Project Terra

by S. J Woods

  “I’ll let him have this one.” She told Dane quietly. “But if he doesn’t head off to the cover of the woods by the end of the day, I might have to go my own way. I really don’t want to fail this task.”

  Seraphine was already trying to figure out how to get the team on board. As well as demonstrating her own survival skills, as an Officer she needed to show that she could lead a team through the unknown. She was the youngest Officer in the AMS, and she knew that there were whispers that Artificials would start replacing lower senior staff before too long. This was her shot to prove herself.

  “I’ll come.” Dane said quickly. “It’s madness to walk the highway, unless they’re planning on hijacking transport. I didn’t catch whether that was against the rules.”

  By the time the team reached the town, a few were showing signs of physically lagging. Heads had started drooping a few miles back, jackets had been shed under the hot rays of the sun and nobody had spoken for some time. Dane’s throat felt dry and scratchy and he wondered at the strange sensation for a while before recognising it as thirst.

  The highway snaked into the city, sensors buffeting the traffic to the left or straight on, depending on their destination. Vehicles not ending their journey in the city were diverted to the left and the highway climbed rapidly to carry them ten-storeys high through the outskirts, where the buildings were shorter, and the inhabitants didn’t care about the constant whoosh of vehicles past their windows. Straight ahead, the highway split again into several smaller roads, carrying them to the various regions of the city, some high via bridges as tall as six or seven storeys, where landing areas for personal aircraft sat at regular intervals, other roads low and at ground-level. They took the low roads, towards civilian apartment buildings, skirting past the higher routes that led to the distribution centres manned by friendly Attendants a little further across town. This would have been the logical stop as all physical products were dispersed to the Organic citizens via these huge warehouses. Dane was sure that it was more likely that the Attendants would donate their surplus stock to military personnel than relying on regular citizens to give away their own goods.

  Seraphine frowned as Hunter drew the group to a halt and stepped forward to speak to the on-duty Attendant at the entrance to a serviced apartment building.

  “We have strict instructions, I’m afraid,” The Attendant smiled politely. “No donations are to be made to AMS personnel. Have a safe journey!”

  Dane watched as the whole group’s faces fell in shock at her announcement. Hunter looked furious and perplexed at the same time.

  “Have all Attendants had the same order?” Teonie stepped forward and asked hopefully.

  The Attendant confirmed that it was a universal order to all Attendants around the state of South Apatia, and Teonie thanked her, but stepped back and spoke in hushed voices to Riku.

  Seraphine, Dane and another two soldiers hung back waiting for Riku and Teonie, but Hunter and his band of followers were already storming off, now in the direction of the distribution centres.

  “Is there any way around this?” Seraphine was looking at Riku expectantly. “If all the Attendants have been given the same order, I don’t know how everyone will make it to the nearest source of hydration.”

  Riku shrugged. “It’s difficult. There are ways we could adjust the order of an individual Attendant, but I don’t know whether that would be seen as a fail? I mean, the whole purpose of the exercise is to survive as organically as possible.”

  Seraphine looked disappointed. She had been hoping that she could convince one of the Intel to use their skills to access some provisions. She could have used this as leverage to get the team moving west and following her. Riku had a point though.

  “Let’s head out of town to the East,” Dane suggested. “We’ll pass distribution centres anyway and at least we’ll have made a start.”

  Hunter and the rest of the group had continued to march in a southerly direction and Seraphine called out to them to listen to her suggestion.

  Teonie caught Dane’s eye and raised her eyebrows at Seraphine’s claim on Dane’s idea. Dane grinned back, not bothered about getting involved in Hunter and Seraphine’s politics. He didn’t care who claimed responsibility for the plan as long as it meant they’d move more quickly to a source of hydration.

  The group stood for some time, a hundred yards ahead of Dane and Teonie, huddled in heated discussion about the right course of action. The two self-appointed leaders were doing the majority of the talking, but others were joining in with their opinions. Riku stepped forward and started to speak animatedly.

  Teonie and Dane glanced at each other and moved forward to hear what was being said.

  “We haven’t seen any of the Southern teams pass us.” Seraphine was nodding her head at whatever point Riku had made. “It’s madness to be out here in the open. People survived for thousands of years off the land. We need to be in the National Park.”

  “People also died of diseases and injuries.” Hunter scoffed.

  Seraphine rolled her eyes. “The whole purpose of this force is to survive under primal conditions. The Commanders will be laughing at our location and marking us all down. If things get desperate, Riku and the other Intel can step in, but I agree with him. They should be keeping interventions to a minimum. We’re not even halfway through the first day.”

  Hunter’s eyes narrowed, but Seraphine’s mention of the Commanders observing their journey seemed to make an impact on him.

  “We’ll head East.” He said decisively, after a moment of deliberation, and held out a hand in a sarcastic gesture for Seraphine to lead the way.

  “No,” She smiled back sweetly. “After you.”

  The pair stood facing each other, neither moving and Dane realised, with surprise, that Hunter had no idea which direction they should be headed in. Seraphine had clearly picked up on this and was hoping to make him look foolish. The rest of the team were looking on with interest, and Dane watched as realisation dawned on some of their faces. Hunter reddened a little, his eyes angry and hard. The atmosphere felt tense and Dane thought the Officer was going to explode with rage when suddenly Teonie darted forward, moving to their left.

  “Come on then.” She called, striding away from the group. “I’m going to pass out if I don’t get some hydration soon. Even if it’s from some dirty river!”

  They walked on for some time, along smaller roads congested with city traffic, receiving the same answer from every Attendant that they passed along the way. The sun was at its highest point now, and nobody was talking, focussed on conserving their energy for the long, arduous journey ahead of them.

  “How did you know which to go?” Dane asked Teonie after a few miles of walking.

  He could see she was growing tired and the heat was impacting her, and he wanted to distract her if nothing else.

  “You pointed it out earlier.” She said simply, giving him a weary smile.

  “You’re doing great.” Dane said encouragingly

  “Do you know how much longer it will take?” She asked him quietly after they had walked on in silence for another mile.

  “We’ll be at the Park by tonight.” Dane told her.

  She glanced at the screen on her wrist, which still displayed the time, and looked slightly disheartened.

  Dane looked around at the rest of the group. They had been walking for hours in the brutal heat and he knew they were at risk of becoming unwell. While they’d soon recover as soon as they had rest and hydration, Dane felt panicked that they’d lose a day to illness.

  “Hunter.” He jogged forward away from Teonie’s side and addressed the alpha male. “Half of the group are looking severely dehydrated already. We need to address this before we leave the city.”

  “The Attendants have orders.” He answered Dane through gritted teeth and quickened his pace.

  Dane moved towards Seraphine and she shrugged her shoulders, agreeing with Hunter that they just had to grin
and bear it, although she smiled apologetically.

  Dane fell back, exasperated with their ignorance. They were fools to not see that people were going to get ill and cost them precious time at the very least. He didn’t want to risk getting the group into trouble, but surely it was more important to show they could use their initiative and keep healthy.

  Dane racked his brain as he walked. There had to be a way, that wasn’t breaking the rules, to get some kind of hydration for the team. He knew from his fascination of the wilderness that Organics only used to consume flowing water, to avoid bacteria, and as much as Hunter scoffed at living primitively, he’d have to face it that that’s how they’d be forced to survive for the remainder of the trip.

  How did they collect water? He knew the answer to this: from fresh rain water or moving bodies of water. If they had the means for purification, they could dig for it, but Dane dismissed this thought as the ground was solid concrete above miles of underground transportation networks.

  He glanced up at the sky. It rarely rained in South Apatia. It would have to be a moving body of water, he thought, scanning the landscape for inspiration. Dane remembered studying natural geography as a child. Eight-year-old Dane had been fascinated by the subject and had stayed seated at the screen, long after the lesson had ended, clicking back through the module to learn more.

  All the rivers near civilisations had been dammed and drained, where possible, to keep the wildlife away from cities and to protect citizens from disease. But they did exist, and damming wasn’t always successful. Dane tried to picture the primitive maps of South Apatia. In his mind’s eye, he could see the snaking blue line moving from the mountain range below the capital towards the coast. Seasonally, it flooded in several areas, no matter how hard the government’s army of scientists tried to control the climate and prevent it happening. The result was several underground networks had been built to allow the waters a channel to the coast without bringing cities to a standstill cyclically.

  Dane walked on for a few minutes when the image he’d been trying to recall came to him clearly. They were passing through Haleton, and Dane pictured the blue twist snaking slightly above the letters marking out the city on the map. Which meant there was a source, covered but accessible, to the north of the town. They were heading South-West now and there were only a few streets to the North before the high-rise apartment blocks fell away to the no-man’s-land between various highways. They had been walking in a straight line towards the East Coast’s National Park, along the lesser-used highway that would carry them to the next town.

  All the surfaces were man-made, and the vegetation was, of course, synthetic. Dane knew that he couldn’t lose the squad if he made a detour. They would remain on this highway for the next few hours at least. He dropped to the back of the group, not wanting to share his idea with Seraphine or Hunter in case they pulled rank and forbid him from venturing off on his own. He wasn’t even sure if the usual rules of obedience even applied, but his instinct was telling him his team needed water. He muttered to Teonie that he was going to look for water a few blocks north, but he would catch them up. She looked like she wanted to object, but he asked her to keep walking, worried that she’d insist on coming and slow him down.

  Dane darted up the side of an ugly, plastic-clad high-rise, keeping his eyes peeled for the large cylindrical containers used to transport hydration and nutritional supplements in bulk. This was the “rougher” side of town, and the Government sent bulk containers over to the elderly, infirm or down-on-their-luck who couldn’t afford the cost of choosing their own from the distribution centres. He was in luck, and a couple of containers were tucked around the side of a building, waiting to be collected by the Attendants on their next round. He grabbed just one; they were light, but once full of water, he’d only be able to manage to carry one back.

  Feeling heartened by his luck, Dane bounded the next few blocks until he reached the long boundary that marked the edge of the city limits. There were a few “No Entry” notices pinned at regular intervals along the length, but the manmade barrier was only as tall as him and he was able to peer over the top, taking in scuffs and marks along the fence that told of multiple illegal crossings of the border. Praying that he was right, and the boundary wasn’t alarmed or worse, electrified, he touched it cautiously before clambering over. The ground of the no-man’s-land was concrete, just like in the city, but he could see a service man-hole covering less than a hundred yards from the boundary. It could be a service access for the Underground Transportation Engineers or the Sewage Attendants. These were usually on the outskirts of cities, making them accessible for maintenance. There was no entrance gate to this area, which convinced Dane that this man-hole was a monitoring point for the underground river.

  Dane lowered himself cautiously to the ground, placing an ear cautiously over the surface, like he’d imagined his ancestors doing thousands of years before him. He thought he could hear a gurgle, but it could have been his imagination getting the better of him. He raised himself into a crouch and pulled at the cover gently.

  The cover was about a metre each side and it looked like it was bolted in place securely, however he could see signs of wear-and-tear, as if the cover had been screwed and unscrewed regularly. It didn’t need much encouragement to work the screws loose and he eased the lid gently to one side, taking care to not lean too far forward and risk plummeting into the unknown beneath. When he was confident that he had a secure grip, he peered into the hole and, although dark, he could make out a reflective trickle of water from beneath. He inched the clunky metal cover back further, creating a gap big enough to lower the container. The water was a few metres below the surface, and he looked around for some long enough to reach it. He found a thin, hollow metal pole propped against the boundary that was perfect and he secured it tightly to the handles of the container. It took a few attempts to get the angle right, working almost blind in the darkness beneath, but he heard the satisfying splash as the container entered the water beneath.

  He felt the weight of the container change and his heart lit up that it was working. He pulled it up too early on two occasions before he managed to fill the container completely and set it carefully to one side as he recovered the man-hole. He used the metal stick to lower the water carefully over the city-side of the boundary, before climbing back over. The pole came apart into three smaller pieces, and he slipped these into his bag, figuring that they might come in useful again.

  It had taken him the best part of thirty minutes to find and uncover the stream and fill the container, and he sat for a moment on the other side of the fence, realising how depleted of energy he was from the day. He used his hand to scoop a little of the clear liquid into his mouth and felt the instant refreshment soothe his parched throat.

  “You look too young to be sampling the poverty pills!” An old man, stooped at the waist, called to him from across the street. “Fallen on hard times, have you?”

  Dane looked up in surprise and the man crossed the street and stopped a little distance away from him. Dane couldn’t help but stare. He knew that there were people who relied on Government handouts, but this was Apatia, not some undeveloped overseas country. Surely nobody scrounged for water in this civilisation.

  The man was unkempt, in a ragged nylon suit, with little hair on his head and when he opened his mouth, Dane was shocked to see several of his teeth were missing. He looked like something out of a history module.

  “Training exercise.” Dane said, as way of explanation, gesturing at the military insignia on his jacket.

  The man’s expression changed as he seemed to take in the AMS uniform for the first time and he backed away.

  “You want to be careful,” The man said. “Poisonous that stuff. Wouldn’t touch it myself.”

  With that, the man scurried away, disappearing behind a building and Dane got to his feet, alarmed at the man’s words. He sniffed at his still damp hand. He certainly felt alright.

&nbs
p; Apatia had a growing problem with the ageing population, Dane knew from recent news stories. Outstanding healthcare and high standards of Artificial Intelligence meant the older people of Apatia were living into their hundreds as standard for the first time in history. A downside of this was they seemed to have too much time on their hands and there had been several reports of anti-social behaviour and anti-establishmentarianism from the centenarian demographic. He decided he’d take his chance that the man was just one of these trouble-makers.

  Armed with his drum full of the liquid, he made his way cautiously back to the path, as fast as he safely could to cover some distance and catch up with the team, casting the man’s nonsense out of his mind.

  FOUR

  The sun was high and relentless as Dane marched along the road in search of his team. He was drenched in sweat and stopped several times to wipe his hands off on his jacket each time he felt the heavy container slipping. In his head, he had calculated that the team would be making slow progress, but progress none-the-less. He watched as a steady procession of vehicles whipped past him and if he had a free hand, he thought he would have tried to flag one down, regardless of the rules. He couldn’t risk dropping the water though, already precarious in his grip, and so he marched on along the edge of the highway.

  They came into view as he approached the end of Haleton. A sweeping avenue of glass and metal curved away from the highway that would lead them East and he saw the team waiting on the corner.

  The team were sat around, in small groups of two and three, with the exception of Hunter, who was stood alone staring out at the highway. Dane walked closer, suddenly feeling apprehensive about Hunter’s reaction to his disappearance. Teonie spotted him first and scrambled to her feet. She walked the last few yards to greet him, and Dane could see her skin was tinged pink already from the hot afternoon sun.