“I was just thinking the same thing.” I pulled off my glasses and scrubbed my face and ran my hands through my hair. I caught the quick flash of a smile that she quickly placed under control.
“I remember you doing that as a kid,” she said, trying to explain her mirth. “Your hair is sticking up like some sort of fried circuit board.” She reached out a hand to smooth it down, but thought better of it as Jake plopped down beside her and handed the shovel to Blossom. I could see the sweat glistening on his brow under his Sunskin. I passed him a water tablet as Cedar continued with our prior discussion.
“Anyhow, we should get something rigged up, because I think it’s going to take a lot more time to dig up the cache.” I looked over at the hole and could only see Blossom’s shoulders and head. Granted, she wasn’t that tall, but how much further down could the damn thing be? I dug around in the back of the truck and pulled out one of the laundry bags we’d liberated from the dry cleaners. It was large, but not big enough to cover the entire hole. It would have to be sacrificed. I dumped out all the clothes in to the back of the truck and grabbed the edge of the sack on either side of the seam and pulled with everything I had. I was rewarded by the sound of a small pop from a thread breaking, but nothing else budged. I placed my hands slightly further apart and tried again, but like so many things I’d tried lately, nothing happened. I thought I heard a snicker and shot an accusatory glance over my shoulder at Cedar. Her lips were pressed together, smothering any further outburst, but she only tossed me a set of nail clippers resisting a smart-ass remark. It was finicky work, trying to pick out the plastic fibres of the stitching. I felt better once I realized the edge had been stitched over several times to make the seam strong enough to hold the weight of the clothes. Once I’d made a small opening I grabbed the edges of the bag again and had at it. I was so determined to get the damn thing open that I almost ripped it in two. I almost hoped I didn’t look too smug, when I passed the sheet of cloth over to Cedar. She eyed the glaringly white sheet of material with distaste and I knew what she was thinking. It would act more as a target than camouflage if we laid it out over the half dug hole. She walked over to the growing pile of sand and started rubbing in handfuls of dirt into the clothe trying to darken it. As she worked, I admired her lithe shape and determined expression. I could tell that she wanted to find the cache as much as I did.
“Are you going to sit there all day, with that stupid look on your face or are you going to help me?” she mocked, not looking up from her work. I heard Jake choke a bit as he manfully tried to swallow a laugh at my expense and I clapped his back hard, before I stood up to go help. I came to a sharp halt right beside her and accidentally sprayed her with sand, making her blink and sputter a little. Okay, maybe it was a little bit on purpose; I’m not crazy about being told what to do, but I bent down without saying anything and helped her grind the find sand in to the fabric.
An hour later, I was glad that the desert sand wasn’t as dark as the indicator rock. We’d worked nonstop in the blistering sun and had only made a bit of headway. The fabric was obviously designed to repel dirt and only by breaking down the fibres with the constant rasping of the sand did we find any success. Blossom had given up on digging and Jake was almost spent with effort from trying to get to the cache. At that point, I could see Jake’s jet black hair peaking over the hole and could see beads of sweat spray every time he flicked his bangs out of his eyes.
“Jake, go take a break, you’re going to get dehydrated.” I yelled over towards the hole.
“I think I’m almost there!” he called back hopefully and we all rushed over to see what he’d dug up. The three of us were disappointed when we looked into the hole we’d been working on. Nothing looked different, just beige sand and an equally beige Jake, coated in dirt and sweat, even over his Sunskin. “I didn’t say I’d found something, I just think we’re close.”
“Jesus, Jake!” I fumed, “Don’t say things like that if you aren’t sure!” I could tell that the heat and hard work were getting to me and I felt a bit light headed after standing up so quickly.
“Sorry, Dax, but I really think the cache is close.” He took a few more scoops with the shovel and then we all heard the same glorious noise; the deep thump of the shovel hitting something solid. He looked up at me with such a look of satisfaction and excitement that any anger I had disappeared with his boyish grin. Blossom danced around the hole like a deranged imp and Cedar gave me a high five followed by a whoop worthy of a Mohawk. It was then that I caught the ominous glint of metal on the horizon.
“Drone!” I yelled elbowing Blossom in to the hole and gesturing Cedar to follow. “Duck down!” The sheet was still impossibly white, with only smudges of beige and I knew it would blow our cover if we tried it. Wracking my brain, I did the only think I could and hopped in the truck, steering it over the hole as best I could. I hoped the adaptive paint would work as camouflage and I rolled out of the truck and tucked myself in the hole with everyone else; it was a tight fit. We all held our breath as the high pitched whine of the UAV flew over our hiding place. I let out a sigh of relief as the sound faded, but Cedar shushed me, her head cocked towards the retreating sound of the craft. In a few moments I could hear the sound of the jets returning and I knew we’d been spotted. I almost groaned in frustration, but Cedar clamped her hand over my mouth and pointed to the air and then her ears. I got the gesture, they would be able to hear us if we weren’t careful. I could see the lines of laser beams scanning over the surface of the sand about 500 meters away from our hidey hole, and guessed the others noticed as well since we all stepped closer together in semi-darkness. It felt like the beams scanned every inch of surrounding sand for hours, before the drone gave up and turned back towards Toronto. It was blessedly cool under the vehicle and while we were cramped and hunched over, at least we weren’t sweltering under the sun. For that and our complete terror, we waited another twenty minutes or so before daring to climb out from under the truck. Blossom ran several meters away and dropped to her knees, throwing up whatever was left of her insta-meal. I know how she felt, as my own stomach heaved and roiled from abject fear and a sort of cautious reprieve.
Jake, ever the gentleman, ran to the young girl’s side and helped her up. Her pale face worried me, but despite being embarrassed, her strides were steady, so I guessed she was alright. Cedar passed her a water packet, so she could rinse her mouth and rehydrate. We all deserved some real water, so I cracked in to our stash and handed out the bags. Our shadows had lengthened considerably and I knew we’d need to seek shelter soon to protect us from the dangers of the Bee Zee; but not before we dug up the damned cache. All of one mind, we turned back to our project. I backed our vehicle up and got back to digging. The sun was brushing the horizon when we struggled to get the large cask out of the ground and loaded into the back of the truck. As much as we wanted to see what was inside, we had to find a safe place to spend the night before we enjoyed our plunder.
Chapter 10 – Seeds of Change
Even though we were dangerously close to Montreal, I had to put on the search lights above the cab as well as the high beams to cut through darkness. The moon had yet to rise and the stars seemed muted, but maybe they were just offended by the light pollution that our trusty car threw out into the world. Blossom filled in the quiet telling us what she’d noticed as she’d been tossing her cookies in the sand.
“I totally couldn’t see Betsy. She just disappeared and I was like…what?” I tried not to look stupefied, but I couldn’t even begin to guess who or what a Betsy was and I wasn’t the only one with a mystified expression. “Oh, come on…Betsy…our ride?” She patted the side of the door affectionately.
“Ohhhh!” the three of us responded in unison, finally understanding what she was trying to say.
“Yeah it’s like almost invisible when you’re a few feet away,” she added for emphasis. I saw Cedar’s brow furrow and her lips press together in doubt.
“Problem?” I queried.
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br /> “Well, I hate to kill the buzz, but the rig wasn’t invisible when I came across you guys.” Cedar looked a bit sheepish, not wanting to burst Blossom’s bubble. I watched her from the corner of my eye as she lifted her heavy hair off the nape of her neck, trying to cool herself down. I could feel my own shirt sticking to my back against the seat and wished silently for my tiny dry shower at the pod.
“I swear!” protested Blossom, snapping me out of my thoughts, “It totally wasn’t there!” The rest of us exchange doubtful looks and I was worried that she might have gotten sun stroke. “And I couldn’t see the hole or you guys, either,” she threw in for emphasis. “Like, it might have a cloaking device or something.” She crossed her arms stubbornly across her chest and nodded her head just to affirm her certainty. Jake patted her leg comfortingly.
“Maybe the drones activate some sort of camouflage?” he asked, gamely stepping up to support Blossom. I supposed it was possible. This vehicle had more bells and whistles than I could imagine, so it wasn’t completely out of the question. Except for the fact that cloaking was still the stuff of science fiction, or at least I thought it was. I gave a one shoulder shrug, not wanting to kill their theory, but not completely committed to the idea either. Now I was doing it! Jake’s shrug was contagious and Cedar’s grimace told me she was thinking the same thing.
“Well, now that we’ve found a cache, I suppose anything is possible,” offered Cedar, “there was always talk about people who vanished in to thin air out in the Bee Zee. I mean right in front of other people’s eyes. I just thought we were reverting to some sort of anamorphic legend belief.”
“What’s that?” queried Jake, instantly taken with the phraseology. The kid was a sponge for that type of stuff.
“You know, people turning in to birds or animals,” explained Cedar, looking to me for further clarification. I was a modern history teacher, not one of those guys who looked so far back, you couldn’t recognize where you were, but I tried to fill in the idea as best I could.
“There were a lot of indigenous cultures that believed in a form of animism; meaning that they believed animals and other living things possessed a spirit. This included their belief that some animal spirits presented themselves in human form to either help or trick people.” Blossom yawned, but the glint in Jake’s eye gave me some encouragement and I continued. “It wouldn’t be surprising that people living in the Burn Zone might revert to a more fantastical form of belief system. It helps us rationalize things that don’t make sense and gives us meaning and a reason to carry on in really adverse conditions.” I’d exhausted my small lexicon of information on anthropology and psychology and hoped there wouldn’t be any in depth questions coming for the back seat. To distract Jake, I added “Let me know if you see a good place to make camp for the night.” We hadn’t driven far, the sand making the going slow, but we headed away from the bright lights of Montreal towards the Laurentian mountain range; signs of humanity were fading as we got further from the city. I wanted to find somewhere that could house the vehicle as well as us. We also needed space to unpack the cache and take an inventory. I only hoped the wind would fill our tracks as we fled into the heart of the Burn Zone. I was pretty sure that no other domes existed. I could only hope that the cache and Cedar’s wilderness experience could keep us safe.
I think we all saw the tunnel at the same time, but Blossom was the one who actually yelled out and pointed. We manoeuvred the vehicle, ‘Betsy’ I thought to myself, into the opening and drove in far enough that the drones wouldn’t be able to see the car, unless they did a low pass. The tunnel must have passed under a river once and it conveniently had a slight bend, so that the car’s lights didn’t shine out the other side, or so I hoped.
I was stiff from the day’s work and could barely uncurl myself from my sitting position. I noticed that Jake and Blossom also seemed stiff as they eased themselves, rather gingerly, out of the back seat. Only Cedar had her same graceful vigour as she sprang from the cab and went directly to the back hatch of the car. I sighed, as quietly as I could. I knew that we’d have to unload the damn crate from the car because there wasn’t enough space to lift the lid. My muscles seized a little at the very thought of man-handling the crate down to the ground and eventually back in to Betsy again, but I also knew it couldn’t be avoided. In spite of my exhaustion, I had to know what was in our hard won prize.
The four of us wiggled and cajoled the crate down on to the ground and pulled it in front of the head lights, so we could see. The sand acted, unexpectedly, as a weird type of lubricant and dragging the huge crate wasn’t actually as hard as I thought it would be. I still had to sit down and catch my breath and left it to Cedar to open the trove. She undid the latches and lifted the lid, letting it arc over on its hinges and drop to the ground with a soft thud. My first view was disappointing. There was some sort of fabric swathed over the entire contents and I found myself hoping that whatever it was wasn’t the only thing in the crate. Jake and Blossom grabbed at it in their eagerness, but were thwarted by Cedar’s sharp command.
“Be careful with that!” she snapped. The kids yanked their hands away quickly, looking guilty. “It’s a storm shelter and it looks big enough for all of us.” She explained further gesturing that the kids could lift it out. “It’s actually really rugged, but it can rip if it gets caught on something sharp,” she warned. I was surprised to see how thin it actually was, considering it was designed to survive category 5 smog storms, but it only took up a thin bit of space at the top of the crate. The tent was followed by an extensive first aid kit loaded down with zips, scanners, a few small packets of dry wash and a bevy of other useful items to get us through any given apocalypse. The next item was a bit more mysterious. It seemed to be some sort of heater or fan, with vents and a high capacity solar and wind wing.
“Uh, what is this?” I asked nudging the box suspiciously with my toe.
“Seriously?” Cedar asked, amazed at our naïveté. I refused to answer, not wanting to further prove my ignorance, but my faced must have clearly betrayed me, as she continued, “It’s a water generator.”
“You can generate water?” Jake’s eyes almost popped out of his head in incredulity.
“Yeah. This sucks the water right out of the air and holds it in this reservoir.” Cedar pulled out a drawer like thing that was designed to be water proof.
“But, there’s no water out here,” argued Blossom.
“Well, that’s not entirely true, there is some moisture, just not a lot, but there is some humidity in the air. It could take a while to fill the reservoir, but even though it doesn’t feel like it, there is water.” Blossom waved her arms around in the air, trying to feel any moisture.
“If you say so.”
“Well, we’ll set it up and see what tomorrow brings,” smiled Cedar. “We’re really lucky to get one of these. The government banned them about forty-five years ago.”
“That’s stupid,” snorted Jake, “why would they do that? Wouldn’t these help with the water crisis?” Even I wanted to hear Cedar’s opinion on that and I didn’t have to wait long, just enough for her to give a grunt of disgust.
“Water is power, Jake. The government said the generators were overtaxing the bio-dome systems, making it hard to maintain living conditions, but I think they didn’t want the average Joe to be able to produce his own water, it would make things too hard to control for them.”
“They don’t just control the water, Jake,” I added, “They also control energy. There’s technology out there that would support the internet and all the other electronic functions that have been cut off, but the government needs to control that too, so they can control us.” I scrubbed my hands through my hair, not sure whether I’d finally gone nuts or had just come to realize that everything Reg told me was actually true; except maybe for the aliens. The thought made me smile. I felt like somehow, Reg was looking after us and protecting us from whatever was coming; it gave me hope and a sense of peace
that I’d been missing for a long time.
While I’d been wool gathering, more items had appeared from the guts of the crate. Cedar had spread a variety of anti-drone weapons around her. She brushed a hand almost lovingly over each scrambler, flash-bang and hijacker. There was a small unit that I wasn’t familiar with, well less familiar with, than the other counter measures.
“What’s this?” I asked lifting up a small box. The image showed a unit with a high powered antenna and a port for digital information. Cedar took it from me and turned the box over in her hand a few times.
“I think it’s a mirage projector.” She opened the carton and dumped the contents in to her palm.
“Okay, so what’s that?” I was starting to feel stupid. How I’d survived some forty-seven years without knowing all this stuff was beyond me. I was a bit disgusted with myself, having bought in to the lie for so long.
“If I understand it correctly, it sends a false signal to drones; like running a video, so the operator sees something completely different than what the drone’s camera is actually picking up.” She slid the tech back in the box and handed it back to me. I nestled it gently on the sand, worried I’d break it somehow.
“Wow! That’s cool.” This came from Jake, even though I was thinking it, my pride had already suffered a hit and I didn’t want to inflict my masculinity with any further damage. Cedar struggled to pull out another box and I walked over and helped her lift out a fairly large container. We placed it on the ground and opened the lid. Cedar pulled out a box a bit larger than one of my shoe boxes and then I pulled out a box maybe twice its size. The box I grabbed accounted for the weight; I could feel my already tired arms protest as I placed my box next to the smaller one. Cedar had already cracked the cover of her mystery package and I saw her scratching her head as she lifted a solid black box with lots of knobs and what looked like some sort of communication device attached. “So what’s that?” Jake asked.
Last Farmer: Last Farmer Series - Book 1 Page 10
