Cracking Bones

Chapter Twenty-Four

Wow, I have been gone for far too long. Well, this is the next chapter. When I stopped, I wasn't stuck, so hopefully, regular updates will follow until this story is finished. Thank you to everyone who is still reading, you don't know how much I appreciate you! That is a picture of Flag on the sidebar. 

I inhaled deeply, the place so familiar. The yawning cave mouth in front of me was still packed with boulders, though the top left corner had been cleared. This is where I had been imprisoned for days with the other Enforcers. This is where we slowly lost our minds. They found us and got us out in five days, but the damage had already been done. By some miracle, we hadn't turned into raving lunatics, like Sylex always warned me about. The Provincial Syndicate had returned us to the Exerceo just in time.

I didn't know why I had recovered faster than the others. I only knew I had a job to do. Bring Bones back and kill any criminals I may find in the process. It had taken me several days to become accustomed to working and traveling alone. I allowed part of me to long for Pitch's guidance in this mission. The strain of leadership of the failed mission had broken him in ways that I couldn't understand. He had to be stripped down to almost nothing before they could start building him up again.

The pilot of the jet approached behind me. I heard his footsteps from the moment he stepped out of the cockpit, but I remained motionless as he neared me.

“I do not require your assistance. Stand by for my alert,” I droned without turning around.

“Understood.” The pilot turned and marched back to his jet. He had been trained not to question an Enforcer. Almost everyone in the Provincial Syndicate had been taught to never cross one of us.

I closed my eyes and cleared my mind. My wristband beat the code of law into my arm and into my brain, and I let it focus me.

“Where do you run, Bones?” I murmured to myself. “Where do they take you?”

My eyes opened and narrowed against the harsh desert light. Behind me, the jet took off into the sky, stirring up a cloud of dust in its wake. I tapped my intention into the wristband, never taking my eyes off of the terrain. I knew where I would search first, but I didn't know if Bones would be expecting me. It wouldn't matter if he captured me or not. After the unfortunate incident with the discovery of Bone's detonator chip, the remaining Enforcers had been installed with multiple chips at random points in our bodies. It was top secret, and the rebels would have no warning. The Provincial Syndicate would track me down within a day of my capture.

At a swift jog, I set off into the desert. I had always been the fastest of our group, and it came in handy now. Data raced through my mind almost as quickly as I ran through the desert. Three separate instances of refugees being intercepted in the desert had occurred throughout the last four years. I mentally drew a line from each red dot to the next. A jagged line through the arid land. They were traveling to our from somewhere. I would just have to connect the dots until my next clue. Bones couldn't hope to hide from me for long.

I covered thirty miles before stopping for the night. I didn't need a fire, so I sat on the baked rock and ate my rationed food. The one hundred degree day was fading, not that the heat bothered me. If it didn't hinder my progress, I didn't spend time on it. Of course, humans weren't as efficient as I was. They would purposefully travel at night time to avoid the high temperatures. My success didn't hinge on finding a traveler – I always had other ways to accomplish my goals – but it would bring me to Bones more quickly. My best bet was to keep going at night and get my few hours of rest during the day.

With that decided, I stood up and shouldered my light backpack again. Inside, I knew that the worn blanket I had found in Piper Mallory's room was still tucked away for possible future use.