Third Rock

by S E T Ferguson

  Of course, sometimes those humans were rewarded with a trip to the gallows, so it was not as if the food was without the potential for something far worse than a good meal.

  These days, too, there was the danger that, even if you managed to get the food back to town, one of the other people would inform on you.

  That had become more and more common in recent months.

  Anything to get an extra serving of food. Or a ration of clothing. Or a few more days with a precious child.

  The woman would have faulted others for doing it, but she had done the same to have this chance for a few more days with her daughter and the chance to get her out of town.

  She did not regret it.

  She doubted she ever would.

  The woman crossed the short distance between the doorway and the fence in the pounding rain. She had been told to look for a tall tree in the distance on the other side of the fence, but with the darkness and pounding rain, she couldn’t see anything more than a few feet away from her. There was no way she would be able to see anything at a distance to find her way to the hole in the fence.

  The woman used the lightning to look for any anomaly in the fence, but just as she didn’t think she would find it, she saw it.

  A few links in the fence that didn’t quite match up with those on the other side.

  It wasn’t much. Without the lightning, the woman didn’t think she would have found it. But she had.

  The one side of the chain link fence easily pulled away from the other side. The woman pulled the two apart and looked at her daughter.

  “Here’s the next part of the adventure. You have to climb through the fence.” Her daughter looked at the woman, clearly afraid to do what her mother asked of her. At school, all the teachers told them to stay as far away from the fence as possible. They told seemingly impossible stories of what could happen to children on the other side of the fence, from being killed by rogue humans to being eaten by giant bears. “Just be brave. I know you can do it.”

  The woman’s daughter took a deep breath in the same way her mother had not a minute earlier, and climbed through the small hole in the fence.

  “Now, honey, can you hold the fence open for Mommy?” The girl looked relieved to have gotten through the fence and happily complied with her mother’s request. The woman climbed through herself.

  On the other side of the fence, the woman took another deep breath. Somehow, something about just being on this side of civilization—or what passed as such these days—seemed a relief.

  “Good job, hon. Now, hold my hand, and we’re going to run to the woods.”

  The young girl took her mother’s hand. A flash of lightning lit up the scene, and the woman saw a smile beaming across her daughter’s face. If she had doubted what she was doing before, now that they were where they were, whatever doubts she had harbored were gone.

  The pair began to run toward the woods. The young girl’s strides were short and not entirely confident in the dark and her sleepiness, but the woods grew ever closer, a tantalizing taste of freedom.

  And then, the woman heard it.

  At first, it could have been mistaken for a rumble of thunder. But even with the raging thunderstorm around them, she didn’t have any doubt what it was.

  A truck on patrol.

  It was early.

  It was going to see them before they could reach the safety of the woods.

  Chapter Three

  The woman grabbed her daughter’s hand.

  Part of her just wanted to run, but part of her—the part that was not panicking—knew she needed to stop and take a moment for her daughter. It wouldn’t just be good for her daughter; it would be good for her as well.

  “Honey,” the woman knelt down next her daughter, tantalizingly close to the woods, “can you grab on to Mommy’s back, piggy back style? We’re going to run as fast to the woods as we can, so the bad guys don’t get us.”

  The little girl’s eyes lit up and her teeth, the one front top tooth missing, opened in a wide smile. “I love piggy back rides!”

  The woman bent over, and her daughter jumped on her back, locking her hands around her neck. They would definitely move much faster this way.

  Perhaps there was a chance, however slim it was, that they might get away without being seen.

  The woman stood up and was heading back toward the woods before she was even fully upright.

  “This is fun!” The girl on her back giggled. If the situation had been any less serious than it was, the woman would have smiled herself. Those smiles were coming fewer and far between these days.

  It would be nice to be happy again.

  “I have a new game.” The woman looked back to the approaching patrol car, wondering why it was following the one before it so quickly. She had her suspicions, and all of them pointed to someone giving her plan away. Not that she had breathed a word of her plan—she knew better than to trust anyone else these days—but it wouldn’t have been hard to figure it out, considering she had stolen her daughter away in the middle of the night. Anyone could have seen what happened. The woman wouldn’t have blamed anyone for taking the chance to procure some favor or chance for themselves. “Why don’t you see how perfectly quiet and still you can be?”

  The girl paused. “Fun!”

  On her back, her daughter stilled. Even her breathing seemed to calm.

  “You are awesome at this game.” The woman whispered the words of praise to her daughter. She couldn’t see her, but she thought her daughter may have smiled at the compliment.

  The woman continued toward the woods, quickly but deliberately placing every step and seeing the trees grow larger by the moment. There was no use in going too fast and falling. It was better to set reasonably fast pace and hope they got to the woods before the patrol spotted them.

  The woman paced each step, one after another.

  Left.

  Right.

  Left.

  On her back, her daughter sat calmly, but not entirely limp. She knew enough to help her mother carry her weight by distributing it evenly instead of in one dead weight, even if she didn’t know why the two of them were leaving what seemed like the security of the compound for the insecurity of the woods.

  The headlights of the truck grew ever closer, illuminating the scene with ever greater amount of focused light. The woman was not in the habit of watching the patrols, but she could tell this truck was moving faster than they normally did.

  She wasn’t entirely sure the truck was looking for them, but it did seem to be the most plausible explanation for what was going on.

  Especially because she could see the patrol was not looking at the buildings in the compound, but at the area outside of the fence.

  The woman willed herself to move just a little faster, and the woods grew just that much closer.

  And then, without warning, the truck seemed on top of them.

  The woman fell to her knees.

  On her back, her daughter fell hard. The little girl’s head hitting that of her mother.

  The ground on which they fell was only a few feet from the woods. The grass that covered the dirt was not too tall—maybe a foot or even eighteen inches from the ground—but it supplied them with at least a little protection from being seen by the security patrol.

  “Shhh.” The woman raised her finger to her mouth, hoping her daughter saw the gesture as she ducked, flat to the ground. She expected that the girl would be at least bruised from the fall, but hopefully she could tell that there was danger around and would remain quiet.

  The patrol car drove around the perimeter fence, so close that even in the rain the woman could hear the conversation between the men on the truck.

  “I thought this was where we were supposed to find them.” One of the voices sounded familiar in the way someone you saw everyday but didn’t really know was familiar.

  “It was. Check the fence.” The truck pulled next to the fence, and the man in the passenger
seat of the truck jumped out, water from the ground splashing up as he hit its soggy surface. The woman tried to keep an eye on what was happening, but she felt much more confident listening to it than she would have without doing anything. Better not to risk watching and being seen.

  “I don’t see anything.” The man checking the fence looked out into the darkness where the woman and her daughter crouched in the grass. “Give me the spotlight.”

  On top of the truck, the man operating the large light shone it out over the grass. The woman had never hoped for her daughter to be as still as she hoped her to be now. The woman dared not even look up, in case the light caught any shine from her eyes.

  “There’s nothing out here.” On top of the truck, the man who spoke now aimed the spotlight back toward the perimeter road. “Let’s go. Another false alarm.”

  The woman still didn’t dare to look, but she heard what sounded like a man getting back in the truck, with doors slamming behind them. Then, the truck seemed to take off down the road, its rumblings quickly fading in the sounds of thunder and pouring rain.

  The woman waited in the grass for as long as seemed prudent—long enough for the truck to have left, but not so long that another patrol truck came by.

  “OK, honey, just a little bit further and we’ll be in the woods.” The woman helped her daughter to her feet. She could see dirt on the girl’s face, covering what would likely be bruises in the morning. The woman felt her heart break a little for the girl, but a little heartache was a small price to pay if she could get them to freedom.

  A very small price.

  The last few feet between them and the woods passed easily and almost anticlimactically. As they took their first few steps into the woods, the cool air beneath the trees washed over the woman in a refreshing wave.

  They just might make it after all.

  Chapter Four

  With the first rays of dawn, the woman knew they needed to move.

  She had only caught the smallest bits of sleep in the few hours she had allowed them to rest. Every sound in the woods was unfamiliar and therefore terrifying. She hoped her daughter had done better at getting a few precious hours of sleep in than she had.

  Maybe the stories her daughter had brought home from school about all the things in the woods that could kill them were true.

  If they were ever going to find someone to help them, they would need every ounce of energy they could muster.

  The woman roused her daughter, who wiped the sleep from her eyes and a few errant leaves from her blonde hair.

  “We’re going on another adventure today.” The woman smiled at her daughter. The little girl smiled back.

  “OK. What are we having for breakfast?”

  The woman clucked at herself. She hadn’t thought that far into the plan. The woman hadn’t really expected to get this far, though she could only no admit that to herself. No doubt, as soon as she didn’t show up for work, her disappearance would be cause for major concern.

  If they weren’t already out looking for them since the patrol had come looking for them the night before, they would be soon.

  Her daughter might have been worried about breakfast, but the woman still had bigger problems on her mind.

  “Breakfast is a surprise.” The woman hoped they might come across some recognizable berries in the woods. It wouldn’t be the breakfast her daughter expected, but at least she could play that off as yet another part of their adventure. “Now, we need to start moving again. And keep your eyes open for anything you think looks like breakfast. That’s part of the surprise.”

  The girl stood up and looked happy to get her day started.

  The woman wished she could say the same.

  *

  By the time the sun was high in the sky, the woman realized exactly how foolish this plan had been.

  What had she expected? That they would immediately come across one of the groups of rogue humans that periodically raided their cities? That the rogue humans would readily take two strangers in if they somehow found the rogue humans? That it would be easy to make their way through the thick woods? That life out here would somehow be easier than it was in there, back in the city and inside the fences?

  “I’m hungry, Mommy.” The girl looked up at the woman with pleading eyes. Whatever joy she had woken up with was long gone. They had only come across two bushes of berries since they started off in the morning. When the woman hadn’t recognized them, she had refused to let her daughter eat off of the bushes, on the off chance the berries were poisonous.

  “I know, honey. I’m hungry, too. Maybe we’ll find something to eat soon.” The woman doubted her own words, but her daughter trusted her without question. “We’re just going to walk a little further and then we’ll take a little break.”

  The woman took her daughter’s hand and they continued through the woods. With every step, the woman felt both a little less danger from those who were, no doubt, looking for them by now. She also felt another danger growing, as they traveled further and further from the safety the AI provided them within the walls of the city.

  They continued to walk, until the girl grew tired and the woman had to carry her daughter on her back.

  The doubts grew louder in the woman’s head, until she began to consider going back to the town. Perhaps if she begged forgiveness from the AI, they would let her live. And even if they didn’t let her live, perhaps they would let her daughter live. After all, this had not been her daughter’s idea.

  And the AI would want such a young, healthy girl to help continue to populate the Earth in a few years.

  It wasn’t what the woman wanted for her daughter, but it was better than dying a slow death here in the woods.

  After walking what seemed to be hours into the forest in the afternoon heat, her daughter on her back alternately sleeping and complaining of the heat and the lack of food, the woman finally sat on a rock. The woods where the rock sat was not as thick as elsewhere, but it was still shady and relatively cool there.

  It was a nice place. And the woman knew she couldn’t go any further.

  She didn’t want to go any further.

  Perhaps this was what was meant to be. Maybe it was better to die here, in the woods, than it would have been to have lived out life among the AI, where the two of them would have been separated.

  The woman liked that idea. To die there, in the woods. On their own, but together.

  And then she heard it.

  The sound. A recognizable sound.

  It was human voices, somewhere in the woods behind where she now sat.

  Maybe they weren’t going to die out in the woods after all.

  Chapter Five

  Instinctively, the woman ducked behind the rock, putting it between herself and the location where the voices came from. She pulled her daughter down with her. The girl was half asleep and didn’t protest.

  The voices grew closer.

  The woman listened for any hint as to whether they belonged to a potential friend or a potential foe.

  And then, the woman saw the first of them. Then many more, until there were at least two dozen walking through the woods. There were even more behind them.

  They seemed to be headed in her direction, though not directly. They were dressed…well, they were dressed in what looked like the castoffs from what people in the cities wore. Almost like these were the clothes the people had been wearing for a long time, only to be replaced when absolutely necessary. The hair on the men was generally long, or at least shaggy, while that of the women was pulled back into practical, long braids.

  As the woman watched, the men, women, and children walked near her. Some passed within feet of the rock behind which she crouched. They did not seem to see her, despite passing so close she could read the expressions on their faces. Seeing those faces, there was one overwhelming thought in her mind.

  These people were happy.

  They clearly had very little—even less than the woman and tho
se in the cities had—but that didn’t seem to matter to them. They were smiling and laughing with each other, as if walking through the woods was the most natural thing for humans to do.

  The woman couldn’t help but smile, thinking about the happiness of these other people.

  She wanted a part of it.

  Without thinking, the woman stood up from behind the rock.

  Immediately, the happy mood of the men and women in the woods disappeared. Several of them brandished handguns at the woman, causing her to take a step back and nearly trip over nothing in her haste to get a few steps between herself and the weapons.

  “Who are you?” A man stepped out from the group. The woman hadn’t seen him ask the question, but she assumed he had been the one to do so.

  “I’m…I’m looking for someone to take us in.” The woman gathered herself and stood up straight, trying to feign the confidence she was not feeling. Near her feet, her daughter stirred. She would be fully awake soon.

  “You’re looking for someone to take you in? What makes you think we’re looking for people to join our ranks? Especially people who don’t look to be able to offer anything but two hungry mouths?” The man’s voice rang out cold in the hot afternoon.

  The woman tried to think of something to say, but no words came. Despite still being asleep, they had seen her daughter as well.

  In the silence between the group and the woman, a distinct buzzing sound came from the distance.

  “Did they follow you?” The man suddenly demanded, his demeanor changing from cold to angry. Around him, the rest of the group started talking amongst themselves and looking toward the noise. Whatever the noise was, it disturbed these men and women. It disturbed them greatly.

  The woman listened to the sound herself. It was familiar, but it took her a few seconds to place it.

  A drone.

  It was looking for her. It had to be looking for her.