by G J Ogden
Yuna reached forward and pressed a circular red button to start the crawler’s engine, which whirred into life beneath them, and placed her hands on the control column. “Let’s get started!” she said, with infectious enthusiasm, as the crawler surged forward and down the hill towards the settlement. Ethan gripped the hand rail on the door next to him, having flashbacks of the wild crawler ride he had shared with Maria when they went searching for the old hermit. Yuna’s piloting made even Maria’s spirited driving seem tame in comparison. They reached the open gates to the settlement far sooner than should have been physically possible, and Yuna finally throttled back and entered the settlement at a more reasonable velocity.
“We still need to be cautious,” said Ethan, as Yuna parked the crawler in the middle of the settlement square. “In case your GARDs missed anything.”
Tyler scoffed. “My scans were meticulous.”
“I don’t doubt that, Tyler, but I don’t want to take any chances,” Ethan replied, then he had a devious thought; a way to test Tyler’s confidence. “But, if you’re so sure then you can get out first, and we’ll follow…”
Tyler’s face fell. “Oh, I think it’s probably better if I monitor from here,” he said, hurriedly. “I need to, erm, bring the GARDs in for recharging, yes.” He looked pleased to have come up with a plausible excuse on the hoof.
Yuna shot Ethan a knowing look and then smiled. “Okay, we stick together and bring the bolt-throwers, just in case.” Then to Tyler, she added, “Can you get the CAEAs up and running, while we check things out inside?”
Tyler nodded. “Yes, I can do that from in here too. Good idea. Yuna.”
Ethan rolled his eyes, and then grabbed the bolt-thrower that he’d stowed on the floor in front of his seat. He nodded to Yuna and then grabbed the door release; there was a hiss as the filtered air inside the cabin bled out, and then he slid off the seat and stepped onto the hard dirt of the settlement square, hearing the familiar crunch underfoot. He turned back into the cabin, noticing that Tyler had pulled his jacket over his mouth as some sort of improvised face mask, and then helped Yuna out. Zoie, who was in the rear cabin with Summer, jumped out next, but Summer remained inside, looking jittery.
“Are you coming, Summer?” asked Ethan, trying to make sure the question didn’t sound like an accusation.
For a moment Summer didn’t respond, but then she grabbed the bow from the seat beside her and swung out, crunching onto the dirt beside Ethan. The door closed and hissed again as the cabin sealed and pressurized. She met Ethan’s eyes, and if looks could inflict pain, Ethan would have been in agony.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” said Summer, icily. She drew an arrow from her quiver, nocked it loosely in the bow, and then stepped away to join Zoie.
“She’ll come round,” said Yuna, softly. “It’s just hard for her to be back here, you know?”
“I know, I’m sure you’re right,” said Ethan, still watching Summer. But he was beginning to think it had been a mistake to have brought her back to Forest Gate so soon.
Zoie caught Ethan’s concerned look. “Why don’t we split up into pairs? Summer and I can take the council chamber and surrounding huts, while you and Yuna can work your way around the perimeter?”
Ethan was about to protest, but Yuna had fathomed her sister’s implied meaning, which was, ‘Let’s give Summer some space’, and spoke first. “Okay, good idea. Come on Ethan, why don’t you show me around?”
Reluctantly, Ethan led Yuna away, heading first towards the ranger hut, near to the gate. As they approached it, they heard the hum of the GARDs as they glided down from their orbit and docked on top of the crawler to re-charge. Almost at the same time, the trailer compartment popped open and the CAEAs deployed and set to work on their various pre-programmed tasks of repairing and reinforcing the settlement.
Ethan and Yuna reached the ranger hut. The door was swinging slightly in the breeze, creaking open and then banging gently shut again in a way that made Ethan feel uneasy. He raised the bolt-thrower and stepped onto the veranda; it groaned under his weight, which only added to Ethan’s growing sense of disquiet. He paused, listening for any indication of movement from inside, then waited for the breeze to catch the door and blow it open again.
“Ethan, what’s up?” Yuna called out in a low voice, but Ethan just raised his hand to silence her, and continued watching the door. The breeze picked up again, pushing the door gently open with another long, aching creak and Ethan darted forward, swinging the barrel of the bolt-thrower inside. He scanned the corners of the large, open-plan space, looking for anything unusual, then pressed forward. He heard the porch creak behind him and spun around to see Yuna.
“Hey, it’s just me!” said Yuna. “Take it easy, Ethan, the GARDs cleaned this place out good.”
Ethan lowered the bolt-thrower and turned around again. “Sorry, Yuna, I’m just not used to trusting anything other than my own two eyes and ears.”
“Get used to it,” said Yuna, brightly, “because I’d rather not be impaled with a bolt today, thank you.”
Ethan smiled. “Come on, let’s move on. There’s nothing in here but dust.” He didn’t say it out loud, but he realized the room was filled with bittersweet memories too.
He followed Yuna back in to the settlement square and they moved on to the next hut. As they walked, Ethan closed his eyes and let the brisk, cool wind wash over his face. Over the years as a ranger, he had been all over the hills and plains around the settlement, but there was nothing quite like the feel and taste of the air here. It was instantly familiar, like a friendly voice, or the feel of your own bed after a hard day. He opened his eyes again, and glanced back into the center of the settlement to check on Zoie and Summer, but they were not by the council chamber. Instead, Summer was in the middle of the settlement square on her knees, head down low, with Zoie standing awkwardly beside her. Ethan’s head also dropped low; he knew why she was there, but he didn’t want to think about it, though the truth was he’d thought about little else since setting eyes on Forest Gate again. He told himself he could handle it, that he could keep his pain buried, but everything reminded him of Elijah and Katie, even the familiar taste in the air, and he saw their shadows everywhere he looked.
“It’s okay, go to her,” said Yuna kindly. “Zoie and I can finish checking the buildings, and I’ll message Tyler to keep a holo-eye on you.”
Ethan didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure whether going to Summer would help or make things worse, but, unlike himself, at least she was facing up to what had happened and not pretending that everything was okay. He inhaled the familiar autumn air again and let it escape his lungs, but it did nothing to calm the flutters in his belly. He shot Yuna a quick smile and then set off towards Summer. He wanted his approach to be discreet, almost stealthy, so as not to spook her and cause her to move away before he got to her, but each crunch of his boots on the dirt sounded like rocks clattering down a mountainside.
When he arrived, Summer was sitting on the dirt with the palm of her right hand pressed into the sandy, brown earth. Her long red hair was draped forward, covering her face. She could not have missed Ethan’s approach, but she neither spoke nor moved as he dropped delicately to his knees beside her. Further towards the council chamber, Yuna and Zoie were methodically sweeping from hut to hut, far out of earshot.
“This is where they were killed,” said Summer. There was no sadness in her voice, or anger; it was merely a matter-of-fact statement. “I was standing just a few meters away. I should have stopped him.”
“He’d only have killed you too,” said Ethan, matching the plainness of her delivery.
“I wish he had.”
Ethan pressed his eyes shut; the flutters in his gut had swelled into whirlpools. He opened his eyes and pressed his own hand into the dirt, feeling the coarse, cold grains give slightly under the pressure.
“They wouldn’t have wanted that, and they wouldn’t want you to torture yourself now.�
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“Why are we here, Ethan?” asked Summer sharply, tilting her head towards him, so that her hair slid back and unmasked a part of her face.
“It’s our home, Summer. It’s our future too.”
“This can never be my home again. There’s nothing for me here but pain and regret.”
“I know…” said Ethan, solemnly. “The truth is, I don’t want to be here, any more than you do.”
Summer looked up fully, pulling the hair away from her face and revealing eyes that were wide with amazement. “Then why come back?” she said, incredulously. “We could go anywhere we want, Ethan, and just leave all this behind.”
Ethan closed his hand around the dirt and rubbed it between his fingers. He remembered again the words the old hermit had told him, years ago, after Maria had sent him back to the planet from the GPS space station. He had told him that belonging wasn’t a place, but a state of mind. At the time he had taken this to mean that the walls and dirt of the settlement didn’t matter, but sitting inside Forest Gate, he realized that he had misinterpreted the hermit’s words. Places didn’t matter to the hermit, but they did to Ethan. The hermit had also explained that Ethan would figure out where he belonged one day, and sitting in the settlement square, feeling its dirt between his fingers, he knew this was where he belonged. And Summer did too, no matter how badly it hurt.
“That pain and regret will follow us, wherever we are, wherever we go,” said Ethan, paraphrasing more of the hermit’s words. “We have to make our peace with it, Summer, or it will eat us away from the inside. We may as well be maddened.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I don’t either,” Ethan admitted. “But, it’s not just about me or you, anymore.”
Summer looked away. “A child deserves more than this. More than it could ever get from me.”
“That’s why we’re here, Summer,” said Ethan, finding it hard to hear Summer’s contempt for herself and lack of hope for the life she carried. “I want more than this too, and I’m willing to fight for it. It’s not like you to give up without a fight.”
Summer kept her face away from Ethan. “You should go and help the others.”
Ethan sighed and pushed himself up, brushing the dirt from his hands. He wasn’t going to get anything more from her now, and he didn’t want an argument; she had enough to process as it was. He headed towards the council chamber, but then stopped and turned back.
“You know that Elijah worshiped you,” he said, and the mere mention of that name in the open air made his eyes tear up. “No-one ever gave him more, not even me.” Then he turned and walked away, wiping the wetness from the corners of his eyes, while the crunch of the dirt underfoot pounded inside his ears and deafened him to Summer’s muted sobs.
Chapter 4
Maria gave the hatch a solid kick and it fell outward with a muffled crash as it landed on the synthetic flooring on the other side of the service crawlway. She wriggled out of the opening and into an open space that was dimly lit by the moonlight filtering through the polarized, photo-chromatic dome above them.
“A little help…” said Page, as he attempted the same maneuver as Maria, but found himself getting stuck due to his wider frame. His legs and stomach were out, but his chest and shoulders were still inside the crawlway, as if it were giving birth to him.
“Well, I’m certainly grateful that you were wearing underwear beneath that armor!” joked Maria, as she grabbed his ankles and started to pull.
“Ow, gently!” cried Page, as he tried to squeeze his right shoulder through the opening. Eventually, after a minute of gentle pulling, wriggling, and several more shouts of pain and frustration, Page popped out of the opening and landed on the ground with a solid thump. He rubbed his weaker shoulder and then replaced the hatch panel, thumping it with the bottom of his fist in order to snap it shut. It didn’t need closing in such a forceful manner, but Page felt better for venting his frustration on it. “Let’s avoid the crawlspaces from now on, okay?” he said, dusting himself off.
Maria smiled, “Fine, but if we get cornered by a group of Kurren’s goons, and the crawlspace is the only way out, I’m afraid you’re on your own.”
“You know, the scary thing is that I still can’t tell whether you’re joking or being serious,” said Page, tucking his olive green shirt into his pants.
Maria slapped him playfully on his good shoulder. “Let’s hope you don’t have to find out, soldier.”
Page scowled, but assumed – or hoped at least – that she was kidding. He then went on to check that the buttons and collar were all done up and arranged correctly, and smoothed the creases from his pants. Maria smiled as he did all this, trying to work out if it was a habitual desire to look smart, born from a life in the military, or just pure vanity. The only component of his iridescent blue armor that remained attached was the wrist-mounted PVSM unit, which contrasted sharply with the green of the shirt, like a high-tech fashion accessory.
“Where the hell are we, anyway?” said Page, after he had finished smartening up.
Maria looked around the domed space, finding it difficult to make out details due to the low lighting level and the fact that the usual street-level light sources – such as office and residential lights, display boards and so on – were all disabled. Still, there was something about it that she found familiar. “I’m not sure,” she replied, “but it looks like it hasn’t been used for a long time.” Then she had a worrying thought. “We should check our toxicity levels. There’s a good chance this is a quarantined zone.”
Page swallowed hard, remembering the maddened he’d fought in the underground city, and how they were the result of genetic damage caused by over-exposure to the toxic radiation left over from the refinery explosion. The UEC called this process ‘G-DARP’, or Genetic Deformation resulting from Acute Radiation Poisoning, while the scientists and engineers who had survived the Fall, deep underground in the sub-surface city experiment, referred to them as ‘genetically corrupted’. However, it was the term used by the planetsiders that had stuck in his thoughts like a waking nightmare; their name for it was ‘the Maddening’, and it was something that Page was very keen to avoid.
He reached across and enabled his PVSM, waiting for the cold-boot sequence to initialize, but Maria darted over, grabbed his arm and hit the hard power switch. Page looked at her quizzically. “What was that for?”
“We have to disable your ident transponder first,” said Maria, and then with a large dose of sarcasm, added, “unless you want to broadcast our precise location to your former blue boot friends?”
Page’s eyes widened and then he unfastened the device from his wrist, turned it over and started to jimmy loose the access panel. “I was just testing to make sure you were paying attention.”
“Sure…” said Maria, waiting with hands on hips for Page to complete the alteration.
“Aren’t you going to do yours?” said Page, as he struggled to disconnect the tiny wire that powered the transponder.
“I already did, before we blasted off,” Maria replied with a smug smile. “I’m way ahead of you.”
Page finally managed to unhook the wire; then he replaced the panel and re-attached the PVSM to his wrist. It began the boot cycle again. “I hope your foresight extended to bringing a supply of meds?”
Maria removed two injector packs from her thigh pocket and waved them at Page, as if they were some sort of delicious treat. Page took one and placed it in his shirt pocket.
“You know, to some people, your smugness might come across as annoying,” said Page, playfully, “but I, for one, am glad you’re way ahead of me!”
Page’s PVSM initialized and he switched immediately to the medical section and waited for a toxicity indication. After a few tense seconds the display flashed up a reading in the low amber; far from the danger zone. Still, he wasn’t about to take any chances, and popped open the injector pack and administered a single dose of meds.
“That
’s Gaia’s special blend,” commented Maria, as she waited for her PVSM to return a reading. “It’s at least thirty percent more effective than the UEC-issue stuff.”
“Good to know,” said Page, rubbing his neck, and watching the toxicity reading fall into the green.
Maria’s reading came back in the high amber and her stomach fluttered. The indicator was hovering directly on the border with red, and it was the highest reading she’d seen. She grimaced, trying to think if she’d missed any doses, but she had been fastidious about checking her readings and staying on top of her meds. She glanced up to check on Page, but he was still massaging his neck and idly looking up at the dome, with his back to her. She made a conscious effort to wipe the concerned look off her face, and then quickly administered a double dose of meds, before Page had the opportunity to spot her anxiety. A double-dose was risky, especially because of how Gaia had enhanced the potency of the serum, but she would deal with the side-effects down the line. First, she had to make good on her crazy plan to take down the remains of Kurren’s regime; there would be no need to worry about the Maddening if the UEC killed her first. She watched the indicator fall and hold just above the mid-amber point, and waited a few seconds longer, willing it to fall further, but it did not, and the flutters in her stomach returned. She replaced the injector pack in her thigh pocket and switched off the PVSM display.
“I think this is an old habitation zone,” said Page, still arching his neck up to the domed ceiling. He then pointed to three sections of the dome. “If you look, the dome has been repaired in these sections. The damage is localized to these points, so it was probably a ship-mounted plasma cannon at damn near point-blank range.”
Maria stepped beside Page and followed the line of his arm, spotting the repaired sections just as Page had described them. Then she looked along one of the main streets and everything clicked into place. “I don’t believe it… I used to live here!” she said, wistfully. She pointed to the wide street that ran along the diameter line of the dome. “That was the main recreation lane. I used to live a few blocks down, where the dome intersects with the next sector.”