Page 35 of Ruled By Their Desires

“Does she know? Her father?”

“No,” they said in unison.

“Thing is, if you don’t take her soon, they’re going to start noticing and someone else will. She’s a prize. Showed her worth on that last mission. A woman that can fight like us? Live like us? Men want her and she needs a full life.” Like he needed to hear Hawk say that. But she couldn’t stand the sight of him now. He must have seen it in his face. “You’re going to have to find a way. Eat a lot of crow and talk to her about some of those feelings that are riding you where she’s concerned.”

“Are you mad? We don’t talk. She said it herself. And I don’t know a damn thing about being with a woman who’s a virgin. This isn’t going to work. She needs wooing and that shit. We’re Cyborgs we don’t do that. We’re straight talkers, fuck um and leave um. Picking um up again when we get the itch and she pretty much hates me for it right now. Hates herself right now for letting me near her. I can’t even keep a fucking conversation up around her without putting my foot in it and pissing her off. Everything I do pisses her off. Jesus…..” He rubbed at his chin. It fucking hurt. It was a good hit.

“Fuck! She’s gonna kill me and her father will be standing right behind her ready to skin me alive.”

Five

She stayed out for ten days.

Every time she thought of going back, she remembered what asses they’d been and dug her heels in. She was being childish but fuck it. She was entitled to a little tantrum every now and then.

Avoiding making any form of camp, she stayed near enough to water and found trees large enough to be able to sleep in or brush strong enough to hide her and be camouflaged.

Not that she actually slept that much.

One eye always open.

KC’s could walk almost silently through the landscape and come up on you quickly. Height gave you an advantage, so did the heat shield camo of her sleeping bag and floor length hooded camo poncho. It wasn’t perfect but they wouldn’t get her caught by the KC seeing her body heat and she knew how to make a hide in bushes and be hidden by brush. Luckily it was warm enough to not need a tent. Not that she’d have actually used one even if it wasn’t. That was like sending up a flare signal and saying; over here.

She learnt early on that you couldn’t afford to sleep for long in the open when alone or in a smaller group without the proper camo sheets and always had to be ready to move and be on the run taking what you need with you. Her uncles had put her through her paces time and time again. So had her people, she was well versed in living on the run and the land.

Walking out and zig zagging across the countryside from the base she passed through a number of Cyborg and human security on perimeter guard duty and kept going, staying under the radar as much as possible. Patrols ran every quarter mile surrounding the base going out as far as 20 miles criss-crossing the landscape. All roads were covered too. Some blocked deliberately with vehicles burnt out and trees that had been sabotaged in case someone tried to move them. All well plotted out and marked. Each with a sensor that triggered any movement. They’d found a truck load of animal tracker cameras back in the day and they’d been adapted to alert them if anything moved. They didn’t know if the KC’s knew where they were or not, but it paid to be careful and routes in and out of the area changed regularly. They had scouts out for 10 miles beyond that into the horizon. Giving enough time to lock up tight if needed or make an escape to their back up base.

She spent her days moving through the landscape going out beyond that. Using the binoculars checking the horizon, scouting for any movement of animals, checking any trails and human footprints for anything that looked out of the ordinary. The people that were left out there were transient if not hidden up somewhere, some had been raided by the KC and made their getaway, some lost people through illness and moved on, others just lost, looking for refuge or looking to die.

If humans came into the area and not followed by KC, they would eventually be offered sanctuary at one of the training grounds if that was what they wanted and if they were scanned clean. They’d be given supplies and hidden up to wait it out for 10 days, if nothing showed that gave them cause for alarm, they were moved to a transition camp and watched. Some made it, some were working for the other side and didn’t.

It was how life was out here. You lived or you died.

The world and gone to shit and for months, they’d stay at the transition camp finding a role there. If nothing occurred for the months they were there and they passed interrogation with no activity that concerned the team there, eventually they’d be moved blindfolded to the Mountain Base. It could hold tens of thousands and was far from full. It was how she’d so easily avoided Marcus all these years. The place was huge, and they needed to fill it if the human race was to survive.

With her backpack firmly on her back, her bow slung over her shoulder, she kept on the move, taking the high ground with good long views of the surrounding countryside. Any time she saw movement, she’d hunker down, watch it for a while digging in taking a break, waiting it out to see what it was and where it was going. She’d make a note of herd movements and people if she saw any and when satisfied there was no risk to her own, she’d move on passing the information to any security patrols she came across, cross referencing with what they knew.

Herds had regular routes. If they moved from those routes it was because they had no choice. Someone or something had moved them on. What you needed to know, was why. What had caused the change in behaviour. And was it a danger to them and humans.

She loved living in the wild. It reminded her of better days, of her youth and innocence. Of a time when life was uncomplicated although under constant threat. It took all her learnt skills and they quickly came back to her like riding a bike her father would say. Not that she’d ever seen one, but she got it. Once you learnt something, you never truly forgot it.

And she didn’t. Her family were Native Americans and had a proud tradition of living off the land. Of surviving at all costs. They kept the indigenous ways going and it had served them well in keeping them alive when many other humans, had died unable to cope with the changing world imposed on them with the evolution of the KC’s, or they were hunted and killed out in the social anarchy following the burn trying to survive. The competition for food and resources had been just as bad as the burn itself.

Her people had stayed away from civilisation for good reason.

And her people knew how to hide.

They’d been doing it for generations and over the years, other back woodsmen and women joined them along with the odd military group and those looking for a better way to live than just surviving becoming part of their tribe. Other Indian tribes did the same staying in small pockets and over time, some came to join them when their leadership passed on.

If the KC’s caught you they killed you, or they did. After the raid on the silo, seeing those humans working with them, who the hell knew what was going on and it made no sense. Such a change in KC behaviour bothered her. Nothing about it felt right, they did everything for a reason. Their programming had one goal, to take over the world. Irradicate the human threat that wouldn’t stop fighting them.

KC’s couldn’t be trusted and that was a fact.

They didn’t have empathy, didn’t have the ability to connect with anyone other than by programming. The Hive controlled them. Their choice and the ability to have free will had been taken from them. The Hive didn’t want humans living and they definitely didn’t need to work with them.

So what was going on….

It was a mystery she had no answers to but felt sure in her bones they needed to. And equally sure, that was gonna take another trip, to another KC outpost or a raid and she knew her father wasn’t going to sanction that. She’d only just come back and had legged it again. Another trip out was out of the question. She could hear his rant already.

---