Episode 12: Father?

(Music, sfx, fore ground is the sound of travel, ((grunts of exertion))

Kal: (Heavy Breathing, and the sound of re-adjusting a weight) (Hears the sound of a distant drone-- Kal stop, clothing sounds like crouching, hold breaht, after a minute, exaherated sigh of relief, dry swallow, crack of thunder continue walking.

C72: (noises of coming to) Wh, where? I?

Kal: Hush, I will explain soon, but for now sleep.

She nuzzles into the crook of my neck and fades back to the bliss of sleep. I cannot say how given all the josteling of being carried over my shoulders, but she does, and I continue my way back. Mind racing. Body numb from the drugs. I touch my nose, its bleeding more than before. Judging by the swell and wet leakage from my right ear, so to has that. I think of adminstering the rad-med to my veins, of saving myself from a future of radiated horror, but something holds me back. No, not something. The girl. In the eclipse of only a few hours this child, this Ghoul, had become the most important person in all the galaxy.

(Sfx and travel takes over. Fade. Pick up with the campsite being set up, and a crackling noise)

"Here," I say. Handing a gelatinous packet over to the girl I explain it will warm her hands. She nods, confused and a little frightened for words. Still, I can tell she is curious. "There's a thin platic barrier inside. When cracked the two compunds within mix (sound of cracking). Voila. Instant warmth. Here put these ones in your socks, that by your belly, and these two in your armpits." She does as say and a weak smile crosses her lips. Words can't express how thankful I was to have found clothes just her size packed in my bag. Sinking into my sleep sack she looks at me. . . Stretched out now, against the wall of the cave, my breath labored in my chest.

"Aren't you cold?" she finally asks?

"Me? No. . . no. . ."

"You look cold. Are there more of these?"

I nod, "Sure, but there for you?"

She stares hard at me, here eyes layers of velvet brown, her skin fair as the moon, and hair like spun gold.

"You rescued me."

I raise my head and then let it fall. (THunder distant) "Suppose I did, cuz. Didn't really think of it that way."

"What did you think?"

"I. . . guess I figured it was what I ought to have done." I wince, kowing full well my intentions of giving her over to the cartel. A job for my freedom. Isn't anything wrong with that, I think, but that sounds hollow in my head. I had certainly decided that I would protect her on this trip but after. . .

"Does that make you my father? Are you father?"

I blink, the space between us filled by the drip song of crashing, echoing rain.

She blushes. "I don't remeber much. . . maybe its from the crash. But I remember a man in white telling me the next time I woke I would meet my father-father."

"Me? Ah, father? No kid, fathers. . . fathers don't exist for people like us." I don't know what else to do and judging by the growl in my tummy we are well due for grub. I set about opening our survival packs. Dried Stroganoff.

"People like us?" she asks, accepting the food. "What do you mean?"

"Come on kid, you know, with Organics and Ghouls?"

"Ghouls?"

I pause between bites and am startled to see she truly has no idea. Its as if her mind has been wiped. . .

Oh. . .

"Nothing, kid. At the end of the day nothing."

"Oh"(she starts eating). "So if you're not my father than who is?"

My mind flashes Emog, brutal, cunning, deceptive. The pit of my stomach twists as I imagine this girl one day, dressed in white, when her muling days are behind her, added to the mans harem. Likely zonked out of her mind, forced to have sex with the man she called—

I shake my head hardly beleiving what I knew to be true ever since laying her upon my shoulders. I almost smile at the idea of it. From chaisng freedom to choosing a life on the run.

My body shakes but my voice speaks with the power of a man.

"No, I'm not your father but I am your gaurdian."