her face in the mirror to inspect it. “I think I got it all.”
Aaron smiled and shook his head. “The back of your neck is still covered. Here, let me get it.”
She was about to tell him no, but he stepped over to her before she could object. He was a few inches taller than her, and his eyes poked just above her head to study her in the mirror. He reached around her for the wet washcloth and gently placed it on her neck. The water oozed from the cloth and went trickling down her back. She gripped her hand on the sink’s edge a little tighter at the shock of the cold water.
“I don’t need a bath, Aaron.”
“Oh, sorry,” he said, quickly realizing what he had done. He took the cloth away from her neck and dumped it back in the sink.
She carefully turned around, making sure not to bump into him. She wanted to make for the door, but Aaron did not move. He was focusing on the floor a few feet to his right, and his eyes were glazed and sad.
“Aaron?” she whispered, uncertain of what he was doing.
His eyes flicked to hers and he began talking as if he hadn’t been zoning out. “I had a dream last night that they didn’t save you. That you were up in the skies, and I had to fight you.”
Jessie’s eyes softened, but she didn’t know what to say.
“I can’t shake this feeling that I have that there’s something out there that wants you dead… more than the rest of us. Even before you crashed, every time we would go up there, I would say to myself, I hope this isn’t the time that it gets her.” He whispered out these last words and looked down to the floor as if embarrassed.
“I worry about you and Trid every time we go up as well. I worried about you today when I couldn’t be up there with you.”
He shook his head and lifted his hand so that it held the side of her shoulder. “This is different. I can’t really explain why. And then, when you put yourself between me and that Bandit… I thought for sure that would be it, that it would be all my fault.”
“It would have been all my fault,” she told him. “And I’m grounded now, so you don’t have to worry, at least for a little while.”
He shook his head, giving her a frustrated smile. “Remember when you told me not to worry when that guy Fred had it in for you? And then the next day you had a black eye and he didn’t have a scratch because you refused to fight back.”
She laughed. “Yeah, Freddy. He was in my training classes, except I was three years younger and could do everything better. I figured I would let him have his pay-back.”
He stepped closer to her, saying, “That’s what I’m talking about. The rest of the world isn’t like that. I’m worried because I’m afraid it’s trying to get rid of you.”
“Yeah,” an amused voice called out from the main room. “You just make the rest of us look bad.”
Aaron turned around to see Trid standing there with a clean pair of clothes folded in his hands, his eye-brows thrown so high up on his face that they nearly got lost in his hair.
“I see you were helping her clean up,” Trid said with a smirk.
“Wipe that stupid grin off your face,” Aaron said, brushing past him and out the door.
Trid glanced back at the sulking boy, and then returned his gaze to Jessie, who was leaning against the edge of the sink behind her.
“I’m sorry I got here as fast as I did,” he said. “Then maybe you and lover-boy would finally have—”
He was cut off as the pillow from Aaron’s bed was thrown at the back of his head.
“Thanks for the clothes,” Jessie told him, grabbing them from his arms as he was rubbing the back of his head. Then she gave him a gentle shove away from the door, saying, “Now can I have a bit of privacy?”
When she closed the door, her shoulders sank and her back rested against the wall in tired defeat. Ever since she had known Trid, she had skirted around the issue of a person’s “love life” and “sleeping patterns.” She had even told him once never to ask her about these things or try to interfere in them in any way. She had said this as if it was simply a demand for privacy. Now she feared that Trid was suspecting the truth: that she simply did not have a “night-life” like everyone else. What Aaron had said about the rest of the world not being like her really was true.
Jessie put a hand on her head and watched as her fingers disappeared through her soot-encrusted hair. Well…almost true. There was at least one other person like her.
That night was one of the rare times where Aaron and Trid were not on call for duty, and could be allowed to leave the air-base until ten o’clock at night. With a little coaxing from Trid, Denneck gave Jessie the okay to go out with them as well. So, nearly an hour after returning to base, she found herself going out once more. This time, as she watched the city growing closer from the transport ship, she felt she was going to meet it on much different terms. Somehow the world seemed different when she was with her friends. People passing by on the streets wouldn’t see her as a lone girl. They would see the camaraderie between them and know that they were special. If at least to each other, they were wanted.
When the transport ship touched down on the outskirts of the city, Trid had suggested that they head towards the north side. For the entire ride down, he had been telling them about a restaurant there that served something called donuts. In Trid’s terms, he had called it like biting into a fluffy cloud th
at had been deep fried and dipped in chocolate by some guy with a pot belly. Jessie and Aaron had agreed to walk over there, to both try these things called donuts and to attest to the apparently monstrous size of this man’s pot belly, when something in the streets stopped them.
They had just crossed an east-end street into the north side of town, when up ahead, in front of an apartment complex, they spotted a large crowd gathering. Inside the mass of people they could hear shouting, and above that was the tell-tale scream of someone gone mad. When the shriek rang out past the crowd, Jessie saw Aaron flinch and dig his fingers into his palms. Only one thing ever screamed like that.
She started to run towards the crowd at full speed and could hear Trid and Aaron following behind. When they got to the opening in the center of the crowd, they found a team of Task Force agents surrounding a man and pointing their guns at him. Another agent, bearing the mark of sergeant, was struggling to detain him. The man shrieked and moaned and lashed about wildly, but in a few moments the sergeant had whipped him across the head, pinned him down to the floor, and pressed his gun to his head.
The sergeant raised his voice so that those around could hear, shouting to the man, “You have been found guilty of giving into the Bandit. You will come with us to the place of your execution.”
The Bandit continued to struggle in the man’s grip, screeching loudly and startling a few people in the crowd. The sergeant, seeing that the Bandit would not comply lightly with his request, pressed the gun more firmly to the back of his head and pulled the trigger. The shot echoed through the streets in muffled ripples. A mix of relief, terror, and sadness washed through the crowd. To her right, Jessie could see an older woman crying and trying to hide her face. She wondered if she had known the man that had given into the Bandit. Maybe he was her husband or her son, and she just had to watch as he was put down in front of a crowd of strangers.
The sergeant that had shot the Bandit got to his feet and glanced briefly at the blood that had splattered on his shirt. Then he looked to an agent on his team and yelled at him to call it in. People began to disperse. The ordeal was over, but it still left the air charged, almost burnt, like the very oxygen around them would need time to recover. Jessie stepped back from the scene to look at her friends. Trid was respectfully quiet, but Aaron looked like he was lost in a world full of painful memories.
It wasn’t long after she met Aaron that he had told her what had happened to his mother, how she had given into the Bandit just days after he evolved. She would have killed him, her own son, if someone hadn’t called Task Force in time.
Placing a hand on his shoulder, she asked, “Are you alright Aaron?”
He blinked his eyes and tried to focus on her face. He gave her the briefest nod, and then his vision shifted to look at something behind her.
“You guys come to see some real action?” a voice called out.
She turned around to see that one of the Task Force agents had spotted them and was walking straight towards them. Trid gripped his fists at his sides, but Jessie gave him a warning look that told him to calm down.
“If you’re having trouble killing Bandits, I’d be happy to give you some lessons.” The agent grinned at Jessie and casually stuck his hands in his pockets.
“Yeah?” Trid asked, taking a step out so that he was blocking half of her from the agent’s view. “When’s the last time you killed a Bandit going two hundred miles an hour?”
The agent narrowed his eyes at him and pointed his finger. “I know you, don’t I?” He snapped his fingers. “You must be Dale’s baby brother!” He turned his head to call over his shoulder, “Hey Dale get over here!”
From near the entrance to the apartment building, they could see Trid’s twin brother standing next to another agent. He said something to the man before starting over towards them.
“You know, I’ve never seen twins before,” the agent commented, shaking his head. “It’s like some sort of freak of nature or something.”
Jessie discretely grabbed Trid’s hand to keep his temper from rising. By now Dale had joined them and had shot his brother a suspicious glance.
“Look who came for the show,” the agent said to Dale.
“Yeah,” Dale responded. “Three little birdies that don’t belong here.”
“We’re not the only ones that don’t belong here,” Jessie said in a low voice.
“Who’s this Dale?” the agent asked. “An old girlfriend of yours?”
“That’s Jessie Fifty-Fifty,” he replied with a glare.
The agent widened his eyes and pretended to be impressed. “Ah! The Bandit herself! What, did you come as backup for him?” He flicked his thumb back towards the dead body on the street.
Trid tried to lunge for the man, but Jessie held him back, locking her elbow over his chest.
“Stop letting him get to you,” she warned. “It’s only what he wants.”
The agent grinned and laughed at Trid’s expression, while Trid seethed at his brother.
“I can’t believe you joined these thugs! You’re just as bad as them now.”
“And you’ll never be any better than a second-rate pilot that no one will ever remember,” Dale responded calmly.
“If I were you, I’d walk away right now,” Jessie said, still struggling to hold onto her friend.
Meanwhile, the agent looked away from the two of them and over at Aaron, who was silently staring at the body on the street as if he was in a trance.
“Hey, what’s wrong with Dumbo over here?” he asked. “He couldn’t take all the excitement?”
By now another agent had seen what was going on and decided to join in. He slung an arm over Dale’s shoulder saying, “You know how these military goons are. They can’t take our line of work. They have to be behind a hundred tons of steel before they take on a Bandit.”
Dale looked over at Aaron who was now glaring daggers at the new man that had arrived. After a moment, Dale looked away in an expression that might have been taken as remorseful. He had known Aaron and Jessie before he became an agent. He knew what had happened to Aaron’s mother. Task Force or not, it was something that shouldn’t be joked about.
“They’ve probably never even seen a Bandit close up,” the first agent said, glancing between the three of them as if to judge which one of them would crack first. Then he slapped Dale’s shoulder, saying, “You’re related to one. Is it true they all cry themselves to sleep up there and have nightmares about being racked?”
Dale bit down on his tongue before responding, “Only pilots like my brother.”
Trid gave him an incredulous look, but his brother turned away and looked down the street as if he wasn’t even there.
The agent then turned to Aaron, saying, “You probably even have your mommy up there with you. Tell me, does she pack you a lunch every day?”
The second Jessie heard those words, she stopped trying to hold back Trid and lunged out to grab Aaron. She caught his arm, but he swung his other one out, hitting the agent in the jaw. The man took a swing at the side of Aaron’s head, but she blocked it and twisted the man’s arm around behind his back.
“Okay, here’s how this is going to work,” Jessie whispered in his ear. “I’m going to let you boys walk away, and we can all pretend that nothing happened. But if you don’t, you’re going to have to come up with a good excuse as to why your arm’s broken, because you’re certainly not going to tell them that a little girl from the military did this.”
She pulled a little tighter on his arm before letting go and shoving him forward. The man spun around and looked as if he was about to charge at Jessie, when Dale put his arm out to stop him.
“Not this one,” he said, shaking his head.
The man glared at her and then spat on the ground before walking away. The other followed, throwing them a casual smirk as if they hadn’t been beaten, but had rather grown tired of the present scenery.
“Next time you guys want to make trouble, make su
re I’m not around,” Dale whispered furiously before leaving to catch up with his colleagues.
Jessie waited until they were far enough out of sight before turning back around to face Aaron. He was taking in deep breaths and running a hand through his blonde hair. His brown eyes, which normally looked so happy, were dark and distant.
“We’re not really related,” Trid said, looking over at them and shaking his head in amazement. “We must be some sort of non-blood related twins. That’s the only explanation.”
She gave her friend a sympathetic smile before turning back to Aaron and taking his hand.
“They’re just jerks, Aaron. Don’t let them ruin your time off.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, looking at her more intensely and letting her know he was back with them. “I didn’t mean to hit him. I… I just…”
“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Trid said, clapping him on the shoulder. “We get it. But what we don’t got are donuts. So what say we remedy that?”
The three young pilots finally left the spot of death on the streets, and headed away from the war of Aero City and into its stomach. When they entered into Trid’s donut restaurant, he promptly ordered a whole plate of the fried concoctions. The man behind the counter, a man with a belly that hardly protruded several inches past his chest, told them that it would be a few minutes while he made a fresh batch.
As they waited, Jessie took Aaron to the restroom in the back to clean his hand that had gotten scraped up by punching the agent. While she ran his hand under the facet of cool water, she secretly glanced up at his reflection in the mirror. This was the second time today they were in a bathroom together. Only this time felt so different. Before, everything had been about her. In fact, she realized that for the last several weeks, everything had always been about her. She had nearly died, yes, and she wanted dearly to get back up in the skies, but she had almost forgotten the cares and worries that her friends had to deal with as well. Aaron had lost his mother to the Bandit, and Trid’s own brother disowned him to the Task Force. Suddenly the words “paid to leave” didn’t sound all that bad in comparison.
