Chapter 157

Weeks of healing for Rain, Adam, and Mist brought their bodies back to full strength, or close to it. For Mist, there would be no returning to the battlefield, not now that she knew she was pregnant. Rain and Adam both wanted to return to the ranks and help defeat the rest of the Mothers that were still fighting near the center of Michaelanburg. With every passing day, their ranks dropped, but as long as President Violet and her cabinet were still at large, the Quebecians would not back off.
Saying goodbye to Mist had been difficult, but Rain was also relieved that she no longer had to worry about the safety of her best friend. Fighting alongside the woman she loved most in the world and the man she wanted to marry had been weighty, and she was thankful at least one of those people was now out of harm’s way for good.
Rain had different roommates in her camp tent on the outskirts of the launching area near the city of Janetsburg, one of the cities closest to the capital city, which had fallen while Rain was still in the hospital. Adam was staying with a few other male soldiers a few tents down. They’d been training together but hadn’t had much time to see one another since moving into their new dwellings. That was okay with Rain though because she wanted to concentrate on getting the job at hand complete. President Violet either needed to die for her crimes or spend the rest of her miserable life in prison. Either one would suit Rain just fine.
“Rain, you’re wanted in the information tent,” a male voice said. Rain turned to see an unfamiliar face poking inside of her tent flap as a male officer shouted at her.
She’d been in the process of folding her extra uniform and putting it away when he called to her. She saluted and said, “Yes, sir.”
A nervousness fluttered inside of her as Rain made her way to the information tent. She had no idea what they wanted. She just hoped that they weren’t about to tell her that she wasn’t fit for the mission for some reason. The doctors had cleared her the week before, and she’d arrived here two days earlier to get ready for a large attack that was planned for the day after next, unless the Mothers surrendered by then.
Entering the information tent, Rain was surprised to see Lt. Laurant there. She had no idea he was even on this front. She saluted, and he returned the gesture, smiling at her. “Hello there, Rain,” he said. “At ease, soldier. How are you?”
“Good, sir,” she said, taking note of the other ten or twelve people in the tent. They were all sitting in front of computers watching monitors, typing on computers, or running around talking to one another in urgent voices.
“I wanted to come and speak to you myself after I heard everything that you did in Gretchintown. You and your friends managed to get some very important information out of the medical building before it came down. I wanted you to know that we were able to use that information to let the rest of the world know of the atrocities the Mothers were committing, including the use of fossil fuels, which were outlawed many years ago by agreement of all civilized nations in the world. We also had enough proof of the men who were being abused that there’s not a single country in the world that doesn’t approve of our invasion.”
A smile brightened Rain’s face at hearing that. “I’m so glad, sir.” So many other words came to mind, but she couldn’t sort through them. Lightning had died to get that information to the world; so had many others.
“As we went through the information that was given to us, we found a database that supplied the parental information for every child conceived in Michaelanburg for the last two hundred years.”
Rain’s eyebrows raised. That had to be hundreds of thousands of children considering how many had “failed to thrive.”
Lt. Laurant took a few steps over to a table where he picked up a file. “We haven’t finished calculating how many children were taken across The Bridge, as it was called, but I wanted to repay you and your friends with some information as soon as I could because of your service to us. I regret not having had a chance to talk to Mist. I will do so when I get back to Quebec. I’ll be speaking with Adam shortly as well, but I wanted you to see this.” He handed her the file.
Rain looked Lt. Laurant in the eyes, her hands shaking slightly as she hesitated to open it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it said. She already knew that Mother White was her biological mother. Would this also show her who her dad was?
“Open it, Rain,” Lt. Laurant said in a supportive voice.
She took a deep breath and opened the file.
Her eyes scanned over the paperwork. The numbers listed for her parents told her nothing, but a second sheet identified the name given to the woman who corresponded with the number on her mother.
“White Gretchintown,” Rain read. A lump formed in her throat, and she choked it down.
“This is a list of all of the viable children produced by Mother White Gretchintown, and as you can see, Rain, you’re the only one.”
She quickly found what Lt. Laurant was speaking of. No wonder Mother White was so interested in her. She hadn’t been lying when she said she was the only one of her children to survive. Next to her number was a list of other children all marked as FTT--failure to thrive.
Those two sheets were not the only ones in the folder, though. Rain turned to the next page. There, she found information about Adam’s and Walt’s parents. When she saw that Mother Thunder, the Mother in charge of her own Weatherhouse, was Adam’s mother, she didn’t know what to think. She had always been one of the most nurturing and loving of all of the Mothers. Walt’s mother was a name she didn’t recognize--Mother Apple. Each of their printouts had pictures of their parents from their records, which was interesting to see. Rain’s hadn’t had any pictures. The men’s dads looked a bit like them, but Rain didn’t think she’d seen either one of them fleeing the medical building and had to assume they probably aged out of being Dicks a long time ago and probably ended up over The Bridge, unfortunately.
Then, she turned the page again and saw Mist’s name. Her mother was another woman that Rain didn’t think she’d ever met--Mother Dalmatian. It was the number in the next blank that caught Rain’s attention. As soon as she read Mist’s dad’s identification number, she flipped back a few pages and looked at her own report again.
They were the same.
Rain couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She looked up at Lt. Laurant and saw that he was smiling. “My father… is Mist’s father?” she questioned.
The Commander nodded. “Isn’t that fascinating? The two of you have been best friends your entire lives. You worked together to start the Rebellion and to work your way across the continent to reach us and compel us to help the people of your nation. You both returned to fight and were prepared to give your lives for your cause. This entire time, you’ve been half-sisters.”
Rain felt tears welling up in her eyes. She’d always thought of Mist as a sister, even though they were very different from one another and didn’t even look alike. But now she had proof. Mist was her sister. And Rain was truly going to be an aunt.
“That’s amazing.” She lifted a hand to wipe her tears away. “Thank you for showing me.”
Lt. Laurant smiled. “Of course. It’s the least I could do. There’s one more sheet of paper in there, though.”
Rain hadn’t realized she didn’t reach the end. She flipped to the last page and saw a picture of a man. It was printed in color, and she could immediately see the resemblance he held to her--and to Mist. His eyes were the same shade and shape as Mist’s. But it was his hair and freckles that told her that this was her father.
Mist stared at him for a long time. He was so young in the picture. He didn’t have a name, just a number. The Mothers never thought of him as a person, just a Dick. Just a means toward an end. But to her… he had given her life. He was a hero, someone to be celebrated.
“Do you know what became of him?” she asked the Commander, finally pulling her eyes away to look at him.
He nodded. “We found information in the system that said that he was sent over The Bridge fifteen years ago. It simply said, ‘Timed out.’ Do you know what that means?”
“Unfortunately, I do. It means that he got too old for the Mothers’ purposes. So… they killed him.” A tear trickled down her cheek as she thought about her poor dad going over that Bridge and dying the same sort of awful death her Mother had just suffered. Only one of them had deserved it.
“You can keep that if you’d like,” Lt. Laurant told her. “When you get back to Quebec, you can tell Mist the news.”
“Thank you,” Rain said, getting her tears under control. “I really appreciate it.”
“We appreciate everything that you’ve done for us, Rain.” The Commander lifted a hand and saluted her, and she returned the gesture, carrying the folder with her back to her tent after he dismissed her.
As she walked along, Rain thought more about her dad. She pictured his face, hoping to etch it into her memory, just in case she ever lost the picture. He deserved a name. Maybe he’d never had one while he was alive, but when she saw Mist again, they would give him a name. Neither one of them would ever have the chance to meet him in this life, but that didn’t mean they’d never get the chance to meet them in whatever was to come. If Rain had learned one thing through this entire experience it was that there was definitely more to come after this life. The idea that there was no one conducting things on earth, that no greater power had any control or influence over what was happening here, seemed impossible to her now after everything she’d witnessed and been through. Perhaps she didn’t always understand that powerful being’s rational, but she was certain it did exist--and that she would meet that supreme being one day, as well as her father. They’d be reunited with Walt, Lightning, and everyone else that they’d lost along the way as well. That would be a wonderful day, but Rain wasn’t ready to get there yet. She still had a lot of living to do.