Another Color of Hope

The air conditioners were on full blast in the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) despite the cold wind that whipped around the bottom of the tent flaps. The dozens of computers that were scattered around the room were kicking off so much heat that the soldiers were all in t-shirts. Remedy Jackson, one of the Division's intel analysts, sat with his feet propped up on a storage canister. "Just had a hell of a dream," he said. "I'm sure it was," said Lucas Fraser, the company's medic. He had his Unit One Pack spread out on a table in front of him. "Need some catheters, Celox and another chest seal," he mumbled to himself. "Come on, man, you know you want to hear about it!" [[Ask Jackson about his dream]] [[Ask Jackson about his name]]

"What's so special about your damn dream anyway?" Fraser asked. "People have weird as shit dreams out here. Maybe it has something to do with the MRE's and maybe it has to do with the shelling every other day but weird dreams are a dime a dozen." "Your last weird dream have a glowing tablet with slots for an infinite number of rubies and emeralds in it?" said Jackson as he stared at his boots and smiled. "Huh? What the fuck..." [[Where did Jackson find the tablet?]] [[What did the tablet look like?]]

"OK, but first tell me how you got the name 'Remedy'", said Fraser. "Its a long story. Maybe some other time," said Jackson, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. "What else we got to do?" "Too long for now," said Jackson as he looked away across the TOC, his voice flat, his face expressionaless. [[Ask Jackson about his dream]]

"Hmmm. Where did this tablet come from?" asked Fraser. "You know how dreams are," said Jackson, "It was just there. But that wasn't the weird part." [[Ask Jackson about the weird part]] [[What did the tablet look like?]]

"Wait. What did it look like?" asked Fraser. "It was stone and rough carved - like Biblical shit. But it didn't weigh nothin'." "So the rubies and emeralds were stuck into it?" "No, there were slots. They were set up in two columns, four slots each - at first." "At first?" "Yeah," said Jackson, "The ones on the left were rectangles and the ones on the right were - what the fuck do you call them? Trapezoids!" "Weird," said Fraser. "Nope. That isn't the weird part." [[Ask Jackson about the weird part]] [[Where did Jackson find the tablet?]]

"So what is the weird part," asked Fraser impatiently. "The weird part is you were in the dream. We were in a jungle somewhere and you were hit bad." Fraser quit fiddling with his Unit One Pack and looked at Jackson. "Hit bad? Like how?" "I'm not sure. I think it was a gut wound. You could talk and walk with help but you were bleeding a lot and I needed to get you to a doc." "Was I giving you instructions? Telling you what you should do? Did I have a my gear with me?" asked Fraser. "You were tellin' me what to do but not the way you're thinkin'." "What do you mean?" Jackson looked at his boots. "It isn't going to make any sense. It didn't to me at first." "Try me." "It was the jewels. We are stumblin' through the jungle, leavin' a blood trail, firefight still goin' on all around us, and you keep tellin' me to pick up jewels," said Jackson. Fraser paused, thought about it for a minute and went back to his inventory. "OK, its a dream. Dreams are fucked up. End of story." "No, man," said Jackson, "In the dream, you tellin' me to pick up jewels didn't make any sense to me either. I knew it was the wrong thing. I knew you should be tellin' me how to fix you up. I kept askin' you to tell me what to do and you kept tellin' me to pick up the jewels and stick 'em in the tablet." "So, did you?" asked Fraser. "At first, no," replied Jackson. "We were on a path and we were movin' and I wasn't going to stop to look for jewels. Then we got to, like, a T-intersection. We could go east or west and I didn't know what to do. I could hear gunfire and screaming down both paths and I wasn't going to win a gunfight haulin' your big ass around." "What did you do?" [[Put Fraser down and try to look at his wounds]] [[Look for jewels]]

"I look at the rubies and they are all small, a little bigger than a quarter," said Jackson. "They are all rectangles and looked like they would fit perfectly into the slots on the tablet." "That's a pretty big ruby," said Fraser. "No wonder I wanted you to pick them up. We'd be rich once we got out of there." "We weren't going anywhere. You were gettin' worse by the minute and I had no idea which way to go. All I knew is that if I didn't guess right, we were both dead." [[Look at the emeralds]] [[Put the rubies in the tablet]]

"The emeralds were all cut like trapezoids," said Jackson. "I picked up one and it was clear that it would fit right into the tablet. I thought, "This is too obvious. What does this have to do with anything?'" "I guess you were too busy trying to figure out which of the two paths to take," said Fraser. "Damn right," said Jackson. "The path to east and the path to the west looked the same to me but I had no idea which one was best. All I knew was we had to get moving." [[Put emeralds into the tablet]] [[Look at the rubies]]

"I was tired so I set you down and tried to take a look at your wounds. You grabbed my collar and pulled me next to your face and said, 'Pick up the fuckin' jewels'!" "I am such a badass," laughed Fraser. "Funny, dude," said Jackson. "I was seriously pissed at you, though, so I said, 'Fuck it, I'll look for jewels. You can die. I don't give a shit.'" "Nice, man. Leave me to bleed out." "It's what you wanted." [[Look for jewels]]

"You have to kind of picture it. Its jungle, man, deep jungle. The path is like a foot wide and its real thick everywhere else." "Like Camp Rudder?" asked Fraser, referring to where soldiers took the swamp phase of their Ranger training. "Worse than that," replied Jackson. "Wow," said Fraser, "I didn't think it got any worse than that. It was raining, too, of course." "Of course. Anyway, I'm lookin' around and finally see eight jewels, four rubies and four emeralds," said Jackson. [[Look at the rubies]] [[Look at the emeralds]]

"I put one of the emeralds into one of the trapezoid slots on the tablet and, just like I expected, it fit perfectly," said Jackson. "It flashed sort of bright for a second and then seemed like it was locked into place." "You try to get it out?" asked Fraser. "No, but you could tell it wasn't goin' anywhere. So I started to put the rest of the jewels into the tablet." [[Put different jewels in slots next to each other]] [[Put the rest of the emeralds into the trapezoidal slots]]

"I put one of the rubies into one of the rectangular slots on the tablet and, just like I expected, it fit perfectly," said Jackson. "It flashed sort of bright for a second and then seemed like it was locked into place." "You try to get it out?" asked Fraser. "No, but you could tell it wasn't goin' anywhere. So I started to put the rest of the jewels into the tablet." [[Put different jewels in slots next to each other]] [[Put the rest of the rubies into the rectangular slots]]

"I started putting the jewels next to each other - one row at a time. Click, click, click, just like that they fell right into place," said Jackson. "Did it matter whether you went ruby first or emerald first?" asked Fraser. "Nope. As long as I put a ruby in the rectangular slot on the left and then an emerald in the trapezoidal slot on the right or vice-versa, they locked right into place." "Cool," said Fraser. "Yeah, it would have been if you hadn't been moanin' so goddam much." "You mean I'm not dead yet?" asked Fraser with a smile. "No, but you were still a pain in the ass." "Fuck you." "Yeah, fuck you, too," said Jackson. "But later. Right now, I am still trying to get your shot-up, ate-up ass out of there and I'm standing, holding the tablet with the rubies all lined up on the left and the emeralds all lined up on the right and looking at the paths in front of me." "What did you do?" asked Fraser. "Well, we could go east - that was to the left - or west - to the right. Those were our only real choices. I looked at the tablet, looked back up at the path and, suddenly, it clicked. I knew what to do." [[Go left towards the east]] [[Go right towards the west]]

"So, I tried putting all the rest of the emeralds into their slots but they just kept falling out," Jackson sighed. "What did you try next?" asked Fraser. [[Put different jewels in slots next to each other]]

"So, I tried putting all the rest of the rubies into their slots but they just kept falling out," Jackson sighed. "What did you try next?" asked Fraser. [[Put different jewels in slots next to each other]]

"So," said Fraser, "You went east?" "Yeah," said Jackson, "and got our asses shot up." "Really?" "Bullets flyin' every goddam where. You got a couple of flesh wounds and I was hit in the arm. Hurt like hell but I threw our last bandage on it and dragged you back up the path to the intersection." "Red = bad," smiled Fraser. "Who woulda thunk it." [[Go right towards the west]]

"Emeralds = green = go," said Jackson. "Yeah!" Fraser exclaimed. "That makes sense. How'd it play out for us?" "Pretty sweet. Battle noises sort of fell off. You could hear crickets and birds and shit again." "Cool. Exactly the right number of bullets. None." "Amen, Battle, amen." "What did we do next," said Fraser. "You were passing out every couple of minutes by this point, so I put you in a fireman's carry and staggered down the path." "Despite severe blood loss caused by his wounds, Specialist Jackson carried his mortally injured comrade to safety under withering and near constant enemy fire," announced Fraser to the near empty TOC, as if at an awards ceremony. "Remind me to put you in for a Silver Star for extreme heroism while dreaming." "Have I said 'Fuck you' recently"?" "No." "Fuck you," said Jackson. "What happened next?" said Fraser with a laugh. [[Examine the path]] [[Examine the tablet]]

"I didn't take me long before I was tired of carrying your dead weight around and we were coming to anther fork in the road so I decided to stop and set you down," said Jackson. "Did you see any jewels?" asked Fraser. "Not immediately," repiled Jackson. "I was looking for rubies, emeralds, anything but it wasn't until the mortar shell went off close by that I found 'em." "Mortar shell?" "Yeah, or some kind of arty. Big. Loud. You get the picture. My ass was on the ground ASAP." "I'm trackin'," said Fraser. "So I'm layin' there, french kissing earthworms, with dirt and leaves and branches and shit falling all around me from the explosion and I finally open one eye and there in front of me I see it - a ruby - a little way down the path to the left." "So you went to the right," said Fraser. "Please tell me you went to the right." [[Pick up Fraser and head down the path to the right]] [[Crawl up the path to the left and get the ruby]] [[Crawl down the path to the right to check it out]] [[Examine the tablet]]

"I decided to take a look at the tablet," said Jackson. "Really? I'm dyin' over here, buddy," moaned Fraser. "Maybe. But that's what I did. What can I say? It was a dream." "Fair enough." "Anyway, it is was a good thing I did. The tablet had changed somehow. I'm lookin' at the slots and I can't tell what shape they are anymore. Still just four in two columns but they are all hazy now. No matter how much I stare at them, I can't seem to focus on the shape." "Well," said Fraser thoughtfully, "that isn't that bad. I mean, you know that red is bad and green is good so its like you don't need the hints anymore." "Good point. Never thought of that. Weird how your mind knows exactly how to mess with your dreams," said Jackson. "Ok, the wierdness continues. I am assuming we went down the path to the right at this point. Correct?" [[Pick up Fraser and head down the path to the right]] [[Crawl up the path to the left and get the ruby]] [[Crawl down the path to the right to check it out]]

""Yep, that is exactly what I did..." "Oh!" said Fraser. "...and promptly got our asses shot off." "What?" "I pick you up, throw you over my shoulder and get about ten feet down the path to the right and take bullet in my arm. You take another one in your thigh. I drop you on the ground and I don't know if you were out before but you are definitely out now." "Still breathin'?" "Yeah but it is that raspy kind of last couple of breaths breathin." Jackson's voice trailed off. Both of them had heard too many of those last few breaths. Both knew exactly what Jackson meant. "Damn. But the left path had a ruby on it. What about the path to the right? What kind of gems were on it?" "I don't know about the whole path but right where we were layin' there was an emerald and that got me thinking." [[Crawl further down the path to the right to check it out]] [[Crawl up the path to the left and get the ruby]]

"I got down and low crawled to the ruby on the path to the left," said Jackson. "Why did you bother," said Fraser with a frown. "Red means bad, you know that. Going toward the ruby makes no sense." "I don't know. Call it a hunch. I had four slots. What if the next gem was an emerald? I just wanted to see." "So, was the next gem an emerald? "Yep." "No shit. "No shit," confirmed Jackson. "What's more, I could see two more just up ahead so I crawled up and got them and then crawled back to you." "Do you have enough gems to fill all eight slots yet?" asked Fraser. [[Yes, I have all eight]] [[No, I only have four|Crawl down the path to the right to check it out]]

"I went to the right," said Jackson, "but I low crawled it. I could hear shit buzzing overhead and it wasn't bees." "Good thinkin'" "First, I saw an emerald. I grabbed it and put it into the first slot on the right. I still couldn't make out the shape of the slot but it didn't seem to matter. It clicked right into place. I almost went back and got you but I decided to crawl just little bit futher down the path. I'm glad I did." "What do you find?" asked Fraser. "A ruby." "Wow." "And not just one. Down the path a little bit I could see two more. I crawled down and got them and then crawled back to you." "Do you have enough gems to fill all eight slots yet?" asked Fraser. [[Yes, I have all eight]] [[No, I only have four|Crawl up the path to the left and get the ruby]]

"I crawled a little and grabbed the emerald that was layin close to where we were and put it into the first slot on the right," said Jackson. "I still couldn't make out the shape of the slot but it didn't seem to matter. It clicked right into place. I almost went back and got you but I decided to crawl just little bit futher down the path. I'm glad I did." "What do you find?" asked Fraser. "A ruby." "Wow." "And not just one. Down the path a little bit I could see two more. I crawled down and got them and then crawled back to you." [[Crawl up the path to the left and get the ruby]]

"All eight," said Jackson. "The emerald was already in the top slot on the right so I put the ruby in the top slot on the left. It clicked into place." "What about the rest," asked Fraser. "I'm gettin' there. Just like the last time, I clicked 'em into place, one row at a time. At the end, I could see the right side had an emerald and three rubies while the left side had a ruby at the top but three emeralds below it." "Which way did we go?" [[We went right]] [[We went left]]

"That sounds like a mistake," said Fraser. "It was. You took a bullet in the head. Killed you dead." Jackson and Fraser sat quiet for a moment. There wasn't much of a buzz in the TOC at this hour. A few soldiers were working at their computers, a few more staring at the giant 1:50,000 scale map of the area of operations, Miller and Rodriguez were across the way cleaning weapons and shooting the shit. "If it is any comfort, I didn't leave you there. I decided to carry you out." "Thanks." His dream death bothered Fraser more than it probably should have. He had seen it all too often, though. You make a bad decision out in the field and someone comes home in a body bag. "The good news," said Jackson, trying to change the subject, "is that I could see the landing zone through the trees. The medevac choppers were coming in and out pretty regularly. I moved up the path and came to another fork. Both paths seemed to lead to the LZ. The big question was which one to take." "Pick up the jewels," said Fraser with a disturbing flatness in his voice. [[Look for more jewels]] [[Look at the tablet again]]

"That sounds like the right thing to do," said Fraser. "It was," said Jackson. "We heard some enemy movin' through the jungle but we just went to ground and waited it out. All in all, easy-peasy." Jackson and Fraser were both oddly happy for a moment. There wasn't much of a buzz in the TOC at this hour. A few soldiers were working at their computers, a few more staring at the giant 1:50,000 scale map of the area of operations, Miller and Rodriguez were across the way cleaning weapons and shooting the shit. Still, it felt good to make the right decision, even if it was only in a dream. "The really good news," said Jackson, "is that I could see the landing zone through the trees. The medevac choppers were coming in and out pretty regularly. I moved up the path and came to another fork. Both paths seemed to lead to the LZ. The big question was which one to take." "Pick up the jewels!" shouted Fraser. [[Look for more jewels]] [[Look at the tablet again]]

"Roger. I knew exactly what to do. The path up ahead went left and right and I had no idea which way to go." "So you got flat and started looking for jewels." "Exactly. But something else happened first. I don't remember if it vibrated or began to feel warm but the tablet was acting strange." [[Look at the tablet again]]

"I decided to look at the tablet first. It had changed again," said Jackson. "Really? What else?" "Not only could I not see the shape of the slots, it felt like I could not see how many slots there were." "What? That doesn't make any sense!" "I know. I could see the edges of the tablet but I had this strong feeling that I could put as many rubies or emeralds into it as I could find - that there would always be slots for them." "A Tablet of Infinite Jewels," said Fraser. "It sounds like something out of a video game or one of those corny-ass movies you like." "Kind of. Anyway, the path up ahead went left and right and I had no idea which way to go. There was only one thing I could do." [[Examine the paths for jewels]]

"I could see the jewels even before I went to the ground." "There were more than four?" asked Fraser. "Way more than four. I could see them peeking out from the grass and under the bushes down both paths. Not only were there more jewels, they were closer to me. It was easy to grab the first one on the path to the left." "What color?" "Red. I crawled about a foot and was able to grab the first one on the right, too." "Green, right?" "Yep, but I could see the next one on the path to the right, too, and it was red." "Damn," said Fraser, "this dream is getting more fucked up by the minute. Just when you think you got things figured out, it gets crazier." "I know, right? Its some freaky shit, that's for damn sure." "You keep gettin' the jewels?" "Yeah, for a bit anyway. I got tired after a while. I'd crawl one direction and then crawl in other direction and keep stickin' jewels in the tablet everytime I found one." "How long did you look for jewels?" "I gave up after I found nine on each path. But all that crawlin' back and forth helped me figure out some things..." [["...like why I had to put the jewels in one row at a time."]] [["...like what the rubies and emeralds really meant."]]

"Why //did// you have to do that," asked Fraser. "It was easier," answered Fraser. "What do you mean?" "It was a lot of crawling but it helped me keep track better. I would deal with one row and then the next. If I tried to do every column at once, I would have messed up the order or screwed up somethin'. It meant a little more effort crawlin' around but, in the end, I knew I had everything in the right place." "Makes sense." "I figured out somethin' else, too..." [["...like what the rubies and emeralds really meant."]] [["...like which path we were supposed to take!]]

"I thought we figured that out a while ago," said Fraser. "Green means go and red means stop." "Its sort of like that," replied Jackspon with a slight frown, but there's more to it. I noticed every time I got near a jewel, red or green, just before I picked it up something would happen." "Like what?" "Like a good thing if it was an emerald and a bad thing if it was a ruby." "What do you mean?" asked Fraser. "Well, I'd reach for a ruby and I'd hear machine gun fire in the distance. I'd go down the other path and reach for an emerald and hear birds and shit; normal jungle sounds." "You don't think you were just imaginin' things?" Jackson frowned again. He knew he might be overinterpreting what he saw or misremembering the dream somehow. "I don't think so," said jackson finally. "It didn't occur to me all at once but by the time I got tired of crawlin' and gettin' jewels, it seemed real clear to me. And that wasn't the only thing I noticed, either..." [["...like why I had to put the jewels in one row at a time."]] [["...like which path we were supposed to take!]]

"So, you figured it out?" asked Fraser. "Sure did," replied Jackson. "I went back and forth and eventually the tablet looked like this..." Jackson grabbed a scrap piece of paper off the desk and took a pen out of his pocket. He quickly jotted down the place of each jewel in each row, "R" for ruby and "E" for emerald. Finally, he handed Fraser a piece of scrap paper that looked like this: Left path Right path R E E R R E R E E E R E E R R E R E "You got all that from a dream?" asked Fraser. Jackson shook his head in agreement. "That is probably the strangest thing about this dream - how clear it is! Right now, I can still see it like it just happened." Fraser looked at Jackson with a hint of disbelief then he looked at the piece of scrap paper. "What did you do with this shit?" he asked finally. "Yeah, right? That was exactly what I was thinkin'. It didn't make any sense. What made it even worse was that I knew there were more jewels out there. Maybe if I collected some more it would become more clear, maybe I just didn't have enough jewels to see the pattern, to make the call." "Why didn't you just get down and get some more then?" "I knew I didn't have much time left. I knew I needed to make a call based on what I had." [["I went to the left."]] [["I went to the right."]] [["I took a hard look at the tablet."]]

"I picked up your dead-ass and threw you over my shoulder and started down the path to the left," said Jackson, "but it wasn't long before I started to hear bullets buzzing overhead and zipping through the leaves around us." "So you turned back?" asked Fraser. "Yep. I just couldn't risk it. I had only one chance left and I didn't want to just guess." [["I took a hard look at the tablet."]]

"It was the 'EE' in the fifth row that gave me the clue I needed." Fraser looked at the scrap of paper again. Indeed, the fifth row had two E's in it, the only row that had this pattern. Left path Right path R E E R R E R E E E R E E R R E R E "What do you think it meant?" asked Fraser. "That was just it. It didn't mean anything. Remember how I told you that everytime I picked up a jewel I kind of noticed something about what was happeneing even if that something was nothing happening at all?" "Hey, in a firefight, nothin' is good news," said Fraser. "Exactly! But with all the other jewels I had, the fact that nothing just happened to be happening at the same point on both paths sort of made those jewels meaningless. They weren't helpin' me figure out which path to take." "So..." began Fraser. "So, I realized that the key was to focus just on the rubies - just on the bad stuff. I didn't have time to collect all the jewels and neither option was perfect but by focusing on the rubies - the bad stuff - I figured I had collected enough jewels to eliminate the worst of the two options." "Makes sense," said Fraser, "so what did you do?" [["Picked you up and went down the left path."]] [["Picked you up and went down the right path."]]

"I picked up your dead-ass and threw you over my shoulder and started down the path to the right," said Jackson, "but it wasn't long before I started to hear bullets buzzing overhead and zipping through the leaves around us." "So you turned back?" asked Fraser. "Yep. I just couldn't risk it. I had only one chance left and I didn't want to just guess." [["I took a hard look at the tablet."]]

"Did you take fire?" asked Fraser. "At first, a little. We had gotten down the path about 10 feet and you could hear the bullets cutting through the leaves around us. I sort of hunkered down and moved on but I was worried I had taken the wrong path." Jackson took a deep breath. "Then I went around a bend in the path. I could see the LZ clearly up ahead but I no longer thought we had taken the wrong path." "We made it?" "Nope. Now I //knew// we had taken the wrong path. A machine gun opened up on us and you took three or four more slugs..." "Damn! We're talkin' a serious case of lead poisoning!" "...and I took one in the thigh - shattered my femur - and another one in my shoulder," said Jackson as he stared across the room. "I went down, of course. Dropped you, or what was left of you, too." "How'd we get out of there?" asked Fraser. "I don't think..." [[Continue]]

"Did you take fire?" asked Fraser. "At first, a little. We had gotten down the path about 10 feet and you could hear the bullets cutting through the leaves around us. I sort of hunkered down and moved on but I was worried I had taken the wrong path." Jackson took a deep breath. "Then I went around a bend in the path. I could see the LZ clearly up ahead." "We made it?" "Not yet but it was looking good. I heard a machine gun open up off to the left of us and felt a whole lot better about my decision." "How'd we finally get out of there?" asked Fraser. "I hustled down the path and was coming up on the LZ. I could see the perimieter guards and they were wavin' us in. I was certain we had made it when..." [[Continue]]

Jackson never finished the sentence. Both soldiers heard the high pitched scream of an artillery shell as it began its final descent toward their base. Jackson shouted "Incoming!" and both soldiers dove for the floor just as the first rounds began to impact. End of Chapter One