by Bowring, S D
He asked one of his assistants to scan the item to check for possible contamination, as they did prior to any trade. It was cleared, so he got his assistant to trade a lightweight adult poncho for the item. This poncho was of a material rarely made available to Outsiders, but in truth was standard kit for troopers in certain weather conditions. Aunty Nerys had been pleased with the transaction and thought no more of this.
It would be later that this Regent’s ever watchful wife would also question its origin. She had a role on London’s ‘Growth and Health Conference’, known as G&H. This was a committee group of twenty or so mid-level ranking citizens. It was their role to ensure the health and protection of infants up to the age of a year. The committee had been set up about a dozen years before as alarm grew over the population demographics.
Eventually, the State of London decided to follow the same route as other city states around Europe and took matters of conception, childbirth and rearing of young children under their strict control. G&H, therefore, had a post-natal role which was intended to ensure that nothing was left either to chance, or the possible failings of parents, when it came to ensuring the continuation of the London population. The responsibility for pre-natal health, up to the point of birth, was monitored by the C&H; the ‘Conception and Health Conference’.
The Regent felt justified in his trade when his wife also expressed puzzlement. Her view was that the only babies to ever rest in such a carry-pod would have been from a privileged city background. There had been no known disappearances of infants from the register of children. However, the carry-pod was imprinted on the base with a manufacture date that was prior to the set-up of the G&H, at a time when citizens wouldn’t have been ‘blessed’ with state assistance so closely. Since Outsiders wouldn’t trade for this item for themselves, then it was either found outside of the city or perhaps it was once the carrier of the rumoured illegitimate babies conceived between careless Regents and their servants. Regents often had leasehold rights on lower class Londoners for a set period of years. These leaseholds were a form of slavery with a guaranteed exit, with an accompanying exit payment, for the ‘slave’. They were an economic necessity for some poorer individuals and their family members.
These illicit unions and any resulting pregnancies were a threat to the wealth of any Regents’ own wife or wives. They jealously guarded their position and the position of their own offspring in the family pecking order and would regard an illegitimate child as a serious threat to their own wellbeing. This would have been enough to seriously endanger the new-born that would likely face an accident or poisoning by the jealous wives. Therefore the babies were often aborted, by coercion if necessary. Abortions for healthy foetuses had been strictly illegal in the last twelve years. Prior to this, some babies were perhaps more fortunate to be born illegitimately and taken outside the city for their own safety. The Outsiders were simple folk, but there was no doubting that they valued children.
All of this was interesting, but other concerns drove this from the couple’s focus and nothing more was done. However, during a later visit to the Arpo, the Regent had spotted the woman again. He paid a little attention from afar but her trading was nothing of interest. However, he did notice the tall fair-haired lad in the background, who then spoke briefly to the woman whilst he rested nearby.
This was a young man who was clearly from different stock.
As far as any Regent was concerned the last twelve years had re-focussed the entire London population on sustainability of population. Healthy young men and women were the only mechanism for this sustainability when set against an ongoing low birth rate. The Outsiders suffered from a similar problem. However, their poorer health meant they weren’t of interest in the quest for population growth as they would ‘water down’ the general health of the city inhabitants over time, or so it was thought. A lack of purity was a constant concern in city states and for the off-world traders. They were paranoid in avoiding mixing with the Outsiders. If a city state relaxed their inter-breeding habits the Off-world traders could show their disgust of this so-called high-risk cross-breeding by trading elsewhere.
There was a general paranoia associated with retention of their trading status in London. It guaranteed that London’s control of the purity of its inhabitants ensured a much harder task for those tasked with population growth. However, it did allow them to make gains in applying more rigid control over the population and further imposition of powers in order to safeguard their aims and aspirations.
The Regent had called over the troopers and requested they covertly take some images of the Outsider and his companions. The troopers had weighed up the possibility of simply calling him over but the Regent was cautious that he may disappear completely.
He ordered that these Outsiders be tracked back to the where they came from. In the meantime, he would escalate his findings to the appropriate authorities who would later thank him for his diligence. The authorities passed the matter over to the mysterious ‘Scouts’ as they were known. The Scouts were a specially selected group of guardians who were trained in special assignments to protect the state. They were rightly considered the elite amongst their peers. They were a little irritated that they hadn’t been alerted earlier in the investigation, but the operation would now move on to a more clandestine one.
The relationship with Outsiders was normally a wary but respectful one for the Londoners. They didn’t want to alarm the rural trading population, since both parties benefited from the existing relationship. London would have difficulties without the ‘imports’ brought in from Outsiders at the various trading areas around the capital. The Arpo was one of only five trading points but it was the second most important with the largest being The Royal Arpo to the west of London.
And so the search began.
The Scouts went to work. They interviewed the two returning troopers, then thanked them for their assistance. The troopers had, in truth, done well to remain hidden in the area for a day and had at least identified the field. They noted that the teepees were marked with the three red rings. Within a day the Scouts had two undercover men gathering information; using directional sound tools around the field. They found it impossible to locate the young man more precisely after the decoy efforts of the families but were confident that this was a matter of time.
Over the next eight hours they picked up discussions and gossip that identified names such as Nola, Cormic, Keller and Ida. They had narrowed down the targets as being Cormic and Keller. The one named Cormic being an uncle, whether this was a true relative or otherwise was irrelevant. He was the protector. He was a man used to travelling away, which allowed The Scouts to assume that they were dealing with a particularly resourceful Outsider. He was known to them through his occasional but impressive trading of useful items.
They could wait until another Arpo trading Sunday. However there was the possibility that neither might re-attend. The decoy exercise employed by the Outsiders suggested caution on their part. This was a concern as it implied the Outsiders here had activated what might be seen as the First Act of Resistance. The Scouts and their sponsors would not want the Outsiders to engage in the Second Act of Resistance, which implies taking direct action against the Londoners and the Regents.
The Regents would not want an open escalation of tension between them and the Outsiders.
Nevertheless, the Scouts had been set loose and they would surely conclude their task of locating the young man known as Keller. Whether they then acted on the discovery depended on circumstances when they found him. Their remit was to identify his ‘stock’ i.e. to confirm that he wasn’t a true Outsider, determine his health and then either leave him to get on with his life or intervene.
If the Scouts found that they didn’t need to intervene, then the most positive result would be that their quarry never even know that he had been investigated. They speculated that the Outsiders would have been aware of the troopers following them on the day but there was little
they could do about that. At least nothing further had occurred to increase suspicion.
If the Scouts found that they did have to intervene, then they would need to do this without direct proof of the authorities being involved.
Having determined from the clandestine listening operation that the two had left for the North East, the Scouts rested until night fall and then headed for the next town in that direction. This was a flaw in the apparent plan of the two Outsiders. The North East, from their home, held few towns. However, those towns followed a linear path away from the fields following an old highway. Had they travelled in any other direction, it would have required that the Scouts put more resources into the search. Furthermore, they were unlikely to travel directly east as these led too close to two of the nearest devastated cities, a pair of cities known as the Wiches. These cities were surrounded by shallow lakes and parts of both cities were now permanently underwater.
During their listening operation one of the Scouts had picked up ‘haz-suits’ being mentioned in relation to provisions and kit. They hadn’t picked up any other details of what provisions they were carrying or how long they were likely to be away for. They determined that the carrying of haz-suits was cautionary. It was unlikely to signify that the two Outsiders were going to risk movement towards a known contamination area.
The two Scouts were joined later by two others several miles north east at a small uninhabited site known as Bradfield. They then set off for Saint Edmunds, which was the next most reasonably-sized ruined town. On the outskirts of this town, they set up their sophisticated hand held tools and were able to determine from a range of readings that there were no humans in the town. They moved on.
They rested that night close to the side of the road. Their monitoring tools were set only to alert them to human indications as they rested ready for the next day.
At this time, the two Outsiders were into the second day exploring their ruined town, unaware of the Scouts’ activity further south.
Waking to a sudden downpour, the four Scouts decamped after a short break for food and to plan the day.
They arrived at the larger ruined town of Thetford. This was once a town of 75,000 souls just before the war and evacuated in haste. Many of the population went to large cities further afield only to perish - mainly through starvation, disease or having the misfortune to arrive in a city targeted by the enemy for a fatal strike.
Given the conversation that the Scouts had eavesdropped on, they considered that this town was a likely place for the two men to hide away.
Consequently, they approached the city with some caution and set up a temporary base in a low ruin on the outskirts. They set up various detectors which could be carried relatively easily. They included heat and sound detectors. They would first try to locate a heat source significantly close to that of a human for the distance detected. This was off-world exploration equipment. The Scouts used sophisticated tools like this to retain what they referred to as SQO; the remit of the Scouts was often boiled down to the loose instruction of keeping the Status Quo and maintaining Order. This acronym was used when signing for, and checking out, equipment from the governments closely guarded stores.
The heat and sound scanner equipment would be set in position on a stand and would turn full circle to identify the target scanning area. It would identify and confirm the type of environment (desert, sea, towns, forest etc.) and change its’ operation accordingly to scan intelligently, for example to exclude a body of water. It would locate a satellite for the purposes of pinpointing the exact geographical location to the nearest three metres and would then build up a 3D model of the visible environment subject to applied limits, for example to limit the scan to two miles. The second pass of the scan would then investigate within the set boundaries.
The scanner would need to be relocated more frequently when it was on lower ground. Heat signals can be masked or degraded through obstacles, buildings and so forth. The Scouts scanned their immediate area on low ground to confirm they were alone in the vicinity. They then made their way to a mound that appeared to be an ancient manmade structure. It was probably used for a castle keep or lookout tower but the structure that must have sat on top of this mound was long gone. All that remained was simply an exposed perfectly round hill with a flat top covered in brambles.
The scanner was left to operate itself whilst the Scouts made themselves comfortable out of sight. They had detached the screen so that they could see the progress of the scanning from their hidden position. The screen displayed the outline of the scanned area at such a speed it gave the impression that the viewer was being taking on a fast ride through a series of skeleton structures. The viewer would be breaking through walls and turning back and forth at such speed it would leave a distinct feeling of nausea if watched for too long.
Eventually, they picked up a signal - two signals in fact. The screen display paused and started to buzz, showing stills of different depths and identifying two moving targets.
The Scouts knew this didn’t conclusively identify their missing Outsiders, but they were in a confident mood as they identified the location. In an unhurried manner, two of them gathered the supplies and equipment from their temporary base whilst the other two continued to monitor the ‘heat sources’. The scanner continued trying to discern if there were any more heat sources in the target environment. After 30 seconds the scanning would automatically return to the first two heat sources. The Scouts could see that they were moving slowly in an area of large ruins.
Once a heat source was identified it triggered the sound scanner. Residual sounds such as birds, rain, etc. were stripped out. Quite clearly the scanner identified occasional human voices. With sophisticated analysis it would feedback a relatively good quality recording of the words spoken and the voice patterns.
The scanner paused and the Scouts could pick up the conversation, "…. unless I happen to have a problem with mine. Tuck it into your tunic. If you think you are going to fall, make sure this light has a soft landing.... probably more valuable than the two of us put together.”
They played this back several times, whilst the scanner now remained on these two heat sources, recording further sounds for playback. “So, one of them is discussing a light of some sort and is cautioning the other to be careful with it – It sounds like they are planning to move into the ruin,” The taller of the group eventually said.
“The signal is getting weaker and weaker,” another said. The four were back as a group now and getting ready to move off. The scanner outlined the larger ruins. “They are definitely moving into this structure. The scanner hasn’t picked up any other sources, so let’s move closer.” With that the four set off at a brisk pace towards the centre of the town but still observing the safe rules of approach which they employed in these circumstances. This included ‘pause and observe’ techniques and maintaining a gradually-changing designated exit route should they need to act swiftly. In truth, this was rarely required for defence and tended to be for the sole the purposes of remaining hidden from a target.
The Scouts waited in an observation position in some heavy concrete ruins on a third level. Other levels had collapsed, causing the near destruction of the rear of the ruin but leaving part of what they assumed was the front still intact. They had climbed up this part hurriedly lest they lose the pair whilst they themselves were inside a ruin.
The ruin they were in had a wide ramp that wound around the side of the building originally. There were shorter ramps between floors. It was the building that Cormic had remarked as probably being a vehicle storage area originally.
Two of the Scouts set up the scanner on the parapet overlooking the great ruin on the other side. The other two scouted the area they were occupying to ascertain alternative routes into and out of their new temporary base.
The scanner didn’t detect any other heat sources in the area, so it was assumed the two Outsiders were still in the ruin opposite. The Scouts settled patiently an
d waited.
Eventually the pair were detected again, their heat source alerting the scanner and the sound feedback started to pick up their voices again. They were making their way toward the exit point, it being the same point they entered the ruin by.
The Scouts covertly observed them as they left the ruins. They were a little alarmed however, to see the two were carrying lethal weapons. They watched the pair move back along the highway and could see that they were taking precautions not to be seen. The scanner, however, was not going to have trouble keeping their position visible to the Scouts as long as they continued to move in the open.
Whether the Outsiders knew how to use the weapons, or if they had the relevant ammunition wasn’t clear to the Scouts. These weapons were either a very lucky find or they were hidden in readiness for some form of action. Whether it was for defence or attack wasn’t clear.
This would change the approach that the Scouts would now be obliged to take if they decided to apprehend the tall youth.
The four watchers primed their own weapons on maximum stun. This was intended to bring down a human target with such pain that they wouldn’t get up for five minutes and in some cases, would render them unconscious for a while. The lower settings allowed for less extreme measures, starting with a painful jolt. A sufficient enough warning to want to avoid a repeat; however, the victim would still be able to have some movement in limbs. Since these two Outsiders had the possibility of pressing a trigger with fatal consequences, the stun level would need to be high enough to impede any movement.
The Scouts had a plan that they hoped would not even require a confrontation with either of the men.
The pursuers had now stopped near a taller ruin and observed quietly. The Outsiders had gone inside the ruin and had initially appeared at the openings on two of the sides, but had not stayed long. They were possibly looking for any other sign of life in the area. Again, it was another sign that the two were being cautious for a reason. This seemed to increase the likelihood that the Regent who alerted the troopers had the right instincts. Why else would the two be acting in this way?