From The Ashes (Final book in Rebel Rebel Trilogy)

Chapter 2 - The General

The General wasn’t pleased with them the following morning.  All three girls sat slouched in front of his desk whilst he ranted about disobedience and disrespect, as usual.  His face turned puce as he thumped his desk angrily again and again.

“No more breaking quarantine!  I’m lenient enough with you as it is.  You want to see your boyfriends, you ask politely or have them apply for an official visit.  Do you hear me, WEST?” he roared.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you.  Pipe down before you have a heart attack.”

“I swear,” the general said, dabbing his sweaty brow with a handkerchief, “you girls are going to put me in an early grave.”

“No, that would be the cigars, the brandy and the steaks you have every night.  Not to mention your high cholesterol levels.” Ruth said calmly.

“Look,” he started more calmly, ignoring Ruth, “I know how much you hate it here and that you don’t trust us.  But it is for your own good and for the good of the public.  The rock has infected some of the staff here, we don’t know if you pose a threat or not without further tests.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Megan asks.  “We didn’t know the rock was affecting others.”

“Yeah, well, it is.  Luckily, one of the brainiacs here has found something to fight against the infection and its working well.  But we don’t know if you girls have exposed the public to the same infection.”

“What’s it doing to them?”

“Nothing much, so far.  Only one of the Doctor’s, who was working on the rock, got exposed to some sort of radiation.  His skin has…” he sighs, “it’s hard to describe.  Come with me, you can see it with your own eyes.”

Picking up his hat, the tall broad General got to his feet, leading the way from the room.  His round figure took up most of the space in the corridors outside so that anyone they came across, had to skirt around him.

The hospital was now emptied of medical doctors, nurses and patients and so forth, since the army – or whoever they were – could make room for the great blue rock that took up most of the building.  It was still smoking, after all the time had passed since it crashed and almost taken the girls’ lives, it still smoked as if it only hit yesterday.

The smaller pieces that had also fallen from the sky were gathered and kept in glass cases where people could study them.  Ruth and Megan couldn’t peel their eyes from it, whilst Nikita looked straight ahead, staring at the damp patch of the General’s coat.

“I know,” he began, leading them away from the rock to a section where the workers were being inoculated with booster jabs, “you don’t like being kept here.  But you have to understand, this is way beyond us.  We’ve never dealt with anything like this before.  We’re just playing this out by ear.”

“Have you learnt anything so far?” Megan asked.

“Not much.  It’s just all so… so…”

“Alien?” Nikita offered.

“Exactly.  I know you girls think these powers you have are cool but, as the saying goes, ‘It’s all fun and games till someone gets hurt’.”

“We don’t want to hurt anyone.” Ruth rushed on.

“We just want to help people.” Nikita whimpered.

General Brown stopped them outside a door leading to a private room.  Here he handed them each a mask after washing their hands.

“Now, do me a favour?  Don’t stare.” He warned them, pushing the door open.  “Good afternoon, Zach.” The General’s voice sounded muffled from behind the mask.