He pursed his lips, and just watched as the winged beast fluttered gracefully down to the surface of the green-hued land. It was Dawn, her pink pearlescent markings unmistakable, besides the fact that she always seemed to findme.
I holstered my gun and approached her,smiling.
‘How do you always find me?’I asked her for the thousandth time, projecting into hermind.
Her eyes were a bright blue, so round and glossy they looked like glass lawn ornaments. Her fluorescent green veins shone through her pink scaly fur, and I reached up to scratch the spot behind her pointedears.
‘Dawn always know where Kit is,’she replied cryptically, her words like music in my head as they translated to English so I could understand them. I would never invade someone’s privacy by reading their mind, but with Dawn I opened my own to whatever she wanted to project without prying. She’d shared once that the Galadrias, like the murdering alien ghouls, had a hive mind, a collective consciousness. If one could smell or sense me, then she could too, I guessed. But in that same sense, they each had their own compartmented personality. It was hard for her to explain, and also to understandfully.
‘I’ve got new clients. Important ones,’I explained as she looked over to the crowd of people staring atus.
Her large eyes were lingering on Damien.‘He smells of death,’she told me, in her own obscure way. Galadrias were very wise and almost psychic in a sense. She’d once urged me to run moments before a ghoul regime floated across the area where we were hidingout.
‘What do you mean? He’s going to die?’My heart hammered in my chest. I didn’t know Damien that well yet, and though he was kind of a dick, I didn’t want him to die. It was my duty to keep him and his family alive, and I took that veryseriously.
Dawn stepped forward on her clawed hooves and smelled the air, her small nostrils flaring.‘No, he smells of the death of Galadrias.’When she looked at me, there was terror in her gaze, something I’d never seenbefore.
Shit, what the hell did thatmean?
‘I… I told him not to hurt you. That you’re good.’Her ominous statement had meflustered.
She looked to the east.‘Tonight will be hard for Kit. Dawn does not want to see it. Dawn will gonow.’
I stepped back from her as she prepared to take flight. I’d never had such a cold and short meeting with Dawn. It shook me to mycore.
‘I’m glad you came to say hi,’I shared, disturbed in her presence for the first time in forever. Dawn had been my friend in the Dream Wars for a decade, and she’d never acted this cold to mebefore.
She looked me in the eye.‘It’s always a pleasure to be in Kit’s presence.’Then she flew off. The Galadrias didn’t like violence or bloodshed. Dawn told me once that just the sheer act of witnessing it made them physically ill. They were herbivores and creatures of an enlightened mind-set, like dolphins or elephants. When I’d asked her why they chose to live here, among the devastation of the ghouls as they terraformed an entire species, she’d simply replied that it was how it had always been. The ghouls were as much a part of this world as mosquitoes were a part of ours, and there was nothing they could do aboutit.
“That was short,” Ronnie commented, opening her med kit and shuffling some thingsaround.
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to tell her what Dawn had said, that tonight would be hard for us and she didn’t want to watch. What the hell did that mean? She’d never led me astray before, so maybe it was a word of caution. She was always speaking in third person, with riddles and confusing things likethat.
“You know what? I have a bad feeling about tonight. I think we should stay moving rather than hunker down. Maybe team up with some others,” I toldeveryone.
Sometimes finding a rock cropping to hide behind was the best move, and sometimes walking to another heavily armed group and teaming up was in our greatest interest. Tonight felt like we should keep moving, not be sitting ducks. Possibly find another squad of armed warriors. When the ghouls had landed, they outnumbered us 1,000 to 1. Now that they’d culled half of our planet’s population, they outnumbered us more than I even wanted to calculate. Everyone left alive now had a gun and knew how to use it, even little old ladies inwheelchairs.
“Why?” Damien questioned. His blond hair fell in front of his face, and I tried, and failed miserably, not to notice how attractive he was. How long had it been since I’d been out on a date? Clearly toolong.
My team started moving out, getting ready towalk.
I took two steps closer to Damien, unsure whether I wanted to throat punch him or smell him again. “Because I like staying alive, and you hired me because I’m the best, so do what I say and packup.”
It was official—I wanted to throat punchhim.
His eyes darkened as his brow furrowed. “You go over and… talk to that alien thing, and now we’re moving out? I don’t mind taking orders from you, Kit, but I don’t take orders from them.” He pointed to the sky where a few faint Galadrias floatedalong.
So hehadnoticed we were communicating. This man was perceptive and annoying as allhell.
“Yes, I speak to them, but Idon’ttake orders from them. Pack your shit, or I’m leaving you and your brother here.” I walked off to where Maxine was surveying with night visiongoggles.
“What do we have?” I asked her, trying to shrug off how shitty this night was going. First day and I was fighting with my client. It didn’t bode well for our futuretogether.
“He’s so pretty, I could just stare at him all night.” She snuck a glance at ourclient.
I rolled my eyes. “I meant what do we have out there.” I gestured to the area beforeus.
Maxine was my navigator. The dream world was as big as Earth but with less water, only a few large green lakes for the Galadrias to bathe in and for our sea life to travel to when they slept. Nearly all marine life was dead now, having traveled here while asleep and landing out of liquid, suffocating, or arriving in the green stuff only to be eaten by the waterghouls.
