Scavenger: Evolution: (Sand Divers, Book One)

by Timothy C. Ward

  Once he caught his breath, he kicked toward a purple hue that skimmed the horizon. It should be orange and tall. As he closed in, he saw rivulets of orange and beige—sand pressing its way through concrete. Taking life without mercy.

  Like it had with Fisher.

  Rush swam around the brightest orange objects. His leg burned, but the sand moved out of his way. He refused to let it stop him.

  It looked like the bombs had blown apart the first two rows of towers and thrown the rest on their backs. The courthouse was closer to Shantytown, but still in the path of falling orange.

  A spear of red flashed across his face, forcing him to halt and stopping his momentum. He brushed back the sand and swam underneath.

  The green outlines of buried bodies faded into the yellow emptiness of death.

  He couldn't save them all.

  I couldn't save you, either, Fish. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I will save your mother.

  You can, Fish seemed to tell him.

  Rush swam up to the view of outcropped blocks of concrete and snapped wood half covered in sand. He spit clean his regulator while parents and children wailed. Invisible waves passed through him, adding dizziness to his view. He removed his visor to see bloodied masses stumble with makeshift shovels to unbury their loved ones. In the apparent worthlessness of their efforts, Rush saw life in their movement. The fight he had to hold on to. Some might let go when they failed to find what they wanted, but he would not. Those buried would not want them to give up in their absence.

  A chain rattled on the short length of a flag pole sticking out of the sand to his left. The court house. Justice Stone’s office was three doors down.

  Rush ran. The loose sand sucked on his boots as he labored to lift his feet. He pictured a firm path and the sand hardened in time with his quick steps. His focus and results were automatic. He was alive to do this. He would not fail.

  The distance between him and the flag pole held on longer than Star would have to survive. Every right step pounded pain up his thigh. He had to dive. Return to the open coffin of sand.

  He picked a spot beside an exposed ridge of broken concrete and visualized a spring of water. Visor. Regulator. Step. Step—Ow. Dive.

  The narrow yellow between red accepted his outstretched hands and body turned sideways. Dolphin stroke. He pushed through the sand like days of old.

  Orange and red blotches filled his sight. Pillars and walls broke and sank in staggered, scattered piles. He slowed to swim around them. The sand squeezed him.

  No. He would not lose. He would not die. Life pumped through his veins, and he would fight until it didn’t.

  He grabbed a wall and pulled himself forward between two red pillars. A sideways rectangle of orange loomed ahead. A door? As he closed in, the wall around it showed darker, harder.

  A trick came to mind. Something that could work if the object ahead was wood, and if there was no concrete close behind it.

  He visualized a hard ceiling from him to the rectangle and just as far behind. Next, he softened sand from ceiling to his toes and sucked in, curling a wave in on itself from the farthest point behind and rolled it toward him. He lowered his stomach as the wave lifted and surged him forward. He reached out side-locked fists. Almost like Superman. Fear grew in the building of speed as the sand carried him beyond his strength to stop. A wall on the other side would break bones. His head was not protected.

  He was almost there.

  Snap.

  Layers of wood thicker than a door broke under his fists. His visor blinked out. A strip of forehead ripped off. His speed slowed to a crawl, threatening to leave him there forever.

  A woman screamed. A woman he knew. A woman he loved.

  "Help me!" she cried.

  Rush had cried out as well. Blood and sand dribbled down his face. He reached into the dark. Broken wood formed a shallow opening. He pushed on the red dive light on his collar and flipped his visor switch to clear. He directed the bulb at center to light the beam of wood keeping open his pocket of air.

  "Star!"

  His heart beat into his ears. The air flow weakened in his regulator. A possible cut in the tube. What if he found her only to suffocate at her side?

  "Rush!" Her voice coughed out halfway through.

  He scooped wet sand off his cheek, stroked another hand down his regulator tube and blew. Air hit his hand from an opening. He packed the sand and focused it hard. His next breath caught some gristle over his tongue, but the pull was strong.

  "Can’t…" she cried.

  Rush followed her voice, softening the sand below him to curl his sore body to dive under the wood. He reached out blindly, passed where her voice could have originated, twisted and swam higher.

  His left hand jabbed something softer than wood and curled in. Pain shot down his wrist. He opened his palm and stroked a half-numb hand over her jaw line. Star!

  He formed a ceiling over them and brushed the sand off her face. She coughed, spit up vomit and heavy sand.

  She saw him. Shock. History. Weakness.

  Rush stuck two fingers in her mouth and zapped a pulse to clear her throat, then put his regulator tip between her teeth. "Breathe, Starlight."

  How he loved to speak his name for her. To be there in her time of need. To be alive again.

  Her body rocked back in a deep breath. Her eyes opened wide. Trust holding fear back by a hair’s breadth. He formed a tube of hard sand around them.

  They dropped.

  He built up a rising wave to meet them. His left wrist ached, a fist hard to form. Soft sand sucked them down as the tide built pressure, curling in on itself faster and faster until their feet dipped into its turmoil, their knees bent and it shot them straight up like a geyser.

  He pulled out the excess of his regulator tube to keep her breathing, then pushed up her shoulders until he was standing on them. He lifted his fists into side-locks and made himself a ramrod, straining to keep the left fist hard.

  His life would burst through death and its remnants. It had to.

  Cracking pain broke a knuckle. His wrist bent, stinging flame down his left arm, but they were pushing through. Slower, but still progressing out of control.

  Darkness tore into light and weightlessness as they shot two stories into the air above the court house sandbox. His regulator pulled out of Star’s mouth as they floated off balance and separated. Rush reached for Star, but she was too far. They passed their peak and began to fall.

  Star headed for a section of jagged concrete. No!

  "Rush!"

  He closed his eyes, pictured the sand all around them and stroked it in with short, quick swipes to cover her landing. Before he finished, his wrist struck a hard surface and snapped. He crashed on his back and leaned off the searing pain in his arm, stretching his neck to find his wife.

  She slid down a soft pyramid of sand. Alive and crawling for him, bleeding from a nubbed knuckle. But alive. She slid over his waist and wrapped an arm around his neck, weeping. "Thank you." She pressed her cheek against his. "Rush."

  The burn in his arm diminished as he heard his baby’s voice in her cry. Thanking him for staying alive and showing his mother the life he wished for them both.

  "Fish says, Hi," he told her. Knowing it sounded strange, but not caring.

  Star pulled back, blinking back tears. Struck silent.

  "He saved me so I could save you. I never should have left. Never again." He pulled her head down to rest on his chest, like he had when he’d let Fish sleep.

  In that memory, his son would sleep soundly. And in this new one, Rush would breathe and repeat.

  For all three.

  SCAVENGER: Blue Dawn

  Chapter 1

  While remnants of families wailed around him, Rush laid on his back with his wife cradled under his arm and the memory of his son holding his heart together for precious beats. It would not last, but he didn't want to open his eyes and end it either. He needed to take fast medical action on
his wife's severed finger, as well as his throbbing left hand, his wrist...the list went on and on.

  Crack!

  Rush's heart leapt. He looked left at a shanty that had collapsed under the weight of the new layer of sand that covered the remnant of Springston.

  He scanned the wailing survivors, sure he'd find Warren waiting in their shadows. Once he spotted him, Warren would click his radio and erupt their world into fire.

  The groups of mourners stood in a line at the edge of the ceased avalanche. They exhibited the barrier between poor life and tragedy, between makeshift shanties and the fallen pillars of the courthouse. They looked on, not knowing he was responsible.

  Against the gray blue horizon, wind drifted specks of sand through an odd kind of bubble of clear air over the buried courthouse. Rush watched a figure floating away that looked like the cozied form of his beloved Fisher, never taller than Rush's knee, but owning enough love to fill the sky. His boy seemed to open his eyes from the angelic sleep and offered a smile he could never forget, then passed into ten thousand pieces Rush wished he could cup and mold back into life.

  Did his dive suit morph dust into memory? The chills left by the experience made it feel more like a spiritual encounter.

  He'd miss Fish, but he could not let that tear him from the heartbeat that rested on his chest. “Darling.” He stroked Star's sand-dusted dark hair with his good hand. She’d cut it to the short length Shantytowners wore. “Cute haircut.”

  “Yeah. You could use one yourself.” She blew a lock off his shoulder.

  He held the back of her head and kissed her forehead. Sweat and blood salted his lips. “I can think of a few more things to take care of first.” He helped her off his chest, careful not to touch his sore wrist. His flat, numb hand was held at an impossible angle close to his arm. Resetting it to put in a splint was going to hurt something fierce.

  To his right, a diver emerged from the sand beside a flat slab of concrete and spit out his respirator.

  The only black sand diver in Springston, Avery Hawes, grabbed hold of the wall and peered around as though in fear that he might be seen. He stopped when he spotted Rush. “Slow!”

  That blanched nickname. Yet it felt good to hear it from his old friend’s lips. He retorted with the nickname based on the small bushes of hair Avery called a beard, “Shrubs, what are you doing down there? Couldn’t find any live treasure to bring up?”

  “None that compare to yours.” Avery nodded at Rush’s wife. “Star. Good to see you.” His gaze fell to her side. “Oh wow, your hand!” He hurried out of the soft sand, powering off his suit and removing his visor as he trudged over. He flinched at Rush’s wrist. “Both of you. Come. I’ll help treat your wounds.”

  Avery helped them through the thick cover of fresh sand that blanketed their walk between the courthouse remains and the shanties piled over each other on their right. Rush limped through the bleeding gash deep into his thigh. Not too far into the row of shanties, Avery turned down an aisle made of hovels packed into the belly of an untouched, small dune.

  “In here.” He turned into a bare one room home and helped Star have a seat against the wall.

  Rush leaned over and pushed on the gash in his thigh. Sand mixed in with the blood. It would need cleaned.

  “I’ve got a stash hidden over here,” Avery said, moving to the corner of the room.

  Weeks ago, before the rumor of Danvar being found, someone would have called squatter's rights on this empty hole. That it was left alone made Rush feel even closer to the edge of the world, two backward steps from falling off.

  At the corner, Avery reached into a mound of sand and pulled back a blanket, exposing a diagonal hatch. He scrolled a combination into a lock and opened the door to wheel out an air compressor generator.

  “That is a stash.” Rush’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. His head swooned under his dehydration and he slipped on the wall. Weakness gave way to Rush’s weight as he slid to the floor. “We need water.”

  Avery reached into the pouch in front of his suit. He retrieved a canteen and walked it over to them. “Rush, you first. You suffer a heat stroke and you do her no good.”

  The warm water made Rush cough. He tried catching it and lost some down his chin, but managed to swallow three caps worth. “Her.”

  “She’ll get plenty. Take a breath and then one more swig.”

  He did. Refreshment washed down his throat. He swallowed another swig and nodded his thanks. “After her I need some more for my leg.”

  Avery's gaze followed Rush's point to the strip of serrated suit exposing torn flesh on his thigh.

  Star showed more energy to take the canteen and drink without help.

  Avery made sure Rush was going to be okay by himself, then turned back and yanked the engine’s pull cord. Three tries later, the small engine coughed gray smoke and purred. He unzipped and shed his suit, plugged a cord into the dive button on his chest, and began unscrewing the first of two tanks on the back.

  Why did he need two? The courthouse wasn't that deep.

  “Help me get this suit off,” Rush said. “It has tracking beacons planted by someone I don’t want following me. Not till I’m feeling a bit better that is.”

  Avery plugged a nozzle into the first air tank. “Who’s following you, Pokey?”

  “I’m serious, Av.” Rush took off his visor and tossed it on the ground. “Someone who calls himself Warren.”

  Avery froze, brushed his hand across his face. “Sunburnt around his goggles? Bright orange and white ker?”

  “Yeah. How do you know about him?”

  “He’s the governor’s son.” His gaze grew more serious. “Bad news that one.”

  “Who’s the governor?” Rush asked.

  Avery looked up in stark reverence. “Someone I hope you never meet.”

  “If he fathered Warren, I can imagine agreeing with you.”

  Avery rubbed the loose material of Rush’s suit between his thumb and forefinger. “I’ve been tracking Warren and his party for years. Why would he be following you?”

  “I...Because of who I was.”

  Avery wasn't following, but when Rush didn't provide another clue, he went back to searching for the beacon.

  “Got it.” Avery pulled a knife out of the shoulder strap he wore under his suit and cut open a seam at the cross stitching under the armpit of Rush’s suit. He set it on the generator and smashed the chip with his knife. “This suit is ruined. Do you still have your old ones?”

  Rush looked at Star, ashamed to ask if she’d kept them.

  “Yeah, he does,” she said.

  “But they probably need charged,” Avery said.

  Star shook her head, smiled. “Nope.” She looked Rush in the eye. “I have always kept a suit charged, hoping for the day when you’d walk up to me and say you were ready to dive again. Most days, checking on the power was all I had to keep going. I wanted to be able to tell you that I had one ready, because I knew you’d get back on your feet.”

  Rush didn’t know what to say. The gesture invigorated his love for her. “Thank you for your faith, Starlight.”

  With his suit half pulled down his legs, Rush couldn’t reach Star to kiss her, so he kissed his fingers in a loving salute.

  She winked back. “Thank you for getting back up.”

  Avery helped get the suit off. “What do you mean Warren followed you because of who you were?”

  The question weighed on Rush. How could he tell Avery what he’d done?

  “You don’t have to be ashamed,” Star said to Rush.

  To Avery, she said, “Some guy in a light blue ker and goggles told me I was needed in the Justice Stone’s office. Said Rush was in trouble. I walk into the office and it’s empty. Someone attacked me, and then I woke up tied to a chair with a gag in my mouth and a splitting headache.”

  Avery checked Rush to confirm. Surprised, but not overwhelmed. They'd sailed from brigands, but they had never seen something
like this in their home. Yet he seemed prepared for such news.

  Star continued, “Then the guy tells me to talk to my husband. In that moment,” she said, looking Rush in the eye, “I forgave him for everything. I just wanted him to be safe and for us to be together. Whatever happened after that was his best effort to do the right thing, I’m sure.”

  “I see.” Avery pulled down on Rush’s right cheek, exposing his eye to the dry air. “Looks like quite the effort indeed. So he made you dive place the bombs along the wall?”

  Wow. Just like that, his secret was out. “Yeah.”

  “With the beacon in case you tried to get away, which the explosion near the north end suggests you tried.” Avery dribbled some water over Rush's leg gash, then packed it with a faint green colored powder he spread from a small bag. The healing elements cooled his angry wound.

  “I did try to get away.” Rush lost his voice for a moment as he thought of all the people and children who died because he failed. “But, not soon enough.”

  Mostly. Star was still alive. He should be happy about that.

  “Come on, Slow. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

  “Dust off, Av. You don’t know what it feels like to—”

  “I don’t? What if I knew this was where he was headed? What if I said I came for what’s in there—” he pointed at his suit “—more than you or Star?”

  “What?” Rush asked.

  “A map beyond No Man’s Land. To the camps where Oya was once taken, if she’s still alive. To the camps where the Justice Stone thinks his daughter is.”

  “There’s a reason no one ever comes back from No Man’s Land.”

  Sift blew in from a sun-lit hole in the rafters, swirling in the air around them.

  “Someone made a map.” Avery shuffled contents in his suit's pouch and returned with a scroll. He unrolled it between Rush and Star, using light from the entrance.