by Glynn James
Jack had always worried - back then, when he had been travelling with the boy - that one day they would be caught in a raid. He'd worried about how the boy would react, if he would cry out in fear and give them both away.
And he'd tried to explain to the boy.
If they come
Two years before...
Months before, during the cold season when they were sitting around a low burning campfire in a warehouse in the old docklands, he had told the boy how to behave if the Hunters came and found them. It was bitter cold on that night, and they were both wrapped up in dusty, mould-riddled chunks of carpet, stripped from an office two floors above. The carpet stank of the ages, but it kept the chilling breeze, which gusted in through the massive holes in the building, at bay.
The fire was barely alive, smouldering, but still managing a visible glow that lit the interior of the tiny loading bay area that Jack had chosen. Lighting a fire anywhere else would alert passersby that they were there, but the overhang of the bay, and the metal stairs that they were huddled under, hid the light of the fire well enough. Jack still barely slept through the night, unhappy that they hadn't found somewhere to barricade themselves away, but he had to admit the warmth of the fire was a rare gift during the winter months.
He didn't know why he chose to speak of the Hunters for the first time on that occasion. The boy had been with him for nearly a year and the subject hadn't come up at all. But then - they hadn't seen Hunters in all that time. Moving from place to place in search of salvage or food further out in the outer zone did have its benefits, even though they were often weighted against dangers.
"If they come," he had said, and paused for a minute, wondering if the boy even knew about the raids. "If the Hunters ever find us, you are to stay hidden, and quiet."
Jack didn't look at the boy as he spoke, but he could sense his gaze upon him. Even after nearly a year he was still a quiet child. Sometimes he would talk, but it was always about what they had unearthed that day, or what they could make out of the things that they found, even though the boy knew that their goal was mostly to trade the stuff in for supplies. When he did get going he would chatter non-stop for a while, and big plans of constructing flying ships or boats, or fortresses, would spill out.
But most of the time he was quiet.
"Do you understand?" Jack asked, finally looking up at Ryan.
Ryan nodded, but didn't speak. His gaze shifted between Jack and the wavering glow of the fire.
"Do you know who I am speaking of?" Jack asked. "The Hunters. The soldiers that come in the great ships and take people away. Do you know of those?"
"Yes," Ryan finally replied. "I've seen them."
"You have?" He was curious. The boy had never spoken of where he had come from before, even though he had asked questions. Ryan always clammed up, stopped talking, and Jack had taken the hint after a few attempts to at prising the information from the child.
Ryan smiled, but it wasn't a cheerful one. "Before the people who took my shoes," he said, "I hid from the soldiers in the street, but they weren't in a big ship. They were in a truck. I don't know who they were looking for, but they found someone and took them away. I was hiding over the street and they saw me. I ran and ran, and that's when I ran into the people who took my shoes."
He looked down at the boots that they had traded for. After finding the stash in the safe, Jack had made it a priority to get the boy new shoes, and it had cost dearly, but had been worth it.
"These are much betterer boots," said Ryan. "They keep my feet warm."
"Better. Not betterer," Jack said, with a grin.
"Better," Ryan echoed.
"Well, then you know what they do. The Hunters? They hunt people down and take them. And if they find us - find me - you are to stay hidden and quiet. Do you get that?"
Another nod.
"You can't give yourself away, or cry out. If you do that then they will find you, too."
They sat in silence for a while.
"Then I would be alone," Ryan said, which took Jack by surprise. He hadn't considered that a child so young could think of such things.
"Well, you'll be alone one day anyway," Jack replied before even thinking about how morbid and pessimistic it would sound. "I'm much older than you, and I will get very old, one day. Too old to travel any longer."
More silence.
"You hide," Jack repeated. "And you stay hidden if they come. No noise, and maybe they won't find you."
Hunted
After two years, Jack still preferred betterer to better.
He sat in the dust and mould of the apartment, staring at the blank space where the magazines had been just a few minutes before, and listened to the distant sounds of the Hunters heading back to their vehicles. He could feel anger building up, burning in his gut.
An urge to follow the Hunters and take back what was his.
But what good would he achieve? he thought. They will just take you. He knew that no matter how angry he felt, how vengeful, he wouldn't get up and follow them. He wouldn't because he hadn't done it before. He knew that he was a coward, just as he had been that night.
Lost
Two years before...
Jack stood over the boy, towering above him, his voice raised, as he let the anger flood out. He didn't hit the kid, even though for the briefest of moments that urge surfaced. How dare he? This child that I've taken in and fed, and kept alive? How dare he draw his damn stick men in one of my magazines?
Jack looked down at the magazine, at the colourful pictures of the streets of the city whose glory was three centuries dead, and at the stick men that now stood in the street, crayon drawings that Ryan had probably thought would make the place look more real.
And he shouted, not even trying to be wary of others nearby, and the risk of drawing attention.
But then, after a few minutes, he stopped. The boy was staring at the ground, his face flushed bright red with shame. Jack didn't know what had possessed the child with the idea of drawing in his magazine, but he could see clearly that the boy regretted it. As the flush of anger passed, Jack suddenly felt foolish. What was he doing? Why was he shouting at the one person in the world that trusted him and would follow him anywhere? All over a damn magazine? Hell, it was the latest in his collection, and the damn boy had found it for him. He had come running out of the ruin of the old shop with a huge grin on his face.
And there he was, scolding the child. Suddenly the foolish feeling turned to shame, much stronger shame than the boy must have been feeling. He put his hand on Ryan's shoulder and spoke just two words...
"Sorry... I..."
...before the roar of the Dropship engines cut the air around them, and the whump of the boosters almost rocked the building they were standing in as it hit the ground nearby.
Jack remembered panicking and darting for the darkened room behind them, heading for their makeshift bolt-hole to hide, expecting the boy to be right behind him. But as he heard the crashing of the doors on the floor below them as they were kicked in, and the smashing of the one remaining window, Jack turned and saw that the boy was not there.
Where the hell had he gone? Where was the damn boy? Jack panicked, looking around, but then he heard the thud of boots on the stairs and realised that the Hunters were upon them, and that in just seconds they would both be caught.
He turned and ran for the bolt-hole, hoping that Ryan had found cover and was already hiding, but Jack didn't make it to the hole in the floor of the small side-room as the door to the main room crashed open and grey-clad Hunters burst in. Jack darted to the side and crouched behind the rotten and torn sofa at the back of the room, knowing even then, as his hands went to his side, ready to draw his machetes, that the Hunters would find him.
But seconds passed, and the Hunters didn't come into the side-room. Jack could see around the edge of the sofa that they had moved into the back rooms, where the old pantry and kitchen were, where Ryan must have run.
Don't let them find the boy, he thought. Please don't let them find...
A Hunter emerged from the room, pushing Ryan ahead of him. The boy was hustled into the middle of the room as the four Hunters encircled him.
Now, thought Jack. Go now, while they aren't looking. Attack them from behind. You'll get the drop on them, and there's a chance, isn't there? There's a chance that you could take one of them out, grab his gun, and shoot the others.
But you don't know how to fire the gun, do you? he thought. You won't be able to fight them all off.
He watched, hesitating, hopelessly not acting at the one moment that he knew he should.
But then the boy was shaking his head.
They're talking to him, he thought. They're asking him something. What are they asking him?
He heard a voice, low, one of the Hunters. "No one else here? Are you sure?"
The boy shook his head again.
And then it was too late. The Hunters ushered Ryan out of the room and into the hall, and were gone.
Seconds too late, Jack jumped from his hiding place behind the ruined sofa and ran through the rooms of their hideout, rushing down the hall as he drew his machetes, hurrying out into the street only to see the windowless vehicle heading away at an incredible speed, then turning a corner a block away.
Then it was gone. And so was Ryan.
Time to go
And the boy did exactly as you told him, didn't he? He didn't give you up, he kept quiet. When all along you thought that your instructions might keep him alive if ever you were caught, that he would stay silent and hide, you never expected it to be the other way round, did you?
You didn't act that night because you were a coward, Jack told himself. You didn't act and the boy was taken - Ryan was gone - leaving you to stew over it again and again, every night for two years, to wake up sweating, crying like a fool.
What were you expecting after he was gone? That you could get over it?
In the darkness of the room, in the spot where the magazines had been, Jack finally realised what it was he must do. He'd waited too long - much too long - even though he'd always known what his only real option was. Two years ago the boy had been taken by the Hunters, and for two years Jack had tried to reason with himself, screwed his head up with thoughts of what he could have done - should have done - on that night, but he had never, until that moment, accepted that there was a choice he could make that might give him a chance to get back what was lost.
Jack Avery stood up and walked towards the door.
Pickup
Corporal Markell stood watch at the rear of the Armoured Personnel Vehicle as the last of the new workforce recruits were pushed inside. The corporal then nodded at the last squad as they passed by with no new prisoners in tow. They wouldn't be berated for not bringing someone back this time. This whole trip out had been low-yield, as her superior officer, Lieutenant Cray had suggested it would be.
It was pointless going back to the same area after such a short amount of time, and Cray had said as much when the target location had been announced an hour before. But they all knew that disputing the target was pointless, and even if they did it would be them that would catch the blame for the lack of worker harvest.
Markell closed the back door and turned to head for the side of the vehicle, glad that the day's fiasco was over and that they could all go back to their dorms and watch TV, and maybe get drunk.
But there was a figure standing just feet away, in the middle of the street - a man that shouldn't have been there. Markell frowned, and slowly raised the Assault Rifle.
The man lifted two machetes from his belt, held his hands out, and just as Markell was about to fire, the man - who looked tired and weak - dropped the machetes to the ground.
The man was giving himself up. It was a ridiculous notion, Markell thought. No one ever gave themselves up.
"We have another prisoner," stammered Markell into the radio, still not quite accepting the man's actions. Was he mad? He must be - had to be - to make such a stupid choice. It just wasn't done. Seconds later, the last squad rushed around the truck and encircled the man as Markell opened the back of the vehicle and watched, stunned, as the man voluntarily walked forward, heading for the open maw of the truck.
Markell frowned again as the man stopped at the back of the truck and turned. The man said something, but Markell couldn't hear him clearly. The words were muffled by the helmet's padding.
No one ever gave themselves up willingly, Markell thought again. Why would they? Even life out here in the ruins was better than the short life of a work slave, Markell knew that. Yet, here was this man doing just that, the first to do so in seven years of Markell's military career.
Markell felt a sudden urge to speak to the man, and it was uncontrollable.
I must know why.
Into Darkness
Jack stood at the back of the prison vehicle, about to step up into the open door, but then he turned to the nearest Hunter, the one who had been at the back of the truck as he had approached. He looked at the Hunter directly where his eyes should be - or Jack's nearest guess - and asked. "Who are you people?"
Then, to his shock, the Hunter reached up and tapped the side of his helmet, which immediately gave a hiss of compressed air before the entire front visor opened upwards.
Staring back at him, from within the armour of a Hunter, was the face of a young woman. He couldn't guess her age exactly, but thought she could be no older than twenty-five, thirty at most.
Then the Hunter spoke, and she sounded as he had expected, just like a young woman. This wasn't a robot, or something worse. Hunters were just people.
"Why give yourself up?" asked Corporal Lisa Markell, ignoring the furious chatter on the radio, and the orders to raise her protective mask, immediately.
Jack hesitated, and then looked at the woman. "I have to find a boy that you took from me," he said, just before he was pushed into the vehicle by one of the other Hunters.
The back doors of the prison vehicle closed and he was plunged into darkness.
I was right, thought Jack. You can't see out of these things. Shame I can't tell anyone that.
Why
The vehicle sped through the streets, rapidly heading towards the Dropship, and in the middle compartment - the section of each vehicle that contained the recruitment squad and their equipment - Lisa pulled off her helmet and threw it to the floor.
"Are you mad?" asked Johnson, another corporal in her section. "You never take your helmet off. 101, man!"
"I had to know why," answered Lisa.
Johnson looked confused. "You'll be lucky if they don't demote you for it," he said.
"I had to know why he gave himself up," Lisa continued. "It just didn't make any sense. No one does that. Ever."
"Of course not," said Johnson. "Even the irradiated scum out here isn't that stupid."
Johnson paused for a moment. "Why did he do it, anyway?" he asked.
Lisa looked over at Johnson, and smiled. "He wants to find a boy that was captured."
"Oh. Well, tough luck on that one," said Johnson, shuffling in his seat and then roughly snapping the safety belt into place. "They all die within a month or two, anyway."
PART TWO
Into the Junklands
Caught
Complete darkness surrounded Jack as he sat on the hard ground inside the back of the prison vehicle. Around him he could hear movement, and a soft whimpering came from somewhere nearby.
Over near the back of the compartment, he thought.
Other prisoners.
Some of them afraid like you are.
All of them afraid like you are.
Jack took a few deep, rhythmic breaths, calming his nerves and attempting to steady himself as the vehicle tore along the streets, leaving behind everything he had known.
He wondered if he would ever see the ruins again, ever visit The Crossing, and he realised that he didn't really care if he did. The li
fe he was leaving behind held nothing for him anymore, probably never had. It had been a life and that was all it amounted to.
Survival.
Except some parts, and all of that was either gone forever, dead, or somewhere, he hoped, in his future.
This.
This was all that was left.
His search for Ryan had resumed. After two long years of wondering, he had finally given up and actually done something. He’d taken a step towards the unknown but he knew this was where Ryan had gone and where he needed to go, even if he never found the boy again. If this turned out to be a journey that ended only in his death, then at least he would know something, wouldn't he? At least he could die knowing that he had tried, even if it had taken him two years to commit himself to act.
Jack sat in the darkness, listening to the noises around him, and swore that as long as he lived he would task himself with two things only - he would find Ryan, and somehow he would make up for failing the boy when he had been needed most. Jack knew that he could have done little when the Hunters took Ryan, and he knew that he would probably have died in the attempt, but somehow that seemed to him to be better than sitting there and just letting them take him.
This was what he went through, back then. What Ryan went through after he was taken, and you were left standing in the road, just watching the vehicles speed away.
The darkness, the frightened noises made by the other prisoners, and the not knowing where the truck was heading to.
Now you know this much.
The vehicle turned a corner, violently throwing everyone stuck in the dark prison at the back onto the floor. They sprawled over each other, grasping out at nothing, at anything, just trying to steady themselves. Hands pushed into faces and feet kicked up as people struggled desperately. There were cries of fear as the vehicle swerved again, skidded and then continued on a straight path. For a few seconds the heaving mass of bodies writhed over each other until finally everyone had settled back on the floor again.