REHO: A Science Fiction Thriller (The Hegemon Wars) by D. L. Denham Read Free Book Online

an idiot, but he can cook.” She looked deep into Reho’s eyes as though searching for an answer to some mysterious question. Or maybe she was just trying to understand why Ends had decided to bring him along on the journey to New Afrika.
    “Thanks,” Reho replied.
    Sola left. He pulled the corner dresser a foot away from one wall and propped his rifle on it. Its long, metal body showed its age. The guy who sold it to him called it an L86. Reho never found out what exactly made it an L86, but it had drawn enough attention over the years from knock-down-drag-outs, some attempting to lift it from him. Broken jaws had changed a lot of minds over the years.
    Reho unlatched his pistol’s side holster and removed the case strapped across his lower back to house his blade. He laid them on the mattress and checked the contents of his pack. Several sandwiches still rested inside, mostly squished now. He didn’t own much, but what he did possess had kept him alive.
    He moved everything to the dresser. Reho rarely used his guns, but his knife had always been essential.
    The guns acted more as a deterrent, a visible threat when needed. The rifle had been out of shells since he shot Soapy just after leaving Red Denver. As for his pistol, the last few shots had been spent at the RT.
    He’d used his knife to cut himself out of most situations, though most fights never required a weapon at all. It was one way he kept it fair. The knife had belonged to his father. His uncle had told him how it had saved his father’s life once. Reho could recall every detail of the story he’d heard often growing up.
    It had happened a few years after his parents married. They had lived closer to the docks, in a rented room not far from where his mother worked at the RT. Living so close to the harbor, even twenty years ago, had required community members to arm themselves. The original charter for Virginia Bloc left out any laws governing weapons. Only one bloc, 2E, had voted to place weapon restrictions in their community. Growing up, Reho had watched as 4E’s legislators turned down every gun restriction proposition introduced. Democracy prevailed in Virginia Bloc, minus whatever influence men like Rodman casted over the business sector and the docks. His father had never owned a gun, carrying only his knife. A few weeks before his father purchased the house that his aunt and uncle had inherited and where Reho had grown up, his father was attacked in an alley not far from where he was working as a shopkeeper.
    Two men had approached and forced him to the ground. They attempted to scam his smartcard and transfer his points onto a safecard reader. Reho’s AIM functioned as a safecard reader; the model his uncle had described was one he had seen in communities farther out in the Blastlands, a bulky device that was known to malfunction. The safecard reader gave an error message each time they swiped his father’s smartcard. Frustrated, they argued, each trying to fix it. Reho’s father twisted, slashing both men across their legs. Dropping to their knees, both pressed on their fresh wounds, sending the device to ground. Springs and plastic pieces exploded, littering the ground.
    The fat one, as his uncle referred to him, positioned his gun in the air like an outlaw in a Western. The next part had fascinated Reho as a child. His uncle would stand up and then straighten Reho up in front of him, about five feet away. His uncle’s hand would rise, imitating a gun, and then he would yell, “ Now!” Reho played the role of his father. He had heard it so many times as a child. Reho dropped to a knee, as his father had, and flung an imaginary knife toward his uncle. His uncle would drop the pretend gun and grab his chest, then fall over.
    The other one, Skinny, his uncle would call him, looked down at his partner, the knife planted like a sapling in his chest. As his father moved to uproot the blade, Skinny ran away.
    His father hadn’t been hurt that