P Deutermann - Darkside

She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. No future in this kind of thinking. Their secret game was over. And everything that had happened, well, that had been Dyle driving the train, not her. Which made it okay. Her father was going to recover. And now he had Liz, so he was going to be all right. She had her diploma and her gold bars. As long as everything worked out, then what had gone on before was just-history, that’s all. She nodded to herself and took another deep breath. Then she closed the bag and reached through the hole to drop it. She heard it hit somewhere way down below in the shaft with a muddy thump. No one would ever be going back down there. She popped her head into the hole for a moment, but there was nothing to see. Just the strong smell of old wet cement. She backed out, thinking about all that was to come, flight school, her new life as a naval officer, fast exciting men, all the new horizons, and, if she was lucky, really lucky, the feel of a hot jet in her hands and between her knees. Everything lay in front of her. And only a few tingling memories of the walking, talking chaos that had been Dyle Booth fading behind her. Every time with Dyle had been the ultimate highwire act, especially the last time. It was positively amazing how sheer terror could make you feel alive as never before or after. She hoped the jets would be that big a rush. Everyone said they were.

She smiled one last sly smile. A roofie. As if.

“Damn you, Dyle Booth, you crazy bastard,” she whispered, remembering still the way that sliver of wood had throbbed in time with Dyle’s final heartbeats. “Am I going to miss your zone or what.”

Then she cleared her face, reassembled her midshipman’s dutiful mask, no, her ensign’s dutiful mask, took a final deep breath, and left the storage room for her new life among the norms. What was done was done. Everyone, even the Dark Side, was ready to get past it. Closure: that’s what everyone always wanted, right? But, hell, she thought as she climbed the stairs: everyone says those jet jocks are crazy bastards. Maybe there was hope. Maybe Dyle wasn’t the first of his kind to get through here.