Last Farmer: Last Farmer Series - Book 1

by Robertson, D. N.

  “Oh,” I answered. There was a distinct pause that told me the bot was waiting for something more. “Cool,” I added and Pip seemed satisfied.

  “Yeah, super cool,” supplemented Jake, making a quick turn and heading for the car. He rummaged around in the trunk for a bit and then brought back the mysterious black bar that we’d been toting around with us. If it had been larger we may have left it behind somewhere, but like most everything else that we’d found in the vehicle and the cache, we were going on faith that it would be important at some point. Cedar slid the chip into the port and we all waited. I don’t know what we were expecting, but I can tell you that the set of six panels with lights spinning endlessly wasn’t exactly what we were hoping for.

  I tried to let go of the ridiculous hope that some sort of portal would open up and offer us safe passage to our destination. Perhaps I’d watched too much sci-fi as a kid. Science had never been able to make the huge leaps we’d expected after the Melt. The industry had been too focussed on a little something called survival; a thing I had become suddenly and intimately familiar with and at that point, I didn’t feel like I had much time for useless pieces of old tech.

  “Is it broken?” asked the girl.

  “No, Family Member…” the bot paused awkwardly, “er, we are just not in range of the necessary signal. The lights signify that the descrambler is functioning as required.” Pip turned to me and I could have sworn the digitized face had an expectant expression on. “Owner Dax?” I knew where he was going with his polite address and I didn’t really want to get in to it.

  “Not now, Pip, we have to get packed up and out of here.” I made a quick gesture to the increasing sunlight and made a lot of putting on my Sunskin and packing up my bed. I watched as the girl’s eyes followed the RAB-bot as it ran scans and finally settled itself on the dash of the car. She seemed half fascinated and suspicious with the little guy, but I was starting to think that curiosity was winning out. We’d have to find her a name soon, I couldn’t keep thinking of her as ‘the kid’.

  “Hey, Cedar,” I said quietly, pulling her to one side. She looked at me expectantly for a second and then continued packing the back of the car, her ear tilted toward me to show she wasn’t ignoring me completely. “Do you have any ideas about a name for the kid?”

  “What? Me?” She looked kind of startled that I’d even asked.

  “Well, she is your niece…” I left the thought hanging in the air between us for a minute or two. “Come on, you must have some family names or maybe Amethyst mentioned something?”

  “She’s old enough, she can pick one out for herself,” while she tried to pass it off as logic, the slight inflection on the end of the sentence gave away her doubt.

  “You heard her last night. She only knows survivalist names and doesn’t want one of those. We have to at least give her some options. If she were your daughter, what would you call her?” I admit; it was a low blow, playing on whatever maternal instincts Cedar might have hidden under all those defensive layers. I watched as several emotions played over her face and I could tell that she’d actually started pondering the problem when her expression set itself to pensive.

  “Amethyst never said anything about the baby’s name. It’s my fault, really, because I ran before her pregnancy became a real thing to her. God, I was such a coward, I should never have left her and maybe she’d still be alive if I’d stayed.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze, trying to comfort her as best I could.

  “You were there, remember? You came back, but there was nothing you could have done either way.” She dropped her head against my shoulder whether and it was to acknowledge my words or disagreement, I couldn’t tell.

  “Mom and Dad talked a lot about what to name the Amethyst before she was born. They were nuts about the nature names,” she smiled crookedly, “obviously.”

  “Okay, so let’s start there. What names did they like?”

  “That was a long time ago, Dax,” she sighed heavily, but then she straightened her shoulders and shrugged out from under my arm to look at me. “Right, names, we can do this. They didn’t want to use another forest name, I remember that. They broke down different themes like air, earth, fauna, even water…yeah, all that nature stuff. Not that it was such a unique idea, a lot of people named their children after things from the natural world. I guess the question is what do we want to preserve? What don’t we want people to forget about?”

  “Water.” The quiet statement hadn’t come from me, but from the girl, who had been hovering around the other side of the car, not quite sure what to do with herself.

  “What was that Sweetie?” asked Cedar, knocked out of her ponderings by the interruption.

  “Water’s pretty rare, ain’t it? I mean real water, not regenerated, or recycled, but just regular water?”

  “Of course!” agreed Cedar rapidly giving the girl a quick squeeze. “But we can’t just call you ‘Water’, it sounds, well, silly, doesn’t it?” She looked to me for support.

  “Okay, let’s think of some things that relate to water, but are part of the natural world we’ve lost. I think that’s the idea your parents had, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what they were trying to do.”

  “Okay, water words…” I paused gathering my thoughts, “ocean, lake, cloud, stream, pond, mist, fog,” I paused in my list but only got a scrunched up face of dislike from the girl and a negative head shake from Cedar. “Snow, blizzard, glacier, storm…” I was starting to slow down, as my limited water vocabulary ran low. “Wave, tide, current…” I wracked my brain for more words and could only add a few more, after having mentally crossed out estuary, swamp and bog, “Brook? Rain? River?” I gave up and shrugged my shoulders. “Well, will any of those do?”

  “The last three aren’t bad, what do you think?” asked Cedar turning to the girl.

  “Uhm, well, I git what rain is, or at least I’ve bin told about it, but what ‘bout brook and river?”

  “They’re both types of water flows. A river was a large flow of water that usually ran from high ground to low and ran all year round. Brooks were like small rivers and could dry out if there wasn’t enough rain.” I’d seen pictures of both, during my studies and I knew that both water sources were important historically. “If you watch as we travel, you’ll notice a lot of dry river beds and nearby there are usually communities. Before the melt, humans were never that far from water.” I skipped the very little I knew about desert nomads, why bring up something so random?

  I could see the girl turning over the words in her head as Cedar and I waited expectantly. She was what, thirteen? How could we expect her to chose out a name and stick with it? Weren’t kids that age erratic in their likes and dislikes?

  “River,” she said decisively. “I don’t wanna be named after somethin’ that disappears in tough times.” I resisted pointing out that except for the largest of rivers, most had disappeared. “River,” she said again with a nod and then her whole face lit up in an enormous smile.

  “Hey, shouldn’t we have some sort of ceremony or something?” asked Blossom. “I mean getting a name is a pretty big deal, right?” It wasn’t a bad idea, but we didn’t have time for that right now. The sun was already well up and we’d lost some of our safer travel time in all the discussions about the kid’s…River’s, I corrected myself, name.

  “It’ll have to wait, I’m afraid, we need to roll. There’s a lot of ground to cover between here and the coast and we’ll have to keep to the north for a while, before we can cut down and across the old border. Let’s get going.”

  They all bundled themselves in to the car, which seemed to be getting smaller, but really our little family kept growing. River snuggled herself down in the very back, nestled amongst the bags of clothes, leaving the back seat for what she called ‘the big kids’ and I could hear her muttering her new name to herself over and over again, until she finally drifted off to sleep, lulled by the mo
vements of Betsy as I navigated the barren terrain of the Burn Zone.

  Chapter 24 – Eau de Joie

  The going was monotonous. Everyone else in the car was sound asleep, as the vehicle climbed up hills and then wended down over dry stream beds, fields of rock and sand. I noticed that some of the river beds seemed almost boggy, or the sand was particularly deep as I crossed old tributaries of the once mighty Saint Lawrence. I used the car mirrors to keep an eye on my charges, slowly developing a strategy to keep them safe. There would be no more camping in the open and we would cut the safest path we could down and across the border where I would eventually find a marker that would lead me to the coast.

  I knew that somewhere there was still a small channel of water that was fed by the Atlantic Ocean, but every year the channel shrank, as the ocean waters lowered in the heat. I didn’t know it then, but rain wasn’t completely gone from the planet. Every several years a storm would form over one of the oceans and return some of the water back to earth. I would learn of that later, but now that I know, it helps me understand some of the other stuff that happened on our race to the coast. Little did I know that some of the river beds that I crossed were tapped in to new water sources developing under ground. It would have given me hope, had I known it, but perhaps I wouldn’t have been as driven to get somewhere safe. I now had four souls to be responsible for; four people that needed me as much as I needed them, and that was the thought that kept me awake during that long day. I drove well past dark and continued going until I found an old barn, if the roof line was any indication, which would shelter us for the night. I didn’t dare camp out of doors again. The previous night had been a risk and I was determined not to do it again, if I had to drive for two days solid. I didn’t even unbuckle my seat belt before my head dropped down to my chest and I was fast asleep.

  I awoke and found myself tucked up in my emergency blanket with a wicked crick in my neck. Sleeping sitting up was definitely overrated. Everyone else was out of the vehicle and worse, out of my sight. I aggressively repressed the leap of fear that seized me, as I eased myself out the driver’s door and swivelled my head around, both hoping for a glimpse of my travelling companions and for a good crack that would indicate my neck was realigned. The crack came, but it was more wrenching and rattled my nerves, shooting pain into both my ears, I still couldn’t see Cedar or the kids. I walked towards the huge opening at the front of the barn and gazed out to the nothingness that we had crossed yesterday. There was a neat line of foot prints that led around the side of the barn and followed the north wall towards the back of the building. I crept silently, wondering what disaster could have befallen everyone while I slept. My only consolation was that there didn’t seem to be signs of a struggle.

  I cleared the edge of the barn and could make out the outline of another building rising up from a small valley. It looked like a farm house and I headed toward it unerringly.

  I didn’t get far, before I spotted Jake racing towards me, waving his arms like a mad man.

  “Dude!” I could just catch his voice on the breeze and I started running in his direction. “Dax! Man, you’re never going to believe this!” I gave him a quick, assessing once over and determined that he was flush with excitement, not terror and I finally let out the breath that I’d been holding and let relief flood me.

  “Believe what?” I couldn’t help but return his goofy smile and turned to walk with him back towards the farm house.

  “Water!” I stopped mid stride and turned towards him and he did the same. I stared at him hard and he nodded his head vigorously. “Yeah, I know! But, seriously, there’s a spring or something in the basement of the house, and Dax, it’s warm. We can get cleaned up!”

  I have to admit that I’d never known kids to be overly concerned with cleanliness, but having gone several days without the benefit of a decontaminating shower or even a zip clean, I could believe that even Jake would be excited. Considering his level of enthusiasm, I appreciated the fact that he came to get me before indulging himself.

  When we arrived at the farm house Jake led me through the mouldering contents of a building, frozen in time, half rotted and then mummified in the arid air. I couldn’t believe that there was any type of modern convenience in the place, what with the electric oven, rusted to the high water line from the melt and what looked to be a real throw back to the past; a refrigerator. I probably would have taken a few seconds to inspect it, but it wasn’t going anywhere and Jake was pulling me by the arm to a door at the back of the kitchen.

  We descended in to the basement and followed a slim beam of light that came from a back corner. I was surprised when we came to a heavily fortified door, but Jake pushed his way through it easily and entered a well lit room.

  I looked up and saw that daylight was feeding in from long tubular skylights that ran up through the ground and I could just see the eave of the roof through the one closest to the house. I could hear the girls giggling behind a divider screen and heard the luxurious hiss of running water. A little cloud of steam drifted over the frosted Plexiglas wall and I almost stripped down immediately in my haste to get clean. I had my Sunskin off before I realized that it was likely a bad idea to go charging in to a room of naked women, especially ones that I was supposed to be responsible for. Blossom slipped out, dripping and bundled in a good sized sheet of clothe. Her skin was pink from the heat and she looked more relaxed than I’d seen her since she was rescued.

  “God it feels good to have the stink of those people off of me!” She did a little pirouette and then frowned at Jake. “Where’s the clothes?” I could see red slowly sneaking up his neck.

  “Oh, I…” His became instantly infatuated with his shoes, inspecting them minutely before he answered. “Dax was already part of the way here and I was so excited to tell him that, well, I forgot about the clothes.”

  “’You guys shower,’ you said. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll go get the stuff.’ That is what you said, wasn’t it? Like ten minutes ago?” I don’t think that she was actually angry, but she just couldn’t resist giving him a good jab. I didn’t think he could manage it, but he turned even redder; in a nasty blotched sort of way, not a good look for a kid with black hair and golden skin. He shrugged, this time with both shoulders, obviously annoyed with himself and without saying a word, turned to finish his mission. I went to follow him out, but Blossom grabbed my arm and shoved me towards the screen. “I’ll go with him, you take a shower.” She draped the end of her wrapper over her shoulder and departed with a dignity that belied her age and state of dress.

  I hesitated. I didn’t know what the set up behind the partial wall was and I didn’t want to surprise anyone on the other side. I peeked around and saw two panels of clothe hanging over separate doorways. One panel was open and the other closed, so I made a dash for the open curtain just as the water in the other stall turned off. I quickly closed the curtain and shed the clothes I was wearing. I contemplated getting rid of my beloved Grateful Dead shirt, just on the principle of pure grossness. I tossed everything else past the curtain, but kept the shirt in hopes that I might be able to clean it as well. I eyeballed the panel on the wall, figuring it controlled the shower and was happy to hear a beep when I poked the panel with my index finger. There were five options that seemed to range from rinse to what appeared to be a “deep clean” function. I pressed the last option and couldn’t help but let out a satisfied groan as my body was pummelled by cascades of water jetting out from various nozzles in the wall. I turned around at the beep and my back got the same treatment. I was mildly surprised when a jet of soap passed up and over me, coating me in a slimy layer of bubbles, but I scrubbed it in to my hair working up a good lather. I was rinsed aggressively and then re-soaped, which gave me the chance to wash my shirt and it and I were given a final once over with hot clean water. I was about to step out, when a burst of warm air blasted me to within an inch of my life, before a panel opened up displaying a stack of what I presumed were towels. I wra
pped myself up and hesitantly exited the stall. I toyed with the idea of having another go, but I knew that Jake was likely waiting his turn and I didn’t know how much hot water there might be.

  The pure luxury of being clean also gave me the idea that maybe we could just stay here and settle down, but the barren landscape and lack of provisions quickly convinced me that plodding on was the best course.

  Jake was singing, his voice lifting over the thrumming sound of the shower and I smiled as I rifled through the bags of clothes and found something new to wear. The three girls were looking quite satisfied with themselves when I appeared in the farmhouse kitchen. If I’d learned one thing on this crazy adventure, it was that I would never, ever take cleanliness for granted again. I shuddered to think how long it might be before I got the opportunity to shower again. Even if we reached some sort of civilization it was completely unlikely that they’d have sufficient water to bathe with.

  River was poking around in the old kitchen technology and I couldn’t help but go into a dissertation about the uses of the appliances and various oddities in the room. If was a veritable time capsule and I wished that we had more time so that I could catalogue some of the more unique items. Some of the things were so rare I couldn’t even hazard a guess at their use.

  “Let’s go,” urged Cedar, yanking on my sleeve to get me to pull my head out of a small compartment on the top of the refrigerator. She had a bag of clothes slung over her shoulder and pointed to another bag on the floor. There seemed to be a damp ring around the edge of it and when I went to lift it the weight surprised me. “What? You didn’t think I’d leave without washing some of the dirty clothes did you? We can dry them tonight when we make camp, but we have to go or we’ll never get to the coast before our supplies run out.” She looked around, as if to check that we hadn’t left anything and then stepped closer to me. “Especially with an extra mouth to feed.” The last part was said quietly, her breath close again my ear and I could smell the sweet scent of the soap from the showers as her hair fell across my face. My body’s reaction was a natural one, but when she stepped away I was left to wonder if I also smelled of candy and other girly things.