by Jones, Rogue
When we were done, we piled back into the cars and were back on the road. After passing the border, the road was clear but Lina and the other drivers left the highway and started driving down a dirt road, one that looked newly graded. After a short while, the process of unfolding the solar wing array was repeated and the engines ran quieter once again.
“Easier to hide on the dirt roads. We keep them graded this side of the border so the trip will be smoother,” Lina said, twisting back to look at us. We nodded. I leaned my head against the window and watched the highway that we were driving parallel to. It seems like we were always parallel to something but this was our chance to change direction, to forge a new path, a better one. I smiled at myself at that, it seems like I always had a ready analogy for our struggle at hand. Thomas was right, I thought too much.
Not long after the wings went up Lina began to swear. The cars slowed and halted. Lina reached up and began to turn a crank that was on the roof of the car; slowly the solar wings revolved around so that solar panels were facing down and the underside of the wings, also painted camouflage faced up. Lina pointed to the sky and put a finger to her lips, she mouthed, “Lean back, do not move” to us.
Following her directions, we leaned back, wondering what was going on but too afraid to ask. I was decent with a gun, but best with my bow, which was in the trunk. I felt it rather than heard it, the thrum of one of their ships, the Sharks, as we call them. The smaller ships that they use for inside our atmosphere, unlike the larger Whales, that stay safely in space.
Nervous, we looked upwards. The Givers had not seemed too concerned about advanced methods of rooting out the pockets of humanity that were left. They did not use thermal technology, perhaps with their body suits it was useless to them, and therefore a type of technology that they did not understand. Would they see us though? Would they recognize these cars as being out of place?
Far overhead I finally saw the ship; ugly and raw looking with its organic construction, it looked like a shark that had been skinned. It passed overhead and kept going, a steady course north. As the vibration from the thrum of its engines passed, my teeth stopped vibrating and we all breathed easier.
“They only look for movement,” Lina said, “Arrogant bastards simply do not notice us if we stop moving.” She turned the crank again, so that the solar panels faced up again and we slowly proceeded once the Shark was no longer in view. Out the window, I saw furrows in the dirt and asked Lina about them.
Frowning she said, “I have not seen those before.” The furrows came and went, finally turning away from the highway and the smaller road that we traveled upon. Lina seemed to be paying close attention out the window though after that though, studying the rise and fall of the ground as we passed it. We turned off the road, down another side road and continued until we go to what looked like a shell of a sprawling farm compound that had a thick grove of trees around it. Under the cover of the trees, the cars were parked and we retrieved our gear.
Anne Standling spryly jumped from the lead car, the Desert Rat group huddled under a tree, talking. I saw a few of them gesturing at the ground, most likely discussing the furrows in the ground that we had seen. We looked around; a stream wound its way through the trees, and disappeared behind the damaged farmhouse. I could see two water wheels right behind the house and a few windmills in the distance, out in the open where their large blades could freely turn. Wait, water wheels? Those could not have been from before, and compared to everything else that we saw; only the water wheels and the windmills were working or structurally sound looking.
“The Givers only look for us in places that resemble usable buildings. Windmills and waterwheels are neither and so they take no notice.” I jumped as Talon spoke. I had not heard him come up from behind me.
“This is…” I trailed off, realizing that I was not sure what to call it.
Talon laughed, a low throaty laugh, “We call it home. Welcome to Desert Rat central base.”
It did not look like much. The windmills and the waterwheels were the only whole structures that I saw. The trees harbored vehicles of all types, from ATVs to Jeeps, to more of the hybrids with solar panels. The farmhouse was huge but front was destroyed, the roof was mostly gone and everything looked warped and burnt. I fished around for something to say, but found nothing, Talon was grinning at me.
I had the feeling that there was an inside joke that I did not get. I saw no movement in the destroyed ranch house. Where was everybody? Bob looked my way and shrugged, he looked as impressed as I felt. I lifted my pack over my shoulders, grabbed two satchels of venom/influenza, my bow, and quiver and followed the group to the house.
We walked up the walkway, into the ruins and I saw that the damage looked worse than it was. Do not get me wrong, it was still bad but I could see that broken support beams and walls had been repaired and the main walkways had been restored so that they were safe to walk on. They were deliberately leaving the place looking like this to avoid detection, just like our shabby little town of Hell. But where the hell were the people?
Anne led us through the front of the house, down a hallway, into the kitchen, which looked as unused as the rest of the house. She paused before what looked like a large walk-in pantry, opened the door, paused, and pushed on a shelf that had dented and dusty canned goods on it and the entire shelf swung away, revealing a set of concrete stairs that led down into the darkness. Anne flicked a switch and dim lights overhead flickered on.
“Quickly, it is on a timer, just long enough for us to get down,” Anne said, leading us down the stairs. They were not steep and were fairly wide, which I was grateful for because I was laden with stuff, as was everybody else. Down we descended a short ways and then into a hallway that we followed and then, a wide-open area with a skylight. I did a double take. There was a layer of dirt and dust, but enough light filtered down through that skylight and the two others in the room that we could see without using lights.
Anne grinned, “This, ironically enough, was the property of a doomsday sect. Predicting the end of the world, they built these underground bunkers and installed skylights. To keep people from wandering over them, the built corrals around them. The sect was content to just stay underground, like rabbits, but when the ranch was destroyed, many panicked and left. We found the ones who left, they told us about the place, and we struck a deal with them. Our services in exchange for room and this became desert rat central instead of the old supermarket that we had set up shop in.”
Lina stepped up, “Ladies, this way,” We gathered our gear and followed her down the hallway to the right and out of the corner of my eye I saw the men go to the left.
“It is circular,” Lina said, “dorms on either side of the main entrance and then the gym, training, and then the labs at the far end of the circle. The center of the circle is the common areas, such as the rec room and the kitchen. There are ways in and out in four place and the main rooms do have skylights. We do have lights but use them sparingly. We have wind, water, and solar power.”
“Won’t they see the panels?” Sue, the only other female from Hell besides Tina and me asked.
Anne answered, “We have lookouts in the trees, undercover. There is an actual cabin there and we have tree stands. If a ship is spotted, then they notify us, we turn a series of cranks, and the arm with a camouflage tarp cover extends to cover them. We have four sets of panels, so that is four sets of cranks. The shafts leading to the rooms extend out from the main ring of rooms, just slightly. Towards the end with the lab, so they are a ways away from the farmhouse. When the alarm sounds, run…there are brightly colored large, plastic hangers in each doorway, when you enter a room, grab a hanger. That tells anybody heading that way that there is somebody in that room. Always pick the room with the most hangers to enter.”
Tina and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised. The Desert Rats sure had a sophisticated system here. I wondered how well the ones who stayed in Hell were doing. Our town was shabby
but comfortable but this was impressive! We would need to get the schematics for that mechanism to cover the solar arrays, which was something that we could use for sure!
“You guys have done fine with what you have, Shara.” Anne Standling said softly, “You made a home in the middle of nowhere in the damn desert of all things. Your Hell is an important hub and you guys have been instrumental for helping with research and implementing ideas.” I looked at her, grateful for the kind words. She patted my shoulder and then headed out of the room, leaving Tina, Sue and I with Lina.
“This room here is for you guys; it sleeps five so you will have extra room. You share a bathroom with my group and two families. Just don’t linger in there and keep your showers quick and only once a day. Water is warm but not hot; don’t waste time trying to get it hot.”
I nodded, “Warm is just fine. This room is perfect, thank you.” Lina nodded, sitting on a bed, “Go ahead and stow your gear, then we will continue the tour.” She grinned, making her look even younger, “I rarely get to play tour guide. I was impressed as all hell with this place; it was like a palace to me.”
We left the dorm room and headed for the circular hallways. Lina paused in front of a door that led to the inside of the circle, “this is one of the entrances to the dining room, kitchen, and the larger rec room. There is a smaller one on the circle, which is what we call the main loop of rooms, but this is the all age’s friendly zone. Plus, it is a central location and easy to get to wherever we want to be from there.” She opened the door, led us through a small corridor and then the hallway opened up to a large room.
A few large skylights overhead made the room bright. The walls were painted a warm orange color and the accent trim was brown. Old-fashioned kitchen décor was hanging from the walls and on top of cabinets. I felt like I had walked into a kitchen from a magazine. Butchers block counters and stainless steel sinks and appliances. Top of the line. It looked like a professional kitchen. Attached to the kitchen was a large dining room. Several large farmers’ tables sat near the center. Several small picnic tables were off to the side, child sized.
A diving wall with a large arch led into the main rec room, where there were two pool tables, a Ping-Pong table, and along the walls were shelves of books and games. Small tables and chairs were spread around the room along with beanbag chairs. Pictures of landscapes hung on the walls, giving this room another cozy, relaxed feel.
We exited through a door in the rec room, and found our way to the circle again, by the labs. Lina pointed to a short hallway, “This leads to the solar tarp mechanism.” We followed and she showed us the four rooms and their brightly colored door hangers. From there we were back to the circle, to the med lab, the first aid station, the tech lab, the training room and the gym. This is where Talon would be teaching us to learn how to best disable the bio-suits. I was nervous but it must be possible, or they would not be using those techniques.
The next four days involved a lot of training and we were sore and tired at the end of each day. Talon taught us how to use body weight to strike hard. He was easygoing to get along with but was all business on the training mat. We were enjoying our stay there. They had bigger ammo stores than we had in Hell, which is why we mostly used Bows and the blowguns – we trained them how to make blowguns and use them and they allowed us to practice shooting.
Finally, it was the night before the big day. We could not risk taking any longer than this, the Giver security around the base was still at a skeleton crew. Sources said the Givers were still ranging north of the border in California, searching the ruined cities of San Diego and Los Angeles for the humans who had attacked them. Little did they know that we were here, about to do the very same. To get into the base to see what we can get that is still usable. Hopefully, there would be stores of gasoline, generators, trucks, weapons, even food stores. If the base could be controlled, we would have gained a major toehold in the United States.
The goal was to take the base and make it defendable. We were part of the main unit that will attack, other groups the Desert Rats, and surrounding encampments and groups were all coordinating, when we got in, they would move in to help us hold it. The groups had worked out a way of getting along, who was in charge, and all of the logistics that came with several independent groups coming together.
That morning, we woke up with the rise of the sun. The Givers did not like the heat, and so a nighttime strike would not have been advisable. We geared up; threading our ultrasonic disrupters on our belts, a simple switch on the top would turn them on. In our cargo pants, we loaded up on syringes with chicken pox cultures, flu cultures, venoms, and of course, blow gun darts. We would be out to disable the Givers and their buildings, now that we know that all of their buildings were biological, that meant it was vulnerable.
Wearing desert camouflage fatigues, we headed out in two military jeeps that had been found abandoned by the side of the road. It allowed for many of us to get close to the base at once. As we got near, the other transport honked once and turned away. We were going through the East gate and they would approach from the North gate. These two gates were the two most damaged entrances to the base, and because of that, guarded the lightest. The Givers certainly did not think much of humans, and why would they, we gave them the power to control and destroy us, and we did it happily.
We stopped the jeep; the base was in sight, which meant that any closer and we would be in sight. We piled out of the jeep, crouching low; we fanned out and approached the base. The scrub had grown up high enough to provide good cover. The feeling in my teeth told me that a Shark was on its way and sure enough, one rose up from the base and headed our way. We all froze, the Shark flew low overhead but never hesitated over our location, it circled from where we were around to the North. We had no idea if it was here because we had tripped an alarm or if it was a routine patrol.
We waited until it was out in the distance and proceeded slowly. The point person pointed to something to the right, I turned to see more of those furrows, overturned scrub marked either side of the shallow lines in the ground. The closer we got to the base walls, the more we saw. We reached portions of the damaged wall and spread out in small groups. Bob went with the group to our left, Tina with the group to my right. We held position while they crept further out, checking to see if there was any guards in this area.
A tremble in the ground had us all halt. Earthquake? I saw Bob point and his group turn to look at something. They backed up to the wall but had no place else to go. A hand signal from their group leader told us to hold, but the fear on his face was evident. We could see what they saw now; something was tunneling under the ground, heading their way, the moving mound under the ground stopped just feet in front of their group. A stalk pushed up through the dirt, it reminded me of the eyestalk of a snail only it was red and pulsing, made of that same living material that the Givers used. An eye opened at the end, round with a blood red iris. It looked around and then pinpointed the group.
Nobody moved a finger. The eye blinked once and went back down in the ground. The mound began to move backwards and I could see the group give a visible sigh of relief. Before anybody could move, what can only be described as a worm, a pulsing red worm, burst from the ground, it opened a mouth, round and full of teeth, like a lamprey and let loose with a high-pitched keening sound. The bio-worm reared back and sprayed stringy red liquid at the group. As soon as it touched skin, they began to scream.
We tensed to move but the other group leaders had us hold. Bob, standing to the back, had not been sprayed; we leaned forward and stabbed the bio-worm in the side. The worm whipped around, grabbing Bob’s arm in its gaping mouth, clamping its mouth closed. Bob began to yell and as he backed up, his arm stayed with the worm. The worm began to turn black and it thrashed around before it fell still and then just dissolved into a pile of red and black stingy flesh.
The injured men and women fell silent. Bob, in shock, was standing there, staring at his shoulder. Some
thing behind him alerted him and he turned, and a laser burst went through his chest, and he fell. I was used to death but this was horrible. This was worse than the factory. The bio-worms were new, something we had not seen. What else had they adapted or created that we would be up against. Another laser blast shot over our heads. There went our surprise element. We found cover. I watched a Giver step over some rubble, the wind was whipping his long hair, his red eyes searched the sands, and he appeared to smile. They enjoyed killing us.
I was not in his line of sight so I drew an arrow and was about to use my bow when I saw one of the Desert Rats click his disrupter and then stand in front of the Giver. The Giver’s lips twitched into a smile, he raised his gun and other than a brief flash of light, nothing. The Desert Rat, whose name I do not know, moved in quickly, giving a kick to the left knee, and he actually leaned forward and swiped the nose filter right out of the Giver’s nose! The Giver tried to fire again but the gun still would not do more than flash briefly. The Desert Rat grabbed the laser gun, hit the switch on the laser disrupter, and fired. The Giver died instantly, a smoking hole from the laser making a round hole in his bio-suit.
Seeing it actually work, spurred me to action. I clicked my own disrupter switch and vaulted over the wall, hearing others following behind me. I saw a cluster of their houses off to one side and drew a syringe, with a sharp motion I plunged it into the nearest pod house, watching them sicken and burst, one by one. I felt a pang of disappointment that only one of the eight pods had a Giver in it.
I turned and followed the group leader to a factory building. I knew we would find people there. I used a poison arrow on the Giver that ran out of the building. As I got inside, another one was standing in front of me, he raised the laser gun and my heart stopped but then I remembered the disrupter. When he tried to fire the laser gun, it just flashed but no pulse beam emerged. I stepped in close, giving a kick to the knee, which would render that leg immobile for a few seconds, and then I ripped the filter hose from his pack. The Giver gasped and clawed at his face. I grabbed the laser gun, turned off my switch, and then used it to kill the Giver that came at me from around a growing Shark. This large building was growing their ships.
