•⊱✿•✿⊰•⊱✿•✿⊰•⊱✿•✿⊰•⊱✿•✿⊰•
Hi! Thanks for stopping in! :)
It's been long enough that it was time for yet another revision of Zero Day. As I read it back, I realized the story needed to be in first person. If you read one of the other versions, I'd love your thoughts on the differences, which version you like best, and whether the tension keeps you interested. So without further ado, let's join the action.
Don't forget your weapon.
Ready?
•⊱✿•✿⊰•⊱✿•✿⊰•⊱✿•✿⊰•⊱✿•✿⊰•
"Breather. On your right."
I swiveled clockwise, eyes trained on the cross-hairs. I lined up my sights with the red dot of the laser point and squeezed the trigger.
The man dropped.
His body writhed on the ground. He stretched out a hand. Like he was reaching for me. Tobi fired on my left, and I heard the sound of another body hitting the ground, but my gaze was frozen on the sandy sweep of hair falling across his forehead.
"Try again." Brown eyes looked into mine, his hair falling across his forehead the way it always did now that Mom wasn't here to smooth it back.
The radio hissed. "Large group moving in from the South."
Frustration burned its way across my face. "It won't help."
He gave a lopsided smile. "Come on, Chipmunk. Give it one more shot."
"I told you, it won't help!" Heat carried down my throat, spreading across my chest.
"Rio?"
"You can do this. I know it's hard, but—"
"No, you don't." I shoved back from the table. "There's no way you could know."
"We gotta go. Breathers on our six."
The breather had stopped reaching. His brown eyes fixed on mine, looking into me—into my head—into my soul.
"You have to stop fighting me, River. I'm only trying to help."
"Rio!"
A hand landed on my arm.
"He's good. You fried him. Release your weapon."
I looked, but didn't recognize the person next to me. Then the world flickered and I was back in my skin. The past was behind me. All there was now was this ... dust and survival. I pressed the red button along the side of the Taser. There was a soft whir and click as the barbs retracted and the probes fell onto the pavement, hissing as the wires wound back into my weapon.
"We need to move." Tobi's voice was tense.
He peeked over the top of the log before getting up, motioning for me to follow. I darted out behind him as he pounded across the street into the shadow of a burnt-out building. The darkness between what was left of the structures should have been cool, but heat pooled around us, shimmering like waves in the water. We ran down the alley, putting on a burst of speed when the far end revealed an open lot.
I'd slowed us down. If we didn't put enough distance between us and the group headed our way, the breathers would register our vitals. We might be faster, but there was no way we could outrun them once they had us scoped. They could run for hours.
I pumped my arms, leaning forward the way coach had shown us back when the world still made sense, running on the balls of my feet. I passed Tobi and kept going, determined not to be the reason we got caught. His breath rasped as he worked to match my pace.
We reached the far end of the lot and kept going, flying headlong into the tall grass. I had to lift my feet higher to keep from getting tangled, raising my knees like some kind of show pony. Then we were in the trees, the dense shade like a balm against sweaty skin, grass tamed under a carpet of balsam and sycamore leaves.
"Clear." The radio chirped.
I let myself slow, then stopped, hands on my knees as I tried to catch my breath. Tobi jogged up alongside, leaning against the rough bark of a tree trunk, chest heaving. I waited for the questions, for the scolding, but it didn't come.
I didn't know whether to be grateful or not. I didn't lose focus on missions. Not ever. Tobi wouldn't have me as his second otherwise.
"Come on." He pushed away from the tree. "Let's get back."
He didn't look mad. He didn't look anything. His face was a blank slate.
"You should have been a poker player."
His lips twitched before he turned away and we resumed our jog. I knew better than to think this was the last of it.
The grass grew sparser as the trees grew thicker. The fence came into view as it always did; surprising me with how close I was before I could tell it apart from the branches and brush. Tia had done a good job with the camo paint job. An owl hoot greeted us. Tobi cupped one side of his mouth and hooted back.
The gate had barely swung open when a small shape hurtled through. I felt the blow at the same time I registered the shape wasn't stopping, and tried to brace.
Too slow.
My backside hit the dirt with a thud that rattled up my back and vibrated my teeth. Dark curls shook as furious eyes stared down at me. Dang, that girl was fast. I rubbed my chest with one hand.
"What was that out there?" Tia's voice was almost as livid as her face.
She stood over me, feet spread. Her eyes, usually the color blue you had to use one of those crayon-box words like cornflower to describe, burned like brimstone. Her fists were on her hips, but I didn't doubt they'd be on me again if I tried to get up.
"You could've gotten killed!"
Tobi put a hand on Tia's arm, but she shook him loose. "No, Tobi! She risked you both! Those breathers were less than two miles away."
"Just leave it." Tobi never raised his voice. Never shouted. His dark eyes were what yelled at you.
He leveled them on Sandy now, holding her gaze until she scowled and let out an exasperated growl. She shot a look at me that promised our discussion wasn't over before stomping back through the gate. Tobi followed without offering a hand to help me up.
Dusting off my pride with the leaves and dirt, I followed them into the compound. Wide-eyed guards closed the gate behind us. Tia yelled a lot, but she never hit anyone. She was like one of those designer dogs. She could bark up a storm, but she was all fluff on the inside. Tobi called her Toto when she wasn't around to hear give him an earful. People tolerated her because she was resourceful. They liked her because she was as fiercely loving as she was everything else. Her bark far outweighed her bite.
Until today.
Two records in one day. I was on a roll.
#
Tobi dumped the bag onto a table.
"How much did we get?" Tia's question echoed the expression on every face gathered in the dusty room.
"Enough for a couple more weeks." The silence that followed Tobi's answer spoke volumes.
He glanced around the room, registering the defeat and disappointment. He didn't let his face show the hurt, but I saw it in the way his jaw clenched and unclenched. Tobi had been the one to round up this ragtag group. He needed us as much as we needed him. Nobody talked about it; it was just a fact of life.
"There's been too much raiding in town." He sounded so confident. "Word's gotten out that electricity fries the breathers. Anyone still alive is stockpiling anything that carries an electrical charge."
"So what, we just hide out for the rest of eternity?" Tia's words would have come off as belligerent if they didn't tremble as she said them.
Tobi's gaze fell to the table, studying the scatter of items spread on the scratched and pitted wood. "Can't." His voice was flat. Hard. "There's a reason those breathers are on the move."
A tremble started in my bones. "Oz man." Even in a whisper, the name carried a weight that threatened to crush me.
Tobi's eyes were like twin stars, shining against the darkness of his skin. "Oz man," he agreed. "It's the only thing that makes sense."
There had only ever been two theories we could come up with about what had happened on Zero Day. Either there'd been some kind of natural cause like a disease or solar flare, or someone was responsible. We'd never seen any evidence of intent, no follow-up action, no invasion, so we'd assumed Zero Day must have been natural. No wizard behind the curtain.
Tia shook her head, setting her curls bouncing. "Can't be. If someone were pulling the strings they'd have shown up before now." She crossed her arms over her chest. "The breathers are just a by-product of whatever happened. Isn't that what you said?"
"I thought so, but now I don't know." Tobi shook his head. "It's too easy."
Easy wasn't the word I would have used to describe the day we lost everyone we knew and cared about.
"You think someone did this on purpose?" Tia's question was soft, but steadier.
Maybe she liked the idea of an enemy she could face more than some unseen threat no one could do anything about. I sure did. Tobi and I had stayed up plenty of nights on guard duty talking about it. No alien ships had parked themselves on terra firma, but that didn't mean they weren't out there, far enough up so they couldn't be seen.
"I think that it's starting to look like a possibility."
There was a long beat of silence in the room.
"Why?" I was glad it was Tia who asked.
Tobi heaved a sigh before answering. "Think about it," he said finally. "If you were some super-advanced race and you wanted to clear out a planet, how would you do it?"
"Blast 'em." The unprompted answer from Devon, one of the younger boys brought a smattering of laughs, but they died quickly.
Tobi smiled. "Except then what would happen to all the resources?"
"Destroyed," another boy answered. "Or contaminated maybe."
"Exactly. So what could you use to incapacitate or take control of a planet full of creatures mostly driven by electrical impulses, but leave everything else untouched?"
"Electricity," Devon answered dully.
"But then why bring them back?" Tia's voice had tightened, coming out half an octave higher than normal. "Some alien comes to this planet and blasts out an energy wave that shuts down most of humanity, and then they just wake people up again? That makes no sense."
"You're right." Tobi's face looked sad and worried at the same time. "It doesn't."
"They're not people." The words escaped my lips—I hadn't meant to say them aloud.
Every eye in the room locked on me like rabbits who had gotten a glimpse of the big bad wolf. Even Tobi looked wary. He was the one who figured out logistics, the technical stuff—the how—but I was the one who usually detected the reasons—the why. Now he looked at me as if I'd discovered the black plague.
Maybe I had.
"They're not people." The truth sank through me, settling in my heart. "They're weapons."