by Glynn James
Oh, so you’ve got ears then, have you? Got ears and you can hear them coming. But what will you do? What will you do now you know they’re on their way?
Think they will eat you if they catch you? Well, I suppose they could, but that would be unusual, wouldn’t it? They don’t normally eat digging people, though digging people seem to think they do. Maybe it’s a ruse? A joke upon you and the digging people, just to scare you away from all their wonderful trash and junk? Because there isn’t enough trash and junk to go around?
Now the man was climbing, heading up the trash pile opposite, and he wasn’t looking back, and still hadn’t seen the Watcher. The man stopped at a hole, a pipe, and looked down.
Go on. In you go, thought the Watcher. Be the fool and hop on in there. Down to where the mushrooms are. It’s a long way down there. A long way.
And the man did, but first he glanced around for other places to hide and looked straight at the Watcher. And the Watcher, for one moment, wondered if the man had seen him, but the man seemed to pass his gaze right across the Watcher without recognition and then looked up the path, to where the group approached, and then back down at the hole.
And then he lowered himself into the hole and hung there.
Ah well, at least digging one over there isn’t stupid enough to just hop into the pipe and break his legs. What would it be? Ten? Twenty feet? Thirty feet or more, most likely, right onto the hard ground, and the pipe would be wet or greasy, all covered in crap. He wouldn’t be able to climb back out if he was to fall in.
The Watcher saw the group pass by, walk a further twenty or thirty feet, and then stop. One of them was checking the ground, searching.
Oh, you’ve been caught, now, digging one. Ready for the pot, or maybe not. They’ve found your trail and they’ll find your hands clinging onto that pipe.
The Watcher listened to the chatter of the group, noting especially the words of the youngest.
Crackpot, am I? Is that what the young one thinks? Or what all of them think? Well, we will see about that young one if he ever gets sick. Yes. We’ll see if he doesn’t just stay sick.
The group turned back and started moving quickly away along the path from where they had come.
Oh, how disappointing, thought the Watcher.
After ten minutes of watching, and deciding that the man had either fallen to his death or daren’t come back out, even after the group of trash people were long gone, the Watcher hauled himself to his feet, pulled out a long, wicked looking knife, and turned into the darkness between the columns to make his way down into the derelict factory, hidden underneath the mountains of trash.
Mushrooms and a digging one, he thought. Both waiting in the darkness below.
Secrets
The scratch marks were all over the side of the carrier and up on top. Lisa hopped down from the carrier, landing hard on the ground and thinking that she should just use the ladder next time. Shaking herself off, she went back to examine the panel on the side of the vehicle.
She’d tried every key she had, and had even gone through some of the ones in the fob storage, but nothing seemed to open the storage nooks that were welded into the sides and the top of the carrier. She even tried a different carrier and different keys, but nothing fitted.
The scratch marks aren’t deep, she thought, peering at the long, dark gouges. They looked deliberate though, not like an animal had clawed the vehicle. They were made by something metal and sharp.
Eventually she shrugged and gave up. She didn’t know what was meant to be stored in the compartments and, if she was honest with herself, she didn’t remember ever noticing them before.
Just Junkers trying to steal stuff, she thought.
She walked back across the maintenance hangar, pacing along the wide path that led down the centre and walking past several other carriers currently in for maintenance before arriving at the other thing that she was here to see.
A new carrier – though new was certainly not what came to mind when she saw the state of the pile of crap that had arrived.
She knelt and peered under the side panel of the armoured carrier, cursing. It had arrived just hours before and been dumped in the corner of the hangar. Who dumped it there she didn’t know, as there was no signature sign-off on it and no record other than the log from the Trans. And it had arrived three hours before she and her expedition had driven in the main gates.
All she had was a printed report that she’d found on her desk. One with no signature.
It was a wreck, basically. It needed so much work that she wondered if it was worth the time to even repair it. Half of the body plates had massive holes in them, the underbelly of the beast was so rusted that she thought the bottom could drop out of it at any given moment, and the engine was half melted.
Quite what engagement the thing had been in, she didn’t know, but she suspected that whoever was driving it at the time had landed themselves in some deep trouble. Apart from the rust, the rest of the damage wasn’t gradual wear. No, this was heavy weapons impact.
Who the hell in the Outer Zone, or near the city, even carried weapons capable of doing this much damage, other than those that were driving it? No one that she knew of.
But she had no choice. There was no returns option on a replacement vehicle, though she supposed if she really wanted rid of it she could roll it over to the recycle warehouse and just get them to tear it apart. At least that way it would go back.
But she needed new vehicles. Some of her existing rolling stock was almost falling apart.
Lisa picked up the inspection sheet she had tossed on the ground and went over it once more. It was late, and she needed to sleep, but if she at least finished with the inspection she could dump the sheet on the desk with the mechanical guys and work would start the next day. She pulled a chair from the desk nearby and plopped down on it to go back over the details, squinting in the harsh cold glare of the overhead light.
The hangar was empty. All of the repair and maintenance staff were asleep, just a hundred yards away, as was everybody in the facility at this time of night, baring the perimeter security. So when the far door opened with a long, grating creak, Lisa almost jumped. She looked up, peering across the large open space in the centre of the hangar, down the walkway that ran between the parking bays where her expedition’s vehicles were now lined, and was surprised to see Governor Jackson and one other figure walking swiftly into the building. She was about to stand and greet them when she heard Jackson’s voice cut sharply through the quiet.
“Make sure there is no one in here,” he snapped at the tall man walking alongside him. “And make it quick.”
Lisa frowned. Why would he need no one to be here?
She didn’t like Jackson, and tried to avoid him as much as was possible. There was something unpleasant about a man who could shrug off the deaths and kidnappings that befell the people under his command on a regular basis. He was cold. Sure, even her job required a certain level of ability to be ruthless, but Jackson had taken this skill to a higher level. He was icy cold.
She hesitated and found herself puzzled that she was taking a step to the side and hiding – yes, hiding out of view from the two men. Why do that?
Because this is suspect, she thought.
It’s what? Midnight? Early hours of the morning? And here is the governor, out of his bed and on the other side of the facility. You can step out at any time, it’s not like actually hiding, she thought.
The man who accompanied the governor walked around the perimeter of the hangar, forcing her to edge around the new vehicle as he passed.
The fool didn’t even spot her as he walked within ten feet. But then she had stayed very still after she stepped back into the shadow of the armoured carrier.
This is not good, she thought. Now you’re really hiding.
But then it was too late, and she had to stay hidden, otherwise how could she explain where she had been? She had to continue to remain unnoticed.
<
br /> She watched from the back of the carrier as the governor’s assistant – Rogen, was that his name? – walked around the hangar and then returned to the middle, where Jackson waited impatiently. Lisa wondered if Jackson ever did anything patiently.
“Which one is it?” Jackson asked.
Rogen looked flustered for a moment, rustled some paper in his pocket and took it out, peered at it, and then spoke. “E2 crew. It should be in…bay 34.”
Then Jackson was pacing away from the troubled assistant, scanning the rows of vehicles as he walked.
E2. That’s the crew Avery had been with, thought Lisa. And it was the scratched one. Why does he need that vehicle? Why is he even interested in any of the vehicles? The idiot never comes out here – doesn’t need to. And it shows, since he can’t even follow the aisle numbers.
Finally, after doubling back and going round in circles several times, the two men found the E2 crew carrier, and Jackson stood peering at the side of the vehicle for a moment.
“Well, open it then,” he snapped.
Rogen stepped forward, fumbled with some keys and then leaned in to the side of the vehicle.
Open what? Lisa wondered. Are they going for the scratched storage panel?
But as she peered around the side of the carrier, straining to see what Rogen was doing, she saw him pull open the very same panel that she had been unable to open and turn back to Jackson, shaking his head.
“What?” snapped Jackson. “It can’t be empty. You must have the wrong panel.”
“I checked it. It’s—“
“Get up on the roof and open the one up there,” hissed Jackson, his voice still low.
He doesn’t want to be heard, thought Lisa.
She watched as Rogen scrambled up the ladder on the side of the vehicle, clambered over the top, knelt down, and unlocked the compartment on the roof.
“It’s here,” said Rogen, and hauled out a worn satchel.
“Good,” whispered Jackson. Now get it down here, and don’t forget to lock the compartment. No one else needs to get into it. “Hurry, you fool. I want to get out of here.”
“I’m coming,” said Rogen, hurrying to climb down the ladder, but he slipped and dropped the satchel, which fell to the ground next to Jackson with a loud bang. “Sorry,” said Rogen, his voice barely a whisper.
“Idiot,” hissed Jackson. “If anyone heard that they might come to investigate. Let’s get out of here.”
After the two men had hurried out of the building, and shut the side door behind them, Lisa went over to E2 crew’s carrier and climbed the ladder. She sat there, on the roof of the vehicle, staring down at the locked compartment and at the scratch marks all around it.
What the hell just happened here? What could possibly be held in a salvaging carrier that the governor would want?
Somehow this new and puzzling discovery made her feel very uncomfortable.
Mushrooms and More
Even in the darkness underneath the trash, edging slowly through the ruin of the ancient subterranean building, the Watcher could see well enough. He’d wondered about that once, about how he could see just as well at night, or in any darkness for that matter, as he could in the day. But after so many years it was a trivial thought, something that he took for granted as he stepped over broken masonry and small pieces of trash that had fallen into the interior through gaps in the roof.
You could find all manner of interesting things down underneath the trash if you knew where to look, and the Watcher always knew where to look.
Though this time he had struggled to sense where the cavity was, where the huge gap underneath the trash opened up. He’d known it was there, and he’d sensed what grew there, but he just couldn’t seem to find a way through. The entrance that he’d found led to a wall of trash, stacked up in four different openings, and he knew one of them would lead to the interior and guessed the others wouldn’t. But he was old, very old, and he didn’t want to haul the trash away from all of the entrances just to find the one that led down into the dark.
He’d normally listen and eventually discover which it was before even moving a single piece of junk, but the day had been much too busy with noise to do such. First the groups of trash people moving about through the paths, forcing him to stay concealed, and then the single digging one turning up.
No coincidence, that, he thought. They are all looking for you, the little sneaky intruder that shouldn’t have lived long enough to make it all the way over here to their territories.
And now they are searching for you to stop you finding their secret-but-not-so-secret towns. They will think you are going to go back to your digging people and tell them, and bring the fire from the skies and troopers with guns. But they are fools. The digging ones’ rulers already know where the stupid trash towns are and avoid them. They already know, don’t they? Of course they do. I’ve seen the flying metal things – the searchers – the other watchers that come and go. They go near the trash towns and then they leave.
But what could he do? The trash people didn’t like him, didn’t enjoy having the Watcher around at all, except to trade healing with. Oh, that was for sure. They didn’t like coming to visit him unless one of them was sick, and then he was their best friend.
He could tell the trash people where the digging one was if he wanted to, but it would not be fun that way. Wouldn’t be polite, either. After all, had the digging one not found and climbed into the tall pipe? He’d found the very answer the Watcher had been seeking. To turn him in now would be rude.
And the man was probably hurt – maybe dead. If he was hurt, the Watcher would have to help him in some way, out of gratitude, but if he was dead? Well, that would probably be more convenient.
He’d spent an hour pulling the trash away from the entrance that faced the direction of the pipe and found what he was looking for. Under the trash was walkway and a brick floor, and he knew immediately that it was the upper floor of the building into which he sought entrance. Another hour and the entrance was clear, the darkness below now accessible.
He’d searched many old ruins over the years, maybe even hundreds, and he always came away with something interesting. This time, mushrooms. That was what he had guessed was hidden below. Precious, ripe, large spore-heavy mushrooms that could be cultured near his home and grown into many more. And he’d been right. Four floors down, after climbing down a long and rickety stairwell, he’d found the first patch growing in the darkness. There was some light down there, seeping through tiny gaps in the trash above, but not much. Just enough for mushrooms to grow.
He left the patch where it was, not wanting disturb it before harvesting, and headed further into the interior.
There were ancient machines in the main room of the building, which was a vault-like space both vast and cold.
Yes, real cold, thought the Watcher. In this blistering heat there were still places that were cold. Like his home.
The machines lined up in the huge chamber were similar to many that were rusting in the trash. Vehicles, he’d heard them called. These ones were coated in a thick layer of dust and grime, but he rubbed some of it off and saw underneath that the metal body of the vehicle was shiny and new. He could see well in the dark, but not well enough to make out the colour of the vehicle.
Such a prize, he thought. Glimmering new machines. Others would love to know the location of such things, but he wouldn’t tell them. Much better to leave them here, untouched and undamaged, forever.
The Watcher smiled to himself. If the trash people or the digging ones knew of some of the things he had found under the junk they would be astounded. One more reason not to tell a soul.
He found the digging one in a heap at the bottom of the pipe – the chimney – and was surprised to find that he was still breathing. The man was unconscious, no doubt knocked out from the fall, but he was very much alive. He checked the man, searching for injuries, and saw that one of his legs was lying at a strange angle.
Broken, he thought. Or dislocated. Ah well, I guess the mushrooms will have to wait until I return.
He started to unload his pack and search for something to cobble together a stretcher with.
Finders Keepers
I need a bit of old tech.
On a clear and dustless day, if Finder sat at the very top floor of his home, on the flat surface between the huge metal cones that were used to store water, he could see for miles and miles.
To the north, the endless desert stretched into what seemed forever – wisps of sand churning and drifting across the near-flat surface that hummed with a heat haze, a flatness only broken in a few places by the skeletal metal structures that jutted up here and there through the hard ground. In all other directions he could see the inheritance of Junkers. The endless piles of trash, some rising hundreds of feet into the air, broken only by the winding chasms that twisted and turned in between the great mountains of debris.
On the clearest of days, the ones that didn’t come very often, he could even see all the way to the black river, in the south, and catch just a glimpse of the edge of the wasteland and the swamps beyond. But that was the darkest of places, and a reminder that not far from the Junkers’ tiny corner of the world there lay poison and rot.
And there was the other swamp, the round one, not far away – the one that had formed inside what Finder thought was an unnaturally circular gap in the trash. It was where old Haggerty, the medicine man, old RootMan, lived.
He found himself up on the flat roof quite often, even though it was a hard climb. It was only six floors from his own tiny room, but those six floors were difficult. Even so, he still rolled out of his rough bunk before the sun rose most days and made his way up the fifteen ladders and one hundred and seventy rungs that it took to get there, and there he sat, the cool night wind blowing his face as he watched the sun rise over The Junklands.
His home, and that of a number of other orphan children, used to fly among the stars, OldMother told the kids. He would sit there with the others, in the story circle they formed each night before she sent them off to bed, and listen as she made up countless tales of space pirates and heroic adventurers that lived in the very rooms where he slept. In every story, the hero would win the battle, get the princess and fly away across the galaxy in the very house he called home.
