Diary of the Displaced Box Set

by Glynn James

  There are four rooms off the back of the main room, which is a pretty big open hall with a bar that occupies the centre. On the outer side of the bar there are tables and benches lining the room. Again, most of those we replaced with newer, scavenged ones.

  You know, I think the plastic chairs may be the same as the ones in the facility in the desert, those I stacked up to get up to the other floors. I’ll have to check that.

  I can see the edge of the Junklands from here, about five miles down into the valley. The huge mounds of scrap metal look like hills from this distance, but on an even clearer day than this you can see the sunlight reflecting off the metal. But not today.

  Anyway, I wasn’t planning to stay here. All I wanted to do was visit what’s out the back of the building, about thirty yards into the brush.

  The stash. That was what Mum called it. We tried to dig one out right next to the diner, but the ground is solid concrete for roughly thirty yards, and where that ended was where we ended up digging.

  It’s about five feet deep, and roughly big enough to fit a car into, but there are no cars inside the stash. The roof was made from the side of haulage truck, solid metal, literally just dropped onto the ground over the hole. That’s pointed with concrete around the edges to stop the thing shifting, and then there’s a hidden gulley and a door that leads into the space below.

  It mostly empty now, but back when we lived here my mum used it to store all manner of crazy gear inside.

  I’m going to hide everything that my mum left for me in there. It’s much closer to Evac City than the facility, and I know I’m the only person that knows about the stash, other than my mum.

  Can’t be too careful.

  Then it’s time for me to head back and put the RoughRider in the garage. I’ve got a lot to do before tomorrow, when I’m expected to be at the Basecamp and ready for the next expedition.

  I think I’m going to leave the chip my mother recorded with the stash, and remove the recording from the memory of the recorder. I’ve also removed the note with the coordinates, and her message, transferring them onto the same chip so I don’t lose them.

  Actually, no. I’m going to leave the recorder and the tracker here, just in case. Can’t risk someone finding the message from my mother.

  :: Record Date 03:06:4787 14:23

  So, it’s been over two weeks since I was out here. That time has passed ridiculously slowly. I’ve stewed over everything I found at the facility, and something has been driving me nuts all this time.

  There was a building on the west side of the facility that had ten large garages, all in line, and what looked like some kind of workshop and a huge open area at the back that I guess, from the layout and shape of it, was a repair building. Well, it was while I was at Basecamp, getting my quad ready to leave for the tech salvage mission we just went on, and I started to think about the layout of Basecamp and how it compares to the facility. A lot of the buildings in Basecamp are of a similar style to the ones at the facility, and even the functions of most of the buildings are the same, though Basecamp is probably ten times bigger. That garage area was what brought it all to mind. There are several buildings at Basecamp that are almost identical, even in shape.

  Also, there’s an admin complex at Basecamp, and underneath that is the supply centre, which, in effect, is a small bunker. The entrance to supply looks like a garage and has exactly the same folding doors. Then you go through that to a ramp that leads down into Supply.

  This made me think, and it has been distracting me the whole time since I went to the facility out in the Dustlands. The garage I stayed in was in the office building, yet the larger garage building, where I presume all vehicles would have been stored and repaired, was over on the other side of the facility.

  I don’t think I parked my Roughrider inside a garage at all. That entrance, surely, could be the entrance to the bunker?

  But it wasn’t uncovered. The ground was solid, I think. I didn’t check. It never occurred to me that it was anything other than a garage and workshop.

  But I won’t get back out there for another few weeks. This trip out to the diner is just overnight, for me to drop off a few things that I want to take with me on my next trip out to the facility.

  Three more weeks, and then I get another five day break. I’ve been invited to go stay in Evac by some of the guys who are getting the same down time period as me, and part of me wants to go. The idea of kicking back, getting a little drunk and maybe trying my luck with some of the city girls is appealing, and I haven’t been out with the guys from my troop for months, haven’t been to the plaza for even longer.

  But I can’t let this slip.

  I’ve included an eight pack of beer in my drop to the stash. Figured I might need one. Hell, I’ll probably drink half of it tonight before I go to sleep. It’s so quiet out here, and I haven’t stayed here overnight since I lived here with my mum.

  Although I’m tempted to keep the recorder with me, I think it’s safer out here at the diner.

  Three weeks, and I’ll be heading back to the facility. I’m itching to go already.

  :: Record Date 24:06:4787 20:43

  Someone has been here.

  The Diner is trashed.

  Everything is turned over, cupboards emptied all over the floor. Even the plastic chairs and the benches are strewn all over the place. The door was broken beyond repair and looks as though someone used something heavy to smash it open, not that that rickety old thing would have needed much force to break in the first place.

  I’m sitting on the counter that my mum said used to be the bar and looking at everything that I know from my childhood, now in ruins.

  The pictures that were on the walls are all over the floor, their frames pulled off. And…I think the pictures of me from just before my mum disappeared have been taken.

  Who would want that stuff?

  My mum’s bedroom is the worst. I just took one glance in there and daren’t go in.

  I panicked when I first got here and nearly ran out to the stash, but I didn’t. Thankfully instinct kicked in and I grabbed my guns and took to the shadows. That I even grabbed them and switched off the safety is something that scared me. Sure, occasionally there are robberies in Evac, but it is rare. And this... This didn’t look like a robbery. The place was completely combed over.

  Eventually, after watching out of the windows for about twenty minutes and seeing no movement, I ventured outside and went to the stash. To say that I was relieved when I saw the dirt and brush around the concealed entrance was undisturbed would be an understatement, but that didn’t last long.

  The dropship had landed just yards from the entrance to the stash, and from where I’m standing, they may have even landed with one leg on top of it. The burn marks on the ground, and the familiar shape of combat boot footprints, are unmistakeable.

  A Vigilant dropship came out here.

  There are four large, rectangular imprints in the ground, with even smaller marks where the foot stabilisers would be, and the ground is scorched in three places, showing where the lift drives would have blasted the ground as the aircraft landed and then took off.

  I rushed down the gully and found the lock still in place and the door closed, and sighed with relief. Inside, my gear was untouched.

  But I’m still screwed.

  The Resistance has records that this place was owned by my mum, and that I own it now, so if they sent a dropship out here then they had to have a good reason. But how could they?

  Was it the conversation I had with Aaron? Had someone picked up on that? Is he in trouble? I’ve no way of knowing, and if I try to head back to Evac to find out, they’ll surely pick me up.

  I don’t understand. I didn’t think that enquiring about my mum’s files could trigger this kind of response.

  Do I go back? Do I just hand myself in and try to find out why they raided the diner?

  I sat inside the stash for about an hour, going over and over ever
ything that had happened so far, and I’m still confused.

  But I do know one thing. For them to send a Vigilant dropship out here is serious. They wouldn’t send them here if they had good intentions.

  For a while I didn’t know where to go, but then I calmed myself and sat up here and tried to go through all of my options.

  If I go back to Basecamp they’ll pick me up and I may never find out what happened to my mum.

  If I stay here, they may eventually come looking for me again. Same result.

  If I go to the facility, they might trace me there. Potentially the same result.

  I am in just the same situation that my mum had been, all those years ago, except I don't have a son that I would have to leave behind.

  The facility. That was where she went back then. Even though it could be the stupidest move I could make, I know I have to risk it. I have little else. Other than just driving off into the wilderness, I have nowhere to run to.

  My mum had gone to the facility, and then down into the bunker, or so I believe. And then where? The only way I would find out was if I followed her down there.

  I have to go back to the facility, and I have to find a way down into the bunker.

  There’s no way back from here.

  :: Record Date 25:06:4787 22:29

  It’s pitch black out here, but I can see the lights from a dropship over at the Junkyard pretty clearly. I don’t know what they are doing out there, but I need to get out of here as quickly as possible.

  I’ve grabbed everything I can from the stash and loaded it into the trunk again. I wasn’t planning on leaving until the morning, and the thought of heading out into the Dustlands in the middle of the night doesn’t thrill me, but I don’t think that I have much choice.

  The tracker still holds the coordinates that I originally followed, and it also has the route that I took to get back here, so I won't be travelling completely blind, even if I was going to be driving in the dark. I could patch the tracker into the RoughRider and it would give me pretty accurate directions.

  Time to go before they think to come back here.

  :: Record Date 26:06:4787 01:29

  I’m hiding in a rock outcrop in the hill just outside of the Dustlands. Oddly, the small cave actually looks like it may have been used as shelter before. There is a darkened area in the middle of the cave that appears to be the remains of a campfire. Unfortunately, I don’t have any wood to burn, and I don’t want to cast any light outside, so I’ve backed the RoughRider in as far as it will go and sealed myself inside it.

  The wind from the storm outside creates a strange and eerie howling noise as it gushes into the cave, and even though I’m sitting inside the armoured body of the RoughRider it’s creepy as hell, like some groaning monster.

  I’m not even going to try to sleep.

  :: Record Date 26:06:4787 05:23

  The storm must have been pretty heavy outside, and it must have come from the direction of the Dustlands, because I can see from inside the cave that the tracks that the RoughRider left in the dirt outside the cave are completely covered over. Thankfully.

  I did sleep in the end, but not for long. Four hours was enough to give me a little more energy than I was running on when I found the cave, though.

  As I left the diner last night, I could have sworn that the dropship lifted back up into the air and was heading over in my direction. If it did, they didn’t pick up my trail, and I was away from the diner before they got there. If they went there.

  I’m going to take a look outside, and if it’s clear I’ll head towards the facility. I think I’m only an hour away, though I’m coming in from a different direction, and I’m not sure what the terrain is going to be like.

  :: Record Date 26:06:4787 07:30

  So there’s still no sign of the dropship, but I’m convinced that it passed over where I was hiding several times. They have to be looking for me, and it seems that they have some idea of where I am. The problem is I have no idea if they’re tracking me because I asked Aaron to look at my mother’s files or if they somehow know I’ve been into the ruins of the facility already.

  It has occurred to me that they could be waiting for me there, but I have no choice but to go on. I suppose, as I thought before, I could just take off, head across the desert and not come back, but I’d never know where my mother went if I did that. I have to go on. I have to go back to the facility and find that damn bunker, wherever it is.

  If my mother had thought I wouldn’t be able to find it, she would have left more clues in her message, surely? She expected me to find it, even though the people that originally cleared out the facility after it was closed down never did. It’s hidden in a way that they wouldn’t expect it.

  That has to be it.

  As soon as this dust storm starts to clear a little, I’m going to head off as quickly as I can. I have to move fast and try to shrug off the dropship. The last thing I want is to lead them there.

  :: Record Date 26:06:4787 07:56

  I don’t know if the storm is clearing already or if it’s just a lull. I’m going to head out anyway, crank up the RoughRider, and just go for it. I’m no more than an hour away and hopefully the storm won't cover the entire area between here and the base. I just have to hope that the dropship is somewhere else at the moment and not in scan range.

  While sitting here, I started going over everything at the facility that I needed to search again, and I came to the conclusion that I had to search back over most of it.

  You know, I think I’m finally getting used to talking to this thing. Maybe I’m too comfortable with it? It’s amazing how being on your own can encourage you to talk to yourself.

  :: Record Date 26:06:4787 10:11

  So it took me longer than I expected. Just as you get to within half a mile of the facility, the ground becomes impassable. Where the rest of the Dustlands is mostly just dry, open flatlands, covered with grey dust, that area is cracked and unstable. I’m glad I was driving quite slowly when I approached, or I may not have seen the gaping cracks in the ground. If I’d driven into one of those, there is no way I could have got the RoughRider back out again.

  And it took longer to go around than I expected.

  I’ve seen no sign of the dropship, so hopefully they are searching elsewhere, if they are even after me.

  Hell, who am I kidding? Of course they are looking for me. Normally I’d call it paranoia, but after the state they left the diner in? That makes it even more important that I find the entrance to the bunker. Where I go from there, I don’t know. I could end up stuck down there.

  I parked up in the garage again, pulled the doors down as best I could, and started clearing the ground of dust and dirt.

  Hopeless. The ground is solid concrete. It’s not possible for it to be a ramp of any kind, and if it was, it had been filled in a long time ago. I don’t know, maybe underneath the floor is the remnants of a storage area, just like at Basecamp.

  And that leaves me right where I was when I left.

  Logic. Must think logically.

  I’m going to walk the perimeter and see if there is anything around there, and then I think I’ll head over to the larger garages again and some of the smaller buildings.

  Maybe there was something I missed.

  :: Record Date 26:06:4787 12:43

  I moved the RoughRider, and my gear, over to the bigger garage compound. The doors there actually open and shut via the hydraulics, and still work, which is surprising.

  That got me thinking. If the hydraulics on the doors still work, then there has to be a power source somewhere nearby. There’s no obvious source on the surface; I’ve searched all over the facility and found nothing. No solar panels or vents. But if the repair building has power, where others don’t, surely that would indicate that I was getting close to where the bunker might be.

  I’m waffling again.

  I honestly have no idea where to look.

  :: Record Date 26:06:4787 16:2
8

  They’re here.

  I was out over at the warehouse nearest to the garage compound when I heard the noise coming. It was barely audible at first, as I was sweeping away an area of dust in the corner of the warehouse, a spot I picked randomly just to check. Sure, yeah, I’ve resorted to that kind of desperation. I felt, more than heard, the hum of the engines.

  I ran to the outer door and looked up, then out, but couldn’t see anything. Then the humming sensation shifted, vibrating the side of the warehouse.

  They were on the far side, furthest away from the garage, and landing right at that moment. Within seconds the place could be swarming with troopers.

  I grabbed my guns from their holsters, flipped off the safeties, and ran for the opposite door. As I reached the open entrance, I felt the thud of the dropship landing and heard a hiss. I knew what that meant. They were in a hurry, and the hiss would be the sound of the hatches opening. I moved quickly, rushing across the open ground to the nearest outlying building. If I tried to run straight for the garage, I’d end up in full view of the dropship and whoever was now jumping from it. I’d seen the Vigilants in operation, and they would be moving fast.

  Then my heart jumped. They could even be using motion or heat sensor visors, in which case, every one of the Vigilant soldiers jumping out of that dropship would know exactly where I was unless I put more walls between us.

  I glanced around the side of the building, preparing myself to run for it, and quickly pulled back. There, just at the other side of the building, only thirty yards away, was a squad of them. They held their Arc rifles high, aiming outwards as they swept the area, but none of them were looking in my direction. I glanced again, my heart jumping in my chest a second time.

  They moved past, heading in the opposite direction to me.