“Sure. I’m going to ask Peter if he wants to come.”
Dakota walked with Hope over to the cluster of colourful tents that had been erected around the shack that housed the island’s one permanent veterinarian. Just beyond the camping tents that housed the young who had been left behind, were tarps and lean-tos that adults, mostly parents, spent their nights beneath. Not everyone had a container to call home yet, or one that was safe enough. With the influx of people from the Black Box and the travellers, they needed to find spaces for all the new residents. They had managed to create a list of people who had died during the zombie attack, but were still tracking down where all those people had lived. Even finding an empty bed wasn’t always enough, because if the dead person had shared their container with someone still living, that living person wasn’t necessarily going to let a stranger into their home. It was all very complicated.
In a bright green tent that he shared with Adam and a boy Dakota’s age named Mike, Peter lay curled up on a sleeping mat.
“Peter, you awake?” Hope whispered through the screen.
Peter raised his head to look at them and nodded.
“We’re going over to the container yard to see what Adam is up to. Do you want to come?”
Peter nodded again and rolled upright. Dakota had always thought that Peter was a bit weird. He was very quiet, and actually liked doing math, which, to her, was the strangest thing for someone to enjoy. She guessed that he was bored a lot, now that he didn’t live in the Black Box and have a computer to do math problems on, but it was impossible to tell with him.
Threading their way back around the tents, Dakota led the other two to Bitch Bridge. Several people had put in a lot of effort over the last few days to make it less wobbly and dangerous. Along with a few more boards to help keep the old lifeboats, dock floats, and empty drums from shifting too much with the waves, they had also finally finished the rope railing that lined one side. In single file, Dakota, Hope, and Peter crossed the bridge. Having heard all about people breaking a leg or twisting an ankle while crossing, they took their time. Each of them held the rope tightly, and made sure their feet were firmly planted on the boards at all times. It took a while to cross by being so cautious, but if someone saw them being reckless and reported it to their caretakers, they could lose the privilege of being allowed to cross at all. Waiting for a boat to bring them over would take way longer.
Finally on the other side, the trio decided to go down to the dock first where the submarine was secured. Sometimes Adam could be found there hanging around, watching whatever his adoptive dad was doing. Although, now that his dad was on the team going to inspect the Black Box, Adam might not have any reason to be anywhere near the sub.
At the end of the dock, they didn’t find Adam, just a few people sitting around, using the hotplates hooked up to it to distil water. There wasn’t even anyone trying to dismantle the cranes so that they could be moved back to the walls, however some of the metal plating they had added was now gone.
“Do you want to go inside?” Dakota asked the others. A couple of submariners had taken to living in the submarine, so there was always someone watching over it, and Dakota thought they wouldn’t mind giving her a tour. They probably didn’t get to show off all the neater bits around the submarine very often.
“No,” Hope said, while Peter shook his head beside her.
They had both gotten to ride in the sub after the forced evacuation of the Black Box. Dakota had never been inside herself, and despite hearing the stories of how cramped and scared everybody had been, she remained curious. Maybe another time, when she was alone again, she’d get a chance to check it out.
They wandered over to the community centre next. The badger was no longer asleep outside. It had been taken by the zookeeper on a contact mission. Dakota had never seen the place so empty. It was between meals, and with so many adults gone over the wall, there weren’t even people just hanging around. Some cooks were cleaning the plates and utensils from that day’s lunch, and there was one doctor sitting on a chair among the handful of injured still recuperating on their cots. A few teens around Dakota’s age were sitting together huddled in a corner, holding a whispered conversation, but, when asked, they said they hadn’t seen Adam anywhere.
“Let’s do a perimeter walk,” Dakota suggested, and the others agreed.
Following along the inside of the wall, they found more people there than anywhere else. The wall guards continued to maintain their numbers, which was probably why not much else was getting done. Dakota spotted Brunt up there, but didn’t bother to say hi.
“We outnumber them,” Hope suddenly said.
“What?” Dakota had no idea what she was talking about.
“Us. Kids and teenagers. All the ones they decided are too young to go on any of the missions. I think we outnumber the adults who stayed behind. We definitely do if you don’t count the people currently guarding the walls.”
“We outnumber them,” Peter agreed.
“Huh.” Dakota didn’t know what to do with that information but it certainly was interesting. She started to notice a lot more people her age and younger walking around than she did adults. Virtually all of the adults were parents and caretakers, but not even all of them had stayed behind. Like Adam’s parents, a few pairs had split up in order to get the jobs done that needed doing outside the wall. Dakota wondered if there were enough people left to do those jobs that still needed doing inside. Mostly there seemed to be wall guards, cooks, doctors, and vets. Who was there to finish repairing the containers that needed repairs? Who was preparing more containers for habitation? No wonder the cranes were still in place. And there was certainly no one left to investigate what was in the containers that remained outside the wall. This also meant that no new empty containers were going to be moved over to the part of the wall that was still only one container high. They were basically at a standstill. After that morning’s bustle, it felt especially quiet.
Adam was finally located over by the logs that were used to roll containers around. Well, the ones that weren’t currently on top of some containers to block the holes in them. They had gotten a lot of use lately, first moving some containers into strategic positions before the zombies came, and then moving them back out of the way again.
“What are you doing?” Hope asked in the exact same tone of voice she had used when asking Dakota the same question.
“Thinking,” Adam told her. He seemed to be studying the logs.
“Thinking about what?” Hope wondered.
“If we get enough of our friends together, we might be able to move a container,” he said, pointing to the rolling logs.
“Why would we want to do that?” Dakota asked.
Adam shrugged. “To help, I guess. The containers that are over there aren’t yet properly modified enough for people to live in, but we could start making a row of them. It would make things easier for my dad when he gets back.”
“We don’t have a crane to lift the containers with, dummy,” Hope pointed out. “How are we supposed to get them on the logs?”
“Oh yeah,” Adam sighed. “And don’t call me a dummy. At least I wanted to do something for someone.”
Hope’s faced pinched with anger, but she couldn’t think of a comeback.
“We could set up the cranes,” Peter spoke up.
Everyone turned to look at him like he was crazy.
“You’ve seen them tons of times, right?” Peter went on. “You know what they’re supposed to look like, and the math isn’t all that hard to do.”
Only Peter could make a statement like that.
“There’s no way anyone would let us do that,” Hope told him. “No one’s going to let a bunch of kids mess around with the cranes. They’re too important.”
Peter shrugged.
“Well, I mean, there’s only one person we’d have to convince,” Dakota realized. “Crichton’s gone to the Black Box, and Boyle is out with a scavenger team
right now. Bronislav is the only one in charge.”
“You think we could convince Bronislav to let us try setting the cranes back up?” Adam nearly laughed.
“It’s a thought. Or we could just go back to doing nothing,” Dakota brought up her own reason for being interested in the project. With literally nothing else for them to do, why not try? “Besides, it’s not like we’ll get in trouble just for asking.”
“Okay. We’ll ask,” Hope agreed.
Peter had no objections, and Adam nodded after a few seconds of thought.
“Maybe we should ask Becky and Emma and some others if they’d be interested in helping first,” Adam suggested.
“That’s a good idea,” Dakota agreed. “If we can present Bronislav with a number of names of kids interested, he’ll probably be more likely to agree.”
“Let’s go find some others then,” Hope declared.
They could have covered more ground if they had split up, yet the four stuck together so as to waste more time and prevent asking the same people more than once.
Dakota was a little bit surprised by just how many kids wanted to help out. Word spread quickly, and some started to seek them out in order to volunteer. By the time they crossed Bitch Bridge again, the whole island knew and was excited about the plan. Dakota knew they were going to have to disappoint some of the kids. Not everyone would be able to help out, as there just wouldn’t be enough work for that many hands. At least not until they got to the container-moving portion of the project, when they would need all the strength they could get, even from the youngest ones.
“I think we’ve talked to everyone,” Adam said, flopping down onto the ground. They had done a lot of walking.
“Way more people are interested in this idea than I thought,” Hope admitted.
“Everyone is just as bored as we are,” Peter pointed out. “They also want something to do while waiting for everyone to come home.”
“What’s the next step?” asked Becky, who had weaselled her way out of chicken duty, passing it on to another kid in order to join them.
“Next, we have to find Bronislav,” Dakota told them. “We have to convince him that letting us do this is for the best.”
Adam frowned. “I don’t remember seeing him anywhere.”
“He must be in the submarine,” Dakota perked up, excited to have an excuse to go inside. Even though Hope and Peter weren’t keen on it, neither Adam nor Becky had been in the sub and should be easily convinced to join her.
“Or he’s right there,” Becky said, pointing.
Everyone looked over to see Bronislav crossing Bitch Bridge. His eyes seemed to be on them as well.
“He must have heard,” Dakota sighed. She thought that springing their idea on him would have gone better.
“Can anyone tell if he’s angry?” Adam wondered.
No one spoke up, but a few shook their heads, uncertain. As far as Dakota could tell, his face was impassive, neither showing displeasure nor joy at their plan. She couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not.
No one moved, waiting for Bronislav to cross the bridge and then follow the shoreline along to where they were sitting. One of his arms was in a sling, still recovering from a bullet it had taken while he had aided in the bombing of the Black Box. Dakota generally found it easier to look at his arm than his face whenever he was around, since he still had stitches on his head, holding together a nasty scalp wound. The thought of having thread holding someone together always made Dakota feel a little wiggly. It was why she wasn’t fond of shadowing Cameron as a veterinarian anymore. While the animals rarely needed stitches, the vets did help out the doctors with simple procedures like that. Dakota figured that if she didn’t like looking at it, she couldn’t do it, and so Cameron had been sending her around, trying to find a different job she could shadow.
“I heard you kids are looking for something to do,” Bronislav said as he got close.
“Yes, sir,” Dakota answered for them. They were all about to get to their feet when the Russian submarine captain waved them back down with his good arm. He joined them in sitting along the shoreline.
“You want to move the cranes back to the wall?”
“Yes, sir. We believe we can do it. We know what they’re supposed to look like, especially Adam,” his dad had designed them in the first place, “and Peter knows how to do all the math to make sure it’s right.”
“And why are you so eager to move the cranes?”
“So we can move some containers,” Adam spoke up this time. “We thought we could move the incomplete housing containers into a new row. That way they’re ready to go as soon as the modifications are done. People could move into them even before they’re done if they want.”
Bronislav nodded, understanding, but his face was so neutral that Dakota wasn’t sure she trusted him. “You understand that right now there’s something we need more than housing?”
“Yes, sir,” Hope answered this time. “Food. But how are we supposed to help with that? The chickens don’t need all of us checking for eggs, the goats and cows can only be milked at certain times, and we’re not allowed to go hunting or foraging outside the walls.” She didn’t even bother to mention that they only had two butter churns.
“And why aren’t you allowed to hunt or forage?”
They all knew that Bronislav knew, and so were confused that he would ask.
“Because we’re not capable of defending ourselves yet,” Becky said after a few seconds.
“You’ve been taught how to use knives, haven’t you? And I can see that at least a few of you have taken to carrying around slingshots.”
“We’re too young,” Dakota told him.
“Says who?”
“Our parents, for one,” she said, feeling like he was challenging them, testing them in some way. “You and the other leaders, for another.”
“And if we all changed our minds, would you go outside the wall?”
“Why? To hunt? None of us have ever been trained to, so we’d probably be pretty terrible at it.”
Was that twitch a repressed smile? “So what you need is training.”
“I guess,” Dakota shrugged. The others nodded in agreement with her.
“Okay then, I guess we know what we need to do.”
“What?” Dakota frowned. “Train us?”
“Yes.”
The answer actually surprised everyone, since it wasn’t what they had expected.
“Maybe not to hunt,” Bronislav continued. “We already have people out there doing that, but to defend yourself outside of the wall. What we need, is a place to grow things. We shouldn’t have allowed the container yard to depend so much on the Black Box’s fields. We need to make a place to grow things here.”
“And there’s no room inside the wall,” Dakota realized.
Bronislav nodded.
“So we’re going to make a field outside of it?” Becky asked for clarification.
“Yes, which means you’ll need to be able to take care of yourselves out there. I want you to go to all the other kids and teenagers you talked to today, all the ones who wanted to help. Tell them to gather in front of the community centre tomorrow morning, after breakfast. If their parents agree, and I will be asking around about permission for everyone, we’ll get you ready to go outside. If anyone has both their parents out on missions right now, they need to ask whoever is currently keeping an eye on them, as well as me personally.”
Dakota felt her stomach flutter. She couldn’t tell if it was from being nervous, excited, or terrified. Maybe it was all three.
***
Cameron spent a long time deciding whether to give her permission or not. Dakota had waited as patiently as she could, knowing that being overeager wouldn’t help her. She watched as Cameron had discussed the matter with Brunt, and then with Riley. At least Dakota knew that Hope was in the same boat while the twins were talking. Still, Dakota was almost embarrassed at having to wait so long. Ther
e were kids younger than her who had received permission the moment they asked. Emma’s parents thought it was a great idea, especially since she had already been getting some inconsistent training while travelling. She was only nine, the youngest out of Hope’s group. Dakota was fifteen, only one year away from mandatory training, and yet Cameron had to mull it over.
It became a restless night for Dakota. Cameron had said she’d give her an answer in the morning. At least Dakota was finally back in her own bed. She liked to think that was because Cameron thought it silly keeping her out on Animal Island when she was being considered for training to go outside the wall, but really, it was just because their container had been fully repaired, and was now rat-proof once more. The mattress of her upper bunk wasn’t helping Dakota sleep, because she had gotten used to the sleeping mat in her tent. She wondered how long it would be before all the containers were repaired and all the kids could sleep in their own beds. Only a handful of people were working on the repairs between their other jobs. Dakota wondered if she should have had the kids volunteer to do that first.
When the morning finally came, Dakota watched the pop bottle light bulb grow steadily brighter. She had slept in spurts, her mind skimming the surface between thoughts and dreams.
Brunt got up with a soft groan, sliding off the lower, queen-sized bunk without shaking the whole thing too much. He got dressed quickly. The only sound was a soft rustling of fabric. As always, he picked up his boots and carried them to the door, intending to put them on outside. With fewer people available, the ones whose official duty had always been to guard the wall, had been taking longer shifts so as to train those who were new to it. A slice of sunlight pierced the container for a few seconds as Brunt slipped out.
“Dakota?” Cameron spoke from where she still lay on the bed below. She didn’t even whisper. “I know you’re awake. You always roll over when Brunt gets up unless you’re already awake.”
“Have you made your decision?” Dakota asked, glad that she wasn’t facing Cameron in case it wasn’t the news she wanted.
Survival Instinct (Book 5): Social Instinct Page 9