The Sovereign

Call Me Graham

I watched in awe as the fight ensued.  A Radio wolf had been stalking us from the light snow.  The man was desperately trying to force it off of him or grab his gun.  It hat slid across the hangar's metal floor towards me.

The man's already bloodied and scratched face was swelling and bruising more and more as he fought.  I crawled out of the car and slowly reached for the gun.  I raised it shakily and aimed as best as I could.  I fired three times.  I wasn't sure if I'd hit the animal, but it ran away.

It wasn't like Radios to run away.  Maybe it had already been wounded.  I didn't bother worrying about it.  I didn't have time.  Jade was still being tormented.

"Thanks," the man grunted as he stood up. 

"Did he bite you?" I asked quickly.  He nodded slowly. 

"Eh, don't worry.  Just a scratch."

"The sickness is contagious through saliva.  You'll become one of them!"

"No, I won't.  I've been bit worse.  Trust me.  I'll be fine."

"Whatever you say."

"Hey," he said, rubbing his bitten arm.  "I owe you, a lot.  I shot you by mistake, an' now you saved my life.  Nobody does that in this world.  Tell me, where do you need to go?  I'll fly you anywhere and back.  No cost."

I smiled.  "The Crater."

He gasped like a teenager.  "What!?  Are you crazy?!"

I explained why I had to go the the Crater.

"I met this girl a while back, and, long story short, a bear got her and she lost a leg and a lot of blood. Then we were trying to find anything of use in Cape Canaveral, but some guy was there and kidnapped us. Now he's trying to do some experiments on our brains to see if we produce chemicals that will prevent radiation-sickness."

I took a long breath after the flurry of words I'd just erupted. The man nodded, then smiled. "This girl...she isn't just a friend to you."

I blushed.

"Alright, I'll leave you alone. Hate to see a man turn beet-red."

I smiled. He was exactly like Martin.

"Well, we better be off, then," he said.

"How long was I out?" I asked. The man winced.

"Two days."

I frowned. "That means I'm four days in. There's only ten days left to get there and back."

The man smiled. "I'll get ya there."

I thanked him, then asked what his name was. I was sick of referring to him as the man.

He closed his eyes, as if he was struggling to remember, or that he couldn't bear it. "Just call me Graham."

I craned my neck to look towards his face. He looked sad, as if the memories of his name--his first name, not his last name--were too much to take. He looked away. "Let's go. We can't waste any time of we've only got ten days."

He turned back. I almost thought his eyes were welling up, but I couldn't tell. "What's her name?"

I tilted my head questioningly.

"The girl. That lost her leg to the bear. What was her name?"

I made an 'Oh!' face and and told him, "Jade."

"Jade? Are you sure?"

"Unless she lied to me, yeah... Why?"

"I had a daughter named Jade.  She...died in the Ends.  I watched her take her last breaths.  She would have turned twenty-four tomorrow."

"I...I'm so sorry..." I bowed my head.  What if that was Jade's fate?  Would I watch her take her last breaths in my arms?  Would I even get to see her again?  I didn't know.  I slapped myself awake.  "We better get moving," I said with nothing but sad thoughts plaguing my mind. 

Graham looked even sadder than I did.  I didn't want to pluck any more strings about his daughter.  He seemed pretty depressed about it.  He seemed nothing like the man who greeted me when I first woke up.  I had to remind myself that he'd nearly been eaten alive and  talked about his dead daughter in less than ten minutes.  You can't be super excited after that.

Graham puled himself into the cockpit of the helicopter, and I wriggled into the passenger seat.  Popping open a glove compartment-like storage space, he pulled a pair of headphones out.  He explained their purpose, as well as a slew of basic safety regulations. 

Before I knew it, Graham had fitted himself and I with the headset and was starting he engine.  The machine was basically a flying car with a lot of extra bells and whistles, I realized. 

I watched the hangar shrink below us as we took off.  I felt like a child.  I had never flown before, and for some reason, it excited me a lot.  Something about being thousands of yards off the ground didn't scare me at all.  I continued looking back and forth from the ground, to the helicopter blades.  It was fascinating.

As I let the sound of the blades chopping through the air calm me to sleep, and as my eyes dropped down, I thanked the Lord for everything I'd been given to aid my journey.

I was so lucky.

But I knew it wouldn't last.