FLY BOY - Completed

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Her father had been shot. Her hand flew to her mouth as she tried to catch her breath. Her father had been shot! Why hadn't anyone told her? Silent tears trickled down her face as she tried to absorb the shock of seeing her father get shot.

The Sergeant patted her back awkwardly, trying his best to console her. "I'm sorry River. I know this is hard for you," he said stiffly. She could tell he wasn't comfortable having to deal with an emotional girl. "If it's any consolation though," he added encouragingly. "I think your father might still be alive."

Stunned by his revelation, River glanced up at the Sergeant, hoping more than anything that he was right. She missed her father so much, she was willing to cling to even the smallest sliver of hope. Plus she still had the encouragement of that late night covert ops transmission. Even though it had not been her father's voice, it had been his secret code. River had to assume that he was alive and somehow made that transmission happen in hopes that River would hear it.

"Listen River, I will tell you what I think, but remember If anyone finds out that I showed you this film footage," he waved his hand frantically in the air. "I could lose my job," he insisted sternly, "or even worse I could lose my..." He didn't finish his sentence, but River understood what he wasn't saying. She just didn't understand why. 

"I won't tell anyone," she assured him through her tears. Her father had been shot. The reality of it was just starting to sink in as she kept replaying the video footage over and over in her head. She kept seeing the spark of the gun, followed by her father's fall. Was he dead or was he maybe alive, but hurt? Maybe it was just a flesh wound and by now he was okay. It suddenly occurred to her that his being shot must have been why it had taken him so long to contact her.  He must have been hurt pretty badly. You couldn't get shot like that and not be hurt badly. Maybe he was even now still recovering. She had to hold on to her belief though, that her dad was still alive.

She was waiting for the Sergeant to give her some explanation, but when she glanced over at him, he just remained silent. She decided to come right out and ask him what was on her mind. "Were those armed men in the video part of the Resistance?"

"Yes," the Sergeant replied nodding his head.

"I didn't even know there was a Resistance," she declared angrily as she swiped the annoying tears from her eyes. "What are they resisting?"

"Well they don't like how we and the other rulers of the Northern Region are handling the female crisis," he explained, raising his eyebrows in wonder. He turned in his seat and searched River's face, before continuing on in a more serious tone of voice. "I'm not sure if you know how bad it is out there River? For the first time ever, in the history of the world, we have more men than women," he stated bluntly. "Basically there are three men now to every one woman." He held up three fingers on his one hand and just one on his other, to emphasize his words. "Women have become a commodity," he announced causing a chill to run down River's spine. He cleared his throat, as if his words had left a bitter taste in his mouth. "The only safe places are military zones like this one or the designated safe zones that the Fly Boys patrol," he said candidly. "The Resistance are composed of angry fathers, brothers and husbands, who don't like that their women were taken from them and they don't like it enough, that they are fighting back."

"But why would we take their women?"

"Well that's the big problem. You see all of the different Regional leaders have figured out that you need a birth rate of at least two children per female on average to sustain a population. Anything less and eventually you will become extinct. So knowing this, our leaders have sent out directives to round up all single women of childbearing age, with orders to get them to the safe zones. They want to make sure that nothing happens to these women. They want to keep them safe. The Resistance on the other hand, is a group of men who feel they can protect their own wives and daughters without our help."