shield hovering just in front of him so that he would have a chance of blocking one of the projectiles the antiquated weapons of the Purists were ready to fire.
“We aren’t here to harm you! We’re on your side!” Old-timer found himself stammering. His lips were dry and shaking—his voice nearly failed him. His voice had never before failed him.
The man and the woman who crouched before him, their weapons trained on their adversaries, gave each other careful, quizzical glances.
Old-timer waited for a few moments for a response, but the tableau continued. “Djanet, they must not speak English! Perhaps they speak one of the old languages? Spanish?”
“I haven’t practiced any Spanish since I was a little girl, Old-timer, but I can try,” Djanet replied. “
The Purists shared more quizzical glances. A few moments passed before the male facing Djanet replied, “I don’t know what the hell that freak just said, but we’re not as backward as you cyborgs think! We know how to speak English!”
The tableau continued a moment longer before Old-timer finally managed to utter, “You do?”
“No! I’m lying to you! I don’t speak a damn word of English! I memorized this phonetically just to piss you off at the right moment!” the Purist shouted back at him.
“Gernot! Watch your mouth!” the woman called back to her companion.
“Why should I?” Gernot responded. “You think these freaks are telling us the truth? If I’m gonna die right now, I’m sure as hell going to tell these pieces of crap where to go before I do!”
“You’re not going to die!” Old-timer reassured. “We’re here for help! The A.I. has wiped out everyone who was connected to the Internet other than me and my companions! We’ve come here looking for other survivors!”
“It…can’t be,” whispered the man to the woman crouched next to him.
“We can’t trust them!” Gernot called back to his companions. “It’s all bull!”
At that moment, Rich finally disengaged his magnetic field. Like Djanet and Old-timer, he held a shield in front of him to protect himself, but his voice was still filled with trepidation as he spoke, his anxiety almost paralyzing. “So, uh…how’s it going? Are we friends yet?”
Old-timer locked an intense glare on Rich and shook his head.
“Oh,” Rich replied before shrinking back and reigniting his full cocoon.
“Why should we believe you?” asked the man who was crouched and facing Old-timer.
Old-timer took a moment to find a line of reasoning. He nearly shrugged his shoulders as he attempted to capture the right words.
Djanet jumped in before he could speak. “If we wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”
“Or you might keep us alive so that we could show you if there are any other survivors!” Gernot shot back. “We’re not idiots! No matter what you calculator-heads might think!”
Djanet furrowed her brow and looked across to Old-timer, who mouthed the word “
She shook her head and held out her hands, exasperated.
“I think we should trust them,” the woman asserted to the male next to her, who seemed to be in command of the small triad.
“Are you sure, Alejandra?”
Old-timer noted that her words carried enormous weight with their leader for some reason.
“Don’t do it, Lieutenant!” Gernot shouted.
“If you’re wrong—” the lieutenant began.
“I’m not wrong. I sense enormous good in them—especially in him,” she said, locking eyes with Old- timer.
Her eyes were unlike any Old-timer had ever seen. They carried something within them that made Old-timer see beyond the crystal blueness and into something altogether more beautiful. He didn’t know how to respond.
Just then, Thel and James swooped into the scene behind Old-timer and Rich. Their appearance was sudden and startled the lieutenant. “You said you were the last!” the lieutenant yelled.
“What?” Gernot shouted before turning to see even more assailants approaching. He opened fire with the instinctive response of a trapped mouse watching a hawk swoop down toward it. With no more room for flight, it was time to fight.
4
The battle was over almost before it began. Bullets on fire bounced off the protection of Thel’s magnetic field harmlessly, while Old-timer reengaged his full protection. Gernot’s back was now turned on Djanet, and it was only a matter of a quick thought before energy flashed toward him, instantly rendering him unconscious. The lieutenant and Alejandra watched in horror as he fell over limply, his face planting into the soft, dead earth.
“What did you do to him?” the lieutenant demanded, panic still the tune of his vocal cords.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Djanet asserted as she flashed more energy out toward the weapons to which the Purists clung. The guns were knocked out of their hands and sent flying several meters away. Once she had disarmed them, Djanet strode over to Alejandra and grabbed her roughly by the hair, pulling her toward her. “You’re going to help us whether you like it or not!”
Alejandra responded by taking hold of Djanet’s wrist and twisting it until she sharply shrieked. In the same fluid motion, she swung her leg up and kicked her under the chin, sending Djanet tumbling backward onto the ground.
“Don’t touch me.”
Old-timer quickly disengaged his magnetic field and ran over to Djanet’s aid while Alejandra and the lieutenant tended to Gernot.
“We shouldn’t be fighting!” Old-timer shouted. “We’re all on the same side!”
“You said you were the last!” the lieutenant replied, indignantly.
“We are!”
“Then who the hell are
“That’s the last of us. The people you see before you are all that’s left. Believe me!”
“What did she do to Gernot?”
“Your companion is fine,” Old-timer replied. “She just gave him a mild shock. He’ll start to come around anytime now.” As he spoke, he watched Djanet’s eyes flutter as she, too, began to come around. A purple bruise was already beginning to form on her chin, and her lip was cut where she had apparently bitten down.
“I’m sorry about that,” Alejandra said to Old-timer as she knelt with Gernot’s head in her lap.
Old-timer looked up at her, and their eyes met once again. The blue disks stole his breath as he felt something unlike anything he had ever felt. Only one word reverberated in his mind:
Thel entered the scene and knelt beside the Purists. She spoke earnestly to the lieutenant and Alejandra. “We need your help. If you have a doctor and medical facilities, we need to get to her right away. Our friend is dying.”
Alejandra’s eyes met Thel’s for a brief moment before she reached out and touched her arm. She smiled and then regarded the lieutenant. “We can trust them. “
The lieutenant looked exasperated as the spiraling situation nearly overwhelmed him. “Alejandra, they could kill everyone. I’d rather die than—”
“But they won’t. Trust me.”
Old-timer watched as the blue pureness calmed her companion. The heaving of his shoulders as he panted suddenly began to slow, and his eyes began to narrow and focus.
“Okay. We trust them.” The lieutenant then turned to Thel. “We aren’t far from our hospital. Almost
