16 Surprises in the Night

In the light of the setting sun, Jack hunkered down behind a tree as he looked at the controller in his hand.

Through the screen he directed his surveillance drone to fly out of the mountain forest he hid into the other side of the mountain. There he saw a village filled with army transports in smoldering ruins. Next to the village, an army camp was still in the building process.

'Looks like a full company, we'll have to call in some support for this one.' thought Jack as he made the drone move in closer.

The drone moved silently around the camp while it recorded places and persons of interest, along the way Jack saw the couple dozen surviving prisoners, tied and beaten, stuffed into cages made for dogs.

Just as he flew the drone closer to what looked like the command center his screen went black.

Jack looked at the screen for a second, cursed the EMP field, threw the controller to the ground, and stamped on it a few times with his military boot.

He tapped the communications device in his ear once, waited for a second, signaled twice, waited for a second, and signaled once. He proceeded to do the same thing with it as he did with the controller and started running down the mountain.

Before he reached the bottom he spotted three drones flying near him, not even trying to remain hidden. He stopped running and fired off a few shots from his sidearm, but couldn't hit the fast-moving targets.

As he reached the bottom of the mountain he proceeded to run for another five minutes before he found his camouflaged motorcycle in the bushes where he left it. Jack extricated it out of the bushes and rode off down the dirt path with the three drones following in his wake.

He kept repeating 'Have to get out of their range. Have to get out of their range.' to himself as he gunned the throttle.

After a couple of minutes, he saw a dust plume rising in his rear-view mirror. He started cursing while he took riskier and riskier paths in an attempt to throw them off.

Half an hour later night crept upon the land, but the drones still faithfully stayed on his tail. 'If I keep this up I'll run out of gas.' Jack thought as he started to look for places where he could take shelter.

After another quarter of an hour, he saw a dilapidated house standing in an abandoned field next to the dirt road. He hesitated, looked at his fuel gauge, and turned into the field.

Jack jumped off of the bike as it slowed down and ran for the small house. It had no door in the doorway so Jack just ran in, grabbed his gun, and hid with his back to the wall. A second later the drones followed him in and he started firing. When he emptied his magazine, one drone lay destroyed, one kept flying but had a couple of feet missing, and the last one looked brand new.

Jack quickly grabbed a new magazine to reload, but the remaining two drones flew out of the house before he could take them out. He looked outside of the house and saw one drone flying high in the air 'The other one's covering the back.' he thought as he drew his head back in and sat down on the floor.

'They want me alive. Otherwise, they would have taken me out from long range already.' Jack concluded while he took deep breaths to calm himself down. He looked around the small house and saw a couple of windows and a broken down wall that used to separate the house into two parts.

'I'm too vulnerable here.' he thought as he checked his ammo. He only had two magazines left, after that he would have to resort to his knife.

Jack took a long look at his gun, and slowly raised it to his temple.

Just as he started to exert pressure on the trigger he heard three rumbling noises coming from outside of the house. He peeked through the doorway and saw three motorcycles for two stop around 20 meters away from the house.

Each pair crouched behind their large bike and looked at the house. Three of the soldiers held drone controllers.

Jack lowered his gun and thought 'A driver and a controller, the rest of the posse shouldn't catch up that fast.' He looked around the room once more, checked his equipment, and ran for the window in the back.

As soon as he jumped out of the window he heard shouts from the front of the house, and soon after the roar of engines.

Jack kept running away from the house until he heard the bikes, he then turned and sprinted for the corner from which he heard the most engine noise.

As he neared the corner the first bike came into his sight. He emptied his magazine at less than 10 meters and took down both the driver and the controller. While he reloaded the second bike passed the crashed first bike and kept going forward.

Jack emptied his second magazine and took out the passenger, but the driver still remained.

The third bike came from the other side of the house, saw what happened to the first bike, and went straight for Jack.

Jack threw away his gun, drew his Bowie knife, and charged at the oncoming bike.

Before he could take more than five steps shots came from the third bike.

As Jack slammed into the ground while twitching from the electricity coming from the stun bullets the world crumbled around him.

Pain ran through Jack as he pried his eyes open. 'Less than I expected.' he thought in slight wonderment as he stared at the wall of his small house.

He tried to turn to his side but a large hand firmly pressed his shoulder back down and forced him to lie on his front.

Jack turned his head and saw the imposing silhouette of Kuang Bindun standing in the darkness.

"You starting a career in nursing?" asked Jack in a hoarse whisper.

He heard a snort and then Kuang Bindun answered "Du Angliang made me take care of you." he stopped for a second and continued "His exact words were 'If he dies before the Elder returns so will you."

"Doesn't sound like something he'd do." said Jack wryly which made him go into a sudden coughing fit. The pain caused by the sudden movement made him tear up.

Kuang Bindun gave a grunt of agreement and brought a clay cup to Jack's lips when he finished coughing.

A few seconds later Jack thanked him and asked "He took the light with him too?"

Kuang Bindun sat down on the floor next to the cot with a tired sigh and said "Yeah. These last couple of days he kept calling me out for the graveyard shift too." he turned his head towards Jack and in a flat voice said "Thanks."

Jack almost laughed, but he stopped himself in time and said "Anytime."

A minute passed in silence before Jack started shifting his body on the cot.

Kuang Bindun sat up from his reclined position and extended a hand towards the cot as he said "Stop doing that. You'll only make the pain worse. Spirit energy wounds take a long time to heal on their own."

Jack didn't seem to mind as he slowly shifted his body around to lay on his right side so he could face the doorway.

When he finished he gave a sigh of relief and said "It's not that bad. I moved some spirit energy to my back to keep the worst of it at bay."

Kuang Bindun froze for a couple of seconds, then jumped to his feet and yelled "You what!?"

Jack threw Kuang Bindun a reproachful look as he whispered "Keep it down, you'll wake everyone up."

Kuang Bindun looked left and right in surprise, then stepped up the cot and crouched down to look at Jack's body closely.

After a few seconds, he murmured "You're right, some spirit energy is running through you." He looked up at Jack's face and whispered in wonder "How?"

Jack furrowed his brows as he said "What do you mean how? You told me how to take care of wounds with spirit energy."

Kuang Bindun almost smacked Song Tanda's head as he said "Not that, you moron. How do you have any spirit energy? Didn't you empty it all out in the corpse courtyard two days ago? I couldn't feel any while I took care of you. I doubt our dear Elder Brother gave you some time to meditate before he whipped you."

Jack's brows furrowed even more as he tried to think about the last few minutes before he passed out. After a few seconds, he said "You're right, I didn't have any spirit energy before Du Angliang whipped me. But when I woke up I felt some swirling around my dantian."

Kuang Bindun slowly shook his head as he said "That's impossible. You have to actively meditate to accumulate spirit energy. I've heard that only on higher levels of cultivation can you just breathe it from the air."

Jack sighed and said "Well, I don't know what to tell you. The last thing I remember is getting my ass whipped and then passing o…" He suddenly stopped and stared into space as the feeling of coolness seeping into his skin came back to him.

Kuang Bindun felt his heart jump into his throat as he asked "What?"

A smile slowly spread over Jack's pale face as he said "I don't think I breathed it in."