Defiant: Quantic Dreams Book 2 by Elizabeth McLaughlin (reading list txt) 📗

my chin skyward, half-remembered memories of childhood flooding my mind. The glare of the sun through my bedroom window as a child. The way that Mom and Dad used to slather me in nanite-enhanced sunscreen that I couldn’t rub off no matter how hard my little hands tried. The halo of gold that surrounded my mother’s hair as she smiled at me.

I slowly unwound the cocoon of tent I had gathered myself in and folded it before setting it gently back in the duffel bag. I wasn’t sure exactly how long daylight was going to last outside and it was painfully obvious to me that my working hours were likely shorter than anticipated. There were three priorities I needed to settle before nightfall; water, and food were the orders of the day. If I had any extra time I would try to figure out some luxuries. Shoes would be a good start.

I made the decision to stay within range of the shelter for now. The short structure of the shelter’s entrance afforded me some minimal protection from the elements and it wasn’t likely that many animals would approach the manmade structure. The tent Gabriel provided me was extremely simple; one simply connected a series of rods together and connected fabric over it. A zippered door secured the occupant away from the elements. It took me a couple of tries to put it together but I managed. In front of me lay a neon orange capsule, thin and impossibly light. Despite the structure’s simple appearance, the fabric was designed to shield those inside from heat and cold. I took four thin metal spikes from the duffle bags and drove them into the corners of the tent, anchoring the shelter to the ground.

Chapter Seventeen

Shelter taken care of, I sucked down the first packet of my short food supply and washed it down with as little water as I could stand. With no guarantee of a fresh water source I was going to have to conserve. The landscape before me bore no trees or shrubs. Difficult to gather water. I unfolded the small tarp from within the bags and laid it out in front of my tent. Any dew that formed overnight would collect on the tarp and provide me with a meager supply of potable water. That was assuming that the rain out here wasn’t made of sulfuric acid. I was comforted by the memory of Odysseus, returning to the shelter what felt like so long ago, covered in water. He certainly didn’t seem to be suffering so I had to make the assumption. The rest of my meager supplies were placed inside the tent. Given my minimal nutrition and water intake, exploring the area would be the best option for ensuring that I could survive more than three days.

The grass was damp under my feet, soothing the angry cuts that had festered overnight. The silence was deafening. The wind that had been so fierce overnight had died to a gentle breeze and the scene was almost idyllic. I estimated that I had gone about half a mile when I heard a strange noise, like laughter. Thinking that Gabriel had snuck out behind me, I whirled, but saw no one. I continued on and the laughing grew louder. I took a deep breath and smelled something odd. The scent dimly stirred a memory of going to the beach as a little boy. Water. A stream lay before me, clear water running swiftly over sand and pebbles. The banks of the stream were covered in the same long grass I had been hiking through. I put my hand in the cool water and spread my fingers to let stream flow through my fingers, my eyes slipping shut as I did.

This was like being a child all over again. Every sensation, every smell, every sight, every texture was brand new. Unlike the storm Gabriel had walked me through in the simulation, this was peaceful. I dug my fingers into the sand of the stream bed and pulled a handful of gravel upwards. Sand. Real sand. I probed the little hill with an index finger and yelped, yanking my hand back as I did so. From the tip of my finger hung a small creature, its claw firmly clamped around the fatty tissue on the pad of the digit. I lifted the animal to my face and watched as it swung back and forth, its other limb waving wildly. Two eyes jutted from minuscule stalks on the front of its oblong body above gnashing mouth parts. I brought my other hand underneath the creature and shook it gently to dislodge it. It fell on to my palm and scuttled off the platform of my hand to tumble into the long grass. I examined my finger and noticed a little drop of blood had welled up where the thing had pinched me. The pain of the cut brought forth a word.

Crab.

I wracked my brain for more information but the more I sat and wondered, the more time I was wasting. I scooped some water out of the stream and sipped it. It was impossibly cold, as if originating from a mountain. There was a mountain range a couple of hours’ drive from my home. If water was flowing from it again, it meant that weather patterns had returned to an approximation of normal. I could work with that. Gabriel hadn’t been kind enough to leave me a container so trips to the watering hole would have to be done every time I was thirsty. A pain in the ass to be sure, but not the worst thing. I could pick some of the grass and plant matter from the banks and dry them out to burn them later.

There was a time when I was doing maintenance on some hinge or other in the shelter, something Gabriel could have easily accomplished, but I didn’t have anything better to do. The details didn’t matter. What did matter