Husk

Chapter 9 - Orders

Chapter 9

I wake up and see the journalist standing over me. I am shirtless. My back and my ribs are wrapped up but the cloth is soaked in blood. My M16 is next to me. I'm on the metal floor of a black VTOL. The back end is still slightly open. I can see a cloud of smoke off in the distance. What have we done I ask myself. This damn box had better be worth this trouble.

"Make you forget what?" The journalist asks.

I feel like there should be no question about that. Forget all of this. Forget watching my squad mate die. Forget killing terrorists. Forget massacring husks. Forget the number on my hand... 1327. Forget everything about this mission and this goddamn place. I would rather be one of those damn runners then take this job again; at least they get paid more.

I pull myself together.

"Who wrapped me up?" I ask.

The pilot comes around the corner and looks at me.

"It was Cross, he's your new medic." I look over and see Cross cleaning his gun. The pilot continues, " Do you still have the code?"

"Yes," I answer.

"What is this? What was all of that? You sure as hell weren't there to rescue me," The journalist asks.

I take a long look at the pilot who smiles and starts walking back to the cockpit, then I look over at Cross who turns his body facing away from the journalist and myself. My other squad mates are sitting closer to the cockpit and they too turn themselves away from us. I guess this is everyone's way to say she has been through enough... we're nothing but grunts, telling one person won't hurt any secrets.

"It's classified," I respond.

I smirk. I want to laugh but my body hurts too much. I think about the higher ups and what they would do to me if I told her. I wonder if they would have her killed. I wonder if they would have me killed. No return. They would probably wipe our minds or drug us till we were brain dead working on a farm.

Cross walks over and sits himself behind me. He smiles and begins to speak,

"The people that kidnapped you are a group called the severed. they are a terrorist faction based throughout the redzones in Middle East, South America, and what's left of Africa. They are sineaters, they hate technology, implants, husks, TV, cars, all of it but they believe that the only way to stop it all is to use that same technology to destroy us"

She looks startled, she knows her original question about the box and why the hell we're there still hasn't been answered.

"What were you doing here in the desert anyway?" I ask. She answers, "This was one of my first assignments, I was following a group of missionaries... building wells." She paused. "We were attacked at a church. It was a few days ago. They appeared out of nowhere and captured us. Then they moved us to different locations. One of the missionaries I was with said he had heard stories... ghost stories... monsters that come out of the darkness and swallow people they know have husks back home. They starve them, torture them, and rape them. They do everything they can to desensitize them and then they kill them. Sending them back scarred... broken." "Did anything like that happen to you?" Cross asks. "No they didn't get that far with me," as she speaks her head moves down as if holding a terrible dark secret, something buried that she didn't want to say to us. "Your safe now," I say reassuringly.

"So what is in the box, it looks like a black box from an airplane?" she points to the box, which has been sitting by my side this whole time. I can feel the sweat dripping off my forehead. I feel torn. I want to tell her. She knows I want to tell her.