Dawn on Jefferson (scifi story): Chapter Thirty-Three - Be Careful What You Wish for, You Might Just Get It!
Chapter One: Getting Up
Chapter Two: Where I Live
Chapter Three: The Walk
Chapter Four: School
Chapter Five: Introducing my Friends, the Merry Pranksters!
Chapter Six: Walking to Mom's
Chapter Seven: Mom’s House
Chapter Eight: It Began on Constitution Hill
Chapter Nine: Attack of the Awknerds!
Chapter Ten: No Awknerds Were Harmed
Chapter Eleven: The Breaking Shadstorm
Chapter Twelve: Where I Envy Grilled Cheese
Chapter Thirteen: Doom! Doom! Doom! Where I Want to go to School! The End Must be Nigh!
Chapter Fourteen: The Game is a Foot
Chapter Fifteen: Uncomfortable Revelations!
Chapter Sixteen: WAITAMINUTE!
Chapter Seventeen: The Healing Power of Popcorn
Chapter Eighteen: The Lessons Learned Before Maven
Chapter Nineteen: No Haven From Maven
Chapter Twenty: Meeting Maven
Chapter Twenty-One: And Then I was Roasted Alive and Served Up With a Worm
Chapter Twenty-Two: That Which has Been Set in Motion…
Chapter Twenty-Three: Shall Stay in Motion...
Chapter Twenty-Four: Until Acted Upon by Something Absolutely Annoying
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Veena Swarm Circus!
Chapter Twenty-Six: A Rain of Blobs Pulled the Church Down
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Harrowing Sounds of Yoatling and the Popping of Creepy Fruit
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Where We Get Chastised by a Spiny Creeper
Chapter Twenty-nine: I Spy With Rosa’s Drone Eye
Chapter Thirty: Where I Lose to a Mockery. Stupid Mockery.
Chapter Thirty-One: Where I try to do the Right Thing
Chapter Thirty-two: But I Didn’t Ask for Knight in Powered Armor!
Chapter Thirty-Three: Be Careful What You Wish for, You Might Just Get It!
My father once told me, with a smirk on his face at the time, of course, I really ought to be careful what I wish for: I might just get it. Well, there and then, I got a small idea of what he meant. After all, we Merry Pranksters wanted to be the ones to find the Indian soldiers hiding on Jefferson near Shadwell.
Well, we did.
Unfortunately, the NEXT step in the plan: to call the grownups while not having been caught, shot, killed or left for taxito bait by those soldiers, seemed to have hit a snag. Just a small one.
Why?
Because, well, we *DID find the soldiers and soldiers have far, far better tech toys just after the turn of the 22nd century than mere twelve year olds did. Or so I would have thought. Otherwise, every invasion of every country or world would have floundered at those raucous and terrible bastions of power, the American Middle School. Or any other culture that had obnoxious kids at age 13, plus or minus a couple years, of course!
Hmm. That was a nice image. Early teens so tech savvy and terrible, they chased the invaders from the country. Sounds like a kid's Immie. And utterly divorced from reality.
So divorced from reality, I was surprised the idea had a shared custody arrangement with your brain. Reality and that idea could not have shared that brain of yours. No way. No how. Nuh-huh. They would have been still in court centuries later and making the judge hate them both and wish he or she could have found a way to end the case immediately and preferably by having put your brain in foster care, reality in jail (for crimes against humanity) and this idea in the loonie bin.
The reality of OUR situation was we were being marched, somewhat roughly, up into the Jefflife forest away from the Church of the Sky Father Christ and the causeway. Their roughness was a weird juxtaposition with the fact they thought they had just saved our lives. THAT reality was a bit more complicated. We probably would have gotten away or at the worst, I would have been eaten. And if I had been, the basilisk would have died a horrible death. I'd have STILL had the last laugh. Stupid Jefflife. I'd rather I didn't though. Not that way. The Indian soldiers, I thought, had the thought they had saved all of us.
bah.
grump, grump, grump.
I imagined part of the reason they were herding us away was because they had probably just set off virtually every satellite and drone looking for us on the planet. That could only be worse because I had called Dad to get him to get the police to come get us and deal with the soldier's body. The dropped booster - hey! cockatrices were scary and that one was really scary being so big! I'd like to see you do better, bub! - probably sent him into something of a Papa Freakout. And that always led to a cringe worthy, Mama-Freakout. And that would mean the whole of the Marines freaked out, because Mom motivated people in ways I've never seen possible before. Terrifyingly possible.
We had moved off far enough into the forest that we couldn't see, but heard the American Marines arrive. The distinctive whine-roar of their transports was loud and unique enough to not be mistaken for anything else. Our captors seemed really nervous. We, the oh-so-proud Merry Pranksters, were far, far more than nervous, but not much more than that...despite what Tom and Rosa and Veena and Jackie might have claimed! Really!
I had image, oh so beautifully ironic images, of American missiles launched and killing all here. Us, the Indians and all the beautiful and mostly toxic Jefflife around us. Oh the joy of that thought! And, no, I did NOT throw-up upon thinking that EITHER, despite what Tom said.
The Indians ushered us further forward and we marched for what seemed like an interminable period. When Jackie gave the soldiers a dirty look, the smaller one shoved her. We all glared and tried to keep from pondering the fact their armor could have squished us like a rotten grape.
When we reached some point, the Indians stopped and pulled a largish object off the back of one of the soldiers. They tossed it to the side and then PLOOP, up and over us came a tent. A quick spray came off the tent poles that caused all of the Pranksters to cough.
The two soldiers stood apart for a moment and then seemed to be in a very animated conversation. They were gesticulating wildly at times and pointing at us. For a second, I thought about trying to hack into their equipment and then, OH YEAH, REALITY!
Not only was I not likely to be able to do so, but if I did and got caught, I was burnt toast. Worse. Way worse. Burnt jelly?! Besides, I would have needed to pull out my other booster and warmed it up again. Pulling something out might just set them off anyways.
Oh. Joy.
However, I wasn't sitting there like a quivering blob, thanks, Tom. His embellishments were really bad and nothing to do with that obnoxious reality thing. Trust me.
The soldiers seemed to stop arguing and one approached us. We were all on the other side of the tent trying to look very inconspicuous. He stood in front of us and paused. He seemed to be taking us in. To a soldier off world, we must have looked like the weirdness mini sized special forces team ever. Or the worst cosplayers. Your pick. However, to someone from Jefferson, we were not that outlandish at all. Some of the gear was a bit much for a bunch of kids, okokok, more than a but much, but the general look was perfectly normal for a bunch of people doing some backpacking in the back country of Jefferson.
The soldier knelt so he would be looking up at us. Very nonthreatening in appearance or so I thought he thought he was doing. Small problem: powered, freakin, armor. He then reached up and in the most disconcerting way possible took off his helmet: it looked like he twisted off his head.
He looked at us from his dark eyes ones like Veena's, and smiled. His smile was a nice one. Reassuring. And then he introduced himself:
"Hello, my little friends. My name is Jaideep. Are you alright? And who are you?"