Karen Shaw ponders whether it's worth the risk to try escaping from captivity at the isolated desert military base. But she can't do it alone. Will she find sympathetic allies who wish to blow the whistle on Project Eve 2.0? She isn't certain. But what she is certain of, is that if she remains at the base her welfare will be endangered.

The last time I awoke after blacking out, it was dark and my head was pounding; this time, I was cold and shivering under a bright light that overwhelmed the details of my surroundings.

“Karen?” wondered a male voice. “Can you hear me?”

“Where am I?” I asked, my teeth chattering. “Am I dead?”

“Far from it,” he reassured.

Now I recognized the voice. It was Hicks! I slowly rose to a sitting position. The warm blanket that was draped over me slid its way down my chest. I clutched it closer to my body with one hand just before my nipple was exposed to everyone in the room, which turned out to be just Hicks. With my other hand braced on the cold hard surface, I looked around. About five feet in front of me, there was an open square metal door with darkness beyond. The door was just one of many to my left and right in this row just a few feet off the ground.

“Jesus Christ! Am I in the morgue?”

Hicks nodded his head. “It was the only way to get you out. I’m sure it’s all coming back to you
now. The compound in the needle slowed your vitals to the point of being undetectable. But Susan assured me you’ll be fine. The grogginess should wear off soon…so I’ve been told…Here,” he said. “Put these on.” He handed me some army fatigues.

I looked at the name tag on the shirt. “Who’s this Wilson guy?”

“Someone very close to your size. Now hurry up and put them on. We don’t have much time.”

He turned around to give me some privacy as well as to keep an eye on the door no doubt. By the
time I was lacing up my boots, the rush of adrenaline at the thought of someone bursting through that door at any time had warmed me up quite a bit.

Teeth no longer chattering, I asked, “So where is Wilson?”

Hicks turned around and rushed over. “Having a nice nap in a closet somewhere.” He studied my face for a bit. Then he frowned and bit his lip while he dug around in his pocket. “Sorry about this next part.”

“Oh man,” I whined. “Not my hair!” I sighed as he handed me the clippers. “No. No. I can’t. You do it Hicks.”

I stared vacantly ahead while I was shorn like a sheep.

Once the buzzing abruptly ended and the last lock of hair hit the tile, I stood up on rubbery legs. I ran my fingers along my cool scalp from my forehead to my neck. I winced as my finger traced over a bump.

I pulled my hand away from the soreness and inspected my right index finger. There was a spot of blood on it. “Jeez,” I began. “Next time try and be more careful.”

“That wasn’t from the clippers.”

“Then what’s it from?”

“I’ll tell you in just a sec. There’s just one more thing we need to complete your new look.” He grinned as he pulled out a beard and mustache from his other pocket.

“So tell me, what’s up with the bump on my neck?”

“Don’t worry,” he assured, applying the adhesive to my upper lip and chin. “It was a subcutaneous tracking chip. I removed it while you were still under.”

“Son of a bitch!” I declared, pounding my right fist into my left hand. “They were keeping tabs on me the whole time. I should have known.”

“Good thing Susan knew about it; otherwise we wouldn’t get very far…There,” he declared with some satisfaction, firmly pressing the slick backing of the hair against my flushed face. “Not bad.” He nodded his head. “I think you can definitely pull this off. You make a better guy than I thought you would. You should see yourself,” he said with a chuckle.

“No thanks. I’ll take your word for it.”

He checked his watch. “Come on. Follow me…Wilson,” he uttered with a chuckle. “Just let me do all of the talking. The less you say the better.” He glanced back just before we hit the doors. With a half smile, he said, “And watch yourself. Try not to walk like a girl.”

“Yes sir,” I said with a mock salute. In response to his furrowed brow, I asked, “What is it? Was my voice too high?”

“Uh…No. Actually, it was fairly passable.” He shook off being weirded out a little. “It’s just strange hearing it coming from you.” He motioned with his head, and we were on our way.

I followed him through the doors and up the stairs to the ground floor. Once again, I had no idea where I was, and Hicks led me down one corridor after another like when I first arrived. I noted that either he was remarkably calm, or he was very good at hiding his nervousness.

While he was hiding his nervousness, I was hiding who I was by being all the man I could be. I felt stiff as a board while I walked, reminding myself every step of the way to keep my arms by my side. My heart rate skyrocketed every time we approached an intersection, for I imagined capture around every corner.

Approaching the end of a particularly wide corridor, Hicks whispered, “Keep nodding like I’m giving you orders.” Hicks opened the door and we were greeted by a blast of very warm air which I would have gladly welcomed shortly after coming back from the dead. But now that I was sweating bullets like during a hot flash, all I wanted to do was take off the thick shirt I was rapidly sweating out.

The guards saluted Hicks and he saluted back. I think they took about as much notice of me as I did of them, keeping my eyes down the way I did, like I was trying to sneak out of a store in the mall to avoid an awkward encounter with my ex.

Just after we descended the stairs, he made a sweeping motion with his arm and I just kept nodding away even after we were well out of earshot of the guards. Then we made our way down the walkway toward a waiting jeep.

After surreptitiously glancing to either side, Hicks said, “That was easier than I thought. Now comes the more difficult part, getting to the foothills of the mountains to the northeast before they discover you’re missing.”

“Thank goodness we don’t have to walk,” I said.

Hicks flashed me a knowing smile. “What?” I wondered.

“I’ll tell you later,” he said, before turning his attention to the man getting out of the jeep.

“Sir!” said the MP.

“At ease,” said Hicks in a weary tone. He motioned for me to get in the back and I quietly did so with head bowed.

Taking a seat as well, Hicks asked, “Did you bring everything I asked for?”

“Yes sir,” said the MP. He motioned with his head. “It’s all in the back.”

“Good,” he replied. “Take us to the strip.”

Once the jeep was up to speed and the airport was slowly coming into view, the MP asked, “Sir? May I ask you a question?”

“Shoot,” replied Hicks, staring off into the distance. “What’s up with all of the survival gear? You said just to drive you to the landing strip.”

“It’s for a very important mission. As risky as it is classified.”

The driver mulled that over while we easily cleared the east gate after some more quick salutes. After we cleared the gate, we passed by another jeep headed in the opposite direction. Everyone remained silent for a while as the other jeep’s lights faded in the distance.

The MP asked, “What does this mission entail sir?”

“You’re about to find out soon,” said Hicks. Just then, Hicks reached over and snatched the soldier’s side arm as fast as a hawk snatching its prey. “Sorry son, but unfortunately, you’re going to be a part of our mission for a little while. Now cut the lights, make a left, and head north.”

“Sir?” he wondered, recovering from his initial shock. “There’s nothing out there. Plus there’s no moon. I won’t be able to see squat sir.”

“No problem. Remember the motto of the boyscouts?” Without taking his eyes off his captive, Hicks handed me a case with his free hand. “Open that Wilson and give the contents to him.”

“Are these,” I began.

“Yep,” said Hicks.

“Cool,” I said, admiring the high-tech gear in front of me. I handed the driver the night vision goggles and they whirred to life like a charging camera flash when he reluctantly put them on.

The driver opened his mouth as it to utter another lame protest, but Hicks immediately cut him off. “Just shut up and drive. Don’t do anything stupid and you’ll make it through this ordeal just fine.”

The man wordlessly obeyed. He killed the lights and we tore through the hot and dusty darkness.

All there was was hot wind and silence as the jeep hummed away a soothing monotone as we bounced our way over the hard pack.

Every so often, Hicks would glance at his compass to make sure we were on the right heading. Turn the wheel a few degrees to the right, he would say, or straighten up and speed up a little. Every time the driver asked how much farther, Hicks would simply say “keep driving.”

I must admit, it was exhilarating as it was terrifying speeding toward those darker humps above the darker ground.

After about thirty minutes, Hicks spoke again, drawing my eyes away from the captivating sight of the multitude of stars above, the likes of which I had never seen.

His eyes still fixated on the driver as much as mine had been on the starscape moments earlier, he ordered the driver to stop. “This is far enough.” Shining a flashlight on the driver’s hands, he continued on. “I want you to slowly take your hands off the wheel and remove your goggles and set them on the dash…Good. Now step out of the vehicle and remember to do it slowly with your hands above your head. Stay right there.”

“What about me?” I wondered, forgetting myself.

“Just stay put,” advised Hicks. “I’ll handle this.”

“You’re a woman?” wondered the driver in disbelief, while Hicks made his way around the front of the vehicle. “Why would you want to leave the base? Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what it’s like out there?”

“Enough!” ordered Hicks. He scanned the parched ground that lie ahead with his light. “Turn to the left about forty-five degrees and walk until I say stop.” After about fifteen feet, Hicks ordered him to stop. “Get down on your knees.”

“You’re crazy!” shouted the driver, turning his head back toward me. “You’re both crazy and you won’t get very far. They’re going to find you and they’re…”

The driver’s threats ended as abruptly as he hit the ground with a muffled thud.

Hicks made his way back to the vehicle and I rushed over and met him nearly half way. Glancing over his shoulder, I asked, “What’d you do that for? We’re out in the middle of nowhere. What if a rattlesnake gets him?”

“Don’t worry Karen,” he reassured. “He’ll be fine. Now go ahead and hand me one of those packs.” I wordlessly obeyed much like the soldier. I handed it him. “Give me some light,” he said, handing me a flashlight. He dug around in the pack and pulled out a few items, including a canteen and a map. No sooner had he dumped them on the ground, then he said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

I hopped back in the jeep, sitting next to him up front. He put on the night-vision goggles and handed me the compass. “You can be my navigator,” he said. He put the jeep into gear and more dust kicked up as we sped away.

I glanced to my left briefly, thinking about the man we had left behind. “You know, you telling me that he’ll be okay really doesn’t make me feel that much better about the situation.”

To which he replied, “It’s not like you were the one pointing the gun at him or who knocked him out.”

“I know. I know. I’m just beginning to have second thoughts is all.”

“Yeah. Me too,” he said, forcing a laugh. “Just let me know if you want to head back.”

A short time later, I joked, “Now that we’ve passed the point of no returns, how much farther?”

“About another twenty-eight to thirty miles.”

“Wow! How long will that take?”

“The terrain is just going to start getting rougher from here on out. I’m going to have to ease back here shortly, so I’d say two…two and a half hours at most. We should make it to the foothills before dawn. From there, we’ll have to go on foot.”

“Go where?”

“Don’t worry about that right now. Just take a deep breath and relax. I really need to concentrate right now, plus we really need to keep the talking to a minimum. We need to keep moisture loss to a minimum.”

I nodded my head and sought solace in the glow from the compass. I knew we weren’t out of danger yet, but somehow I felt everything would turn out alright. Hicks’ calm and matter of fact nature had me feeling very safe at the moment, just like when I was a kid and my dad was at the wheel on the dark interstate driving my mom and I home.

Aside from keeping the jeep on the right heading, I just sat there like a good girl and trusted him. After all, he had already saved my life twice. I just prayed that once the summer sun began its assault on the landscape, we would be in the shade somewhere and no one would have to come and rescue us. I hoped that’s the way it would play out just as I hoped we didn’t get a flat.

~o~O~o~

“Karen,” whispered Hicks, tapping me on the shoulder. “We’re here.”

“Hmm? Oh. That was fast.”

Hicks was already out of the jeep while I was stretching my sore body. I took in my new surroundings for a few moments under the brightening twilight sky. It was mostly a lot of nothingness, albeit a rolling nothingness more pleasing on the eyes, with brush here and there and the occasional silhouetted cactus.

“Watcha doin?” I wondered, just before Hicks disappeared behind a gnarly skeleton of a tree.”

“Trying to hide the evidence.”

“Here,” I said. “Let me give you a hand.”

I helped him scare up some more brush. By the time the feeble light of the flashlight I was holding was increasingly losing out to the pale orange glow of late twilight, the jeep was out of sight and out of mind…for the most part.

Hicks wiped the sweat from his brow. “Alright. Good enough for government work…So, how are you feeling?”

I let out a yawn and tried to shake off some of the fatigue. “About as awake as I’m going to get I suppose.”

Hicks eased his body down next to the pack adjacent to the brush. “Thirsty?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. I lipped my chapped lips at the sight of the canteen he was pulling out of the side pocket. He handed it to me and I took a couple of swigs. “God that’s good! Best water I ever tasted.”

Hicks smiled a knowing smile, and I had the disturbing feeling that the water was probably going to keep tasting better and better as the day wore on.

After I handed him the canteen back, he picked up his bulging pack like it weighed nothing. “Let’s get going. I put some of your stuff into my pack to lighten your load. Just give me a holler if it gets to be too much for you.”

“Thanks, but I think I can manage,” I assured with a half smile.

This is light? I thought to myself as I placed the straps on my shoulders. But I faked a smile and an easy stride until I was alongside him. “Let’s hit the road,” I declared. “We’re burning daylight!”

He flashed me an incredulous smile. “Follow me, and watch your footing.”

We trudged our way across the increasingly rugged terrain. A lone coyote howled as the first rays of the burgeoning sun peeked above the horizon, perhaps lamenting the end of too brief a respite. I could certainly relate. The pack was becoming increasingly heavy with each step just as the air was getting hotter with each passing minute.

Hicks pulled out his map and scanned the largest mound of the morning thus far that was confronting us. His eyes briefly darted back and forth between the small red circle around a dark beige splotch on the map and the corresponding barren reality that was waiting quietly in the distance.

“Just a couple more clicks,” he said. “We should make it to that escarpment before the heat starts to get too bad.”

Noticing that my pack was still resting on the ground, he walked over. I cut him off before his lips could form the first word of a much needed offer of help.

“I’ve got it,” I said. But I think I came across as more tired than proud I imagine. “Just taking in the scenery for a second.”

I picked up the pace and soon I was by his side and commanding my body once more to keep up with what was probably an easy pace for him. He didn’t say it, but I knew I was slowing him down…slowing us down; thus, I didn’t want to complain. I wanted him to think I was tough for some reason. And maybe that reason had to do with some remnant shred of male pride. I wasn’t sure.

By the time we reached the escarpment, the sun’s rays had already sent the small desert creatures retreating to their daytime hiding places as fast as the long shadows of morning were now retreating.

“Watch yourself!” advised Hicks, when we were half way up the escarpment.

No sooner had he said that, that the sole of my right boot dug into what I had thought previously to be unremarkable rock. My boot slipped out along with some rubble. About to tumble down with it, I shouted, “Hicks!”

“Shit!” he said.

He darted toward the tree just above me, grabbed onto a sturdy limb with one hand, and lunged toward me with his free hand. He grabbed me by the forearm just in time and helped me scrabble up to some firmer footing.

Standing next to him by the tree, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

He said, “I don’t think you would have been seriously injured, just scraped up quite a bit.”

I looked back down at all of the progress we had made, all the way to the start that was now marked with rising dust that the rubble had kicked up.

“That would have been a bitch,” I commented. “Having to climb all the way back up I mean. It was hard enough the first time.” I looked down at my burden that I had set down for a few seconds and then back at Hicks. I smiled and said, “I think maybe I’ll take you up on your earlier offer. My pack seems a lot heavier all of the sudden.”

He reciprocated with a warm smile. “No problem. We’re almost there anyway.”

“Ahh,” I said, wincing a little as I took the first couple of tentative steps along the last few meters of the gentle slope that led to a dark recess in the rock wall.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think maybe I tweaked my ankle a little when I lost my footing back there.” I set down my pack and tried to rub it out.

Hicks walked over and picked up my pack. “Just rest here. I’ll be right back.”

He disappeared into the shadows. A few moments later, a steady glow dispersed a good deal of the shadows and Hicks emerged and offered his hand once more. He helped me up and I draped my left arm across his shoulders. Then, he proceeded to help this wounded and exhausted soldier across the threshold.

By the glow of the lantern, I unlaced my right boot and gingerly slid it off, exposing a lump on my ankle that seemed to be rising like a bit of dough.

“Here,” he said. “Let me.” He lifted up my foot ever so gently and slid my pack underneath it. The ice pack he had grabbed from his pack crackled as he eased it toward my swollen flesh.

“Ahh,” I said, wincing slightly at the sensation of the cold sting against my tender flesh that lie somewhere between pleasure and pain. “Sorry for slowing us down a little back there now that everyone and their brother are probably out looking for us.”

Sitting down across from me, he brought his knees closer to his chest and gave me a calm smile. “I highly doubt they’ll find us this far from the base.”

“How can you be so sure? What about the jeep’s tracks?”

“Hardly left any. We dropped off the driver while we were still on the hard pack. And it was hard pack for a good while longer after. As for the jeep, unless there’s a storm that kicks up here shortly, that brush covering up the jeep isn’t going anywhere and the only ones who are going to find it are some curious scorpions or snakes.”

I shuddered. “I hate snakes.”

“Word of advice: if one happens to wriggle its way in here, don’t make any sudden moves. They only lunge when they’re scared.”

I nodded my head and thought to myself, good luck following that advice Karen!

After fifteen minutes or so, he asked, “How’s the ankle?”

Removing the ice pack, I said, “Good and numb. We’ll see when I have to stand up again.”

“For now, try and keep your weight off it. You’ve got plenty of time to rest and heal up.”

“How long are we going to be here?”

“A few days.” Seeing that my eyes went almost as wide as if a rattlesnake had wandered on in, he smiled and reassured me. “We’ve got more than enough food and water and…” He looked around our temporary residence. “And we’ve got plenty of shade until an old friend of mine of mine makes a rendezvous with us.”

“Who is he…or she?”

“She’s the last person who wants anyone from the government to find her, even before the shit storm that went down last week…Pardon my language.”

“It’s okay. I’ve certainly heard worse…” All of the sudden, a lot of “what-ifs” flooded my mind. “What if she changes her mind and doesn’t show? What if she gets scared?”

Hicks stifled a laugh. “She’s a tough old bird. Maybe tougher than me…don’t tell her that I said that by the way.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“She taught me a lot growing up. Manned me up quite a bit and straightened my butt out.”

“Is she a relative?”

“No. But she’s the closest thing I’ve got to family.”

“Oh. Are you…”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

He didn’t elaborated further. Offering my hand, I said, “I’m so sorry.”

His body stiffened up after he acknowledged my lame sympathy with an obligatory smile. It seemed his policy on being sorry was the same as Alice’s when she set me straight on that fateful day.

I yawned and I guess that was his cue. He stood up and said, “Go ahead and rest. You’ll need it. I’ll take first watch.”

He unrolled my sleeping bag for me. I wiggled my way in like a snake. He slipped his gun in the holster and snuffed out the light. I stared at his rock solid silhouette for just a few minutes before drifting off to sleep. The adrenaline had thoroughly worn off.

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To Be Continued...