He stared into her transfixed eyes. Besides the infinite reflections of himself he also saw infinitely more intrusive eyes, dark and empty eyes. He was morbidly surprised that such a sight could still arouse him because through her he was seeing a much filtered version of reality. He suppressed such thoughts and tried to be spontaneous. He fired a shot.
There was a small effortless cry. She turned and saw that the shot had hit a medium sized rat straight between the eyes. She sensed her tongue pressing the roof of her suddenly wet mouth and swallowed. She was impressed. She picked up the rat and pulled out a black shiny bag with a big green dot in the center. The stuff you eat had to be protected by radiation. She started walking towards the boy.
"That was a lucky shot" , said the girl.
"Its either lucky or it's the pressure warp dynamics of this MZ32."
"Where'd you get it?"
"A dying vet Ortho gave it to me few months back when we were fighting some respawns in West Dunlop district."
"That's an interesting story. Would you mind telling me about it over supper?"
"If you don't mind walking a mile from here around a mini white hole"
"That's a toughie. But I think I can take it"
Spontaneity had worked. He was satisfied he could tell her something interesting. His mind wandered to what he will say about the West Dunlop respawn attack. He hadn't sleep for the next several weeks , not that he could. The Orthos had noticed remittant radiation from a cleaned area and they suspected the worst.It was his first field duty. All he had were two GZ11 pistols with 16 rounds each. And one MZ8 with one round of clips. The team leader, a vet, had smiled at him smugly and thrown the MZ32 at him. An hour later the vet was in his arms and died in a few minutes of rapid radiation induced gangrene infection. He had taken his ammo before leaving him.
They reached the white hole. It was 100m wide and 40m deep, hence mini. Five meters down the hole the evening sun was getting reflected. It was as if the ten thousand hollow sockets were exuding the light. This was just the kind of romantic setting he had wanted.
"Reminds me of the sunsets by the lake in Dunlop" said he.
"It's nice you still remember"
They walked shoulder by shoulder across the hole talking how the skulls would have looked if they had faces on them. She laughed. And he imagined that the skulls were laughing too.
They reached a fully closed building, the only one like that in visible range. It had a bar code like symbol painted on it. A sign of human habitat. They walked down the stairs near the entrance and reached a thick gate of solid metal. They entered the small basement. It smelled of blood and iodine.
He started the generator and heated the microwave. She took out the rat and started skinning it. He picked up a skull from under his bed and placed it in the center of the room. Then he took out a wax tablet from his backpack and placed it on top of the skull.
"Haha. You have a sick sense of humor", she said.
"He never minds a candle light dinner."
"So tell me about Dunlop". "I was 16 when it happened....."
They stayed awake the whole night talking.
