The Traversing Book I

Chapter 6

The day Amir saw Kokia in the hostage room, she nearly took his breath away. He was sitting in the vestibule of the Arena on his stool, totally unhappy with his post inside the stuffy room. He was equipped with his detail uniform that included two AK-47's on each hip. He was adjusting his ammunition belt when he started scanning the hostage room. Then he saw her. Almost like he already knew her. The word stunning came to mind, and there was something about her that electrified him, and he just couldn't take his eyes off of her. She had dark red hair and it glistened even in the barely there artificial light. She seemed to be comforting her friend on the floor, cradling her and brushing her friend's hair with her fingers. All of a sudden her eyes darted up and she caught him gazing at her, and his heart skipped a beat. He was having feelings he never experienced before. Like he couldn't catch his breath; it was terrifying and quintessential all at the same time. He made himself turn around to stare outside, and he tried to occupy his mind with the soldiers running around, wondering what they were talking about and if he would even really care. 

He looked out at the sky and recalled thoughts of when he was about five and his father took him into his room and began to explain that his mother was not really his mother, that she was his stepmother, and that his real mother had died when he was born. Amir remembered being very confused, thinking he had caused her to die, but his father said no, that she had a condition that caused it. His Dad was so warm to him that day. He hugged him and told him as the eldest son, he had a special place in the family and also increased expectations. He had to be a good boy to make him proud. And that is what Amir was doing now; doing something his father wanted him to do.

Amir took a quick break and walked over to one of the trailers that was open. One of his fellow soldiers grabbed him by the arm and said, "Hey. The American's have dubbed our mission the Animus War," the soldier said laughing and shaking his head. He then turned around and started running away fast toward one of the tanks. Amir then heard more soldiers yelling that they had big success in town today, but the American's were trying to do a counter move since Europe was sending in spy copters with ammo. But the ITAQ had their own technology that could sense the slightest raise in airwaves, pressure and temperature. Something that they held tight to the vest. The ground battalions had remotely taken over some military crafts, and there seemed to be more robot soldiers than men. This was very thought out, very planned. The ITAQ had a goal of not just winning, but making an impression.

Amir sat there through all of the mind-numbing talk, and he just zoned out. He nodded and laughed, but didn't really know about what. It was late afternoon by now, and he was getting hungry. He took out his TerraView and starting watching television. He needed to get his mind off of this madness. His thoughts, though, kept going back to that girl. He had to know her name.

He walked back to the vestibule for the rest ofhis shift and stood up by the stool, readjusted his Radar-R on his belt loop.It used to be a hand-held radar device that they would put against a wall todetect the presence of life in a building. But now it could be done long-range,and with much more precision. For the past few days, the Skins were sendingback thermals on movement in the city. They were dwindling the city'spopulation down, almost like a large cat finding all the mice. The U.S., ofcourse, was reacting, but that didn't matter. They had hostages in many majorcities, and the U.S. didn't like that.

After a few hours, Amir's father came over to him as he was relaxing on thestool and told him he could go. His body aching with a need to sleep, he headedback to the family van. As heapproached, he saw one of his brothers sleeping against the side of the vehicleon the ground, apparently worn out and exhausted. He was very tempted to givehim a kick in the backside, but resisted, and stepped over him and into the vanand quickly lay down in one of the beds. He closed his eyes and tried to relaxhis body when there was a pinging sound that started on the roof, and herealized it was starting to rain. His brother all of a sudden stumbled in afterhis rude awakening, and jumped into the empty bed next to Amir. 

Amir rolledover and faced the wall, closing his eyes and dreaming about escaping toEngland, where he could be free. But his family would just come and find him.They were just like that.