Destiny: Quantic Dreams Book 3 by Elizabeth McLaughlin (dark books to read txt) 📕

circled around us.” He took out his tablet and pulled up the camera feed linked to his night vision goggles. In dark relief I saw a quad-copter drone. A camera lens was visible on the front of it, but that was it. Like the strange airplane, the drone wasn’t very advanced. It was hard to tell in the dark but the body looked like it was made of plastic, not metal. If it was the androids, there wasn’t a lot we could do about it. If our pursuers had finally caught up to us, they wouldn’t be hanging back. They would have slaughtered us before we could realise their presence. Perhaps it was our mystery guests. If so, we needed to get in touch.

“Marcus, do you still have the chart laying out Morse code on your tablet?”

“Sure, Mom. But why?”

“Pull it up.” I unsheathed the small flashlight I shoved into my pocket before we left. There was no guarantee that the drone’s camera would see the tiny beam in the darkness but it was worth a shot. I raced through what I could signal. There was no guarantee the drone would stick around for much longer so whatever I signalled had to be quick. Better to stick with the old standby, then.

O O O - - - O O O

O O O - - - O O O

Dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot, dot. S.O.S. Save our ship. Centuries old, the signal was still a commonplace enough phrase that any human watching would get the idea. If these mystery humans were surveilling us, there was hope that they had done a flyby of the colony too. The drone waggled back and forth for a moment. Either it was the world’s most well timed flight malfunction or there was someone on the other end of that camera acknowledging the signal. With that, the drone flew off.

“Get some sleep, my love.” I patted him on the back. “I’ll be sure to wake you if anything else exciting happens.” I secretly hoped that something did. I would have killed for the smallest creature comfort in that moment. My middle-aged physique wasn’t made for sleeping on the ground even for a single night. At this point I was going to need some painkiller of my own. I reminded myself that all I had to do was make it home. Home meant a real bed. Or, at least a proper sleeping bag. One more day.

Sunrise broke through the morning haze and I kicked dirt over the fire to put out the last of the embers. As much as I hated to wake Eliza and Marcus, the sooner we set out the faster we could make it back to the others. We used as little water as possible to wash our faces and hair. I shook my canteen. There was barely enough to last us the rest of the journey. My head was pounding and my stomach rejected the idea of food. A couple days on a limited water was kicking my ass. Maybe I could convince Phoebe Rickman to hook me up to one of her famous banana bags. Convalesce in the infirmary for a few days with a stream of saline and nutrients running through my veins. What a sweet dream.

Chapter Twenty-Four

I could hardly believe my eyes. The colony had completely transformed in our absence. Pallets of aid from the android emissaries was stacked against the entrance of the shelter. It was clear that Jason and Nicole had been busy with building homes. There were more than a dozen new ones, their footprints spiraling out from the shelter’s entrance. The additional food and water had worked their magic.

“Hey! Hey! Here come the conquering heroes!” Jason’s shout carried over the wind and we heard him before we saw him. He jogged up to us, exuberant as ever. He tackled Marcus in a hug and then turned to me before he noticed the sling around Eliza’s arm. “Shit, what happened? Where’s your Dad?”

Marcus shook his head vigorously to head him off but it was too late.

“It’s a story for later, Jason.” I tried to be as gentle with the guy as I could. It wasn’t his fault that he was a living puppy dog. His mouth just ran a little faster than his brain sometimes. “Would you be so kind as to alert Phoebe Rickman that my wife needs medical attention? Actually, we all do. We’ve been on water and food rations for about three days.” Jason nodded and sprinted away.

“Sorry, darlin’.” Eliza bumped me gently with her good shoulder. “That wasn’t Jason’s most...tactful moment.”

“It’s all right. Let’s get the three of us fixed up. There’ll be plenty of time for an explanation after we feel better.”

Dr. Rickman had the sense to not ask any questions. She marched us into the infirmary, now even more stark than when we left it. Marcus and I were treated to intravenous fluids and bowls of warmed over snot. The very same thing that Dad ate for years to keep himself nourished. I swallowed hard, forcing the thick goo down. God bless Dad. I never wanted to touch this stuff again. Eliza was whisked over to an AutoDoc. For once in her life, she didn’t protest. Eliza and my father had shared a mutual dislike for the AutoDocs, courtesy of a childhood phobia on Dad’s part and the inherent distrust of machines on Eliza’s. The fact that she wasn’t pitching a fit and demanding a human doctor was more concerning to me than the bullet wound.

“For being shot, you lucked out.” Phoebe peered at the imaging of Eliza’s shoulder. “The wound is a clear through and through. Minimal tearing to the surrounding tissue. It looks like the bullet grazed a nerve, though. Are you experiencing any numbness?”

“Yeah.” Eliza gritted her teeth as the AutoDoc’s delicate appendages probed at her back. I set down my bowl and brought the IV pole close to the gurney she was laid