Empire (10 page)

Nicole turned and fled.

Reza did not waste time trying to finesse another shot with the sling. He reached down and picked up the nearest rock and hurled it at Dodger, hitting him in the stomach and doing no damage other than making the boy even angrier. Then he turned to follow Nicole across the quad and into the wheat.

“You’re dead, you little bastard!” Dodger shrieked as he held his injured shoulder, the bone splinter grinding painfully as he raced after his quarry.

* * *

Nicole was terrified. She had lost Reza, and now was lost herself. Running blindly through the wheat, her nose clotted with the smoke that swirled through the fields, she had no idea which way to go. She just ran.

Stopping for a moment to catch her breath, she wondered if she should call out to Reza. But no, she decided angrily, that would alert Dodger to her presence, and Reza might even be dead.

“I never should have left you,” she cursed herself, angrily wiping away the tears of guilt that sprang to her eyes. Memories of her mother, dead because Nicole had not thought to warn her of a lethal danger, rose unbidden. Perhaps, she thought miserably, she and Reza could have beaten Dodger. She knew she should have stayed with him…

“
Merde!
” she cried quietly, pulling at her hair in self-recrimination. She had to find a way out of this, she had to find Reza. Looking at the sun, now past its zenith, she tried to guess which way to go. Picking a direction, hoping it was the right way, she headed toward where she thought the road to the orphanage might be.

Such was her surprise when, after only a few tens of meters, she burst from the wheat onto the road that led to the orphanage. Falling to her knees, she sobbed in relief, at the same time wondering what had happened to Reza, knowing that she had to find help.

“Well, I’ll be,” she heard a familiar voice coo from nearby. “Look what we have here.”

She looked up just in time to see Muldoon’s obesity blot out the sun, his shadow falling across her face like a burial shroud.

* * *

Reza’s time was almost up. His legs were ready to give out, and he could hear Dodger’s labored breathing close behind him. No number of maze tricks was going to save him now.

“Got you, you little freak!” Dodger cried as he latched onto the collar of Reza’s shirt.

Reza tried to struggle out of it, but it was too late. He collapsed to the ground, quickly rolling onto his back to free his hands for his last great act of defiance.

Dodger straddled him, pinning him to the ground. Balling up his good fist, he said, “You’re gonna pay, you little fuck,” before he slammed it into Reza’s face.

Reza did his best to ward off the piston-blows that rained down with unerring precision, but no war was ever won through defense alone. Leaving his face completely open to attack, Reza shot his own fist upward while Dodger was cocking his arm for another blow, managing to land a glancing hit to the older boy’s injured shoulder.

Dodger let out a cry of agony, and Reza bucked his body upward and to the side like a wrestler fighting a pin, squirming from between Dodger’s legs. Reza plunged away into a curtain of smoke as Dodger tried to get back on his feet.

Through the slits left him by the swelling around his battered eyes, Reza suddenly became aware that he had led himself into a trap. Flames danced all around him and his skin prickled with the heat. His nose, accustomed now to the acrid smell of smoke, could no longer screen it from his lungs, and he began to gag and cough.

“Where are you, you little son of a bitch?” he heard Dodger call from somewhere off to his left. “Come on out!”

He can’t see me
, Reza told himself. The smoke was a much better screen than was the wheat itself.
Now, if only I can get myself out of here
, he worried. Carefully avoiding the ravenous flames and Dodger’s angry searching, Reza managed to work his way out of the fiery trap.

Behind him, lost in the smoke, he heard Dodger’s voice calling, calling…

* * *

Nicole lay spread-eagled on her back inside the closed van. Muldoon’s silent assistant had stuffed a rag in her mouth and bound her hands and feet to the cargo tie-downs with heavy tape. She quivered in fear, her eyes locked on the rolls of blubber emerging from Muldoon’s uniform as he fought with the overstressed velcro down its front. The van was filled with the mingled scent of his body odor and the breath mints he always chewed before taking one of his pleasure rides. The smell alone made her want to gag.

The boy who had taped her to the floor had only smiled at her, no matter how much she had struggled. He had not hit her or threatened her, but treated her like she was amiss for not wanting to participate willingly, as if sure that she would chastise herself later for being so silly. He kneeled in the back of the vehicle, near her head, his eyes gleaming knowingly, as if she were about to learn a very important secret, a very special one.

“Ah,” Muldoon gasped as the uniform suddenly flew open down to his crotch, releasing his manhood from its fleshy confines. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, honey,” he said in quick gasps as he waddled forward on his knees, taking up station between her legs. His hands groped under her blouse, and he sighed as he squeezed her breasts. “They’ve grown since last time,” he said over the muffled screaming that made its way through the sock stuffed in her mouth. “Did you know that?”

His hands, shaking from the adrenaline rushing through his system, worked their way down, down over her belly, then grabbed roughly between her legs, his fingers probing through her panties.

Nicole closed her eyes and fought against the wave of nausea that would kill her with the gag in her mouth. But she knew that suffocating on her own vomit would be better than succumbing to what this man had in mind. She squirmed as his fingers grabbed the elastic waistband of the flimsy panties the orphanage issued, his dirty, untrimmed fingernails scraping her tender pubis as he began to pull them down, to tear them off.

“You’ll like it,” he soothed. “I know I wi–”

The last word was cut off by the sudden grating of the van’s cargo door as it slammed open, letting the bright glare of the sun shine into the darkened interior and momentarily blinding its occupants.

“What the hell?” Muldoon roared, whirling around like a rutting walrus facing off against a competitor, his erect penis pointing like an accusing finger toward the man who stood in the doorway.

It was Wiley. But in Muldoon’s state of hormonal confusion, he did not notice the eyes that burned from under the knitted brow or the expression that had once belonged to a fierce warrior, a man who had killed – and, in a way, died – for God and country. He wasn’t looking at Wiley. He was staring into the face of a colonel of the Confederation Marine Corps.

“Close that door and get out of here, you senile old fart!” Muldoon screamed, his face turning a beet red as he reached for the door. His hand faltered when he caught a glimpse of something metallic in the old Marine’s hand.

Without saying a word, Colonel Hickock pumped two rounds from the pistol into Muldoon’s skull. The tiny flechettes minced the big man’s brain as they ricocheted within the bony structure, lacking enough velocity to make a clean exit out the back.

A third red eye gracing his forehead – the only evidence of injury and proof of the colonel’s marksmanship – Muldoon somersaulted out of the van like an obscene high diver, his twitching body flopping to the dirt like a two hundred kilo bag of fertilizer.

“Come on out, son,” Hickock said in a low growl that Nicole would not have recognized without seeing the man’s lips move in time to the words.

Big John, his face sad now, crawled out of the van as he was told, neither his face nor his body reflecting any sign of defiance or resistance. And when the colonel turned away toward Nicole, sure that the boy was not a threat, Big John walked into the wheat field toward where the hungry fires burned. With his lover and benefactor dead, his own twisted and defiled soul had no more desire to live. Unseen and unheard, he cast himself into the flames.

“Wiley!”

The old man turned to see Reza huffing up the road from where he had emerged from the blazing fields, his face mottled with bruises and caked with blood.

“Where’s Nicole?” he gasped, running up to the van, “Muldoon, he–” Then he caught sight of the mound of flesh lying motionless on the ground and the gun in Wiley’s hand. “Oh, Jesus.”

“Better help your girl, son,” the old man said slowly, shaking his head as if something was in his ear. “And take this,” he handed Reza the gun. “I won’t be able to keep track of it much longer. The other kids,” he went on groggily, “they came and told me what happened, and…”

The man who was Colonel Hickock never finished what he set out to say.

Taking the gun, Reza watched with soul-deep sorrow as the man’s eyes suddenly transformed to reflect the good-natured innocence of Wiley the janitor. All traces of Colonel Hickock that had been there just a moment before disappeared like mist under a hot sun.

“Where’s Nicole?” Wiley asked, cocking his head and looking around as if he had just come on the scene.

“Oh, God,” Reza gasped, leaping into the van, terrified of what he might find. “Nicole!”

Relieved to find that she still had most of her clothes on, Reza carefully pried away the tape that covered her mouth, pulling the roll of gauze bandage out of her throat. Then he freed her hands and feet.

“Reza,” she choked, hugging him so hard he heard one of his ribs crack. “Reza, I was afraid…I thought you had died.”

He kissed her, and then held her even tighter, rocking her back and forth. He never wanted to let her go.

“You know what they say about bad pennies,” he whispered, not willing to let on just how close he had come to losing it out there, how close he had come to losing her. “They just keep turning up.”

“If Wiley had not shown up,” she shuddered, “Muldoon would have–”

“Shh,” Reza whispered in her ear. “Don’t think about that.” He looked down at Muldoon’s bloated corpse. “It’s over now. For good.”

“Come on, kids,” Wiley said quietly, his child-like eyes watching the smoke as the wind shifted back toward them, the dark curls billowing into the sky. Even in his senile state, he was no fool. There were no firefighters on Hallmark. The fires would be left to burn themselves out, and anyone caught in them would be dead or horribly maimed. “I think we’d better be getting back.”

Reza helped Nicole out of the van, careful to keep her clear of Muldoon’s stiffening body. She paused to give it a single look, just to make sure he was really and truly dead. Satisfied, she let Reza lead her away.

Arms around each other’s waists, the three of them made their way back to Wiley’s battered utility truck. They were a tiny family with no home, but with enough love to make life worth living on any world.

CHAPTER FOUR

Mon cher
Reza,

Things are going so fast here. I have been here only ten months, and already I have begun the real flight training, my head now filled with tactics and maneuvers that we will only now begin to apply. I made my first flight yesterday – with an instructor, of course – and might be able to solo in another twenty flight hours.

I cannot tell you how exciting it is to fly! To be so free, strapped to such a powerful machine (
oui
, even the tiny trainers they use here!) is like nothing I have ever imagined. I have spent many hours in the simulators, but they do not do justice to the real thing. My only regret is that you are not here to share in my happiness. I know you would love it.

As you suspected, I have many ‘suitors,’ as you call them, but I have not the time for them. To study and learn to fly and fight is all I allow myself to be interested in, for I am determined to be the best pilot in my class. Perhaps later I will consider such things, but we have gone through too much getting me here,
non
? I will not throw that away for anything, ever.

I must go now, my brother. The Officer of the Deck is shouting for lights out, and I am so very tired. The days sometimes are so long here that it reminds me of working the fields! I will write again as soon as I can, probably next week after a class exercise that is coming up.

Please, Reza, take care of yourself and give my love to Wiley. I have leave coming up for next month and hope to find a transport to Hallmark so I may visit. I will let you know. Please – write when you can. Sometimes it is all that keeps me going.

All my love,

Nicole
 

Reza read the letter several times, as he always did, before he folded the paper and put it in his breast pocket. Mary, the librarian, was hardly liberal when it came to printing out hard copies of personal mail (paper – even synthetic – was very expensive), but she made an exception for Reza. He did not even bother to read Nicole’s letters on the vid-screen when they first arrived, but printed them out straight away. Holding the paper in his hand when he read her words made her seem a bit closer, more real. They had agreed to write this way, rather than send personal vids. Most of the other kids thought he was crazy and ridiculously old-fashioned, but somehow it made Nicole seem more real to him. His hand strayed to the small silver crucifix around his neck, his most prized possession that he never let out of his sight. It was her gift to him on the tear-filled day when she left for Lakenheath, nearly a year ago now.