the last one standing

chapter 3

It took Robert about twenty minutes to stop crying over his sister, another fifteen to slow his ragged breathing, and thirty more to erase all evidence of emotion from his face.  He would not give anyone the satisfaction of seeing him cry.  The old rust-red pick-up truck stopped suddenly.  Robert stood up, stretched his arms, cracked his back, and hopped over the side of the truck bed.  He walked around to the front to see what was going on up front.  He knocked on the driver’s side window; the small man knew how to talk and was significantly less intimidating.

Robert waited impatiently as the little man cranked down his window.  The latter scowled grunting “what is it this time runt?”

“Um, well, you see the truck stopped, and we’re nowhere near base, I was just—”Robert began to ask before he was interrupted by the small man.

“Use your eyes rookie, we have a flat tire,” said the little man grumpily.  Under his breath he muttered “standards sure have dropped from when I was a recruit.”

Ivan popped his head through the open passenger’s seat window.  Robert was surprised; he hadn’t seen the enormous man leave the vehicle.  Ivan grunted, pointing to the front, left side of the old pick-up, which Robert assumed to be the location of the flat.  The little man sighed and got out of the truck.  As Robert went back to his place in the truck bed, Ivan began communicating to the mean little man through a series of grunts; the latter then groaned and kicked the left side of the pick-up.  "Those two must have been working on the same team for a while, if he can understand the meaning of Ivan's grunts," thought Robert.

The little man mumbled something incoherent, though Robert was sure that there were some profanities scattered about the sentence.  The pair of men walked to the back of the pick-up where Robert was sitting.  Ivan grunted some more, and the small man translated.  "We have a flat, but no spare.  We are going to have to wake up the freak so that she can do her magic voodoo or whatever it is that she does and fix it.  We need to be at headquarters by sundown."  Robert sensed the urgency and a hint of fear in the small man's last few words.  Then he remembered.  The first thing you learn in rookie training was that at dusk the big wire doors to the electric fence are shut and locked.  The guards in the watch towers have orders to immediately destroy anything that approached the fence subsequent to their closing.  If they were not in the base, then they would be most likely ambushed by the rebels.  "Rebels who used to be led by my father," thought Robert.

His eyes began to tear as he thought of his brave father, who put his life on the line to try to rescue his children.  Robert blinked away tears that now threatened to roll down his cheeks.  He had lost everyone, not only was that so, but he was now considered a traitor and a coward.  A disgrace to Enocia, but more importantly to his family—his mother, sister, and father who had all died for their country, for their people.  "I am a selfish coward; I chose the life of a traitor over the death of a hero.  I doubt dad would even be able to look at me, he'd be so ashamed.  Ma would just be crying in her rocker, pretending to knit, but Missy, Missy would understand.  She would still treat me the same," Robert thought.  "I'm just not like them," he sighed, though his words were inaudible to the two men in front of him.  Robert cleared his throat and addressed the other two.  "I can go wake Vi--I mean the weird one if you would like--" Robert said with in a cautious, questioning tone.

The two men exchanged glances and Ivan grunted.  "Sure, we have some smelling salts and a potion-like-whatcha-ma-dingy that she concocted.  They are in the glove compartment on the passenger's side.  Wave the salts under her nose first.  If that doesn't work, plug her nose, open her mouth and force her to swallow the potion-thing," the small man instructed.  Robert nodded to show that he understood, and then made his way over to the other side of the car.  Opening the door, he sat in the passenger's seat, and opened the glove box directly in front of him.  He easily found the two medicines, as he recalled Violet once calling her concoctions.  He scowled remembering how she had been charged for witchery.  He had watched her work before, she was no witch, but she was extremely smart.  She called it Chemistry, said it used to be really common back in the olden days.  She said that if people hadn't burnt all the books, maybe they would know about it too.  Vi's dad used to work for the government, he kept track of all of the books, and he let her read them, before he had to burn them all.  "I bet she kept some of them, she always did love those books," Robert thought.

He sighed again; he noticed that he had been doing that a lot lately.  Robert stood up and walked over to the truck bed with the two medicines.  He waved the smelling salts underneath the nose of the smaller girl.  She didn't respond, so Robert pinched her nose and poured the liquid formula down her throat.  The girl sputtered a bit, and soon her piercing violet eyes fluttered open.

She slowly sat up, and yawned ruffling her jet-black, pin-straight bob.  He couldn't help but notice how dangerous she looked, even when she was just regaining conciousness.  Not scary, just dangerous.  "It's probably the eyes," he thought, "there's something uncanny at the way she looks at you, like she knows exactly what's going through your head."

"So what do the two bozos need of me now?"  Violet drawled in that old time accent that she so often used.

"We've got a flat tire on the truck, and no spare.  I have no idea what it is they expect you to do about it," Robert said quickly, trying to end the conversation with the intimidating girl as soon as he could.

"Yeah, because I just have to say my magic spells and POOF the tire is fixed."  She gestured as she spoke, as if she were pretending to flick an invisible wand.

Robert smiled, this was the Violet that he knew and loved, her mind was where it should be.  He quickly hugged the girl and said "it's good that you're back."

Violet nodded, realizing that he was referring to the brainwashing.  "I'm glad to be back, if only for a short while," she replied.  "Now we'd better get back to those bumbling bozos before they begin to suspect you, OK?"

Robert's grin widened as he stifled a chuckle.  "Yeah, I think you'd better get to waving your wand around and fixing that tire," said Robert jokingly.  The two then donned their masks once more and assumed the tight lipped, emotionless expressions that were to be worn around anyone of the New Order, and they walked towards the other side of the truck.

hey guys, just a little authors note here, I've decided not to publish on this again until I get at least one well thought out comment, so if someone is indeed reading this, please?  Thanks a billion, hope you enjoyed!  Don't forget to vote (if you like the book thus far)!