Shadows Collide by Dan Levinson

Author:Dan Levinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: North Star Editions
Published: 2015-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

23

SONJA

May 2, 2012

Grisham City, Incorporated Territory of Grisham, Orion Protectorate

At 1700, Sonja rode the escalators up from the underbelly of Grisham Central Station into the early evening sunlight, hauling her luggage behind her. Though not yet summer, heat draped over her like a blanket, stifling, oppressive. In her few days away, she’d almost forgotten how hot it was here. Already, sweat trickled down her temples, slicked her body beneath her uniform.

She shielded her eyes and unconsciously looked north, toward where the Grisham military compound had once stood. It was a pile of rubble now, and with the desert training outposts abandoned after the attack, the recruits had been relocated to a high school on the south side of town while they finished basic training. Thereafter, new Psi Corps recruits would be sent somewhere far away from Grisham, or so she’d heard.

Sonja walked to the back of the taxi queue outside the station and absently touched the crumpled napkin in her pocket that held Garrett’s contact information. She considered throwing it away, but couldn’t do that to Bob and Theresa. She would write, no matter how badly it hurt. She owed them that much.

Once inside a cab, Sonja watched the city go by, all the people so peaceful, going about their lives. What had she expected to see? Some mark of the tragedy that had recently transpired? Some sign that the hundreds who died did not go unremembered? Surely the city couldn’t have moved on so quickly.

The taxi dropped her at the front gates of Donald Dean Grisham High School, a large, red brick building with several gray concrete expansions that looked to have been added in recent years. A chain-link fence surrounded the compound, and a group of military trucks stood parked outside the entrance, accompanied by guards in desert fatigues, armed with automatic rifles. Sonja approached the gate, feeling out of place, even though she knew she belonged.

“Name?” a soldier asked, his dark, distrustful eyes boring into Sonja. Despite her uniform, he rested one hand on the grip of the rifle slung over his shoulder.

Sonja shuffled her feet. “Private Sonja DeGaulle,” she said.

A soldier beside the first flipped through a sheaf of papers, located her name, nodded to his compatriot, then presented the papers and a pen to Sonja. “Sign,” he said. He pointed to an empty space beneath a grainy black-and-white photocopy of her picture and signature.

She signed, then started forward, but the first soldier, with a name patch that identified him as PFC. G. Archer, held up a hand. “Need to check your bag,” he said. “You understand.”

“Sure.” She handed over her small rolling suitcase, and Archer and the other soldier laid her things on the ground. He pulled at the lock and looked at her. “Front compartment,” she said.

They found the key, opened her suitcase, pawed through her shirts, her undergarments, her toiletries, while she tried not to feel violated. Once satisfied, they zipped back up her suitcase and handed it to her. “Go on through,” Archer said.

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