The Star 10

A sweaty and bedraggled Sniper stepped into the ring of light. With little more than a nod in Sonny's direction, he chugged down the remaining tequila like it was water and walked to the creek to clean up. As if it was the most natural thing in the world to do, he asked to use some of the young adept's body wash in a smooth baritone. After finishing with himself, he scrubbed out his clothes too.

He was a fastidious man. No sooner had he wrung and hung his clothes, he shaved, trimmed up his hair line and a vast array of other meticulous grooming tasks. There was no doubt how the man ended up in the blue zone. He was a hit man, probably a good one.

Without a scrap of self-consciousness, he rolled out his own pallet on the other side of Sonny's and stretched out to boldly display the efforts of his two and a half decades of highly disciplined life. Sonny was far from intimidated but it was getting clearer by the moment that Sniper was in the mood to 'misunderstand' as far as the young adept would let him.

"That's a no for now. I might be down with casual for a lady but..." Sonny said, not unkindly.

The man looked at himself and over at Wade before swiveling his attention back to Sonny. "It... wasn't a casual offer. I don't do casual. Women are more my thing too but this is a lonely place for someone who can't be flexible in some way. I'd rather shoot for a clean target with hard lines that's only for my lane than one with nice curves pinned up in the public practice range. Not that I look down on those girls. It's all respect because we're just trying to survive as best as we can."

Making an effort to walk the line between friendliness but firm refusal, Sonny said, "I hear you on the last part. I don't really know how to feel about the rest but I'm not up to trying to figure it out today."

The man shook his head and let out a slightly depressed sounding laugh. "Just one question and I'll let it go. Say we were closer... friends. Who would have a better shot, me or him?"

Not seeing any point in turning an embarrassing situation into a humiliating one, he said, "If I was to go that way at all, I guess I'd choose whoever made me feel the most safe. I mean, ultimately we're talking about denying wants for needs in a place where we're all practically strangers and survival is the first goal."

Playfully slapping the guy's arm to dispel the awkwardness of the conversation, he added, "But if you were asking me to make a choice off of eye alone, I'd choose peanut butter on hearty whole wheat over plain butter on thin sliced toast any day."

Sniper, stared at him blankly for a second before chuckling. "I don't know whether to be flattered or scared you'll try to eat me."

"Oh, if it came to that, I'd definitely go for Wade first. Every good carnivore knows too much muscle makes for tough meat. I mean, look at that haunch. Premium veal if I ever saw it... Okay, maybe humor's not my thing. I keep forgetting just how bad everyone expects it can get around here," Sonny said.

Suddenly it was Sniper's turn to air out some awkwardness. "Well, I'm glad I haven't gotten some good sun in lately. Who knows how you feel about cinnamon and chocolate... Damn, Now I'm craving something I'll probably never see again. I'd take a vow of celibacy for a mo-couple of weeks for a square of chocolate."

Looking conflicted for a moment, Sonny dug through his pack and pulled out a carefully wrapped, half eaten bar. "It's probably more almond bark than cocoa but... Anyway, I'll split it with you."

He broke off the last row and wrapped it back up before splitting the rest. "Gotta keep a little for my second. That's the kind of tiny, dumb thing that can do a lot more damage than it should ever have the power to in a place like this."

The guy almost looked like he was going to cry as he broke off a square before squirreling the rest away. Sonny had never seen someone take so long to eat something so small but pretended he didn't notice. It was almost disturbing the way the guy kept licking and smelling his fingertips afterwards.

Once he was finally finished, the man said, "That's because in a place like this, it isn't a tiny or dumb thing. It's a taste of hope that most here have already abandoned... You can call me Oliver."

"Is it a thing to ask before calling a person by their name? Uh, you can call me Sonny," the young adept said.

Oliver slapped his forehead. "That's right. You were a volunteer that skipped everything and came straight here... Look, some people want to forget their past completely. Some people only want special people to say their real name, you know, as a sign of respect or affection. Nicknames and code names like mine, they're so that people know who you are, what you stand for.

"Even the worst of us won't call someone by their real name unless there's a reason. Calling someone their real name when they didn't say it was okay... That's heavy disrespect. Well, unless... You've made your stance on things clear. So, the rest won't really matter to you."

Sonny said, "Now I'm curious. What do people call me?"

"Day one you showed up, a couple of people called you The Fisherman. You know, as a pair to Jaws. But Sandman's the one that stuck. You scare people in a bad kind of way... I think I get why you didn't want people to see your face but it might be a good move now." the sniper answered.

The young adept said, "I'll think about it... I'd appreciate you passing on a message to Yessamin too. I'm not on a side and I'm not going to make one either. I'm honoring a two month scouting agreement. After that, I'm a secrets hunter.

"No offense. But when you're done working off whatever you have going with Yessamin, you should be one too. Save this tribal roots civilization building to the hopeless. You're a yellow level manifestor.

"Eventually, once things settle down, you're going to be a threat to the order the overseer wants, even if they put you here with an agreement. I feel like I'm saying things you already know but we aren't people to them. I'm not even sure they care about people, much less people society gives permission to treat like garbage."

Oliver pulled his pallet over a few inches and laid back down. "Don't know if you're lying and trying to recruit me or if you're out of touch with your own reality. Whatever plan you had, it was over the second your partner Grant died. Even green levels get mowed down like grass when they start wandering around.

"Whatever you might be able to find, it's not going to get you off the Enigma Plains. This place was picked clean of good finds years ago. Now, there's only monstrous wildlife, freak storms and strange diseases. Throw in a weird, potentially deadly, phenomenon every now and then, you have the whole set." the sniper said bitterly.

Sonny laughed to himself, nearly just as bitterly. "What I'm looking for... never mind. Rest well, Oliver. Unless you want to take the long way back for two or three days, you'll be helping us bust through ten to sixteen feet of fairly solid stone."

The sniper snorted and said, "It'll take nearly as long and a lot harder work. It would be a different story if you had a blaster cap but some idiot used up three just to open a small hole. Were they using them like snap pops!?"

Red eared, Sonny handed the man the one blaster cap he kept. "Demolition grade munitions wasn't covered in child soldier school, alright! If you've got the skills, be my guest."

Suddenly tense, Oliver asked, "Would you stop me if I wanted to run with this?"

"No but the goodwill I took a chance on offering you would be destroyed and I won't look back," Sonny told him with a poker face.

The sniper looked at him with a disbelieving face. "Okay, I get that. But why is cutting a few days off of something manual labor can do worth using it?"

The young adept announced, "Because, the drop pad needs to be down here so that the overseer can get a scan on that shallow lake. Either the wall to the east of it is a radioactive treasure trove for miners or it's a building death trap and every hour matters. There's gas leaking out of it and it has barely tolerable amounts of radiation in it too.

"Either way, the equipment that was sent with the settlement starter kits aren't suitable and it will save lives to know. Our little angel in the sky won't give a damn about that. But, dead people can't mine and they'll care enough about the possibility of nuclear energy material to test for it."

"If it's what I fear, migration is a must or everyone might die. It might not be in days or even months but it could be. The lava tubes made me think this was a shield volcano but I've scouted the area. It's a composite. And the last time it went, it blew the whole mountain to hell. We were dropped in the last wet belches it had before going dormant.

"It might just be a little gassy. I could be getting worked up over nothing but I don't feel like playing with my life when I have a nice excuse to get someone to look under the bed for me. Good enough for you?"

Oliver blinked owlishly at him and said, "Yeah, uh, sure. Do you have any headache pills in your bag?"

Going wide eyed, Sonny started sniffing the air before telling his anxiety to ratchet down. All the doomsday talking had his imagination in overdrive. The last thing he felt like he needed was to come across crazy. He had to be cool as a cucumber and entirely rational when he explained it to Chris or his warnings might get dismissed. His real reason for wanting to blast open the hole was so that a good portion of the work would already be done. It would be easier to talk the settlement into finishing the job than starting it.

He wondered why Oliver didn't ask about possible credit sharing if there was a radioactive material mine but then it dawned on him. First off, the overseer wasn't likely to be generous since they might have suspected. Secondly, Chris' seemingly meaningless display of bossing him around suddenly looked a whole lot more like setup to take credit for any discoveries himself as the 'director of action'. It would be easy to make it look like he tried to redirect credit with some empty words.

Suddenly, he started caring a whole lot less about the fate of the settlement. He was reminded brutally that he was dealing with hardened criminals. It didn't really matter if it was their fault or not. They were already acclimated to the life. Expecting them to find their better selves on the back of a few weeks of cooperation was a dream he needed to wake up from.

Oliver, who had been watching from the sidelines said, "Was that a reality check in progress I just saw?"

Sonny responded by activating his suit first and saying, "Are you telepathic too?"

The sniper checked out the suit at close range before looking away with a dizzy eyed grimace. "I've just had enough of them myself to recognize."

"Still want to use the blaster cap?" the sniper asked.

The young adept shrugged his shoulders. "If you care about Yessamin or some of her people, you should. But no, I don't care enough to convince you. I won't hold it against you if you want to hold onto it either."

"Really!? Then, what about secret hunting? Still plan on doing that?" Oliver prodded.

"100%. I care enough about my word to honor it, though," Sonny said.

The sniper shook his head and said, "I wonder what kind of epiphany you actually had."

"The kind that'll let you give this potential win to Yessamin if you want. I'm taking the long way around but you can still go through. It's not my fault that you got a blaster cap somehow," the young adept said flippantly as he dressed Wade.

Packing up everything but the chemical light, he hefted the archer into a decently comfortable carry and started walking back the way they came. About twenty minutes later, he came back with a dire sense of urgency. Without saying anything to Oliver, he sat the archer down and headed a little further up to where the creek water seeped in.

Once Sonny made his way back to them, he said, "I have some really bad news. But the good news that comes with it, we're not in any real danger as long as we sit tight for a little while... I was wrong about some of my speculation but I was accidentally right on one thing.

"This place is gassy but the source is the caldera lake. The whole thing just kind of flipped and turned rust colored. A telepath who was trying to check for survivors in the lava tube managed to reach me. We're in a pocket of good air that should last long enough for the top to clear up."

Oliver sighed. "It's a regular event. It has to be. That's why there aren't any animals and not a whole lot of plant life around us."

Sonny speculated, "I don't think that's all of it. Plant life can spread a lot in a couple of years and I don't think it's THAT regular of an event. I think this one was spurred early by the thrashing around of that huge freaking mollusk.

"Not that I'm in any mood to think much about that. The overseer recognized me, ME, as the leader and slapped me with gross negligence and another wrongful death charge. It's so ridiculous, I'm speechless really."

The sniper shook his head. "You had to have told that telepath about your findings down here. It was to balance that out. It just means that the overseer knows your value but doesn't understand your psychology... How many survived? Do you have any idea who?"

Sonny said, "He was already pretty mentally exhausted but I know that Yessamin survived along with one of her girls that can levitate. She broke through to yellow during the event. The girl, I mean. Saved their, uh, main boyfriends or some such thing. Chris and the guy who I thought was a plant are dead. Total survivors with us included are eighteen. About half are staying.

"The others are getting moved to another site. I think your boss lady and her crew were chosen as first draft or some such. It's a long term project for a real settlement all the way back in a recently declared red level friendly area."

Oliver looked at Sonny intently. "But I'm not on that list am I?"

The young adept didn't answer. Instead, he wicked away the moisture still in the sniper's clothes and handed them over along with a ration bar from his own stash. Most of the Avalon made foodstuffs survived and had taken on some minor supernatural qualities after traveling through three separate greater realities.

"No point in eyeballing my pack. It's mostly just for show. If I die, my good stuff will never be found." he said in annoyance as he saw the sniper's line of sight wander over his gear.

Oliver returned the annoyed look but didn't say anything. There were few words that wouldn't just make Sonny's distrust worse. And after a moment of reflection, the man was forced to realize that he was pushing boundaries by showing his curiosity so blatantly.

After a couple more hours, Wade finally woke up and Sonny filled him in on everything that had happened. With a ration bar in hand, the archer found himself faced with the disgruntled sniper while the young adept slept. A couple of failed attempts to make small talk later, Wade was watching over two sleeping forms in the gloom of a slowly fading chemical light.