Skye City: The Darkness of Emmilyn

Sister of a Rebel Soldier

Nelson doubles over laughing in the farmyard as the others gasp and rub their eyes with filthy fingers. The startled cattle snort as Gary runs in circles and leaps up to the barn doors, barking, 'Me and Emmi saved the day!' like the bulls should be impressed. He comes to sit at my feet, raising his paw, and I crouch to high-five a sheepdog, feeling a mixture of exhilaration and shock.

An abandoned building filled with mannequins armed with phasers and possessed by evil spirits, just waiting for us... I feel dizzy just thinking about it.

'Wow, Emmi, I'm impressed,' Nelson says between heavy breaths. 'Congratulations, you passed!'

'Passed what?' I frown as the obvious dawns and I feel too stupid to say it aloud.

'Live combat training.' Nelson approaches Rupert who casually emerges from the farmhouse, and he pats the telepath on the back.

'What do you mean live combat training?' I glare at Nelson and then Rupert. 'You were in on this, weren't you? You just ran and left us to fight the possessed mannequins.'

'Sorry, Emmi, I wasn't allowed to interfere.' Rupert blushes and his ginger dreadlocks flop as he stoops his head, embarrassed to have done what he was told. Deception is hardly in his nature.

'You were the best shooter on the range – apart from me, of course. We needed to know just how good you are,' Nelson says.

'So you scared the crap out of us for a stupid test?' I stare at the phaser in my hand, tempted to stun Nelson to teach him a lesson, because that first mannequin could have broken my arm.

'Believe me, a real battlefield would be a whole lot scarier.' Nelson still bears a grin as he leans against a tractor wheel, and now Scoop and Oscar are grinning too. I swear those wimps are falling in love with the guy who is supposed to like me.

'Can we do the test again? I wanna weapon this time,' Scoop says, forgetting his nakedness and the fact he dropped his sickle on the rotting staircase. Forgetting he crapped his pants and demonstrated absolutely no ability to regain his composure. Now he thinks he can do it, because now it would be like a videogame.

I wave at Smig who I glimpse through a barn door, still shovelling bullshit, but the poor lad fails to notice. The gang enter the farmhouse, trailing mud into the kitchen where a mouth-watering dinner has been prepared, hopefully for us.

Jardine is the only person in the kitchen and I count eight steaming plates – just enough for him and the gang. Maybe Smig and the workers have already eaten or something.

Gary drinks from his water bowl as I inhale the wonderful smell of cooked food – a truly alien privilege for bottom-levellers and reasonable compensation for unwitting test subjects. The last time we cooked our own food, we stole live chickens from a farm, chopped off their heads, and roasted them over a homemade barbecue. Yes, we really did that.

'What happened to your clothes?' Jardine stares at Scoop who hunches before the dining table, blushing. He covers his boil-covered body with his arms as though he has just remembered he is undressed.

'I ran into a giant web. Had to take off my clothes because they were all tangled,' Scoop says, and Jardine turns bright red as laughter splutters from his lips, then everyone joins in, pointing at the naked idiot.

'I take it that's web in your hair. Don't touch it. We'll have to cut it out.' Jardine washes his hands at the sink as the laughter settles.

We sit around the dining table to devour roast meat and vegetables which taste so damn good, I could get used to this lifestyle. This is quite the improvement from raiding supermarket bins, I tell you.