by C. R. Turner
As Max catches up to the man’s position, I pull on the reins and jump off. I yank at the lifeless body, trying to get my backpack off, when I notice a Union striker scout sitting in the front passenger seat of the four-wheel drive. He’s busy looking at several computer monitors and screaming into his radio. We make eye contact just as my scarf falls away, exposing my face. He looks as surprised to see me as I am to see a striker scout. His face is marked with dozens of old scars that look like they’ve been made by a grenade explosion. His fifty-something-year-old skin wraps tightly around his jaw, and he’s wearing an all-black Union uniform with a scout hat embossed with a shield.
As I continue to heave my backpack off the man’s body, a large gold nugget falls out onto the concrete. I look at the striker scout, still sitting in the four-wheel drive. He’s seen the nugget but continues yelling into his radio. I quickly stuff it back in my backpack, hands shaking, heartbeat pounding in my ears. Still kneeling, I pull my scarf back over my face, throw my backpack on and jump onto Max, ribbing him into a run. Max takes off at such speed, I struggle to hold on as he tears down the road, not slowing until the sound of energy weapons has faded into the distance.
Over an hour later, we stop in the middle of the road and I slide off his back. As I lead him on foot, I think about the man in the brown coat and how unlucky he was to be killed by stray fire. I can’t stop thinking about all the series of events in his life that led to him standing in that specific spot, at that specific time. You just never know when your life might be snuffed out by the chaos of this place. It makes me realise that my quest to make it Arcadia is worth risking my life over. Even if Max and I have to walk through hell.
As we move forward, there are fewer and fewer buildings, which give way to bush and eventually the pot-holed road ends. I push on, leading Max through scrub until we reach a seven-foot-high chain link fence that runs parallel to an enormous concrete storm water drain that’s at least three hundred feet across and roughly thirty feet deep. The drain runs from horizon to horizon with little more than a trickle of water down the centre. I lead Max through a hole in the fence and stand at the edge of the drain. I look left and right down the length of it. There’s no one in sight. I jump up on Max’s back and command him to walk down the drain.
He ignores me. It’s a forty-five-degree angle, but I know Max can do it. I ease him away from the edge and pat his neck. “Come on, Max. We’re doing this together. I promise you won’t get hurt.” I quickly turn him back to the edge and he lunges down the face of the drain, his leg muscles flexing with each stride and his paws skidding along the dusty concrete as he struggles for traction. I lean as far back as I can until we reach the bottom and Max skids to a halt, flinging me forward in the saddle.
I laugh out loud and pat Max. “Good boy … that wasn’t that bad was it?”
Max lets out a big sigh, flaring his nostrils, and I add, “Yeah, okay, not that easy. Let’s get a drink. You did good mate.”
At the centre of the storm water drain, there’s a small stream of water running and I jump off. Kneeling, I cup some water in my palm and take a sip to test how clean it is. I’ve just finished filling my water bottle when Max finally stops drinking. With the red sunset bathing the area in a warm glow, I’m in awe of Max’s beauty as his jet-black coat glistens in the fading light. He looks up and stares me straight in the eyes with his beautiful big blue eyes. I walk over and he lowers his head. I wrap my arms around him and hug him, feeling his silky-soft coat on my face. Max leans against my chest.
Further down the drain, we come to a large concrete tunnel set into the side of the main stormwater drain wall. I look inside. “Hello?”
No response. I lead Max into the tunnel. Thirty or so feet from the entrance, I stop and drop my gear on the ground. Max lies on the concrete floor. Completely burnt out, I plonk down next to him and lie back against the concrete wall.
The remaining light dwindles.
Chapter 6
A Union striker scout has a man on his hands and knees. His Ashra is pointed at the man’s head whilst a Union policeman has his fist tightly bunched up in the woman’s hair as she kneels on the ground.
“Arrrhhhhh …” the woman’s high-pitched scream bellows out.
“Run!” she screams.
Her voice is cut off by an almighty thud from an Ashra, and the man’s body falls to the ground like a steaming bag of cement, to the sound of blood being sprayed far and wide, followed by chunks of flesh and bone raining down like horrific hail.
“Run … Run …” she cries out. A cry that will haunt me to the day I die.
She spots me and we lock eyes just as the Union policeman lets go of her hair, steps back and fires. The energy weapon echoes out over the valley like thunder. Watching on from a distance, through the obscured view of the surrounding bush, I fall backwards in terror, gasping for breath.
I wake, gasping, my arms and leg thrashing about. I try to sit up. Startled by my sudden movement, Max jumps to his feet in fright, then walks cautiously closer to me, lowering his head inches from my face. I rest my forehead against his and run my hand over his ear and down his neck. Max lies next to me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, mate.”
As Hati starts to rise, I’m saddling Max and gathering our things when Max spins his head around, looking into the tunnel. His ears prick up, and I follow his gaze. “What is it?”
A few seconds pass. Footsteps approach from deep within the tunnel. Max growls, then a voice from the dark says, “Hey … he’s not going to eat me is he?”
“Who’s there?”
The mysterious man, his body obscured by the darkness, replies, “I live down here in the tunnels.”
There’s a pause, then he adds, “My name’s Mathew.”
I pat Max on the shoulder and whisper, “It’s okay Max.”
“What do you want?” I call out.
“I was just on my way into town to buy some food,” Mathew replies.
He steps forward, his silhouette slowly turning into a discernible figure. “Do you want me to show you where I live? It’s just a few hundred feet down the tunnel.”
Who would live down here? After having spent the night on the street, though, I give him the benefit of the doubt. I hesitantly reply, “Yeah … O … okay,” and follow at a distance.
The tunnel gets darker and darker until we can barely see where we’re going. I grab Max’s reins tight and walk ever so close alongside him.
“You might want to cover your eyes,” says Mathew.
Mathew flicks a switch and a secondary tunnel running off to the side lights up with dozens of lights hanging from the ceiling. The tunnel is filled with furniture and books. Makeshift shelving is stocked with canned food, cutlery and utensils.
“I take it these tunnels don’t get much water through them?” I ask.
The man, now clearly visible, is wearing a long black trench coat and has short grey curly hair growing around the sides and back of his head with a shiny bald patch on top. “Nah. I’ve lived here for years and not once has it flooded.”
Mathew looks me up and down then looks at Max and asks, “You’re a little young to be in the MOSAR aren’t you?”
“We’re not in the Union.”
Mathew replies, “Oh. Listen … I’ve … got to go into town to buy some food. Can I trust you with my stuff while I’m gone?”
I look around at the busted-up furniture and dirty mattress on the ground. If it weren’t so neatly organised, it would look like a pile of rubbish. I wonder what the hell he’s so worried about losing. “Yeah.”
Mathew looks back down the tunnel, then at me. “You can come with if you like?”
“No thanks. We’ve been travelling for days. We wouldn’t mind getting some rest.”
“Can I get you anything in town?” asks Mathew.
“If you can find any meat or vegetables that would be good. And some ground salt.”
“You got money?”
I
open my backpack, and careful to hide our gold and wad of cash, separate two one thousand bills and hand them to him.
Mathew looks at the cash. “Ah … you’re not from around here are you?”
“No.”
Mathew stuffs the money into his pocket, then adds, “Okay. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
Once he’s gone, I drop my backpack on the table and look around as Max trots over to the large mattress, does a three-sixty and drops with a big sigh. He flops his head on the ground between his front paws with his head hanging over one end of the mattress and his bum hanging over the other. I smile and join him, resting back against my best mate.
I’m looking through some books with maps when footsteps sound in the tunnel. I jump up and turn off the lights. A voice calls out from the dark, “It’s just Mathew. You can turn the lights back on.”
Mathew has a bag full of food in one hand and a hindquarter in the other.
“I bought you this and some canned vegetables. Hope that’s Okay?”
“Yeah, that’s great. Thanks for doing that for us. Were you able to get any salt?”
Mathew reaches into the bag and pulls out a canister. “Here, that should last you a while.” He throws it through the air.
I catch it. “Thanks.”
I remove what remains of the old hindquarter and place it on the floor near the entrance to the room, then call Max, who’s watching me intently. He races over, pins the hindquarter to the floor with his paw and starts shredding it to pieces.
I carve some meat off the new hindquarter and put it on a plate to help Mathew who’s lighting wood in an old stove. When I place my knife on the table, it briefly rocks back and forth, its shiny blade catching Mathew’s eye before coming to rest. He stokes the fire and continues his preparations while I walk over to the end of the table where I have a book open to a map. Mathew glances over at the book, reaches into his pocket and pulls out several hundred in bills and throws them on the table. “Here’s ya change.”
Mathew looks at me, hesitates, then says, “You know there was a striker scout looking for you and Max in town?”
I try to hide the rising panic. “What did he say?”
“He asked if I had seen you or Max.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him I hadn’t seen you.”
Frowning, I ask, “Wait a minute. He asked if you had seen Max by name?”
“Yeah, that’s right. He even had a surveillance picture of you standing next to Max.”
Frightened, I look back at Max chewing away at the hindquarter. How could the striker scout possibly know Max’s name? God … what have I gotten us into?
Mathew adds, “Those Union striker scouts are bad-asses. You know they have a hundred per cent success rate in getting their targets? It’s a point of pride. He’s not gonna give up. Those guys don’t know how to lose.”
I look at the ground. “Yeah … I’ve heard that.”
My mind scrambles. It’s not the first time he’s appeared. I think we’ll be safe in here, but we mustn’t stay too long.
Mathew stokes the stove and puts the meat and some tinned vegetables in a pot of boiling water. We sit at the table while we wait for the food to heat.
“How have you survived all this time without being picked up by the police? I take it you’re alone?” Mathew asks.
“I don’t know. Lucky I suppose.” I pause, then add, “I cover my face with a scarf when I travel through built up areas. That seems to help.”
“Well, luck will only get you so far.”
Mathew looks at the book again. “You planning on travelling north?”
“Yeah.”
There’s a few seconds of silence, then Mathew looks at me, puzzled, “Yeah what?”
Not sure if he’s just forgotten he asked me a question, I repeat myself. “I’m planning on travelling north.”
“I know that. How far north?”
I look Mathew in the eyes for a few seconds. “I’m headed to Arcadia.”
Mathew laughs, but when he realises I’m not kidding, his smile disappears. “Ah … how are you going to get there? How are you going to survive?” As soon as he finishes his sentence, he looks up at Max gnawing away at the bone of the hindquarter, then looks back at me. “Max. You’re relying on Max to protect you on Arcadia.”
“I’ve been doing pretty well hunting on my own, and Max can protect me from predators on Arcadia.”
“So how are you going to get there? You can’t swim. There aren’t any boats in service that could take you across.”
“Before my father died, he told me about a friend who lives up north. I’m going to try and find him and see if he can help us get across to Arcadia. He’s an ex-Navy Commander. I hope he’s still alive.”
“You’re talking about the abandoned naval base. Where they used to have sea going battleships?”
“Yeah. I’ve never even seen pictures of them, but my father described them to me when I was young. I’ve always wanted to see them.”
“You know you’d have to cross the Seration Mountain Range, which cuts the far north off from the rest of the world, to get there? You know how high the peaks are?”
I shake my head.
Mathew adds, “We’ll I don’t know exactly, but they’re higher than any of the mountains on Arcadia. If you don’t pass out from oxygen deprivation, you’ll freeze to death.”
“Can you go around them?”
“Nah, and there’s only one road that goes over the mountain range, which in itself should tell you how difficult the terrain is.”
Mathew takes the boiling pot off the stove. As he serves the meat and vegetables, he says, “You can stay here for a few days if you like.”
The next morning, I wake to find Max sitting in front of me, staring. Mathew’s nowhere to be seen. He’s left a note on the table: “Gone into the city. Back later.” I shake my head, not sure what to think of him. He’s odd. I think he’s spent too much time alone, and hope I never end up like him.
Sometime later, Max and I are sitting on the mattress when there’s a scurrying sound. Seconds later, half-a-dozen heavily armed Union policemen pour into the tunnel. Max and I both spring to our feet and Max lowers his head, baring his teeth and letting out a thunderous growl. We’re cornered, the only exit blocked. One of the Policemen sets his Ashra to stun, walks forward, aims it at Max and fires multiple times. Max staggers about trying to stay upright until the fourth shot causes him to black out and drop to the ground.
I scream, voice cracking, “MAX … NO!”
The policeman takes aim at me and fires. It feels like I’ve been hit by lightning. The room goes black.
I wake to find myself outside on the ground, in handcuffs and surrounded by a dozen Union policemen and several Union vehicles. I have a cracking headache, there’s ringing in my ears, and my body is weak. One of the policemen drags me to my feet in front of the striker scout, who has my backpack in his hand. I’m terrified of what this butcher will do next.
“I’ve been after you for a long time,” the striker scout scorns, voice deep and husky.
I look around, trying to find Max. What have I done? I can’t let anything happen to him.
“You don’t remember me do you?”
“I REMEMBER YOU.”
“Your father was a Union defector and a killer,” the striker scout snaps.
“WHAT?” This brute’s deranged. “WHERE’S MAX?”
The policemen have to hold me back as I scream so loudly my voice cracks.
The striker scout clutches my jaw so tight I wince in pain. He spins my head around. Max is being corralled out of the tunnel, and into a cage on the back of one of the Union trucks used to transport cattle. It’s taking nearly a dozen men to control him with poles and wire ropes lassoed around his legs and neck. He’s awake, pushing the men around like twigs, but he’s still too groggy to get free.
The striker scout lets my jaw go, turns to the policemen and hollers,
“I want the canine taken back to the compound. I’ll meet you there.”
He grabs me by the collar of my shirt, opens the rear passenger door to his four-wheel drive and shoves me in, slamming the door shut. I look out the window and see the striker scout handing Mathew cash. I can’t believe it, that bastard sold us out. Mathew looks up at me and we lock eyes for a fraction of a second before he looks away. I scream out to Max, but the Union police have him in the cage and they’re moving out. The striker scout throws my backpack into the back tray of the four-wheel drive, then climbs into the driver’s seat and follows the other Union vehicles along the storm water drain.
As we approach a bridge that spans the drain, the striker scout and I look up to see several members of the TPRA firing a shoulder-launched rocket at the convoy. The rocket slams into the truck Max is in, which burst into flames, sending debris flying in all directions. The explosion is so intense, the front of the truck is lifted in the air. It loses one of its front wheels before it slams back down on the concrete and grinds to a halt. The striker scout drives through the fire ball then screeches to a halt.
He jumps out to return fire at the TPRA. I look through the fire for any sign of Max but can’t see anything through the thick black smoke. With the fire enveloping the truck, I desperately look around for a way out while the striker scout is distracted. Unlike the fight the other day, the TPRA have the Union hopelessly outnumbered this time, with dozens of TPRA members firing from multiple vantage points. The explosions and gunfire bouncing off the walls of the drain creates a deafening roar. I roll over onto my side and wriggle my handcuffed hands past my bum and over my feet so they’re in front of me. I pull on the door latch, but it won’t budge. I pull again, banging the door with my shoulder. No luck. The fire in Max’s truck is growing larger, the black smoke thickening.
I scratch the door window with the sharpest corner I can find on the handcuffs, back up and kick the glass as hard as I can. The window bursts into millions of pieces, and I crawl up against the door and over the window ledge, falling hard on my back.