CHAPTER TEN - CHOICE
The world had completely cloaked itself in darkness when the two trucks finally rumbled into the tunnel entrance to the base.
Brian’s haunted eyes had watched the moon as it stealthily crept out into the sky to bear its light out onto the bloodshed that had taken place that night, before the clouds hushed and buried it from sight to plunge the world into the gloom of night.
He thought of what he had to do when they reached the base. It was time to tell B of Darren and Kevin’s proposition about the computer chip, but he still had no idea what he was going to say. He had drawn a truce with B just before he left but now he feared that the heavy, stone walls of B’s defences may go slamming back up before he began firing anger and hatred at Brian again. It was always the same. There was always something to shatter every bridge that was ever made between them.
Kevin signalled to the driver behind him in the second truck before both of them slowly ground to a halt in the main cavern of the area reserved for the few trucks the resistance owned.
Brian turned and saw that Sammy, Darren and a few others were anxiously awaiting them but he saw his son’s face frown before it drifted into sadness as he saw the bloody passengers in the back of both trucks.
While the three of them climbed form the front of the truck Darren had ordered some men to help with the survivors.
“Dad!” Sammy cried the second he saw his weary father step out of the green vehicle. “What happened?”
Brian lowered his head, unwillingly to raise his ghostly eyes to meet Sammy’s emotional eyes. Sammy gently placed his hands on his shoulders and then pulled him into an embrace, understanding silently that his father did not wish to talk. The terrified sobs and cries of pain from the survivors being unloaded form the trucks spoke for him.
“B was worried about you,” Sammy said softly. “I promised him I’d make you go and see him when you got back.”
“I have to talk to him,” Brian murmured.
“Is this about what you told me about?” Sammy asked. Brain had already spoken with him about what Darren had suggested. Sammy was as distraught as Brian, but they both understood why it had been suggested. The village massacre today made it even more clearer to Brian now.
There wasn’t much choice.
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Brian stumbled along the dusty corridor towards the room he shared with B, thoughts and images spinning and clashing about his skull to erupt into one, agonisingly painful headache.
Sammy had seen that he was exhausted and the entire rescue team had been relieved while Darren and the others escorted the passengers to the medical centre or to spare rooms. Nick had been reunited with Aaron but he was still sickeningly pale after what they had all seen.
Everything was too deep and dark now and Brian felt as if he were slowly drowning in the emotions and pain that swept through him. His heart was beating harder with each step and each time he thought of never seeing B again.
Could he live if anything ever happened to B? B was a child, his child to protect, his beautiful gift from God, just like Sammy. He had let B down as a baby and now he was faced with a sickening choice: Risk’s B’s life or sit back and wait for the Gerai to massacre another village and shed more innocent blood over the grass and earth.
He stopped for a moment and leaned against one of the craggy walls while he passed a hand over his face. His temples were throbbing hard and he felt sick with stomach cramp. Nerves could always destroy him physically nowadays.
He thought of a world without B and already his eyes were growing heavier and heavier as they filled with despairing water drops. B had a whole life ahead of him and he was always so lively. Without him… he remembered the day he had left B before and the pain that had accompanied that departure. Now it would be a hundred times worse. How could a father ever bury his son?
He took a deep breath before wiping his eyes free from sparkles of betraying tears. This was B’s choice… but Brian knew he would be scared whatever response the boy gave.
He walked the last few steps to their room and then peered into the gloom to see that the lamp upon the table was dimly lit with a violet glow.
B was wrapped up in his bed at the late hour, his mind comfortably shrouded in veils of soothing slumber. Brian smiled tenderly down at him and gently wiped his scruffy fringe back from his face. B always looked like an innocent child when he slept and sometimes it seemed impossible to believe that he was in fact almost eighteen. Too much over the years had dragged him down and refused to allow him to lead a normal, free life.
He stared down at him for another long moment, remembering long ago that time when he had been forced to say goodbye to B. He had been terrified that somehow time would erase the memory of him, but now it did not matter because he could be with B everyday, but now the future was grim and uncertain. Sometimes Brian wondered if his life could ever possibly be happy again. Once he thought he had had everything when Sammy and B had found him, but now fate was laughing at him as it watched him scurry through life trying to dodge the cruel obstacles hurled in front of him.
Quietly he crossed to his own bed and slumped down heavily, his hands rising to catch his head as he thought about the blood soaked mud and the bodies that had lie motionless on the ground in Aaron’s village.
How could the Gerai be so ruthless? That village had been innocent… where they just after revenge because of their defeat before? Or did this really have to do with his little B?
Little B… B was still a child even now. He was still so mixed up inside and he needed security to safely engulf him and to prevent him from drowning in such a cruel world that was overflowing with danger. Brian had thought that he would be bale to prosper when the war was over, but now they were being swept back to where they started, B trapped and hunted.
He heard B stirring slightly to his left and he watched as one of his arms found its way above the duvet. Immediately Brian’s eyes rolled along the red scar that distorted and corrupted the otherwise smooth skin of the arm. His eyes burrowed into it as if his hatred for the thing inside could somehow cause it to dissolve and free B. That hideous computer chip was the reason for this madness and this danger but to destroy meant to destroy B. That price was too high. There had to be a way out other than by sacrificing his son.
He fell back onto his bed, curling himself up into a foetal position. Darren wanted the information in that chip and he was growing more restless and agitated. A part of Brian vaguely wondered if he ever regretted not destroying B years ago, it would have saved a lot of problems, but at the core Darren was too soft and had too big a heart to allow a child to be sacrificed.
Now though he wanted to risk B’s life to gain the information that rested inside. Nearly all of them did. And it was Brian’s decision. He had to choose whether to give them more insight into the situation which might help them in their continuing war, or to allow B to remain in complete, blissful innocence to the entire situation.
What if B died as a result of the operation?
What if another massacre took place?
Why did it have to be his son? Why was it his decision?
Why?
He turned back towards B and saw that he was stirring more. The boy yawned and then very, very slowly his eyes opened to reveal the green, sparkling orbs beyond. He smiled as he noticed that Brian was home.
“You’re back,” he said, obviously pleased.
“Yeah,” Brian said softly. He smiled back at B, but he knew it was forced. It is always difficult to let a smile light your face when so many horrors dance before your eyes, seen only by your stricken mind.
B did not seem to notice though as he rubbed his eyes and sat up in his bed. “Is Aaron okay?” His voice was caring and anxious, even though he did not know Aaron particularly well. B always cared about his friends and anyone connected to them. He was a sweet kid beyond all the anger and the crankiness that bubbled beneath his skin.
“He’s fine. He was helping to unload the survivors when I left to find you.”
“Survivors?” B’s brow furrowed at the ominous word.
Brian nodded, knowing that he would be a fool to lie to him. The entire base would be discussing it by morning and B deserved to be told by Brian. “It was a massacre, B. The Gerai had slaughtered as many as they could.” It was no use sparing the details either.
The light in B’s eyes suddenly faded and was extinguished at the harsh news. After living through a Gerai attack on his own village, he knew exactly what it was like. “Why?” he whispered quietly.
“We don’t know.”
“They’re gaining power aren’t they? They’re going to come back.” B tucked his knees up to his chest below the blue duvet and wrapped his arms about them as he gazed mournfully at the bed.
Brian slowly crossed to B and knelt down on the floor beside the bed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Brian confessed sadly.
B glumly fell silent and he rested his head on his knees. Brian could sympathise as he saw the melancholy look in his eyes. B had spent his entire life under war and it still wasn’t over even now.
And there was worse to come.
“BB,” Brian said, using the nickname he hadn’t used for days. He clasped B’s hands and watched as the boy regarded him in puzzlement. “I have to talk to you about something. Something very important.”
“Fire away.”
“Darren and the doctors believe that they have found a way to probe the chip in your arm without killing you. They want to now perform the procedure on you.”
There was a flicker of fearful light that crept across B’s eyes and his fingers had suddenly grown clammy. The scar on his arm was exceedingly sensitive and Brian knew that it would sometimes randomly cause the boy pain. He also knew that the chip had been probed before to extract tiny pieces of information. Sammy had told him that if they probed too much, then it would really begin to cause B pain. After that… it would kill him.
B opened his mouth for a moment and then closed it as if to moisten his tongue before speaking. “Why?”
“They think it has something to do with why the Gerai are still fighting. They need to know what they’re dealing with and if it’s likely that they’ll come after you.”
“Okay,” B said quietly.
“B,” Brian said softly as he climbed up to sit beside B. “They were honest with me and they told me that there is a risk to your life if something goes wrong.”
B gulped. “What do you think I should do?”
“It’s your choice.”
“What if it were yours?”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you. You’re my son. You sometimes think I’m a monster, but I still care. If anything happened to you…”
B fidgeted slightly. “I – I trust them,” he said eventually.
Brian slowly slipped one of his arms around B and for the first time in weeks the boy did not struggle or push him away, but leaned into the embrace instead.
“You don’t have to go through with it,” Brian whispered.
“I think we both know that I have to.”