Chapter 12.4

The first thing I noticed when I came around was the distinct lack of sound. It’s like somebody turned the world on mute, except for this high pitched ringing that seemed to come from everywhere at once. I felt a weird vibration in my throat as I cracked my eyes open just enough to see. My left eye stopped short for some reason, feeling tender and swollen.

My first tentative gasp brought a mouthful of dirt along with it, inducing a coughing fit. A hand clamped over my mouths, as someone lay their entire body weight on me. I looked over to see a man with a familiar smelling brown liquid and blood staining his shirt…where was he from?

Was that liquid beer?

Smelled like it.

Beer!

That’s the guy who bought me a beer.

A light smack on my cheek brought my full attention back to him. Why did it look like one of his sleeves had been ripped off. He held a finger to his lips and motioned for me to stay down. I nodded and he stood slowly, drawing a pistol from his waist. I did a quick check of my body, my head pounded, my ears rang but my breathing was normal and I could wiggle my bionic toes. All systems, both organic and artificial, appeared to be in working order.

I looked around seeing the various other couples that had been in the car slowly picking themselves up. They had mostly minor injuries that I could see. A cut here, a bruise there. One woman pointed in my direction, tapping her husband’s arm repeatedly.

What’s wrong with me? Everything was working…oh I feel light headed. Lifting my head I looked down at myself physically. A blood stained strip of fabric had been cinched tightly around my thigh where a piece of glass protruded from it. Nothing registered for a moment. When did that piece of glass get there? Is it real? It doesn’t feel real. I mean, that should hurt, right?

One of the men walked over and knelt down. “Ma’am, can you hear me?” he asked. His voice sounded distant, barely making its way through the ringing.

I nodded.

“I’m a doctor, can I look at your leg?” he asked.

My eyelids flickered, the world going in and out of focus.

“Tawny?!” a panicked voice said from behind me. I felt rather than heard someone drop their weight next to me, I just barely made out Nick above me. “Oh god, what happened?”

“Nick,” I whispered. I motioned him closer. He lowered his head to mine. “The onboard security are loyalists.”

“We know,” he responded.

“They know you’re here,” I added. “They—they have a person—in…”

My mind went fuzzy as the world went out of focus.

“She’s lost a fair amount of blood,” someone said, probably the woman’s husband who claimed to be a doctor. “Can I treat her?”

“Yes,” Nick confirmed. I felt a sharp, cold piece of metal trace around my thigh and my pant leg be ripped away. Hey, those are my uniform pants! I only have two pairs of those. I can’t afford to get another pair and I won’t fit Carly’s pants, not with my bionics.

An hour later, I sat in our compartment with a thick bandage around my thigh made of the material from the pant leg. I could feel the stitches pull as I shifted my weight, trying to get comfortable. Nick grabbed my knee and smiled.

“Stop moving,” he said.

“Why did the train stop, anyway?” I asked.

“Military blockade of the tracks,” Vicki explained. “It happens every so often, to keep trains from travelling through hot zones. This one hadn’t made it onto the list when we left. So, it was a surprise. Now, that thing you told Nick about as you were bleeding, how certain of it are you?”

“Very, he seemed to trust me after seeing my tags,” I said.

“Why would he do that?” Nick asked.

“Nick, she served with me,” Vicki said. “She’s technically a Dead Head. They didn’t strip her rank, just changed where she was going to be stationed.”

“So, nominally, she’s a dead head, can we use that?” Nick asked.

“No, I don’t have any of the benefits or clearances,” I said. “I’m still a mechanic. I have a few contacts in the dead heads, a few of my instructors stayed in contact after my accident, but I have no dead head clearances.”

“Alright, does the on board security know where these Resistance scoundrels are?” Vicki asked as someone passed outside.

“Somewhere in the private compartments, I couldn’t get any more information out of him before, well,” I motioned to my leg. “And Nick, you are buying me a new pair of uniform pants.”

“No problem sweetie, you would have needed new ones anyway,” he said. “Now, you need to get some rest. Here, flip around.”

Raising an eyebrow, I complied sitting down next to him. He grabbed my waist and sat me on his lap, stretching my legs out along the seat.

“What are you doing?” I cried, squirming to get out of his grasp.

“I promise you that my shoulder is much more comfortable than the wall, just rest. This way, if they hit the brakes again, I’ll keep you from toppling onto the ground.”

I guess I was really tired because I drifted to sleep after that. When I woke up, my head rested on the curve of Nick’s neck his hand around my knee with his thumb tracing one of the seams. His bionic arm supported my lower back, holding me in place.

“Welcome back,” he said. “You took a nice long nap.”

“I did?” I asked sleepily.

“Yeah, you missed dinner,” he said.

As if to confirm his statement, my stomach growled.

“There wouldn’t happen to be any left, would there be?” I asked.

He reached down and lifted a small metal container to where I could see. “Vicki made me leave you some.”

I took the container and peeled the top off, digging into the half sandwich held inside. “When do we get to the capital?” I asked.

“Tomorrow morning, eat and then rest,” he said. “I’m going to sleep.”

I slipped off his lap and sat in the corner. Tomorrow I go back to work and everything will go back to normal, or as normal as its going to be.