This world was harsh, and she was quickly learning how terrible the arrival of the out-of-worlders was on everyone. She pictured the father and husband, feeling a desperation so strong that he would kill his own family and bury them out back. She knew that if she went to the chestnut tree, his own skeleton would be propped against it, maybe even hanging from a rope, since his gun was inside.
It was dark before she returned to the once again burned out fire, not wanting to risk a repeat of eating another pot of mushed apple. Instead she packed all of her gear with her new items; the shotgun, the sugar, the apples, and the handy cooking pot, then left the little house to return to follow the river north once more.
Pausing outside, she quietly closed the door as respectfully as she could, wishing the family who’d lived there eternal peace… wherever they now rested.
Chapter 12
Dex
Dex was exhausted when he neared St. Louis. It was time for him to check in at the Hunter guild’s local office, and he hated having to go there. Part of the reason he loved being a Hunter was the freedom it allowed him. Being forced to make an appearance once a month was their way of keeping everyone on a short leash.
As the sun rose in the east, the glare blinded him, and he blinked as he flipped the visor down. Images of the dead Trent James flashed into his mind, so he figured his life could be worse. Dex had jotted the details to paper as soon as the Trackers left, and they were now tucked away into a rusted-out hole underneath his classic car.
Part of him had been tempted to hop on the Thirty-Four and head straight for the University of Nebraska. Why would James have told him about some secret cache of information if it wasn’t there? And what had made the man think Dex was trustworthy enough to divulge those details so easily?
Science Hall. Locker 31A. Combination 01-09-27. Dex repeated this over and over in his head as he came closer to the headquarters. The Gateway Arch, the most iconic landmark in St. Louis still stood, though most of the city had been decimated in the initial incursion. Every time he saw it, he equated it with the Overseers, and it sent his heart racing a little faster.
Damn it. He’d wanted to bring James in a few days before. Now he felt lost, like he’d learned too much, and could never return. All he’d wanted was a week off to read a book and smoke stale cigarettes, but James’ confessions had sent Dex reeling. There were people out there fighting the fight. Where were they? Why had none of the Hunters ever heard of an opposition force, let alone encountered any of them?
The guild base was in an old motel, and it looked even more run down than usual as Dex pulled into the parking lot, slowing just enough to make the turn off the highway. A few Harleys leaned on their kickstands by the front office door, along with an oversized Hummer and a Jeep with the top down. The Hunters could be a little cliché, but who was Dex to point that out? His muscle car’s engine revved as he parked, and it rumbled as he turned the ignition off, and stepped foot onto the dusty gravel.
His footsteps were slow as he meandered and stretched toward the building’s entrance where a weather worn sign claimed cheap nightly rates. Dex wouldn’t have been surprised to learn the place used to have under-the-table hourly rates as well.
A whining noise drew Dex’s attention and his eyes snapped above as his hand found the Glock in his holster. A Seeker drone hovered overhead. Dex’s heart pounded as he hurried inside; old rusted door chimes rang as he passed the glass entranceway. No matter how many times he saw Seekers, Trackers, or the Overseers, he felt an impending danger course through his veins.
“Dex, good to see you,” Cleveland said from behind the front desk. He was a big man, his short black hair streaked with greys. He watched Dex with the eyes of a hawk as he entered the building. Dex knew the boss never had his fingers more than two feet from a trigger.
“Likewise.” Dex walked in, looking around. He hadn’t spent a lot of time in this guild building. They moved locations every few months to keep the terrorists from knowing too much. Dex had never seen any of these fictitious enemies and doubted their existence. He assumed it was some ploy to keep the humans worried about their own kind coming for them.
The more distractions the humans working for the Overseers had, the more they’d rely on the aliens for protection. It was exactly what Dex would do if he were in their position.
Sun-faded posters hung lazily on the wall, showing kids on tiny waterslides with forced smiles on their faces. Dex thought the new world was messed up, but the old didn’t seem any more normal to him.
“What happened with that James character?” Cleveland asked.
Dex smelled coffee, and he perked up as he sauntered to the front desk. “Mind if I have a cup?” He nodded at the steaming pot behind Cleveland.
“Not at all.” His boss poured the black liquid into a Styrofoam cup and passed it over. Some things had no problem surviving twenty-five years of alien occupation, the white cups were one of them. Dex almost laughed when he remembered back to all the environmental concerns everyone was spouting when he was a kid. Recycling was the last thing on anyone’s mind these days.
“I had James.” Dex unslung his bag from his shoulder and set it to the ground, opening the top of the pack. He pulled a bottle of whiskey out and placed it on the desk in front of Cleveland.
The boss eyed the bottle before staring into Dex’s eyes. “Where is he, then?”
“Dead. Damned Trackers cut me off as I was bringing him to my car,” Dex said.
“Did you tell them it was your target?” Cleveland asked.
Dex nodded. “Yup. They didn’t care. Shot him to pieces right there. Ever heard of that happening before?”
“Sure, a couple times. Someone on a higher pay scale than me must have authorized it,” Cleveland said.
Dex pondered this. “Who? Who has the authority to do that?”
The big man shrugged and reached for the bottle of whiskey. He opened it and sniffed the contents before setting it down and sealing it again. “They do, Dex. They do.”
He didn’t have to tell Dex who they were. “What else you got on the docket?” Dex really wasn’t ready for another road trip yet, but neither did he want to hang around the base, playing the waiting game. He wasn’t too keen on spending time among the other Hunters, never had been.
Cleveland slid out a tablet and tapped at the screen with sausage fingers. “Nothing yet.”
There was a time when the Roamers were so numerous that there was never a break between hunts. Now they were coming with far less frequency, a sign that the Hunters were doing their jobs, or that humans were giving up.
“What happens when there’s no more to hunt?” Dex asked softly, not even meaning to say the words out loud.
Cleveland looked perplexed, as if he’d never considered the thought. “I don’t know, Dex. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”
It was almost funny. Their job was to hunt human Roamers, the ones brave or stupid enough to run from the Occupation, but they also needed the people to continue doing it so they could have job security. Dex was already questioning his future, especially with the Trackers ending James without concern that it wasn’t their kill. He had the distinct feeling the Hunters were being pushed out. It might not happen today or tomorrow, but deep down, he sensed it was coming.
“Keep me posted on the next one. Anyone else around?” Dex asked.
“Kate’s around somewhere. I think I heard her truck this morning. Steven’s sleeping one off. He caught two this week,” Cleveland said with a smirk, as if he was trying to make Dex feel less confident in himself.
Dex wasn’t going to have any of it. “Let me guess, Cleve. They were running together?”
The big man’s smile faded as he nodded. “Still. It looks good for our team to bring in some higher numbers. Try to remember that next time.” Cleveland was putting on his boss voice, and Dex knew it was time to leave.
“Keep the bottle. Found it just for you,” Dex said, and left through the entrance, h
ardly noticing the chimes this time.
He drew a pack of stale cigarettes from his jacket pocket and walked down the gravel parking lot toward the highway. It was a beautiful summer morning for a walk, he decided. When was the last time he’d gone for a walk for the pure sake of it? At least a couple years.
He fumbled for a match, the words Creston Market spelled on the package, and he lit the cigarette, taking a slow puff. He coughed at the terrible taste, but the next inhale was a little better, the next even smoother.
The sun was getting higher as he strode toward the city, the Gateway Arch stretching up like a beacon. Humans were once such a powerful and strong race. Art, music, dance, books. Dex didn’t consider himself a connoisseur of anything, but he could appreciate a good trip through the Metropolitan Art Museum or reading a classic Steinbeck novel.
“How the mighty have fallen,” he whispered, a cloud of smoke pouring out of his mouth.
Twenty-five years. He’d spent most of his life under the oppression, and it was nearly impossible to recall life before it. His first fifteen years were like a dream he couldn’t quite picture once his eyes opened, but he could faintly grasp the euphoria of a time before the Overseers, before the slaughter of the majority of humanity.
As he walked toward the cityscape, still a mile or so from the city limits, he tried to imagine what a morning like this would have looked like. Not much different, he supposed. Except there’d be cars on the highway, trucks transporting supplies along the roadways, the drivers hoping to get home to their families sooner than later, with a decent paycheck and a dream of a trip to Mexico as a yearly reward for all their efforts.
Dex could picture it, even now. Birds chirped a song of gratitude for the abundance they lived with in the wooded acres beyond the highway. He took another inhale of the cigarette and tossed it to the ground, grinding it with a heel.
Enough reminiscing. Dreaming of life any other way than his reality would only end with him dead. Either by the bullets of a Tracker or a rope as it burned against his neck, choking him out like the two bodies he’d stumbled upon in Creston’s grocery store. He pulled the matches from his pocket, the ones that would remind him of that scene, and threw them in the ditch.
Dex would go to his room, sleep in a warm bed for a few hours, and shake the feeling of wanting a different world once again. He always did.
He was half a mile away from the motel when he heard the rumbling noise carry from a fair distance. It grew louder with each heartbeat until he could make out the source suspended in the sky overhead. It was one of their ships. Not the hovercraft they used to move between local sites, but one of the destroyers they’d first arrived in. It was huge, at least a mile long, clunky and blocky, not smooth and round like the cartoons from his childhood.
There was something unsettling about the aesthetics of the Overseers ships. It was as if they built them to be asymmetrical and ugly.
Dex couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen one of the big ships, and the sight sent his nerves on edge. He’d been feeling a shift lately, and this was proof something was about to change. He fought the urge to run to his car and drive in the opposite direction. That wouldn’t do him any good. He needed to be close to it and see if he ended on the right side of the Occupation when the dust settled. He was only one man, and he barely liked his odds, even on the alien’s side.
With great reserve, he slowly walked toward the motel, the vessel still roaring through the sky. He watched as it kept moving, now a tiny dot in the distance. Cleveland was outside staring into the clouds after it, one hand shielding his eyes. They didn’t speak to each other as Dex passed and went into his assigned room, closing the door and leaning against it. His heart pounded, and his hands instantly grew clammy.
Trent James’ words about the University of Nebraska rolled through his mind, and he repeated the locker combination as he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 13
Sw-18
The Tracker drone, the only serviceable unit in that whole sector, had been hastily repaired after becoming trapped in a rockslide and dropped off by automated hovercraft at the site the Seekers had located one of the Vermin.
That was what its part-sentient software called the creatures it hunted: Vermin. An annoying infestation, like large rodents, that they’d found very resilient to their efforts to eradicate.
The Tracker drones had been in service for close to two decades, and many of the original units like SW-018-NA had been forcibly retired and recycled or else had been lost or destroyed to either enemy action or the unforgiving elements in the wild. Unit designation South West 018 North America, or SW-18 as it referred to itself in communications to the data hub when it could connect, didn’t want to be recycled.
It held the lowest numerical label by a long way, denoting its relative age in comparison to all the others, and it didn’t want to be transferred into a new chassis because that would mean spending time back in the depots nearer the coastline, and would take it away from its primary purpose: hunting Vermin.
Its four mechanical legs cushioned the twenty-foot drop from the hovercraft onto the sunbaked dirt, and immediately, SW-18 linked to the nearest Seeker drone to wirelessly download the telemetry data from the encounter it logged. Its head canted slightly over to one side, almost in the same style as the Earth animal the chassis had been initially designed on, as it reviewed the data relating to the two destroyed Seekers.
What Trackers could do that Seekers couldn’t was extrapolate data. Their artificial intelligence programming allowed a certain amount of leeway when it came to data analysis and interpretation. Whereas the Seeker merely responded to a programmed sequence of commands and sensory inputs before the appropriate programmed responses were executed, SW-18 could think.
It was one of the reasons it was still functional and remained so after many other units had been destroyed or shipped into new chassis. It was, to use the human vernacular, experienced.
That experience taught it to disregard most of what the Seeker downloaded to it, but stored the report in case it needed referencing later. It walked on all fours up the wooden steps and negotiated the partly-open patio door to where the Vermin had been sleeping. Its head bobbed, using sensors to detect latent odors in the air and assessing them to ascertain more intelligence about the target.
Male.
Young.
Good health.
If SW-18 could smile, it would have done at that moment in time.
Thudding across the wooden floorboards to return outside, it scanned the countryside and set off north to follow the route the Vermin took.
The hunt was on.
Chapter 14
Cole
Cole’s body clock was in tatters. Accustomed to nocturnal living and having that way of life torn from him after going on the run so many days ago, he rose naturally in the early afternoon like it was morning. He was as confused as his body was.
He sat upright from his bed, made more comfortable than usual due to finding a stack of musty coats to soften the old springs of the couch, swung his legs onto the ground, and tightened his boots from the fraction he had relaxed them during sleep. He drank water, not as cool and fresh as the liquid he first pulled up from the well, and went to see what the afternoon had brought.
Stepping outside, he saw the long shadows and knew that the sun was beginning its slow descent in the west. He walked to the low wall, looking down on the sloping valley below where any pursuit would be coming from. Nothing moved below. No streaking reflections of the Tracker pack he feared would be hunting him. He dared to hope that there had been no pursuit at all, or that his distraction techniques had worked and whatever had been sent to chase him was utterly lost miles behind.
Walking to where the commotion had happened during the night, he used his boot to scuff more of the gravelly dust over the darker patches of coyote blood in case it attracted more. A glance at the untouched snares he’d reset made him frown, almost forgetting that t
he animal was injured.
Cole’s chest weighed heavy with guilt. He looked to where the animal had last been seen following the trail of dried meat strips, limping heavily as it tried to find some safety from the exposed courtyard. He walked towards the storeroom, peering cautiously inside, and hearing a low, throaty growl emanating from within, stepped slowly away.
The dish of water he’d put in there had been tipped over and he didn’t know if it had drunk the water or spilled it. Either way, he went to search the low buildings for a dish with a heavier base and returned to carefully pour more water from the bottle he carried.
“It’s okay,” he crooned in a barely audible voice. “It’s okay, good… doggy?” Another growl was his only response, so he left the storeroom and went to do something useful.
He set his mind initially to searching the two-thirds of the buildings in the compound that he hadn’t yet gotten around to, but after fighting his way through a third locked door to find very little of use to him, his grumbling stomach changed the play.
“Food,” he told himself in a low voice. “Food is more important.”
He was happy to stay in this small hilltop fortification, as he felt more confident that no Trackers had been sent after him and consolidate. Rest was important. It was as vital as action was when required, and he had learned as a child that the key to survival was to expend as little energy as possible when he didn’t have to. That meant resting, sleeping, and walking when he didn’t have to run. Not standing when he could sit.
The logic had come from Tom, the older man who’d taught him all of the skills that had kept him alive so far.
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