Pickers 4: The Pick

by Garth Owen

  The panels each hid three large bolt heads with deep hexagonal slots in them. They had fashioned keys for them before leaving the Valley. "Clockwise on the right. Anti-clockwise on the left." Veronique instructed.

  The bolts turned easily, with just enough resistance that they knew they were moving something. Thirty revolutions later, the first bolts stopped moving, so they started on the next ones down.

  When all six bolts were drawn back as far as they would go, there was silent anticipation in the cave. It was as if they expected the door to open all by itself. When it was obvious that wasn't going to happen, it was Fabien who stepped up and pushed the right-most edge.

  The door opened slowly and silently as Fabien pushed it. Lucas joined him, but it could have been a one person job. There was a loud clang as the door settled against buffers in the wall. The sound echoed around the even larger space that was revealed, eventually being swallowed up by the collection of vehicles parked within.

  Around the edges of the chamber were a selection of small vehicles- pickups and fork lifts to move things to and from the deeper chambers. But they were insignificant next to the main show. Parked in the centre of the space, dominating it, was a huge vehicle. It was a beast, and made it clear why the door was so large. Veronique and Maxine both turned to their father. He didn't need to make a sound for them to know he was in love with the giant truck before them. He nodded and grinned.

  Remy forced himself to turn away from the truck. "Okay. Georges, Lucas and Fabien, can you get the rest of the wall down and the vehicles in. Veronique, you had best stay near the surveillance centre. Can you and Sarah start on the shelves so they can get in. Maxine, you take Justine and Amandine deeper. Find the seed stores, but don't open them until we're ready to move stuff. I am going to stay here and see which of these vehicles we can use."

  * * *

  Remy had walked around the articulated truck twice. It was so large he thought they should qualify as treks. The tractor unit itself was as long and tall as one of their wagons. The bonnet section was as long as the cab, the front curved and rounded in a nod to aerodynamics. The massive bull bars on the front, however, made a mockery of any attempts to carve through the air. Skirts covered the wheels from the side. Remy tapped one and knew it was armoured

  The long, long trailer had three axles at the back. The side panels were solid, and hinted at armouring, and skirts extended over the wheels as well. They were complemented by low slung bars hung from the frame of the trailer which would keep smaller vehicles from getting trapped under it.

  There were steps up to the cab doors, and handles either side to help. Remy clambered up and tried the handle. The door opened, and he swung easily into the driver's seat. The back wrapped around and extended forwards, providing support in the unlikely event the truck performed a sharp turn. There was another seat by the other door, what seemed like a very long way away, and a third, behind them and mounted high. This seat was held in a frame suspended from the roof. Whoever used it would have to stick their upper body through the hatch above it and look out from the cupola on the roof. No doubt they could mount a gun up there as well.

  Behind the gunner's seat there were two bunk beds and lots of storage. A rack under the bottom bunk was full of ammunition boxes, for high calibre rounds. Maybe the gun to go with them was back there somewhere as well.

  Remy settled into the seat, and rested his hands easily on the steering wheel. The controls were similar to those on the wagons, from the basic accelerator and brake on the floor, through to the twist control to balance which wheels provided the most drive. There was an added level of complexity, the wheels on the trailer could be driven as well, which would make for interesting speed runs or tight manoeuvres.

  "It doesn't matter how powerful and clever it is. That thing is never going to make it back over the route we took." Veronique said from somewhere far below.

  "No, it isn't." A meter on the dash said there was power in the truck's batteries. There had been cables running to it from a panel in the floor. Remy found the key in the ignition, and turned it one click. Read outs and lights flashed up across the dash, previously hidden by the smoked finish of the panel. There were three fuel tanks, and they were all full. What with, the display didn't say, or what state the liquids were in.

  "If it's got a turbine, don't go firing it up in here. The last thing we need is this thing pumping out carbon monoxide in an enclosed space."

  "There is battery power. We'll use that to move it out of here so the wagons will fit in."

  "And then you'll fire up the turbine and want it even more."

  "Maybe."

  "Father, I can see the plan you're plotting. And it's crazy and dangerous."

  "So was coming here at all. Humour me."

  "Later, maybe. How about you drive something smaller for a while."

  "How much smaller?"

  Veronique pointed to the utility vehicles along the wall, tiny by comparison. "The shelving is modular, and set up to be lifted by one of those fork lifts. How about helping me get it all through here and into a corner."

  "Okay. Those little things look like fun."

  * * *

  "People lived in here." Amandine looked around the room, an open plan kitchen, dining room and lounge. There was more than a little wonder in her voice.

  "It stands to reason." Maxine said. "It would take an age to build this place, and it would have been too obvious if all the workers came in and out every day."

  "People died here." Justine said, quietly. She had opened one of the doors off the communal room, and was staring at what had been revealed when the lights clicked on.

  Amandine and Maxine bustled over to look. Justine stepped aside, and they studied the bedroom. There were a dozen alcoves, six along each wall, each the size of a small dormitory room. Curtains were pulled across the fronts of some of them, but the nearest on each side were open. In the bed on the left, there was a body shape, covered by a blanket. On the right, the body was on top of the sheets.

  Maxine walked over to the exposed body, and knelt down beside it. The dead woman's skin had dried and tightened, showing the outline of sections of the bone beneath. Her eyes had shrivelled up and sunk back into the sockets. Her left arm was laid across her chest, and her right drooped over the edge of the bed and, barely, still clung on to a glass tumbler. There was a bottle of brandy on the bedside cabinet, cork out so that the contents had evaporated long ago. A smaller bottle was beside the brandy. Brown, with a dropper in the cork, and a rubber bulb on top, it almost certainly contained poison.

  Just as in the Spanish vault, the inhabitants had decided to kill themselves. They had gone more quietly than those in Spain, by the look of it.

  Down between the bed and cabinet, Maxine spotted a book. She pulled it out, carefully, and studied it, a cloth bound diary, with a little pen in the clasp that held it closed. "Maybe this will tell us why they killed themselves. I'll read it later. We should check that there's a body in every bed, so we can know whether to expect any surprises further down."

  Amandine faltered at the entrance, spooked by all the bodies. When Justine moved to look under the sheet of the nearest body, she steeled herself and took the necessary steps.

  One bed was empty, but another held two bodies, in a final embrace. As they were walking back out, Amandine stopped and looked around. She pointed at the lights in the ceiling. "How.... How are these powered?"

  "The last one had a mini nuclear reactor buried under it." Maxine answered.

  "Nuclear? Isn't that dangerous. Might it explode?"

  "It shouldn't, so long as we don't mess with it. That's why they bury them."

  * * *

  "Tinned food. It has been a while." Remy turned the thick, brown, mince heavy mixture with his spoon, then shovelled some up to taste. It was rich, flavoured with unfamiliar herbs and spices. "What did you say it was?"

  "Chilli con Carne, it said on the tin." Maxine said. She took a big spoonful fro
m her own plate. Too big a spoonful, it turned out, and she had to lean forward in case there was any spillage.

  "There is so much food in there. Why did they have to kill themselves?" Amandine asked.

  "They were buried in here, effectively." Fabien said. "Perhaps they just lost the drive, the will to live. Do you think they were in touch with that other bunker? The one you found in Spain?"

  Eyes turned to Veronique. If anyone could answer that question, it was her. "We didn't get enough time to really look around the Spanish bunker. But they did have a very powerful computer system. Perhaps they had a communication system. We should have more time to look around here."

  "And I've got the diary I found. Maybe it'll have something in it that's relevant." Maxine offered, having finally managed to swallow the excessive serving she had given herself. "I know it sounds horrible, but I'm going to go through the belongings in that room and see what I can find that could be useful."

  "Maybe we can bury them. It seems better, somehow, than just leaving them where we found them." Georges said.

  "Well, there is a digger." Lucas patted the machine he was sat on. They could heat the food from the bunker's pantry, but none of them had wanted to eat next door to the bodies of the former residents. So they were in the vast garage, now feeling cosier with the shelves and wagons in it.

  "We'll do it quick, after we've got the wagons loaded." Georges patted the side of the big rig. "What's the plan for this thing? We can't just leave it here for Raiders to find."

  "We can't leave anything for the Raiders to find. There's an armoury down there." Justine pointed past the end of the truck. "I doubt we can carry everything in it in the wagons, not once we've got the seeds in them, anyway."

  "I am sure that Papa has a plan for the truck. And the armoury and everything else, no doubt." Veronique said, fixing her father with as stern a look as she could manage whilst still eating.

  "I have a plan. But you will all tell me it is crazy."

  "Your plan is crazy." Maxine told him. "There is only one plan if you want to take this thing back to the Valley. And it's crazy. So long as I can get what I want from the armoury, I'm in."

  "They're back!" Myriam shouted through the door. She waved the radio hand set at her husband.

  "Keep on." Julien told the children around the table. "We will need all these grains stored soon to make space for the new delivery." He stood and walked briskly to his wife.

  "They are about to enter the Valley. Just the wagons, though."

  "No buggy? No bikes?" Myriam shrugged at Julien's question, and handed over the radio. "This is the Mayor. Repeat your report. Over."

  "Sir. The wagons passed us a couple of minutes ago. We are following them down the track. Over."

  "Just the wagons? How many in them? Over."

  "A driver and passenger in each of them. No other vehicles. We didn't stop them to ask where the rest are. Over."

  "Alright. We will meet them in the square. Over and out."

  Julien looked around until he found a convenient shelf for the radio. "I don't like the sound of this."

  "You go. I'll keep this lot working." Myriam gestured toward the exit of the greenhouse. Before Julien set off, however, she caught hold of him and pulled him to her for a quick, reassuring kiss. "I'm sure it's all okay."

  There was already a crowd forming on the square. News spread quickly around a small town. Julien nodded to the people gathering around him, but really didn't want to talk to any of them. His mind was running through all the possible reasons why so few of the party was returning.

  He heard the buzz of the motorcycles escorting the wagons back into town first, echoed and amplified by the narrow street. After far too long, the crowd at the end of the street parted, and a wagon came through the gap. It was dusty and muddy, but didn't show any signs of violence. It crunched to a halt, and the second pulled up alongside it, right in front of Julien.

  Veronique drove the wagon before Julien, with Amandine in the passenger seat. Tony and Lucas were in the other. Julien rushed to the door of Veronique's wagon, stepping up to pull it open. His niece was standing in the doorway. "Everyone else is on their way." she pre-empted her uncle's question. "But they're coming by the other route."

  "The other...?" Julien's gaze turned away from the wagon, down the Valley.

  "Grab your guns. They may be bringing friends."

  * * *

  "My sister is going to get wet when she sees how much of the computer equipment we got in there." Maxine patted the side of the trailer.

  "As wet as you got last night in the armoury?" George asked. He stepped forward, pressing Maxine against the side of the trailer. She went up on tip toe, and he bent slightly, and their lips were close. He bent his right knee, and she clasped his thigh between hers, so that she could rub against it.

  "If we had time...." Maxine sighed. She remembered making love in amongst the racks of weapons the night before. She could tell Georges that it wasn't the presence of so many guns that had turned her on, but the thrill of the near total darkness, that had lead to lots of touching, exploring, whispered demands. There was also the way that he was such a good, attentive, and imaginative, lover. He may have been a virgin a couple of weeks before, but he had quickly learnt how to turn her on. She wasn't going to tell him that. Not yet, anyway. There was so much power to be ceded by making an admission such as that.

  They kissed. Georges moved so that Maxine was lifted off the ground, her whole weight pressing down on the point where her crotch pushed against his thigh. Maxine drew in a breath, a reverse sigh, pulling the air from Georges' mouth, breathing through his nose. She rotated her hips to grind against the pleasurable contact. Maybe they could sneak away behind one of the still standing walls....

  There was a crash, and the rumble of tumbling bricks behind them. Surprised, they broke their kiss.

  The front wall of the factory building had collapsed, pushed in by Fabien and his new toy- the small digger they had used to make graves earlier. It crawled over the pile of rubble and started scooping chunks up to fill the hole in the rear wall.

  They had sealed the door of the vault, and hidden the turn keys behind wall plates again. Then Maxine had wrapped detonation cord around the metal frame that braced the walls and held up the roof, bringing it all down in a surprisingly quiet flash. Now, they were making access to the vault door as hard as possible. They were going to raise a lot of attention when they left the valley, and someone might come back to see what they had been doing up there. The mess they were leaving should give the impression that they had plundered everything and collapsed the cave in on itself. If not, it would, hopefully hinder any attempts to get in until they returned.

  There was still treasure to be pulled out of the vault. A whole section of the seed bank had been filled with crops they couldn't ever hope to grow in the Valley. If they found somewhere stable that could harvest the more exotic fruits, they would return for them.

  Maxine slid down Georges' thigh until her feet touched the ground again. She would have liked a quick good luck fuck before they set off. Reaching down to the front of Georges' trousers, she found that he felt the same way. Squeezing him and grinning, she said, "Don't get distracted by that. I want you in one piece at the other end, so we can use it."

  "Well stop doing that to it, and maybe it will go away before we have to do any fighting." They stepped apart. Georges took Maxine's hand. "You know that we've not had the.... fighting experience you have. I don't know if I'll be any use."

  "When the shooting starts, it's really easy. You just keep them off the roof for as long as possible. I'll use the big gun on any vehicles, and join you and Sarah on point defence if it's needed."

  "Oh, right. Simple."

  Maxine squeezed Georges' hand. "Very simple. If it wasn't, I couldn't do it."

  * * *

  "They are going to lead all the Raiders in France right into the Valley! We will all be killed! I told you we should never have le
t that man back into the Valley!" Catellin was an unhealthy shade of red as she fumed. The other councillors in the room- whether they agreed with her or not- watched her, waiting for her to keel over or melt down. "Him and his nigger daughters are in league with the Raiders. They just want to destroy us!"

  That was enough for at least one member of the crowd. A hand rested on her shoulder and squeezed, just enough to get her attention. "That is enough, councillor. We all know what you think. We have heard it enough times. Now sit, and let us hear the plan."

  Catellin wasn't used to getting orders- and, despite the quiet delivery, it was an order, not a request. Her mouth opened, and her finger was raised, ready to make her point. But she faltered, uncertain, and looked around. The faces that still looked her way had something in their expressions, a quiet plea for her to do as she was told. She sat. The man behind her nodded to Julien before taking his own seat.

  "I have been told about the equipment the truck is carrying, and I have to say that the risk it is running is worth it. I do not, for a moment, believe that it will lead Raiders into the Valley. Lucas, you have worked out a battle plan. What does it involve?"

  Lucas stood over the relief map of the local mountain ranges. "There is a large concentration of Raiders around this area." He had a pointer, an old radio antenna, and used it to indicate the red ball on the map. "It is, unfortunately, close to the only route the truck can take. Remy will be doing a high speed run past the Raiders, hitting them hard if they attack the truck." Lucas traced the road the truck would be running along. "Now, there is a risk that some.... several, maybe all.... of the Raiders will give chase as the truck heads back to the Valley." There was a collective intake of breath. Lucas held up his hand to stop the inevitable clamour. His pointer tapped a spot on the map, a pass, up to a hamlet built on a cross roads. "Which is why we will be waiting for them here."