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“We found the devices in a pet store,” Ana explained brightly. “Supposed to tell you when your dog has left the yard. ”
“Each tower has a beacon, and the crew assigned to that tower all wear matched receivers. Stray too far, we’ve set it for one hundred seventy-five meters, and the alert goes off. ”
“That’s fantastic,” Tania said. The fear she’d confessed to Karl, of such crews becoming careless, or losing track of the tower assigned to them during a fight with subhumans, faded. “Could we do something like this for all the colonists?”
“Maybe,” Karl said before Skyler could answer. “The problem is that the receiver can only be paired to one transmitter. Works great for these crews, but that’s because they’re only worried about their own tower. ”
“We could at least provide them for those who stay near camp, tied to the Elevator cord itself,” Skyler added. “But we need to find more, first. The store that provided these is now depleted. ”
“I see,” Tania said. “Please do that; it would give the colonists some peace of mind. ”
Skyler looked at Karl. “Bump it up the list,” he said.
“Will do. ”
Tania handed the map back to Ana and returned her attention to the crews themselves. “What else?” she said.
“Each crew has been trained,” Skyler said. “Everything I could think of in terms of scavenging, plus some basic tracking and survival techniques thanks to Pablo, Vanessa, and Ana here. ”
Tania nodded thanks to the three immunes. She noted how they all stood together. The fifth crew, she thought.
“In addition we’ve drilled them extensively in self-defense, tactics, and weapon use. They all have assigned arms they carry and are responsible for maintenance of. I’ve left it up to each crew to designate their leader. ”
“Leaders!” Karl shouted. “Come over here, please. ”
One member from each crew jogged up. The one called Colton was last to arrive, returning from his demonstration of the beacon.
“You all are to report to the comm room each morning that you’re in camp, at eight, for your priority lists,” Karl said to them. Then he turned to Tania. “I’ll be the keeper of the master list, and everyone’s been instructed to refer to me any colonist asking for something. I’ll also keep an inventory list of what the crews bring in. ”
“That’s a lot to do,” Tania noted. “You should pick an assistant from the camp. ”
“I may even pick two,” Karl agreed.
“Well,” Tania said, “I’m very impressed, and I want to thank all of you for volunteering for this role. I know it will have its dangers, but your work will be vital to the success of the colony. ”
The leaders all smiled and muttered acknowledgments. Tania hoped the statement had enough sincerity. She heard the words as if they came from someone else—a politician or an actor, not her. In her heart of hearts, Tania would still rather be up on Black Level, alone in a quiet lab, poring over telescope data.
Absently she smacked an insect that had landed on the back of her neck.
The show ended, Karl dismissed the crews to begin working on the lists they’d been provided that morning. “No time to waste,” he said, waving them off.
Tania watched with some fascination as each leader returned to their crew. Each group huddled over laminated or digital maps, and within minutes the first team began to guide their aura tower down the dusty street.
“That young man,” Skyler said, “Colton, who demonstrated the warning beacon. ”
“Yes?” Tania asked.
“He’s bright. Motivated. Someone to elevate when the time is right. Pardon the pun. ”
“Good to know. ”
Karl cleared his throat. “Same goes for that one next to him,” he said, pointing. A dark-haired youngster in Colton’s crew strode out in front of the tower, scouting ahead. Even from this distance Tania could see the innate communication between them. Body language and simple commands that kept each constantly aware of the other. “Nachu,” Karl said. “A machinist from Platz Station. He and Colton both were, actually. Best friends. Each is clever as hell in his own right, but as a team they’re a marvel to watch. ”
“Noted,” Tania said. “As the colony grows we will need good leaders. ”
“Don’t go stealing my people so soon,” Skyler protested.
“Not soon, but in time. Before the Builders return … if they do … we’ll want to have a task force that can be mobilized quickly, whatever happens. ”
“Agreed,” Skyler and Karl said in unison.
A sober silence followed. She despised being reminded that the Builders might not be done. If their schedule held as calculated, the colony had a year and some few months before another “event” would occur. But what might happen was anyone’s guess, and Tania detested speculation without data.
Yet the words of Neil Platz still haunted her. He’d been wrong about the third event, expecting a Builder invasion fleet to come and claim the planet, but that didn’t mean his fear wouldn’t yet be realized. Who knew how many Builder ships were lined up to reach the planet? There could be a hundred more events, until the point that they’d be arriving daily. Hourly.
Tania shivered at the prospect despite the heat. She struggled enough to imagine, or avoid imagining, what might come next. To dwell on it would only lead to what Greg and Marcus called “analysis paralysis. ”
“I do have one question,” she said.
Both men turned away from the departing scavenger crew.
“Skyler, there’s four zones on the map, but unless I’m mistaken we have five scavenger crews, don’t we? What about you and your …?” She nodded toward camp, where the three immunes had gone.
“My crew,” Skyler said. His voice conveyed pride and sadness in equal quantity. “We’ll help the other crews as needed, scout the border regions beyond the marked areas, and also explore the larger buildings where the towers can’t provide full protective coverage. ”
“I see. ”
“There’s more,” he said. He shuffled on his feet. “I want to find another aircraft. We’ll soon discover needs that Belém can’t fulfill. And eventually …”
“Yes?”
Skyler looked north toward the horizon. “The other tower groups that left that night. We should find out where they went, I think, before … well, before. ”
“Before the Builders come back,” she said, finishing for him.
Skyler nodded, grim-faced. “The group here, out in the rainforest, went to surround a crash site. The others probably did the same, and we’ll find the same dangers, but you never know. ”
“And don’t forget,” Karl put in, “only four tower groups left. Tania, you spotted five of the smaller ships arriving, right?”
“Five that I saw, yes. ”
“So one is unaccounted for. We should consider seeking it, as well. Maybe there’s one undefended by towers, one we can study easily. ”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Tania admitted. In her mind she ran through scenarios, techniques that could be used to find all the ships.
“I want to follow one of the three remaining tracks, see where it goes,” Skyler said. “Maybe we’ll find they landed in some pattern, and the mystery fifth ship’s location will become clear. ”
“Perhaps,” Tania said. She’d had the same thought, but with no access to satellite imagery she had no way to confirm it. Skyler and Karl seemed to be waiting for her approval of the plan. “I’m loath to risk you, Skyler. You and your crew. ”
“Everything we’re doing out here is a risk. And honestly I’d feel more comfortable in a plane than walking these streets. ”
Tania searched his eyes, trying to decide if he was deliberately looking to get away from the camp, or really wanted to seek the missing towers. Some of both, she concluded. “The colony comes first,” she said. She noted his d
isappointment instantly, and held up a hand. “I just want to make sure the new crews are handling their roles before you go anywhere. ”
There were problems right from the start, and Skyler began to wonder if he’d ever be able to relinquish his role as the herder of cats.
Despite all the training, the new scavenger crews missed what should have been obvious opportunities with frustrating regularity. Not only that, but they took their marked regions on the map too seriously, and would bypass ripe sites just because they were on the wrong side of a street.
Logistics were a constant struggle. Karl and his chosen assistant, a former secretary to Neil Platz named Alfonz, struggled to come up with a decent method of cataloging all the sites within the city, their salvageable contents, and also what had already been returned to the camp. When the colonists’ shifting priorities and daily emergencies were added to the mix, it became almost impossible to give the scavenger crews clear orders.
Skyler spent more time venturing out with the lowest-performing crews than he did with his own immunes. A woman named Rebecca ran the Tombstones crew efficiently enough, and the crew called Eden, for Eden Estates, took to their short-straw task of farming the eastern slums with surprising zeal and energy, thanks to their two inventive leaders, Colton and Nachu. But the other crews had varying degrees of success.
Worst of all, subhuman sightings began to rise sharply, as if the subs had been released from their vigil at the crashed Builder ship. Soon the crews were faced with almost daily encounters with the beings. The instinct they displayed to surround the crashed ship, and moan their strange chant, had apparently left them. Skyler feared that the armored versions would begin to show up, but as of yet no one had seen them, and the monitors placed at the circle showed no sign of them beyond shadows within the haze.
Those in camp could hear the distant, sporadic gunfire roll through the city, and often found crews returning empty-handed, or worse, with injuries that required tending.
On one rainy November morning, a battle erupted from the area called Ugly Church that lasted for almost an hour. So long, in fact, that Skyler gathered his own team and set out across the city to try to help.
Ugly Church was so named for the massive Catholic cathedral that dominated the cityscape there. The structure itself was, ironically, quite beautiful, despite the vines that now crept over and through its lower levels, or the rats that watched from every shadow. The “ugly” part of the name was due to the skeletons. Thousands littered the grounds, and no colonist had yet dared to venture inside.
Roughly five years ago, when the disease swept through here like a sudden thunderstorm, the pious had flocked to their house of worship, filled the place, and crowded around it in some kind of—ultimately useless—mass prayer.
Skyler and his team spotted the Ugly Church crew’s aura tower near a low wall that partially ringed a traffic circle. The church itself was a few blocks away, but even here there were skeletal remains strewn about the ground. Time and rainfall had, at least, done away with the stench.
They arrived too late.
After a brief skirmish to finish off the remaining subhumans in the area, Skyler found himself amid a massacre. All four members of the Ugly Church crew lay dead. Two had apparently shot each other in an unfortunate bit of crossfire, though Skyler figured that may have been a mercy given what they were up against.
Skyler and Pablo cleaned up the scene as best they could while Ana and Vanessa stood guard. The fallen crew were buried in a shallow grave, after the useful equipment had been removed from their persons. Skyler worked methodically, having long ago abandoned any qualms about such things. Pablo, on the other hand, paused frequently to still his shaking hands.
Every other crew was called back to camp after that. The setback ate away at Skyler’s optimism. Since Gabriel and his cronies were defeated, and the strange alien ship with its black-clad defenders had been willfully ignored, the camp had operated with surprising efficiency. But the relative lack of subhumans in the surrounding region had lulled the colonists. Many had still never seen a subhuman since setting foot off the climber car that brought them down. Now that the dam had broken, it almost didn’t matter that the Builders had provided movable pockets of aura. Everyone cowered within the camp, patrolling the crude wall, crying alarms at every shadow that moved in the surrounding slums.
After much discussion a revised system was put in place. A new crew would be trained to replace the one they’d lost, but in the meantime the three remaining would be reshuffled to give each at least one skilled combat veteran. For a time they would forget scavenging, though, until the sudden population burst of subhumans could be dealt with.
Skyler had lived through one purge. The Purge, as it was called in Darwin. He’d fought in it, side by side with Jake, among others. Weeks of roaming the flat, scrubby lands around Darwin, killing every one of the creatures they came across. And in those days they were legion.
A similar effort was mounted in Belém. The scavenger crews, along with a handful of volunteers who could handle weapons, began to run sweeps back and forth in an expanding circle centered on the Elevator base. Skyler rode in the back of a pickup truck driven by Vanessa. Ana and Pablo were with him, and the three of them armed themselves with good high-power rifles. They drove back and forth along the line all day, helping if needed, scouting if not.
On the first day, no subhumans were encountered, but the circle had only expanded out two hundred meters from the wall. By the end of that week, they’d pushed out a full kilometer, and more than forty subs had been shot without a single injury to the colonists.
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