Strange Temple

by John Lilley

  46 MUDSLIDE

  Julie and stopped briefly after her link had beeped to tell her that it was time for a drink. She liked this kind of helpful intrusion to organise her day and smiled to herself as she drank the water. It was like having a like-minded obsessive friend with her. So far she was making good progress through the Cleveland Forest and was on schedule. It had only been three weeks since her return from her European tree-planting adventure. The de-briefing in Britannia City had gone on far too long for her liking, but she had finally got back home to the place she loved, all that desert and sunshine was not her kind of environment. Ivan seemed to be quite happy in his new city dorm, and she’d seen no reason to tell Trevor about the whole thing at the time, and because he was due to visit her, she didn’t see the point of visiting him on her way back to Cleveland. Her therapist had discussed it with her in their last session and had not been pleased with Julie’s behaviour. She had suggested that Julie should try to introduce thoughtful activities into her daily schedule where possible and to give a higher weighting to any activities with Trevor. Looking back, Julie now regretted her decisions and wished she had met up with Trevor in Britannia City, it had felt very awkward for her when she told him the whole story after he had arrived in Cleveland. She knew that he hated secrets, but he seemed to take it quite well and was very interested in Ivan. He was also very enthusiastic about her coming to stay for a while and meeting up with Ivan, but Julie had to admit to herself that she had no idea what he really felt about the whole thing, feelings were always difficult for Julie to measure.

  Walking through the nature reserve became more difficult every year. The undergrowth seemed to have doubled in density in the past eighteen months alone. She was sure that there were nowhere near as many brambles the last time she’d come this way. They were having a devastating effect on her clothing, and the usually resilient hemp-synthetic mix of her trousers was now torn in several places. There were also several bright red scars across her forearms that were beginning to swell and sting. She made a mental note to apply further factors to travel times along the network of tracks she was using. She hated getting travel times wrong, it was just so inefficient and impolite to arrive late.

  Sticking to the forest tracks worn by the animals was the only viable means of making reasonable progress. This still involved frequent use of her machete, but she always found that destructive activity strangely satisfying. As a Senior Forest Architect, she saw it as a mark of her profession’s success in returning this vast area of bleak moorland back into a thriving natural woodland ecosystem. With nothing to compare it to, she was not sure if that many brambles were typical of this type of forest, it was all one big experiment, and they would just have to see how nature shaped things.

  Julie’s link confirmed she was 10 km from her base in an area that was once the old Cleveland Immigration camp. Just as she was putting the link back in its pouch, the image on the tiny screen began to distort and then blanked out.

  Damn, thought Julie, just what I don’t need.

  She gave the device a few shakes and taps, but nothing happened. The power seemed to be on since the screen did light up, but there was no image. This same fault had occurred a couple of times in recent weeks and on both occasions, the image had eventually recovered as she returned to base. She had accidentally dropped the device a few times, but usually onto the soft forest floor, nothing of concern for a rugged device like a link. As a precaution, Charles, the other senior warden, had replaced her link the first time it went wrong and sent off the old one for recycling. Anyway, not much she could do about it now. She’d travelled through this area many times recently and felt reasonably confident that she knew where she was going. The dense canopy made it harder to determine exactly where the sun was, not that the sun was very visible in this part of the world beneath the ever present thick cloud cover, but Julie reckoned that she was only a couple of hours away from the Lodge at most.

  Before long she found herself in a section of elm trees (Ulmus Minor) that did seem familiar. Julie reckoned that the path would lead off to the right about half way through the elms. Sure enough, there was a path, somewhat overgrown, but Julie took it anyway. A few metres further on Julie could hear the running water from one of the many drainage ditches. It had rained heavily during the night, and the ditches were unusually full. The ground became softer, and Julie’s boots squelched as she negotiated the narrow path. Without any warning the section of track three metres either side of Julie slipped down the slope and Julie tumbled with it, limbs flailing. The surrounding bushes and soil moved with her in a muddy torrent. Julie winced as she bounced off a large boulder. The impact winded her, making her gulp in the mud and water which had immersed her. Choking, she tried to keep her head above the torrent, but she no longer had any idea of which way was up. Her fall continued to the sound of snapping branches as the mudslide gained momentum. Julie’s head was spinning, but somehow she managed to stay near the top of the now thundering mass of debris. Then, it stopped as suddenly as it had started, halted in its tracks by a dense clump of willows. Julie landed with a thump by the side of a ditch with her left leg twisted awkwardly underneath her. She screamed loudly as tendons and ligaments popped. Rolling to her right to free her leg she found herself staring down into the ditch. Her body started to slide on the mud towards the dark brackish waters of the ditch. She desperately clutched at anything she could to keep out of the ditch. Small stones were still bouncing down the slope. One larger stone smashed into her face while the remainder plopped into the ditch water, two metres below. Finally, silence, and she stopped sliding.

  After getting her breath back, Julie rolled onto her back, away from the ditch. She seemed to have lost control of her left leg below the knee, which had already swollen to twice its normal size. She could feel it pressing against the fabric of her trousers. Apart from that, it didn’t really hurt that much, but there was a pins-and-needles sensation coming from her left foot. Sitting up she gently probed the bad knee. Not good. She shuffled back from the edge of the ditch and took stock. She’d fallen about 30 metres from the path and was completely covered in sticky wet mud. At the top of the mudslide, the orange geotextile mesh used to stabilise the soil over 200 years ago was sticking out from beneath the exposed tree roots. Her rucksack was still on her back, and the machete was still on its lanyard slung over her shoulder, but her link was gone from its pouch on her webbing. She looked around for it, but all she could see was a churned-up mass of reddish-brown soil.

  She used the machete as a prop to help her to stand. Making no attempt to put any weight on the bad leg, Julie hopped towards the trees on the edge of the mudslide. She stood upright alongside a small sapling holding it with her left hand.

  Well here goes, the moment of truth, she thought, as she gingerly put some weight on her left leg.

  There was no sensation at all. The leg supported her weight but felt completely dead. Attempting to lift her left foot resulted in a feeling of increased pressure at the knee, but the knee didn’t bend. There was about four hours of daylight left and drawing on her backwoods expertise she decided that she needed to quickly get ready for a night in the woods, using the emergency tent and rations from her pack. Surveying the surrounding woods, she could see a small clearing ahead; big enough for the tent. Her link may have been detectable up to the point before she fell. Perhaps it was still working? Well, she could look for it in the morning, but she felt confident that she could get back to base on her own steam if required. Charles would know that something was wrong when she didn’t return, and he would be sending a drone to look for her, hopefully this evening. She needed to light a fire to keep the lynxes away, but also to attract the drone.

  Julie hopped into the clearing. The fire was now her main priority before it went dark. She wanted to be rescued before nightfall if possible. Scraping together some dry moss and small twigs from beneath the dead tree, she piled them up in the clearing. The fire stick was right at the bottom
of her pack, but a few strokes of the machete against it soon had the moss smouldering. It took a further ten minutes of attention before a recognisable flame emerged from one of the smaller twigs. Her left leg had started to hurt seriously by then.

  She collected more deadwood and left it near to the fire to dry out. The small tent was awkward to erect while hopping, so she did most of the work by shuffling around. Once it was up, she dumped her bag inside, stoked up the fire and crawled into the tent exhausted. Her first-aid kit yielded a couple of pain-killers that she gulped down with some water from her canteen.

  Oh bugger, she thought, as she lay down on the groundsheet and very quickly dozed off.

  David crossed the mudslide to the point where his scanner indicated. Probing the mud with his fingers, he pulled free Julie’s link and examined the small device at great length. Simple circuitry, just as well its power was cut, otherwise it would indicate that Julie was no longer in possession of it. David popped the link into his pocket, walked over to Julie’s fire and quickly kicked apart the smouldering pile and stamped out any burning embers. They certainly didn’t want any surveillance devices paying them a visit. Then jumping casually over the three-metre wide ditch he headed off at an inhuman pace through the woods to get Eric. They’d been heading towards the Lodge but had deliberately left one kilometre between themselves to reduce the chance of being detected and to avoid a double capture. He soon spotted Eric in a clearing up ahead.

  ‘You know this place is an ecological miracle,’ said Eric as he approached.

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ said David, ‘we have a visitor; I don’t know if we can use her? I left her a kilometre further up this track, this is her communication device.’ He slipped the link from his pocket and handed it to Eric.

  ‘And how did you get it off her? Did you use your animal charm?’ inquired Eric as he palmed the link and swung his pack off his shoulders.

  ‘No need to get jealous, big boy, I didn’t touch her. She got caught up in a mudslide and parted company with the communicator in the process. She’s seriously hurt her left knee and has set up camp for the night. She didn’t see me.’

  ‘Only joking,’ said Eric as he plugged the link into the Transcorder he had removed from his pack. ‘This little device looks like it might prove useful. With a few adjustments, we can tap into its onboard database. A bit more work and I think we can then switch it back on without it reporting us. It may then give us access to the local networks and their data, well-done buddy.’

  ‘What do you think we should do about the woman? She’s called Julie by the way, it was written on her rucksack,’ asked David.

  ‘Why don’t we stroll back to where you found her while the Transcorder is doing its stuff?’ suggested Eric.

  ‘Ratt-tat-tat, Ratt-at-tat-tat,’

  They both spun around and dropped to the ground. Nothing was visible.

  ‘What was that?’ said Eric.

  ‘Don’t know, keep down,’ whispered David.

  The two simulants remained prone in the waist-high bracken. They scanned the surrounding forest.

  ‘Ratt-tat-tat, Ratt-at-tat-tat,’ the sound came again.

  ‘Dead ahead, 25 m,’ whispered Eric.

  ‘Yeah, I agree,’ said David. ‘It’s hard to believe it’s some sort of animal, it sounds so mechanical.’

  ‘Well, let’s not try to disturb the bird any more than we have to,’ suggested Eric.

  They crawled back up the path as quietly as they could. Then headed off at a slow walking pace towards where David had discovered Julie.

  ‘Very strange?’ thought Trevor. He was sat in his hide some 20 metres away from David and Eric when the woodpecker had struck. He’d been in the hide since midday after spending over an hour picking the optimum spot and concealing the hide to the best of his back-woods abilities. David had been completely oblivious to his presence as he ran past at high speed. Trevor had almost jumped out of his skin as he saw David flash by. He’d nearly cried out, but something inside of him said warning - danger. The speeds of David’s movements were obviously unnatural especially to the trained eyes of a sportsman like Trevor. Whatever David really was, his outward appearance was very convincing. Why was a sophisticated tin-man running around deep in the forest? Was the question that was now foremost in Trevor’s mind. He adjusted his binoculars and tuned-in the microphone array as best he could to follow David’s rapidly disappearing form. Then David stopped, and Eric came into view. Trevor had the microphone turned up to maximum but only picked up the odd word from their conversation. One word sounded like “Julie” making Trevor’s senses become even more attenuated. Then the woodpecker struck. The microphone was directional, but even so, the amplified sound of its tapping sounded like a heavy pneumatic drill inside the headphones. Trevor jumped and fell off his small folding stool as he snatched off the headphones.

  Damn, of all the times to make your appearance he cursed. Looking across to the nearby tree he could see the small pale grey speckled body of the Golden Fronted Woodpecker, one of the main objects of his current search of the forest.

  Well, you’re going to have to wait, little birdie, something much more interesting has come up, he thought.

  As quietly as he could, Trevor picked up the stool and repositioned himself to get a better look at the new visitors. He’d just raised the glasses to his eyes and almost jumped again; the two tin-men were now only 10 metres from his hide and heading straight for him. He could feel his heart thumping, but when they were within five metres, they turned away and followed the forest track back in the direction from where the first one had appeared moments earlier. Trevor held his breath for a good minute then raised the glasses again to follow the pair. He slipped the headphones on and attempted to eavesdrop on them again, but they weren’t saying anything.

  ‘Hey, I’m getting loads of data from this little device,’ said Eric, looking at the display screen of the transcorder, ‘It’s the same deal as the Kids; they all have a transponder in their left hand, in the web of flesh between their thumb and forefinger. It’s nothing fancy, just contains an identifying code and all the other data is held in the central systems. The chip is just there for positive identification. The problem is that even if we cloned the chip and morphed to mimic their face and irises, all their scanners were modified when the Kids were taken, so that they only work on humans. We’d be caught straight away.’

  ‘So we are going to have to rethink this. Does the Lodge have any sort of direct contact with Mother?’ said David.

  ‘It looks like the whole system, including these links and the Rangers Lodge, is well locked down. Chief’s view was that Mother would only deem our message credible if she could be presented with those encrypted files we both have on board, but from somewhere within the British security system.’ said Eric.

  ‘So why do we need to plug into one of the high-security systems, why can’t we just call her on Julie’s link? Surely that would be proof that we were “inside” the system?’ said David.

  ‘I’m beginning to see that as a real option, given our current location. There seems to be no military presence here on the island, perhaps we could just hand ourselves in and present the files without getting fried? Maybe your new friend Julie could help us? By the way, how long before the guy in the hide makes an appearance?’ said Eric.

  ‘I’m sure he’s creeping towards us as we speak; keep your eyes and ears peeled. I’d no idea he was there until his microphone gave him away when that bloody bird scared us all shitless,’ said David.

  ‘That was funny, such a loud noise from such a small bird. We can set something up for him when we get back to Julie’s camp,’ said Eric.

  The night was closing in as they walked into the clearing where Julie’s tent was. She was still sound asleep.

  ‘Julie, Julie, wake up, we’ve come to help you,’ Eric said as he crouched down and gently tapped the boot of Julie’s good foot.

  ‘Nuurg.., what, who’s that?’ grunted Juli
e as she surfaced and attempted to sit up. The pain from her knee was now intense even with the slightest movement. She flopped back down.

  ‘Heh, take it easy. I’m Eric, and this is David. We were passing through when we got a request from the Rangers Lodge to look out for you. They reckoned you might be in trouble since your link had gone off-air. It looks like you took quite a tumble. David has already called them to say we’ve found you. A rescue squad is on its way.’

  ‘Lucky you were in the area. I don’t recognise your accent, where are you chaps from?’ asked Julie.

  ‘Britannia, south zone, of course, can’t you see it now?’ said Eric using a slightly exaggerated form of the accent his knowledge-space had on file.

  ‘So you’re tourist?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, arrived yesterday on the 10 am ferry,’ said David.

  ‘How are you feeling? Would you like a drink?’ asked Eric.

  ‘That would be great, got any whisky?’ said Julie.

  ‘Surely water would be better for you?’ said Eric.

  ‘Yeah, sure, only joking Dr Eric,’ said Julie

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Eric reaching into the tent. ‘Here’s my canteen, have a swig, and we can see if we can get you out of that tent and have a closer look at your knee.’

  Julie evaluated the new situation as she took the proffered canteen. The water felt great, but these two blokes seemed a bit strange. Why were they all the way out here at this time of day? They certainly didn’t have Britannia accents. South Zone: that would make them something to do with the Security Services? Better not ask too many questions, but they seemed pleasant enough.