|1| Trinity
‘Focus, Trinity,’ I told myself, pushing harder on the gas pedal.
The speedometer rocketed from seventy to ninety MPH as my car plowed through another wavy mirage. My sisters tiny form vanished before my eyes, but I kept driving, green eyes scanning the seemingly never-ending desert around me. Sector 15 always made my skin crawl with expectation; there the dead rose to haunt the living.
I always stopped myself from remembering the past, but the desert made it harder to do during the day. At least at night you must always be vigilant and alert, not knowing what enemies were skulking in the shadows. There was no time to think. And more-often-than-not, no time to sleep. In the few precious hours of calm (if you even managed to find them), you slept lighter than a cloud. Remembering will be for another time, after the war is over. My job was simple: do the dirty work. Run the errands, protect supply shipments, pretty much anything you could think of.
Today was no different. My mission was to respond to a 13-15 (distress signal in sector fifteen) from Unit 5: team 6, two rug-rats named Bubblegum, and Daisy. Phoenix’s beautiful, peaked hood shimmered under the sun’s unforgiving stare. The black phoenix on the hood vibrated with the rumble of the engine. Now don’t ask me what kind of car she is, I have no idea. I found her in some old storehouse back on the outskirts of sector 1 a few years ago. I gave her a new solar-charged engine, and she’s been my faithful partner in crime ever since.
“Falcon? Can you hear me? Over.” Dahlia, my boss’, loud voice crackled from the walkie on my dashboard, static ringing in my ears.
With a sigh I stomped on the brakes to hold the signal and grabbed the Walkie, pressing the out button. “Dahlia, this is Falcon. I can’t hear you. Over.”
“Don’t get smart with me, Missy-” I rolled my eyes and fought back the smile tugging at my lips as she collected herself. It was always fun, pushing her buttons. “We’ve got an update on that 13-15. Daisy says Bubblegum got hurt real bad. You’ll need to have your med pack ready. Over.”
“10-4, they still hidin’ out in Old Convent? over.”
Dahlia’s voice was unusually strained. I guessed something was either very wrong, or she wasn’t telling me the truth…or at least the whole truth. “They’re on the move, just outside town. Zombies are driving them towards the wall. The information they have is top priority, hurry and get that hard drive. That’s an order. Over.”
Dahlia’s message was clear: don’t mess this up.
“10-4.” Tossing the walkie back onto the dashboard I put the pedal to the metal and Phoenix shot forward like a bullet heading straight for the heart of the devil.
It was surprisingly hard to spot a neon pink Jeep painted with yellow flowers in the desert. When I finally reached the outer wall of Hier City, they were racing alongside it towards the setting sun, being followed by a dozen zombies on military grid Dune-buggies and Desert Bikes. Daisy was clearly struggling to drive the vehicle with their tires barely clinging to the rim. Holes seared into the metal, melting into larger holes as more laser beams burned into the trunk. My heart was nearly whisked out of my chest as I grew closer.
The mission was too important-I couldn’t do it! I didn’t know what was on the hard drive, but I did know Dahlia shouldn’t have sent me. Phoenix began to slow as I swallowed the thick bile rising in my chest. Why? Why was I hesitating now? What was this feeling? Fear. I was afraid. Of what? I couldn’t say. It had been so long since I had felt it.
Dammit. The air thinned, becoming harder and harder to breathe as my pulse quickened. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t save them-
’Fear is an illusion that causes hesitation, which ensures failure,’ Dahlia’s voice echoed in my mind. And suddenly I’m twelve years old again, on my first mission without my sister by my side. The wound from her death was still fresh, yet Dahlia didn’t hesitate to put me back in the field. I sat alone in her old car, my knuckles gripping the steering wheel so hard they were white as she spoke to me over the radio. I hadn’t been behind a wheel since the accident-I was afraid to drive.
That’s how it had happened, a couple of droids had run my sister and I off road, straight into the tree line. We couldn’t out-ride them, i couldn’t out-drive robots. It clicked like a switch; I wasn’t afraid of the pressure-i was afraid of the idea of another high-speed chase.
I’ve got this, I coach myself as my lungs shriveled more. There was no time for hesitation. Those kids needed me. Phoenix launched to almost a hundred fifty miles per hour when I slammed my foot down as hard as possible. I imagined the battle running through a simulation, trying to find the best way to fight without dying.
