Forager (Forager - A Dystopian Trilogy)

by Peter R Stone

  King glared at me, fully aware that I was both warning and mocking him at the same time. "Point taken," he sneered.

  I hurried after the others, who were already tramping into the apartment block's darkened foyer. Bringing up the rear, I walked carefully over a floor covered with shattered glass and caked with wind-blown dirt. I hesitated a moment for my eyes to adjust, noticing that although weak light came in through the windows, the far end of the foyer with the now silent elevator shaft and stairwell was shrouded in pitch blackness.

  Shorty moved to the fore and switched on his powerful torch, playing its beam over the room. I reached out a hand to stay him and then began clicking my tongue on the roof of my mouth. I had never used flash sonar, more commonly known as echolocation, in such a mundane manner outside Newhome before, but with the Custodians waiting outside, I was not going to do it the way I normally did it since I was paranoid the Custodians could have an ultrasonic detector in the G-Wagon. I had never heard of them having such a thing, but I couldn't be too careful.

  "Whatever are you doing, Jones?" Leigh demanded impatiently.

  "Shh, I can't hear nothing if you keep yabbering," I snapped, and went on clicking.

  "Hear what?"

  By listening to the echoes of my tongue-clicks with my extremely sensitive hearing, I quickly ascertained that there were no Skel in the room; however, a metallic object that had not been there yesterday was near the elevators. I grabbed Shorty's hand and moved the torch beam over to the object I had detected. It was concealed by a dirty, torn rag, but the thin metal wire than ran from the object to the other side of the room twinkled in the torch light.

  David took a few steps forward, his face alight with excitement. "A Skel booby trap?"

  "That's my guess," I confirmed, resisting the urge to flee the room as fast as I could. I hated Skel booby traps.

  "That means Skel are here - we gotta go!" Leigh said in panic as he backed towards the door.

  "Not necessarily, just that they're in the general vicinity," I said.

  "That bomb wasn't there yesterday, which means they saw us and put it there on the off chance we'd be back. And here we are, so let's go!" Leigh wailed. Sometimes he really got on my nerves.

  "I reckon they'll be laying low with those armed Custodians out there," Michal mused quietly.

  "David, is it easy to disarm it, or should we just step over the tripwire?" I asked.

  “I ain’t stepping over no wire,” Leigh declared.

  "It looks simple enough - keep the torch on it, will you Shorty?" David replied as he picked his way slowly over to the rag-covered bomb.

  "And we're just going to stand here while he pokes at it?" Leigh asked incredulously, his voice reaching an octave higher.

  "Relax Leigh," David laughed, "There's nothing to worry about with this one."

  "That's what you said with that spring-loaded spear gun..." Leigh said as he backed quickly towards the doorway.

  "Done!" David announced suddenly. In that impossibly small amount of time he had removed the trip wire, pulled the bomb apart and even removed its detonator.

  "You’re a miracle worker, Mister Chen!" I said as I stepped forward and clapped him on the back. "I knew there was a reason we'd brought you along."

  "Ha ha," was David’s response.

  I took the detonator from him and stuffed it in my pocket. Never knew when something like that might come in handy. "Right, up we go!" I announced as I strode without hesitation towards the stairwell.

  Leigh was beside me in a moment. "Just keep doing that clicking thing, okay Jones? I'd rather not get blown up today."

  "Just today?" I asked as I pushed open the door to the stairwell and let Shorty take the lead, his torch panning left and right. "Okay guys, ninja mode." I had spent many hours teaching the guys how to move silently through any environment. It was something I had worked on throughout my school years - trying to walk so quietly that I could not hear my own footsteps - a task that had proved impossible due to my extremely sensitive hearing, but it was great training all the same.

  Shorty lead the way up the stairs while I followed, clicking at random intervals in the silence of our passage. To our relief, no more booby traps awaited us.

  We exited the stairwell on the third floor and entered a long corridor with apartment doors on both sides. Those on the right overlooked the side-street where the truck and G-wagon were parked. I checked out the first two rooms with tongue-clicks to see if there were any more booby traps. Finding none, we set to work.

  Shorty, David and Leigh took the first apartment, while Michal and I took the second. The door was already hanging off its hinges, so getting in was a cinch. The foyer, lounge and dining room were combined in one long room. Muted sunlight filtered in through aluminium window frames devoid of glass. And as to be expected, the room was an absolute mess. Plaster panels were hanging from walls and had fallen from the ceiling, exposing rotting wooden beams. Threadbare sofas that revealed more of their rusting skeletal frames than their original forms were tipped over; and dirt and leaves covered everything.

  Michal switched on a battery-powered lamp, led us to the bathroom, and put the lamp on the floor. We set to removing what was left of the plastic and plaster walls with sledgehammer and crowbar, and then got stuck into the copper plumbing. After a century of neglect there was no point trying to separate the pipes from their couplings, nuts and unions, so we just cut them with a hacksaw, or in Michal's case, smashed them apart with his sledgehammer - brute strength had a subtlety all of its own. It was demanding work but we were well versed in it and soon had all the copper on the floor.

  We scooped it up and headed over to the lounge room windows. Looking down, I saw Sergeant King and two Custodians standing beside the G-Wagon. The other private was still in the vehicle. A smile creased my lips as I imagined myself 'accidentally' tossing the pipes so far out the window that they hit the sergeant on the head.

  "You thinking what I think you're thinking?" Michal asked, the corners of his mouth twisted into a smile.

  "Absolutely, and you know, it just may be worth dying for," I laughed, before turning to shout to the Custodians below. "Incoming!"

  And we tossed the pipes out the window.

  This was one part of the job that always gave me immense pleasure - if not a headache as well. The noise made by that many copper pipes when they hit the ground from a third story drop was rather substantial. And even though they had been warned, the Custodians still jumped.

  The next job was to strip the copper out of the toilet, but even as I contemplated doing so, a painfully loud bang shattered the still morning air.

  The Custodians had heard the sound too, for they had unslung their Austeyr assault-rifles and were looking apprehensively towards Victoria Street.

  Michal looked worried.

  "Come on, let's check it out," I said as I darted from the apartment. Having heard the explosion as well, our three teammates joined us and we hurried down the corridor together.

  I sent a quick look at the others as we ran, "You guys finished stripping out that bathroom yet?"

  "Well..." David answered sheepishly.

  "Shorty..." I growled.

  "Hey, why do you always blame me?" Shorty complained with mock indignation.

  "If the boot fits..."

  "Yeah, yeah," Shorty mumbled.

  We reached the last apartment and barged in, picking our way quickly across the ruined lounge room. Glancing cautiously out the window that overlooked Victoria Street, I was shocked to see two large black cars under attack by Skel. The cars had been heading west towards Newhome and had run straight into an ambush. The lead vehicle had triggered a bomb that had virtually blown off its front end and killed the driver and passenger.

  The second vehicle had been more fortunate, having escaped the bomb's effects. Its driver and front-seat passenger were using their open car doors as cover while they fired their handguns every time they thought they spotted a Skel.

>   Their situation, however, was a hopeless one, for Skel armed with crossbows were furtively approaching the car on both sides of the road, using a rusting bus and two derelict cars as cover.

  "We've got to help them or they'll be overrun in minutes," I said as I sprinted out of the apartment.

  The others raced after me with Leigh at the back and grumbling as usual. "What's with the 'we' Jones, this ain't got nothing to do with us. Let's get out of here! I ain't never seen that many Skel in one place before!"

  "Can we vote on it?" Shorty asked as we practically flew down the stairs and out of the building to meet Sergeant King.

  "Sergeant," I said between gasps for breath, "Skel have ambushed two cars a hundred metres up the road. We've got to help them."

  "We've got to do no such thing, Jones," the sergeant barked back, clearly offended I had the gall to tell him what to do. "Saddle up people, we're out of here."

  Chapter Three

  I reached out a hand to stay the sergeant. "Sir, those cars - those people - are heading for Newhome. Surely it's our responsibility to find out where they're from and what they want."

  "Jones, this is a foraging operation, not a combat mission. I'll call for reinforcements but for now, we've got to go. This is not our fight."

  "That'll be too late!" I stressed, fully aware that we didn’t even have time to stand here arguing. "Sergeant, the guys and I have fought and killed Skel before, so this isn’t new to us. And,” I hesitated here, knowing that I was stepping on dangerous ground, “we are going to help them whether you come or not."

  Without waiting for King's response, I rushed over to our truck and motioned for my team to join me. "Kit up mates; looks like we're doing this one on our own."

  "Jones..." began Leigh, his eyes wild.

  "Shut it," I snapped as we unlocked and opened a large storage box between the truck's cab and bed. We quickly retrieved our five Japanese hankyu half-bows as well as quivers full of specially sharpened arrows that could normally penetrate Skel bone armour. I had found the five-foot-long bows hidden in the basement of a dilapidated Japanese embassy. We had also found the full-sized daikyu seven-foot bows, but the half-bows were more suited to close quarters combat. We strung the bows with practised ease and slung the quivers over our backs.

  King's eyes were practically popping out of his head. "Civilians are forbidden to possess weapons of any kind! Now hand them over, get in your truck, and follow us. And that's an order!"

  The crack of handguns firing could still be heard around the corner, but we were going to have to hurry or there would be no one to save. "Sergeant, it's a different world out here and requires different rules to survive." I turned to my team. "Come on guys. When we get to Victoria Street - Michal, David, Leigh, you go left, Shorty and I'll go right."

  We had taken no more than a few steps when King called out again.

  "Okay! You've made your point, we'll rescue your blasted visitors. But when we get back home, there'll be a reckoning over this, Jones."

  Having almost reached the corner, I turned back to face King. "Sergeant, what my lads and I are going to do is enter the buildings on either side of the road and then pop out behind the Skel and give 'em a taste of their own medicine. I strongly suggest you follow us."

  The sergeant looked at the decrepit, decaying buildings and shook his head. "Hand-to-hand combat with Skel in dark buildings is not what we signed up for. You wanna risk going in the buildings, go ahead, but it's straight down the road for us." With that, the sergeant called the driver out of the G-Wagon and ordered his men to form up on him.

  Now that the driver was not in the G-Wagon, I was no longer afraid he could be monitoring any ultrasonic detector they might have. I could finally use my flash sonar to its full potential - the tables had just turned on the Skel.

  Skel always ambushed their victims, and they excelled at it, so attacking them frontally was suicide. However, every time my foraging team had gone up against them, we had overcome them by ambushing them.

  The lads and I raced over to the corner of the apartment building and looked at the scene unfolding on Victoria Street. Not much appeared to have changed; several Skel were still trying to get the drop on the two men from the second car, who would surely be out of ammunition soon and then it would be over.

  Keeping my back to the Custodians running up behind us, I shouted several times with my voice pitched above the audio range of what dogs could hear. Anyone watching me would have heard nothing and assumed I was yawning rather violently.

  My brain automatically processed the ultrasonic echoes of my voice in a way similar to normal vision, except it allowed me to see in the dark, in shadows, and even through many materials to some degree or another. I could see someone’s heart beating in their chest, for example. There wasn’t any colour of course – the ‘vision’ created by the ultrasonic echoes had a semi-transparent, surreal effect to it. The louder I shouted, the further I could ‘see.’

  That I could create and use ultrasonic echolocation in the same way that bats did was my abnormality. The Custodians said such abnormalities were nuclear-radiation caused mutations of the human genome that would pollute and destroy humanity if not ruthlessly exterminated. Personally, I thought of it as a gift, and thought everyone could benefit from it.

  Now that I was much more aware of our surroundings, I quickly and inconspicuously whispered instructions to Michal. "Michal, see the corner building that overlooks the cars? There are two Skel with crossbows hiding behind the second window from the left, on the second floor. You three take them out and then provide covering fire for the rest of us from the window."

  "Got it," he whispered back. Having one trustworthy person who knew about my gift was turning out to be not so bad after all.

  There were another four Skel creeping up on the second car: Shorty and I would slip around behind them and hit them in the rear.

  Six more Skel were hiding amongst the ruined bus and cars, popping up now and then to fire their crossbows at the car’s defenders. As they were directly in front of the Custodians line of approach, I decided to let the Custodians deal with them.

  "Okay, let's go!"

  Michal, Leigh and David crept silently down the left side of the street, crouching low so as not to be seen as they headed for the corner building's doorway.

  Shorty and I bolted across the road and into the abandoned shop on the opposite side. We dashed around rotting wooden bench tops and over rusting metal chairs strewn about the floor, all the while treading carefully so that we made as little sound as possible. We ran through a kitchen that had been stripped clean of anything even remotely usable by vandals and foragers, and then out a side door into an enclosed courtyard shared with the adjacent single story brick building.

  We pushed open the rotting wooden door of the adjacent building and rushed inside, hurrying through several rooms until we reached the foyer. The front door and all of the windows were gone, giving us a fairly good view of the street. In fact, a Skel was using the doorframe as cover from the Custodians, who were advancing up the road, firing short bursts from their assault-rifles.

  The sight of the Skel standing there, waiting for his opportunity to murder innocent people, filled me with revulsion and anger. The disgusting savages did no work themselves, but constantly raided civilised towns and settlements to steal supplies, food and livestock, and abduct captives to be their slaves. It was from the bodies of the slaves - none of which lasted long - that they took the bones to make their armour.

  I used hand signals to tell Shorty to take out the Skel to the left of the doorway outside. I would deal with the two to the right. But first we needed to eliminate the one in the doorway.

  I withdrew an arrow, fitted it to the bowstring and raised both arms just above my head. As I lowered my arms, my left arm extended to its full length while my right hand drew the arrow back to my ear. I let go and the modified arrow flew straight and true, striking the Skel in the back, penetrating his har
dened bone armour and lodging itself in his heart. The man collapsed to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

  "Come on, let’s go!" Shorty hissed from beside me, his bow drawn and ready.

  I notched another arrow to my bow and nodded, and Shorty sprang lithely through the doorway and turned left to despatch the Skel hiding just a few metres away. I ran out after him but turned to the right, expecting to see the backs of the two Skel who were advancing on the second black car.

  However, the closest one must have noticed his fellow collapse for he had turned around and his crossbow was aimed at my head. I didn’t have time to shoot at him, so I dodged to the right and thrust my bow inside the crossbow's mechanism and twisted up so that the weapon was no longer pointing at me.

  The Skel shouted a string of expletives at me and threw his bodyweight forward as he tried to untangle his weapon from mine. As I struggled to overcome him, I remembered why I loathed fighting these psychotic savages so much. His eyes, which were visible through his garish human-skull helmet, were wide open and bloodshot. His few remaining teeth were black and yellow; his breath stank, and he reeked of open sores, decay and filth, causing me to gag. His entire body, with the exception of his neck, was protected by hardened human bones; a human ribcage protected his chest, a pelvis bone covered his stomach, and smaller bones were strung between them with wire to cover any gaps. Even his arms and legs were encased with bone.

  I tried to kick the bones protecting his groin but he noticed and countered my kick, driving his armoured shin into mine, denting it deeply. The pain was so overwhelmingly intense that I couldn’t breathe and my vision began to fade as I staggered back, favouring my injured leg.

  The Skel yanked his crossbow backwards, separating it from my bow. He swung it towards me, but before he could shoot, an arrow swished past my ear and embedded itself in the Skel's left shoulder, almost causing him to drop his weapon. I sent a mental 'thank you!' to Shorty, for he had just saved my life.