Blaze (The High-Born Epic) (61 page)

             
“Pretty good,” he replied.

             
“No aches or pains?” she asked.

             
“Not really,” he replied.

             
His eyes had adjusted to the light now and she had come into focus.  She was older than he had expected when he heard her voice.  All of her hair was gray and she had some wrinkles on her face, but Harold could tell that she had a nice figure, and her blue eyes were striking.  He also noticed that she was holding a data-pane, and he could see the outline of a man on it.  She held up the data-pane and regarded it for a moment.

             
“You’re as healthy as a horse, young man,” she said.  “Do you have any questions before I send you to Command?” she asked.

             
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he pulled the flaps of his gown over his butt.  “Do y’all have a pair of overalls I could wear instead of this thing?”

             
She laughed heartily, and said, “I don’t know if we have overalls, but I can round you up something.”

             
She walked out of the room and returned in a few minutes.  She gave Harold a pair of black pants with more pockets than he thought they needed, and a black button-down shirt, and a pair of flimsy shorts.  She also had a pair of socks and shiny black boots.  He noticed that the shirt had the same red, white, and blue emblem on it that Rat-Trap and D-Con had on their shoulders.  He didn’t know what it meant, but he liked the way it looked.

             
“What are these?” he said as he held up the flimsy shorts.

             
She appeared flushed, “You put those on first, and then your pants over them.”

             
“Oh, okay,” he said.  “Ummm... Where’s the outhouse?”

             
Dr. Carter gave a good-hearted chuckle, and pointed toward the back wall, “Just walk through that door over there, and you’ll find everything you need.”

             
As he dressed he asked her, “Where’s Gabby?”

             
“She’s in the next room,” Dr. Carter answered.  “But I think it’s best that you let her sleep.  I know you probably want to see her, but she needs sleep right now.  I promise you that she is okay, and that she will be fine in just a few days.”

             
Harold looked at her as he put on his shirt.

             
“I tell you what, Blaze,” she said.  “I’ll let you look at her on the monitor, how’s that?”

             
“I’d be grateful if you would, ma’am,” he replied.  “I’m awfully hungry too, ma’am.”

             
“They’ll take care of that when you go to Command,” she said as she exited again.

             
Harold walked to wall where she said the door was, and he could not see a doorknob.  He looked, and he saw something that looked like it need pressing.  He did and the wall just seemed to slide back.  He looked inside and saw a toilet, shower, and sink.  There was even a toothbrush and toothpaste.  He turned and waved to Dr. Carter as he pressed another button inside that made the door slide back into place.

             
After about fifteen minutes, he walked back into his room and then out of the other door.  He was in a fairly wide metal hallway that had a relatively low ceiling.  He thought that Stone would almost have to duck to walk comfortably. He noticed two men in black uniforms similar to his standing on either side of the door. 

             
Then he saw Dr. Carter walking down the hall toward him, and she stopped just a few steps from him and motioned for him to walk to her.  He walked to where two more men in uniform stood, and Dr. Carter pointed at a monitor on the metallic wall in between them.  The doctor pointed at the image on it, and he had to look closely, but he could see that it was Gabby laying there.  She was on her stomach, and seemed very peaceful. 

             
“Okay,” Harold said.  “What next?”

             
Dr. Carter pointed at the two men behind him and said with a bright smile, “Just follow them.”

             
“Hello, sir,” the man on the right said and started walking down the hall.  “I’m Sergeant Thomas Reynolds and I’ll be your escort today, sir.  Behind you is Private Jerrod Pierce.  We’ll be going this way, sir.”

             
Harold followed him while the other man fell in behind both of them.  As they walked, Harold looked around.  Everything around him was made of metal, and there were monitors with blinking lights and flashing numbers all around him.

             
“Where are we?” Harold asked the two men.

             
“Right now, we’re in the hospital wing,” Sergeant Reynolds answered.  “But, we’re actually on a very large carrier-submarine named the USS George Washington, but most of us just call her ‘The Whale.’  And we’re very, very, deep underwater.  Active stealth is also engaged.  As for exactly where we are?  I don’t really know, but by now we’re probably somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”

             
“Y’all folks must be pretty smart if you can make things like this,” Harold said as he careened his head around, looking back forth.

             
Both of the men laughed, and the man behind him said, “We have our ways.”

             
The three passed through several more hallways, and dozens of people moving to and fro.  Everyone had on a uniform similar to the one Harold was wearing.  The hallways all looked exactly the same and Harold wondered how they could even keep track of where they were.  Eventually, they stopped in front of a set of double doors.  Sergeant Reynolds pressed an arrow that was pointing up, and the doors opened.  He stepped inside and Harold and the other man followed.

             
Sergeant Reynolds pressed some lit symbols underneath the plastic-like material on the wall.  Some more words flashed across the screen, and he said something, and a laser beam seemed to shoot into his eye, and then it several lasers danced about on his face.

             
“Authorization for command level accepted,” a robotic voice with a female tone said.

             
Harold felt a slight bump, and he thought he could feel them moving up.  After several seconds, he felt the direction change, and he felt like they were moving straight back.  Then, he felt like they moved to the left, and up again.  Finally, the motion stopped and the doors opened again.

             
When he walked outside, he could see two robotic-like soldiers on either side of the door.  They were holding guns similar to the ones that High-Born ground troops carried.  They looked a lot different than Rat-Trap and D-Con except for their heads.  Their visors looked identical, but their body was much smaller, and they weren’t much larger than Harold.  He stopped and regarded them closely.  The visor slid up on the one he was studying.

             
“It’s called CASE armor,” a man inside said.

             
“Sir,” Sergeant Reynolds said.  “If you would, please continue with me.”

             
Harold waved bye to the man in the CASE armor and followed Sergeant Reynolds down the hallway to another large door where two more CASE units stood.  The lasers flickered in his eyes again, and across his face, and the door slid open.  Then, he walked inside.

             
He was inside a massive dome-shaped room.  All across the floor area were numerous computer stations, and people in uniforms like his were pressing symbols on them, and some were just looking at their screens almost absent-mindedly.  There was a massive screen like the billboards in the High-Born cities on the far wall.  On it, he could see a slowly changing view of the ocean floor.  The rest of the dome was covered with smaller screens of various sizes.  Each of them displayed an ever-changing view of many different things.  Some showed other angles of the ocean floor, others showed the top of the ocean.  A few were showing views of the ground and ocean from above. 

             
Harold just looked around, wide-eyed, for several moments.

             
He was brought out of his wonderment by a lot of noise.  He looked up at the large screen in the center of the far wall.  He could see himself and Aireon holding hands and raising them in defiance as the billboard of the High-Born Dragons fell to the city streets of New Pylos.  It played over and over and all of the people who had been looking at the different computer screens were standing and applauding.  Some of them had their hand near their mouths, and were whistling loudly.  Some began hooping and hollering as they cheered loudly.  Harold even noticed that some of them had tears in their eyes.  The applause went on for an impossibly long time, and he felt slightly embarrassed.  As the crowd continued celebrating, he noticed a man walking towards him as the cheering seemed to get louder.

             
Harold looked at him closely.  He looked to be in his late thirties, or perhaps early forties.  He was wearing a uniform like his except it had a lot of medals pinned to the left side of it.  He was of average height, but Harold could tell that he had an extraordinary physique.  The brown-haired, blue-eyed man extended his hand toward Harold.  And Harold reached out his own hand, and the two men shook hands.  The crowd then got even louder.

             
After they shook hands for several seconds, the man waved, and urged Harold to do the same.  He did, and the applause got louder.  After a few more seconds, the man prompted the crowd to lessen their noise.  Harold noticed that there was also a man in the center of the room next to a large chair who began doing the same thing.  The noise began subsiding, decreasing in volume for about fifteen or twenty seconds before it completely stopped.

             
The man in front of him waved to the man in the center of the room, who returned his wave.  The man in the center of the room then whistled, and the crowd looked toward him.

             
“Now you’ve seen that Blaze is real too.  So, back to work people!” he shouted.  “We’ve got a war to win!”

             
“Yes, sir,” the crowd answered and returned to their posts, seemingly with more energy than before.

             
The man in front of him looked at Reynolds and Pierce and said, “Dismissed.  I will call you when we’re finished.”

             
“Yes, sir,” Harold’s escorts said in unison and brought up their hands to their heads and then back down sharply.  Then they turned and walked away.

             
“Sorry about the theatrics,” the man in front of him said and pointed at the screen that was still playing the footage of Blaze and Aireon. “It’s been so long since we’ve had any hope that the admiral and I thought it would be good for morale.  I’m Colonel John-Michael Stevens, United States Air Force,” he continued and pointed to another door across the room.  “Now, if you would, please follow me.”

Chapter 52

             
As Harold and Colonel Stevens exited the dome, they entered into another room.  There was a large table full of food, and Stone was sitting on one side of it and River was opposite him.  River’s plate was empty, but Stone seemed to be spooning out some mashed potatoes onto his plate that was already full of bones and crumbs.  There were several other people that he did not recognize, but what was behind them caught his attention before he could figure out who they were. Where the back wall should have been was a beach full of white sand and the ocean behind it.  Hovering above the wavy waters was a beautiful setting sun with bluish clouds hanging in the sky.  Harold thought he could even feel a slight breeze.

             
Despite the wonderful smell of the food, Harold was so completely enraptured by the beach that he just wandered toward it.  He heard Stone say something, but he did not pay him attention as he just kept walking toward it.  He was about to step on the sand, and something hit him in face, and he nearly fell backwards.  The beach rippled out from where his nose had struck something solid.  He reached out toward the beach and he felt his finger hit a wall, and he noticed more ripples appear almost as if the entire scene was made from water.

             
“It’s not real, Fire,” Stone said as he spooned potatoes into his mouth.  “I’m glad no one but us saw you walk into that wall and nearly fall.  Everybody would’ve thought you were blind, and we would’ve lost the whole war before it even started.”

             
“Would you please not talk with your mouth full,” River said to Stone.

             
“What is it?” Harold said in near-childish amazement.

             
“It’s called a holo-wall,” Colonel Stevens said.