by S. J Woods
“Wow!” She said, peering into the container. “Have you tried some? Is it ok?”
“It was from a moving body of water,” Dane told her, grateful for her reaction. “It should be fine.”
Dane and Teonie joined the others and they started to rise to their feet with the exception of Cory, a stocky man in his early twenties. He was sprawled across the pavement, his head resting on his duffle bag and his eyes closed.
“We’ve lost valuable time waiting for you.” Hunter snapped at Dane.
Dane opened his mouth to reply, but Teonie beat him to it.
“We all agreed that we needed to rest. It’s got nothing to do with Dane. He would have caught us up, the pace we’ve been going.” Her eyes flashed with anger as she responded.
Hunter said nothing but glared at Teonie.
“Does anyone want water?” Dane asked, feeling embarrassed that he had held the team up.
He demonstrated how to drink the liquid with his hand as a scoop, and several of the group stepped forward eagerly.
“You fool!” Hunter snarled. “That will be brimming with bacteria. If anyone is ill, we won’t be slowing our journey. If you drink the water, you run the risk of being left behind.”
The team started to fall back, and Dane stood alone next to the container.
“I’ll have some.” Teonie said, and she sunk to her knees, carefully raising her cupped hands to her mouth, cautious not to spill a drop.
When she had finished drinking, she sighed in relief as the warm liquid quenched her raging thirst.
“Team!” Seraphine barked after a few moments. “We need to go.”
The last few seated slowly got to their feet, and Dane watched Cory struggle to a stand. The colour drained from his face as he shifted his weight to two feet and, as if in slow motion, he crumpled to the ground in a faint.
Riku was closest, and managed to catch him, breaking his fall and setting him back down on the pavement, and Seraphine rushed forward to revive him.
“He’s just fainted.” She said, leaning over his body as he started to come around. “I think we should give him the water.”
Hunter grunted in annoyance, but Dane carefully carried the container over to his side. Seraphine, deceptively strong, supported Cory’s head and helped him to take the water. Cory’s eyes closed as he savoured the refreshment.
“I’ll have some too, please.” Seraphine said quietly in Dane’s direction, and he nodded wordlessly.
Hunter watched Seraphine drink the water, before turning to Cory.
“Can you continue?” He asked. “I can summon medical assistance, but it means you’ll be eliminated from the assessment.”
Cory shook his head quickly. The colour had started to return to his face and he sat up slowly.
“I can keep going.” He insisted, and he got to his feet, looking a little shaky but more stable.
He bent his head over the container and took a little more water, before wiping his damp hands across his brow.
“I’ll walk with you.” Hunter said and slung a supportive arm underneath Cory’s shoulder.
Dane noticed that himself, Seraphine and Teonie marched with more ease than the rest of the group, taking it in turns to carry the drum, and they moved quickly along the edge of yet another highway, pausing occasionally to wait for the team to catch up. Cory was slow in his progress, and Seraphine hung back, offering to switch places with Hunter, but he waved her away.
They passed through a smaller city, where the buildings were shorter and covered in ugly cladding and the distribution centres were generic and shabby. The few residents that they saw out on the streets were elderly and they watched the young military personnel pass through their city without greeting; just unfriendly glares following them. They made it out of the city and to the boundary of the National Park just as the daylight was dimming. They could smell the nature before they reached it, the early evening breeze sending an earthy-scent that Dane thought wasn’t dissimilar to the aroma in the air at Wilderness camp, but somehow tasted so real.
The park was a few miles out from the end of town, with a tall, seamless glass wall preventing intruders, although here they were set with sensors which omitted warning noises as the team approached. The glass was tinted, but they could see thick, dark-green forest running behind it, and the rocky mountain range rising like a giant over the woodland.
“Riku.” Hunter nodded towards the wall as the team looked on cautiously at the barrier.
He didn’t need to say anymore, and Riku approached the wall, wiping his clammy hands against the leg of his pants. Teonie stepped forward, getting closer, unfazed by the urgency of the warning sound, as she peered at the wall from several different angles.
Teonie put out her hand and held it a fraction of an inch in front of the wall. Dane held his breath as he waited for something to happen, but she kept her hand there and started to move along the wall, her fingers outstretched, but not quite touching the thick glass.
Riku watched her for a moment and then turned back to the group.
“Teonie is just looking for the weak spot. Once she locates it, we’ll temporarily disable the current.”
Teonie found it quickly, and she beckoned Riku. He dropped to his knees and Teonie hopped up effortlessly onto his shoulders. She paused to put her jacket back on, pulling the sleeves over her hands, and Riku carefully rose to a standing position, with Teonie balanced, like a gymnast, on his shoulders. He stood close to the wall and loosened his grip on her boots. Effortlessly, she bounced into the air, touching the wall for just a second as she used it for leverage, and disappeared over the ten-foot wall. There was a crackle and a hiss, as sparks flew up from the spot that Teonie had brushed but she was quicker than the reaction, and the team breathed a sigh of relief as they heard her call out happily from the other side.
A few moments later, she called out that the wall should be safe.
“How long did you get?” Riku called back.
“Ten minutes. Anything longer and the system will override.” She called back. “Must be a pain for the poor maintenance Attendants.”
Hunter started to organise the team into pairs and they crossed the boundary with ease until it was just Hunter and Dane left.
“I’ll go last.” Hunter said, and Dane realised that he would have to perch on the wall and lean down to pull Hunter the last few feet to safety.
The first few attempts were fruitless and Teonie called up, with growing anxiety in her tone, counting down the remaining time. Dane was leaning as far forward as he could, without falling off, but Hunter’s leaps were always a few inches short of making contact.
Dane felt himself growing flustered with every failed attempt, and he could see Hunter growing angrier with every missed connection.
Seraphine started to call up suggestions to him, “A little to the left”, “Lean lower”, “You can let go a bit more”. Dane gritted his teeth, ignoring her unhelpful instructions. She wasn’t the one balanced unsteadily on a thin ledge of electrified glass trying to catch the body weight of a grown man.
Hunter tried once again, this time taking a run before he propelled himself from the spot and Dane snatched at his hands, feeling himself pulled forward with the momentum. He tightened his legs around the wall and willed his body to pull Hunter the last few feet until he had a grip of the slippery surface and was able to clamber ungracefully over. Hunter dropped to the ground, landing with a muffled thud and Dane sat for a moment, relief flooding his body.
He gazed out at the landscape in front of him, seeing it properly for the first time now he was free of his task. The forest lay a few hundred yards ahead of them, thick and vibrant green. It stretched infinitely in both directions and the dark imposing mountain range shadowed it menacingly.
“Good work.” Seraphine directed this to Riku, causing Teonie and Dane to frown at each other. “First thing we need to do is find food and water.”
Dane collected his empty container from the g
round and followed the team as they made their way towards the forest.
Looking around him, he could see awe and caution on the faces of his temporary squad. They reached out and touched the rough bark of the trees, laughing or calling out to each other in wonder.
“This one feels like the ones we have back home!” Faith called excitedly.
Seraphine stopped, indulging their interest in their natural surroundings, but Hunter hung back, eyeing the darkness beyond with suspicion.
“We should keep to the outskirts.” He warned them. “It’s a maze in there and there will be wild animals.”
A few of the team backed away cautiously, but Seraphine stood hand-on-hip a few metres in.
“We won’t find water out here.” She argued. “We need to go deeper.”
“There’ll be water at nightfall.” Dane volunteered. “I brought a metal pole from back in town. We could also use that as a tap. It’s a bit long, but the trees are big and if we angled it right…”
He stopped speaking, conscious of the team staring at him with puzzlement.
“I was really into all this as a kid.” He said by way of explanation, feeling a little self-conscious.
Seraphine clapped him on the back. “Well done, Dane. That’s great.”
Hunter looked sceptical and continued to move along the periphery of the forest in a southerly direction.
“We should walk for as long as we can.” He said. “We’ll take a break in a couple of hours and you pair can take care of food and water while we set up camp. We’ve got to cover a lot of distance to catch up.”
The rest of the team began to follow Hunter, and Seraphine hung back in frustration. It grew darker and cooler as they walked, and it was a little over an hour before people started complaining of hunger and tiredness.
“Shall we stop here?” Seraphine called to Hunter.
He looked back at her and Dane thought he would have kept going if it wasn’t for the others stopping, with hopeful expressions on their faces.
“We should camp out in the open.” Hunter said, tossing his bag to the ground. “It’s safer.”
Seraphine shrugged, keen to avoid another argument.
“Dane and I will fetch water and food.” She volunteered and beckoned for Dane to follow her.
“I’m coming.” Teonie said.
Seraphine emptied her duffle bag onto the ground next to Faith, and swinging the empty sack, set off into the wood. It was darker and more tightly packed than Dane had expected, and he thought that Hunter had been right to warn them about sticking to the edge of the forest. A person could get lost forever in here.
“We can eat these,” She said, easing a plant out of the ground by its roots. “It’s wood sorrel. Fill my bag with that.”
Teonie and Dane obediently followed her instruction.
“Not that!” Seraphine suddenly shouted, knocking the plant from Teonie’s hands. “That’s snakeroot! It’s poisonous.”
Teonie stepped back, shaken by her mistake.
Seraphine peered into the bag and satisfied that Teonie’s had been the only mistake started to move forward again.
“These are safe to eat.” She said, pointing out the leaves of a yellow flower growing in clumps on the ground.
Dane watched carefully, trying to commit the edible plants to memory.
Once the bag was full, Seraphine turned back in the direction of the makeshift camp. She stopped at a thick tree, a little way into the forest, and held out her hand for the hollow metal pole that Dane was carrying.
“We need something to use as a hammer.” She frowned as she lined up the pole several times, as if testing her idea. Dane slipped off his large, sturdy boot and she nodded approvingly. “I’ll hold the pole at an angle. It needs to go in fairly quickly to stop the pole getting blocked with splinters.”
Seraphine turned to Teonie. “While we’re doing this, you need to gather up as much dry wood as you can find.”
She bent to the floor and picked up a stick about twice the thickness of the pole and half the length. “Like this. As much as three of us can carry.”
Teonie wandered off, and Dane couldn’t help but glance after her nervously every few minutes to check she was still in range. He hammered at the pole, and Seraphine called out words of encouragement to him until he was aching from the exertion, but the pole was firmly stuck in the side of the tree, angled downwards. Seraphine gave the pole a shake to check it was secure and placed the empty container underneath it.
A trickle of liquid was already running from the tube and Dane watched it, satisfied with his work.
“We’ll take the plants back and come back to help her carry the wood.” She said, but Dane shook his head.
“I’ll stay with Teonie.” He said decisively.
A shadow of irritation flashed across Seraphine’s face, but she looked away quickly
“We might as well help her then.” She said. “At least we’ll be quicker.”
They carried the armloads back to the camp, and the team looked on sceptically as Seraphine passed around leaves to make up their first meal since they’d hit the road that morning. The reluctance to eat a strange and potentially poisonous meal was visible on everyone’s face, but they were all hungry and knew that they would have to trust in nature at some point along the way. Dane took the first handful, and the others watched him chew and swallow before tentatively trying some themselves. Hunter was the only one who declined, and Dane thought that he was likely to wait until morning to ensure nobody had displayed any signs of poisoning overnight. Dane went back into the forest to fetch the water, and this time everyone, including Hunter, drank from the container.
The night was growing rapidly darker and colder, and Hunter suggested they take turns to watch for predators. Seraphine revealed her second ace of the day and, after half an hour of vigorous attempts, she successfully sparked a small fire and carefully lit the pile of wood they’d gathered earlier.
Dane sat watching the naked flames dancing, enchanted by the way the smoke curled from the orange tips, so natural and real. Around him, exhausted by the day and depleted of energy, the team started to drop into sleep one-by-one, with their heads on their bags, covered by their jackets.
“I can show you how to make fire if you like.” Seraphine said, moving closer to Dane, and he shifted closer to her, intrigued by the process.
It was harder than it looked, and eventually he gave in, citing tiredness for his feeble attempts. Seraphine smiled down at him as he lay his head on the bag, already feeling sleep begin to wash over him, and the last image he saw before he closed his eyes was Seraphine’s blonde hair blowing loose in the breeze around her face, glowing an ethereal orange from the open fire behind her.
FIVE
The second day was the toughest; bodies were sore and lethargic and, at first, nobody dared eat more than necessary for fear of being ill. They stuck to the edge of the forest, and Dane could tell by the changing landscape that they were making good progress, even hindered by their depleted energy reserves.
Hunter and Seraphine clashed heads several times, locked in an unspoken struggle to take lead of the team. Hunter was still barking orders with such authority that they obeyed unquestioningly, but Seraphine’s unique set of skills were impressing everyone on the squad.
Dane tried his hand at fire-starting every night at camp, but it wasn’t until day-four that he managed to ignite a flame. He whooped with joy and Seraphine threw her arms around him in a celebratory embrace.
“What’s the deal with you two?” Teonie asked him in a low voice as they marched early the next morning.
Dane shook his head dismissively. “Nothing! I just want to learn everything. Better to be prepared for training, right?”
“I can’t do anything like you two,” Teonie admitted, dropping her gaze. “I don’t even know why they selected me for the team.”
“You jumped over a ten-foot electric barrier. And disabled a government system in minutes.�
�� Dane said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.
The whole squad’s standards had slipped a little, with no real chain of command around, and strands of her raven black hair had slipped free from her ponytail, framing her face. Her sunburn had started to turn a warm tan colour and there was a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
She shrugged in response to Dane’s comment, but the corners of her mouth turned up into a smile.
“Got any more tricks like that up your sleeve?” Dane teased, hoping to cheer her up.
It worked, and she grinned widely in response.
“I can’t tell the difference between poisonous leaves and food,” She laughed. “But I could take down an aircraft from a civilian device, and I can do a mean backflip.”
“Ah,” Dane said, knowingly. “That’ll have been your “in” then.”
“It seems crazy, doesn’t it?” Teonie said after a moment’s contemplation. “Putting together a whole specialist squad to learn technology-free combat, and then having the Intel geeks like me come along for the ride.”
“I’m sure there’s a reason for it.” Dane said, although the thought had crossed his mind.
“They must think there’s a pretty heavy chance of the enemy infiltrating our networks to be training us in this kind of combat.” Teonie continued, although she lowered her voice so as not to be overheard by the others.
“It’s probably just a PR exercise,” Dane shrugged. “Even if there was a temporary hack, there’s no military force like Apatia. This whole squad is probably a warning to the rest of the world that not only are we the most advanced, but we’re physically superior too.”
“Probably,” Teonie agreed. “Imagine the carnage of a temporary hack, though.”
“The country would literally shutdown.” Dane said. “That would probably cause more damage than a foreign attack.”