“Anything from the other drones?” it asked its companion as it dragged the ruined unit up the ramp.
“Nothing,” it said. “Readings indicate a storm washed away signs, so finding the Vermin that did this would be difficult. And costly,” it added pointedly.
“Let them run,” the other one said. “We’re off this rotation soon anyway and I’m in no hurry to be kept in this empty, dry hole any longer than I have to be. I miss the ocean.”
“As do I,” another voice shouted from the cockpit further inside the hovercraft. “Dump the broken unit back at the plant and let’s be done with this place.
Chapter 32
Lina
The days rolled together into a blur of walking and sleeping. She’d resisted at first, unused to anything but the home she had grown up in. She found the big, bad world outside their valley was full of terrifying things, but after four or five days, it was simply no longer a struggle to fall asleep.
While Lina was accustomed to people and talking, she found that the longer she spent with Cole, the more she realized he was having a difficult time caring for another person’s well-being. She tried to make conversation as they walked, giving up when he started to make annoyed noises whenever she broke the silence. She guessed he must be as tired as she was, covering so much distance as fast as they did, but after a while, she started to suspect that it was more about her than the exertion.
One morning, close to a week after their panicked flight from the hilltop, she waited as he cleared a low building that used to be something to do with washing clothes on a massive scale. She tried to speak to him when he emerged back into the pre-dawn to go and set his snares.
“What was this place?” she asked.
“What does it matter?” he shot back, making her recoil in surprise at his tone.
“I was just…” she tried before he huffed and stalked off. She watched him go, her lips tightening into a thin line to stop her calling out after him in anger. She went inside and found a comfortable corner to rest her shotgun and slip her pack off.
Her annoyance at Cole was still pretty raw, which took away her excitement at seeing new things but finding huge bins of folded linen gave her at least some purpose as she set about creating a comfortable bed to sleep in for the day. She carried two more folded stacks of the off-white sheets to where she’d made her bed and contemplated making one for Cole but stopped herself, dumping the stacks down roughly to invite a plume of choking dust to puff back up from the surface to her face. Coughing and stepping away, she set about finding anything wooden to break up and start a fire to boil water and cook the two rabbits they’d carried with them through the night from their last resting place.
They kept one each in their packs, wrapped inside a cloth to prevent them leaking bodily fluids onto their gear, and she pulled out her small knife to begin the practiced task of skinning it as soon as she’d lit the fire.
After her third failed attempt, she began to shave more small slivers of wood from the leg of an old chair until she had a small pile on the concrete floor before her. She used the flint and steel that fit into the handle of her other, larger knife to strike the metal together until the small shower of orange sparks began to blacken and smolder in the pile of shavings. Bending to move her hair aside and blow of the tiny embers, she sat upright and cursed when the flame disappeared to nothing.
“You need something else,” Cole said from behind her. He held up a hand and backed up a pace wearing a face full of apology. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small handful of white fluff that looked like raw wool.
“Found it stuck on some scraps of what used to be a fence,” he explained. “It’s dry. Should work.”
She nodded her thanks to him, reaching out to take it but not speaking as she didn’t trust her voice after the scare she’d suffered. She pulled it open to let the air get through the small fibers and struck flint to steel once more. She was rewarded instantly by a tiny skein of smoke as the dry substance caught the spark and turned it into a tiny flame.
She fanned it with her breath again, picking it up to cup it in her hands until a small flash of fire danced upwards and wobbled in the artificial breeze, putting it down to begin adding the slices of dry wood until the ball of wool was consumed by the flame and the wood gave off the familiar smell.
She leaned back, moving carefully as she knew such a young fire was a fickle and delicate thing that could so easily fade away with just one wrong move. She placed the smaller of the broken sticks around the flames in a kind of inverted cone, starting with three equal-sized pieces resting on one another as the others were rested against the delicate frame. The wood began to crackle and snap as it caught and already a small amount of heat was radiating from it. Satisfied with herself, she looked up to see Cole hadn’t moved in case he disrupted the careful operation.
“I’ll get some more wood,” he said, holding his pack and gun stoically as he turned away.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Not today.”
“Today?” she asked, one eyebrow inviting him to dig himself deeper into a hole.
“I can’t do everything for two of us,” he said quietly, half turning to speak to her. “It’s good that you started the fire today, so thanks.”
“I’m not pulling my weight?” she asked acidly. “I’m not doing enough?” Cole rounded on her with a face of annoyed honesty.
“You’re not used to this, are you? Living like this? Always moving?”
“No, but…” she answered, not knowing what she was going to say.
“I am,” he said. “I’ve been doing it for a long time, and a lot of that time has been spent on my own. I… I’m not used to…” he waved his free hand at her vaguely, “people.”
“Then tell me what you need me to do,” Lina said with an edge of pleading in her tone. “Help me learn. Teach me, and maybe this won’t be so miserable.”
“Miserable?”
“Yeah,” she shot back. “Don’t you want to enjoy any part of your life?”
“I, err…” Cole mumbled hesitantly.
“Exactly. Now go and get some more wood so I can cook up some rabbit.”
The next couple of days went by smoothly. They talked softly as they walked, sharing experiences and stories about things, the malice and resentment subsided. They talked about the aliens and their drones, about how Cole had escaped from them more times than he could count because they thought like machines and not people.
She used the weak light of their early evening journey to show him different plants and what they could be used for. They never spoke about the people they used to know. That much was still too painful for Lina at least.
When night fell properly and they had little to do other than cover as much distance as possible when the terrain allowed, they lapsed into silence, stopping every couple of hours for a short break. When they’d started their journey, she had complained and asked to stay resting for longer. Cole had told her that if she sat still for longer, her muscles would stiffen and she wouldn’t be able to get moving again without suffering pain. She believed him, adding her own knowledge as a healer to lend his assumptions some support.
He taught her how and where to set snares, depending on what kind of animals were thriving in the area they chose to spend their days, but that was mostly rabbit and wild turkey, which both made fine meals and gave them the much needed protein their bodies hungrily consumed.
She found herself getting leaner with each passing day; leaner but also stronger in spite of being permanently tired.
Twice they had seen their limping shadow when the clouds broke, and the moon illuminated the long slice of overgrown hard surface they walked along. Cole told her how it had been called a highway way back in the before, and seeing the coyote still following their trail made both offer guesses as to why.
“I don’t think it wants to hurt us,” he said, “otherwise, it would’ve made a m
ove in the dark by now.”
“Unless it doesn’t have the strength yet?” she suggested, but she didn’t believe it. She’d begun to think of the animal as a pet. A friend.
“If it didn’t have the strength, then it wouldn’t be able to follow us,” Cole had told her, sure of the answer. He seemed to think that it had attached itself to them for some unfathomable reason, and that thought made Lina feel something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Happy. Likely the animal only followed them for food, and she didn’t blame it.
As the gray light of dawn broke to their right, the sprawling expanse of what had once been a city came into view ahead of them. They paused on the high ground that offered them a vantage point and stared. Cole stared, telling her he had nothing but bad memories about cities, and Lina stared because she’d never before seen such a wonder of human engineering. She knew that people had lived in great metropolises all over the world, but she had never seen so many buildings of such size in any one place. She turned her gaze of amazement on Cole to see a darkness furrowing his brow.
“What is it?” she asked, worried.
“It’s a choice,” he told her darkly. “Do we go through it, or around it?”
“How much longer will it take to go around?” she asked.
“A couple more days,” he answered, “but it’ll be safer.”
With a resigned sigh of missed opportunity, Lina agreed to the detour.
Chapter 33
Dex
Whatever the obvious choice was for two runaway Roamers, he didn’t feel like that was where these particular ones were destined for. After finding the hideout in the house, Dex’s world had expanded. Patricia Bond was no goat. She was the real deal if she had access to a terrorist safe zone like that one. She was well-armed and had sustenance. Where did this Alec fit into things?
He needed some answers, and staying ahead of the other Hunters was going to be imperative. Tubs was already on their trail, and he’d ventured west, a little ahead of Dex, and he hadn’t seen a sign of the other Hunter since yesterday.
Dex had cruised down the highway toward Chicago the previous evening and decided to camp out and listen to the chatter over the network. He pulled out the tablet as he sat in his car on the side of the road and scrolled through countless messages from the various guilds. So far only their region was being called into this job, so that was a good thing. If the neighboring Hunter guilds had been notified to cross borders, there was no way these two Roamers would last out the week.
As he sat in the dark, chain-smoking stale cigarettes, he thought of something. He remembered Cleveland explaining a new feature on his tablet. One that allowed them some insight into the Seekers’ data streams.
It was a tool created to give the Hunters a leg up. They could stream video footage from the Seekers and any other geographical information that might prove useful.
“How the hell do I access it?” he asked himself as his fingers attempted every folder on the tablet he could find. Frustrated, he tossed it to the passenger seat and grabbed his pack of smokes, only to find it empty.
“Empty…” he said, remembering something. Cleveland had told him it was a backdoor access patch and the folder seemed empty. He snatched the tablet, found the appropriate icon, and tapped it. There it was. The Seeker data file.
He scanned through it, looking for any sign of news on the Roamers, but there were over seven thousand Seekers in the country. The number was staggering, considering he didn’t feel like he encountered them very often. He changed the search parameters and selected the active drones within one hundred miles of Detroit. The number dropped to three hundred drones. At least ten percent of them were decommissioned or being repaired.
This still left a lot of information, so he started by accessing those within fifty miles of his current position. It was going to be one hell of a night. He checked the clock and found it was almost four in the morning. God, his eyes hurt, and his vision was getting blurry. He needed some sleep.
As he was about to recline his seat, lights flickered from the west. It had to be coming from the lower edge of Lake Michigan. It was at least twenty miles from his current position, and it clicked. There was a big distribution center there. If he was a terrorist, wouldn’t he strike them in the heart of their operations? What better way than by destroying food or a supply chain?
It was a long shot, but Dex thought he might be on to something. His windows were rolled down, and he raced toward the light. The Overseers’ ship rose in the dark night sky, a beacon of terror as its clunky body was propelled forward with loud and angry thrusters. His steering wheel shook as the vessel lifted into the air before racing away.
If his gut was right, the two Roamers very well might be at the warehouse now. He kept driving, trying to not wonder why two of the huge Occupation ships had been airborne in the last few days.
Chapter 34
Alec
The man didn’t stand a chance. Monet rolled over and jabbed her knife into the man’s chest, directly into his heart. She pulled him under the trailer with them, ramming her hand over his mouth to keep him from shouting out. His eyes danced wildly, and he met Alec’s stare. There was the flutter of a struggle before the life drained from the guard. Alec’s breaths pushed out of his lungs in quick succession.
“We have to hide this,” she said, her voice steady. She was already dragging the body to the rear of the trailer. The doors were fastened but not pressed fully against the number two bay door. Alec didn’t hesitate. He climbed the back and tried to swing the door open.
“The latch,” Monet said, and he fumbled with it before finding a way to open it. The metal handle landed with a clang, and he cringed. Monet was trying to lift the dead body up by the shoulders, and Alec grabbed hold of the corpse, assisting her, while Monet now pushed on the boots.
Together, they slid the guard into the empty space, and Alec hoped no one would notice the blood smears on the outside of the trailer until they were long gone. He glanced at his own hands and saw they were streaked with the dead man’s blood. He fought the revulsion he felt and wiped them fruitlessly on his pants.
He shut the door, trying to move in silence. The latch vibrated and clinked as the bright light of the spaceship rose from the other end of the warehouse’s lot. The Overseers were there. At that moment, there might be hundreds of them, and Alec had just watched his new friend kill a man without so much as a blink of the eye.
“There’s no time to waste. We have to get into number twelve.” Monet pointed to the parking lot, where dozens of guards and workers were watching the big ship rise into the sky. They were distracted. Now was their shot. Alec and Monet ran to the front of the trucks and tried not to appear out of place, Everyone’s eyes would be half-blinded from the brilliance. Even if they looked at the pair of them, in the darkness, they would appear like nothing more than silhouettes.
When the coast was clear, Monet picked up her pace, and Alec followed until they came to truck twelve. There was a driver standing at the front, sipping a beverage and staring at the sky. They slipped by undetected and made for the rear of the truck. The trailer was unmarked with the exception of the number twelve stenciled on the side and rear.
The bay door was open, and as he neared the opening, he heard voices carry from inside. He peeked inside, only to see workers in jumpsuits, just like the ones he’d been forced to wear every day back in Detroit. They walked around slowly, heads hanging low, every one of them too skinny and malnourished.
Was this what he’d looked like? Was this what had become of their people? In the last few days, everything had changed, and he didn’t think he’d ever walk with that much sadness again. Monet lifted a finger in pause and plucked a tiny device from her pocket. She tucked it into the wheel arch of the trailers’ rear tires and smiled to herself. He climbed up the back of the truck and found it nearly full of supplies. Skids of products, food, bedding, and clothing, lined the trailer two rows the entire way down the expanse of t
he interior. He was thin enough to slide between them, and Monet was up there with him, pressing him forward.
He felt the tension oozing off her as they squeezed to the front of the trailer. Alec glanced behind them as he heard a noise, and a young girl caught his eye. She held the door handle with her right hand and locked gazes with him. She looked scared, afraid to say something and terrified of not speaking up.
Alec shook his head slowly at her. It was a desperate pleading look, and she seemed to comprehend his plight. Monet turned her attention to the girl, and Alec noticed her lips quiver before the door closed, leaving them in darkness.
“Is she…” Monet started, and Alec shushed her.
“Everything good with twelve?” a muffled voice carried through the shut and latched door.
“Locked and loaded,” the girl replied, and Alec breathed a sigh of relief.
The truck’s engine sputtered, and he felt the shake as the driver put it into gear.
“I can’t believe we did it,” Monet whispered, pulling him close. She smelled like sweat, a sweet musky scent, not unpleasant. Alec only wished he was a little fresher. He wasn’t going to make good company in a confined space. She didn’t seem to notice or care.
“I thought you had something called confidence?” he asked, unable to hide the laugh, nervously setting aside the fact that she’d just killed someone.
“Sure. But that can only take you so far. I think we’re going to be able to make it to McCook. If we get these details to the Reclaimers, we might be able to stop the Overseers from the next step.” She kept moving in the dark truck, and he stood there watching her, afraid to ask her what that next step would be. He was already too deep, and knowing things were going to become far worse before they might improve was only going to shatter his current mental state.
Occupation: A Post-Apocalyptic Alien Invasion Thriller (Rise Book 1) Page 17
