by Glynn James
The prisoner frowned. “What do you want?” he asked, and Jackson was pleased that the glare filled with hatred was now showing some signs of nervous tension around the edges. The huge, muscled monster of a prisoner was just the same as any coward when faced with their own vulnerability.
Jackson sat back down and patted a pile of papers stacked on his desk. “Have you heard of Junkers?” he asked.
Jagan nodded. “Sort of,” he said. Just some scum out in the junk.
“Good,” said Jackson. “Well, I consider them to be my biggest problem, even more so than a thug like you. I need to deal with them, but I don’t have the spare military force to take them all out. Damn things are crawling all over the Junklands, thousands of the stinking wretches.”
“Where do I come in?” asked Jagan, and Jackson could see a hint of hopefulness in his eyes.
Good, he thought. Let’s give him a little more.
“You have experience…governing over a rabble, I hear. Slaves, thugs, all sorts. In large numbers, apparently. That is a considerable skill, I think, and a shame for it to be wasted.”
Jagan coughed. “This is a trick.”
But Jackson shook his head. “No, no. Not so much a trick as maybe a possible way that we can both benefit from me not ordering your immediate death. Consider it an employment opportunity and a way to improve your current situation tenfold.”
Jagan sat silently.
“It will also involve you leaving this place, alone,” said Jackson.
This got him the reaction he wanted. Jagan went from sitting with a confident slouch, to leaning forward, his eyes eager. “Tell me,” he said.
Jackson nodded. “I hoped you would see reason.”
“I’m listening,” said Jagan.
“Good,” said Jackson. “Very good. Well, I have need of someone with your skills. I need them to go out there, into the junk, meet up with the Junkers and become one of them. I need to be informed of their actions, and I need attacks on my facilities to be…minimalised.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jagan.
“Well, if the attacks were to stop altogether, I think that the Junkers would suspect, but if they were kept to a minimum, and allowed to happen under the correct circumstances, then I could ensure that the inconvenience they cause is…reduced.”
Jagan peered at him for a moment and seemed to consider the proposition. “You want me to go and take over out there and be your lackey?”
Jackson laughed. “I wouldn’t exactly say that. If you subject them to your will, and help me achieve my goals, our contact will be infrequent. You will be left alone to rule them how you see fit.”
“But there must be a catch,” said Jagan. “You’re not telling me everything.”
“That is correct,” said Jackson. “I’m not. And the part I’ve withheld is…sensitive. You see, the Junkers have a source of something I want. Tech equipment from the old world, hidden in places all over the Junklands. They seem to be able to find it, while it eludes my salvage crews often. If you were to…take over, then we could trade in such items. And I would be eternally grateful.”
“Grateful,” muttered Jagan.
“I would pay very well,” said Jackson. “Goods and possibly in other…things that I can acquire. You see, you would be left to your own devices out there, as long as we had an agreement that the intrusions into my operations were greatly reduced. Do you want your freedom? I could ensure that anyone coming from the Inner Zone in search of a certain red headed ex-bandit leader would…find the trip unfruitful. Why, they could never have existed on my records. Such shame for the justice court to lose an important criminal entity forever, but you know things are dangerous out here, accidents happen, people disappear.”
Jagan seemed to be considering the offer, but Jackson knew the man was playing the part. Wouldn’t want to seem too keen now, would he?
“And if I say no?” asked Jagan.
“Accidents happen. People disappear,” Jackson repeated.
Finally, Jagan nodded. “We have a deal.”
Risky Business
Back again…
Jack stood about twenty feet away from the dust covered metal monstrosity, staring at the rusting panels and the dimly glowing outside lights. He could hear muffled voices from inside, but only faintly, and he smiled as he made out the deep tones of someone he knew. Of course, that the carrier would currently be home to people he knew was obvious to him. Highlighted clearly, in large white figures on the side of the vehicle, was the assignment number: E2.
“You okay?” asked a voice nearby. Jack turned to see FirstMan approaching, and behind him were RightHand and several of the other troopers that had defected to live with the Junkers. One of the men moved past him, heading towards the carrier.
“Yes,” Jack said, wondering if he was. Being back at the carrier was unnerving, and it seemed like months or even years had passed, when in fact it had only been a few weeks. He had started to become accustomed to freedom once more, and the idea of being incarcerated again was not a welcome thought.
If this all fails, you could be a slave for good, he thought. Or a pile of dust. It had better not fail.
They watched as the trooper approached the side of the carrier and quickly scaled up on to the top, moving toward the middle of the roof before bending down to examine something that Jack couldn’t see.
The roof panel, he thought.
“What is he doing?” Jack asked, his voice low. He didn’t want to alert the men inside that there was more than the single intruder on the roof, remembering how he had sat inside the vehicle with the rest of them, musing over what made the noise.
“A delivery for Jackson,” said FirstMan.
Well, I certainly have something to tell Tyler this time, he thought. If I get the chance.
The trooper on the roof jumped off, landing heavily on the dirt ground, but he didn’t falter, moving swiftly back to the main group as FirstMan stepped forward.
“You just have to wait here,” said FirstMan. “And that will be the most unpredictable part of it. I can’t help much with this part. But if they follow standard procedure, you won’t be harmed. You’ll be identified quite quickly. I’m sure they will be very curious and keen to talk to you. You remember that you must stay silent for as long as possible. Not a word, maybe act stunned or confused. Then they will take you to the facility and the detention centre. By the time they get around to interrogating you, the attack will already be happening and this should all be over.”
Jack nodded.
“Sir,” said a low voice from a few feet away. One of the troopers nodded at FirstMan and indicated the device he held in his hand.
A tracking device of some sort, Jack thought.
“Their scout drone is on its way,” said FirstMan. “We’ve got about five minutes, so we need to hike it out of here.”
“Okay,” said Jack, not knowing what else to say.
“Remember,” said FirstMan. “Stay calm, and don’t reveal what you carry. Try not to eat until you’re in the compound – preferably within the prison block. They will take you there quite quickly, I believe. Do you remember your story?”
Jack nodded again. “I was captured and held prisoner by the Junkers but escaped.”
“Good,” said FirstMan. He stepped forward and placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “And luck be with you. I’ll see you when we take down the facility. We will have much to celebrate.”
Then they were gone, quickly heading into the shadows and moving away through the trash at speed, leaving Jack standing in the dim light cast by the outer lights on the carrier.
Jack breathed deeply and gave a sigh. He looked up at the empty, black sky. He had never actually seen the drones before, having always been inside the carrier when they came. Would they be low to the ground or high up? He had no idea. And he didn’t know if they were even silent until he heard the distant humming.
At first, he thought it might be an insect hiding in the
trash. He had certainly heard enough of those, but this sound was different – deeper and more metallic, like the hum of a very quiet engine.
Then a light blazed across the clearing where the carrier was parked, and a dark, bulky object, drifting at head-height, loomed out of the piles of trash and sped toward him. It was illuminated by a dozen small lamps that shifted their focus rapidly, producing a dazzling, whirling effect that obscured the shape behind the lights until it was directly above him.
Jack stood, transfixed, wondering if he should raise his hands in submission or just stand there. Indecision made the choice for him.
The drone hovered above, then went higher as Jack stared at the lights, then a blinding flash illuminated the area. His vision blurred, shocked by the brightness of the light. Another flash, then another. Jack’s head began to ache, then a wave of dizziness came over him.
He fell to the ground, already unconscious before he hit the dirt.
Not Again
Now…
Corporal Lisa Markell stood frowning at the screen.
“Hold off,” she said, tapping the drone operator on the shoulder, just to make sure he heard her command and followed it. She was very aware of how much firepower the drones carried and that just one shot would kill a target. She had always thought it was a good job for those in the Outer Zone that the drones’ range was only a few kilometres or there would be nowhere to hide. As it stood, the things weren’t very convenient or useful for tracking down and capturing Junkers, who seemed to be able to evade them at even a few minutes’ notice.
“Scan in,” she said, and a second later the camera view on the big screen in the ops rooms zoomed in on the figure standing in the dark next to the carrier.
“Should I light it up?” asked the operator.
“Yes,” said Markell. “Lights only. No firing.”
The operator nodded, and Lisa frowned as the screen brightness intensified, the spotlights on the drone illuminating most of the area around the figure standing outside the carrier – one of her carriers.
Dammit, she thought, and for a moment she was worried that she had said it aloud, but no one in the ops room showed any signs of hearing her. It was him, the one she had let go. He was back again, and he looked a lot healthier than he had when he left. How could that be? She hadn’t a clue, but there he was.
This could potentially cause her problems. If the man was taken back to the facility, as all protocols suggested he should be if he wasn’t eliminated, he might inform Jackson that she had let him go. Why, she didn’t know, but then why the hell was he even back here, anyway? She could command the operator to put him down. Kill him. The officer would do so without question.
And that would be the end of it.
Except she couldn’t do that. Curiosity scratched at the back of her mind. Why was the man back? How was he looking healthier rather than more ragged? How was he even alive? She had let him go presuming she would never see him again, that he would either find what he was looking for or die trying. The odds in her mind gave her an image of a corpse decaying in the junk.
“Stun him,” she said, realising that until she knew why he was back, she wouldn’t be satisfied, but there was the problem of the cameras. Even though they were miles from the facility, every machine, including the drones, had cameras that would record and send everything back to the central computer system, where Jackson could see them. If she brought the man in, she knew Jackson would look at the videos. Any slight hint of hesitation on her part would draw suspicion that she didn’t need.
But she wanted to know anyway.
I just have to wait until he comes around, then I can ask him, she thought.
A chill ran down her spine, and her mind wandered over possibilities. There was something not right here, something she wasn’t seeing.
Yes, Again
Now…
Jack woke abruptly, feeling a throb of dull pain at the back of his head. He opened his eyes and found himself staring at a solid metal wall. Instinctively, he reached up to touch the ache, but he regretted it a moment later. There was a large lump there, and blood had dried on the wound. He cringed as a spasm of sharp pain shot down his back. He blinked back the pain and tried to focus.
How many times had he been in this situation? It was getting to be all too regular, almost familiar, and he sighed. He was tired of it all.
He wondered for a moment if he was in some kind of prison cell, but the ground was shifting underneath him, vibrating, and a low rumbling noise filled the confined space.
Was he on the trans system? It had to be the same one that had brought him from the Inner Zone to the facility, so far out in the world, out in the wilderness. He was still struggling to remember where he was, but he had the distinct feeling that being on the trans would be bad. He wasn’t meant to be there. He thought for a moment, and then it came to him. The compartment was much too small, but like the cells on the trans, there was little light. Only a thin strip of daylight shone into the compartment. Whether it was from outside, or from within the interior of the vehicle that now transported him, he didn’t know, but he suspected the light was natural; sunlight from outside.
This was where he was supposed to be. Caught once more, on his way back to the facility. So far, all was good, apart from the bump on his head. That would hurt for a good while.
Rubbing his head again, and glad to find that it hurt less the second time, he pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked around. He would not be able to stand in the compartment, and he was sure that it was not built for transporting people. Maybe a cargo hold? There was no such compartment in the carriers, that much he knew. He had spent enough time inside one.
So this was another vehicle.
He frowned and tried to recall what had happened. He remembered standing outside the carrier, waiting for the drone to arrive, and then the bright lights, but not much after that. The throb of his head abated somewhat, and it was only then that he realised the side of his head was also bruised and sore.
He’d fallen. He remembered he’d fallen when the drone came. Maybe it’d stunned him, like one of the pulse weapons the Hunters used in the Outer Zone, but he didn’t recall.
Having hauled himself up into a sitting position, he leaned against the wall. The vibrations running through the floor did little to help the headache. He needed something to lean against. Where a few hours ago he had felt set and ready to go, now he was drained of all energy.
Jack sighed.
Well, this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, he thought. Or was it? No, he’d done some pretty crazy things in his youth, hadn’t he?
There were a number of situations he had found himself in. His undoing, throughout his life, it seemed, was to find places where there was trouble and throw himself into it. But this was the stupidest, surely?
No. This maybe came second, he thought.
Dangling from a rope came first.
The Dark and Empty Places
Many Years Before…
Jack lowered himself slowly down the cord, peering into the darkness, and then looked back up at the hole above, where three eager faces stared back at him.
“You okay, man?” shouted a man called Casey. He was the scruffiest of the three, with long greasy hair that stuck to his head and an overgrowth of beard that had a mind of its own, poking out at odd angles. He always seemed to be the most eager to put someone else in the way of danger rather than himself.
Jack sighed and held on tightly to the rope, cursing at himself, wondering why the hell he’d hooked up with the three men. It wasn’t like he didn’t manage fine on his own. Sure, it had been a harsh winter, and for a while, he’d thought that maybe his fate would be like one of those that he sometimes found in the ruins, lying there alone in tattered blankets, having frozen to death. But he always did manage.
It was something about the unlikely trio that had attracted him. That was what he told himself. That and a run of good luck that had come in
the time he had been with them, which was what? Two months? Time seemed to pass so quickly.
Casey was as scrawny as he was annoying, but he couldn’t deny that the man had a gift, a knack that surpassed even Jack’s ability to find stuff. More than once it had led them to trouble, even into the occasional fight to keep what they found, but Jack thought that that was Casey’s way. The man didn’t discover things by himself, he merely spent his time in places where people talked a lot, and he overheard when the others were planning an expedition and made sure he got there first.
The other two – Bron and Sturgess – were little more than Casey’s thugs, his gophers. They never questioned Casey and did as they were told, even though they were both twice the size of the old man. But neither of them had many brain cells. They liked it easy, seeming to prefer to follow the lead of the man who barely reached either of their shoulders. Jack knew not to mess with those two. They were much bigger and he suspected fast, as well. Bron certainly was. He’d seen the man in action, not long after they’d met, when Casey told Bron to remove a competing scavenger. Bron had done as he was told with a frightening efficiency. Now here was Jack, also doing as he was told, dangling from a rope over a hole in the bottom of an old factory.
They’d found stairs, but they had been blocked with rubble, and Casey was convinced that it was much easier for one of them to go down the hole in the middle of the main floor. “It’s not far, maybe forty feet down to the ground. Easy. Why don’t you go check?” Casey had given him a look, the same one he always did when he wanted his way.
“This is ridiculous,” muttered Jack.
“What was that?” called Casey from above. “Didn’t quite make you out there, boy.”
“Nothing,” replied Jack. “I’m good. Nearly there.”
“You’re the best man for this job,” Casey had said. “These two lugs are way too heavy and would break the line. And I seen you climb. Seen you climb just like a spider.”
