2-14:On the road to nowhere
She woke with pain all over her body and rolled to one side, managing to move her legs. Her arm was broken, left hand totally useless. She felt like screaming, the pain was so great, but bit back on it as she realised what had happened.
Beyond the wall, the marketplace was no-more. Thanks to the wonder of high-explosive, hundreds of people were dead, removed from the earth like ants underfoot.
Daisy stood and stared, shaking, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Why it had happened. All those people.
That little girl…
She fell to her knees, weeping.
In the distance she heard the whomp, whomp of helicopters approaching.
‘Damn you, Smith. Damn you forever,’ she murmured, rubbing the tears from her eyes, gasping again from her arm. She cradled it with her right hand, trying hard not to move it.
The helicopters were lounder now, and she stood, horrified yet defiant.
‘I’ll never forgive you for this, Smith,’ she murmured as the helicopters landed, soldiers running from them their weapons at the ready. Over the hill Colonel Smith came into sight, surrounded by his soldiers.
‘Stand very still Daisy,’ said Smith.
‘One more step and the ship goes up!’ she yelled, holding the rod up. ‘All I have to do is drop this.’
‘And you’ll kill everyone,’ he said pointedly.
‘Like you did — they were peaceful! No threat!’
‘We had intelligence that there was a bomb-building factory in the convent, so we had to take it out.’
‘Intelligence? You Are Joking! There were kids in there!’
‘There were kids in Alpha sector two weeks ago that were bombed.’
‘Oh, so it’s an eye for an eye now is it? How do you know the people in there were the ones that made the bombs?’
‘We can talk this around in circles Daisy. It won’t get us anywhere. If you want to walk away from this, you’ll deactivate the defense systems on your ship and come with us. The memories of the people that died won’t be helped by you being killed as well. They won’t be served by people on my base dying when your ship explodes.’
He paused, ignoring her expression of fury.
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There are a few ways to describe one's self when effectively trying to mask the fact that you're a complete hermit and spend your entire existence behind a computer screen sipping hot tea and eating cakes. The first would be to suggest that you're somewhat introverted and avoid coffee. Another might be to suggest you're a fan of Apple Macs but are cutting-down from the 6 you used to have to an even two (Macbook and Mac Mini in turn). Finally you might choose to say that despite the massive pay-drop, this writing thing is quite a lark isn't it? Not to mention enjoying the creative life a lot more than mindless tedium in corporate jobs, working the 40 hour week to the drumming of endless meetings and political intrigue that would have made Machiavelli blush and hand his pen over to the corporate slugs that run companies these days. Enough said really.
