The Sovereign

Scavangers

Jade fitted the makeshift crutch under her armpit, and walked in a wide circle. "It'll take some getting used to," she said with a grin. "But it's definitely better than hopping around. Thanks."

I blushed and rubbed the back of my neck. She tilted her head and smiled. Shaking the embarrassment off my face, I announced, "We have to get moving. There's a lot of building to explore."

"Riiiiiight," Jade said with an exaggerated grin. "That's why we have to go in a hurry."

I shook my head in embarrassment again, but his my face from her, turning around. "Come on, gimme a break," I said.

We made it back to the front of the building and entered again. Carefully, I led Jade up the stairs to the second floor.

It wasn't any more useful than the first floor. Computers and tables and broken glass everywhere. I reached a splitting point in the maze of cubicles where two hallways branched off of the main one in either direction. I looked right, then left--bingo.

The printer was situated on a small mobile cart against the wall of a cubicle on the left side of the left hallway. I walked briskly towards it and snatched the map from its mechanical jaws.

I looked through it quickly before pocketing it and moving further down the corridor. The cubicles bore nothing of use.

Of course, it's not like there would be anything useful. This was the apocalypse, and anything useful would be found, taken, or broken. Trying to look for some small margin of positivity, I realized for the first time that in order for something to be gone, somebody has to take it. What if for once that taker was me, me and Jade. Some more ruthless thug would come later looking for the exact same thing, but find it gone. How sweet that idea felt, to crush their hopes like they'd crushed mine so many times before.

I smiled. 

There was nothing useful on the second floor, but the third floor was a completely different story.

Metal scraps lay strewn everywhere. Dry erase markers and erasers were scattered around a glass wall, miraculously unbroken. On the glass was drawn more plans for the Cometbreaker.

I wiped the board clean and drew the map of Florida, covering the entire canvas. I stepped back to look at my drawing. It was rough and, frankly, crappy. It looked like Texas more than Florida. Frowning, I poked two dots--one for Miami, and one for The Keys. Then I put a star at Cape Canaveral.

I turned to Jade and asked her a simple question. "Where do we go next?"

She paused to think. "I say we head for Jacksonville, see how far we get and where we end up and deal with what we have there."

I nodded. "Sounds good." I looked around. "Will the car run on rocket fuel?"

She laughed. "Well, it runs on combustion, just like a rocket. If we don't explode, we'll get one heck of a ride."

I laughed and pointed to a large metal tank outside, which extended well beyond this third floor.  It was marked, at window level, with an explosion warning and a checklist of other dangerous things, mainly what not to bring near it.

"They just keep rocket fuel outside like that?" Jade cocked an eyebrow.  "What if a thunderstorm hits?  And it's basically a lightning rod, too!  Tall and metal."

I looked at her with a questioning expression.  She explained what a lightning rod was.  "You remember back in Miami, on the skyscrapers, they'd have big metal rods on the top?  That's to keep the lightning from hitting building and killing everyone inside."

I shook my head at the fact.  I'd just thought they were to make buildings look taller.  "Guess they probably didn't have comet rods," I chuckled. 

Jade laughed, making me blush.  Her laugh was beautiful, just like her soft wind-like voice.  Jade shook me back into reality from my daydream. 

I put a mark where Jacksonville was on the map of Florida, then went back to looting the place.  Nothing else eventful was on the third floor, and the fourth floor was a meeting room.

Strolling around the long ovular, desk, I picked up a sheet of paper with a lengthy list of data. To me it all looked like rocket science, quite literally, because it was.

I skimmed over the data, then realized how ludicrous it sounded. They wanted to build something more advanced than any rocket they'd ever sent into space, in a timeframe of less than two months.

I looked up at Jade. "They didn't even start trying to fix anything until two months before the Ends."

She covered a gasp with her hand. "Two months! They knew so much earlier!"

I heard glass crunching from down the stairs. I hushed Jade, and whispered, "There's a Radio down there..."

She widened her eyes. "And we don't have our weapons..."

I bent down sideways to pick a foot-long shard of glass and wielded it like a knife. Stepping towards the stairs and slowly sliding along the railing, I whirled around the corner, back down to the main hall through the cubicles.

A hand immediately clasped over my mouth, and I was thrown to the glass-covered ground.

I heard Jade gasp, then stomping footsteps and her terrified screams.

I looked up, causing a spike of pain across my chest and stomach where glass had dug into my skin. How many times in a week will I be impaled with glass?! I thought. The pain was almost boring at that point. Almost. Not quite.

My assailant was bald, heavily muscled, and was dragging a crying Jade down the stairs.

"You two can live if you cooperate," He shouted gruffly. His voice was deep and raspy.

"What do you need from us, you half-skilled pig!" Jade spat.

"Oh, from you we want nothing. We just need you for certain...studies."

"We?" I repeated.

"The others are waiting on the boat."

"What on earth do you need to 'study' with us?! We're kids!"

He smiled. "Feisty, are we? Well, it's just that: you're kids. My embassy believes that the youth may have a...stronger resistance against radiation sickness. What is it that you call it here? Radio sickness?"

For the first time, I realized he had a slight British accent. I laid my chin down gently. My ears perked up when I heard Jade pleading "No, NO!" Then there was a sickening thud. I heard crunching glass as my captor walked to me. Looking up again, I saw him raising a two-foot metal rod.

Then everything went dark.