Maxim removed a small box from the brief case. “We will equip you with everything you need to get into the labs with the drones. Access codes, fingerprint coverings. Look.” He held up a laser pointer. “This is for the retinal scanners. Its program is an exact copy of a guard’s.”
“How did you get that?”
Maxim bared his teeth. “We have people everywhere.” He went on to explain that all they needed were the DP addresses of certain drones. Then, he opened another small box filled with chip drives. “These chips will be our link to hack into the robots used in the Demos. We’ll be in control of them the entire time. Your brother won’t be harmed. All you have to do in return is to get us those numbers. You can do that while installing the chips. Easy.” He flicked the ash of his cigarette.
Kilt fingered the edges of the folder. “Is there any way you can get James back to the Farms?”
Maxim raised his hands. “That is not in my employer’s power. If he is not welcome in your country, there’s nothing we can do. The island is the best option. You can even steal a boat. Go to the island yourself.” He laughed as if this were a joke, but it gave Kilt an idea. Maxim gestured in the air. “And don’t worry. You will be clean. No evidence of your involvement.”
Kilt studied the pages. “So these DP numbers, they’ll be going to Eurasia? To help them win the war?”
Maxim snuffed out his cigarette. “You a patriot or something?”
Kilt shook his head. “No, I’m more concerned with my own family than I am helping this crooked country.” Yet the idea made him uneasy.
He flipped through the documents. They had everything covered. The instructions made it sound simple as syrup. Still, he didn’t like the idea of James being sent to the island. He was too sick, too weak to fend for himself. “So.” he looked up at Maxim, “after the Demos are over we’re done?”
The Eurasian folded his hands. “That is right. After we get the DP numbers you are free to go on your way. You are off the radar, as you say in your country.”
Kilt traced his finger along the outline of the map.
“This is a good deal for you, my friend.” Maxim lit another smoke.
Kilt looked through each page once more, his eyes skimming over the jargon he only vaguely comprehended. After a minute, he shut the folder and reached across the table. “I’ll do it.”
They shook hands and that was the end of their meeting, but after Kilt left the house and was on his way home, he couldn’t stop the feeling that it all seemed too good. Too easy. He didn’t like how he felt shaking Maxim’s hand. He just remembered hoping he would never have to see that Eurasian’s face again.
He hoped.
Chapter 16
The smell of mulch aroused his senses, but it was the wetness in the air that kick started his brain. He was out of the desert. Kilt’s eyes cracked open. It was dark. He thought he was still under the influence of the tranq but then as his vision materialized, and he realized he was inside a room somewhere.
“He’s waking up. He’s waking up!” said a peculiar voice, but what was so peculiar? It was a child’s. Why where there children? He thought of the two small skeletons laying in the back bedroom of the adobe and shot up.
Kilt found himself looking into the faces of a frightened woman with round blue eyes and what he assumed were her two children.
“Wh-ere? Who ‘r you?” Kilt sputtered, surprised to find himself alive. He was in small, dim room. The afternoon light filtering through the crooked boards cast hap-hazard lines across the stone wall. The smells of wood and sap told him that he was in a forest.
“Go get your father,” the woman said without taking her eyes off Kilt.
The older of the two boys ran off, but the other, stayed and watched Kilt with his spongy blue eyes absorbing every part of this stranger.
Kilt’s strength deflated and he fell back. The black edges framing the world returned like an ink blot coming from the wrong direction.
“Water,” he whispered hoarsely.
The woman came to his side holding a cup to his lips. He swallowed greedily. This seemed to either please or amuse her and a petite smile spread across her lips.
Kilt started to say something but then the water cramps began and soon the ink blotted the entire room.
***
It wasn’t until later when Kilt heard the crickets chirping in the darkness that he remembered he was in the woods. The strangeness of being around life when he was in the dead lands for so long made him feel both exhilarated and vulnerable at the same time.
He remembered the look in the woman’s eyes and the word “father” which meant there was a man of the house. Or shack or whatever he was in.
Kilt pushed himself into the sitting position. It was pitch dark except for a small fire glowing through an opening in the shelter. He was in a small lean-to and his bed was on the ground against a rock wall.
He looked at his bare chest under the covers. Someone had stripped him down to his underwear, and then he noticed his pants lying next to the fire. He grabbed them and pulled the module from his pocket, after shaking it, be breathed a sigh of relief that there was no rattling sound. Maybe the water hadn’t seeped in.
Now that he was out of his mental cloud he noticed the cleanliness of the air, so thin and crisp with a hint of sugary velvet—pine and sweet sap.
He thought he was alone but then there was a crunch of leaves underfoot. He tried to stand up but was still too weak. How long had it been since he’d eaten?
A point of light appeared at the foot of the shelter.
The younger boy was walking in carrying a candle.
Kilt relaxed and leaned against the rock. The boy held a cautious hand in front of the flame showing that he was warned about the hazards of fire in a place like this.
He sat down on the ground in front of Kilt and looked up with those spongy eyes.
“Hi,” he whispered.
“Hi,” Kilt tried to whisper but his voice came out raw and gruff. He cleared his throat. Introductions could wait. He only had one thing on his mind. “Water?”
The boy’s dewy face glowed in the golden light, pure, and blameless as a pearl, his large eyes framed by wispy blonde curls, the kind they only get a period in life when they’re young. He slowly pointed to Kilt’s pillow. Next to it, on top of two wooden slats was a glass of water and what looked like strips of jerky.
Kilt downed the water and then started on the jerky. He paused when the boy picked up the cup, took it outside, and returned with a refill, the quivering surface dancing in the candle light.
Kilt swallowed the meat. “Thanks.” He took the cup. “What’s your name?”
“Jack,” he said with affirmation as if this single word embodied his entire existence.
Kilt smiled. “Nice to meet you, Jack. My name is Kilt.”
“Kilt,” he said with the same affirmation.
He liked this kid. “So Jack, can you tell me where I am?”
Jack nodded. “You’re in my hut.”
Kilt raised an eye brow.
“Mine and Joe’s.”
Kilt remembered the older of the two, the one who left to go get his father. He swallowed another mouthful of jerky and washed it down. “Jack, can you tell me what forest this is?”
Jack smiled broadly like it was a game show and he knew the million dollar question. “We’re in The Forest With No Name.”
Kilt’s smile disappeared. Great. What a place to land. But he supposed if they had food, water and were friendly then what did it matter the name?
“It has no name,” Jack continued, enunciating every consonant, “Because we don’t exist.” His eyes were placid, cold.
Kilt frowned, such strange words to come from a little boy. They sounded more like a repetition, something he heard an adult say, and he was willing to bet, that the adult probably held the same cold look in their eyes.
“How many of you are there Jack?”
The boy pressed his finger t
o his cheek and tilted his head. “Ummm. Me, Mom, Dad and Joe.” He paused and counted on his fingers. “And I have five friends. Plus their moms and dads.”
A family compound.
“And Billy,” Jack added. “But he left.”
Kilt was about to ask about Billy but they heard a noise. Jack jumped up, his eyes wide. “My mom,” he whispered. “Good night Mr. Kilt.” He ran out, leaving his candle.
Kilt lay in bed with the candle light thinking about the conversation. We don’t exist. There was something about that concept that was both invigorating and frightening.
Exhaustion pressed down on him again, his body working hard to digest the jerky. He drank the last of his water, blew out the crooked candle and closed his eyes.
Chapter 17
Kilt slept through the night and into the morning, awakening to voices. He sat up. His back was a macramé of knots, but he was alive.
Jack must have been keeping an eye on him because his water had been refilled. He took a drink, stood up, dressed himself and then carried the cup out into the daylight.
Even beneath the chaperone of the tall forest trees, the sun’s light was blinding. Spending so much time under the nuclear cloud, his eyes weren’t accustomed to a cloudless day. But it was a welcome offense.
“Mr. Kilt!”
Kilt turned to see the family cooking around a fire.
“Jack,” the mother spoke softly in a sing-song voice, “how do you know his name?”
Jack’s cheeks flushed at the epiphany he’d revealed himself. He played with the hem of his shirt that was about a year too small, its buttons bulging.
The mother wore those same frightened eyes he’d seen the day before, though less severe, Kilt noted, since she was sitting next to her husband.
The man was middle aged and had a beard like Kilt’s except his was flecked with grey and probably ten years older. He wore a rag, tied over his head with his long shaggy hair hanging out the back.
“Good morning,” Kilt said holding up his hand as a sign of good faith.
The father eyed him with a mixture of skepticism and curiosity.
He stood up and walked over. Kilt noticed the shine of a very large knife in his belt. He must have cleaned it that morning. That’s when he realized his own knife was gone.
“Morning.” He stuck out his hand. “My name is Joe Balinski. But everyone calls me Senior.”
“Kilt Tillman, sir.” They exchanged calloused handshakes.
Senior was short but had muscular arms and a vice-like grip. Even beneath his plaid shirt, his build indicated that he was no stranger to manual labor. Kilt felt slightly more relaxed. He’d grown up around men like Senior his entire life.
“Why don’t you come have some breakfast?” He beckoned Kilt over. “Hope you like eggs.”
Kilt’s stomach grumbled in response.
He took his place on the empty log. Jack jumped up and joined him. His mother looked as if she wanted to protest, but then pressed her lips together, her eyes darting nervously between Kilt and her husband. Her blonde hair was on the frizzy side and she kept it tucked back in a bun. She was thin but also had a muscular tone like a figure skater.
“This is my wife, Penny.” Senior gestured.
Kilt tried to smile at her reassuringly but by her response, it probably looked more like a growl.
“Penny.” Senior nudge her. “Do we have any more of those eggs?”
“Of course.” She shook her head as if remembering herself. She handed three eggs to Senior who broke them onto the hot iron grill, his face growing ruddy from the heat.
“Much appreciated.” Kilt nodded. He turned to the other boy. “And what’s your name, son?” God it felt good to be around people again.
“Joe,” the boy said. His voice had a pitchy-ness that came puberty. “Joe Junior.”
“Well, Mr. Tillman,” Senior sniffed, “I don’t know who you are but you certainly got the drones in a tizzy.”
Kilt glanced at the sky, his eyes watering in the new light. He started to say something but couldn’t put his words together, his brain still sluggish either from his journey or the sedative. “I-I’ve got a lot of questions.”
Senior smiled. “Well, eat up and then you and I will go cut some wood. We’ll talk then.”
Penny handed him a plate full of fried eggs, sunny side up, the jiggling golden bubbles glistening cheerfully in the morning light.
After breakfast Kilt and Senior walked deeper into the woods over a casually worn foot trail, muddled with leaves and rocks. Kilt looked up at the trees amazed by how much life could spring up so close to devastation.
Senior must have read his thoughts. “As you go further northeast, the trees get even taller and thicker.”
Jack and Joe came along. Jack, who was seven, Kilt had learned, scampered around with clumsy, puppyish energy, jumping into the leaves and kicking up rocks. But, Joe with his dark brown hair to match Senior’s stayed close to his dad with the vigilant look of a co-pilot.
Senior’s eyes were warm and smiling yet he spoke with the stoic reserve of an outdoorsman comfortable with long stretches of solitude. He told Kilt about how when he was younger, “around your age,” during the Rebuilding, his family had rebelled by fleeing and hiding out in some woods to the northeast, but that area became heavy with drone searches so they fled to these woods with a group of other families.
“There were fifty-two of us in total. That’s how I met Penny.” He reflected with a smile. “But eventually that group died down. Some were arrested, others fled to the Kradle, unable to handle the winters, others just died,” he said, rubbing his brow. “Now it’s down to only fourteen. Us, and the Clifton’s over yonder.” He pointed. “And the Jepsum’s a little further.”
“Do you think there are more people out there? In hiding maybe?” Kilt asked.
Senior picked up a stick examined it, and then tossed it aside. “Dunno. But I’ve heard rumors. Some good. Some not.”
“Not?”
Joe interrupted. “I hear one, Dad! Two o’clock.”
“Ssh.” Senior pressed his finger to his lips and everyone froze, turning their eyes to the sky.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Sure enough there was the buzzing of a drone.
“Think it’s coming this way?” Joe whispered to his dad.
They all waited. Kilt held his breath. Even Jack had turned into a statue, like a little garden gnome. A moment later the buzzing faded and they all relaxed.
“Headed northeast I think,” said Joe.
Senior nodded in agreement. “Can’t be too careful,” he addressed Kilt. They continued walking but kept their eyes to the sky.
No one spoke for a minute until Joe broke the nervous silence. “You gonna ask him Dad?” Senior gave him a look.
“Ask me what?” Kilt looked from one to the other.
Senior waved his hand. “We’ll get to that part later. Now, to answer your earlier question about the others: there are—well were—rumors of guerilla rebels hiding out across the country.”
“Doing what?” Kilt stumbled over a rock.
Senior shrugged. “Dunno what exactly it is they do, but I’ve heard they want to start a new world order. They’re trying to get their numbers up. I’ve heard they even do this through kidnappings. Quite frankly I’m not sure what to believe, but I do know they’re an extremist group of survivalist.” He eyed Kilt speculatively. “Would you be interested in joining something like that?”
“No,” Kilt answered immediately. “I’m trying to get my brother back and then we’re going off on our own. Find us a nice piece of land to work. If we’re lucky, maybe a couple of wives. We were farmers back in the Kradle.” Kilt explained about James.
“Those Demos.” Senior got a distant look. “Hell of a thing.”
They continued along and soon there was a familiar sound. Water was flowing, crackling over the rocks. They edged down a slope in the earth until they reached the river bank.
> “Right here, is where we found you,” Senior gestured, “upside down like a limp crawdad.”
Kilt looked down at the innocuous section of the river. There wasn’t a shred of evidence he was ever there, not a footprint, not a drop of blood, not even a broken twig. Any traces he may have left behind either didn’t exist or was destroyed. Kilt suspected the latter.
“We heard the drones. Then there was the sound of you crashing through the trees. You were louder than a moose,” Joe said.
Senior placed his hand on his shoulder. “Lucky you were. Otherwise you would have drowned.”
“Thank you,” replied Kilt. “They got me with a tranq.” He pointed to his shoulder.
“I figured. They like to do that. I ‘spose they thought they missed you, because they searched for you north of here, probably thought you were still running. Good thing too.” Senior walked down the little hill leading to the water’s edge. He gestured for Kilt to follow. “Come on down. I didn’t bring you all the way here for a ‘thank-you.’”
Kilt followed. “I thought we were going to chop wood.”
“Changed my mind. Me and the boys will take care of the wood. You, on the other hand.” Senior looked up at him with a grimace. “You need a bath.”
Jack came bounding up beside him looking up with earnest eyes. “’Cause Mr. Kilt, you stink!”
***
The river water was waist high and cold. As it wove in between Kilt’s thighs and nether-regions he was revitalized and refreshed. Yes sir, he was in desperate need of a good bath.
It was strange, although he had been alone for a long time, he felt vulnerable now that Senior and the boys had headed back to camp. He’d feel a lot safer if they hadn’t left. Just yesterday this area was crawling with CorMand infantry. What if they hadn’t given up the search?
It wasn’t difficult to push these thoughts from his mind. The water was just so damned fine.
He scrubbed, using a stone to free the armor of ash that had gathered on his skin. The powder was clingy, unshakable and seemed to have burrowed its way through his clothing, caking him from head to toe. He watched the thick grey cloud of muck swirling away from his body, thinning out as it flowed down the river.
Children of the Kradle (Trilogy Book 1) Page 9
