By then we had all realised the Ether wanted me dead, but I couldn’t tell how the lightning knew where I was; perhaps the heat signature of the bikes was being tracked; perhaps Ellie had put one of her homing beacons in my haversack. Whatever the angry lightning was searching for, it was struggling to find its mark. Luckily for us, the weather controlling satellite was continually having to adjust its position and attitude due to the relentless and now less predictable solar wind pushing it out of place.
It felt like we were getting somewhere now. Woynek headed for a gap in the relatively flat, scorching hot tundra, and we plunged down an old water course, that cut deeper and deeper below the desert floor. The ancient river bed soon became a steep sided canyon that afforded us some protection from the elements. Jagged streaks of lightning flashed above us, angrily striking the edges of the canyon, seemingly annoyed at being unable to reach us.
We then emerged by the shores of a stagnating green lake surrounded by huge cliffs.
I was actually beginning to enjoy the exhilarating ride as we careered along the pebble beach that skirted the lake. There were thousands of those, giant woodlouse like, Scrab creatures grazing on the algae and bacterial foam skirting the muddy shoreline.
Woynek suddenly swerved in a tight arc around to our left and came to a full stop, in front a large opening in the base of the cliff. It was a huge natural cave that had a commanding view over the swamp. I curved around, to halt my bike behind Woynek’s. I was swiftly followed by Tukarra, who deftly parked her bike behind mine.
The three of us climbed out from underneath our canopies and quickly scrambled up a ridge of loose rocks to get to safety in the cave. We sat down in the mouth of the cave, getting our breath back.
I looked out along the beach, to try and see where we had come from, just as a massive bolt of forked lightning obliterated our trio of quad-bikes. The remaining Scrab oil in their fuel tanks exploded, creating a great ball of fire, and sending shards of metal and plastic high into the air.
An intense feeling of isolation washed over me. We would not be able to get back to any kind of civilisation without help. Apart from the appalling weather, Tukarra was human now. She no longer benefited from built in Satellite Navigation, and in the surrounding featureless desert, under thick orange cloud, there would never more be any sun, moon, or stars to help us find our way. We were fully committed to following our guide, Woynek, not really certain how much trust we could afford him.
‘You certainly know how to make an entrance!’ said a mysterious voice from behind us. All three of us were startled, by this totally unexpected announcement, and quickly turned around. The voice belonged to a shadowy figure emerging from the depths of the cave.
Chapter 24 – Breaking In
Right there behind us stood another Scavenger. Even in the half light of the cave, I could see he was different to the others we had encountered before. His loin cloth was made of khaki cotton rather than Scrab scales. He was relatively skinny and his chest and legs were virtually hairless. He had a short, but definitely curly, head of ginger hair.
Woynek briefly adopted a defensive stance, his fists clenched; although he soon found himself trying to conceal a laugh when he realised this strangely dressed and weedy person could pose no real threat to us.
‘Tom,’ I blurted out.
There was a second or two when we both looked at each other, open mouthed. Two brace of Scrabs hung from Tom’s neck on a leather strap. He seemed to have an extra pair of hands around his waist. They belonged to a Scavenger girl, whose head timidly popped out from behind him. She was wearing a tentative smile, and very little else, save for a few strategically placed Scrab pelts. Her smile widened as she realised I was a friend.
The girl’s attention then turned to Woynek, and he uncharacteristically smiled back at her. Then he held the palm of his hand out, as if to say, ‘Your secret is safe with me.’
Tom and I rushed headlong together, and hugged each other. Woynek looked to the heavens. Tukarra and the girl began beaming at one another.
‘I thought you were dead,’ I exclaimed, patting Tom on the back.
‘Well, no. I’m not dead, and Gerland’s not dead either. We locked ourselves back in that anti-room, you know the one with that oil tank in it, until the Scavengers gave up on us once more. Ellie took the first tentative look back outside to see if the coast was clear. But then, for no good reason we can think of, she locked the door from the outside and ran off. She left us locked in there. After several hours, with Gerland banging on the door, another group of Scavengers came by and let us out. They were younger and an altogether more friendly bunch. They seemed to welcome us. Having no Elite minders with us, they accepted us as one of their own, as human outcasts. They took us back to their homestead deep in the tunnel system. There were no brutish huntsmen there. They had heard that Vidora had become a new hunting ground and so all the fighting fit adult men and women had set off to get there, before too many other clans had the same idea. There were plenty of young women though and this one seems to have taken a liking to me. She follows me everywhere I go. I call her Lynne.’
The girl looked to be in her teens by my reckoning. She was just as wild eyed and dirty as the male Scavengers. I held out my hand. ‘Lynne is it?’ I said. She slipped back behind Tom, peeking at me with one eye.
‘She doesn’t say very much,’ Tom sighed.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘Gerland and I were hungry. I volunteered to come and catch some Scrabs for us; whilst, Gerland wanted to see if he could find the back door into Bunker 7: the door you pointed at on the wall map. Lynne showed me the way to the swamp, and helped me to catch these four. It’s not as easy to catch them as you might think. They can’t half run, you know.’
*
Tukarra asked if we could take a short rest. She was exhausted after our bumpy bike ride. Woynek agreed. I revealed I had a little surprise for everyone and motioned us all to sit down in a circle.
Reaching into my backpack, I pulled out the bar of chocolate I had retrieved from Ellie’s Hippo. I unwrapped it and broke the block into five pieces, one chunk for each of us. Handing out the pieces, I suggested we took our time to saver the moment.
‘This might well be the very last chocolate we will ever taste,’ I said. ‘Rest it on your tongue and let it melt for a while.’
We were all pretty hungry, and the taste of the chocolate on our tongues made us close our eyes. An exquisite tingling sensation, almost like pins and needles, travelled from our tongues, to our cheeks, through our shoulders and down our bodies. Lynne’s head involuntarily jerked upwards, as though someone had tickled the back of her neck. I’m sure she almost said something out loud, but instead she whispered in Tom’s ear. I guessed she had never tasted chocolate before.
Tukarra asked me to tell her more about the old days and I gladly obliged.
‘More than anything, I miss the roads, and the shining cities. I remember greenhouses, full of ripening fruits and vegetables, covering the flatlands as far as the eye could see and the air was mostly clear then. We occasionally had storms, but nothing like we have just experienced. In the summer, it was pleasantly warm in the sunshine and cool in the shade, never boiling hot like it is here. Imagine it as though we had air-conditioning, like you have in Vidora, everywhere you went. In the winters, when I was a little boy, it could get really cold. Everything would be covered in deep drifts of snow.’
Tom gazed at the floor, wide eyed and expressionless, as he remembered a frozen forest, his teeth chattering and how hungry he used to get. However, Tom’s was not the only blank expression and I soon realised Tukarra, Woynek, and Lynne may never have experienced snow.
Trying to elaborate I added, ‘You know, little tufts of icy crystals falling from the sky.’
Lynne seemed fascinated, listening to what I was saying, but I don’t think my words meant anything at all to her.
I looked back at Tukarra who admitted she w
ould have loved to have watched a sunrise back then; it turned out, she had only seen library images taken from Ether based archives.
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘They were spectacular. Any clouds on the horizon would turn scarlet red, edged and rippled with gold, whilst welcome rays of yellow sunlight glanced across them: sometimes reaching far into the deep blue sky. And the sky could be so blue, as blue as your eyes.’
Tukarra twirled a few strands of her new found blonde hair around an index finger, gazed into my eyes, and interjected, ‘And you still like what you see?’
I think I blushed, and nodded.
She said, ‘When I look into your eyes, I see mysterious dark brown fading into pitch-blackness. Reminds me of the cave we are in. What next then?’
*
Just as I was about to ask if everyone was ready to move on, the ground shook. It was a similar quake to the one Tukarra and I had experienced in Vidora, but it was accompanied by a sonic boom and a whining sound that could easily be heard over the noise of the storm outside.
Lynne clung onto Tom. Woynek leapt to his feet, and ran over to the mouth of the cave to see if he could identify the source of the noise.
‘The Obelisk,’ he shouted. ‘It’ll be coming from the Obelisk. Our prophets have foretold of such things. I’ll grant you that we have had a few false starts recently, but I believe that sound is the very sign we Scavengers have all been waiting for. It means the end of the world is near.’
Looking directly at Tukarra he asked, ‘Do you know what’s happening?’
Tukarra shrugged her shoulders, ‘I’ve been downgraded now, remember. I can no longer connect with the Ether. I know less about that sound than you do.’
I glanced down at my chest. The televisualisation star was still stuck to my suit. I peeled it off and waved it in the air.
‘Is this any use for finding out what’s going on?’ I offered.
Tukarra said, ‘Yes, it could be. Do you mind if I give it a try?’
I passed the star over to her, and she stuck it on her forehead. I watched her as she concentrated on sifting through the many channels of information available to her. Her eyelids were sometimes shut, sometimes open. When I could see her eyes they seemed to cross, focussing on invisible objects set at varying distances in front of her.
She raised her eyebrows, looked straight at me, and said, ‘It seems the Ether, upon failing to get you killed, is preparing to kill all of us, including thousands of Scavengers. The mighty Earth Engine and its associated fusion reactor are being deliberately overloaded, and driven to destruction. There may only be hours left before the planet either implodes or explodes. I don’t know which. I’m not an expert in that field. I can only believe what the Ether is telling everyone.’
Taking a deep breath, and straightening my shoulders, I said, ‘Then I must surrender, give myself up.’
Tukarra said, ‘Don’t give in now Rhett, not now. The Ether is frightened of you for some reason. You must be close to finding out why.’
I slowly rose to stand, and all those, still sitting in the circle, wearily followed my lead.
Then Woynek came back to the group. Putting a rough, weather-beaten, hand on my shoulder he said, ‘Your sacrifice would be a noble gesture, but there is no-one left for you to surrender to and no-one the Ether can trust. The Scavengers will certainly not take orders from the Ether.’ Clenching a fist he added, ‘We would rather fight to the death!’
Tom also clenched his fist and shouted, ‘To the death!’
I guess he was trying to show solidarity with his new gang leader. However, from the strange expression on his face, I could see he was thinking he might live to regret what he had just said.
Woynek continued, ‘If killing us all is the only way the Ether can be sure to kill you, then the prophecies must be true. The end of the world is upon us and your quest is all we have left. Our last glimmer of hope. Tell me now, why are you taking those explosives to the Bunker?’
I held up my hands, ‘Well, we don’t have a key. We will need the explosives to break in.’
Woynek asked, ‘Okay, then what’s in there that is so important?’
I admitted, ‘To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what we’ll find once we are in there. I also have no idea why the Ether wants me dead. All I do know is: I was told I would either find my father or my salvation in there. If I can be saved, then perhaps we all can. So are you all with me?’
Woynek and Tukarra punched the air in a gesture of support. Tom gave me a high five. Lynne also gave me a high five mimicking Tom - although, just like everyone else, she had no idea what she was letting herself in for.
*
Woynek asked if we had any idea why the lightning had been on our backs throughout our journey from Vidora. Tukarra suggested the televisualisation star might be what the weather satellite was homing in on. She peeled the star off her forehead and gave it to Woynek who promptly took it over to the mouth of the cave and threw it out into the rain.
There was a sudden blast and the pressure wave knocked Woynek to the ground. Lightning had struck the cliff face above us, and the whole of the cave mouth was filled with a curtain of sparks. A second bolt of lightning finally pinpointed its target and the star was blown to smithereens along with a circle of rocks around it.
Woynek picked himself up off the floor, and rubbed some dust from his arms.
‘Well, that was pretty conclusive’, he said.
Tom asked, ‘What about our tracer chips, can the Ether home in on those?’
‘Possibly,’ I said. ‘But they are really old technology. I doubt the Ether would even consider looking for the frequencies they use. We are stuck with them, anyway. The Scavengers don’t have the facilities to remove them.’
Tukarra then chipped in, ‘It could also be the suits we are wearing. They exchange a limited amount of information with the Ether.’
Tom pointed at his khaki loincloth and said, ‘I could make you both one of these.’
To everyone’s surprise Lynne found her voice. ‘He is very handy with a needle and thread,’ she enthusiastically confirmed.
‘Thank you, but I think we’ll pass on that one for the time being,’ I said. ‘These uniforms are keeping us cool for one thing.’
*
The strange whining noise was growing louder and wafted into the cave, carried on flurries of wind and rain. The sound was accompanied by strong vibrations which could now be felt in the ground beneath our feet, providing us with renewed impetus for completing our mission.
In the depths of the cave, Tom showed us an entrance into the old mine workings. Led by Woynek, we followed the tunnels all the way back to the crater our Hippo had fallen into. There, Gerland was waiting for us. He shouted from an opening in the shear walls of the crater, clearly surprised and overjoyed to see us.
Gerland was stood in the very same tunnel mouth that Tukarra and I had once before climbed up a mountain of rubble to reach - when we had been tied together. Yet the scene looked quite different now. A flash flood of steaming hot rainwater had filled the crater and the Hippo was partially submerged.
We would have to swim, through scalding deep water and over sharp ragged rocks, to get to Gerland.
Surprisingly, Lynne and Woynek couldn’t swim, and Tom who had clearly become rather fond of Lynne said he couldn’t leave her behind.
Woynek said he knew another way round on the surface. It was necessarily a long way round to avoid the minefield and it would take a few days on foot to get to the other side. That was time we just didn’t have.
So Tukarra and I had no choice but to bid Woynek, Tom and Lynne farewell. After shaking hands and saying all our goodbyes, the three of them took a few steps backwards and waved us on.
I took hold of Tukarra’s hand and we walked into the water. We found ourselves waist deep before the lightning realised we were in the open once again. A snaking ribbon of sparks was searing the rim of the crater high overhead, attempting to reach down towards
us. We knew if just one bolt of lightning struck the water, we were stood in, then we would be killed instantly. Each strike brought a minor avalanche of rocks and boulders tumbling down the crater walls to splash into the lake below.
I asked Tukarra if she could swim underwater. I thought that might make us harder to locate. She confirmed she could. We took a deep breath. As soon as our chins touched the surface of the hot water, our wonderful suits sealed over our faces and covered our heads. Although this would prevent our skin from being scalded, it also worryingly ensured we would have to hold our breath for quite some time.
We dipped down below the water line and started swimming. At first, visibility was poor. However, fresh rainfall had partially cleared our way forward.
It seemed to be taking an age to cross the lake. Each kick of our legs caused our lungs to demand more oxygen. That was a request we had to deny for the moment.
The relentless lightning connected with the Hippo’s fuel tank which blew up in a large ball of fire. Looking upwards, I could see the light of the flames through the surface of the water above us, just before we felt the full force of the blast. It seemed like we had been thumped in the chest. Normally, we would have expelled a lot of air when that happened, but our mouths were still sealed shut. We were gasping for breath when we finally reached the far side of the lake where Gerland helped to pull us from the water. As we got to our feet, our suits shrank back from our heads. We wanted to curl into a ball. Our chests were heaving, trying to fill our lungs with air, but we dared not risk standing still.
*
As soon as we reached the relative safety of the tunnels once again, I teased Gerland, ‘So you weren’t tempted to tear up your battle dress like Tom did?’ He spat a swift and colourful answer back at me. He said words to the effect that Tom’s loincloth looked like a skirt, and he had nice legs, but the boots didn’t work for him.
Gerland had been given a small bundle of luminescent sticks by the Scavengers. He broke out a new one, and lit up the way forward with its eerie green glow.
Escaping the Sun Page 17
