Lift Off

by Anoi

The large truck drew up to a small gateway in the middle of the barbed wire fence. I curiously asked the man,' This is it? '

' Yep. This is the only military base in the whole country that I know of. ' He grinned at me and added,' Of course, I'm not exactly privy to the world government's secrets. '

I climbed down from the main cab, lugging my rucksack with me, tripped up on one of the straps hanging from it and fell flat on my face. Looking up from the ground i saw through the gate a long road to a distant smudge on the horizon which could only be the looked for military base.

I jumped up and around at the sound of the lorry's engine starting up and gave a shout to the man as he started to drive back the way he came. 'Stupid old man' I muttered 'In a stinking cab with no friends and no life other then ferrying goods and the occasional hitch-hiker about. You'd think he would at least drive me to the first building but no, off he goes into the distance, without so much as a 'see you later'.' I turned to face the gate.

There was no-one around so i just slung my bag over the top of the gate and climbed on after it. No alarms went off and no big men in camouflage green popped out of the bushes with huge rifles pointed at me.

I have this huge phobia of sharp and pointy things being pointed at me and tend to react in the worst possible way in the situation. I do a front flip over the top of them, grabbing the offending object between my legs then turning it to point at the offending object's holder. This, often, instead of making me feel safer, works in the opposite way because even more sharp and pointy objects fix their sights on me.

Thankfully by then i have regained enough sense to cower in as small a position as possible until no-one is as ... highly strung.

Looking at the long road in the fading sunlight i was glad of my regulation hiking boots and thick woollen jumper I'd borrowed from a friend.

But it looked a long walk.

I glanced around hopefully but there was nothing that could drive me down the track. i scowled and muttered,'Isn't this supposed to be a military base. So where's the armed escort with the armoured vehicle to carry me to the buildings? No-where.' i started to walk down the road , tripped over the trailing strap and fell on my face. Again.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The first building i came to happened to be the check-point. All these guys came out with their guns pointed at their feet (luckily). They escorted me to some mad old guy in a suit with a bunch of medals.

'Would you care to state your business in this establishment?' God! He sounded like one of those posh hotel receptionists. I smiled sweetly at him, 'I was shipped here to my uncle by my foster parents.'

He looked at me expectantly and, when i failed to answer his unasked question he said, 'I need to know his name'

'I don't know it'

He looked at me as if i was strange. ' You don't know his name. You do know that this could be considered very suspicious.'

I nodded happily. Nothing makes me more happy then to pester old men who thought they owned the world.

'Why don't you know his name'

'Because i only herd it once and i forgot it.' he looked at me sceptically then said,' You'll have to wait whilst we have a message passed around to see if anyone claims you. If that doesn't work then we'll have to do a DNA search.'

I was led into a small side-room where i whiled away the time by pinging small stones (which i collected from the many times i fell on my journey down the road in the dark) at the ornaments of past space shuttles on the table. Then i accidentally broke one of the more delicate ones. I looked around guiltily and hid the pieces under a low couch.

After about an hour i drifted off to sleep only to be wakened by one of the soldiers. I looked at him and, when he asked for my hand, gave it to him. I was just drifting off again when a sharp pain startled me awake. I thumped the poor guy over the head then asked for an explanation.

He needed some of my blood for DNA. I looked down a the sore finger and saw a small prick of blood. Blood...my bloooooooooooood!

I have another phobia. It deals with blood. Others people's is fine but mine is precious.

I thumped the guy a second time and kicked him in the shin. He escaped out the room and i settled down to another nap.

As i drifted off again i heard people talking. It went something like this:

um... sir. There's a problem. We found a match for the DNA . ...? its a Dr Robertson of the physics department.
And this is a problem, how? He's gone sir.
Did we deport him?fire him? No, sir. You don't understand, sir. He's gone. He's part of the first team. Oh god. We do have a problem. Does Dr Robertson have a friend we can ask to look after her? Even a research mate. I'll get ...

After that i just tuned out and fell into a deeper sleep.