The Warrior's Heart (novel for NaNoWriteMo) - 3

 Akaljeet sat with her back against the rock wall of the cliff; the robots had carried the wounded, but two had died in the process.  One of robots had a disabled tread and could not follow them.  She checked on the third wounded man.  She realized that he had died too.

She wondered where Panveer was.  She checked on his signature with he med scanner.  He showed up about 50 meters from her.  Now that there were no more wounded to transport, they could hightail it out of there. 

Panveer did not seem to be moving and she feared the worst.  Realizing that she could be alone out here, she went in his last know direction.  Near panic, she found him lying in some brush.  She quickly checked his vitals and was relieved to see he was still alive.  On further inspection, she realized he had been wounded again, this time in the leg.

She Picked him up in a fireman’s carry and quickly went to her knee; he was to heavy for her to move. While moving him, he became conscious.

“How bad is it?” Panveer said.

Akaljeet consulted her scanner again.  “Is it painful?”

“Very.”

“Your tibia is fractured and you’ve lost some blood.  The shrapnel is lodged near the bone.  You need to be evacuated.”

“Help me to the cliff.”  He put his arm around Akaljeet and half limped, half-dragged his leg over to the cliff wall.  He collapsed and sat with his legs out, back against the wall; he took off his helmet.  Akaljeet kneeled next to him.

“I’m not going anywhere, am I?’ he asked.

Akaljeet scanned the area around them with her eyes.  She went to the robot, which had a motion scanner, and saw that there was no movement around them for 500 meters.  

“Maybe the Iranians will take you prisoner and treat your leg,” Akaljeet said.

“I suppose that is possible, but I will never be taken alive,” he said.  I will kill as many of them as I can before meeting God.  That is what I swore to do when I agreed to come here and defend my country.  The dead of Baltimore demand it.”

“Then we can have the robot carry you back to the landing zone.”  She operated her wrist controller and the robot moved toward Panveer.

“Please give me a second.”  His face grimaced in pain.

“Here,” she said.  She held her autoscalpel up to give him an injection.

“No, I want my mind clear.”

“This will not affect you.”  She injected him with chondicrin, the non-euphoric painkiller made from sharks.  It wasn’t as strong as opiates, but it eased severe pain better than other analgesics.

The night was quiet; and although Akaljeet was worried that Panveer was no longer mobile, she was glad he was alive.  They were at least 3-4 miles away from extraction, and the robots that had carried the wounded from the aid station were no longer active due to the Iranian EMP.  She didn’t see any way forward for them.  She might have to leave him behind and she did not want to do that.

Panveer knew that he was finished.  The pain, even with the shot, was intense; the Iranians would likely advance in the morning, which was now only hours from now.  If they couldn’t find some sort of transport, they would likely die here.  Iranians were not known for taking prisoners.

Panveer placed his pistol and knife on his right side where he could get to them easily.  “You had better go,” he said, “they will be going forward soon, and they will likely kill anyone they find.”  

“I can’t just leave you.”  Akaljeet sat by his side.  She placed her hand on his head and felt for fever.  He was warm.

“You will die for your loyalty,” he said.  

“Then I will die.  I have nothing to live for except to kill Iranians.  They took my husband from me, and they must pay.”  She became worried about his condition, but she took out her scanner but it was dead too.  No medicine, no food, little ammunition: they would not last long.

The Warrior's Heart (novel for NaNoWriteMo) - 2

 After an hour without attack, Akaljeet scouted the perimeter and determined that it was safe to move.  She helped Panveer into what was left of the aid station tent and uprighted a medical bed turned over in the attack.  She did not see any doctors around.  Several wounded soldiers were being treated by surgical robots.  She made Panveer comfortable and then called her position in.

“There are no doctors available,” Command said.  “Your unit has been evacuated to the landing zone.”

“I have wounded here.  I can’t leave them here. Over.”

“No troops available to relieve you position at present.  Mechanized relief on the way.  Retreat with wounded if possible.  Out.”

Akaljeet cursed.  Robots without close support were a recipe for disaster.  Too many times they fired on friendly and enemy positions together.  They needed to move back to the beach.

She awakened Panveer from his drug-induced unconsciousness.  He looked around.  “Where is everyone?”

Akaljeet assessed the situation.  There were three wounded soldiers, plus Ranveer.  He could probably move on his own.  Two of the soldiers had lost legs, a third was unconscious.  She checked his vitals: Blood pressure 90 over 40, pulse weak, fever.  He needed evacuation to the ship off of the coast.  

“M2328 to command.  Require emergency evac to Defiant. Three wounded, over.”  She waited, then shouted, “Command!”  There was no answer.

She turned; Panveer was behind her.  “No answer,” he said.

“None. How are you feeling?  Any dizziness?”

“I’m fine.  We need to evacuate.  The drones are picking up soldiers moving in this direction.

Akaljeet felt the situation tightening around her like a noose.  Although she wasn’t scared, she had not trained for more than a couple weeks in combat techniques before joining the convoy here.  She felt the terror of combat descending on her. She was ashamed; she wanted to run away.

“We can’t leave the wounded here,” she said.  “They will be executed.”

“Wait.”  Panveer scrounged around the station until he found the controllers for the medical robots.  There was a main panel the size of a laptop that could be used to override their automatic functions.  There were seven medibots in all; more than enough.  He took control of three of them and sent them to the wounded.  Then using his wrist controller, he called a sweeper over.

“The medical robots will transport the wounded.  I want you to retreat with this sweeper as protection.  Head directly to the beachhead.  Command has issued a general withdrawal.”

She placed her arm on his.  “I won’t leave you here.”

Mortar rounds exploded in the near distance.  Panveer lowered his eyepiece from his helmet and saw that they were going to be overrun.  “Fine, he said.  No time to argue.  Get the wounded loaded.”  He issued commands to his robots to fire at will.  

 Akaljeet had the wounded loaded on the robot, then issued order to head south to the beach.  They were five miles inland.  She was not optimistic they would make it.  Panveer followed them, issuing commands to the field robots as he walked.

“I’m calling in an air strike,” he said, “to give us some time.  ETA two minutes.  Go for that rock overhang.”  He pointed east.  An indentation in a cliff was two hundred meters away.  Akaljeet commanded the robots to head for that.  They had barely reached that when the sky lit up.  Battalion drones dropped cluster rounds in the area of the aid station.  Wile the rounds went off, the Iranians deployed an EMP.  The drones fell from the sky and exploded loudly on the ground.  After the explosions, the battlefield was quiet.

The Warrior's Heart (novel for NaNoWriteMo) - 1

 

Ranveer Singh, the Systems Operator of his Marine squad, ducked as a body-heat-seeking RPG flew over his head and exploded, killing the man next to him.  His ears rung; slowly, he put the sweeper robot he had deployed into complete AI while he recovered from the shock.  The sweeper moved forward on it antigravity treads and began firing .50 caliber round into the adjacent buildings wherever it detected weapons being fired.  The results were immediate; the Iranians retreated towards the city center of Bandar Abbas.

The landings on the beaches west of there had begun with the First Marine Division as squads came ashore with the ‘Sea Mobs,’ automated amphibious robots with twin mounted .50 caliber machine guns and 30mm cannons.  Ranveer had heard the ‘bumps’ of the 30mm’s taking out the bunkers and armored vehicles of the Iranians.  The Sea Mobs had been operated by soldiers on the destroyers Harkness and Defiant, remotely in part with partial AI control.  They cleared the beaches after about an hour of fighting leaving many Iranian bodies behind.

Ranveer’s squad had come ashore without taking and casualties.  They entered the outskirts of Bandar Abbas before they took significant fire.  The first Ranveer heard of it, two of his soldiers were shot, one in the chest, the other in the arm.  Hunkered down behind a thick stone wall, he released a breacher, a two-tracked robot with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted in its center.  He armed the robots AI and the robot rounds began to shoot in short controlled bursts.  

Once the breacher was working autonomously, he launched a handheld drone to scout the enemy positions and peek around dangerous corners.  “SO to squad,” he said, “you’re clear to the corner.”  The marines responded and moved out to occupy the street corner in front of them.  

Ranveer was a tall man, over six feet, and he wore his traditional blue Sikh turban and long beard tied back with a thatha.  Being from a family of soldiers, he had been in the Marines for four years, a professional soldier defending his country.  His dark eyes studied the video from the deployed drones, looking for enemy soldiers.  He wore a cast iron kara around his wrist, gained when he was initiated into the Khalsa, one of the five kakars or Sikh external articles of faith.  Otherwise he was dressed in desert camo like all the other jarheads.

The breacher had cleared the street in front of them and Ranveer ordered the squad to move forward.  A large overhead drone, run by battalion, used its thermal sites to scan the building in front of them floor-by-floor and spot threats.  One marine pulled a throwbot from the robotic pack mule; it had entered the street behind the squad that carried most of the squad’s gear, ammo, water and batteries.  The soldier chucked the throwbot into through an open window in the building as Ranveer toggled between drone views on a ruggedized tablet.  

Another fire team of three men tossed a ground robot equipped with chemical sensors and its own thermal cameras down a manhole into the rather complex sewer system.  The bot scoured the dark for potential fighters that could pop out any moment.  It triggered a explosive-packed tunnel meant to detonate when a vehicle passed.  A medical bot was treating one of the wounded marines; the others were dead.

As soon as the fighting died down, the Iranians having retreated, Ranveer set the squads robots to standby mode and carried a wounded man back to the battalion medical station.  A third of the men in his squad were dead; another third were wounded.  A young woman, a medic with a red cross across her helmet, met him at the triage tent and diagnosed his soldier’s wounds with a handheld scanner. After injecting him tissue repair nanobots, she turned to Ranveer and addressed him.

“Your man has a fighting chance.  He’s severely wounded, but getting him here will probably save his life.”

She read his name from his uniform.  “You are good with your healing tools, Miss,” Ranveer said caught an interesting look from the medic, who had taken a moment from treating the wounded.  She had tan skin and dark hair cut short in Marine fashion.  Her lively brown eyes danced over him, but a sadness lay there also. 

“I’m Akaljeet,” she said, and smiled at him.  

Reality intervened, as more soldiers were brought in.  “Come and see me in the evening,” she said, and bounded off to treat the wounded.

The war had started when The Revolutionary Guard had smuggled a nuclear device aboard a container ship and detonated it in Baltimore’s harbor.  The death toll had been astronomical and the attack was the worst on the homeland in US history.  Congress had immediately declared war and the invasion of Iran was the result.

Panveer had been training at Camp Pendleton when it happened.  Every American  was outraged, but no more so than he.  Panveer was born in Landover, Maryland and for him, it was like someone had attacked his home.  He immediately re-enlisted and prepared himself for battle.

When he returned to the front lines from the aid station, command had decided to send what was left of his squad back to regroup and pick up reinforcements.  Thus, that evening, Panveer had found himself close to Akaljeet’s aid station.

She met him in the mess tent during her break.  She wore a standard medic uniform, Navy camo blue, and had on a helmet with a microphone near her mouth.  “I don’t have much time,” she said.  “There are a lot wounded to be treated.”

One thing she noted was the coincidence that the two of them, both Sikhs, should meet on the battlefield.  “When I first saw you, I wondered if you were married,” Akaljeet said.  “I thought a soldier as handsome as you must have a wife.”

“My parents had identified a woman for me, but they thought it inappropriate for me to marry when the war came and I was shipped over here.”  Panveer scratched his mustache.  “So, I’m still single.  What about you?”

“My husband died in the  Baltimore blast.  He was deployed at the Marine base.  I haven’t really come to grips with his death, and sometimes, I think he will come over the hill any moment, then I remember he’s dead.”

Panveer saw grief in her eyes and in her slumped shoulders.  It had been barely a year since the blast.  “It is a hard thing to lose someone you love,” he said.  “My brother was killed also.”

She took his hand and squeezed.  Panveer thought this a very forward gesture, but before he could say anything, a rocket exploded near the tents with the wounded, blowing bodies into the air.  Panveer grabbed Akaljeet and threw her to the ground, covering her with his body. Rockets landed all around them now; Panveer’s body shook from the explosions and the concussion of the explosions left his ears ringing.  Iranians liked to send rockets before soldiers came in, and Panveer feared that they were moments away from a wave of infantry inundating the aid station.

When the rockets stopped he pulled Akaljeet to her feet.  They ran to the muster station and grabbed autorifles. Panveer checked his ammunition and led Akaljeet to a defensive bunker just as the Iranian soldiers entered the station.  Panveer fixed a bayonet to his rifle and waited for them to come to him.

“Duck!” Akaljeet shouted, and then shot an Iranian as he came over the edge of the bunker behind Panveer.  A .50 caliber opened up from the direction of the tent and several Iranians went down.  Panveer barely had time to move his bayonet in the direction of the soldiers before one came over into the bunker.  Panveer gored him; the bayonet stuck in the man’s breastbone and he could not remove the rifle.   Akaljeet fired again.  Panveer pulled his combat knife and threw himself on two soldiers attacking her.  

He got the soldier to his left with an arm swipe, slicing the man’s throat.  The other raised his rifle and shot Panveer in the right arm.  Panveer switch the knife to his left hand and impaled the soldier up to the hilt of his knife.  The man looked surprised, then pain filled his face as Panveer twisted the knife in his gut.  He pulled the knife out and the man fell.  Blood from his arm dripped from his hand.  More .50 calibers mounted on robots opened up around them. 

Akaljeet fired an autoround over the lip of the bunker and before they knew it the attack waned.  She saw Panveer’s blood and went to him.  She pulled her scanner, placed over his arm,  and she deployed autoscalpel to cut through the tissue hiding the wound.  Panveer did not yell out in pain, but stiffened as she cauterized the tear in the artery, closed the wound, and injected him with repair nanobots and antibiotic phages.

“Lie back,” she said.  “You need to rest for about an hour and heal.”

Panveer tried to look outside the bunker.  “Has the attack stopped?”

“Yes, the sweepers are driving the Iranians back.  Lie back and rest.”

Panveer did as he was told.  Akaljeet spoke into her microphone.  “Medic 2328 reporting in.  I’m in a bunker with a wounded soldier, condition stable.  Orders?”

“M2328, Command.  Stay put and shelter in place.  Enemy soldiers still in the vicinity.”

To Panveer, she said, “Still enemy in the vicinity.”  Panveer put his knife back in his sheath and took out his automatic .45 caliber pistol.  He was right-handed but still a fair shot with his left. After minutes of silence, they relaxed a little.  Panveer tried to move his repaired right arm but had difficulty.  “Lie still,” Akaljeet said.

“Are you hurt?” Panveer asked.

“No,” she said, “Thanks to you.  You are very brave. I thought I was done.”

“We will all be done before this is over.  We are outnumbered here.”  

“Even with the superior mechanized support?”

“Robots ultimately require living operators.”

She put her head on his shoulder and held him.  Panveer put his good arm around her.  “I don’t want to die here away from my home,” she said.

“We will die where God wills it,” he said.

The Train to Emeryville - Part 6

 It is five years previous, and a hot wind blows to the beach from the Makran desert.  Tim feels his body dehydrate as the heat settles in.  The landings on the beaches west of Bandar Abbas began with the first marine division as squads came ashore with the ‘Sea Mobs,’ automated amphibious robots with twin mounted .50 caliber machine guns and 30mm cannons.  Tim heard the ‘bumps’ of the 30mm’s taking out the bunkers and armored vehicles of the Iranians.  The Sea Mobs were operated by soldiers on the destroyers Harkness and Defiant, remotely in part with partial AI control.  They cleared the beaches after about an hour of fighting leaving many bodies behind.

Tim’s squad came ashore without taking any casualties.  They entered the outskirts of Bandar Abbas before they took significant fire.  The first Tim heard of it, two of his buddies were shot, one in the chest, the other in the arm.  Hunkered down behind a thick stone wall, he released a breacher, a two-tracked robot with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted in its center.  He armed the robot's AI and the robot rounds began to shoot in short controlled bursts.  

Once the breacher was working autonomously, he launched a handheld drone to scout the enemy positions and peek around dangerous corners.  “SO to squad,” he said, “you’re clear to the corner.”  The marines responded and moved out to occupy the street corner in front of them.  

The breacher had cleared the street in front of them and Tim cleared the squad to move forward.  A large overhead drone, run by battalion, used its thermal sites to scan the building in front of them floor-by-floor and spot threats.  One marine pulled a throwbot from the robotic pack mule that had entered the street behind the squad that carried most of the squad’s gear, ammo, water, and batteries.  The soldier chucked the throwbot through an open window in the building as Tim toggled between drone views on a ruggedized tablet.  

Another fireteam of three men tossed a ground robot equipped with chemical sensors and its own thermal cameras down a manhole into the rather complex sewer system.  The bot scoured the dark for potential fighters that could pop out any moment.  It triggered an explosive-packed tunnel set to trigger when a vehicle passed.  A medical bot was treating one of the wounded marines; the other one was dead.

Tim saw from his tablet that the building ahead was occupied by the Iranians, but before he could warn his squad, they opened up with RPG heat-seekers, which honed in on the marines' heat signatures.  One exploded next to him, and he lost consciousness.

When he came to, he was in a field hospital.  Bandages were wrapped around his head.  He couldn’t feel his toes, and for a moment panicked until he saw his toes.  The shock came when he realized that his right arm had been amputated at the elbow.

The Train to Emeryville - Part 5

 The next morning, Penny awoke and began to organize her day.  After dressing for a warm day in jeans, a tank top, and tennis shoes, she put away some of the things from her suitcase: toiletries, her vitamins, and the few clothes she had brought with her from Nevada City.  She needed to go to the bank and get some more money; she didn’t like to travel with much cash, and although she had a couple, she did not like to use credit cards for anything except emergencies.  As she moved around in her cousin's old room, she thought of the handsome Tim and his mysterious past.  She realized that she like him and wanted to see him again.

Tim called her about 10:00 a.m. just as she was finishing the cleaning of the kitchen.  Her hands were still damp from soapy dishwater and she had a green kitchen apron on.  

“How are you?” Tim asked.  He seemed a little nervous; his voice had an odd quaver to it and he paused a little after saying hello.

“I’m good Tim; I enjoyed our pizza last night that weighed exactly 1.84 pounds,” she said.

“Yeah, me too.  Are you busy today?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“How about we take in an A’s game.  Starts at 1:00 o’clock.”

They met at the shuttle station and took BART to the Ring-Central Coliseum station and from there they walked into the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum.  The coliseum had been redone since the 2020’s years and now was one of the premier facilities in the country to see a baseball game.  Mount Davis had been removed, and the seats were now much closer to the field.  She could smell cut grass and roasting meat from her seat.

They sat on the first base side of the field about nine rows above the field.  Penny, who had never been to a baseball game, thought this would be fun; there was a carnival feel to the air, and Tim seemed completely at ease.  They got hot dogs and beer from a vendor and made themselves comfortable as the first pitch was thrown.

Tim said, “There’s nothing like a baseball game to make me relaxed, especially with good company.”  He smiled at her.  Penny was still impressed with how big a man he really was.  He stood at least a foot taller than her and his long black hair and beard added to his sense of ruggedness.  His hand was big; big enough to crush apples she thought, and the muscles in his arm and chest rippled underneath his Oakland A’s t-shirt.  He talked like an emcee, explaining all the aspects of the coliseum and the rules of the game, of which she was mostly ignorant. It was hard to believe, sitting next to him at this happy moment, that he had any problems at all.

They watched the first few innings, chatting amiably about baseball, the weather, and the likelihood that the A’s would win, which seemed less and likely as the Angels continued to score. As the game wore on, Penny found herself wondering about his service in the marines and how he had lost his arm.  She finally decided to bring up the subject after their second beer.

“Tell me about your service, Tim,” she said.  “Do you mind talking about it?”

“Not much to tell.”

“You were in the marines?” she asked.

“Yes, two tours, both in Iran.”

“What did you do?”

He paused, apparently thinking about what to say.  “I told you.”

“Were you on the ground?”

“From the beginning.  I came ashore with the first wave at Bandar Abbas.  I was a systems operator for my squad.  I handled the drones and the robots during the invasion.”

“Can you tell me about that?”

The Train to Emeryville - Part 4

 Penny opened the door of her Uncle Jorge’s home and walked in.  She heard the croaking of the tree frogs from the living room, and she smelled the fresh scent of an automated air freshener in the electrical outlet wafting through the room.  The television was on; a true-crime show presented the case of the dressmaker’s children, who apparently liked knives.  Uncle Jorge watched TV all the time, and he enjoyed a good mystery.  

After saying hello, she put her handbag on the kitchen counter and made herself a cup of camomille herb tea.  The kitchen itself was spotless, maintained by a maid who came in twice a week.  The cups in the cupboard had interesting catchphrases such as ‘Of course I talk to myself, sometimes I need advice’ and a cup shaped like a prescription bottle with the prescription reading ‘coffee.’  Uncle Jorge’s Persian cat jumped onto the counter and rubbed against her arm, meowing loudly.  Penny patted the cat while her water boiled.  The atmosphere reminded her of her father; their home had been a lot like this before he died in the helicopter training accident off Camp Pendleton near San Diego.  The pain of that memory still smoldered; her mother had never gotten over it.  She committed suicide a year later.

Tough things happened to a lot of people, not just her, she reminded herself.  People who made a difference got over it and carried on.

When she joined her uncle on the couch next to his wheelchair, she put her hand on his arm, which he petted while smiling.  He was slightly bald with gray hair at his temples.  “How did your date go,” he asked.

“Pretty good,” she said.  “He’s an attractive man and an Iran veteran like me.” She took a sip of her tea.  “He was in the Robotics division: 273^rd RAS.”

Jorge turned to her.  “The Terminator Division.  That was a nasty business before they pulled those machines out.  They killed a lot of civilians as I remember; too many civilians for some people.”

“True.  It sounds like he has some PTSD about it.”  Penny wished he would mute the TV.

As if he read her mind, he turned the volume down.  “I know the Army and Navy needed those killing machines to win the war, but I’m with the people who are against them.  It makes warfare too impersonal.  To me, it’s like using cluster bombs.”

“If they do the job,” Penny said.  “War is about killing.  They sure didn’t have any problem killing our guys.”

They sat in tense silence for a moment, then Penny said, “I know it sounds weird, but I find that one of Tim’s most attractive features is his PTSD.”

Jorge’s look froze on his face like dry frost on a window.  “That doesn’t sound good.”

“It so hard for me not to want to fix people Uncle.  And it’s even harder for me to actually fix them.”  Penny’s frustration welled up in her as if she would never be rid of it.  “I’m only really comfortable when people around me are happy.”

“That’s not always going to be the case, especially if you date veterans,” Uncle Jorge said.  “Look at me.  It was years after I came back from the Stan before I was even decent to people.  A roadside bomb and then the hospital was there; no leg, no buddies, just pain and loss.  He patted the bald spot on his head.  “I remember that it took three therapists and risperidone to get me to the point where I could just be around people.  If I had a girlfriend who was trying to psychoanalyze me, I probably would have broken her neck.”

“Not really?” Penny said.

“Well, maybe not bad, but I would have reacted, perhaps violently.  People in pain don’t want to listen to someone talk about their pain.”

“He doesn’t seem near that bad,” Penny said.  

“If your soldier is up and functioning okay, that’s pretty good.  Just don’t push it.  In fact, here’s a challenge for you: Try to get to know Tim without trying to fix him.”

The Train to Emeryville - Part 3

 After she and her Uncle Jorge ate a meal of plantains and pinto beans, Penny walked to the bus stop on Fortieth Street and Hollis and grabbed the bus to Berkeley.  During the ride, she thought about what Jorge had said about her need to fix people; she didn’t really see herself like that.  Although she had tried to help Sam overcome his shyness and lack of ability in bed, she did not see him as broken and needing “fixing.”  People were the way they were created, with their own set of desires and problems; she knew that she could not change that.  She merely saw herself as someone who could help people overcome their limitations.  Of course, it didn’t always work; nothing ever did, but when it did, the personal rewards for her left her insatiate for more.

When the bus arrived at Shattuck Avenue, she got out and walked to the pizza place at University.  Tim was not there yet; she was a little early.  There was a musician on the sidewalk playing an acoustic guitar; the songs were classic folk ballads like “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.”  He was pretty good; he had a rich, deep voice, and played quite adequately.  He could have used a shower, though.

“He’s pretty good, isn’t he,” a voice said behind her.  She turned and saw that Tim had come up behind her.  He was dressed in a nice blue button-down shirt and jeans.  His hair was carefully combed and it looked like he had put some hair gel in it.  His smile was attractive; his body language welcoming.

“Yes, he is,” she said and put a couple of dollars in the musician's guitar case.  “I didn’t see you come up.”

“I’m sneakier than your average date,” he said.  “Let’s go inside.”

They took a booth in the corner.  There were blue and red menus with cute angel things drawn in the margins.  On the table, there was a scale, for what, Penny couldn’t imagine.  Did they weigh the pizza when they brought it?  The smell of freshly cooked bread pervaded the air; it made Penny salivate.  When the server came, they ordered a large pie with sodas.

“So,” Penny said, “What’s it like to be a librarian?”

Tim smiled and sat back with his legs up in the booth and his back against the wall.  “It’s a living.  Mostly I shelve books and help patrons with the computers.  That’s what I did in the Marines, computers and automated weapon systems.”

“What unit were you with?” Penny asked.

“The 273^rd Robotics and Automated Systems Division.  We were called the RAS division for short.”

Penny had heard of these guys when she was in the Army.  They were largely responsible for winning the war in Iran, although they were controversial.  Many people thought those killer robots should never have been authorized by Congress.  Penny knew that the demands of the war had necessitated their deployment, and they had been responsible for considerable death among civilians.  She wondered if this had any effect on Tim.    

“I’m impressed,” she said.  “That was some pretty technical stuff.”

“What did you do in the Army?”

Penny took a deep breath.  She was a little nervous; this man was incredibly handsome and just her type.  She felt attracted to him at a guttural level, something she had never felt with Sam or any other man for that matter.  “I was a battlefield medic,” she said.  I saw action in the last part of the war.”

“The drive on Tehran?”

“Yes.”  Penny felt quiet suddenly, remembering those days.  The fighting had been especially heavy in the last weeks of the war before the armistice.  She had seen enough blood and torn bodies in those weeks to last her the rest of her life.

“That kind of service can leave a scar on you for life.  I should know; I have a problem thinking about my service in the war.”

Penny leaned forward and folded her hands on the table.  The look on his face piqued her interest.  “What kind of problem do you have?”

At this point, the server brought the pizza and placed it on the scale on the table.  Penny thought this amusing; she laughed a little and smiled at Tim.  The pizza weighed exactly 1.84 pounds on the digital readout.  The server returned to the kitchen; Penny said, “I’m glad we know exactly what our pizza weighs.”

Tim smiled.  “Pretty funny, huh?  It’s their gimmick.  If you get the deep-dish, it sometimes weighs three pounds.”

“So you were saying?”

“Yeah, well I’ve had a lot of therapy after coming home about the war.  I blank out sometimes when I think about the war, so I’m trying to work on that.”

Penny could sympathize with that.  Her own experiences weren’t pleasant to recall.  “What about the war particularly bothers you.”

Tim paused his chewing; he started again and swallowed. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

Penny wiped her mouth with her napkin.  “Sometimes, it’s best to talk about these things.  That is something I learned by working with wounded soldiers.”

“I don’t think so,” he said and became quiet and withdrawn.  They ate the rest of their meal in silence.

Penny was a little taken aback by his behavior.  There was an attractive man who had a big problem, something that really appealed to her.  She remembered her Uncle’s advice and decided not to push it tonight.  There would be time to talk about this if he wanted.  She wondered if her attraction to Tim was because of her innate sense that he was damaged and needed fixing.  She shoved this thought down and made small talk with him.

The Train to Emeryville - Part 3

 Penny arrived at her uncle Jorge’s home about 5:30 p.m. after walking about a mile from the bus stop.  He lived in Berkely Hills at the top of a particularly steep residential road that circled lazily around the steep grade.   When she got there, she rang the bell, but there was no answer.  

She went out to the driveway.  Uncle Jorge’s house was a small, two-bedroom affair, painted blue with white trim.  The yard was neatly kept; the lawn was manicured and the flowerbeds were bright with green and yellow colors mixed with the redwood mulch.  Freshly steam-cleaned, the driveway had been bleached stone white, and the fence around the back yard was a pale, sky blue, complimenting the navy blue of the house.  A gardening drone was working in the front flowerbed.

Penny took off her pack and sat on the front step of the porch.  Her uncle would undoubtedly be along soon.  As she waited, she checked her phone; Tim had already sent a message:

::Mom says she is sorry.  Maybe we could get some dinner tonight?::

Well, he doesn’t waste any time does he, she thought.  She texted back.

::Where?:: 

::DYK Telegraph Pizza university ave Berkely?::

::Sure, How about 8pm?::

::See you there::

One of those regional door-to-door transports pulled up in front of the house.  The driver got down and opened the handicap door where her uncle Jorge sat in his wheelchair.   He caught sight of her as the driver lowered the handicap elevator of the bus.  She went to greet him.

“Penny!” he said.  “Sorry, I’m late.” She bent over to kiss him of the cheek; he patted her back.  “Let’s go in,” he said.

It began to rain as they got to the porch.  Shaking off, she wheeled her uncle into the living room.  “Where do you want to go?”

“Take me into the den.  You’ll see my spot.”

She took him through the kitchen and into the den, where there was an apparent space for the wheelchair.  He patted the couch, indicating where she should sit.

“So, how have you been?” asked Jorge.

Penny situated herself on the couch.  A sliding glass door to her right led to a portico with brick pillars; a picture of a peacock, taken in the San Diego Zoo, framed the wall above a large-screen television.  She detected the smell of Old Spice, her uncle’s favorite.  A fish tank with gravel, a miniature pond, and small frogs were behind her against the wall.  The frogs croaked; the atmosphere similar to an early evening walk in the woods.

Penny said, “I’m a little disheveled.  I broke up with my boyfriend; needed to get out of town for a while.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.  Was this the carpenter?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I never thought you two had much in common.  He was all construction boots and unfiltered Camel cigarettes as I remember.”  The light from the lamp by the couch framed him, a frown on his face.

“Yes, well he was not the most thoughtful man I’d ever dated, but he was incredibly attractive if you know what I mean.  I’m a sucker for big, bulky men that are rough around the edges.”

“Why didn’t you two stay together?” Jorge asked.

“He was pretty tame when it came down to it,” she said.  “It turns out I need a little more aggressiveness in a man than I thought.”

“I see.”  Jorge rubbed his chin.  “Well now that you’re here, you can fix me your beans and rice casserole.  You know its my favorite.  How long can you stay?”

“A couple of weeks probably.  I was going to go down to the Oakland Vet Center and see if they need any volunteers.”

“I’ve never understood your need to try and fix people.  You should have become a psychiatrist, not a trauma nurse.”

“In surgery, I actually do something that affects the patient immediately,” she said.  Her look turned dark, reflected in Jorge’s watching her.  “The problem is that we can’t fix everyone.”

He turned in his wheelchair and lifted his leg, amputated at the knee, onto a stool designed to prop up a reduced limb.  “No you can’t.  You fi the ones you can and do the best you can with rest.  You should not let your work bleed into your romantic life.”

“What do you mean?”  she said with a surprised look on her face.

“Were you trying to fix this carpenter?”

Penny sat back and thought about the question.  Sam had been timid in bed, even a little impotent for such a virile man.  She tried to get him more stimulated to love her, but in the end, her efforts were in vain.  She had tried everything she could think of but in the end, he couldn’t change him.  It was why they had broken up.

Penny said, “Maybe a little.”

His eyebrows were feathered dark in thought.  “People generally don’t want to be fixed,” Jorge said.  “You may be in for a frustrating life is you continue.”  He took a breath.  “Your alternative is to look for a man who wants help to be fixed.

She thought about Tim, who was nice and didn’t seem to have many problems.  Maybe he was someone she could be with without her need to fix him.  “I have a date tonight with a man I met at the BART terminal.”

Jorge smiled.  “Already you met someone here?  That’s pretty fast work.” 

“Well, it just kind of happened.”

“Promise me you won’t try to fix this man, whatever his problems.”

“Okay, I promise.”  Penny was sincere, but already she was wondering what Tim had under his rough exterior.