A Perilous Journey (Rise of the Empaths Book 1)

by A. S. Hames

  Insane sense of importance?

  “What about the girl’s idea?” the sergeant says. “That the Leader might like to meet Von.”

  “Take Von with us? Yes, good idea. It’s just the kind of show-off whoopla he likes.”

  While I try to understand how my words to a film team have become entangled in all this, I make my move. Keeping the truck between the captain and me, I lead Von away, away, away… a good sixty feet. Now I can make a big thing of calling out.

  “Is it okay to come back yet, colonel?”

  I can imagine the calculations in his head. All’s well though, because he waves me to him.

  As we reach the truck, the others come out of the house. The major looks annoyed.

  “I trust you’ll think hard overnight, Mr Crawford. I sincerely do.”

  Once everyone is clear of the building, Von and I are required to play the role of trail hunters for the camera. People in halls across the Nation will see the hero Von on a big screen sniffing out our enemy. Although I find it slightly ridiculous, I accept it never occurred to me that anything was amiss when I watched this sort of thing back home. Even the mutterers believe the official news.

  Once the filming is done, we board the truck and head back to town. I’m with Von facing Henry Crawford and his clerk.

  “Looks like the bad weather’s moved away,” I say to Crawford.

  He squints due to the sunlight but declines to comment. I can’t blame him. He’s under arrest and facing execution tomorrow morning.

  As we near the town, I wonder about Endeavor. Could it have survived independent of the Nation? It’s not easy to imagine. Had they succeeded, they would have created a small version of the Nation with Henry Crawford as Leader of the Town, or as I’m guessing they would have called him, Mayor Crawford. I try to see the advantage of it, but it stays somewhere out of reach. Then I wonder who they’ll get to shoot him dead.

  16. The Fake War

  JAY

  We climb down off the truck. The idea is Henry Crawford and his clerk will be held overnight and come around to the major’s way of thinking by morning or they’ll be executed in public alongside a whole bunch of innocent people.

  It’s not something I agree with.

  “Am I right in thinking you’re someone I can trust?” the film woman says. “You’re Ax’s sister, right?”

  “I’m Sub-Lieutenant Two-Five,” I tell her. My hand instinctively goes to the badge on my tunic but she’s eyeing the one on my cap.

  “The advanced scout’s the person I need. There’s a wagon load of dead redcoats due in an hour or two.”

  “Dead redcoats?” She might trust me, but I don’t trust her.

  “I need a team to lay them around the town sign and some other places so I can film them. Then we’ll put some of ours in their uniforms and film some action scenes. Redcoats being shot down, that kind of thing. Then, after we’re done, not a word to anyone. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “Be at the hotel in an hour with six troopers.”

  She goes into the town hall, and I have to force myself to overlook the fact that we didn’t fight any redcoats.

  I give Von’s leash a gentle tug and we walk.

  Heading along Main Street, there are no faces at the windows. The side streets and alleys are quiet. I imagine hundreds hiding in upstairs rooms, thinking they’ll be okay if they keep out of our way. I hope they’re right. I have no quarrel with these people.

  Just short of the hotel, two Pinedale girls are messing about as they eat what looks like cake. Von’s nose is in the air. God, I’m hungry too. I try not to think of Endeavor facing starvation in the weeks ahead.

  “Hey,” one of them calls. “Have you seen Tru-Zee Six-Zero? She’s this high with dark hair.”

  “No,” I say, but I pass by with a girl of that description in my head. I’m following her into a house and up some stairs and into a bedroom. She fires her weapon. I don’t look where the bullet goes but I know, so I push and we fall.

  I committed a Crime against the Nation.

  No – I’m suspending all judging of myself and others.

  At least for now.

  But I’m drawn back to the bullet. What occurred in a flash tries to happen again in my mind, but oh-so-slowly. I force myself beyond the shooting. I go through the upstairs window with the girl. The air rushing by. A helpless falling feeling. It’s a moment of the purest freedom. Nothing to be done. Nothing that can be done as I fall like a raindrop.

  Like a stone.

  Like a meteor.

  To earth.

  It’s mid-afternoon. Having eaten a much-needed potato pat, I set about choosing my team. I choose Dub because he’s strong, Bone Boy because I want to question him, and then I try a tough-looking Pinedale girl.

  “I could do with your help for an hour or so.”

  Before she can answer, the child-sergeant is hurrying over.

  “Yes, do as the sub says and help her for an hour or so.”

  My team and I are soon at the town sign with the film woman – and we don’t have to wait long before a truck pulls up with six deceased redcoats on the back along with three spare enemy uniforms.

  I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing dead soldiers, but it’s the actual uniform that fascinates me.

  “What’s wrong?” the film woman says.

  “I’ve only seen them in black and white on a screen.”

  To me, the red is so vivid, so vibrant, it could be alive all by itself.

  “Okay,” she says to all of us gathered around the truck. “This is secret work. If anyone asks, tell them you cannot discuss it. Failure to follow this simple requirement will result in your execution and a ten-year jail sentence for every member of your family. Understood?”

  There’s an unhappy silence.

  “I said understood?”

  “Understood,” we report.

  We get on with our jobs. For some, that’s moving dead bodies into position. For me, it’s getting three of our troopers into the spare red uniforms. I’m not so sure the enemy tunics will look too different from our mossback tunics in a black and white film, but there are other details, such as different collars and cuffs, and fewer buttons.

  Once we’re done, the film woman does her job – making it look real by filming Nation troopers firing blanks at our fake redcoats by the town sign. Then she moves in close to film genuine dead redcoats for the outcome of a gun battle that never happened.

  Dub pulls me aside.

  “This is wrong, Jay. People will swear to God they’ve seen a real battle on the screen.”

  “I know.”

  “Between you and me, I don’t think there’s a single living redcoat anywhere in this part of the Nation.”

  I lead him farther away and show him the ID card I took at the outpost.

  “This belonged to a boy defending the outpost. He was from Town 223, but Endeavor is Town 193.”

  “What was he doing here then?”

  “I’m not sure but, just before the shooting started, an old man defending the outpost waved at me.”

  “Waved? Are you sure about that?”

  “I know what I saw, Dub.”

  “God. So he’s waving and you’re shooting.”

  “What if he was loyal to the Nation? What if he was told it would be a fake attack staged for the cameras, and that’s why he’d have no need of an effective weapon?”

  “Wow, Jay. Where did that idea come from?”

  “Whatever happened, I don’t think any of the outpost defenders were from Endeavor. They were all carrying injuries and weren’t what you’d call fit for service.”

  “Like the missing injured from our camp, you mean. Sounds like you’re against the Nation, Jay.”

  On this point, I’m absolutely certain. “No Dub, I’m not against the Nation. But I do believe we should be told what’s what, so we can work out the right way, the best way, the decent way to support the Nation.”
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  The film woman calls us over. Our next task is to take the corpses to the outpost.

  BEN

  While I’m wondering where Jay and the others have gone, a Prospect leading trooper details me to join a search team. We’re missing a few soldiers and I have to help search house to house. I’m not too keen, because I don’t like going into people’s homes and causing fear.

  Even so… if troopers are missing, it’s right to find out what happened to them.

  One house I go into, two elderly folks look like no threat at all, either to me or to the Nation. I quickly check their rooms and leave.

  Another home is made up of rooms over an empty store. There’s a mother there with two young children. She doesn’t say a single word to me the whole time. I find nothing.

  A few homes along, I walk across a pretty little front lawn, through a smashed picture window into a lounge. I check the rest of this level and then head up the stairs. The front bedroom is empty, but I find a whole family in the back room. There’s a small girl laid out on the bed, clearly dead from a gunshot wound to the head.

  No Rules and No Limits.

  The timber frame window is smashed through. I take a look and there’s blood on the grass in the yard below. I check the wardrobes. There’s the body of a mossback in one – a girl of fifteen or sixteen.

  The father hands me a gun.

  “I used the only two bullets we had.”

  I wonder about my next move. I’m empowered to execute him on the spot, but I can’t see how any of this turns out better for that kind of response. Seems to me we shot his kid and he reacted.

  I tuck the gun into my waistband, go back downstairs, and out into that pretty little front garden, where the leading trooper is waiting.

  “Nothing to report,” I tell him.

  JAY

  On the way to the outpost, I manage to get Bone Boy alone.

  “How did the attack go for you?” I ask.

  He looks at me like it’s none of my business. But there’s redness in his face and I get a vague sense of something strong. He knows I know. Obviously, there’s nothing I can do, but I still want to hurt him.

  “I saw you and the tall one.”

  “So?”

  “With that woman.”

  He shrugs it off. “We were only following orders.”

  That stings me, because he’s right and I’m wrong.

  “One day, things won’t be like that,” I tell him. “We’ll have law and order again.”

  “Go tell it to the colonel,” he says.

  “I just want you to know if I had any power, I’d cut you down, you piece of filth.”

  I walk away with my heart thumping. Hell, where did that come from? I didn’t even know I was angry until I looked him in the eye.

  We’re soon at the outpost, ready to perform our next part in the fake war. Our job is to provide the dead redcoats my brother pretended to kill here earlier. While we go about it, I catch Dub studying the abandoned guns. I can see what he’s thinking – that they’re no good, and that they were never loaded in the first place. I’m thinking of a man waving, and that the Nation knowingly murders its own people.

  Once we’re done at the outpost, we head back to town. At the first few homes, we set up some explosives. Then we withdraw to let the camera film it.

  I ask the film woman the point. She takes me aside.

  “We have some footage from last summer. Big guns firing up north. What we do is put that footage in front of what I’m about to film here and…”

  “We have big guns shelling Endeavor on film.”

  She seems satisfied that I get it. “I might bring you into one of the film units. We need new talent. Let me think about it.”

  I’m not sure if I want to be part of a film unit, but I do want to be where I can learn the full story of what’s going on.

  A minute later, the buildings explode in a huge fireball. It’s a terrible sight. There is little left after it. But it’s all on film.

  Later, back at the hotel, they show us a film about heroic victories over the redcoats at places called Harmony, Hope, and Mountain View.

  It looks so real.

  After the film, Dub and I take Von for a walk. We hardly talk until we’re almost back.

  “Still thinking of escaping?” I ask him.

  “Why? You still thinking of doing your duty? All the way to the ugly, lying end? I can just see dumb, stupid me being led to my death by you and your brother.”

  That’s not what I want for any of us.

  “What did you mean about me not knowing why Ax joined the army?”

  “Forget it, Jay.”

  “I just want to know what you meant.”

  “Jay, your brother’s one of those people who won’t take no for an answer. He’s hurt people bad.”

  “What people?”

  “If I told you, it would only make things worse. You’d tell him and I’d be shot.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  He nudges me, which I dislike, but he’s indicating that I look to my right. It’s the child-sergeant, half-hidden around a corner, using the colonel’s spyglass to look at us.

  “Idiot,” I mutter. But it reminds me of something. “Did you know there’s more than one Von?”

  Dub looks at me with disbelief.

  “I’ve seen another one,” I tell him. “With the Prospect-Inspiration group.”

  He laughs, but quickly suppresses it. “You are kidding me?”

  “I’m serious. I’m thinking of asking the colonel about it.”

  He scoffs. “You talk like it’s school and you’re asking the teacher. It’s dangerous to question them about stuff you’re not meant to know.”

  I can’t say anything more because the child-sergeant is coming to bother us.

  “Anything you need me to do, sub?” he asks.

  It’s a stupid question because I’ve just come back from walking Von and I have no idea what’s been happening.

  “No, sergeant.”

  “Okay, sub.”

  I hate the silly way he marches off like a little pretend soldier. But I do envy the simplicity of his existence. For him, the war is about survival and bettering his situation. It’s that for me too, but it’s also about truth and lies, and worrying about Ma and the farm. And it’s about finding out where I fit in, because I sure as hell don’t fit in here on the fake Front.

  Ax…

  “Stay there, Two-Five. Dismissed Trooper er…”

  Dub ignores Ax’s rudeness and seems happy to leave me.

  “Important news,” Ax says. He checks that no one is listening. I’m guessing he’s about to tell me he’s off to the Lake Towns. “I’m arranging a firing squad for tomorrow morning. You’re in it.”

  “A firing squad?”

  “Orders from above. There’s no way the traitors will co-operate.”

  I don’t understand. Ax won’t even be here.

  “Why me, Ax?”

  “Because I know I can rely on you.”

  He salutes me and I salute him back, although my hand is shaking.

  17. New Rules

  JAY

  Toward the end of the day, I’m resting alone in a tent out the back of the hotel. I hate Ax. The orders may have come from above but it was his decision to pull me into the madness. He knows I can’t shoot people dead.

  I’d love to sleep and put all this stuff out of mind, but I can’t, so get up and leave the tent.

  “Von?”

  Von uncurls under his lean-to and struggles to his feet. He gives himself a shake that starts at his head and works its way down the length of his body finishing with his tail. It makes me smile a little.

  There’s a creek that runs along the eastern side of the town, so we make our way to that. Von takes a long drink then we cross a wooden footbridge to a patch that looks like a games field. It’s forsaken now but I can imagine hundreds of people playing here.

  We follow the water until it bring
s us to a bridge on the town’s eastern approach road. Here, we go up the bank and follow the road to the crossroads where the town hall sits.

  Outside, two female troopers stand guard. Pinedale girls, I think. I continue around the back where I find a couple of female Prospect-Inspiration guards.

  “Not many guards,” I say.

  They eye my junior officer’s badge.

  “The boys went off for some fun,” one says.

  She’s embarrassed and so am I because I don’t like to think what armed young men might consider fun.

  No Rules, No Limits.

  “Von looks a lot better,” she says.

  She thinks this is their Von.

  “No chance of Mister Crawford escaping?” I say.

  “He’s locked in a room on the top floor.”

  I wish them well and leave. Within ten minutes, Von and me are back at the games field. We run across to a big tree, I bang my palms on the trunk then we run back. It’s not much of a game, but I’m breathing hard, which helps calm my churning thoughts concerning Henry Crawford.

  I believe the Nation must remain lawful, whatever the situation or provocation. A question then: If those in charge fail to act justly, is it possible for others who are still loyal to the Nation to restore standards? After all, I can’t see why we’re attacking ordinary people who changed the rules when the Nation abandoned them.

  I head back to the hotel convinced that the focus of the war has shifted onto the wrong target. With that in mind, I tie Von under his lean-to and head off back to the town hall. This time, I try another way round to the back and find it’s just a matter of waiting alongside a house until the guards aren’t looking my way.

  New Rules, New Limits.

  Sneaking across the rear garden, I make my way to the back of the house. With my heart thumping, I hide behind a bush until the guards are back by the road, then I get to the door. Only, it’s locked.

  There’s a ground floor window. It’s open a little but it’s on a catch. I try getting my hand inside but the gap is too narrow. And now the guards are heading back this way. I take the rifle from over my shoulder and poke the barrel in through the gap. Now I can knock the catch off its hook.