Free The Troll by Brian Darr Page B

there’s always a better
mousetrap being made. We just have to find the hole in their plan and
break through.”
    “ Consider
that there is such a thing as the perfect plan—that there
exists an absolute—a wall that can’t be knocked down.”
    “ Whether
that’s true or not, right now, all we have to do is focus on
getting out of here. If we can get to the Mississippi, I can get us
much farther undetected, but we need to plan for unexpected
surprises.”
    “ Like
what?”
    “ They
don’t plan on us making this journey, but maybe they have
a fail-safe. Maybe Rainbow doesn’t actually work or maybe all
ten will be waiting for us when we get there, or maybe they never
really extracted Psi from your head.”
    The
Troll stopped in his tracks and frowned. “All they did was put
this scanner up to my head and said it was gone.”
    “ Supposedly,
that IS the process, but that doesn’t mean they took it out.”
    The
Troll went into panic mode and his body froze in place. He needed to
get rid of The Guide now, before the sun went down and the bounty
hunters were no longer restricted by a ‘no kill’ order.
“You’re right,” The Troll said. “Maybe we
should split up.”
    “ What
are you up to Troll?” The Guide asked. His eyes burned through
The Troll. It was a matter of time before The Guide kicked his ass,
took his belongings, and left him there. And then what? He’d be
killed for certain. All he could do was
tell the truth: Or at least some of it.
    “ I
don’t want to do this, and I don’t plan on. I want them
to let someone else try. I want to wait for someone to come for me
and bargain with them.”
    The
Guide laughed. “They’re not going to do that. Are you
stupid?”
    “ I.
Did. Not. Deserve. This.”
    The
Guide grew serious and stepped forward, getting in The Troll’s
face. “Guess what: Neither did any of the millions of innocent
people who were killed by The Moderator. You’re one in a
hundred million victims of this. Why do you deserve to live more than
all those who died?”
    “ Because
I complied by the rules.”
    “ Seriously
Troll, if I ever meet Iris, I’ll kick her ass as badly as you
probably want to, but she chose you and as much as it sucks,
complaining is a waste of time, because you have two options: You can
fight the odds, hope to break Psi, and we’ll figure out life
from there without being under the rule of Prime, or you can attempt
to get in bed with them and I promise you Troll: You’ll be
killed.”
    The
Troll fell silent and weighed his options. He hated not knowing what
he was supposed to do. He always had the answers, always had a
response, always gained the upper-hand. The Guide didn’t know
that The Troll had an out, and he hated having to disappoint him in
the way in which he inevitably would, but at least The Guide would
then understand that he didn’t only have two options…that
he wasn’t as dumb as The Guide was treating him.
    The
Guide looked in the horizon. The sun was setting and the air was
getting cool. As the shadows of the day began to stretch, he started
formulating their plans for the night. The Troll waited for him to
make a suggestion. Eventually he would have to sleep, and when that
time came, The Troll could transmit and escape his clutches.
    “ We
need to find a place to hole up for the night,” The Guide
finally said, to The Troll’s relief.
    All
over the land were abandoned buildings, most of them stripped of
their goods by The Moderator’s people or the masses. Most of
these places were void of electronics, but even those which still
housed appliances, were useless because no electricity ran through. A
best case scenario would be to walk into a home that still had canned
goods or boxed cereal, but it wasn’t likely. They would have to
live on the land like everyone else, which meant building a fire and
catching an animal. The Troll wasn’t sure he had the energy,
but they had been walking for hours and he felt starved.
    In
the