BOY SOLDIER FINALE, Part 1
Boy Soldier FINALE Part I Chapter 5 The morning sun stretched over the Ohio wasteland, painting the cracked asphalt gold. Tommy knelt beside a rusted highway sign—*Cleveland 42 Miles*—and ran his fingers over the bullet holes that dotted the metal. Bolt stood beside him, his optic sensors scanning the horizon. "Battery levels at 68%," Bolt announced. "Recommend locating a charging station or supplemental power source within the next six hours." Tommy rubbed the raw scar on his temple where his neural chip used to be. The absence still itched, like a missing tooth. "Yeah, well, unless you see a working outlet in all this, we're gonna have to—" Then he smelled it. Fresh earth. Not the scorched, chemical stink of the war-torn fields they'd crossed, but something alive. Bolt's head swiveled. "Organic compounds detected. Chlorophyll. Ammonia. Bovine fecal matter." Tommy blinked. "You smell cow shit?"...