“Where are you going?” I asked, unable to keep a smug tone of out of my voice. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. I mean, seriously, how far did you think you’d get?” She shrugged and gave up her escape attempt. Without much ado, I scooped her up and carried her back to the building, stumbling a little under her weight but persevering none the less. Rather unceremoniously I dumped her in the back of the jeep. “So, seriously, what’s your name?” She looked like she wasn’t going to tell me, but finally she dropped her eyes and answered.
“Cedar, my name is Cedar Winslow.” The name came like a blow.
“No it isn’t.” I scanned her face, looking for anything that seemed familiar. She opened her mouth to argue, but no sound came out. She was staring at me hard. I turned away and ordered Jake to load up the car.
“Of course I am and you’re Dudley!” she almost crowed when she recognized me. I heard Blossom giggle at my given name. It had always been a sore spot with me, an albatross around the neck. I was named after predecessors far distant from the present. No soft reminiscences of long gone flora and fauna that influenced names today. Apparently, like my forefathers, my parents had harboured no such nostalgia.
“Everyone calls me Dax. But you can’t be Cedar, she’s…” Dead, I wanted to say dead, but I’d never been one hundred percent certain, despite the evidence to the contrary. My mind flashed back to the day when one of the very first category four smog storms came ripping across the Burn Zone and everyone was ordered to confine themselves to the bio-dome. The Winslows had been our neighbours, but they’d been off on a day trip and never made it back before the lock down. We never heard from them again and it was the government who declared them dead when no bodies were recovered. I barely remembered the little pig tailed girl that followed me around when I was to lazy to lose her down an alley, but there was something in the face that was looking at me now that brought her memory back into sharp focus. The freckles were still there, reminding me that she was a natural, which explained her height, but I was having problems reconciling the image of the little girl with the woman who was glowering at me now.
“Are you going to untie me?” she demanded, assuming that some old acquaintance was good enough for us to trust her. “I mean, if I’d known it was you, I would have just asked to borrow the truck. What happened to you? You were such a cute teenager.” It didn’t matter that I’d heard that same statement from my own mother, it still stung. I wanted to point out that historically, rugged men were preferred in almost all cases. But the advent of boy bands, genetic modification and our obsession with youth had ended any proclivities towards guys like me. “I’m kidding!” she chuckled, “You turned out alright.” She gave another shrug, this time with both shoulders and held out her feet, encouraging me to undo the clothe belt the held her fast. I hesitated.
“Dax, just untie her. She’s your friend, isn’t she?” prodded Blossom.
“Was,” I corrected, “she was my friend, but that was well before you were born. We don’t have time for this now; we’ve got to head to Montreal. Load up the car and we’ll sort this out on the way.” I turned back to Cedar and crossed my arms over my chest. “Once we get away from here you’re going to tell me what you’re doing out here, where you were going and why I should trust you. Until then, you’re just going to have to try and get comfortable the way you are.”
Chapter 9 – Hunt for Cache
Blossom and Jake tried to keep the conversation going, as Cedar had snapped her mouth shut at my edict and refused to say anything more. Despite their efforts, silence quickly reigned. As we drove through the bright glare of morning, heading slightly north of the sunrise, the motion of the car and their interrupted night lulled the kids to sleep. I checked my rear view regularly, both to look out for drones and keep an eye on Cedar. Her eyes caught my reflection once and she glared maliciously at me.
“Look, it’s not like I want to keep you tied up,” I tried to explain in a hushed tone. “It’s just that I’ve had a couple of really crappy days and I don’t know who I can trust.” I was met with a dead, foreboding silence, that gave me flash backs of my marriage. “Come on, you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty suspicious running in to you in the middle of the Bee Zee when you’ve been dead for decades.” Still nothing, but at least she’d stopped glowering. “What happened to you? How’d you survive that storm? Why didn’t you ever come back?”
“It was a long time ago Dud…”she paused and corrected herself, “Dax.” She hesitated and I stayed quiet, letting the silence fill the space between us. “Dax, I like it. It suits you, now that you’re all grown up.”
“Thanks.” I kept my response brief in hopes that she’d answer at least some of my questions. She saw my expression and let out a sigh.
“They’re shitty memories, I don’t like thinking about them,” she tried to explain, but could see that I wasn’t satisfied. “It wasn’t an accident…that we were out the day the storm hit. You didn’t know but Dad was involved in an underground movement that was tracking the weather patterns and checking up on the government. He knew that the storm was coming and told the Feds so that they could warn everyone. He knew it was dangerous to tell them, but he didn’t want to be the reason that people died.” She looked rueful but the pink of her cheeks hinted at repressed anger, as well. “The government didn’t like that. They knew he’d been doing illegal research and wanted him to disappear. We were escorted out of the bio-dome early that morning.” I could hear the pain in her voice, even after all the years and I nodded, trying to let her know I was sorry for what had happened without interrupting. “Dad knew we were in trouble, even before the military showed up on our doorstep, so he did what he could to protect Mom and me. Once we were out the gates, he drove to an old settlement outside the city. We found a building that had a good solid basement to wait out the storm. We had canned air and some provisions, so we made it through okay, but that was just the beginning. He knew we’d never be able to go back to Toronto, and he was sure that none of the bio-domes were safe. So we roamed. Once we exhausted the supplies that had been left in a town, we had to move on; drifting from one abandoned place to another until a storm finally caught up with Dad, when he was out searching for provisions. I was sixteen, I think. It’s hard to keep track of time when you’re living off the grid. Anyhow, Mom died a few years later and then I was alone. I think she missed Dad so much that she just couldn’t keep going. I wandered around for months, looking for other people who might be living out in the Bee Zee, like me. I finally found some. The first group stole our car and left me to die in the dunes. Fortunately for me, they had ripped off another outcast family who found me, dehydrated and almost delirious. They took me in and we were okay, for a while.” She stopped and I had the feeling that she was leaving something out. “I left them about a month ago, to look for supplies, and last night, I found your SUV. End of story.” I saw her dab at the corner of her eye, when she thought I wasn’t looking. I quickly looked away. Part of my mind was reeling from the fact that people could actually exist in the Burn Zone, while the other part; the dark, “buy-into-the-conspiracy” side thought it all made sense. “So, are you going to untie me, or what?” she demanded finally. “My hands are going numb and I have to pee.”
I took a quick glance in the review view and side mirrors. I hadn’t seen any drones this morning, which made me nervous, even though I couldn’t quite figure out why. I gave her a nod. The last thing I wanted was to be attacked by UAVs and be responsible for her dying. It was bad enough that I had to look after the kids. I thought I could see the glint of Montreal’s bio-dome in the distance and the relics of buildings had started to thicken as we got closer to our destination. I pulled under a partially collapsed underpass, where unwanted eyes would be hard pressed to spot us. Cutting the engine brought the two kids awake and they immediately started rooting around for food. They were pretty well walking stomachs, as far as I could tell. I untied her hands and let her take care of her feet, while I
distributed water tablets and lunch bars. If the four of us were going to continue together, we were going to need more supplies.
Jake had pulled out the mystery map and spread it out over the back seat of the vehicle in an attempt to spot a landmark that would help with our positioning.
“Hey, what’s that?” asked Cedar, chewing her insta-meal slowly, like she was savouring every bite. I guess her excuse of needing a bathroom had just been a scam and I tried not to hold it against her.
“A map,” retorted Jake, with just enough sarcasm to make Cedar’s shoulders rise in irritation. Exhaling sharply, she climbed in to the front seat and hung over the headrest staring at the plastic sheet.
“I can see that!” she said, teeth gritted with forced patience. “A map of what?” Jake shrugged half heartedly. “Just let me see it.” With another lift of one shoulder, he handed her the paper. “Oh my god!” We all turned to stare at her. “This is a cache map.”
“Like money?” asked Blossom, suddenly perking up and clambering in to the back seat with Jake.
“No,” smiled Cedar, “C-A-C-H-E, as in horde of stuff.”
“You’ve seen these before?” I asked mildly surprised that she was so excited.
“No,” she looked at all of us in a sweeping glance, trying to confirm something. “You really don’t know what you have here, do you?” We all waited expectantly. “This is the stuff of legend. Everyone in the Bee Zee has heard of them, they’re like an urban myth. I never thought they’d be real.” She chewed her lower lip, her eyes rapidly scanning the page with hot interest.
“So what’s in it?” I asked finally, hating to seem stupid, but willing to take the hit if it got her to the point.
“Food, medicine, weapons, water…everything you need to survive.” She eyed us again, to see if we were pulling her leg. “Every couple of years the Jam Makers put out a cache and one map. It’s to help outcasts survive, but it’s a huge risk to do, that’s why they only do it once in a while.” I wanted to ask her about the Jam Makers and Outcasts, but there was something much more pressing that I wanted to know.
“Can you find it?” I demanded.
“Yeah, I can. Definitely, but what do you need it for? There are other people who could really use this stuff.” I saw her eyes narrow a little. She’d finally started to wonder what I was doing out in the Bee Zee, with two teenagers, a vehicle and a gun.
“It’s a long story,” I demurred, hoping to put her off for a while. I still wasn’t entirely sure that I could trust her. She let out her breath in an impatient whoosh and gave me the once over. I met her eye, hoping that she wouldn’t press me for more details. I should have known better. Even as a kid she was relentless.
I had a quick vision of this little chestnut haired kid trying to ride my bike. Her legs had been so short that she couldn’t sit on the seat, but that hadn’t stopped her. The experiment hadn’t ended well for her or the neighbours’ freshly rolled out eco-lawn. I remembered the single bike track across the delicate plastic blades of grass and the huge tear in the fabric where she had gone down in a heap. My dad had laughed long and hard over the ruined pseudo lawn which he called “pure frivolity”. I wondered if I could distract her, but Jake saved me the trouble.
“Uh, Cedar? What are the Jam Makers?” I watched him flick his bangs out of his eyes and then pull them back in to place with his long fingers.
“Hmmm?” She was still squinting at me suspiciously and I wondered if she’d even answer, but with a toss of her head, she finally did. “They run the Underground – you know, help Outcasts get settled outside the domes, keep our history intact, mess with the government when they can. It’s their little joke, their name I mean; they ‘preserve’ our past.” She let out a little chuckle and then turned back to look at the teens. Neither of them had laughed and while they had achieved a sort of quirky amusement in their expressions to humour her, it was clear they had no idea what she was talking about. She let out a sigh, the type that I made when a kid looked at me like I was from the Stone Age. “Preserves…you know. Stuff you used to put on your toast; also called jam or jelly? It was a type of food.” Taking in their befuddle faces; she gave up, wiping her hand over her face in an impatient gesture.
I could hear the kids whispering to each other and thought I caught the word “toast” with ensuing shrugs. I debated trying to explain, but the truth was even Cedar and I had never actually eaten real toast and jam. As kids, most of our food products were soy based and only mimicked what our grandparents had grown up on.
“Forget the Jam Makers,” said Blossom, her hand waving in the air dismissively, “what about the Outcasts?”
“That one’s a bit easier; they’re the people who get kicked out of the domes by our upstanding government.” Cedar looked somewhat relieved to be able to answer a question without any faces being made from the back seat.
“But, so like, what did they do? Why did they get sent away?” queried the girl, voice bright with curiosity.
“Anything the suits don’t like. Digging too much into the past, stirring up trouble with questions, trying to bring back the old ways. As far as our government is concerned things are as they should be and we should all just be happy to be alive.” The last part was said with a vehemence that felt like a kick in the gut. It came to me suddenly that that’s exactly what I’d been doing. Just getting by, accepting the crappy existence we’d all been handed. I never questioned or pushed back. I’d been a coward and that was probably why her comment had felt like an accusation. I knew what I had to do; tell her the truth. I climbed into the driver’s seat resolute in my decision.
It took less time than I thought; we’d barely cleared the underpass and reset our course for the cache when our tale was done. For everything we’d been through in the last few days, I’d thought it would take longer, but we were short on details about who was after Jake and why.
“So, you think that there’s some guy out there who knows how to grow food and take care of animals?” Stated out loud like that, I could understand the incredulity in her voice. “I mean, let’s be serious. Who’s going to be able to grow anything out here? There’s no water and besides, don’t you need…I don’t know…something to start the plants growing from?”
“Seeds?” I offered alleviating the only mystery I could.
“Yeah, seeds.” She paused, brows knitted in thought. “Seeds…wait there’s something important. Give me a sec.” I could see the wheels turning in her mind, trying to pull up some random factoid that she’d stashed there as she tapped on her forehead with her index finger. “Stop!” I pressed the brakes hard and the car skidded across the sand before coming to a halt.
“What?” I snapped, getting the car under control. “Did you remember about the seeds?”
“No, but the cache is around here somewhere.”
“How can you tell?” I couldn’t see anything unusual about where we’d stopped.
“See that rock over there, with the little one right beside it?” We all nodded squinting against the glare of the sun. “It’s a marker.”
“Come on!” protested Jake, “How can you possible tell that? It’s like a thousand other rock formations out here.”
“Not really.” Cedar drawled. “See how muck darker the small rock is? It’s not from around here. It was put there on purpose.” Blossom let out an impressed “oooh”, but Jake only offered up a characteristic half shrug. In truth, the rock was only a couple shades darker than the large rock, but almost everything else out in the Bee Zee was the same monotonous shade of beige, so the small rock was, indeed, unique.
Cedar leapt gracefully out of the truck and riffled through the backpack she’d been toting around. After a few moments she withdrew a collapsible shovel, made from scrounged parts, by the look of it. “Map!” she demanded holding out her hand like a doctor on some old hospital drama. Jake snapped it open and leaned over the crude drawing trying to make out some sort of landmark. With a sigh of impatience, Cedar gr
abbed the map and held it up in the direction of the sun. I almost had a heart attack when the paper started to smoulder, but before I could react, it became apparent that whatever was burning was intentional. Lines and images started emerging as the sun beat down on the map. I resisted rubbing my eyes in amazement; determined to play it cool. I took the shovel from her hand and pieced it together. We all waited expectantly for the sun to do its work.
Once the images were complete, an idiot could have found the cache. We paced out the steps from the marker rock and Blossom marked a big X in the sand and I started to dig. It was a slog. The sand kept tumbling back on itself and for every foot I dug out it would fill half way up again. The midday sun was blistering so we took turns digging and resting in the shade of the car.
“They bury them deep so surface scanners won’t pick them up,” explained Cedar. I kept skimming the horizon looking for tell tale glints, wondering where the drones had gone. I found it ironic, and mildly worrisome, that they had stopped flying over once we’d picked up Cedar. The sun was making me paranoid; good thing I was taking the shade before my brain fried completely.
Cedar elbowed me in the ribs, like she could read my thoughts.
“We should probably make an emergency cover for the hole, just in case the UAVs come back.” She could see the surprise on my face and realized that I’d been worrying about the unmanned planes. “Is it weird that we haven’t seen any flybys?”
Last Farmer: Last Farmer Series - Book 1 Page 9
