A Different Virus - Laura's Story

Chapter 111

I gently knocked on the hard object on Ben's chest, "I have never seen bullet proof armor before."

The huge man was amused, "We just picked it up yesterday in the raid and I hadn't seen any in person until then either."

Diane snorted in amusement, "Indeed Ben, but now you need to learn to fight while wearing it."

The blue-eyed man grinned at Diane, "I somehow suspect that is an order and not a request."

She chuckled, "Then you would be correct. You should round up the other caravan guards who also picked up such armor and meet me in the arena after supper."

"Will do."

I watched Ben walk off in wonder. I had never seen such a big man. He towered over everyone here and was solid muscle. I should have been cowering in fear and shyness, yet a single glimpse of his blue eyes had me bold enough to even touch that heavy chest armor.

A thought occurred to me and I examined it. My Heartfire altered my behavior if Diane was down from donating blood, so it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to assume that Heartfire also made me trust others with the blue Heartfire eyes. It made sense and explained why I was suddenly so much braver around those with blue eyes.

I looked up at Diane, "We are leaving in two days, right?"

Diane nodded, "Yes."

I wondered what it would be like to return to Wainwright after all of this time. I really looked forward to seeing Trish, Nathan, Rick, Donovan and Ace again. Roland had already decided that they were going to camp outside of the Fort's rather spacious fence and rely on our own fence. It would also help those who were fired to sneak away unnoticed at night for their run.

Their eyes now glowed and most had difficulty dimming their eyes. I had finally managed to dim my eyes a bit, but some of the glow still remained. It was still progress though, and I was doing better than some were. Glowing eyes were bound to make the residents of Wainwright Fort uneasy.

Most of the people with us had been fired and bright blue eyes were visible wherever you looked. Roland had slowed the trucks down and most were running alongside the trucks to wear off excess energy before we made camp. It would have been an odd sight to anyone else, dozens of people running alongside trucks with ease.

I knew that Diane had told a few trusted people in her letters that we had found a way to transmit the Heartfire virus, but I doubted that they would be expecting a large group of traders to appear when most sported the same startling blue eyes she did. The nickname Blue eyed traders seemed to have spread to most towns we visited.

We got closer to the Fort and those running climbed on the trailers as the trucks slowed down. Roland also didn't want someone to try to steal the trucks so he was trying to make it look like we were running entirely off of solar with our slower speed. The fewer people who knew exactly how powerful our steam engines were, the better it was for us.

   Wainwright Fort came into view. I didn't see any differences at all and we had been gone over a year. The trucks were heading over to park beside the treehouses. We would simply attach the two ends of our fence to their gate so people could enter our camp safely.

They must have been watching for our appearance since we had barely started unloading the fence when a group of people started approaching. I recognized the Base Commander and Commanders. A group of Guards with blue badges also accompanied them.

The Base Commander spotted me as I carried some rope to another trader and he stopped dead in his tracks before looking around. It didn't take him long to spot Diane. She grinned and waved before heading towards him. I headed towards Diane, this was one man who had never tried to separate us during our time here, and I counted him among the ones that I could probably trust. Even if my shyness tormented me.