Leftovers, Part 2

This is the continuation of Leftovers, Part 1, a Naomi Quinn story in the Fallen Earth setting.

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5/16/2156

I had a dream last night. I remembered it so clearly when I first woke up, but now that sleep is releasing me from its clutches I find that it’s taking the dream with it. Already I can feel it fading back into the recesses of my mind. Perhaps I should get it down on paper before it vanishes completely.

The sky was a brilliant red-orange, the wispy clouds on the horizon underlined in a vibrant pink. It was one of the more spectacular sunsets I’d seen, or at least that was the feeling I got. The warmth of the setting sun enveloped me like a lover’s arms, caressing my cheeks as the cool summer breeze brushed the hair from my face. It was beautiful, peaceful, and tranquil.

I could hear children in the background. Well, the conscious me reads them as children however I remember reading them as peers, boys and girls from my own age group. Perhaps school was being let out, maybe I was at a park. My shoes were tight, just a little too small for me. I didn’t fit a size larger just yet, which felt like a good thing at the time. Those shoes were expensive. I didn’t feel the breeze on my legs, just my knees.

I turned away from the sunset, my shadow stretched on ahead of me and made me a giant. A giant among giants, I was the only one standing still. An adult voice, both mes recognized it as such, called out my name. I couldn’t make anything else out though, just my name. He wasn’t a parental figure, but he was authoritative. I respected him, liked him. What he said was positive, made me smile.

Ahead there was a noise. I think it was a sliding door to some sort of vehicle. A woman’s voice, maternal, said my name. I don’t remember what she looked like. I don’t remember what the van looked like. Was it a van? It’s getting harder to remember now. I walked towards the voice.

There was pride glowing inside of me like the warm embers of a campfire banked for the night. Satisfaction reigned supreme inside my young mind. The ground felt odd underfoot but I was used to it. I was walking on stone, concrete, the shoes weren’t made for that. They had very little traction and clicked as I moved. A breeze puffed against my back blowing my hair, pigtails, over my shoulders and into my face.

I can’t remember anything else. Maybe it’ll come back to me.

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Naomi opened the door to her room, intent on heading downstairs to find a small bite to eat, only to find Liz standing before her with her left fist poised to knock. Her eyes flashed wide with surprise for a brief moment before she let out a soft chuckle. “Well damn Naomi, if I didn’t know any better I’d think you were a mind reader. Jed says they’re almost here. The boys are already takin’ position.”

“Thanks Liz. I’ll be right down, just gotta grab the rifle.” She returned Liz’s smile with one of her own before turning around and heading back into her room to grab her rifle and hat. “Let Jed know I don’t need to talk to any of ‘em, will you?”

Liz gave a nod, yet hesitated in leaving. “You sure you want to join in? The boys can handle it all on their own.”

Naomi plopped the hat down on her head, rifle held in the center hanging at her side. “What kind of lady would I be if I let the men do all the dirty work?” She flashed a wink as she slipped by Liz and hurried down the stairs. Liz always had a running boy to deliver messages or run errands as necessary around the place. He’d get the word to Jed easy enough, giving her more time to find a nice piece of cover.

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The flashing of the small light in her collar annoyed her to no end. You could be the sneakiest S.O.B. and still stand out clear as day due to the damned thing. At least hers didn’t beep anymore. She nearly shot her collar before some Tech offered to fiddle with it. He turned the beep off saying it was just the collar’s way of asking for maintenance but said the light was part of the vitals. She knew enough not to go messing around with vitals.

The tree creaked around her as she lay on her stomach in the crow’s nest. Jed had read in some book about how ancient pirates used to have crow’s nests at the top of their ships to see far off and warn of impending attack and thought it was a great idea. She’d laughed at first when he said that some saw the Travelers as modern day pirates but she couldn’t fault his logic with the nest. There were three surrounding the inn, way up in the trees. The simple, thick platforms blended in with the trees nicely and were smartly constructed. A layer of two by fours on top and bottom to help it blend in better with a steel plate through the center for protection. They had a lip around the edge that was only a couple centimeters high to balance a rifle against.

The sound of the buggies could be heard in the distance, a high rumbling whine that far preceded the vehicles. She knew from experience that those buggies themselves weren’t armed but that didn’t mean they should take them lightly. Being run down by one of the things was no picnic, so the story went. She adjusted her scope to zoom in and scanned the horizon slowly to pick them out.

Not thirty seconds later did the first buggy fall into sight through her scope. Two more fell in behind the first, then a fourth behind them. They rode in a tight diamond formation, the drivers sitting back in their seat with one hand on the wheel as if they’d been driving for hours. They were approaching the cluster of trees indirectly. It seemed as if they didn’t know where she’d gone, just that she’d pulled off to this side of the road. The leader seemed to spot the cluster of trees suddenly as if he’d been lost in thought and turned toward them, gesturing grandly for his minions to follow.

Naomi’s walkie barked a chunk of static before falling quiet again. Jed hadn’t found a Tech to make him secure radios yet so instead of talking over his walkies, he’d just decided to use a system of static bursts. It worked well enough for his purposes. According to the bark, Jed was telling the four others, her included, to ready themselves and hold fire. No point in giving their point away just yet, after all.

She followed the leader as the buggies came closer. The other three drivers looked just as bored and lost in thought as the leader had, but now the leader seemed alert. Apparently the cluster of trees had roused his suspicions. She approved. At least she wasn’t being pursued by a pack of roaming idiots, that would’ve been insulting. The buggies closed in to approximately six hundred meters.

At three hundred meters the walkie barked again, weapons ready. Naomi continued to follow the leader’s buggy as it rolled and bounced towards the inn. Normally people outside of the family weren’t welcomed warmly unless they confirmed whether they were Traveler or not. Allies were hesitantly allowed in, outsiders were turned away. Some of the guards insisted upon killing every outsider who came along but Jed saw to that quickly. He wasn’t normally a violent man and held a live and let live idea. He also believed that the more people who lived, the more prospective business he had. He also didn’t want to make enemies.

At a hundred meters the walkie barked a final time, signally to fire. Staggered gunshots surged from the copse of trees, metal projectiles pounding into man and machine alike. The majority of Jed’s men had taken to disabling or immobilizing shots as opposed to kill shots due to Jed’s prior judgment calls. The rounds slammed mercilessly into the tires and frames, waking the drivers up rather rudely. The leader ducked down to hide behind his steering wheel, peering just barely over the steering column as Naomi’s bullet tore into the back of his seat where his chest was, grazing his shoulder slightly.

The driver of the rear buggy leapt from the vehicle, landing hard and rolling off to the side chaotically. The way he moved and bounced suggested many a broken bone. One down. The two in the middle copied their leader, ducking down behind the steering column until the free buggy in the rear clipped its partner on the right. Both buggies swerved out of control, wheels finding a bump just wrong and sending them tumbling out of control to the side.

The leader of the buggy crew pulled in front of his companion, shielding him a slightly as he adjusted his trajectory, aiming for the path between the outer ring of trees. Jed’s voice broke over the walkie, gunshots blanking out the occasional syllable. “-t of the way! G- to the inn!”

Naomi could see the men in the trees rappel down as Jed and his counterpart in the bushes made like bats out of hell towards the inn. Jed was fleeter of foot than his heavy set ally, easily and quickly outdistancing him. A moment later the two buggies tore into the copse of trees, twisting to the side at a sharp turn to stop quickly and spraying dirt before them. Naomi shot to her feet and grabbed the rope beside the ladder on the tree and leapt down, rappelling to the ground. It was an entirely ungraceful movement leaving her glove burned and torn while her knees ached from the impact.

The leader of the attackers dropped behind his buggy, peeking out just enough to let his battle rifle spit fire across the front of the inn. His accomplice wasn’t quite so smart. Ripping his shotgun from the gun-rack on the back of his buggy, the man brought the butt to his shoulder and sprinted toward the inn. Naomi dropped low and brought her rifle to the ready, shuffling from her tree to the next rapidly. She timed her darting to be in time with the gunshots, hoping to use the sound as cover.

Taking a knee behind a fallen log, she settled her aim on the leader. He still had cover from the dune buggy, however he was too distracted by the others to notice her. Naomi’s iris danced with small arcs of blue electricity as she called the nanites in her body to help once more. Her eyesight grew sharper, more reliable, filtering out the glare of the sun off the buggy and ignoring the light smoke from the punished engines. She took aim just above where the leader of the attackers was hiding, evening her breath and waiting.

The shotgunner reached the doorway and charged inside, muzzle screaming death before him. Just before he disappeared out of sight Naomi caught a glimpse of a rifle butt from the shadows inside and beside the door. The shotgunner stumbled back, gun faltering before a flash from inside preceded a blossoming of red from the man’s back. As he fell back, the leader popped up to spray bullets across the open and now clear door. A yell of pain sounded from inside just before Naomi’s rifle joined in the fray. The back of the leader’s neck exploded in a mist as she timed his ascent, a second bullet tearing into his arm. She always liked to take two shots, just in case.

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Naomi sat back heavily on the chair in her room. The buggies had been cleared away and the injured tended to. Jed’s son Mikal had taken a bullet just before the last man died. Fortunately for him, however, Liz had some skill with first aid. They said he’d be fine, he’d just have to take it easy for a couple weeks.

She’d come upstairs to get away from the clean up. Blood didn’t make her squeamish, she just didn’t want to look at a man being sewn up while she ate dinner. It just wasn’t her idea of a relaxing meal. When she’d made her way upstairs she’d closed the door behind her and sat the plate to the side on her table. She wanted to write before she ate, something was nagging at the back of her mind. Another day ended with another journal entry.

5/16/2156 – Continued

I heard a woman’s voice today. I couldn’t make out any words but I heard her voice. I know I wasn’t dreaming because I was still fully lucid. I wish I know what she said. I could almost place it, I know I’d recognize it if I heard it again. Perhaps I’ll remember with time. It’s not the words that were important anyways, it’s who the voice belonged to. I think I know who.

It was my mother.