Resolution: the Red Clay Desert-4

Resolution is the fourth and last of a series of adventure stories that represent one potential path of human transformation. It's a path that few people would select for themselves. In the next few hundred years human survivors will have faced a variety of scenarios with a wide range of lethal conditions. The Red Clay Desert series is but one possibility.

Jane could see that the young Chinese girl was being violated by five pairs of persistent hands vigorously squeezing and prodding her.

Where is the man with those eyes? Jane thought.

When Jane could stand no more she screamed at the top of her voice. In the desert darkness Jane's violent outcry was so startling that three desert men jumped to their feet pulling large knives from hiding places in raggedy desert garb.

Jane heard a popping sound and two of the men slumped to the ground. The escape of the other men was almost a cartoon-like reflex. She saw three bandits in an immediate simultaneous crouching sprint toward the protection of darkness at the edge of the fi relight circle. The popping sound came once more and two runners dropped face down on the clay. One runner continued, then two, then none.